Mr. Shivers by Robert Jackson Bennett Read Free Book Online

everyone’s?” he asked.
    She stopped and looked at him, her septic eye burning in her face. “Ask me not to do this.”
    “Do what?”
    “Ask me not to. Tell me to stop. Don’t tell me anything. You can move away. You have that option and you should choose it
     soon.”
    “What are you saying I should do?”
    “Anything but this. Just go and leave what is dead dead and look at what is alive.”
    “What’s dead?”
    Sibyl did not answer. Connelly looked at her, thinking. He said, “How do you know?”
    “I just have to look at you. Anyone can. Simply by looking you over I can see.”
    Connelly bowed his head. “I can’t. I can’t stop.”
    “I know,” she said. Then she shuffled the cards and took one out and tossed it on the table.
    He looked at it. It was a small painting of a crude-looking man with a wide, frowning mouth. He was riding in a chariot being
     pulled by two horses wearing blinders. On his head he wore a crown of pearl and in his hand he held a plain scepter, varnished
     with age. His free hand was lifted as though he was trying to both balance himself and acknowledge those he passed by, much
     as a king would.
    “The chariot,” said Sibyl.
    “What’s that?”
    “The chariot,” she said again. “He rides out, eager to conquer, willing to ride down what obstacles come before him. To conquer
     and kill and reach down into the earth and pick up what meets his disfavor and rearrange it in the way that he deems fit.
     But he forgets that he is being pulled not by his own strength but instead is at the mercy of beasts that he himself has chosen
     to blind. So you must remember that even though you burn bright and hard with belief, you believe more in your goal than the
     manner of arriving there.”
    “So?” said Connelly.
    “What do you mean, so?”
    “I mean, what does that matter?”
    She held the card up to her face, then shut her eyes and took a deep breath through her nose, drawing in its scent. Then she
     opened her eyes, the fouled one first, then the clean one. “It means there will be a long road. Long and winding. Most will
     not wish to travel it. You will prevail upon it, and force your journey. But you may not like what you find upon it, or perhaps
     in yourself.”
    The cards shuffled in the darkness. Another one fell to the table. On it was the night sky and at the top was the moon, great
     and sick and pregnant. In its center was a formless face, its eyes and lips runny and its nose askew. Below it two dogs raised
     their heads and howled, their bodies long and slender with starvation, and they thrashed in the moon’s hollow glow as it stared
     dumbly down.
    “The moon,” said Sibyl. “We are drawn to the moon. Aren’t you?”
    “I don’t know. I guess.”
    “Yes. At night it occupies the mind, for we are drawn to the moon in dark times. It’s said that when dogs howl at the moon
     they believe it to be a way out from this earth, that it is some exit set in the sky by an entity that even their minds recognize
     but cannot acknowledge. You seek an exit, Connelly. You seek a way out. Deliverance and purpose and meaning. It will find
     you, Connelly, and you will find it. But it will be a thing dark and forgotten and it will not be set in the sky. And I dread
     to think of the face you will find there.” She leaned forward. “You will be offered the way three times. Beyond that I cannot
     see, nor do I wish to.”
    “No?”
    “No.”
    Again the shuffling. The candle flame fluttered and as Sibyl breathed out the third card fell. On it was a woman dressed in
     ornate robes so thick they hid every inch of her frame. In her hand she held a scepter and on her head was a shining crown,
     set with either pearls or stars. Grass reached up and coiled about her feet and far behind were trees stretching to the dusky
     sky. A stream curled through the trees and gently fell into a cliffside pool. Connelly felt he could almost smell the fresh
     sting of fir-green air and the