Mr. Shivers by Robert Jackson Bennett Read Free Book Online Page A

rich promise of dark earth.
    “The empress,” said Sibyl.
    “The empress,” repeated Connelly.
    “Yes. The queen of rebirth. Quietly she slumbers in the forest heart, and when she wakes all that has passed from this earth
     comes again. Black and red succumbs to a cover of green. You can bring this, Connelly.”
    “I can?”
    “Yes. Your heart has died within you, and you are not alone. Were you to step outside you would see that perhaps the heart
     of this place has died as well. A directionless land with no center. A people wandering and hollow. Can you not see that some
     great wound has pierced the very heart of all these lives? Yet that can be changed. You can change this, Connelly. You do
     not know how and you may not know until the very end. But you can bring rebirth.”
    “Can…”
    “Can what?”
    “Will I ever go home? Do you see that?”
    “You can go home now.”
    “No. There’s no home there now. Not yet. Not really.”
    “Do you mean peace?”
    “I don’t know what I mean.”
    She looked at him, the foul eye burning fiercely. “You may find peace, one day. You will have a great choice, Connelly. You
     carry rebirth in the palm of your hand, and it is your decisions that govern it, though you do not know it. Few are given
     such a choice. Between justice and contentment. Between home and the road. Neither will be easy, nor will either one fully
     satisfy you. It will depend on what you find in the west, and what you choose to do with it.”
    Connelly thought hard about this and nodded.
    “But remember,” she said, “birth and death have more in common than you think. Neither is dignified. We enter this world violently
     and we leave it the same way. Each is marked by terrible suffering. You will bring this as well, or you will allow it to continue.”
    “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
    “You might. You might not. The shape of your life speaks of violence, though you may change its nature.”
    She took a breath in, shut her eyes, and shuffled once more. She drew the card and somehow Connelly knew it was the last one.
     His eyes found it in the dark, yet as it fell a wind blew through the cart and the light in the room died. He heard the card
     clatter to the tabletop but saw nothing but stars where the light had been.
    “Where is it?” he said. “What happened?”
    Sibyl said nothing. Then another match flared before him. Again he was stunned by the change and he blinked to get his eyes
     to function.
    He looked at the card on the table. There on the small, weathered scrap of cardboard an ancient corpse danced and sang, grinning
     up eyelessly. In its ruined hands it held a scythe that it twirled overhead as though to rend the sky itself. Half-fleshed
     limbs and heads littered the ground at its feet like windfallen fruit and browning vines rose from the baking earth to claim
     these gifts as their own. Connelly stared at the grin, its mouth and teeth enormous in his mind, the black eyes looking at
     him but not looking at once.
    “Death?” said Connelly.
    She didn’t answer.
    “I’m going to die? Is that what you’re saying? Is that it?”
    Sibyl had not moved. The match was still in her hand and her eyes were still on the card.
    “You’re a damn liar,” said Connelly. “A goddamn liar. To hell with you.” He stood to leave.
    “You won’t die, Connelly,” she whispered. “You won’t.”
    “I won’t?”
    She shut her eyes and shook her head. Twin tears ran down her cheeks in smooth arcs.
    “No. You will encounter it upon the road, that is certain. What you do after is a choice that belongs only to you.” She opened
     her eyes. “Do you know what I found for the others?” she asked.
    He shook his head.
    The cards shuffled again. Her rose-pink fingers sped through the deck and lifted one out. On it was a capped man wearing a
     colorful, festive gown and carrying a rucksack over his shoulder. In his other hand he had a walking stick and dogs nipped
     at his