Power in the Blood by Greg Matthews Read Free Book Online Page A

events of her day?
    The window’s lower half was raised, the curtains shifting languidly in a late afternoon breeze. Mrs. Hassenplug stifled a gasp, crammed several fingers into her mouth and stared at the girl, the rifle, the window. If she tiptoed out, leaving Zoe undisturbed, the act would very likely be committed; her husband would be shot dead in the yard like a sheep-killing dog.
    More disturbing than her awareness of Zoe’s intent was Mrs. Hassenplug’s consideration—mere seconds long—of leaving quietly to let it happen. How could she have allowed such an idea to enter her mind! To protect herself from the consequences of unfettered thought, rather than out of love of her husband, she plucked the rifle from its resting place and hurried away. When her husband returned, he would find the rifle where it should be, his victim secured upstairs where she could do him no harm.
    The farmhouse, formerly a place in which few words were spoken, became monastic in its ritual observance of silence. The thing that had happened was never mentioned, but the more intense the silence, the louder it became.
    For Zoe, the weeks that followed her rape were skewed, unreal, her chores performed in an undersea world of dragging slowness, the burden of an unnamable, crushing weight. She was a tiny fish in a set of rooms on the ocean floor; two larger fish swam carefully around her, blowing bubbles of nothingness, avoiding her eye. Every day she became slower still, until she knew the reason why. It was too big a secret to tell the other fish, but in time they saw for themselves, and were even less pleased than Zoe.
    “She is.”
    “She ain’t!”
    “Look at her! Just look!”
    “She ain’t!” insisted Hassenplug.
    “Think she got that way on what we eat? You can pretend all you want, it won’t change a thing. Don’t think I’m fooled. You wanted it this way all along, don’t think I don’t know. She can give you what I can’t, isn’t that so? Isn’t that the way you planned it?”
    “Quiet!”
    The life inside Zoe was growing at a fearful rate, and she wished herself rid of it, but her wish was not granted. Her belly continued to expand, and now she truly did need a new dress. Mrs. Hassenplug gave her one of her own. The hem dragged at the back but was lifted clear of the ground in front. Zoe was still expected to do her share of work around the place.
    Hassenplug approached her with an incredible offer one afternoon in the barn. “Listen here. You make a boy and I’ll get you that dress you been wanting. This time I mean it. You make a boy and I’ll get you that dress for sure, and the shoes too, by God. The missus, she can’t make one. This boy, I’d like him better than some adopted boy. He’d be mine, a genuine son. I’d be good to you, you make me a boy.”
    When he left her, Zoe cried. To bear Hassenplug a son, the very thing he wanted, would be the final insult to her. The irony was insupportable. She prayed for a girl. Her god would not have been acceptable to any churchgoer, being female, very much akin to Nettie Dugan in appearance, but fifty feet tall. The avenging angel at her side, the one who would take care of Zoe’s secondary prayer—the death of Hassenplug—bore a definite resemblance to her brother Clay.

5
    He actually enjoyed digging postholes. The fatigue he brought to bed helped ease the pain of his growing bones. Almost eighteen, Clay stood six feet four inches on naked feet, and he continued to grow. Despite his alarming height, Clay weighed only one hundred fifty-nine pounds. Beanpole, they had called him at school, until he quit.
    His departure was prompted by being cast in the school play (a radical enterprise from a new and enthusiastic teacher) as Ichabod Crane, the gangling dupe of Sleepy Hollow. Being called Ichabod was no better than being called Beanpole. Clay had squared his books on the minuscule desktop before him, risen and said to his teacher, “Excuse me, ma’am, they