Stork by Wendy Delsol Read Free Book Online

your worst fears: a drive-by, a carjacking, home invasion, or Zoey Simmons showing up to Mark Hall’s party in the same alice + olivia batik print blouse as yours. This, however, had a whole new eerie supernatural side to it, and made riots and earthquakes and wardrobe malfunctions seem mundane. With an upright bolt, I steeled my shoulders. The woman was old, BC old. And small — heck, there wasn’t enough of her to stuff a pillow. Just spooky with all her “The cap is a sign” ramblings, but not dangerous. It was time to get to the bottom of this. I grabbed the key out of the drawer, locked up the store, and marched across the street.
    Hulda opened the front door and looked furtively up and down the street. She pulled me inside with a finger pressed to her lips. “Follow quickly” were her only words.
    I trailed the swinging lantern to the back of the store. Hulda shuffled quietly between the rows of fabric. I let a finger brush over their surfaces: nubby wools, cool silks, plush velvets. Once again, Hulda led me through the door marked OFFICE , down the rickety stairs, and into the chamber with the oval table. She motioned for me to sit. I went for the closest seat, but Hulda flapped and clucked and puffed until I scooted over to the second chair. And I had thought my ninth-grade biology teacher was uptight about assigned seats.
    Hulda sat in the high-back she’d occupied the night before, the Owl’s chair. Everything about this room gave me the willies. The carved back of my chair was jagged and uncomfortable, the lit candles cloyed the air with the smell of smoke and burning wax, and I had always disliked windowless spaces, basements in particular. I shifted in my seat, glancing down at the wooden arm, which was now carved with only robins, judging by their painted red breasts.
    “Uh, Fru Hulda, is it me, or is this a different chair than I had last time?”
    Hulda looked at the figures of robins perched among branches in the bloom of springtime. “Ah, so you will be our Robin. How appropriate.”
    “I thought I was
kattugla,
little owl.”
    “The chair picks the bird for each member of our society. Though there is symbolism to be heeded from the little-owl reference, you are, from now on, our Robin.”
    Sounded better than puffer or peacock, anyway.
    Hulda straightened her skirt. “It is highly unusual for us to meet outside of the council.” She looked around like we were being watched, which did not help my overall feeling of unease. “There are those who would disapprove. We never like to arouse suspicion. But I could think of nothing else all day, and I knew we were destined to connect. When the bones ache, there’s a friend to make.”
    Afi’s bones hurt, too; he called it arthritis. But whatever, at least she used the word
friend
. I relaxed enough to breathe, though only one quick ragged intake.
    “Tell me. Have you noticed anything unusual?” Hulda clamped bony fingers under my elbow.
    Yeah,
I thought —
you, for starters
. “Uh. Not really.”
    “You will. Your powers will grow. You will be contacted.”
    “By?”
    “By the essence awaiting birth.”
    “Could you be a little more specific? Contacted how? Phone? Text? FedEx?”
    “The child always comes as a dream.”
    I rubbed my cheeks. “I’ve pretty much convinced myself that you are a sickness-induced dream. So that would be a dream within a dream.”
    Hulda finally released the hold she had on my arm with a soft tap. “I know this must be very difficult for you. Especially in these modern times, so many have forgotten the ancient ways.” She looked at me with such furrowed intensity that her long gray spiky eyebrows rose like antennae. “Tell me, do you believe you have a soul?”
    Nobody had ever asked me about my soul before. I’d had conversations about God, angels, ghosts, UFOs, and even the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot — but not my soul. It felt somewhat personal, but I didn’t hesitate to reply. “Yes.”
    “And