Texas Gothic by Rosemary Clement-Moore Read Free Book Online

make two bats’ radar go so haywire they’d collide hard enough to kill each other. But what would?
    Leave it alone, Amy
.
    As omens went, it was pretty clear. Curiosity and ghosts didn’t mix. I knew that, even if the memories were slippery as river silt and cold bony hands.
    The ringing of the phone worked its way into my dream and became a burglar alarm, which was enough to scare me awake, given that my dreams—once I’d finally managed to drift off—involved skeletons riding goats chasing me in my underwear as Ben McCulloch and his horse herded me away from the safety of the house, all while Phin sat on the porch drinking a Vanilla Coke.
    Well, it scared me half awake, anyway. I was so clumsy with sleep that I answered my cell phone, my iPod, and my paperback book before I finally found the house phone. Three large dogs sacked out on my bed didn’t help. They made maneuvering difficult even when I was completely conscious.
    “Unff,” I said, brilliantly.
    “Amaryllis, darling,” said someone who sounded very like my aunt Hyacinth. “I have to tell you something.”
    “But you’re in China.” Maybe that was why she sounded like she was speaking through a cave. The phone was carrying her voice through the center of the earth.
    “Yes, I am. But your email reminded me.”
    Oh yeah. My note threatening to chop down the goats’ tree and her neighbor’s son. I didn’t expect to hear back from her for days. I certainly didn’t expect a Jules Verne phone call.
    “What is it?” I asked.
    “I need for you to take care of the goats.”
    “What?” I struggled up to a thinner layer of sleep. “I
am
taking care of them. Phin got plants, I got animals.”
    “Dear, that doesn’t make sense. Just promise me you’ll take care of it.”
    “I will, Aunt Hyacinth. I can’t believe you called just because of that.”
    “It’s very important to me. I’m sorry to put the responsibility on you, but I know you’re the one to handle this.”
    “Don’t worry about it,” I said, wondering if, just possibly, my aunt’s
eccentricities
extended to a completely non-magical area. “I’ve got it covered.”
    “You promise?”
    “I do, no problem.” Jeez, how many times was she going to ask me?
    “I have to be sure, or I’ll worry about it for the rest of my trip.”
    “I promise, Aunt Hyac—”
    Just as I finished the third assurance, there was a pop in my ears and a strong tug in my belly, as if a knot had been yanked tight. It pulled me out of the fog of interrupted sleep and jerked me upright in the bed with a force that left me gasping.
    The dogs didn’t bark. They’d gone stiff, their heavy bodiespressed against my legs, trembling, their barrel chests heaving with fearful pants.
    Bear gave a soft, terrified whine. I might have made a similar sound as I stared at the growing column of light at the foot of my bed. I was trapped by the weight of the dogs on the blanket, and by my own dread, as the glow began to take human shape.

5
    t he column burned blue as a gas flame, and in the incandescent center was a hazy outline of a man, washed-out and blinding. But cold. Cold as a gravestone iced by a winter moon.
    The awful paralysis of nightmare gripped me. I couldn’t move—not to shout, or speak, or run. Maybe I
was
dreaming. I could half convince myself of it except for the dogs’ breath wreathing their quivering muzzles, and the stinging chill on my bare arms and neck.
    New features molded out of shadow—a hint of a nose, ajawline, a mouth. A caricature of a face, gaunt and stripped of definition. Then, movement. A half-formed arm lifted slowly, as if pulling against the weight of death to reach for me, and the shade of a mouth worked in horrific, soundless desperation, like a fish gasping at thin air, as the hollow eyes fixed on my face.
    As it stared at me, icy bands tightened around my chest so that all I could take were shallow, insufficient breaths. The edges of my vision sparked a warning as my