The Bible Repairman and Other Stories by Tim Powers Read Free Book Online

love you,” she said, her eyes still closed. “Do you love me? Tell me you love me.”
    He was sitting down, but his head was spinning with vertigo as if an infinite black gulf yawned at his feet. This was her inviting
him
over
her
threshold.
    “Under,” he said in a shaky voice, “normal circumstances, I’d certainly be in love with you.”
    “Nobody falls in love under
normal
circumstances,” she said softly, rubbing his finger with her warm thumb. He restrained an impulse to look to see if there was still ink on it. “Love isn’t in the category of normal things. Not any worthwhile kind of love, anyway.” She opened her eyes and waved her free hand behind them toward the square. “Normal people. I hate them.”
    “Me too,” said Sydney.
    “Actually,” she said, looking down at their linked hands, “I didn’t kill myself.” She paused for so long that he was about to ask her what had happened, when she went on quietly, “My sister Rebecca shot me, and made it look like a suicide. After that she apparently
did
go away with my fiancée. But she killed me because she had made herself into an imitation of me, and without me in the picture,
she’d
be the original.” Through her hand he felt her shiver. “I’ve been alone in the dark for a long time,” she said in a small voice.
    Sydney freed his hand so that he could put his arm around her narrow shoulders, and he kissed her hair.
    Cheyenne looked up with a grin that made slits of her eyes. “But I don’t think she’s prospered! Doesn’t she look
terrible?”
    Sydney resisted the impulse to look around again. “Was that –”
    Cheyenne frowned. “I’ve got to go – I can’t stay here for very long at a time, not until we copy that poem.”
    She kissed him, and their mouths opened, and for a moment his tongue touched hers. When their lips parted their foreheads were pressed together, and he whispered, “Let’s get that poem copied, then.”
    She smiled, deepening the lines in her cheeks, and looked down. “Sit back now and look away from me,” she said. “And I’ll come to your place tonight.”
    He pressed his palms against the surface of the cement coping and pushed himself away from her, and looked toward Hill Street.
    After a moment, “Shy?” he said; and when he looked around she was gone. “I love you,” he said to the empty air.
    “Everybody did,” came a raspy voice from behind and above him.
    For a moment he went on staring at the place where Cheyenne had sat; then he sighed deeply and looked around.
    The old woman in the blue dress was standing at the top of the stairs, and now began stepping carefully down them in boxy old-lady shoes.
    Her eyes were pouchy above round cheeks and not much of a chin, and Sydney imagined she’d been cute decades ago.
    “Are,” he said in a voice he made himself keep level, “you Rebecca?”
    She stopped in front of him and nodded, frowning in the sun-glare. “Rebecca Fleming,” she said. “The cherished name.” The diesel-scented breeze was blowing her white hair around her face, and she pushed it back with one frail, spotted hand. “Did she say I killed her?”
    After a moment’s hesitation, “Yes,” Sydney said.
    She sat down, far enough away from him that he didn’t feel called on to move further away. Why hadn’t he brought a flask?
    “True,” she said, exhaling as if she’d been holding her breath. “True, I did.” She looked across at him, and he reluctantly met her eyes. They were green, just like Cheyenne’s.
    “I bet,” she said, “you bought a book of hers, signed.” She barked two syllables of a laugh. “And I bet she’s still got her fountain pen. We buried it with her.”
    “I don’t think you and I have much to say to each other,” said Sydney stiffly. He started to get to his feet.
    “It was self-defense, if you’re curious,” she said, not stirring.
    He paused, bracing himself on his hands.
    “She came into my room,” said Rebecca, “with a