The Law of Moses by Amy Harmon Read Free Book Online Page A

work with the boy.
    Moses came back that night. And again the next night. And the next. I watched him in wonder as he added color to the lines and a dream-like quality to the story that made me feel like I’d stepped inside the blind man’s head and was seeing it all through his eyes—seeing the world for the very first time.
    Moses didn’t stop with my walls. On the third night the story continued on my ceiling, and he rigged up some scaffolding so he could paint the Sistine Chapel right on my ten by twelve bedroom ceiling. I had to admit, I didn’t know about the Sistine Chapel until Moses told me all about Michelangelo as he assembled the platform he intended to lie on while he painted. He said some day he would see it in person. He wanted to travel all over the world and see all the great art. That was his dream. I stayed very quiet while he talked, only contributing when I thought he was losing steam and might stop talking. I needed him to keep talking. I wanted to know everything about him. I wanted inside, and little by little, especially when he was painting, he was giving me glimpses, brief moments with him that I treasured up like a child collecting fragile shells and shiny pebbles. And when he wasn’t with me, I took out those treasures and turned them over and over in my mind, studying them from every angle, learning him.
    My parents didn’t know what to think about my room. Nobody did. It was too much, almost, for such a small space. When you stood in the center with the story cocooning you in color, it was easy to get dizzy and grow lightheaded from the sheer magnitude of the detail and the depth of the work. But I loved it. I left my furniture arranged like a little island in the center of my room so nothing covered the walls, and I strung golden twinkle lights around the edges so that when I turned off my bedroom lamp to sleep, the little lights would cast the blind man’s dream in a soft, warm glow. It was magical.
    I felt like an idiot when I handed Moses a hundred dollars the night he finished. I was pretty sure it would barely cover his paint and supplies. But it was all I had, and I’d had no idea what I was getting into when I asked him to paint a mural on my wall.
    He actually seemed pleased by the money, like he’d forgotten he’d been commissioned, and thanked me sincerely, folding the bills inside a soft leather wallet and shoving it into the pocket of his jeans.

 
     
     
     
    Georgia
     
     
    DAD SAID HORSES REFLECT the energy of the people around them. If you’re scared the horse will shy away from you. If you doubt yourself he’ll take advantage of you. If you don’t trust yourself, neither will he. They are truth detectors. It isn’t rocket science. It isn’t voodoo. There’s a reason you give a horse his head if you’re lost. He’ll always take you home.
    It hadn’t escaped me that the horses were afraid of Moses. And if Dad’s theory was correct, it was because Moses was afraid, and the horses were simply mirroring a very powerful emotion. Horses scare some people. They’re so big and powerful, and if it’s you against a horse, well, the horse will kick your ass.
    But I didn’t think Moses was afraid of the horses. Not exactly. I was pretty sure Moses was just afraid in general. Anxious, desperate, manic. Whatever. And our horses knew it.
    “You know how Sackett kicked me?” I asked my dad one morning as we were getting ready for a counseling session.
    “Yeah,” my dad grunted.
    “He was just mirroring Moses, wasn’t he?”
    My dad looked up sharply, not liking the suggestion that Moses wanted to kick me in the head.
    “Moses is afraid, Dad. I think he paints because it releases a lot of nervous energy. But I was thinking maybe we could get him around the horses, maybe help him that way too.”
    “First rule of therapy, George,” my dad said.
    “What’s that?”
    “You can lead a horse to water . . .”
    “. . . but you can’t make him drink,” I sighed,