THE POWER OF THREE by Billie Sue Mosiman Read Free Book Online Page A

little?"
                  The little girl shrugged shyly. Then she said, "When I was three?"
                  A tiny blip crossed Linda's mind. She had been three when she first understood she could hear what other people were thinking. She had been six...
                  "How old are you now?"
                  Linda almost narrowed her eyes to hold back the answer she was sure to come from the girl.
                  "I'm six!"
                  That's when the walls began to talk.
                  Same as You , they said, a unison of singsong voices. Though they weren't unpleasant voices Linda had jumped up, coming off the sofa like a shot. She looked at the walls.
                  "Miss Linda, what's wrong?" The girl was up too and coming to stand near her.
                  "It's..."
                  "The walls?"
                  Linda stared down at the child. "You can hear the walls?"
                  Diane didn't even have to answer. Linda read her mind and knew everything. This child was like her doppelganger, her double. She had been born with the gift and she hadn't had to wait for years and maturity or strive to learn how to hear the thoughts projected out from animals and objects. She already had been listening to walls.
                  "Come, sit back down." She led the girl back to the sofa where they took their seats. Linda held the girl's hand. "Tell me what you know about this house."
                  It's a bad house, Miss Linda. It wants to kill you.
                  "It's killed before," Linda said.
                  The child sat quietly, listening, but not for Linda's thoughts. Now the house was talking to her, but not to Linda. After some moments the girl looked up into her face and talked to her in silence.
                  Yes, it's killed before. It was built in 1879. It was made by a bunch of people who all lived here together. They knew...they knew...magic. They had rituals. They made sacrifices. Blood sacrifices.
                  She couldn't take it any longer. She didn't think she wanted to know anymore, not now. This time when she stood, Linda pulled the girl along to the front door. "I don't think you should come here again. It's using you. I think it's dangerous here. Not just for me, but for you, too. Do you understand?"
                  "A house never told me before it wanted to kill someone." The little girl looked sad and lost, unable to process all that she knew.
                  "It's just this house, Diane. There must be places in the world where bad things happened and the walls soaked it all in and grew in evil ways. This is one of those places. Don't come back, all right? Stay with your parents and don't let anyone know all the things you hear. People won't understand. They'll think something's wrong with you and there isn't. You believe me, don't you? There's nothing at all wrong with you."
                  Plumbing the child's mind she could tell her words were being accepted, but there was still a great deal of fear. It was like walking through a jumbled room full of bright toys, where some of the toys were coming alive, and the young mind couldn't take it all in.
                  Once the girl was gone, Linda sank against the door, her eyes closed. Was it a coincidence that through her long life she had never come across another person with such a strong gift as her own and then when she had returned to this house the child next door was not only like her, but possessing a gift much too strong and heavy a burden for a six-year-old? It had been Linda's experience that coincidences were something to look upon with skepticism. This was too much of a coincidence. A once in a lifetime event.
                  She was sure she had been