The Pumpkin Man by John Everson Read Free Book Online Page B

key to a house on the beach. Let’s go to California!”
    â€œWell, one of us is hot, anyway,” Jenn replied. Kirstin rolled her eyes. “And I don’t actually have the
key
to the house.”
    â€œPuh-leez. It’ll do us both good to get out of here. We can pack this place up over the next week, put our stuff in storage and go see what your aunt left you. If we like it, maybe we’ll stay. You’ve always said you wanted to live somewhere warmer, and I’ve always wanted to live near a beach.”
    â€œI keep telling you, I don’t think Meredith’s house is near the kind of beach where people actually swim,” Jennica protested.
    Kirstin put a finger to her lips. “Where there is ocean, there is swimming.”
    Jennica had to admit the idea held an attraction. She’d always hated Chicago winters. And what did they really have to lose? She had no more family, no job, and soon no place to live. But she’d always thought of herself as Aesop’s ant and Kirstin thegrasshopper. Wasn’t it more prudent to stay and use the month they had left to make sure they had someplace to live and the money to pay for it?
    â€œWhat are we going to do when we come back?” she asked.
    â€œWe could stay with my mom for a while if it came to that,” Kirstin said. “But maybe, if we’re lucky . . . we won’t be back.”
    Jennica shook her head but didn’t say no.
    Kirstin stood up and held out a hand. “C’mon, couch potato. We have a lot to pack. Know where we can get some boxes?”

Meredith Perenais’s Journal
    October 23, 1984
    There is a pause in the air.
    â€œMake sense, Meredith,” you say. “Speak clearly, not in drama.” But I can say to you again, there is a pause in the air.
    It’s unlike any wind I’ve felt before in any other place. Maybe it’s the influence of this house, or maybe just this hill. The movement of the sea against the rocks must brook a special power here, where the freshwater flows into the salt, where the earth rises from beneath both seeking the clouds. The moments after dark are pregnant seconds, each clock tick an interruption of some
thing
driven by land and sea and air. If you walk out onto the grassy hills after nightfall, if you only still your own noise enough to take it in, you can feel it. You can feel how the earth has fallen silent, how the breath of the day has drawn in.
    Yes, there is a pause in the air here as the earth awaits the next movement, the next chance to give and take life, like a tide of animation. The brackish water is just an illusion before the maelstrom, for the power of that earthen pause may be the key to the magic hidden here. The pause in the air is a conductor, a promise and a threat.
    That pause, I believe, is worth the silence of a thousand souls.

C HAPTER E IGHT
    The plane ride was long. Really long. Kirstin had never been good at sitting still, and four and a half hours tied to a chair was pure torture.
    She shifted in her seat, crossing her legs left and then right, kicking Jenn in the shins as she did. Her friend occasionally glanced up from her book with a dark-eyed scowl to convey her indignation at being foot-butted, but mostly she stayed buried in her reading and headphones. Kirstin was plugged into her own iPod, but she couldn’t seem to settle on an album. She’d gotten bored with Lady Gaga and Katy Perry, moved to classic hair metal and jumped through Bon Jovi and Whitesnake, then tuned in to a saved podcast she had about relationships called Too Much Information (TMI). But when the hosts started talking about how to manage a successful one-night stand while on your period, she dialed away and settled for putting the iPod on shuffle.
    After they finally landed, picked up their luggage, and got their rental car—Jennica had rented a car at the San Francisco airport that they could keep for a few days—it was four p.m.