The Wooden Sea by Jonathan Carroll Read Free Book Online

later.
    "What did you say to her? What did you do?"

    "Blew it. I made fun of her."

    She touched her forehead. "This is ridiculous! I'm sounding exactly like my mother with my sister!"

    Magda's older sister was a teenager when she was murdered thirty years ago. A wild girl, she was notorious in Crane's View for doing whatever she wanted.
    Magda said most of her childhood memories were of her mother and sister screaming at each other.

    The front doorbell rang. We looked at each other. Pauline?

    Why ring the bell to her own house? Maybe she'd forgotten her keys. I put down the soup ladle and went to answer it.

    No one was there. I stepped out beyond the range of the porch light to have a look around.
    Nothing. Kids ringing the police chief's bell and running? As I was going back into the house something stopped me: My nose. Although it was much vaguer, that wonderful fragrance was in the air again. The last time I'd smelled it around here was in the garage when Old Vertue reappeared. Was this his calling card? I wasn't waiting to find out.

    Ignoring the cooking soup, I crossed the lawn to our garage and looked in.
    Someone was sitting in the passenger's seat of our car. I took a few steps toward it and recognized Pauline. Before dealing with her I had to check something out. I already had my keys in hand and opened the trunk expecting I
    don't know what. Nothing was there. I let out a long slow relieved breath. If that dog's body had been there again at that moment with Pauline in the car I would've ... I don't know what I would've. But the smell _was _stronger in the garage, no doubt about it.

    "Pauline?"

    "I want a prime-time life." She didn't move. Simply stared straight ahead and addressed the garage wall.

    "Nothing wrong with that. Prime time is the place to be."

    "We read this line in class last semester that scared me so much; I can't stop diinking about it.
    `How can you hide from what never goes away.' That's why I got this tattoo. Mom thinks it's Page 28

    because I want to be like everyone else, but it's just the opposite. I want people at school to hear about it and say _`Her, _Pauline Ostrova? That stupid little bookworm got a _tattoo?' _I don't want the person I am to be the person I'm going to be when I get older, Frannie.
    "I rang the bell just now. I didn't want to be alone out here. I was hoping you'd come find me."

    "That's okay. But I wish you'd come back in the house now. Soup's on.
    Remember one thing too--usually what scares you most makes you do the most work. Ghosts make you run faster than a math test."

    She didn't move. "I'm not sorry I did it. The tattoo, I mean."

    "You don't need to be sorry. What is it anyway?"

    "None of your business."

    Life went on. We drank our soup, went to bed, rose the next morning, and walked into the future Pauline was so worried about. Old Vertue didn't reappear, and neither did the Schiavos.
    The air went back to smelling like it usually does; our car started. Johnny Petangles fell into one of the ditches they were digging by the river and sprained his ankle. Susan Ginnety went away for a conference of small-town mayors. When she returned, her husband Frederick had moved out. Even worse for the mayor, he rented a house four blocks away. When I bumped into him at the market he said she could throw him out of her life but he wasn't going to leave the town he had grown to like very much.

    I was surprised. To tell you the truth, Crane's View is not much of a burg.
    Most people happen on it by mistake or while looking for other more picturesque Hudson Valley towns. Sometimes they stop to eat at Scrappy's Diner or Charlie's Pizza. Sometimes they hang around long enough afterward for a stroll around the one-block downtown while digesting their high-cholesterol meal.

    I like living here because I like familiar things. I always put my shoes in the same place before going to bed; I eat the same meal for breakfast most days. When I was younger I saw enough of the