Being Here Read Online Free

she stared at the expanse of white. She settled herself in the chair.
    The girl closed the front door quietly. She sat on the steps and spread her books out. Her brows wrinkled too. Finally, she selected one. She opened it and the familiar picture was before her. Already, she could feel the people and the animals and the world stirring. They were asleep on the page, but her eyes were tickling them to life.
    She read to Pagan. He lay in the dust at the foot of the stairs, one ear cocked as if to hear more clearly. The inside of his ear was white and stiff with wiry hairs. It was the story of the girl in the forest and the red house and the small animals that lived there and the threat brooding in the forest that would come when the sun dipped beneath the horizon. And though the girl knew how the story would end, she was never fully sure until she got there. Because she felt change was possible in any story, but the act of reading kept things the same. Her voice ensured everything turned out the way it should.
    When she finished, Pagan twitched his ear.
    â€˜I have seen that place,’ said Adam. He sat on the railings of the verandah. His legs swung, to and fro.
    â€˜Show me?’ said Leah.
    The days of summer flickered past. After a while it was difficult to see the joins. Routine smoothed them out.
    Every morning after breakfast, Leah took her books outside. Or, if it rained, she took them to her bedroom. She read for three hours. Sometimes, when she tired of reading, she walked among the apple trees. But never far from home. Her mother had made her promise never to go far. She met Adam there. He would be sitting in a tree, or sitting on the grass, splitting blades. She read him stories. And Pagan, whose love was unconditional, was always by her side.
    At midday she returned to the house. Her mother folded up her writing materials and placed them carefully in a box which she locked. Then she prepared food. They ate on the verandah and talked.
    â€˜Can you read me your story, Mummy?’ the girl often asked, but the response was always the same.
    â€˜Not yet, angel. Not yet. It takes a long time to write a story and even longer to make it perfect.’
    After a month, the girl stopped asking.
    In the afternoons, they usually did chores together. Housework. Tidying up the orchards. Cleaning out the chicken pens. Sometimes they cleared the kitchen table and took out thin brushes and jars of water and pots of colour and large sheets of creamy paper. The girl liked this the best. It was a form of story. She imagined a world in her head and then brushed it onto paper. Most times, it didn’t match the picture in her mind. But she didn’t care.
    Once a week they walked the three miles to town. It was a bright and busy place. People moved quickly and made a lot of noise. Leah kept close to her mother and held her hand tightly. She watched people from the corner of her vision. Once or twice someone caught her eye and smiled, but she ducked behind her mother’s legs.
    Part of her was glad when they made the hot and dusty journey home, their arms clutching brown paper bags filled with groceries. Part of her was sad, but she didn’t understand why.
    And on Sundays they repeated the journey, this time in their best clothes, which always felt damp against the skin when they arrived in town. They sat in the coolness of the church and listened and prayed.
    In the evenings, after dinner, they washed the dishes together. Sometimes Leah’s mother talked of Leah’s father. She told tales of a stranger. A young man who had travelled the world in a soldier’s uniform and had returned tired and broken. A man who had seen a pretty young woman sitting bolt upright in a church pew, her eyes sparkling with a life that had shrivelled within him. After the service, he had approached her and introduced himself as the man she would marry. Her mother laughed when she told this part. And then she cried. Afterwards