Kindred Spirits Read Online Free Page A

exotic animal at the zoo. “Just...whoa.”
    “You don’t think I’m
crazy?  Or scary?”
    “No way.” Adam’s face breaks into a big grin. “I think
you’re the coolest girl I’ve ever met. When can I meet your mom and granny?”

    When I get home, Mom and
Granny are both in the front yard. Mom is raking leaves, and Granny is standing
over a huge iron pot that has a fire under it. Whatever she’s stirring stinks
to high heaven.
    Granny claims she doesn’t
understand why everybody thinks she’s a witch, and then she does stuff like
stand out in the yard wearing a long black dress and stirring a giant pot of
what might as well be witch’s brew.
    “Your granny took a
notion to make some lye soap today,” Mom says, pushing more leaves into a pile.
She’s still in her work clothes’a long, peacock-blue fringed skirt with a
matching fringed vest. Her bracelets jangle as she rakes.
    The smell makes my eyes
water. “Ugh! I don’t see how you can stand to smell that stuff, Granny, let
alone use it on your skin.  I’ll take a bar of Ivory any day.”
    “Store-bought soap don’t
get you clean like lye soap,” Granny says, pushing back a steel-gray braid to
keep it from falling in the pot.
    “Yep, lye soap cleans the
skin right off your body,” Mom says, smiling. She looks at me. “So your visit
with your friend was good?”
    She knows it was good by
looking at me. She’s just asking to be polite. “Yeah. He wants to come over
sometime. Is that okay?”
    “Your
friends are always welcome here,” Mom says.
    I laugh. “My friends? I
only have one friend. Well, one living friend.”
    “Well, it’s better to
have one real friend than a hundred false ones, like some people have,” Mom
says. “Hold this bag for me, will you?”
    I hold the leaf bag while
Mom fills it. “The thing is,” I say, “his parents want to meet y’all. They
don’t like Adam to go over to somebody’s house until they’ve met their family.”
    “Well,” Mom says,
stuffing more leaves in the bag, “maybe we should have them over for dessert
and coffee or something.”
    Granny looks up from her
stirring with a strange gleam in her eye. “I never met no people from the
Orient before. I’d like to ask them some questions about herbs and healing...
and ancient mysteries.”
    This is exactly the kind
of thing I was afraid Granny would say. “Um, Granny,” I start, “you can ask
Adam about those kind of things when he’s here by himself, but when his parents
come to meet you, maybe it would be a good idea for you not to be so...spooky.”
    Granny looks up from her
steaming cauldron. Her one-eyed cat rubs against the hem of her long black
dress. “How am I spooky?” she says.

Chapter Four
    Adam and his parents will
be here in an hour. Mom and Granny are washing up the supper dishes, and I’ve
been given the job of feeding the goats and chickens before our company gets
here. I’m grateful to have a job that gets me out of the house for a few
minutes because I’m a nervous wreck.
    I can’t get the picture
out of my mind of Adam’s parents, horrified and dragging him out of the house,
probably while holding up a crucifix in front of us. I don’t know if this
picture is me seeing the future, or just me being nervous.
    I have to hand it to Mom,
though. She’s really thrown herself into making a good impression. She made a
pie from the blackberries we picked and froze this summer, and she put on a
pretty purple batik dress and silver dangly earrings. Granny is in her same
black dress and black stockings and silver braids. but it’s not like I expected
her to put on a flowered dress and apron like a grandma in a picture book.
    The
two goats see me coming and stand up on their hind legs with their front hooves
propped on the fence. “Hey, Naomi. Hey, Ruth,” I say. Granny names all of her
animals out of the Bible. Ruth and Naomi are Tennessee Fainting Goats. They’re beautiful
white goats with golden eyes, and true to