The Seary Line Read Online Free

Miss Cooke’s shoes on the stoop, a neat clip of the heel, he was released from his stream of speculation. Her smell surrounded him, sun-warmed linedried clothes, lilies, a hint of rancidity from old animal fat in lye soap.
    â€œIt’s okay, Eldred,” Uncle heard her say. “You can go on in now. She’s fine. Everything’s fine.”
    He had expected her to walk past him, but she didn’t. She stood beside him on the step and scanned the water. A burst of sunlight skidded over the swells, and the radiance nearly blinded him.
Please, not now
, he thought,
not at this moment
. He bowed his head, closed his eyes, silently begged for another veil of clouds. An obliging south wind granted his wish.
    In his peripheral vision he was able to admire her. His mind’s eye peeling away the wrinkles, plucking out the errant whiskers, softening that silvery coarse hair back to bittersweet chocolate. With little effort, Annabelle was the same as she ever was.
    â€œWho painted them?” Annabelle said abruptly, waving her hand towards the coloured beach stones that lined his walkway. Lemon yellow, green, sky blue. “Or, dare I ask?”
    â€œWhat, those rocks?”
    â€œYes.”
    He cleared his throat. “She did. She. My wife. With leftover paint.”
    â€œEven so. Seems a bit of a waste to me. Perfectly good paint and all.”
    After a moment, he nodded, replied swiftly, “Yes. Yes. You might be right.” He closed his eyes when he said this – an out-loud betrayal.
    â€œHm.”
    Uncle turned slightly, reached up and, with a tentative finger, touched the billow of skin at the back of her elbow. Felt a coolness there.
    â€œMiss Cooke. Annabelle. Please.”
    â€œPlease what, Willard?” Both elbows snapped inwards as though on elastic strings. Her next words were barely audible. “I’m an old woman now. But, I still remember.”
    How he had wished for pure anger or resentment, but there was no disguising the sadness in her voice, and that made it all the worse. Disgrace prickled his skin, and he felt pain rinse across his chest, then down towards his thighs. If cowards were supposed to be sickly yellow, then why was his old body currently glowing in hidden places?
    â€œI am, I’m sorry,” he somehow managed.
    She leaned towards him ever so slightly, and her slender hand darted up, plucked a curl of bark from his straggly hair. Then her lips parted, and Uncle halted his wheezy breath so as not to miss a word. But instead of speaking, she took a deep step away from him, moved around the back of his home, floated up through the field, and disappeared. Immediately, his knowing hand moved to the spot where she had touched him.
    â€œDon’t tell me you’re still standing around, Uncle. How can that be? How in God’s name is that possible?”
    His wife was watching him from behind the screen door and he could not turn to face her.
    â€œWell, I’m beat,” she continued. “Suppose you can pullyourself together and take the child over to the Abbotts’? Or do I got to do that too?”
    Uncle waited until his shoulders sensed her absence, and then he brought his earth-stained hands to his face. Right now, all he wanted was to be somewhere where he could see no part of himself. Where no reflection or reminder existed. Uncle pressed his fingers into the deep wrinkles around his eyes, rubbed until he saw dancing stars beneath his lids. And while he waited for the mist in his eyes to recede, he considered that perhaps he understood Eldred a little better – not quite the fear that lived within him, but something of the sentiment.

    Percy was on the way up from the dank basement, an onion in either hand, when he heard a tapping at the back door. He knew who it was before he even answered. Every other member of Bended Knee Bay would have pulled open the door, strolled in, and gotten on with the visit. But not Uncle.