Free Spirits Read Free Page B

the goats or with Granny’s ancient African gray parrot Methuseleh, who knows all kinds of weird sayings and squawks them at random. One time when Adam was holding the bird, it squawked, “Don’t tell your grandmother how to milk mice!” and Adam said, “Well, I was going to tell her, but if you don’t want me to, I guess I won’t.” Or we play some game that’s been lying around the house since Mom was a girl, like checkers or dominoes or Scrabble.
    If Adam can stay around till evening when Abigail can come out, he visits her, too, even though he can hear her but not see her. The only thing he can see is a cloud of gray mist where Abigail should be.
    Even though I don’t have any high-tech gadgets, Adam loves visiting my house. How could a horror movie fan not love our old, dark house with its antique furniture, creepy pictures of intense-eyed Jasper ancestors, a parrot that squawks dire warnings and a real ghost?
    The only thing Adam likes better about being in his own house is the snacks. He definitely prefers Cheetos to the rock-hard, molasses-sweetened oatmeal cookies Granny bakes. She uses molasses to sweeten them because she thinks it’s less bad for your teeth than white sugar. But I think biting into a cookie that’s as hard as granite is probably not so good for your teeth either.
    This afternoon Adam and I are sprawled out on the living room floor, playing Scrabble. Having the Sight makes me a terrible person to play games with. I have to try very hard not to peek into Adam’s mind to see what letters he’s drawn and what words he’s thinking about making. I want to play fair, but the Sight gives me an unfair advantage that’s tempting to use. It’s like a professional baseball player trying to adapt his skills to play in the Little League.
    Granny, who’s boiling up some nasty-smelling concoction in the kitchen, yells, “In eight minutes the doorbell’s gonna ring. It’s gonna be that woman who was driving down from Lexington to see me.”
    “I’ll let her in when she comes,” I say.
    Adam just grins and shakes his head.
    When the TV reporter from Lexington came to do a story on Adam and me, she became fascinated by Granny and decided to do a separate story on her psychic powers and knowledge of herbs and potions and healing. Ever since the story on Granny aired, a small but steady stream of city folks have come to Wilder in hopes that she’ll give them a potion, a prediction, or some advice. For a small donation, whatever the person feels is reasonable, she’s happy to help. But after they leave she always shakes her head and laughs at city folk and their silly problems.
    The city person standing before me when I open the door might be the most unusual-looking one so far. She looks like she’s my mom’s age or a little older, and she’s wearing thick, wire-rimmed glasses which are sliding down her beaky little nose. Her long hair is the color Granny calls dishwater blond, and it’s divided into two long braids held into place with buckskin thongs. The halter top she’s wearing is made of buckskin, and so are the tall, lace-up moccasins that come up to the hem of her denim skirt. A whole mine’s worth of silver and turquoise drips from her ears, neck, wrists and fingers.
    “Hi. Can I help you?” I say.
    “My name is Dagmar Moonfeather,” she says in a voice that reminds me of how spooky old gypsies talk in the movies I watch with Adam. “I seek the healer Irene Chandler.”
    “She’s in the kitchen. Down the hall, last door on the right.”
    Once she’s out of earshot, Adam whispers, “What a get-up. Do you think she’s a movie extra or something?”
    “That’s probably just how she likes to dress.”
    “I wonder what she wants from your granny.”
    I smile. “Well…we could see.” I know it’s bad, but with Adam here, the temptation to spy is just too great.
    We tiptoe up the fancy front stairs, then through the upstairs hallway and down the narrow back stairs that