The Ever Breath Read Free Page A

asked.
    Truman loved the early-morning fogginess when he couldn’t quite tell whether he was dreaming or awake. The mornings were the best time of day to pretend that his father was still living at home, was maybe even in the kitchen frying bacon. “I like to sleep in,” he said.
    Swelda eyed him suspiciously with her one eye, as if he were some strange new animal that looked familiar but she couldn’t quite name. She gave a grunt. “I’ll have to keep an extra eye on you.” Truman wondered whether she had extra eyes, fake ones maybe, that she kept in a jar somewhere.
    Swelda strode to the clipped grassy edge of the course, just a few feet from the front door. She pointed out the sand trap on one side of the house. “Don’t play in there. It isn’t the beach, you know.” Truman hated beaches. His skin was so pale that he always had to be slathered with a thick coat of sunscreen that got in his eyes and made them water uncontrollably. And then he usually burned anyway. (Camille would lightly apply a single coat and then turn golden.)
    On the other side, Swelda showed them a pond. “During certain times of year, that little body of water attracts mean, spiteful geese that litter the grass with goose poop. Steer clear of them.”
    In front of the house was the green of the seventeenth hole itself, with its tall pole and white flag. “Stay off the green,” Swelda said. “Golfers do not like children.” Then she paused. “And maybe they’re right. It’s been so long since I’ve been with children that I barely remember.” She looked atthem again, with her head cocked to one side. “You interest me, though. I have to admit that. You seem sturdy enough. Are you curious children?”
    “About what?” Camille asked.
    “About everything! It’s a waste to go through the world without a good dose of awe and wonderment.”
    “I’m curious,” Truman said.
    “You’re cautious,” Camille corrected.
    “And do you like questions?” Swelda asked Camille.
    “I like answers,” she said.
    “A straight shooter,” Swelda said. “I see.”
    She stopped at the side of the house and pointed her walking stick at a rusty cellar door. “Browsenberry wine,” she said.
    “Browsenberry wine?” Camille repeated.
    “I brew browsenberry wine in the root cellar. That means there are jugs and glass tubing and the delicate working of fermentation. And there is a set of stairs that leads down to the dirt floor, but the third step—the bottom step, that is—well, it’s missing. You shouldn’t go into the root cellar, but you will. And when you do, remember there is no third step.” Swelda smiled. “I don’t recall much about children, but I do know that they end up where they’re not supposed to be. And sometimes you are
supposed
to be where you’re not supposed to be. That is how things happen. That is how the worlds march forward. Actions lead to other actions.” She sighed. “You won’t be here long,” she said, tugging on the ugly blue hat. “Everything is ticking along, one small mechanism clicking with the next. There is no going backward. Only forward.” She looked at the two of them. “Do you understand?”
    Camille looked at Truman and then back at their grandmother. “How the
worlds
march forward?
Worlds?
Plural?”
    “That’s what I said. That’s what I meant.” She spoke to them as adults, and what was even more unusual, she spoke to them like she was in the middle of a conversation about something big and important. She tapped her walking stick on the ground and set off toward the front of the house. “Come along,” she said.
    The fog was rolling in quickly now. Truman paused in the front yard. He could no longer see the clubhouse or even much of the flag at the seventeenth hole. They were lost in white. He wondered how long before the fog rolled down the hill and settled on this house too.
    Swelda marched up the front steps and opened the door, which creaked loudly. “This house is going