The Ever Breath Read Free Page B

through a difficult time right now,” she said. “A sudden decay. But I hope that changes soon. Come in! There’s more inside!” She disappeared into the dark house.
    More?
Truman thought nervously. He could feel a little rasp in his throat. He stuck his hand in his pocket and let his fingers touch the edge of his inhaler. It hit him now for the first time that this was the house his father had grown up in. He’d lived in this house when he was Truman’s age. It was strange to think his father had ever been a kid at all—he was tall and hairy and smelled of the aftershave that Truman could barely remember.
    Camille walked up to Truman and whispered, “She’s weird. I like her.”
    “Me too,” Truman said.
    Camille brushed past him up the front steps, but Trumanpaused a moment. Something rustled in the bushes. He thought he saw the shiny black tail of a cat. He let his eyes flit over everything around him then—the rolling fog, the sand trap, the pond, the grass of the seventeenth hole, the boarded-up house with its rusty tin roof, and the yard where he stood, the tall grass snug up to the house’s brick, and within the grass, some things glowing in the last bit of dusky light, glowing like eggs—or eyes. But they were only lost golf balls.

CHAPTER FOUR
Imports from a Distant Land
    The living room was so dim that Truman felt as if he’d walked into a tunnel. His eyes had trouble adjusting. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, but that didn’t help much.
    At first it seemed that glowing orbs were suspended in midair in the corners of the room, but then he saw that they were paper lanterns, gold and blue. They hung above over-stuffed sofas covered in frayed brocade, with ornate wooden arms and feet carved to look like swirling horns. The old pine floor was covered in a wooly white rug.
    “These are heirlooms! Antiques!” Swelda’s voice rang out. “Imports from distant lands! Keep your mitts to yourselves!”
    Truman was sure he was
in
a distant land, someplace foreign. He felt the way immigrants he’d learned about in school must have felt when they first stepped off the boat. The house even smelled foreign—like some strange stew was boiling over somewhere. He couldn’t eat strange stews! Too many possibilities for an allergic reaction. He’d have to ask for something bland, like toast.
    “Coats go here on the hall tree,” Swelda said. Trumanexpected an old-fashioned hall tree, they’d had one in their old house—a wooden one with brass hooks. But this hall tree looked like an actual tree, and it seemed to be growing straight up out of the floorboards. On it were a few scattered Christmas ball ornaments, some hats, and an umbrella.
    “Is this a real tree?” Truman asked.
    “I don’t like fake ones,” Swelda said.
    Camille walked up to it. “It can’t be real,” she said. “There’s this thing called photosynthesis that doesn’t work so well in a boarded-up house.”
    “It’s as real as I am,” Swelda said.
    Camille shrugged off her coat and hung it on one of the tree limbs very carefully. “If it’s real,” she asked, “where are its leaves?”
    “It’s winter now,” Swelda said. “You can’t blame it for not having leaves!”
    “It looks a little thirsty,” Truman said.
    Swelda walked up to it and rubbed one of the limbs. “You’re right,” she said.
    “I think trees do better outside,” Camille said.
    Swelda didn’t seem to hear her. She was examining the tree’s trunk very closely, shaking her head.
    Truman was standing by a set of bookshelves that held enormous books. He read a few spines:
The Dark and Ignorant Ages; Pre-Exodus: The Complete Understanding: Field Guide to Fire-Breathers; Dendrology: A Gramarye’s Dictionary of Terms and Best Practices
.
    “Camille,” he whispered, “look at these.”
    “Old tomes!” Swelda said. “It’s important to have a reference section at your fingertips.”
    Camille walked to the bookshelf and let her