The Healer's Touch Read Free Page A

this isolated holler hidden deep in the Missouri hills—somewhere far away, where no one knew about them. She remembered being a young girl and peering at the globe that sat in the parlor. The tiny spots on the paper had turned into exciting new adventures Lyric would experience someday.
    â€œAnd then,” Boots continued, breathless, “Henry started sweet-talking her. Seems the horse spotted the light first. He reared and took off like someone lit a fire under his rear.”
    â€œBoots,” Lyric cautioned. The girl’s language often tended to be highly improper, a trait she’d acquired from her salty-talking grandfather.
    â€œBackside,” she emphasized. “The horse dragged Henry’s father’s new buggy that he’d just bought today. Caroline said the light came right up to them, bold as brass, and just hovered there like it was looking them over. She said she got goose bumps the size of cotton wads. Then it was gone…but so was the horse and buggy, and they had no way to get home. Caroline said Henry knew his pa wouldbe mad as hops when he discovered he’d let the horse and buggy get loose. After a bit they started walking. I bumped into them when I finished up milking. They were none too happy, either. Caroline was wearing her best patent leather slippers and they were all dusty and scuffed from the briars and dust.”
    Boots pulled a chair closer to the table. “And you know what else?”
    â€œWhat?” Lark’s eyes fixed on the book page, her voice bordering on monotone. Different as they were, the two girls were as tight as a cheap pair of shoes, even though Lyric was certain that Boots’s grandfather didn’t overly approve of the friendship.
    â€œThat wretched Jim Cummins was spotted earlier today. Walked right into the general store and was about to purchase chewing tobacco when this feller walked in—a stranger, Earl said. Nobody knew the outsider but he must have changed Cummins’ mind about the tobacco. Earl said he took off out of there like a scalded cat and last he saw of him he was hightailing it out of town and the stranger was right behind him.”
    â€œOutlaws.” Lyric shook her head. The hollers were full of them. Lowlifes who kept their families hidden from the law. Lyric listened to the girl’s chatter as she dried a skillet and put it away. Boots’s occasional bits and pieces of area information were all the news they had, and Lyric welcomed the diversion. No one in Bolton Holler ever ventured up to the house unless forced to. Stories abounded about the “evils” that lay within the walls of the old house, and even the strong of heart avoided the place.
    A slow smile formed on her lips. She used to feel sorry for the townsfolk, even pitied them for their misbeliefs that a black cloud hung over the Bolton home—a sinister one, it was said. Most of the folks in town had decided the strange light that shown regularly in this holler was a direct product of Edwina Bolton. Lyric knew that to be nonsense, but the people in town were far more willing to trust in superstition than logic.
    She lifted the curtain over the kitchen counter window and peered out. Funny, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. She could see every single star. If not thunder, what had she heard earlier?
    She wiped off her hands on her apron. “Boots, don’t stay long,” she said. “It’s well past dark and your grandfather will be alarmed if you’re not home soon.”
    â€œI won’t. Anyway, back to Henry. He is in so much trouble! I doubt that his father will let him take the buggy and horse again for some time and Caroline so looks forward to their rides home on Sunday night.”
    Slipping into a light sweater, Lyric stepped onto the back service porch. Milk cans and churning pots littered the small enclosure. Outside, she glanced up to see a beautifully rounded moon rising. The sight was