Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 101168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
But then he squeezed his eyes shut and jammed his fists into them.
“Fuck!”
Allie and Jamie were watching them, wide-eyed, from the couch.
“Just tell us what’s up, buddy,” Allie said gently. Edgar hadn’t heard her call him buddy since they were kids.
Poe swore a blue streak, running hands through his wild hair.
“I thought…when I was little, I thought you both were playing along with Mama. So I did too. When we’d be out, and she’d point and say there was a ghost and she thought it was from the 1920s because of this hat or that dress? I didn’t even know what the 1920s were. And you’d both nod and say, yeah, you saw it too. So I said I saw it. And I thought…I guess I thought you were doing it so she’d feel better. Since Dad always gave her so much shit. I thought—”
Edgar’s stomach flipped imagining little Poe, just trying to make their mom less alone.
“And I don’t know, I thought maybe I was seeing the same things as you guys. I wasn’t trying to tell some huge lie. But then—” He shook his head. “Dad left, and you still talked about seeing them. By then, it had all gotten so big I couldn’t say anything. And I just…I didn’t want you to think I was like him.”
Allie was on her feet by the time he finished speaking, and she came at him with open arms, ready—always so ready—to comfort. Poe jerked away from her and pulled his leather jacket closer.
Allie looked hurt but gave him space.
Poe said, “There is just one more tiny thing.” He laughed nervously.
“Oh shit,” Jamie murmured and clapped a hand over their mouth.
Poe looked at them and shrugged. “I can see the future.”
Silence. Blinking. Then a wail cut through the silence, and Allie sprang to attention. She stabbed a finger at them all. “Don’t any of you say one single word until I get back, on pain of death.”
Poe mimed zipping his lips and then throwing away a key. Jamie started to say something, then snapped their mouth shut. Edgar was pretty sure they’d been going to ask why something that zipped would have a lock on it.
They all stayed still and quiet, like the world’s most awkward tableau, until Allie returned, holding the baby.
“You can see fucking what now?” she said.
“It’s not always, like, clear. But. Yeah.”
“When you touch people, right?” Jamie said slowly, like they were putting a puzzle together. “Just like Phillipe Rondeau. That’s why you wear that batshit hot jacket in the summer in New Orleans?”
“Better than being deluged with information about how people are going to die or the ways their relationships are going to fail or that their kids are never gonna speak to them again,” Poe said.
Jamie made an expression of agreement. “Is it always negative things?”
Poe shook his head. “Not necessarily. A lot of the time, it’s jumbled. I can’t tell who anyone is or where. Or when.”
“Stop, stop, stop,” Allie said. She managed to be commanding without raising her voice above baby-approved volume. “Pause. Go back to the beginning. Like, birth beginning. And tell me everything.”
Poe sighed and sat back down, settling himself on the floor. Edgar sat back down next to Jamie. Their eyes were wide, and they were practically vibrating with excitement.
“I didn’t know what it was at first,” Poe said. “In the beginning, it was just like, sometimes when someone would hold my hand, I’d get impressions of their life. I dunno how I knew that’s what it was. But it made sense. I assumed it was like that for everyone. Like, that was why people shook hands and hugged or kissed when they first saw each other: to learn stuff about how their life was going. Kind of a tactile How are you?
“So I didn’t think much of it. Then sometimes I’d make a comment based on something I’d seen, assuming it was common knowledge, and Mom or Dad would act confused. Once, I asked why Mr. Clark—you remember him, Eddie? Dickhead with the greasy mustache?”
Edgar sure did. The second-grade teacher had taught through terror, choosing a few people each lesson to make an example of.
“I asked why he wasn’t teaching at our school anymore, and Mama and Dad were like, ‘What do you mean? He’s still your teacher.’ But then a couple months later, he disappeared, remember?”
“Yeah,” Allie said. “He molested a student. The school didn’t want to fire him publicly because it would come out that they’d hired someone without due diligence, but then it came out anyway. It was a huge scandal.”
“Right. So when that came out—I assume; I wasn’t old enough to know what that even meant—Mom came to me all horrified that he’d molested me. She thought that’s why I’d known he might get fired. When really, he’d just touched my hand giving me back a quiz or something.”