Harbinger Read Online Free PDF Page B

And for the first time in weeks the tingle-itch was absent. I held the hand up to the pale dawn and flexed the fingers experimentally. Then I stared at the pretty sky and waited for Nichole to wake up. She did, but it was a while before I realized it. What clued me in finally was her mouth kissing my mouth. Her breath was sweet even at that hour—sweet enough, anyway.
    “Where were you?” she said.
    “Right here.”
    “I don’t think so. Your eyes were open, but you didn’t hear a word I said, did you?”
    “Sometimes I kind of zone out,” I said. “Mom called them my autistic vacations.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Yeah.” But I didn’t want to think about my mother, so I asked Nichole what she wanted to do.
    “Let’s go see my flaky mom,” she said.
    It turned out Nichole’s driving had not been all that random. Her mother was in Long Beach, staying in one of the cottages a friend of hers rented to the tourists.
    “I’m warning you,” Nichole said. “She’s a total flake.”
    I said thanks for the warning.
    The cottage was charming in a deliberate way. Cedar shake walls, flower boxes under the windows overflowing with color. A porch with two Adirondack chairs angled toward the sound if not the sight of the ocean.
    At the slamming of our car doors Mrs. Roberts appeared. Standing on the porch she looked like some kind of gypsy queen in a diaphanous purple skirt (through which the good shape of her legs was visible), bright paisley scarf, hoop earrings, African bracelets that clicked woodenly on her wrists, and so forth.
    “There’s my baby! she cried, then added, turning to me, “And who’s this? Your baby?”
    “Mom,” Nichole said.
    “I’m Ellis Herrick,” I said.
    “Oh my God, the boy in the accident?”
    “Yeah.”
    She looked at my left hand then at my right.
    “It’s this one,” I said, holding up the left.
    “It looks so normal.”
    “It’s pretty normal,” I said.
    “Ellis just got out of the hospital,” Nichole said.
    “And they wouldn’t give you your pants back?” Mrs. Roberts said to me, staring at my baggy hospital greens.
    “I left in kind of a hurry.”
    “Well, both of you come in. I’ve got tea, wine, and cannabis. English muffins, too.”
    “Jesus, Mom,” Nichole said.
    I had tea but really wanted a Pepsi. Nichole also had tea, and her mother lit up a joint. She embarrassed Nichole, and I could see why, but I liked Mrs. Roberts. Her features were similar to her daughter’s, and at forty-five or whatever, she was practically as beautiful. Plus the dope didn’t make her act sloppy or stupid. It seemed to enhance her.
    “You have the most astonishing aura, Ellis,” she said to me, and I had to ask what an aura was. She described it as an “energy nimbus” that glows off everyone but is invisible to those who aren’t willing to look at them. Nichole rolled her eyes, but I was interested.
    “What do you mean not willing to look? People just see or don’t see stuff, right?”
    “The eye is a physical organ,” Mrs. Roberts replied. “It will see whatever there is to see in the strictly physical realm.”
    “Uh huh,” I said.
    “But there are realms other than the physical, Ellis.”
    “Like other dimensions?” That was me and my science fiction fetish.
    She drew thoughtfully on the remaining scrap of a joint, holding it in a fancy silver roach clip.
    “Other dimensions, yes,” she said. “A Master recently told me that everything is simultaneous. Don’t you find that profound?”
    “Everything is simultaneous?” I said.
    “Very profound, mother,” Nichole said.
    “What’s a Master?” I asked.
    “Actually, this one referred to himself as a Harbinger, not a Master.”
    “A harbinger of what?” I asked.
    “Consciousness evolution. I saw him out on the beach one night. About a month ago. I saw him with my physical eyes, but I think he was existing simultaneous to the physical. He came down out of the sky in a big bubble, like Glinda the Good Witch?