Heart Murmurs Read Online Free PDF

cannot change the past. You can only change the future. My irritating conscience takes the voice of my dear mother, now long gone. I know it to be right.
    I just have utterly no idea how to follow her advice.
    I have no words of wisdom from my father. The fraud refused to acknowledge my life. My very existence, no doubt, caused his already troubled life great sorrow.
    It’s like my heart is a blistering sun, emitting scorching rays of pain. The anger is my protective clouds; blotting out and dampening down the full effect of my bitterness. So I can live — if that’s what I’m doing.
    Beth’s car spits gravel as she pulls into the driveway.
    She’s up to something again.
    I can feel it, something, besides me, is wrong with the cottage. Juvenile as it may be, I bolt to the back room and hide.
    The front door jingles its silver bell as she enters. She looks around, “Morgan?” cocking her head, waiting for my answer.
    Empathy kicks my gut as I see her tears, her trembling lips. My old self itches to hold her, soothe her — tell her all will be well.
    A Jewish friend once told me, “God counts the tears of women.”
    I believe that.
    Beth slides around the counter to the laptop, checking her email. The slump of her shoulders tells me Edward hasn’t yet responded.
    Her dark hair cascades around her as she tilts her head, checking outside. She crosses the room, locking the shop door and flipping the sign on it to ‘Closed’.
    Her face pinches in guilt as she slides a faux-book from her Louisa-shelf. Opening its cover, she extracts a folded piece of paper.
    â€œNo,” I whisper. “She can’t still be writing her. She knows the rules.”
    But she is, I feel it to my core. Taking more risks — that will affect us all. Doom us all, my conscience chastises.
    She ducks behind the counter, hauling open the trapdoor that leads to the tunnels.
    I hurry over to the entrance, making my feet still while I count to 30, giving the tunnel time to swallow her.
    I glance outside before stepping onto the steps. Twilight. I jam my eyes shut, debating.
    I shake my head. “Blast it, woman.”
    I haul open the door and slip into the gloom.
    ****
    I can make out the dim outline of her skirt, flying through the tunnels. My eyes flick warily left and right. At any moment, the tunnel will transform — and I will be stuck in the middle of it. But what choice do I have? Beth is being irresponsible — thinking only of herself.
    A popping, crackling sound, like a fire stirring, rustles behind me.
    I will not look. I do not want to see .
    Gooseflesh prickles my skin, remembering the first night I happened down here after dark. My breathing hitches and I plow forward, ignoring the instinctual recoiling in my mind.
    Beth bobs and weaves ahead through the familiar passageways, just out of earshot.
    I watch her move through the dark and witness the tunnel coming alive in her wake. Beneath her feet, toadstools erupt on every footprint.
    They follow her, popping up like white stepping stones in water. With every touch of her hand along the cave wall, streaks of light match the drag of her fingertips, as if they’re dipped in colored ink. Flowers sprout from the black soil, appearing as green shoots and spiraling into wildflowers, which grow on either side, till she’s cutting a path through them.
    The draw is a blessing and a curse. To become one of the court.
    The dark thickens in circular whirls on either side of me and suddenly yawns open with mirroring, blinding doors of light. Pulsing and contracting like a live being.
    I hear them coming. I hear their footsteps.
    Approaching behind the churning white gateways.
    â€œBeth!”
    She is running now and doesn’t hear me. My legs pump, and I break a sweat, weaving through the animated flowers.
    I’m gaining on her now.
    Another blasted letter is clutched in her ghostly white fingers.
    In the twitch of an eye