Odd Apocalypse Read Online Free PDF

canine spirit that I had ever seen. He had been with me since my time at St. Bartholomew’s Abbey, where I had for a while stayed as a guest before moving on to Magic Beach.
    For a boy who loved his hometown as much as I loved Pico Mundo, who valued simplicity and stability and tradition, who treasured the friends with whom he’d grown up there, I had become too much a gypsy.
    The choice wasn’t mine. Events made the choice for me.
    I am learning my way toward something that will make sense of my life, and I learn by going where I have to go, with whatever companions I am graced.
    At least that is what I tell myself. I’m reasonably sure that it’s not just an excuse to avoid college.
    I am not certain of much in this uncertain world, but I know that Boo remains here not because he fears what comes after this life—as some human spirits do—but because, at a critical point in my journey, I will need him. I won’t go so far as to say that he is my guardian, angelic or otherwise, but I’m comforted by his presence.
    Both dogs wagged their tails at the sight of me. Only Raphael’s thumped audibly against the sofa.
    In the past, Boo often accompanied me. But at Roseland, both dogs stayed close to this woman, as if they worried for her safety.
    Raphael was aware of Boo, and Boo sometimes saw things that I did not, which suggested that dogs, because of their innocence, see the full reality of existence to which we have blinded ourselves.
    I sat across the table from Annamaria and tasted the tea, which was sweetened with peach nectar. “Chef Shilshom is a sham.”
    “He’s a fine chef,” she said.
    “He’s a great chef, but he’s not as innocent as he pretends.”
    “No one is,” she said, her smile so subtle and nuanced that Mona Lisa, by comparison, would appear to be guffawing.
    From the moment I encountered Annamaria on a pier in Magic Beach, I had known that she needed a friend and that she was somehow different from other people, not as I am different with my prophetic dreams and spirit-seeing, but different in her own way.
    I knew little about this woman. When I had asked where she was from, she had answered “Far away.” Her tone and her sweetly amused expression suggested that those two words were an understatement.
    On the other hand, she knew a great deal about me. She had known my name before I told it to her. She knew that I see the spirits of the lingering dead, though I have revealed that talent only to a few of my closest friends.
    By now I understood that she was more than merely different. She was an enigma so complex that I would never know her secrets unless she chose to give me the key with which to unlock the truth of her.
    She was eighteen and appeared to be seven months pregnant.Until we joined forces, she had been for a while alone in the world, but she had none of the doubts or worries of other girls in her position.
    Although she had no possessions, she was never in need. She said that people gave her what she required—money, a place to live—though she never asked for anything. I had been witness to the truth of this claim.
    We had come from Magic Beach in a Mercedes on loan from Lawrence Hutchison, who had been a famous film actor fifty years earlier, and who was now a children’s book author at the age of eighty-eight. For a while, I worked for Hutch as cook and companion, before things in Magic Beach got too hot. I had arranged with Hutch to leave the car with his great-nephew, Grover, who was an attorney in Santa Barbara.
    At Grover’s office, in the reception lounge, we encountered Noah Wolflaw, a client of the attorney, as he was departing. Wolflaw was at once drawn to Annamaria, and after a brief chat as perplexing as conversations with her often were, he invited us to Roseland.
    Her powerful appeal was not sexual. She was neither beautiful nor ugly, but neither was she merely plain. Petite but not fragile, with a perfect but pale complexion, she was a compelling presence