Sheila Connolly - Relatively Dead 02 - Seeing the Dead Read Online Free PDF Page A

their fear, their uncertainty. The men were so not ready for what Abby knew was to come, yet here they’d made their stand.
    She shut her eyes, concentrating on sounds. On one level, modern cars whizzed by on the modern paved road only a couple of hundred feet away. On another level, she could hear the clink of metal on metal, the whinny of a horse some distance away, the low rumble of male voices. Was she experiencing what her forbears had seen and heard? How else could she explain it? An overactive imagination? Any time in the past century, if she’d told what she was seeing and hearing, well-meaning doctors would have dosed her with something to shut off the voices in her head. Now she knew better than to tell anyone—well, except Ned.
    She opened her eyes again, and he was standing in front of her, looking worried. “Abby? What’s going on?”
    “You don’t see them? Hear them? Feel them?” she whispered.
    “You do?” he countered. She could only nod.
    “Let’s sit down. Unless you’d rather get away from here?”
    “Let’s sit, please. I’ve told you, they don’t frighten me—they don’t even know I exist, which I guess in their world I don’t. Didn’t. You know what I mean. I feel some of what they feel, but it doesn’t work the other way. What’s scary is that it’s happening at all. I should have guessed that somebody up my line, or lines, would have showed up here, but I wasn’t ready for it.”
    They’d reached a sturdy bench and sat down, facing the bridge. A few people came and went, strolling around, admiring the view, snapping pictures, and ignoring Abby and Ned, except to smile politely if they passed too near.
    “You don’t have anyone here?”
    Ned shook his head. “You know our family house—it’s on the other side of Concord. I’d have better luck picking up some memories over there, I think—my ancestors were probably harassing the retreating troops.”
    “But when you were growing up, you never sensed anyone there?”
    “Not that I recall. But I didn’t want to acknowledge that anything weird was going on. I wanted to be an ordinary kid. Well, as ordinary as a brainiac can be in school.”
    “You’re saying it’s a good thing I didn’t find out about this, uh, ability until I was an adult?”
    “In a way. And then you found me to walk you through it.”
    “What am I supposed to do with this?” Abby said softly, almost to herself.
    But Ned heard her. “That’s up to you. You can choose to ignore it. You can move to Arizona, or some state where you’re sure you’ve never had a family member, so it won’t happen again. You can drink too much or take drugs and hope that makes it go away.” He stopped.
    Abby turned to face him. “Is that what you want me to do? Make it go away?”
    Ned shrugged. “Up to you.”
    “No!” Abby snapped. “Maybe that’s what you chose to do, but you didn’t know what was happening, and didn’t want to know. I can’t just ignore this. Maybe it’s a brain tumor and it’s going to get worse. Maybe I’m going to open a psychic shop in Concord and spout mumbo jumbo to tourists. But I can’t pretend it’s not happening.” She studied him for a moment. “Why have you been so afraid of it?”
    He thought for a moment before answering, although Abby had to believe he’d considered this all before. “Because I don’t understand it? Or I can’t control it? I’m a scientist, after all.”
    “And scientists explore these things, they don’t shut their eyes to them. Don’t you want to know why this is happening, to us, to you?” Abby was working up a good head of steam. No way was she going to let him sit on the sidelines when he knew better than anyone what she was going through.
    He looked down at his feet. “Abby, until now I thought I was the only one. I thought I was crazy.”
    “What about your mother?” Abby shot back. “She’s got some of it too. I felt that when I met her at Thanksgiving.”
    “Our culture