Six Feet Over It Read Online Free PDF

over the Manderleys this morning, a few soda-can bongs, and a smashed pumpkin beside the pond. All in all Wade was thrilled by the narrow extent of the vandalism.
    “We stayed in,” I say into my cider cup. “Watched movies.”
    She nods. “Us too. We watched The Shining  … well, I listened to it. I was at the door handing out candy. I hate scary movies, but it was on so loud I heard the typing and redrum and all that. I thought I’d be okay not actually seeing, but it may have been worse. I had horrible dreams all night.”
    The back door sends the brass bells swinging for a tall, black-haired boy—an older, male version of Elanor, probably the potter, who calls over Enya, “Where are they?”
    Elanor smiles brightly. “Dad says, ‘Get out back and finish training the pumpkin vine before it dies or you’re in so much trouble I don’t even know what.’ ”
    “Elanor, I swear to—”
    “Balin, this is Leigh. Her parents bought Sierrawood.”
    Balin the Potter pushes his hair away from startlingly blue eyes and reaches to shake my hand. “Lucky you.” He climbs over baskets of flowers to search the counter. “Give them back. I don’t want you touching them; I need them right now!”
    “Oh, need !” Elanor rolls her eyes. She pulls a velvet pouch from a metal cash box, tosses it to him and misses. A clatter of tiny things rolls across the stone floor. Balin is horrified.
    “Every single one back in this bag or you’re dead!” He holds the pouch open and Elanor crawls good-naturedly to scoop the things from beneath planters and tables and baskets of bulbs.
    “Sorry,” she says sincerely. “I didn’t mean to huck your toys so hard.”
    “They’re not toys. ”
    “Oh, really? Dice—for a game ?”
    “It is not a game. It’s—”
    She stands to smooth her apron, picks up her cup, takes a long draw.
    Balin glowers, clutches his bag of dice, and storms back out into the trees. The brass bells remain stubbornly cheerful.
    “Sorry,” Elanor says. “I’ve sort of got this—I’m compelled to wind him up and I know I shouldn’t but it’s just so easy. ” She refills my cup. “He’s two years older than me but you wouldn’t know it, right? Stupid dice. My dad’s a Dungeon Master so it means a lot to them.”
    “He’s a master?”
    “Dungeons and Dragons.”
    I shake my head.
    “It is so awful. Really, you don’t … ? It’s like a game. Is a game—ten-sided dice, lots of note-taking … seriously, you’ve never seen this? You are so lucky. We homeschool and most of the other homeschool kids around here are Christian and their parents think it’s evil so it’s hard to find people to join their thing … dungeon, coven, whatever. The Master made me play till I got old enough to refuse … Oh God, sorry—you’re not Christian, are you?”
    Homeschool. Morning deliveries. Pottery. Sewing … she probably makes those aprons.
    “No,” I say. “Not anything.”
    “Oh, thank goodness … I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with … I kind of figured, even though your dad’s got his thing with the angels, but the way he talks about them, and then look who’s selling them to him in the first place, talk about glass houses … Still, I shouldn’t—sorry. I need to think. My mom tells me that all the time, I need to think first.”
    I nod.
    “My parents don’t want us going to the Christian kids’ houses to play anyway. Bad influence, they think we’ll come home lacking any kind of cohesive logic skills or you know, become born again. Which is pretty judgey if you ask me, but … so mostly I’m just here with the Dungeon Dragons. And working. Lots of weddings. Landscaping. Funerals.”
    At least Elanor’s voice is nothing like Emily’s. Elanor’s has this sort of lilt, and she’s got swimmer’s lungs. Her words pile into one another without stopping for breath.
    Emily would love her. Which makes me feel even guiltier for wanting to, too, like I’m trying