Strange Perceptions Read Online Free PDF Page B

while she was away. She walked the short path to the street, using the umbrella as a cane.
    Eddington Way was a narrow street, stretching half a mile in a lazy loop, almost a spiral, before dead-ending. Retired couples, mostly, lived in small, box-like houses fringed with trees lining the street. Not an affluent neighborhood, but people kept their garden trimmed.
    Esther had never been accosted in her neighborhood, but vigilance was the price for safety. She walked with one hand in her purse, clutching her screecher, a small aerosol can which emitted an ear-splitting shriek when depressed.
    She glanced both ways before hobbling across the street.
    In front of the Chapman house she looked up at the boy, shielding her eyes from the sun with a hand. “What’re you doing Jimmy?”
    He giggled. “You know my name is Billy, Miss Esther. Now I’m the Crimson Protector.”
    “Okay dear. You must come down.”
    “I can’t. I’m protecting you. I have to save you from the bad thing.”
    “That’s nice dear. Can’t you save me from down here?”
    Billy pointed to the ground with his sword, a plastic toy sword. “If I was down there you wouldn’t have come.” He giggled again.
    “It’s not safe on the roof. How’d you get up there?”
    “I ran up the wall. I’m faster than gravity now.”
    “Where’s your mother at?”
    Lower lip growing fat, he looked ready to cry. Without another word he turned and walked over the roof’s peak. Out of sight on the back of the house.
    Esther went around the Chapman house, through the gate into their back garden. Billy wasn’t on the roof. She walked back and forth, examining the roof from all angles. Billy had disappeared.
    “Mrs. Horace? What are you doing?” Janet Chapman stood outside the door on her back patio. Her red eyes and blotchy face told Esther she had been crying.
    “It’s Miss Horace, dear. Never married.”
    “ Miss Horace, what on earth are you doing back here?”
    “Sorry. I tried ringing you. I saw Billy on your roof. Didn’t seem safe.”
    Janet gasped. Her hand flew to her face and covered her mouth.
    In the distance a siren wailed, an alternating low-high tone.
    Janet’s expression changed from horror to anger. “Having a laugh? Well, it’s not a bit funny. You’re sick Miss Horace. Sick.”
    “I was looking through my kitchen window—”
    “William died in hospital last night. Get off my property. I never want to see you again.” Janet Chapman went back inside, slamming the door behind her.
    Esther stared at the closed door. What had happened? Billy hadn’t look dead. Nor had he looked like a ghost. Was she mental? If you worried about your sanity it meant you were okay, didn’t it? But if you knew you only needed to worry about your sanity to be sane, then you could still be crazy but smart enough to worry about it. Which meant worrying about your mental state wasn’t an indicator of your mental state.
    The siren’s wail interrupted Esther’s thoughts. Closer now. She walked around the house, back through the gate, to the front. Across the street, out her open kitchen window, white smoke billowed.
    Esther felt nothing but a numb acceptance. She hadn’t turned off the electric heater. Sad, yet funny … almost.
    She stood at the curb, watching flames engulf her kitchen window curtains. A fire truck pulled in front of her house, blocking her view. Esther sat down on the curb. She’d have a bloody hard time getting back up. No matter. One of the nice men from Fire Services could help her.
    She removed the small, framed photograph of George from her purse and touched his cheek with her fingers.
    “Looks like the boy really did save me, George.”

Wizard Lottery
    I had never seen so many people around the castle. Street merchants were selling everything from multicolored fabrics to jewelry and other trinkets, from eggs to lamb-cuts, from farm tools to pots and pans. They filled the streets outside the castle with their tables and tents,