The Dream Widow Read Online Free PDF Page B

behind were three levels of choir pews in the same lacquered wood. An upright white piano stood in one corner. The wall beside it held a black sign with uneven white letters and a cross. The sign was labeled, “Raccoon Creek Baptist Church” with a list of services and weekly attendance numbers.
    Jack sat in the back pew and bowed his head. The wood of the seat was hard and slick against the seat of his pants.
    “Are you listening? I know you’re out there. It’s Jack.”
    A cotton ball shaped like a unicorn galloped over his bare toes.
    “I’ve never asked for anything. When you stopped talking to me I gave up. I’m sorry about that. Maybe I thought it was my fault, but I need your help now.”
    Leaves rustled and twigs snapped like a truck smashing through a hedge. The walnut doors at the back of the church burst open and a black Labrador trotted in, tongue lolling and covered in brambles. He shook his coat and green, oval leaves flew everywhere.
    Jack scratched the dog on the head. It rolled on the azure carpet, legs in the air, and Jack laughed in spite of himself.
    A measured female voice curled through his mind.
    See? You just need a friend.
    “Parvati?”
    Don’t use that name. I told you before.
    “I knew you’d be back,” Jack said.
    You don’t believe in God. Why did you make this church?
    “None of your business.”
    Lightning flashed in the windows. Seconds later thunder rolled and rain pattered on the roof. As Jack sat quietly in his pew the sound increased to a roar of white noise.
    What happens when it rains cats and dogs?
    Jack shook his head.
    You can step in a poodle.
    The Labrador stood on his hind legs and Jack shook an outstretched paw.
    “I’m dying,” he said.
    Aren’t we all?
    “I’m not joking. You know what happens when I die. Is there another way to control the base? Some kind of backup?”
    Sure there is. Let’s go.
    The church snapped away, replaced by a dim corridor lit by crimson wall panels. Ahead of Jack a solid pile of fallen stone blocked the way. The black dog scrambled and sniffed at the base of the pile.
    “There’s nothing here.”
    You remember the earthquake?
    “Don’t tell me the control room is buried under that rock.”
    All right. I won’t tell you.
    Jack sighed. “What about the reactor? If we’ve still got power, the operating panel has to be good.”
    Not really, dear.
    The corridor snapped into empty space. Jack gasped and stepped back from a deep circular pit. Near the top, a giant, metallic sphere crackled with lightning. The sky-blue energy sparkled from the sphere and coursed in circles of lighting along the smooth walls of the pit to an infinite, disappearing point. A narrow catwalk above Jack crossed the pit and led to a metal cylinder that supported the sphere.
    “The reactor,” he said.
    No, the discharge chamber. Extra power bleeds into the earth from here, and across the catwalk is the backup control panel for the reactor.
    “I’m glad somebody knows what they’re doing,” said Jack.
    You know more than I do about this room.
    “I must have been kicked in the head recently because I can’t remember any of it.”
    Someday you might.
    Daylight and the white walls of the church appeared. Jack covered his eyes from the light.
    “That’s better,” he said.
    Why did you build a church?
    Jack leaned against the smooth side of a pew. “My father was a preacher. I grew up here.”
    Do you feel safe?
    “I don’t know what I feel,” Jack said, his voice rising. “It’s all fake. This place, my feelings, maybe even these memories. I’m just a half-dead old man living in a fish tank. Maybe some long-dead brainiac stuck this in my head like a screensaver. Maybe it’s really his church, and his father. But it doesn’t matter because this place makes me feel better. That’s it and no more.”
    That’s fine with me.
    Parvati began to sing:
     
    I love to tell the story; more wonderful it seems
    Than all the golden fancies of all our