The Key to the Indian Read Online Free PDF Page A

Mum felt she had to drive her to Clapham instead of letting her go by herself on the bus. Mum said she felt guilty about not taking her gran more often but you know, if you don’t even remember the dead person, it’s hard to visit the graveyard regularly.
    “Anyway, they got there, and bought some flowers at the gates, and the old lady filled a plastic bottle with water from a tap. Mum carried the things and held her gran’s arm, and they walked to the grave. And then Mum gave the flowers to her gran, who knelt down by the grave. She was – you know – taking out last week’s flowers and arranging the new ones in the vase with the fresh water, and suddenly Mum saw someone standing beside her.”
    Omri sat rigid. He felt as if ice-water were trickling down his spine. He could see it in his mind’s eye. He saw the whole scene as if it were being enacted in front of him. He even saw who his mum had seen , before his father went on:
    “She could see her clearly. A woman in an old-fashioned long dress with her hair piled up on her head. There was a strong breeze blowing, but the woman’s hair didn’t stir. She was looking straight at Mum.”
    Omri wanted to ask his dad to go on, but he felt frozen, frozen in the scene. He hardly needed to ask. He saw .
    The woman was Jessica Charlotte.
    She took a step forward, nearer to the grave, looking all the time at the young girl standing on the other side of it. She put her hand – wearing a long black glove – on the shoulderof the bent old woman, busy with the flowers, who didn’t seem notice. She patted her gently. She smiled a sad, sad smile at the young girl who was going to be Omri’s mother. And she nodded tenderly down at the old lady, as if to say, “See how old she is. You must take care of her now.” Maybe she even did say it. And then suddenly she wasn’t there any more.
    Omri’s father was talking. He was describing the scene just as Omri saw it in his head. Which came first – what Omri saw, or what his dad said?
    When his dad finished, there was a silence, and then Omri said in a choked voice, “Mum must have felt awful.”
    “About seeing the ghost?”
    “No! About all the times she hadn’t taken her gran to the cemetery. About the ghost needing to come and – and remind her to take care of Maria.”
    “Do you think the ghost – was Jessica Charlotte?”
    “Of course it was,” said Omri simply.
    “You sound sure.”
    “I am.”
    “Omri – how can you know that?”
    “Well it’s not because I’m magic. It’s just – I’ve got a very good imagination, and sometimes it just tells me things.”
    His father looked at him, and Omri heard what he had just said, heard it as his father must have, as proof that Omri had a bit of Jessica Charlotte’s gift.
    They talked it all over very carefully before anyone else in the house woke up. The sun was well clear of ‘Peacock Hill’ andstreaming into the room before they first heard the others beginning to stir, and had to stop.
    Omri, though of course he wanted to see Jessica Charlotte again, and thought it very probable that she would have the ability to make them another magic key, one that would work in the car, was very doubtful just the same about his dad’s plan.
    There was nothing in the Account about her making a second time-journey. The first one – when she visited Omri and Patrick and sang them a music-hall song – was hinted at in her diary, but nothing after that. Surely if she had been brought a second time, and asked to make another key, she would have remembered it, especially so close after the first time.
    Omri’s father was very interested in the time question. “Does it work the same at both ends?”
    “Yes.”
    “That’s to say, if a week has passed here, a week has passed for the people in the past?”
    “That’s right. I know because when Little Bull came this last time, his baby was about a year old, and it was a year here since he was born. Anyway, I knew it