The Messenger of Magnolia Street Read Online Free PDF Page B

validity. At the time, this vow was not contained in words. At the time, he didn’t know one day her dreams would try to rip him from his world.
    â€œAll I know is that you have something to do with this entire picture or I wouldn’t be here in front of you.” Trice crosses her arms over her chest. It’s a habit she has picked up from the two brothers.
    â€œI know all about your dreams, Trice. I don‘t doubt their…” He starts to say reality but he drops the word. Nehemiah rubs his nose, attempts to rub away the smell of remembrance. Now he has a decision before him. Has an unexpected Y in the road. One that he wasn‘t expecting when he rolled out of bed at precisely the sametime he does every day, beginning the exact same morning routine. Which choice will he make, you ask. Which road will he take? Time will tell. It always does.
    Nehemiah wants to say, “You don’t need me.” He wants to say, “You have an entire town, take care of the problem.” The unidentifiable, nebulous, dark-cloud future of a problem. But he doesn’t. He stalls. It only works for a little while, but that may be all he needs. He reaches over and slaps his brother on the shoulder, rocks him a little under his hand. “You look tired, Brother. And Trice,” he looks over the table and cocks his head with his dimpled smile, “you look just the same.” But he’s thinking, Better actually. Even better. How could that be? And then he smiles that grin at her, the one with the dimple. And lo and behold, Trice smiles back. I look to Nehemiah, back to Trice, and back to Nehemiah, whose dimpled grin is still held firmly in place. I write down the words electric and current .
    Trice interrupts his thoughts with “You don’t have anything living here, Nehemiah.” She has put her finger on the absent spot. “No dog, no cat, no bird,” she smiles at him, “not even a fish.”
    â€œMaybe,” the dimple grows deeper, “I have all of them,” he points down the hall, “in the bedroom.”
    â€œNo, you don’t.” Trice points to her chest, “I would feel it. But regardless of what you don’t have, I also know you do have hot water and I’m in desperate need of a hot shower.”
    And these are about the final words of the evening. Billy and Trice deflate into a puddle of road-weary and Nehemiah begins to clean up the dishes. They say goodnight and get settled into proper sleeping arrangements after moving Old Blue to a nontowing location.
    Then Nehemiah goes to bed, turns out the light, and just as he is falling asleep gets a feeling he doesn’t like. A push from the inside out. Not a physical one, but a push just the same. Let’s justsay it is a deposit into his soul. One that he’ll need should he accept the road ahead of him to the right.
    In the following silence, the traffic fades away. The city itself fades away and is replaced with one single solitary image. It is an image of Nehemiah sitting in Old Blue at midnight down at the entrance to the springs. That’s what he sees, just as clear as if he were sitting there in person.
    He gets out of bed, walks down the hall, and nudges Billy, who is already snoring on the sofa. (Trice has rightfully commandeered the extra bedroom by declaring that she “doesn’t care how big or how tired Billy is, that the last time she checked she was a girl and she is getting her privacy.”) “Hey, Billy.” There is a rattle of rhythm. “Billy?”
    â€œWhat—what?” His breathing is almost normal again.
    â€œWhat’s going on at the springs?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI said, what is going on at the springs?”
    â€œSprings ain’t there no more.” Billy rolls over on his side, speaks into the back cushion. “It’s nothing but dust now. The water has left town.”
    Nehemiah nods, although the water drying up