The Seeker A Novel (R. B. Chesterton) Read Online Free PDF Page A

speak, it could not. Something gagged it. And before I could banish the entity, Henry leapt up from the table and fled into the woods crying his brother’s name.
    I remain shaken to my core. Whatever good I’d intended to do has been overshadowed by a terrible harm. Henry is beside himself with a grief I am helpless to console. And we are being watched. I’m certain of it. Someone comes up to the cabin while we sleep. I’ve found footprints. Small ones, as if a child were spying on us. But there are no children loose in the Walden woods at night. I’ve told no one of this. Henry is too distraught, and others would think me mad. Perhaps it is just a fancy turned into a shade. Before I speak of it to others, I need to discover more.
    How had I missed this? Had my aunt really called up someone, or something, dead? I didn’t doubt that generations of past Cahills had such talents. It was in our blood. It was the curse I’d escaped, thanks to my grandmother. But how had I missed the terror of that passage?
    I pushed the journal aside, poured another glass of wine, and took another sleeping pill. The pills were mild, harmless, and my nerves were too on edge to sleep without assistance. Tomorrow, I would re-read the journal. Sunshine would destroy the dark images, and I would laugh at myself and my foolishness.
    The wine and sleeping pill kicked in, and I snapped off the bedside lamp. The fire flickered merrily, casting moving shadows about the cabin. Snug beneath a pile of quilts, I drifted into sleep.
    Granny Siobhan rocked gently in a chair before the fire. Her body was too thin, almost skeletal. The hands that clutched her shawl reminded me of a dead person. I burrowed deep beneath the covers, but she knew I was awake. She came to the bed and sat beside me. Her sunken eyes were unreadable; for the first time, I was afraid of her.
    “You’ll soon need your gift,” she said. “You did not come to Walden Pond by accident. Your destiny brought you here. Use care, my child. Use care.”
    I woke up struggling against the heavy quilts. I knew I’d been dreaming, but the images were so vivid, so real. I glanced toward the fireplace expecting to see the old rocker my grandmother loved. There was nothing there. No chair, no Granny. Just the fire and the soft pop of a few pearls of moisture.
    I wanted some water and the bathroom, but I was reluctant to put my feet on the floor. A childhood fear—the bogeyman under the bed—kept me rigid beneath the covers. I checked my watch. It was three-thirty-three. At least three hours until daybreak.
    Had Granny really visited me, drifting across the divide of the dead? Or had Bonnie’s journal ignited my overactive imagination? Either answer was plausible.
    As a child I’d seen vapors in the shape of people, but Granny gave them no credence. She had a logical explanation for each incident. She told me reason was the key to happiness, and urged me to focus on my studies and not phantoms. I willingly heeded her cautions. The idea of the dead traipsing around scared me, as it would any sane person. I didn’t wish to have them following me, tapping bony fingers against the glass windowpanes of my bedroom late at night. Their time was done, and I wanted no part of them.

4
    The sun on the snow blinded me. The predicted nor’easter had passed to the north of us, running into Vermont and Maine with downed power lines and impassable roads. I stood at the edge of the woods beside Walden Pond. I’d been drawn there to see the snowfall. My reward was a purity and brilliance that almost knocked the breath from me. Walden Pond seemed caught between the powdery blue of the sky and the snow-coated evergreens. The edges of the water had begun to freeze, a process that would continue until the surface of the lake was solid.
    I caught sight of a spot of color at the edge of the water, so I tramped down to see what it was. Lying atop the snow was a Barbie doll. She wore a ball gown like Cinderella. It