Farthest House Read Online Free Page B

she gave him a stern look. “I like saying Ebraska.”
    He glanced down at her, slowing the car and turning up the long drive of Farthest House. “Sure you do.”
    The tires hummed on the brick. Huge oaks, grown even larger in our six years away, still lined the sides of the drive, the branches lacing overhead like giant threaded fingers.
    Willow watched the limbs and the magical spray of sunlight poking down through them. “I’ve never been here,” she said.
    “You were born here.” Julian ground the tip of another cigarette into the ashtray, gripped the steering wheel with both hands, and tried to put the memory of that night out of his mind. “You’ll be all right. I’ll be back for you tomorrow.”
    “You have to stay, too. I don’t want to stay alone.”
    He couldn’t answer.
    She pulled Doll to her chin, and her eyes filled. “I don’t want to stay.”
    Again, he didn’t answer, only stopped the car at the top of the drive, stepped out, and waited for her to slide under the steering wheel and exit using his door. The sight of the four wide stairs leading up to a massive porch, and his plan to leave her, made her scoot back across the seat away from him.
    Farthest House seemed looming even to Julian, and he ached to please Willow by getting back in the car and driving them straight home to Omaha, but they’d come this far. His mother waited, and he’d promised her. He did want to see her, and he was uneasy about the cold distance he’d kept all these years. Phone conversations, an occasional short visit from Tory or her, it hadn’t been enough. He’d only avoided facing the place where Jeannie died; she was still dead. But her bleeding out, the blood running no different than it did from a thug dying in the street, made no sense. If he just understood, but what? What did he need to see that he wasn’t seeing?
    “It’ll be all right,” he said, the words as much for himself as Willow. She needed women, some feminine influence. He’d drop her off, and when he returned tomorrow, he’d step inside the house and spend an hour or two.
    She saw his patient face, his tired face, his sad face, and even his wanting-away face all at once. “How come you don’t want to stay?”
    He took her bag from the back and bent down to look in at her. “Suit yourself, but I’m going up there.” He turned as if to leave.
    Despite her fear of being abandoned at the strange house, the safest place in the world was at his side, and though she knew she was doing exactly what he wanted, she didn’t want to be left alone. Using her heels to help pull herself, she worked back across the seat, hurrying to where she didn’t want to go. “I’m not staying, and anyway, how come you don’t want to stay?”
    Following him, she’d taken only a few steps before she stopped and stared at the house. She counted up the three rows of windows, a house as tall as her school, Our Lady of Supplication, and on that third floor was a small porch tree-top high. At the other end of the house, a wide glass turret like the turrets of picture-book castles rose from the ground to the roof. The sun broke partially through clouds, and the glass reflected a brilliant splash of light, sky, and shadow. In the moving reflection, Willow saw a silver and blue dragon climbing the turret.

6

    Willow clutched Doll in her left hand, keeping her right tucked up and out of sight. Following Julian up the front steps, she moved as slowly as she dared. White wicker tables sat in shady corners on the porch and held pots of bushy red geraniums with green asparagus ferns spilling over the sides. Six wooden rockers, each painted a different bright color, sat lined in a row. They looked empty but quivered like breath, just enough to make her unsure. She hurried and caught Papa’s hand. She still didn’t want him to leave, but the house, even with the not-for-sure-empty rocking chairs and the glass dragon, felt good.
    Julian reached for the bell and