Free Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 02 by Mischief In Maggody

pretty for anything terrible to happen to you." He put the sacks on the counter and joined her at the dinette table, hoping he could figure out how to stop her from bursting into tears right in the middle of the breakfast room. "Maybe I ought to look at the sand, do you think?"
    "Can you interpret Mesopotamian sand?"
    "Has Celeste given you a sand reading before?" When she shook her head, Mason produced a confident smile. "Of course I can interpret sand, honey. Is this your handprint? Look at this ridge right here by the edge of the bowl. You see what I'm pointing at? Well, that is the ridge of longevity, and yours is exceptionally high. That means you'll live to be as old as the hills, if not a sight longer."
    "Well, that's good to know. What about me and Bo?"
    "Look there -- you can almost see the letters of his name right there on the ridge of matrimony. See where the grains kind of swoop in and out? That's the 'B' for Bo. This indentation is the '0.' "
    "I do believe I see what you're pointing to," Carol Alice said, feeling a tad brighter. "You do a better reading than Madam Celeste, Mr. Dickerson. Does it show how many kids we'll have?"
    "Two of each, and all four of them the cutest things you've ever seen," Mason said, feeling a tad brighter himself, now that the girl was smiling. "Let's study the ridge of residence. Yep, you're going to live in a big house with ceramic-tiled bathrooms and televisions in all the bedrooms. And the kitchen -- well, the kitchen is straight off the pages of Better Homes and Gardens."
    "Do I get to have a microwave?"
    Mason assured her that she'd have not only a microwave (programmable, and with a browning unit), but also all sorts of luxurious things. He found the automotive ridge, which showed decisively she'd be driving a sleek red Camaro convertible before the first boy (Bo junior, naturally) was in kindergarten. The ridge of financial expectations was high enough to provoke all sorts of squeals and hand clapping. They were having so much fun that both of them jumped like toad-frogs when a shadow fell across the Tupperware bowl.
    "Get out of here," Madam Celeste said to Carol Alice. She then looked down at Mason, who was wishing he was on the ridge of elsewhere with a capital "E."
    "Mason, come to my study. I must talk to you."
    Carol Alice fled. Mason toyed with putting away the groceries first, but abandoned the idea and went to the study.
    "I realize I was spouting nonsense, but I was just trying to cheer up the little girl," he said, scuffling his feet as though he were back in the principal's office for a spitball. misdemeanor.
    "Forget her; she is a foolish thing with equally foolish problems. Something happened while I was in the middle of the reading, something for which I was not prepared. I was concentrating very hard on attuning myself to the cosmic vibrations. Suddenly a picture flashed across my brain. It was a face, Mason. The eyes were open and unblinking. The skin was red with speckled blood. Flies were dancing on the lips and nostrils. It was very, very dreadful, this face I saw. There had been pain -- and I could almost feel it myself. I wanted to weep, to cry out, to scratch and fight, to lose myself in blackness. Oh, God, Mason; it was so awful."
    "Not that sweet little thing who was in the kitchen?" Mason said, shocked by her intensity.
    "I do not know." Madam Celeste covered her face with her hands, and her voice was muffled as she again said, "I do not know."
     
    "Why don't you lie down until the nausea passes?" Rainbow said with a motherly smile. "I'll bring you a nice cup of peppermint tea."
    "Because she's supposed to be behind the cash register," Nate said from the doorway. His dark eyes glowered from under the shaggy curtain of black hair, and his mouth was twisted with frustration. Pushing back the hair with a brusque movement, he added, "We went over the schedule for the goddamn fiftieth time last night, and everybody agreed. You keep treating her like she