Free Harbinger by Jack Skillingstead Page B

was between seven and nine feet tall and they stood close together.
    As Jeepers and I approached, the two nearest trees opened up, or stepped aside. Stepped aside. In the middle of the circle a few people stood conversing quietly with one another. The night was so weirdly still that their whispery voices sounded like a sentient breeze.
    Jeepers trotted right up to the group and they welcomed him. One man bent over and scratched the dog behind the ears, and Jeepers’ tail started wagging.
    The man was my father.
    I stood apart from the group, just within the ring of trees, all of which had begun to sway gently side to side. The two that had parted for us now moved together again, closing the ring. I couldn’t bring myself to look directly at these trees. I was frightened of them. A trunk pushed against me, urging me forward.
    Only my father’s face was distinct. The other people were silent now, their features not quite discernable. Above them the Glinda bubble hovered and pulsed with a ghost light of its own. The light fell upon the people, and I suddenly realized that was why I couldn’t see them properly. The light did not illuminate but somehow obscured them. My father was recognizable because he had leaned out of the cone of light when he reached to scratch Jeepers.
    “Dad—?” I said.
    He smiled at me. It was a smile I’d never seen him wear in life. Easy and broad and loose, a happy and unselfconscious smile with parted teeth.
    “That man lied to you,” he said.
    “What man?”
    “Ulin.”
    Our voices were bell-clear within the circle of trees. My father’s voice seemed to be right inside my head.
    “What did he lie about?” I asked.
    “That whole business with the valve. I would have taken the operation. Heck, I was dying. Of course I would have. But they told me I had to hunt you up first.”
    “You should have told me.”
    He shook his head. “Here’s the deal, Ellis. Things happen the way they’re meant to happen, and that’s that. Everything has a reason and a purpose. That’s what I’m told. Anyway, it’s time for you to get out in the world. Past time. That’s what this whole deal is about. You aren’t supposed to hide out in Blue Heron anymore.”
    The others who remained under the cone of light nodded their heads. Dad sat down on the grass and roughhoused Jeepers a little. Jeepers licked his face and my dad laughed. He would never have let the dog do that in real life. He had loved Jeepers in his own taciturn way but wouldn’t tolerate getting licked at like that. I laughed at the sight, and when I laughed it was a real sound, and I was walking clumsily, like a drunk or a somnambulist, in through the open door of my cottage.
    An hour later I walked back out, leaving the contract on the kitchen table with the fancy Lacrosse pen lying on it, nib aimed at the empty signature line.
    I thought about calling Jillian, waking her up, but knew I wouldn’t have considered it if I hadn’t needed a ride out of town. That was a little too mercenary even for me. Besides, I was no damn good at good-byes.
     
     

chapter five
     
     
    I tried but couldn’t find Nichole. Her father was dead . The wide lady in the purple housecoat who answered the door of Nichole’s former house failed to enlighten me as to her whereabouts. I had left Blue Heron with only the cash on hand, about two hundred dollars. These resources were rapidly being depleted by bus fair and motel rent. There were no Nichole Roberts in any of the state’s phone books available in the King County Public Library main branch. There was, however, one Adriel Roberts with a double listing, residence and business. I flipped to the yellow pages and found her ad. It had to be Nichole’s mother. Fortunes, Tarot Readings, Past Life Regression.
    She had set up shop on 15th Avenue in Seattle’s funkiest community at the time, Capitol Hill. Third Eye Café was tucked between an East Indian restaurant and a counter-cultural cum revolutionary