Whisper Down the Lane, Clay Chapman [best short books to read txt] 📗

Before Sean could answer, Mom shot back up to her feet, dragging him down the sidewalk.

“Ow,” Sean cried. “You’re hurting me…”

“That’s it. No more staying at Miss Betty’s. I don’t want you going over there after school anymore. You understand me?”

Miss Betty had read to him that afternoon instead of letting him watch TV. The book had a leather cover and the onionskin pages were very thin. Not like a regular book. Miss Betty had flipped through until she found the appropriate passage, underlined in blue ballpoint pen.

“Thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.”

These words were completely lost on Sean, save for eat things. He could understand that. Sort of. But what did eat things sacrificed unto idols mean? What was Miss Betty saying?

“I want you to pray with me,” Miss Betty had said. “It’s not too late, son.” She had squeezed his hands tightly between her own and wouldn’t let go.

His mother’s hands gripped him even more tightly. Everybody was pulling him around.

Tugging.

Yanking.

He felt like a puppet. Like Raggedy Andy getting dragged everywhere. Sean felt the tug in his shoulder as his mother pulled harder. His arm was about to pop by the time they reached their house.

Once they were inside, Mom tossed her keys onto the counter. She helped Sean out of his puffy coat, dropping it to the floor along with his backpack. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I…I just got angry. I had a long day and the last thing I need is a goddamn bible lesson from Miss Betty.”

It sure didn’t sound like an apology. Not a real one. Not to Sean.

“Hey,” she said. “What’s up, mister?”

Sean said nothing. He was mad. He was hurt.

Mom kneeled in front of him, searching his face. “Hey…”

One eyebrow arched upward, almost in an I got you now kind of way.

Sean resisted.

“Hey…”

His frustration was ebbing but he tried hard to hold on to it. He wanted to stay angry. It was unfair of her to do this. He liked Miss Betty. Or her TV, at least.

Before Sean could shrug away, Mom brought him into her arms and whinnied like a pony, making him giggle. She pressed him against her until he felt her heartbeat through his own chest. “Just you and me,” she whispered into the top of his head, the warmth of her breath seeping into his hair. “We can do anything, as long as we stick together. Okay? You and me.”

“You and me,” he echoed.

If he said it enough times in his head, you and me, it almost sounded like he believed it.

You and me.

You and me.

DAMNED IF YOU DON’T

 RICHARD: 2013

Danvers is a renovated relic. I call it a refurbished town. Nobody wanted to live here for years. This unincorporated community had gone to seed ages ago. You couldn’t find it on a map, even if you were looking for it. The straightest shot was to cross the truss bridge that spanned the Rappahannock River, serving as a crossing for State Route 3. Once you were over the bridge, you still had about fifteen miles to go before spotting the first hints of habitation.

Quiet doesn’t even begin to describe it. Sleepy is a bit closer. Coma is more like it. Boarded-up storefronts blighted the main drag for decades. Amazon killed all the mom-and-pop shops. A cancer of foreclosures spread through, most homes dying a slow death of debt. If anyone tried to sell their house, it never helped that two or three homes on the block were sealed up with plywood sheets.

Then the antiquers came. The domestic treasure hunters dusted off the cobwebs, polishing this parish right on up until it sparkled again—for twice the listed price.

What most likely happened is this: Some young professional couple from D.C. took a wrong turn too many, pulling into Danvers for a pit stop after their cell service faded and the little blue dot on their Google Maps veered way off course. Then they spotted the local secondhand shop. Probably bought themselves a pre-Victorian dresser for a steal. Now that they were here, taking in the quaintness of their surroundings, well…Why not putter along the main drag and see what else we might find? Sniffing through town, this couple caught wind of the empty four-square colonials going to waste just down the road. Can you believe this? Look at these gorgeous homes! They’re stunning! They just had to bring their contractor down. A few new floorboards, a fresh coat of paint, and these homes would be good as new. Better than new.

Reborn.

This couple went ahead and probably whispered to their friends back in Georgetown how they uncovered buried treasure—An honest-to-God real estate gold mine!—less than two hours from the Beltway. Those friends probably went ahead and bought the shuttered colonial next door. Then their friends plucked up the next. Next thing you know, a pilgrimage of newlyweds seeking to escape city living swooped in, ready to raise a family with a sprawling backyard all their own.

More than 164 properties had been listed online during Danvers’s decline and nobody noticed. Dozens of foreclosed homes were just wasting away. Empty manses sinking into disrepair.

And then, just like that—Sold!—all gone. Not a single house left. Scooped up in a realtor feeding frenzy. How long before a coffee shop opened in one of those shuttered storefronts? What about an organic grocer taking over the former Piggly Wiggly? A microbrewery?

The lifers, the elder set who had always called Danvers home, whose roots were tethered to this soil for generations, watched their town undergo a transformation before their eyes. What could they do but simply sit back as the young mothers jogged by with their aerodynamic strollers, a travel mug of ethically sourced fair-trade coffee tucked into a cupholder. This was no longer their town. Not with the flood of new blood rushing in. Danvers