Read Online A Skeleton in the Family by Leigh Perry - Free Book Online Page A

older.”
    â€œEven if I’m not.”
    â€œSo, who was she?”
    Sid shrugged with a careless clatter. “I don’t know. It’s just that when I saw her, I felt . . . something.”
    â€œHappiness? Sadness? Love? Hate?”
    â€œFear.”
    â€œYou were afraid of her?”
    â€œNot exactly, but seeing her made me afraid. Like a flashback. You remember that time you slammed your finger in the car door and had to go to the emergency room? For months afterward, you flinched every time somebody shut a car door.”
    â€œI still do.”
    â€œWell, it was like that. Seeing her reminded me of being scared.”
    â€œBut you don’t know why?”
    He shook his head, his skull rattling alarmingly. “How can I be afraid of something I don’t remember? There was something else. I felt guilty, too, as if I’d done something I shouldn’t have or hadn’t done something I should have. What if I did something bad when I was alive, Georgia?”
    â€œThe statute of limitations has run out for anything you could have done,” I said, trying to make a joke and failing miserably. The fact was, we really didn’t know who Sid had been before he was Sid.
    It wasn’t as though my family hadn’t wondered who he was or where he’d come from, but he’d never been able to remember anything about his past. He knew how to walk, talk, and read, and his knowledge of current events and popular culture was no more than a year or so out of date, but that was it. Though Phil had quizzed him about the experiences of death and his bony rebirth, his earliest memory was the first moment he saw me.
    Mom and Phil had spent quite a lot of time theorizing about his origins, deciding that he was either a ghost haunting his own skeleton, a vegetarian zombie, a government project gone very wrong, or the most amazing shared delusion ever. None of the explanations stood up to scrutiny, of course, but I hadn’t really cared where Sid came from and Sid didn’t seem to, either. Sid was just . . . Sid. As I told my parents, I could always count on him, even if I couldn’t account for him.
    And right now he was upset and in danger of falling apart. Unlike most people, when he fell apart, he really fell apart.
    â€œTell me about this woman,” I said while there were still enough pieces hanging together for us to carry on a conversation. “What did she look like?”
    â€œTall. Older—like in her sixties. Jeans and a down jacket. Outdoorsy looking.”
    â€œDid you talk to her?”
    â€œNo!”
    â€œCould you read her name tag?”
    â€œShe wasn’t wearing one.”
    â€œReally?” Security at the con had been kind of tight—I was surprised they’d let anybody into the building without a tag.
    â€œI don’t think she was attending the con. She was looking around like she was confused, not turning her nose up or anything, but she clearly just didn’t get it.”
    â€œThen what?”
    â€œThat’s it. She walked through the main hallway looking around, and I saw her meet some young guy and they left. And before you ask, I didn’t recognize the guy and he didn’t have a name tag, either.”
    â€œThat’s it?”
    â€œThat’s it.”
    â€œAnd that’s why you didn’t want to go back to the con Sunday.”
    â€œYeah. I was afraid I’d see her again.” He paused, drumming his fingers noisily. “Now I don’t know what to do.”
    â€œYou don’t have to do anything,” I pointed out. “As long as you stay away from campus, you’ll probably never see her again.”
    â€œMaybe, but now I know she’s out there. I’ve kind of got memories.” He shook his head. “Not exactly memories, but a feeling. It’s like there’s another person inside me, and I don’t know who that person is. I don’t