Spread from THE HEALING SPELL
by Kimberley Griffiths
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A shadow moved behind the door. “Who’re you?”
“I’m Livie- I mean, Olivia Moulaison. My daddy is Jean Baptiste Moulaison. We live up the Bayou Teche, ma’am, near Bayou Bridge.”
“What you got there in your hands?”
“This here is T-baby. He’s my alligator.”
There was a harrumph and then the voice came again. “So’s you some kind of brave little girl?”
My heart jammed up in the throat. “No, ma’am.”
“Now that’s a fib if I ever heard one. Don’t it take a brave little girl to have an alligator as a pet and a pole that pirogue all the way out to see Miz Mirage Allemande? The voice in the shadows chuckled. “I’d say that’s pretty brave. Or plumb crazy.”
My eyes watered and I sniffed, wiping my hand across my nose. Right now I wanted to be home, safe in one of Daddy’s bear hugs. I wanted Mamma to wake up more than anything else I’d ever wanted. Ever. I wanted my old life back- not this horrible, never-ending awfulness of knowing Mamma might never be the same again. I wanted to be a different person, one who would never hurt anybody again.
Then I realized that I was a different person-at least I was on my way there. I guess I couldn’t go backward, no matter how much I wanted to. I could only go forward.
“Well, dontcha think you better come on up here if you want my help?”
From The Healing Spell. Copyright © 2010 by Kimberley Griffiths Little. All rights reserved.
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