Page 105 of A Boy Called Lovesong

He tooted a note on the harmonica and beamed. “Nowthatbe somethin’ special. I think I be changin’ my name to Iggy Harmonica.”

Lovesong let go of Iggy’s shoulders and stood beside me, taking my hand in his. “Tell me what you see. Tell mewhoyou see.”

As the figure in black approached, I shook my head in disbelief. “It can’t be him. He was dead. I saw him. This can’t be him.”

Iggy giggled. “Whoever said the Flim-Flam Man was a ‘he?’”

With that, the young boy started playing his harmonica and shoe-shuffling his way off the road before disappearing into the cotton fields.

Lightning streaked the sky, and for a moment my eyes started playing tricks on me.

Maybe I had a concussion from the accident, or I was hallucinating after the reverend tried to strangle me, but with the next flash of lightning I could have sworn the figure approaching us changed…

I could have sworn, for a split second, it morphed into a creature…

A creature that walked on the hind legs of a goat…

With horns on its head, so long and twisted they could almost hook the low-hanging storm clouds and tear them from the sky, sending a flood across the land, far and wide.

“Noah, please. Tell me what you see.”

There was another flash in the cloud-choked sky and the creature morphed back into the person in the hat.

“Someone’s coming,” I answered.

As the figure drew closer and closer, I saw the weapon in their hand.

It was an old pistol, polished wooden handle, shiny silver barrel.

“Oh God, they’ve got a gun. It’s the gun from your father’s study.” I pulled at Lovesong’s hand, tugging him behind me.

“What are you doing?”

“You can’t see. I’ll protect you. Just stay behind me.”

The dark entity grew nearer.

I gulped down my fear.

The figure was fifty paces away…

Forty…

Thirty.

I flinched as a crack of thunder shuddered the sky.

Then suddenly, at twenty paces, the figure stopped dead.

Slowly the wide-brimmed hat tilted upward.

Slowly I saw the grinning face of the person standing opposite us.

With a gasp I whispered, “You!”

There in her black clothes, dressed in her dead husband’s hat, the reverend’s wife let out a deep, throaty laugh. “Who were you expecting? The Devil?”

Lovesong heard her voice and stepped out from behind me. “Mother? Is that you? What are you doing here?”

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