his shoulder, so scared he was walleyed with it because their mom
Later, Mom had called them in for supper as if nothing had happened.
George had not thought of that particular 'bad spell' from that day to this. Except now, looking at Gramma, who was sleeping so strangely in her crank-up hospital bed, it occurred to him with dawning horror that it was the next day they had learned that Mrs. Harham, who lived up the road and sometimes visited Gramma, had died in her sleep that night.
Gramma's 'bad spells.'
Spells.
Spilled-out pieces of an unknown puzzle flying together in George's mind, as if by magic.
What was the picture? It was Gramma, of course, Gramma and her
Gramma had been a witch, just like the Wicked Witch in the
'Gramma?' he whispered, and crazily he thought:
No response. He held his cupped hand in front of Gramma's mouth. There was no breeze stirring around inside Gramma. It was dead calm and slack sails and no wake widening behind the keel. Some of his fright began to recede now, and George tried to think. He remembered Uncle Fred showing him how to wet a finger and test the wind, and now he licked his entire palm and held it in front of Gramma's mouth.
Still nothing.
He started for the phone to call Dr. Arlinder, and then stopped. Suppose he called the doctor and she really wasn't dead at all? He'd be in dutch for sure.
He stopped in the doorway, looking doubtfully back at that dangling hand. The sleeve of Gramma's nightie had pulled up, exposing her wrist. But that was no good. Once, after a visit to the doctor when the nurse had pressed her finger to his wrist to take his pulse, George had tried it and hadn't been able to find anything. As far as his own unskilled fingers could tell, he was dead.
Besides, he didn't really want to... well... to
George stood in the entryway, looking from Gramma's still, bedridden form to the phone on the wall beside Dr. Arlinder's number, and back to Gramma again. He would just have to call. He would --
--
Sure! When you breathed on a mirror, it got cloudy. He had seen a doctor check an unconscious person that