BooksBarbecue
Back Whisper in the Dark
Chapters (36)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Dedication
  4. PROLOGUE
  5. 1
  6. 2
  7. 3
  8. 4
  9. 5
  10. 6
  11. 7
  12. 8
  13. 9
  14. 10
  15. 11
  16. 12
  17. 13
  18. 14
  19. 15
  20. 16
  21. 17
  22. 18
  23. 19
  24. 20
  25. 21
  26. 22
  27. 23
  28. 24
  29. 25
  30. 26
  31. 27
  32. About the Author
  33. Books by Joseph Bruchac
  34. Credits
  35. Copyright
  36. About the Publisher

“Man,” he said. “I didn’t just see it, I felt it and I smelt it and I darn near drownt in it. I never went through anything like that before.” He pointed back at a tree with a black streak down its side and smoke still rising from its roots where the lightning strike grounded. “That bolt didn’t hit no more than forty feet away from us. First I thought we were dead, then I thought I was deaf.”

Roger lifted his head up toward the sky. “Yahooooo!” he yelled. “You missed us.”

I tugged at his sleeve. “No,” I said. “I’m not talking about the lightning. The window.”

I dragged him back through the garden, where runnels of rain were turning from rivers into small trickling rills, until we stood in front of the old window again.

“In there,” I said. “In the glass.”

Roger peered close. “Just an old room,” he said in a puzzled voice.

I looked at the window myself. This time it didn’t give back any reflection at all. I could see right through its warped glass into the small back room with pictures on the walls, a table, and a few chairs.

I turned to study the brick walkway, trying to pick out the exact spot that I thought I’d seen.

“Right here,” I said to Roger. “I saw this part of the garden reflected in that window like it was a mirror. And there was like a trapdoor here. The brick sidewalk lifted up and something or someone was coming out of it. Am I crazy?”

I started to turn away, but Roger caught hold of my sleeve.

“Maddy, look at that.”

He bent down to look close and gave a low whistle through his teeth. There, sticking out from between two water-washed bricks of the walkway, wedged in so deeply that we could not pull it free, was the broken, upside-down stem of a rose.

14

KNIFE HAND

image

IT ISN’T EASY at times being Indian. I know I’m half white, but it doesn’t make the Indian part of me any less. Plus I look Indian. My skin is dark, my eyes are slanted, and my hair is thick and black. My dad used to say that all I had to do was put on a buckskin dress to look just like a Narragansett girl from the seventeenth century.