Into the Mist: Silver Hand

INTO THE MIST

SILVER HAND

By

Steve Finegan

Illustration by Steven Jurney

www.stevefinegan.com

For Jeanne

For John

For Mom

INTO THE MIST

SILVER HAND

Smashwords Edition

Published by Corvus Media, LLC

Copyright © 2012 by Steve Finegan

Cover design by Rodney Renbarger

Ebook formatted by Steven Jurney

Contact: stevef@easystreet.net

All rights reserved. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be resold or given away. No part of this ebook may be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form without prior written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Release Date: January 2012

ISBN: 978-0-9849914-0-2

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Dr. Philip G. Miller, M.D., who inspired me to write a fantasy story about a boy with temporal lobe epilepsy, for his guidance, support, research, and consultation in the writing of this novel. I also want to thank my editor, Emily Adrian, for her patience and skill in shaping a rough draft into a finished novel. Additional thanks go to Rodney Renbarger for the cover design, Steven Jurney for the interior design and much more, Linda Woods for proofreading, and Ron Tatum for helping me to better understand and appreciate the language, mythology, and folklore of Wales and other Celtic lands. There are many others who contributed their time, energy, and support, most prominently Carol Crawford, Marc Mohan, Joe Segel, Vaughn Myers, Austin Bergquist, Richard Sales, Amy Meabe, Alex Wirsching, Bryan Denson, and my wife Jeanne and son John. Thank you.

Prologue

The cramped little room in which Morgan Brynmor lay dying was dim and drafty and smelled of the old. Jesse Yvonne sat in a rough wooden chair beside the low bed and peered down at the ruin of Morgan’s face. Her sunken lips hadn’t stopped mumbling musical, incomprehensible Welsh for hours. Otherwise, her hollow eyes were closed, and her bird-claw fingers plucked at the rough coverlet as if picking lint.

Jesse sighed. He’d been sharing this deathwatch with his wife Addie for two days now. Addie had even tried to get the old woman to take a little broth, but it only ran out the corners of her mouth. She wouldn’t last long.

Jesse sat back, pulling out the silver pocket watch the old woman had given him, and checked the time. The piece had been one of her deceased husband’s favorite possessions. Jesse’d had no cause to love the miserly, eccentric Aedan Brynmor: an Ebenezer Scrooge with a knack for gadgets. Take this watch. When he’d lived, Aedan was always tinkering with it, staring for hours into its open guts, at the tiny gears and flywheels working. Once, he told Jesse that tinkering this way made him feel like God. Then he crossed himself, for Aedan was God-fearing.

Suddenly Jesse sat up straight and looked at the wizened little figure in the bed. What? he said, putting the watch away. Mrs. Brynmor, did you say something?

Strange how much like a bird she looked, her sparse feathery hair and those huge dark eyes staring at him. Still bright. He shivered. They called her a witch. The Brynmor Witch. He could see why. She’d spent many of her days talking to crows and planting oaks all over her place. Her mouth moved and she seemed to be breathing words. He seized on a glass of water, but she shook her head.

Remember . . . your promise, she gasped.

Jesse nodded and spoke loudly, as if she were already gone beyond the range of his voice. I won’t forget.

Good. She took a moment to catch her breath, and a shadow seemed to dim her eyes. I forgive poor Aedan, she said at last. He has fallen. Foolish foolish man.

Forgive him? These words surprised Jesse. Aedan had been dead for years. But maybe her mind had merely wandered into the past, into the day of Aedan’s accident.

My cross? she said, abruptly changing the subject.

Jesse patted the mottled hand now clutching his sleeve. The stone carver is nearly finished. It is as you want it, I think.

I’ll rest beside Aedan. Curse all who disturb our place of sleep, mumbled the dying woman. Then, as if to a hovering specter, she cried, Oh, Aedan, why? Tears brimmed in her eyes and she fought for breath. A moment later she cried out again, The well! as one might call out for a lost loved one.

It’s covered. . . . I did all just as you asked, said Jesse, squeezing her frail hand. She seemed to be slipping. He wondered if her mind had left her again, the way it had in the years immediately following Aedan’s untimely death.

She lay there panting shallowly for a moment, then, with an effort, said, Childless I am. Daughterless. The last of my line. Aedan disapproved, you see. A tear rolled from the corner of her eye. But like a son you have been to me. Everything it is I pass on to you and yours. So it is written in my will. And now she looked at him with glistening eyes clear of any past madness. Everything!

Thank you, Morgan, dear, said Jesse, bowing his head.

Then the old woman breathed out a long, chest-rattling sigh that seemed to rise up and hover in the room, before a whiff of air in the drafty old house blew it away.

Chapter 1

Gabe sat with his dog-eared sketchpad open across his knees, wielding his stub of a graphite pencil like a pint-size magic wand, conjuring up the latest adventures of his one-day-to-be-published (or so his dad always told him with a grin) graphic novel hero, Lord Corvus.

Gabe was four panels into Corvus’ latest adventure when he finally stopped to wiggle his stiff fingers and check his progress. He wasn’t happy. He just couldn’t stay in the flow today. Worse, he was aware of everything: the cramped new room, the scratchy bare mattress under his butt, the unvarnished back of his empty dresser, and the stacked white moving cartons waiting to be unpacked. The house itself bugged him: it was old and creaky. All the houses that backed up to Brynmor Park looked a hundred years old.

He checked his work with a critical eye, panel by panel . . .

• • •

The brooding raven-haired hero Lord Corvus leans against a narrow wooden door, gripping his sword. The door is set in a tall hedge in the middle of a forest.

On the other side, two evil-looking poachers in sweat-stained khakis, toting AK-47s, stand before the door, scratching their heads in amazement. In the background loom piles of horn and ivory and stacks of stiff zebra hides.

Lord Corvus’ eyes are black and piercing.

Set in a box beneath the drawing, carefully written in a flowing antique script, are the words: I am Corvus. Master of the wild places and of the birds and beasts that dwell therein. I have watched my domains steadily shrink, all because of humanity’s insatiable greed and staggering arrogance. Tirelessly, I have pitted my will against them and failed. Now I am angry. These crimes must be stopped. Avenged. Starting here. Starting now.

• • •

Heaving a dissatisfied sigh, Gabe raised his pencil to begin the next panel . . .

And froze.

He sniffed the air. A moment before, his new room had smelled musty. Now it smelled like the inside of an apple barrel, and he heard a high-pitched ringing, too, as if someone were in his room running a wet finger round and round a crystal wine glass.

Gabe sat up straight. Uh-oh! He hadn’t seen this coming. He almost never did.

He looked up bleary-eyed to find himself occupying two worlds at once: a real world of plain white walls with windows looking out on a quiet, safe neighborhood, and a larger-than-life shadow world with enemies lurking behind every corner. The cidery apple smell and the ringing faded as his eyes focused on the narrow closet door on the other side of the room—the model for the door in his drawing.

Creak!

Gabe tried to ignore the sound and return to his work, but he couldn’t shake the skin-prickling feeling that someone, or something, was behind that door.

Creak!

There it was again.

The hair on his neck bristling, Gabe dropped his pad and pencil and rolled off the mattress onto his feet. Fighting his instinct to run from the room, he edged up to the closet door and pressed his ear against it. Silence. He tried the brass knob. The door was locked. He knelt and peered through the skeleton keyhole. Something, a shadow, moved on the other side, a dangerous, menacing presence. He stepped back, feeling a seizing in his chest. A plastic sword jutted from a box. He snatched it up and glanced around. A barricade! He needed to build a barricade.

Slipping the sword through a belt loop in his jeans, he took hold of his empty dresser and pulled it, screeching on the bare wood floor, and slammed it sideways against the closet door with a loud bang. Then, sensing that whoever or whatever was on the other side would burst through any second, he fumbled the overloaded moving cartons up onto the dresser. Each box landed with a heavy, window-rattling thud. Once every box in the room was stacked helter-skelter on top of the dresser, Gabe backed away, panting and cuffing sweat out of his eyes, praying that his barricade would hold.

Suddenly he heard a sound outside the bedroom door, the one that opened onto the hallway and the stairs leading down to the ground floor of the old house.

Gabe wheeled, his chest heaving. Oh no! It’s outflanked me! He drew his sword and prepared to fight for his life. Then his bedroom door burst open.

Gabriel Wrenn! What are you doing in here? cried his mother. Sara Wrenn’s blonde hair was stuffed under a dusty Seattle Mariners baseball cap, her usually covergirl face was slick with sweat and smudged with dirt, and she had dark circles under her eyes to go with her worried expression.

Gabe lowered his sword and blinked. The perilous shadow world of fear melted away, and he found himself back in one world again—solid and daylit and safe. He shifted from one foot to the other, feeling the heat rise in his cheeks.

Mom. He was tired and a little headachy.

Gabe! said Mom. You’re supposed to be unpacking, not bringing down the house.

He looked at his barricade and shrugged sheepishly. Sorry.

Her worried expression dissolving into an unsettled smile, Mom walked up and knuckle-bumped him on the forehead. Earth to Gabe, we could use your help around here today.

He slumped. Okay, Mom.

She gently cupped his face with clammy hands. He could feel them trembling slightly. What am I going to do with you? She studied him with blue eyes made aquamarine by her contact lenses. How are you feeling? You have that headache again?

He pulled away. I feel fine, Mom, he lied, turning to look at his sketchpad lying open on the bare mattress next to his sword.

She followed his gaze and sighed. It’s stuffy in here. She walked over to the window above his headboard and opened it a crack. Brisk air smelling of rain gusted into the room in rackety bursts. Why don’t you go outside and get some fresh air. There’s a nice backyard to explore. You can put this mess away when you come back.

Gabe yawned. He felt more like taking a nap.

Otherwise, she said, glancing at his barricade, you need to finish unpacking here. And make up your bed. And help me with the dishes. And . . . well, you get the picture.

Gabe turned toward the closed window across from his bed and looked through his own reflection at the rain-drab house next door. The drizzle had finally stopped but clouds scudded across the sky and dead leaves swirled in the wind. He felt his mom’s eyes on his back the whole time, like he was living in a fishbowl. Yes, ma’am.

Come on now. Don’t dawdle, she said and walked out of the room.

Gabe sat on the edge of the bed and picked up his sketchpad. Corvus stared at him, his anger unfaltering. Gabe closed the book, hunched his shoulders, and exhaled. Why’d she have to treat him like he was damaged goods or something? And why did they have to move into this crummy house, in this crummy neighborhood? Why did he have to go to a crummy new school? That was the worst part: starting school on Monday. He didn’t even want to think about that.

• • •

Shouldering his green backpack with his sketchpad inside, Gabe rounded the banister post and started down the narrow staircase just in time to meet his brother, Sam, tromping up, huffing and puffing under the weight of a big box. Gabe tried dodging him, but Sam shouldered him hard into the wall.

Watch it! cried Gabe.

Sorry, buttlips, chortled Sam. Didn’t see you.

Gabe slipped past his ape of a brother and continued down the stairs with Sam’s scolding voice hard on his heels.

Hey, grab a box, nimboid!

Goin’ out, said Gabe without stopping.

Who says?

Mom.

Mom! hollered Sam.

Gabe stopped on the landing, crossed his arms, and smiled a big phony smile up at his stocky older brother peering red-faced at him from around the heavy box. Sweat glistened in his bristle-short hair.

What, Sam? Mom’s voice carried from the kitchen.

You letting Gabe go out?

Yes! came her reply. Now get back to work!

Sam cracked his own big phony smile, showing a mouthful of metallic braces. Have fun with your little comic book friends. They’re the only ones you’ll ever have.

Up yours! shouted Gabe, flushing hot with anger. He wanted to march up there and punch Sam’s fat, zitty face.

Boys. Arthur Wrenn, tall as a pro basketball player, moved down the stairs. Lighten up. Dad stopped next to Gabe, draped an arm over his shoulder, and looked up at Sam. You’re just jealous that Gabe here got all the imagination in the family.

Sam moved up the stairs, laughing. Yeah, right! Hey, think those shrinks who tested him for ADHD, or whatever it is he has, missed something serious, like a major loose screw? ’Cause I’m pretty sure they did . . .

Before he even knew his feet were moving, Gabe was up the stairs, knocking Sam’s legs out from under him. Sam sat back on the step with a grunt. Meanwhile, the box he’d been toting thumped end-over-end, scattering comic books, video games, and various odds and ends everywhere. A lifelike plastic rearview mirror ornament, a buxom woman in a skimpy leopard-skin bikini, landed at Dad’s feet.

Why you! roared Sam, getting Gabe in a headlock and dragging him down the stairs, nearly wrenching his head off. You made me spill my stuff, you little freak.

Sam’s armpit was wet and sour and dark. Gabe punched blindly and wildly with no effect, until he got a hefty roll of t-shirt and skin between his teeth and bit down hard.

Ow! raged Sam, twisting harder.

Okay, break it up, break it up, you two, hollered Dad. Then Gabe heard his mother shouting commands: You let go of your brother this minute, Samuel. And, Gabe, go outside or start unpacking. Are you listening to me? . . . Sam! Gabe!

Gabe was willing to stop, but he was suffocating in Sam’s stinky armpit, which left him with no option but to hit and bite harder. In retaliation, Sam howled in pain and wrenched for all he was worth. Gabe started to scream, a desperate muffled scream.

Let . . . him . . . go, Sam, Dad’s voice rumbled like an angry bear. Now.

Sam’s grip suddenly relaxed. Gabe slipped out, sobbing for air, and stumbled down the last few steps to the landing, right into his mother’s waiting arms.

Okay, okay, slow down and breathe, baby, she said, In and out, just like the doctor told you, remember?

Gabe pulled away from his mom, chest heaving, fighting to control his galloping panic and boiling anger. He looked up. Dad had Sam pinned against the wall with a forearm to the chest. That’s enough, Sam, he said. Okay? This last sounded almost like a plea for everyone just to get along.

But Sam lashed out: You always take his side. It isn’t fair! Freak! he shouted at Gabe.

Zit-face! shot back Gabe.

I said, that’s enough! growled Dad. Sam, pick up your stuff. And you, he turned and pointed at Gabe. Outside!

Mom stared at her husband with narrowed eyes. Then she stooped and, taking a moment to look daggers at the bikini-clad figurine, scooped her up along with a jumble of Sam’s video games and comics and heaped them into the empty box.

Sam hadn’t budged, so Dad took him by the arm, trooped him down to the foot of the stairs, and commanded, Help your mother.

Gabe turned and made for the front door.

Gabe, wait! Sometimes his mom sounded downright desperate.

He stopped with his hand on the door-latch. Yes, Mom?

Remember to stay in the yard. Oh, and take your cell phone. And wear your jacket. It’s cold out there.

Mom! pleaded Gabe. He felt like putting his head through the door.

In the silence that followed, Dad rubbed his chin and studied his loafers, while Sam muttered something behind Mom’s back. She turned on him. If you don’t have anything nice to say, just shut up, Sam!

Sam punched the half-full box, sending it scooting across the landing. Yeah, Mom, take your little baby’s side like you always do.

That’s it! she said. To your room. Now!

Sara, said Dad, holding up his hands placatingly.

Now! she roared.

Gabe watched Sam stomp up the stairs. A moment later he heard a door slam. He could see his dad weighing the pros and cons of going after Sam, but Mom pinned him with a challenging flash of her eyes, then turned her gaze on Gabe. Put on a jacket and take your phone, or unpack.

• • •

A moment later, adjusting his backpack straps to accommodate his bulky red ski jacket (even though he’d never skied), Gabe opened the front door. Bye, he mumbled.

Phone? said Mom, still noisily re-packing Sam’s box. She paused for a moment to look up at him.

He patted his jacket pocket.

Have fun, honey, she said.

Hey, wait a sec, said Dad, crossing toward the door, running his hand through his lank salt-and-pepper hair. As always he looked preoccupied and a little haggard, especially with his two-day growth of beard. He stopped and placed a big warm hand on the back of Gabe’s neck. It felt good there. Better now? he asked.

Gabe took a big breath, exhaled, and nodded.

You know, your brother . . . just don’t listen to everything he says, said Dad, smiling lamely. And you didn’t get all the imagination in the family. Just wait till you read the White Whale. When I’ve finished it, that is.

Mom dropped a load of comic books into Sam’s box. They hit with a crash. That’ll be the day, she said.

Dad rolled his eyes and cracked a smile.

Gabe laughed. It was a standing joke around the Wrenn house that it’d be a cold day in hell before Dad finished the Great American Novel, or what he liked to call his White Whale, a tribute to Melville’s Moby Dick.

Hey, said Dad, seeming to shake off the whole blow-up. Wanna come and see my new office tomorrow?

On Sunday?

A real estate developer’s job is twenty-four-seven.

Sure, Dad.

We’ll see about that, said Mom. Now remember, stay in the yard.

Chapter 2

A weathered six-foot board fence ran the full length of the driveway. Headed for the backyard, Gabe slipped past the yellow Penske truck his dad had rented for the move and walked the fence line, peering out through the slightly offset boards as if they were bars. On the other side was a narrow unpaved lane filled with brimming potholes and, beyond that, an arborvitae hedge. He guessed that someone must live beyond the hedge.

The fence enclosed the Wrenn’s new house and yard on three sides, blocking access to and from Brynmor Park directly in back. Gabe figured his mom must have searched high and low for a house with a fence like this.

The backyard was smaller than Gabe had expected and was filled with overgrown grass, rotten apples, and a moldering wooden picnic table. Most of it was overhung by the drooping branches of a tall apple tree, its massive trunk occupying the far corner close to the fence.

Gabe traversed the small patch of grass, doing his best to avoid the squishy minefield of rotten apples—that smell sent a shiver through him—and stopped at the base of the tree, peering up into the dark tangle of branches and leaves. Three main branches split off in different directions, and he could see that one of these overhung the moderately sloped roof under his new bedroom window.

He moved around the trunk. Behind the still-leafy tree was a grassy, more or less dry corner where two run-down sections of fence intersected. To Gabe’s surprise, two missing boards opened up a gap leading into the park.

Gabe approached the gap in the fence as if it were a secret door. He stopped short of passing through and looked out. He was rewarded with a view across the gently rolling park and the sight of a flock of crows winging, cawing overhead. A moment later, they vanished into a line of wild-looking trees on the far side of the cut grass and evenly spaced Douglas firs and maples.

Gabe unslung his backpack and looped a strap over a broken branch. It hung there while he pulled off his jacket and spread it on the damp crab grass in front of the gap. Then he plucked up his pack and sat down on the jacket to enjoy the view.

Ha! Rock breaks scissors! It was a girl’s voice. He looked to the right and saw her, straddling her bike under a fir, playing rock-paper-scissors with two boys, also straddling their bikes.

One of the boys, a fat kid, said, Best two out of three!

The other boy, a beanpole with a thick brush of blood-red hair, laughed. No way, Fartsworth! he cried. You’re it, face it.

Ah man! groaned the fat kid named Fartsworth. He dropped his bike and leaned it against the tree, burying his chubby face in the crook of his arm, and started counting out loud, One-Mississippi . . . two-Mississippi . . .

Meanwhile, the girl and the red-haired boy pedaled off on their bikes in different directions across the grass.

Gabe unzipped his pack, took out his sketchpad and pencil, flipped to a fresh page, and with his pencil hovering over the paper, he returned his gaze to the wild trees on the far side of the park.

Ready or not, here I come! shouted the fat kid.

Gabe glanced over to see Fartsworth clumsily mount his bike and strain to get it moving through the mushy grass.

A moment later, after gazing at the far line of trees, the most inspiring sight he’d seen all day, Gabe finally settled down and began to sketch. He didn’t bother with panels, but allowed his hand to roam over an entire page of his sketchpad . . .

• • •

Corvus’ perpetual scowl gives way to a tired smile. For today he rides on the back of a giant raven with his blue-black hair streaming in the wind as the great bird skims the tree-tops above the vast virgin forest. Here above my domain I am happy. Up here I am as free as when the world was new and each day was a wonder to behold.

• • •

Whatchadoin’? whispered a girl’s voice.

Gabe’s head snapped up and he closed his sketchpad. Before him, propping her bike up with a hand that projected crab-like from a dirty wrist cast, was the girl. She held a finger to her lips as she peered at him through the gap in the fence. Can I hide in here? she said.

Gabe looked out across the park. The fat kid was racing down a gravel path in the wrong direction. Ah, sure. I guess, he said.

The girl carefully hauled her bike through the gap and leaned it against the fence. Then she stooped down next to Gabe. I’m Ellie, she whispered.

Gabe, he whispered back, staring at her cast.

I fell out of a tree, she said, wriggling her fingers. What’s that you’re drawing?

He hesitated for a moment, studying her hazel eyes for any trace of ridicule. Then he slowly opened the sketchpad and showed her his drawing of Corvus riding on the back of the giant raven. It’s really just a sketch, he said.

Ellie looped her long brown hair behind her ear with a finger and leaned in close. Gabe smelled coconut shampoo. Very cool, she said at last. You must’ve taken classes since you were like five to learn to do that. She was staring at him, and he got the impression he was being weighed and measured.

He shook his head. Heck, how did he tell her that when she’d interrupted his flow a moment ago, Corvus and his narration were just there on the page, almost as if someone else had created them, someone who drew and wrote like most people ate, or breathed, or slept. I was six, and I taught myself, he said.

How old are you now? she said.

Thirteen.

Hey, you a sev?

He nodded, feeling his guts twist at the reminder that he started seventh grade at Brynmor Junior High on Monday.

Me too. She paused. Corvus. Cool name.

Found it in a book, said Gabe.

She bit her lower lip. Hey, that’s Latin for crow.

He really looked at her then, this slender, steady-eyed girl who was so obviously tomboy tough. Yeah, he said.

Suddenly she stood. Tommy and Henry gotta see this.

Wait! I-It’s not ready yet, stammered Gabe.

But she cupped both hands to her mouth and shouted, Olly, olly oxen free!

• • •

A cloud of butterflies migrated through Gabe’s stomach as he stepped through the gap into the park and walked with Ellie to a fir tree, where they sat and waited for her friends to ride over.

• • •

Still panting from their hard pull, Henry Farnsworth and red-haired Tommy Bronfman—one of them had a serious case of BO—crowded in on either side of Gabe, oohing and ahhing over the sketch of Corvus riding the raven. Gabe struggled against his urge to shut the book and put it in his backpack, and he would have if it hadn’t been for Ellie, leaning in from the front, just as eager as the boys, if not as pushy. So he laid the open sketchpad on his lap and let the two boys look, even though what he really wanted to do was push them away and retreat back through the gap in the fence.

When Henry reached out pudgy fingers and tried to turn the page, Gabe winced as if the kid had pinched his hand. He stood up. I gotta go.

Ah, let’s see some more, dude, said Henry.

It’s Gabe, said Ellie. He just moved here from . . . Hey, where you from?

Bothell, said Gabe. In Washington.

Hey, Gabe, said Tommy. What’s your hurry?

Maybe he doesn’t want you two hanging over him, pawing his stuff, getting it all smudged up, said Ellie. I have an aunt who lives in Seattle, she said looking at Gabe.

I’m not pawing, said Henry. Come on.

Yeah, come on, echoed Tommy.

No, I gotta go, insisted Gabe. We’re still moving in and I gotta help. He stuffed the sketchpad into his backpack.

Henry looked at Ellie. Why’d you drag us over here. He doesn’t even want to show us anything.

Hey, just back off and maybe he will, she said.

Tommy took a step back and crossed his arms. That far enough?

Henry also stepped back, making a sour face. Your crow-dude sure talks funny, he said. Just who’s he supposed to be anyway?

Just a hero, said Gabe.

What kinda hero? asked Tommy. I mean, what does he do?

Gabe answered off the cuff: He saves stuff.

What kinda stuff? said Henry, glancing at Tommy.

Yeah, what kind of stuff? said Tommy.

Gabe didn’t like where this was going, but he answered, Trees and animals and . . . He stopped. He could already see the scorn in their eyes. Even Ellie was staring at him. Those looks made his cheeks burn. He took a deep breath and tried to recover. He’s an avenger. Like when these poachers kill endangered animals, he cuts ’em to pieces with his sword.

You gotta be kiddin’! shouted Henry.

Taking another more shaky breath, Gabe said, "He’s old, like one of the elves in The Lord of the Rings, and it’s his job to . . ."

But the two boys were already exchanging that universal look that said: dweeb! When they looked back at him they were wearing scornful grins.

Gabe abruptly slung the backpack over his shoulder. He could almost hear what they were thinking: Let’s lose this freak. Forget it, he mumbled.

Then Tommy, who was still looking at Henry, snorted, Yeah, we’ll see you around. Come on, Ellie. He picked up his bike; Henry followed suit. Ellie just stood there, looking at Gabe, while the two boys mounted up and pedaled off down the slope. They laughed as they rode away. Crowman to the rescue! shouted Henry, taking a swipe at a tree.

Fartsworth to the barbecue, muttered Gabe as he watched them go. He wanted to run the fat pig down, knock him off his bike, and rub his face in the mud, maybe even some nice squishy dog crap.

I think Corvus is cool, said Ellie at last.

Gabe forced a smile. Thanks.

Then, without another word, she picked up her bike, hopped on, and rode off after the two boys.

Gabe took a deep breath and shivered. It’d grown cold. A few drops of rain spattered his face. He walked back to the fence, ducked through the gap, and scooped up his jacket, making sure to wipe off any crud that might have clung to it. His mom didn’t like him getting dirty.

• • •

By the time Gabe squeezed past the moving truck, Ellie was sitting astride her bike at the top of the driveway.

He found it hard to stifle his surprise. "What are you doing here?"

She jerked her head toward the hedge, which ended at the street, same as the Wrenn’s fence. We’re neighbors!

Gabe smiled at this news in spite of himself. What happened to your friends?

Those morons. I ditched ’em. Decided it would be more fun to show you around.

He shook his head. I gotta get in the house and help—

Nonsense, said Dad’s voice from the back of the truck.

Ellie looked up and Gabe turned. Dad was standing