Ask the Bones Read Online Free

“You could learn everything a priest needs to know. But I cannot keep you as my student. Your heart is in your drawing. You must become an artist.
    â€œBut take my advice,” the man said. “Avoid the large at night, keep to the small.”
    What did the priest mean? The boy was too upset to ask. Early the next morning he said good-bye and walked out the temple door.
    He wanted to go home to his family, but what would his parents think? They expected him to follow the ways of Buddha. How could he tell them he had failed?
    So he wandered down the road to the next village where there was a larger temple and more priests. Perhaps they would welcome a young student.
    When he reached that temple, he was aware of a strange silence. No insects buzzed in the nearby bamboo grove. No temple bells rang. And there was no musical droning of voices from within.
    The boy knocked at the door, but no one answered. He knocked again and the door swung slowly inward, so he stepped inside. He was amazed to see that the temple was filled with cobwebs and dust. “The priests need my help,” he thought to himself. “I’ll wait until they come back.”
    What he did not notice were the pawprints on the floor. Huge pawprints and the marks of sharp claws.
    All he noticed were large white screens, set here and there in the temple. He hurried to the writing box. Never before had he seen such magnificent places on which to draw cats.
    The hours flew past while he was drawing. Hundreds of cats now decorated the temple. Cats with every marking imaginable, contented cats and snarling cats, huge cats and newborn kittens.
    It began to grow dark, and still no priests returned. The boy decided to spend the night there, hoping the priests would come back in the morning. He peered around the dim temple. It was the largest place he had ever seen. Suddenly he felt his hair stand on end.
    â€œAvoid the large, keep to the small.” That’s what the old priest had said. What did the warning mean? The boy didn’t know, but he hurried about looking for a small place—and safety.
    It was growing so dark he could hardly see, but finally he found a small cupboard. At first he thought he couldn’t squeeze in, but he wiggled through the opening, pulled his knees up to his chin, and just barely managed to pull the cupboard door shut.
    There was a decorative grating in the cupboard door, a perfect peephole. He wanted to keep watch that night, but it was far too dark. Besides, he was tired, and before he knew it, he fell asleep.
    He had barely closed his eyes when something quietly pushed open the temple door and crept inside. Its claws clicked across the floor and its nose swung this way and that, sniffing, sniffing, sniffing. It smelled boy! And it wanted boy for dinner.
    It began to scratch at the cupboard door, hooking its claws in the grating, trying to pull it free.
    The boy woke up to the wildest, screechiest battle he had ever heard. The whole temple was awash with shrieks and howls, the gnashing of teeth, the slashing of claws.
    The boy couldn’t see a thing through the grating on the cupboard door. So he squeezed his eyes shut and curled up even more tightly than before.
    The terrible battle continued. Wetness splashed through the grating and onto his face. When the boy licked his lips, he thought he tasted blood.
    It was almost more than he could stand. He now realized that his parents would have welcomed him home. They never would have wished such a terrifying night on their small son.
    Just when he thought the howling and shrieking would never end, it stopped, just like that. And an eerie silence fell over the temple.
    The boy didn’t get another wink of sleep that entire night. When the sun finally rose, he peered through the grating in the cupboard door.
    He could scarcely believe what he saw. There were great clumps of hair on the floor and blood was spattered everywhere. Scarier still was the monstrous