Dreamwielder Read Online Free Page B

help?”
    â€œReally? You’re sure?”
    â€œYes, go.”
    â€œThanks,” she said, turning to tiptoe her way down the pitched roof along one of the main support beams.
    Galen watched her leave with a wry expression, wishing he could navigate the roof with such ease. He had to crawl around on all fours in order to spread his weight out along two beams, otherwise, he’d crash right through the roof and into the house below. He’d hoped to teach Makarria to mend the roof on her own, but the girl seemed incapable of keeping her mind on any task for more than a few minutes. It was all well and good for her to daydream while tending to the garden or milking the goats, but it was too dangerous to be absentminded up on the roof. Galen sighed and grabbed the bundle of palm fronds, resigned to doing the job himself.
    Back on the ground, Makarria raced from the house and down the grassy slope to the seashore where her Grandpa Parmo was pushing a skiff into the water.
    â€œWait, Grampy, wait!” she yelled after him, and he halted, knee-deep in the waves, until she got there.
    â€œIn you go,” he said, giving her a boost into the boat. “You going to help me pull in the traps?”
    â€œYep.”
    â€œHold on, then,” he told her and pushed them off with the outgoing surf, timing it so as to pass between two breaking waves. He pulled himself aboard with a grunt and paddled them out past the breakers, then gave her the signal to hoist the small sail as he put aside the oars and grabbed hold of the rudder. Within a few moments, he had angled the skiff to catch the wind and they were racing toward Spearpoint Rock and their traps. “That’s better,” Parmo said, breathing heavily. “I’m getting too old to be launching skiffs from the beach.”
    â€œYou’re not too old, Grampy,” Makarria assured him, smiling as the wind whipped her walnut hair across her face.
    â€œIf you say so,” he replied, unconvinced. “How are you feeling? Is your tummy ache better from yesterday?”
    â€œYeah, mostly better, but Mother thinks I was pretending so I wouldn’t have to do my chores.”
    â€œNonsense,” Parmo said with a wave of his free hand. “You may be absentminded at times, but you’re no liar—that I’m certain of. Your mother is just worried. She’s had a lot on her mind.”
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œNothing that need concern you for the time being. You just mind your parents and try to pay better attention to your chores. No more daydreaming.”
    â€œI know,” Makarria said. “It’s just that chores are so boring. Except for helping you pull in the traps, of course.”
    â€œOf course,” Parmo agreed with a smile. “Ready the pole-hook and prepare to drop sail, First Mate.”
    They were nearing the first of their buoys, some thirty fathoms out from the leeward side of Spearpoint Rock. The red-painted coconut bobbed up and down on the rolling waves, functioning both as the marker for their traps and the hooking point for dragging the traps up from the water. Parmo steered them toward it and signaled for Makarria to drop the sail. As they slowed and drifted alongside the buoy, he threw the rudder to the side and they came to a near stop no more than a fathom out from the buoy.
    â€œPull her up,” Parmo said. “Let’s see what we’ve caught.”
    Makarria reached out with the pole-hook and looped it around the line receding beneath the buoy. When she tugged, though, the skiff moved more than the buoy line. “It’s snagged on something,” Makarria said, leaning out over the portside of the skiff to get a better hook on it.
    â€œCareful now,” Parmo warned.
    â€œI’ve got it,” Makarria said, but as she reached farther out she got the sudden sensation she was wetting herself, and in a panic she lost her balance. She dropped the