Flickering Hope Read Online Free Page A

sketchbook I hadn’t been able to draw in since I’d stopped art lessons. I didn’t know what to draw. Now I drew without thinking, tracing eyes, a mouth, a nose. My pencil stopped when I saw what I had drawn. The girl in the forest.
    I ripped the page out and threw it in the trash. Without an assignment, my fingers seemed to have a mind of their own, and I didn’t want to see what they would show me next. I needed a really good drawing assignment. Something to keep me from having to think. I powered on my computer and opened my email.

Chapter 5

Swirls and Dots
    “S ades, phone for you.” Dad tossed me the cordless phone. “And hurry up. I’m meeting Helen and Meredith at nine o-clock at the research cabin to hike out to the shack. We’re late.”
    I held the phone to my ear. “Hello?” Andrew sounded like he was shouting from the bottom of a cave.
    “What?” Since I woke up, nervous thoughts about Andrew had built up like static electricity. Why was he calling now?
    His voice came into focus. “Sorry, speaker phone. Look Sadie, I need the day off.”
    The static sparked, sharp and quick, like a shock when you touch metal. I tried to keep my voice level. “Dad’s in a hurry. Can we talk when I get there?”
    “No, I … I need to work on stuff.” He sounded rushed, not at all like himself.
    “I know. That’s what we’re doing, cleaning the cabin.” I had dressed in my oldest jeans and a hoodie with holes in the sleeves.
    Dad had already pulled on his coat. “Sades, come on.”
    I pressed the phone between my shoulder and my ear and shoved my other arm into my coat. “Andrew, I need to go. I’ll see you in a minute.” I could deal with a little weirdness from him, especially since he would be at the cabin when Dad, Helen, and Meredith returned from their hike. After yesterday and what Helen said, listening in on conversations was probably the only way Andrew and I would get an update on the family in the wood.
    “No, Sadie. Listen. You can’t come today.”
    I stopped, letting my coat dangle off my shoulder. His words felt like a slap across the cheek. I
couldn’t
come?
    “Sadie—” Andrew said.
    Weirdness was one thing, but going to the cabin after Andrew told me I couldn’t was impossible. How could I face him now and act anything like normal?
    I forced my voice to be light and said, “Sure. No problem. I need to …” I grasped for something, anything I needed to do. “… go to the library anyway.”
    “Sadie—” Dad said.
    I hung up before Andrew wasted breath on a fake apology.
    “Sadie?” Dad tossed me my boots. “Time to go.”
    I ran upstairs to grab my sketchbook. The library? Now Ihad to go, because otherwise I’d sit around home, acting as though I had no life unless I was with Andrew.
    The entire drive to town, Dad lectured me about planning ahead for trips to the library and grumbled about being late for the hike with Meredith. His words were background noise compared to the mental tirade I carried on with Andrew.
I couldn’t come out to the cabin?
After he had forced me to explain what happened in the woods, now he blamed me for Helen’s reaction? Okay, everything’s probably fine, but what’s he hiding in his room anyway?
    Sunlight reflected off the snow and streamed through the library’s floor-to-ceiling windows. Light pooled on the burgundy carpet. Comfortable clumps of book-lined shelves created nooks and corners for armchairs with footstools, reading lamps, and end tables. Our high-tech library back in California was a library from a different universe. Here, on ordinary days, as soon as I walked in the door I wanted to bury my nose in a book. Today, though, I wondered if I’d be able to sit at all, with Helen, Meredith, and Dad on their way out to the shack, Patch totally unprotected in her den, and God knows what was up with Andrew.
    I checked the clock. Nine fifteen, and Dad wasn’t picking me up until one thirty. I took out my sketchbook. What would I