Glory Alley and the Star Riders (The Glory Alley Series) Read Online Free Page B

pictured Clash waiting for her outside the mesa passing the time playing games on his Sliver, not realizing she’d gone in without him . He’d pro bably hang around an hour before los ing his patience .
    “What a lousy best friend I am.” She considered turning back, but a tall crevice—one she hadn’t noticed last visit — caught her attention.
    It zigzagged up the wall and looked wide enough to squeeze through.
    “Well, hello there,” she said to the crack, aiming her light toward it into the dim unknown. Hundreds of crisscrossing rainbows appeared on the ceiling, dancing with every jiggle of the flashlight. Her eyes traveled over the spreading colors at the top of the cave. “Whoa!” she gasped, mouth gaping.
    The number one rule of spelunking was bring a light, bring a backup light, and bring a backup to the backup . Helmet light , check. Flashlight in hand , check . Spare in bag , c heck. The second rule was always bring a budd y . Clash, er…despite the risk , she had to go in there.
    Glory slid into the crevice .
    The bumpy walls were high in places . The top opened like a valley. The space quickly narrowed . She sucked in her pudge, shifting her bag to the side, and squeezed through hip first. The view on the other side took her breath away.
    A natural cathedral ten times bigger than the school gymnasium stood before her in dizzying splendor. Thousands of years of water droplets , mix ing with calcite from the stones , formed cream-colored stalactite and stalagmite pillars. They thrust upwards and downwards twisting and turning into a maze of delicate ivory. Its arched ceiling , crusted with sparkl es , appeared as a starry night straight out of a fairy tale. Mirrored crystals magnified the beam from h er flashlight a hundredfold explaining the rainbow effect. Glory felt like she had burrowed out of the sewer and into wonderland.
    “ Holy s c hmoly,” she whispered, eyes like sponges, absorbing the spectacular vision before her. S talagmites resembled a forest of candles dripping with wax. Glory walked through them until she came to a vast dome that rose up and up. Below , the floor gleamed like polished marble and a lone stalagmite spiraled from its center . A black rock the size of her head, perfectly round and smooth as ice, balanced upon it.
    Glory’s heart fluttered .
    In their natural state stones rarely formed with such symmetry and shine. The walls of the cavern slanted inward as if bowing to the rock at the center. Water trickled in the distance. Heat rushed to her clammy cheeks. She had found the most perfect rock in the universe and it was just sitting there begging to be taken.
    For a minute , she stared, drooling in its presence, feeling her spirit being drawn toward the stone ahead of her tiptoeing feet . The unexpected sound of sniffing prickled the hairs on the back of her neck. She stopped to listen.
    What if Grandpa’s tales about enchanted man-eating creatures living in the mesa were true ? Glory shook her head . Impossible. She’d been in Queen’s Mesa dozens of times without seeing the slightest hint the legends were true . But what if other spelunkers were in the cavern and tried to grab it first?
    She sprinted over the wide , empty , floor sliding to a stop in front of it. Tiptoes strained as she licked her lips and reached out for the most beautiful rock ever. Trembling, Glory’s fingertips made contact . A warm pulse came from the stone. She tried to recoil, but too late ! It exploded into millions of stars of every color.
    Blown back ten feet , t iny s tars penetrated her skin like bullets, sizzling as they quickly faded . She glanced upward. The rock s at on its stalagmite pedestal as if nothing had happened.
    But something had happened — was happening.
    Light burst within, sending fire through her veins. She grabbed at her chest, eyes squeezed shut as some unnamed part inside burned. Behold, the lowly are raised , a woman’s voice sang from somewhere far away. And the