Secrets in the Dark Read Online Free Page B

back against
the tree, but her eyes snapped back to awareness and she jerked
away before touching it. She took two small steps away before
saying, “ Something happened. But I don’t have a clue what.” She hunched her
shoulders and slipped her hands in her pockets, a favorite position
when she got nervous.
    So, it was all real. I
blurted, “Going through that tree was gross-i-mundo. I may never
eat jello again.”
    Olivia said, “Jello?
You’ve gotta be kidding! I’m gonna be afraid of the dark for the rest of my
life! I was blind in there.”
    “ I can beat that,” Faith
told her. “Think Disneyland Teacups. Remember?”
    Olivia and I both cringed.
Those teacups had been the start of a hard and fast rule — Faith
was not allowed
on rides that went in circles.
    Olivia pinched her nose and
shuddered. “Yuck!”
    I didn’t like being blind
or deaf, but maybe not being able to smell anything in there was a
good thing!
    I asked, “Where do you
think we went?“
    Their answer was muffled
by the bells in the nearby church as they
pealed loudly, just once.
    My mouth fell open and I
sucked in a quick breath. “That can’t be right!” I pulled my phone
out of my pocket and turned it on. It was working again, so that
was good. But something was wrong with it. It showed 1:00
pm.
    It can’t be that
late!
    “ What time do you
have?”
    Olivia and Faith both
exclaimed in excitement when their phones worked too, but they all
showed 1:00 pm.
    How did it go from 12:34
to 1:00? We were only — wherever — a couple minutes.
    But I realized I hadn’t
heard any sounds from Ray or the others since we’d been back. We
must’ve been gone more than a few minutes. At least we’d kept our
Blood Sister promise. That almost made all the weirdness worthwhile.
    Faith said, “Do you know
where—?” just as Olivia yelled,
“H-e-double-eck. Its 1:00! I have to be home!”
    I had no idea I could run
that fast, but Olivia’s mom would be mad if she wasn’t home in the next
five minutes. Olivia chanted, “Be green, be green,” as we neared the traffic signal on Main. Someone
must have been listening. It turned green right before we reached
it
    It was 1:04 when we got to the corner where we’d go our separate
ways. We’d never covered the five blocks between Main Street and
Olivia’s house so fast.
    As she ran up the sidewalk to her house, she made our sign for
‘call me’ — pinky to her mouth, thumb to her ear. “8:30!” she
yelled, then threw open the door and hurried inside.
    Faith sighed, “I’ve gotta
go, too. You know how Mom gets when I’m not home from school on
time.”
    “ Yeah, she’s the biggest
worrier in town.”
    “ Actually, it’s the town
that makes her worry. I think it’s the TSYE’s fault.”
    I nodded and said goodbye,
then crossed the street towards my house, one short block
away.

Chapter 6
    Jinxed
    My feet were dragging when
I got home. I locked myself in the bathroom and stared at my
reflection in the mirror. Why didn’t anything about me look
different?
    I fell through a tree. I
was blind. I landed in the dirt. In a weirdorific place.
Shouldn’t something be different?
    Other than a smudge of
dirt, my face didn’t look any different. I’d look better by summer,
but this was the dead of winter, and being only a few shades darker
than polar bear white was totally
normal.
    Darn it.
    Obviously my hair hadn’t
changed. Light brown, way too and straight. Boring really. Even so,
I wasn’t going to agree with my mom’s suggestion to cut
it.
    My height was the same —
short! I’d finally broken five feet. Barely. If I stood up really
tall. This year, for the first time, both Faith and Olivia were
taller than me.
    And just like my hair, the
rest of me was thin and straight. When I turned sideways I could
still be described as very…slender.
    So okay, I wasn’t going to
be a super-model any time soon. And really, who wants to be a
super-model? I should be glad nothing was different.