Tomorrow River Read Online Free Page B

which was unusual, considering that she believed in the Tooth Fairy until she was almost ten.
    But right about then is when it occurred to me that maybe I was the one who was believing in kid stuff beyond the time that is considered normal. Maybe our mother really wasn’t coming back. Not next week. Not next month. Not ever. Maybe Mama was dead.
    That’s when despair got ahold of me and drug me to the deepest depths. Life resembled those paintings in Mama’s art books, the ones by Mr. Claude Monet, that’s how bad my eyes watered. I even stopped answering the ring of the supper bell. Doing the simplest things became such a struggle with the heavy sadness I was lugging around. Woody, being my twin, understood I was going under for the third time and wouldn’t let go of me. Bless her heart and perching hope is all I got to say. They’re what saved me.
    You already know the third reason I’ve put off looking for my mother in a more motivated way. It’s horribly risky to leave Lilyfield. Papa likes to keep his girls within grabbing distance.
    And fourthly, quite frankly? The final reason I’ve been putting off the search is that, even though I believe myself to be enormously brave, about the last thing on the planet I want to do is go looking for Mama. Not because we don’t desperately need her back—no, no, no. It’s just that, if you set out to hunt down a critter, the woods is where you start. But how do you track down a lost mother? I could look for her from dawn ’til dusk and still come back empty-handed. That’s why I keep asking myself— Mighten it be for the best to just keep doing what we have been? Biding our time and hoping for her return? That sounds so relieving that I almost get myself convinced. Until I jolt awake in the middle of the night to find my sister kneeling beside me, her face a testimony of tears.
    But as much as I’m tempted to kitten out, and believe me, I sorely, sorely am, there are the facts to face. My darling Woody is turned completely inside out and my poor papa has unraveled so much that he’s threatening to send her away. That doesn’t leave anybody else but me. I need to quit my mewling and find my mother before it’s too late. I can do this. I can. I’m Shenandoah Wilson Carmody, beautiful daughter of the stars, for heaven’s sake.

C hapter Three
    L ast Chance Creek runs alongside Lilyfield like a dog.
    Some days it lies in the sun, barely twitching. On others, it moves loose, like it’s got nowhere important to go. But on this important morning, the creek is charging out of the mountains, ready to rip an intruder to shreds. Woody and I are edging along its stony bank with our fastest sneakers tied around our necks. We’re wearing our usual matching jean shorts and T-shirts. One of her sweaty tan hands is in one of mine, and in my other hand, I have my trusty tin lunch box that I got from our neighbor a few years ago. It used to have LOST IN SPACE and a couple of planets printed on it, but they’ve worn off. My hair is braided, but Woody’s isn’t. She wouldn’t let me near that tangled mess this morning. “Keep hold of me. I mean it,” I tell her for the umpteenth time.
    We could’ve cut through Lilyfield’s front woods, taken the well-worn path that lets out onto Lee Road, but since we’re working on stolen time, it’s much faster to cross the creek towards town along with being cooling on bare feet and ankles. On our way over here,
    I stuck my head into the barn to make sure the stall of Papa’s stallion was empty. His saddle was gone, too. He rides out every morning, I don’t know where, but Pegasus comes back lathered.
    Admittedly, I don’t have much to go on when it comes to finding Mama, but I can’t do any worse than Sheriff Andy Nash did. Far as I know, he batted zero when it came to drawing information out of anybody concerning her whereabouts.
    “Are you aware of your mother having any enemies?” the sheriff asked me, shortly after Mama