Trapped Read Online Free

asked.
    Leo pointed. “Don’t you see?”
    Sarah lowered her gaze in the direction of his arm. Then she gasped. An entire village was built into the side of the escarpment: dwellings made of dull-colored mud that blended perfectly into the color of the cliff, perfectly camouflaged. The homes were box shaped with flat roofs, holes cut out of the walls for windows. They all seemed connected to one another.
    Among every few homes perched up off the ground on stilts was a cone-shaped building with a thatched roof. All of the buildings seemed to defy gravity, as if somehow attached to the cliff itself.
    As the group headed closer to the village, the rhythmic pounding grew louder.
    WHUMP! WHUMP! WHUMP!
    Sarah tightened her grip on Leo’s hand as her heart beat faster.
    The group reached the edge of the buildings and stopped. They blocked Sarah’s view, so she leaned out to see around them, hoping that she was as invisible to all of them as she suspected.
    Sarah relaxed when she saw the source of the sound: three women pounding long, thick carved wooden rods up and down. “What are they doing?”
    â€œCrushing millet. They make flour from it.” Leo pointed to one of the cone-shaped structures. “They store the grain in those.”
    Suddenly, the women stopped their work and turned to face the group of strangers. One wiped her dark, glistening brow, and then called out. People emerged from the dwellings. A few heads popped up from the roof of a house, as if they’d slept there. A group of laughing children ran out from behind the buildings, barely clothed, their skin sprinkled with dust. They froze, staring with wide, dark eyes at the strangers.
    Sarah glanced down at her feet. They were covered in the same dust. Before she could consider how that might be possible, how she could get dirty from a memory, Leo dropped her hand.
    She was back on the beach.
    Marco stared at Leo with a look of annoyance. “Well? Are you going to show her something or not?”

 
    4
    Before Sarah opened her eyes and frowned at him, Marco had watched her and Leo simply stand there and hold hands.
    Sarah answered his question. “But he did show me. We were gone forever.”
    â€œWhat are you talking about?” Marco shook his head. “You’ve been standing right there.”
    â€œNo!” Sarah sounded frustrated.
    Marco could tell she thought he didn’t believe her. And he didn’t, not at all. She and Leo hadn’t done anything except close their eyes and hold hands for a minute or two.
    Yet she tried to convince him. “We were on a spaceship. And we landed in Africa.”
    Marco couldn’t help but smile at the absurdity. “Right.”
    Sarah glared at him before turning to Leo. “Why did you let go of my hand?”
    â€œI want you both to see it.” Leo asked Marco, “Are you ready to take a trek in the memories?”
    Marco was tired of Leo’s delays. He wanted to unfreeze his brother and stepdad, get back to his mom, and figure out how to get off the stupid island. “The only trek I’m taking is back inside to get my brother.” He told Sarah, “Let’s go.”
    Before Marco could stop him, Leo grabbed his hand and Sarah’s.
    Suddenly, Marco found himself next to a soaring cliff, surrounded by people clothed in blue, their faces somewhat blurred. He squinted and tried to get a better look at them as children ran past, stirring up dust that drifted onto his legs.
    â€œSee?” Sarah’s voice woke him up. She and Leo were in far clearer focus than the people in blue.
    Marco asked, “Where are we?”
    â€œWestern Africa. About seven hundred years ago,” Leo said.
    Marco wasn’t exactly sure how much he believed. But that place, that moment, felt so real he found it hard not to believe.
    Adult villagers emerged from some of the dwellings, naked except for coverings on the more private parts of their