Virginia Hamilton Read Online Free Page A

won’t let it go, she traced.
    “We going to sit around here forever?” Thomas said, suddenly impatient with small creatures.
    “Where do you want to go?” Justice asked him smoothly. She was a study in relaxation, stroking the golden animal at her side.
    “Well, don’t you have a plan or something? You brought us here.”
    She smiled at him. “The plan is to stay right here by the water. Everything, whatever kinds there are, has to have water and will come here eventually.”
    “Yeah, eat us and then drink!”
    “Oh, for heaven sakes, Thomas,” she said. “We can’t be eaten or hurt here.”
    “Don’t you believe it,” he said quietly, controlling his anger. “And I don’t like it out in the open like this. We should become the unit.”
    “Don’t we always become the unit, Thomas?”
    “Yeah; but not soon enough. We should become it before Nolight.”
    Thought he hated the unit, she thought, making sure she kept it to herself.
    “We’ll have the unit when Nolight comes,” she said.
    Not far off now, my Master, Miacis traced.
    Please, call me Justice, Justice traced back, automatically now; she had traced the same thing so many times.
    Yes, Master, traced Miacis.
    Justice sighed, patted the animal; then pushed her away and lay down, leaning on her elbows.
    “Meanwhile,” Thomas said, “think I’ll make me something. I don’t care for being out here like sitting ducks.”
    The next moment the four of them and Miacis were positioned high on a cliff edge. Gleaming white rock had fallen from the face of the cliff, rising nearly as high as the cliff itself.
    “Oh!” cried Justice, lifting her feet away from the dangerous edge. Miacis switched her marvelous tail, but otherwise made no move.
    Thomas laughed. Far below them and all around was Dustland with its endless sameness. “How you like that?” Thomas asked them.
    “Neat!” said Dorian.
    They all had the sensation that they were at the very top of a cliff, when actually they were still in the open on the dusty ground. And nothing coming anywhere near them would be able to see them. All that was visible was the real pool and the shining rock and cliff of Thomas’ powerful magic.
    “I’m getting dizzy way up here,” Dorian said.
    “Sweet, isn’t it?” Thomas asked, looking at Justice.
    She had to admit that it was. “Guess it is better that we not stay in the open,” she said, “even with the unit.”
    When, later, the landscape began changing in glowing shades that reddened the dust, they knew the sun was going down. One instant there was still Graylight; the next, there was the darkness of the period Miacis called Nolight.
    Nolight was more oppressive than any nighttime at home. For one thing, it felt heavy. With the dust, it sifted the day’s heat down on the unit so that the power of four could think of nothing else. The unit grew vague and listless as the rhythms of this strange place relaxed it overmuch. Only one of the four kept all his wits about him.
    Thomas violently wrenched himself out of the unit, tearing away psychic chunks of the rest of them as he did so. Justice, Dorian and Levi were rendered unconscious, with only Miacis to watch over them.
    The golden animal had lain between Justice and Levi. She had not bothered to cover herself with dust this Nolight, as was her way. With the Master beside her, she had no fear of the open. She neither believed nor disbelieved that Thomas’ cliff hid them all, for, being blind, she couldn’t see how craftily the illusion was erected. Then, suddenly, three sleeping humans had started up in awful, convulsive movements and fallen back. As Thomas pulled away, Miacis rose on her four legs.
    “You come near me, dog-face,” Thomas whispered, “and I’ll carve you in little pieces.” He had the bone-claw weapons that Miacis had bitten and chewed to razor sharpness.
    Miacis stared in Thomas’ direction. She sensed how strange was this one, who called himself human. Proudly she sat