Shadows Cast by Stars Read Online Free Page A

voice down. The ocean does strange things to sound, especially on a night like this.”
    I know what she means. The water is glassy smooth, and as the boat slices through it, the ripples turn red around us. My mind swims as spirit pulls at me, demanding I give in. Look , it whispers. Remember. You’ve seen this before . And I have, this red flame surrounding a boat plying a dark ocean. But when? I’ve never been to the Island before, but that’s not it, exactly. There’s something deeper to this feeling.
    Paul sets his hand on my arm and gives me a questioning look. I shake my head. No, I’m not going under. I’m still here, but that doesn’t mean I’ll watch the bloodred wake anymore. I train my gaze on the darkness to the west, where the Island looms. My father lived there once,long ago. He doesn’t talk about it much. My mother used to, though. She said it’s beautiful there, peaceful, a haven from the Corridor and its smoke and noise. But there’s trouble on the Island too. Back then, the Band ran wild, until Arthur Eagleson got them organized, but that was after my parents returned to my grandfather’s farm, and now Arthur Eagleson is gone as well. He disappeared two years ago, and it didn’t take long for some of the Band to revert to their old ways, ways that prize violence over temperance, ways that mirror the UA tactics more than they’d care to admit.
    And the Band has already stolen so much from our family—our two uncles, for one, and our safety, for another. Two years ago, the Band signed the treaty land surrounding our house back to the UA, and left for the Island. Since then, they just showed up whenever they wanted, marching into our house, taking it over like they owned the place, and while I retreated upstairs and locked myself in my bedroom, my brother and father sat with them, drank with them, listened to their stories about how, one day, the Band would overthrow the UA and take back the land that was once ours to begin with.
    It’s not the boasting, or the drinking, or even the guns they brought into our house, though I hate all of them,too. It’s that the Band men filled my brother’s head with dreams, dreams of being a warrior of the Old Way, when what they really want is to use my brother as cannon fodder. They don’t tell him about the boys who die when they raid the facilities where they hook us Others up to machines and drain us of our blood. They don’t tell him about those who return home broken, those who take to drinking rather than face a day sober. But I know. My mother told me.
    What would she say if she were here right now? Does she know how much it hurts to leave her behind, sleeping beneath the apple tree at the house? Sometimes when I close my eyes I think I hear her talking to me, but I’m too scared to believe that might be true. I wonder if she speaks to Paul. If she does, he’s never said. Would he keep something like that from me? I wish I knew. Sitting here in the boat, holding hands, it’s like we’re children again. When we were little, we were inseparable. I kept my hair short so I’d look just like Paul, because back then, I wanted to be him, the funny one, the happy one. I didn’t want to have seizures. I didn’t want to cross into the spirit world and see the things I saw, things I don’t truly remember.
    But now, my seizures have all but left me behind and sometimes I find myself wanting to walk those spiritpaths, if only they didn’t scare me so badly. But I don’t tell Paul that. Paul thinks I’m brave. I let him. One of us has to be strong, and Paul doesn’t believe it’s him.
    As I think this, I look up and find Madda watching me. She’s frowning. If I closed my eyes and allowed my spirit sight to come, I think I’d find her looking for my shade too, and that frown tells me she’s just as puzzled as I am about why it’s missing.
    Sometime later, just as I’m about to doze off, Madda kills the engines. We float, helpless under the