The Gathering Dark Read Online Free

training.”
    The chicken caught in Keira’s throat. Her mom almost never talked about her singing days. She’d sung opera. Well enough to get an offer to train with the Lyric Opera in Chicago. But after a month away from Sherwin, Keira’s dad had lured her back with an engagement ring.
    There was no opera in Sherwin. The best Keira’s mom had been able to do was to join the local church choir. That’s where Pike had found her mother—singing solos on Sunday and the “Ave Maria” at weddings. He’d encouraged her to get serious about her music. But then Keira had come along, and her mother stalled her plans to care for Keira. When Keira was little, her mother had sung arias. She and Keira would meet Pike in the empty church, and Keira would sit on the scratched piano bench and listen while her mother’s voice bounced off the walls around her, stretching the Italian words.
    She remembered Uncle Pike nudging her with a friendly elbow. “Do you think you’ll be a singer too?” he asked.
    Keira had shaken her head.
    Her uncle hadn’t looked disappointed exactly, but he had frowned the littlest bit. Pike never frowned. “But you would like to be a musician, wouldn’t you?”
    Even though she couldn’t have been more than four, Keira knew that the answer was yes.
    “So, what will you play? Guitar? Flute?”
    Keira had looked around the church, her eyes drawn—as they always were—to the scuffed baby grand that squatted next to the dais. She’d pointed at it, the keys smiling back at her with their chipped-tooth grin.
    “That’s a wonderful choice,” he said, giving her ponytail a gentle tug. “You’ll make a remarkable pianist.”
    “But we don’t have a piano, Uncle Pike.” As young as she was, she knew that she couldn’t play something she didn’t have.
    “You will, baby girl,” he’d promised her. “When the time comes, you will.”
    And then not even a year later, Pike had died.
    Afterward, her mother barely sang “Happy Birthday,” much less Italian arias. She’d given up church choir for extra hours doing medical transcription.
    The only music left in the Brannon house came from Keira. She couldn’t imagine giving up her music for some crappy job and crappy house in Sherwin. Sometimes, she wasn’t sure her mother could really imagine it either.
    Keira watched her, toying with the remains of her dinner. “You really never even skipped a lunch because you were practicing?”
    Her mother pushed away her plate. “My stomach would get sour and twisty if I did. It made my voice funny.” She cleared herthroat. “So. Do you have homework, or are you going to practice?”
    “Homework,” Keira admitted.
    Her mother stacked their dishes. “Well, get to it. I know you want to get back to the piano tonight.”
    That was the best thing about her mom: She understood how badly Keira needed music. She didn’t push Keira. Keira pushed herself. Her mom got out of the way and let Keira play.
    Keira escaped to her room. Folding herself up on her bed, she glanced down at her sleeve—the hole stared at her like an accusing eye. She stripped off her shirt, and then hesitated, the wad of fabric dangling from her fist. It was her favorite. And there wasn’t exactly money lying around to run out and buy another one. But every time she looked at it, she knew she’d see Mr. Seever’s disappointed face and feel Jeremy and his cigarette pressed up against her.
    With a sigh, she dropped it into the trash and pulled on an old sweatshirt before getting out her history textbook.
    She’d only flipped through a couple of pages when the phone rang, and Keira leaned over to answer it, grateful for an excuse to put off her homework.
    “Hey,” Susan said. “Are you busy?”
    “I was going to start on the misery of that history project, but I just—”
    “Don’t care?” Susan finished.
    “Exactly.” Keira shoved the book away and rolled over onto her back.
    “So, how was the rest of your afternoon? Did