When the Wind Blows - James Patterson [27]
The ground seemed to be fighting me as I climbed. Shale slid off underfoot and clattered down into the gully. I told myself not to run. She would think I was in pursuit. But I ran, anyway. I couldn’t lose her.
“I won’t hurt you,” I shouted. “I’m a vet, a doctor.”
To my surprise, the young girl sped up. Why? Because I’d told her I was a doctor? I followed as quickly as I could through the deep, thick woods, but I soon realized that I’d lost her.
I felt sick, totally defeated. I’d had two great chances to make contact. What if I never saw her again? Had anyone else seen her around here?
Then I heard the sharp sound of cracking wood.
It came from straight above me.
I looked up.
The girl was poised on a sturdy branch of a tall oak. I was certain that she was no more than eleven or twelve. She was watching me again. Had she picked me out for some reason? And then, why me? I kept thinking of David and I didn’t know why. What could possibly connect David to this young girl?
“Please. Don’t run away. I won’t hurt you. That animal trap wasn’t mine—I was clearing it away. I hate it, too. My name is Frannie. What’s your name?”
She didn’t answer and I wondered if she could speak, or how she spoke. Instead, she spread her magnificent wings; they were like eagle wings or perhaps, angel wings.
Suddenly, she leaped from the high branch. It was incredible. She looked like a high diver, the best I’d ever seen, or ever would see.
Then right before my eyes, she flew.
She actually flew like a bird. No, she flew as a young girl might fly, or a woman or a man, if people were meant to fly. She soared through the air.
And that changed the course of my life forever.
Chapter 26
NINE-YEAR-OLD MATTHEW couldn’t stop himself from quivering like a damn Slinky toy on a steep flight of cold, stone stairs, headed down to a dungeon. He hadn’t been able to stop shivering since he and Max left the School and they had separated for safety’s sake.
Max, go right.
Matthew, go left.
It’s our best chance. Go, go!
We’ll meet again someday.
He wondered if he would ever see his big sister again, though. He couldn’t imagine not seeing Max, and he almost couldn’t bear that he hadn’t seen her in two whole days.
They had never been apart for more than a few hours before. Being separated was how they were punished at the School, and it was the absolute hairy armpits for both of them. Uncle Thomas knew that, the cunning traitor. He had pretended to be their friend, but he was the one out here looking for them now. He was the one who would put them to sleep.
Matthew had to get his mind somewhere else for the moment. He couldn’t lie here in this dark, slimy hiding place and think about missing Max. The trouble was, the worst thing, there was nothing else in his past that he missed. Oh, maybe the rec room TV, but not too much. Maybe the bad food at the School, but that was only because he was freaking starving now. Maybe Mrs. Beattie, but she was dead. Probably murdered.
He tried to tell himself a joke, a dumb riddle:How did a fool and his money get together in the first place? He didn’t laugh, not today, not out here in the dark cold with his face pressed down in the crummy old dirt.
He and Max had promised they would meet somehow, somewhere, and that was what kept him going. Man, he missed Max’s smile. He even missed her little motormouth that never stopped flapping.
Matthew cocked his head and listened closely. He heard a noise nearby, down close to the ground. Rustling leaves? Footfall?
Just the wind whistling in the trees. Nothing else. He breathed a sigh of relief. And then—
“Matthew the Great? Come on out, kiddo. Come out of there. I know you’re close. I’ve got footprints. I’ve got a bead on you, son. Is your lovely sister with you?”
It was Uncle Thomas, and now Matthew really began to shake. He felt sick to his stomach and he couldn’t breathe very well and he thought he might die of a heart attack at nine years old.
“You’ve always been a good boy. We