Enoch's Ghost - By Bryan Davis Page 0,87

Your sister has no voice to signal her approach. She did not know you would be so ready to lash out at her touch.

Candle sagged his shoulders and sighed. “I’m sorry. Next time, please clap your hands or whistle when you come up behind me like that.” Laying a hand on her shoulder, he nodded toward the torch-lit village. “Go on back. I’ll be home soon.”

She shook her head and lifted something in her hand, a bag with a strap.

“Where did you find this?” He took the bag and rubbed his hand along the smooth exterior. “It looks like a fruit harvest bag, but it’s softer, like clothing.”

Listener made signs with her fingers and pointed at the forest.

“In the trees? You were climbing a tree?”

She nodded.

He dangled the bag from its strap. “Was it hanging from a branch like this?”

She nodded again.

After pushing the end of the torch into the ground, Candle opened the bag and rummaged inside. “There’s something in here.” He pulled out a metallic cylinder about the length of his forearm. As he examined the tube, it expanded in his hands and slipped from his grasp.

Listener picked it up and stared through one end. Her mouth dropped open, and her eyes widened.

“What do you see?” Candle stooped beside her and looked up the tube’s line of sight. “Not many stars are out.”

She handed it back to him and made more signs with her fingers.

“The stranger? Do you mean Timothy?”

She nodded excitedly.

Candle pointed the tube at the sky and looked through it. “I don’t see anything but Makaidos and Thigocia.” He guided it across the sky until it swept over the moon. “Amazing! Pegasus looks as big as a house!” Lowering the tube, he rose to his full height. “This is like the Prophet’s magnifying glass, only bigger and stronger, but I didn’t see Timothy.”

Listener pointed at herself and nodded. Picking up the torch, Candle cast its glow across his sister’s scaly face. With her gleaming eyes and furrowed brow, she never looked more sincere.

Candle laid a hand on her shoulder. “You’re not playing a game, are you?”

She shook her head and pointed at the sky, her arm trembling.

Raising the tube again, Candle searched the region she indicated but found only three stars he wasn’t able to see with his naked eye, two white and one red. He sighed and took Listener’s hand. “Let’s get you to bed. Maybe Mother will figure out what’s going on when she returns.”

Ashley’s legs buckled. She collapsed and tumbled down the stairs. When her body smashed into the curved wall, she slid three more steps before finally stopping.

Pain stabbed her limbs. Both elbows and knees ached. Hot spikes drilled into her back, and white spots swirled in her vision, then slowly melted away.

She blinked at the darkness. Had she gone blind, or had the fall extinguished the lantern? Groping for something to hang on to, she braced her hand on the edge of a stair and pushed herself to a sitting position. Every inch of movement sent tingles up and down her spine.

Now panting for breath, she groped for her bag. There it was, right next to her. She grabbed it and hugged it close. Any other time, she would have stayed put and waited for help, not wanting to risk further injury, but what could she do? She couldn’t stay put. Who could tell how close her stalker was now?

Again, she blinked at the total blackness surrounding her, listening. So far, nothing. She tapped her jaw and whispered breathlessly, “Larry! Larry, can you hear me?”

No response.

She ventured a slightly louder call. “Larry? Are you there?”

No Larry. Just a hint of static.

She pulled her photometer from the bag and turned it on. The red LED digits flashed a bright row of zeroes. Whew! At least she hadn’t gone blind, and the reading proved what her surroundings already indicated. It was totally dark.

She stuffed the photometer into her jacket pocket, and, sliding the bag’s strap over her shoulder, she gripped the crags in the wall and pulled herself to her feet. Trying to slow her breaths, she took a single step up. A trickling sensation crawled down her cheek and ran to her chin. Was it sweat or blood? She wiped it away with her finger and tried to look at it, but the veil of darkness still blinded her eyes.

She took another step, then another. Each one stretched her cramped legs, shooting more pain into her back, but the progress warmed her

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