Tomorrow's Sun (Lost Sanctuary) - By Becky Melby Page 0,8
shed.
The smell of rain tinged the air. How much higher could the river rise before it caused real problems for the people living along its banks?
The shed wasn’t locked, but she had to grab the edge of the door with both hands to pull it over clumps of dirt and grass. Once again she wished for a flashlight. An old push lawn mower sat in one corner and an upturned barrel held a bag of sidewalk salt and an array of garden tools. In the darkest corner she found what she was looking for—a ladder. Between the rungs, a streak of light reflected on glass. Pulling the ladder aside, she found a rough-hewn shadow box lined with faded blue calico cloth. Inside, a heavy-looking dog collar hung on a square-headed nail. Emily smiled. Who would frame a dog collar? She pictured the white dog in the photo Jacob had shown her. Was that yours, Fluff?
This place was having a strange effect on her. Or maybe it was just the result of time to think. Since the accident, her days had been filled, first with pain then with therapy. Before that, there’d never been enough hours in the day to have time left over for her imagination to take its own course on anything.
Thoughts of life before the accident made her feel like a voyeur, peering in on a stranger’s world. The laughing, confident woman who had sung “Ring Around the Rosie” to preschoolers by day and sipped sake on a black leather couch at the Monkey Bar in Grand Rapids by night was someone else.
One hand on the ladder, she looked up at the rafters. Wroughtiron hooks hung from the beams. A small tubeless wheel swung from the highest hook, the once-white rim and spokes the right size for a tricycle. She exhaled through pursed lips and dragged the ladder out the door.
Everywhere she turned, something reminded her of little boys.
She’d long since shed her sweater, and now her white T-shirt clung to her clammy skin. With a flashlight shoved in her back pocket, she propped the ladder against the trim that surrounded the trapdoor in the ceiling. A spasm clenched her low back. A stabbing pain shot through her sacrum. Leaning on the ladder, she took two slow breaths and waited it out. When the pain lessened, she tested the rungs.
The skinny planks whined as she ascended. Emily tapped her back pocket. Assured her cell phone was in place in case she needed to meet the local rescue workers, she climbed until the top of her head nudged the door. There were no hinges. She shoved the loose panel out of the way. It scraped against the attic floor, shooting echoes and dust through the opening.
She climbed the last few rungs and landed safely on gritty boards, but as she swung clumsily into a sitting position, her foot banged the ladder. She lunged for it, but the bottom of the ladder lost its grip on the floor below. The top did a strange little jump, banged once against the frame, skimmed her hand, and crashed to the floor.
“No!” Scrambling to her feet, she hobbled to the window. Across the street, Russell dribbled the basketball. Michael sat on the beach ball, crying. Relief coursed through Emily, disarming every adrenaline-activated nerve. She unlatched the window and pulled on the brass handle at the bottom.
It didn’t budge. As her shoulder wrenched, she noticed the strips of furring nailing the window shut.
She whirled. Even from here, she could see the strips of wood sealing the other window.
She banged on the glass. “Russell! Up here! Michael!”
After a minute it dawned on her—if she couldn’t hear the slap of the basketball on the cement, they couldn’t hear her.
Don’t panic. She reached for her phone. It’s not an emergency. Back home in Traverse City, she knew several guys on the volunteer rescue squad. She’d heard their stories, and she wasn’t about to become a Friday night laugh. She was resourceful. Hadn’t she heard that very word from professors and coworkers? Hadn’t her therapist told her over and over that she was stronger than she thought she was? She scanned the room for a rope, a hammer, anything. On the other end of the attic, a large square of gray linoleum covered the floor. It matched the flowery pattern showing through the hole in the kitchen floor. If she could find a way to secure it, she could use it as a slide.