Gray Wolf Island by Tracey Neithercott

Author:Tracey Neithercott
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2017-10-10T04:00:00+00:00

FIND HEAVEN ON EARTH—

a sign you will see.

Then let go the lie

and set the truth free.

Elliot and Gabe are leaning against a stone slab that juts from the ground like an oversized tombstone when Anne, Charlie, and I stumble into the grassy clearing. Five more stones, as tall and deteriorated as the first, surround us. The air snaps with energy, raising the fine hairs on my arms.

“There’s something here, isn’t there?” Anne stretches her arms wide and twirls around, her loose tank catching air and swirling around her. “There’s nothing, but there’s something.”

I can’t help but agree. There’s an otherness to this place, though I can’t tell whether it’s been here all along or if our excitement coaxed it into being.

I wander to the center of the stone formation, where the meadow is balding of its grass. The ground buckles around knuckles of rock that at one time must have connected in a single fist. It’s the hole that stops me, though.

Anne finds me digging through my bag for my flashlight and calls for the others. Soon we’re gathered around the rocks, beams pointed downward.

Blackness and rock, nothing else.

Elliot bumps his shoulder against mine. “This might be heaven on earth.”

“That sounds like one of Gabe’s lines.”

“Oh. Um.” His eyes flit to mine, then back to the hole. “I was talking about the poem. Stars are in the heavens, and the Star Stones are on earth. Whatever’s down the hole could be the sign we’re supposed to see.”

“Think I can fit through there?” Anne asks, pulling a line of rope from her bag. She knots it around her waist. “Someone hold the other end.”

“And somehow I’m the one who’s going to die.” Charlie unties Anne. He pulls a handful of fancy ropes from his bag. Seems to be pretty much all he packed. He jangles a couple of carabiners and says, “Never know when you’ll need to rappel down something.”

Elliot rolls his eyes. “That’s not actually something real people consider.”

“What do you think, Anna Banana? Up for some exploring?”

And that’s how Anne ends up in an elaborate harness and helmet, feet dangling over a mysterious nothingness. She looks like a child playing in her father’s gear, small head in a too-big helmet with hair shooting in every direction. She’s attached to a bunch of nylon ropes that run through the three anchors Charlie has set into cracks in the rocks. I expect him to push her off the ledge in an attempt at adventure, but Charlie, it appears, is all caution when it comes to everyone but himself. He guides her forward. Feet, calves, knees, and thighs. It’s the hips that do her in.

“A shove might be nice,” she says, rocking her body side to side in an attempt to slide farther through the hole. Elliot presses on her shoulders, but she doesn’t budge. She flops backward, rests the back of her helmet on the stone. “Everyone’s always teasing me for being tiny, and just when I thought it might finally come in handy, I’m too big.

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