Running Out of Night by Sharon Lovejoy

Author:Sharon Lovejoy [Lovejoy, Sharon]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-385-37846-8
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2014-11-10T16:00:00+00:00

Lightning accompanied by a thunderbolt produces a madstone. Find one and keep it in your pocket to protect yourself from lightning, or put it in your house by a chimney and your home will never be hit.

I laid in bed listenin for the night sounds to start up, but they didn’t. Then the rain began again, fallin gentle on the roof, then harder, poundin and poundin, then soft again, drummin lightly like fingertips on a tin bucket. That were the last I remember afore the saw-sound crowin of a rooster and three loud thumps woke me. A gray mornin barely lit the room.

I rolled to my side and watched as the trapdoor slid back and Zenobia’s head poked above the floor.

“Mornin, Lark. This rain good. Nobody out now. No smells of us laid down. Auntie say she felt someone here most of last night, watchin the house.” Zenobia’s words tumbled together like the water rushin off the edge of the roof.

So I weren’t wrong worryin about the quiet out there. Someone had been watchin Auntie’s house, lookin for somethin that didn’t fit right.

I got up from the bed and reached for Zenobia’s good arm. She scrambled into the room and set beside me.

A tray loaded with food appeared right behind her.

“Got it, Lark?” Brightwell asked as he passed the tray up to me.

We heard voices. Brightwell looked down, stepped back, and disappeared below us.

I set the tray on the bedside table and Zenobia set next by me.

“Auntie goin to tell you later tonight where you be goin soon,” Zenobia said. “And she give you a fine new name for the travelin. She call you Miss Abigail Harlan, but I likes Lark best.” More voices below, and then Brightwell climbed through the door, slid it back into place, and set down in the rockin chair. His long legs, near thick as an oak limb, stretched all the way to the bed.

We could hear the wind gainin outside, the sounds of rain poundin on the roof, and far away a huge clap of thunder, then a long, rollin rumble like the big wheels of a passin wagon. The storm had finally broken the hot spell and the little room felt cool and fresh.

A flash of lightnin shone through the slats above us and lit the top of the wall in brilliant stripes.

“Tonight,” Brightwell said, “Yardley and Asa come by and say late tonight we movin on to another stop, but you stayin here, Lark, till you get moved north. Auntie think it’s not safe for all three of us to leave together.”

“What you mean we’re not leavin together?”

Another flash. The room lit for an instant, and I could see every scar on Brightwell’s face. I wished I could run outside and find that piece of thunderbolt madstone so’s Brightwell, Zenobia, and me could travel safe together.

Zenobia raised a finger to her mouth and cautioned me to quieten down.

“If you’re goin, I’m goin,” I said over the crash and rumble of another clap, not near as close as the last.

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