(eng) Maryjanice Davidson, Anthony Alongi - Jennifer Scales 03 by The Silver Moon Elm

Author:The Silver Moon Elm [Elm, The Silver Moon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

Thursday

Speed is key, Jennifer decided as she blazed a nearly invisible path in the dark, just a few feet over the highway ditch. She didn’t think she would be able to hit ninety miles an hour like her father could—can, she corrected herself—but she was going fast enough to make herself nervous.

Worse than the chance she might hit a stray telephone pole, however, was the chance that the residents of Pinegrove would anticipate her next move and be at the farm to meet her. Since her conversation with Skip, she wasn’t sure how much he would help the authorities find places like the farm. On one hand, she had just insulted him. On the other hand, Skip and authorities didn’t exactly mix…

I don’t need to stay there a long time, she told herself as she dodged under a steel cable. Just long enough to see what happened, and to get toCrescentValley .

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she told herself it would also be nice to be able to get some rest.

Who knew when she would get another chance?

By the time she was at the farm, the slim crescent moon had worked its way lower in the starlit sky.

Dragon vision was still excellent in the dark (though not quite good enough to avoid a couple of scrapes on the way up), and she saw all she needed to see within moments of approaching the edge of the Scales’s property.

There were no beehives.

There were no wildflowers.

There were no sheep, no horses, and certainly no dragons to be seen.

All there was, in the midst of rugged prairie land and the occasional copse of trees, was a small cabin, maybe one-third the size her grandfather had built, and a familiar-looking barn.

She slowed down, landed softly on the gravel driveway, and assumed a dark camouflage pattern before daring to go any farther. There didn’t appear to be anyone about, and there were no vehicles of any kind parked outside.

Abandoned, she told herself as she got to the entrance of the barn. The wide doors were flung open, smacking the barn walls at the whim of the November winds. Inside was nothing but a few frayed horse blankets and the distant smell of manure embedded years ago into the woodwork.

She thought she heard a rustling in the woods behind her. Her head snapped around and she squinted her keen dragon eyes. Nothing was there—at least, nothing larger than a raccoon.

Leaving the barn, she went around the east side and surveyed the yard between cabin and lake. The clearing here was overgrown with tall grasses and weeds. Bit by bit, the land was returning to its natural prairie state. But Jennifer didn’t know enough about botany or geography to know how long this growth Page 109

had taken to emerge—ten years? Twenty? Five? A few months?

She glanced briefly at the spot where she and her mother had erected a gravestone for Grandpa Crawford. It wasn’t there, of course.

Is that good news or bad?

Again, there was a noise—but this was farther off.

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