Light Beneath Ferns by Anne Spollen

Author:Anne Spollen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: young adult, teen fiction, fiction, teen, teen fiction, teenager, angst, drama, romance, ghost, paranormal, mystery
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD.
Published: 2010-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

At 3:15 in the morning, my palm cradling the bone in my sleep, I wake to tapping sounds on the glass of my window. It is distinct, a code: three taps, two taps, silence, three taps, two taps. I put the bone inside the box and go to the window, my heart thrumming in my chest. Slowly, I inch back the curtain and slide the window up.

I look outside. Nothing. No branches, no strange mists of ghost swirling. The graveyard is entirely dark.

“Elizah! Down here!”

“Nathaniel?”

There, holding a small light at the end of a key chain to his chin to illuminate his face, is my father. He’s grown a beard and he’s wearing a knit cap pulled below his eyebrows. He’s also awkwardly holding a very long stick.

“What did you say before? Are you meeting boys this way?”

“No,” I answer, trying not to laugh at his parenting attempt. “I just sneak over to the window to meet fugitive parents.”

My dad motions for me to go downstairs and let him in. He silently follows me back to my room and closes the door.

“Listen, kid, I’m really sorry.”

“Right. Maybe you want to see Mom?”

He looks around. “I knew you’d choose a corner room.

But what a creepy house. Christ. Aren’t you scared in here? It looks like about three hundred people have lived in this room before.”

I sit on my bed and look at my father, in his cap, with gray patches in his beard, holding a duffel bag. “It’s the best Mom could do. You know. Due to her circumstances.”

He comes over to the bed and embraces me in an awkward way that reminds me of holding still for an X-ray. I don’t breathe in or out.

“I can’t stay.”

“No?”

“Elizah, listen. You can’t tell anyone I was here. Not a soul. I’m going in to see Mom, then I’m out of here.”

“Okay.”

“Are you all right, Elizah?”

“I’m good, Dad. I’ll see you … soon?”

“Not sure when. But you will definitely see me.”

I go over to the window. I stay there for a few minutes, because seeing my father has made me cry. My mother is making coffee in the kitchen. I can smell the coffee, hear the hum of low voices. I’m still sitting by the open window when my mother opens the door to my room.

“Elizah, it’s freezing out there,” she says, pulling her robe around her thin ribs. “Shut the window. I have the heat on tonight.”

“Did Dad leave?”

“He’s gone.” My mother comes over and sits on my bed. “I got a letter forwarded here about two weeks ago, and I wrote back and gave him our new address. He’s been out in the country, doing handyman work for some old woman who lives alone.”

“You believe that? Dad? Out in the countryside with some old woman? She’s probably about thirty-two and an heiress.”

My mother rubs her palms together and her face goes distant. “It doesn’t matter what I believe. He’s thinking of going back to Queensport and … ”

“Going to jail?” I shut the window.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.