Amulet of Doom by Bruce Coville Read Free Book Online Page A

into, like carpentry or engineering. People seem to think you have to be weird to do it. But it’s what I’ve always wanted. And knowing Zenobia … well, she just made me feel like I could do it.”
    Marilyn was silent for a moment. She knew Kyle had just trusted her with a secret he wouldn’t tell his best friends, not even Geoff.
    â€œI know what you mean,” she said at last. “At least, I think I do,” she added quickly. She glanced up at him. He seemed to be waiting for her to go on. “I want to be a singer. Not just with a rock group. I want … I want to be on Broadway.”
    There. It was out. A confidence for a confidence. He had trusted her, and she was responding in the only way she could think of—by trusting him, too.
    But something inside her was waiting for him to laugh.
    â€œI think you can do it,” he said solemnly.
    She looked at him in surprise.
    â€œI’ve listened to you.” He smiled at the blank look that crept into her features. “It was hard not to. You’re always practicing in your room while Geoff and I are playing chess.”
    â€œYou heard me?” she cried in horror. Blushing, but also smiling, she turned her head away. “I can’t believe you could hear me.”
    â€œI liked hearing you,” insisted Kyle. “I wouldn’t just say that, because I know how hard it is to get the truth. But I like the way you sing. And I know a little about show music, because my old man is crazy for it and plays it all the time. So I think you can do it. And I want you to read a story I wrote,” he continued breathlessly, “because maybe you’ll tell me if you don’t like it, which is something almost no one will do, and it would be great to have someone I could trust to tell me when something I do stinks. And …” And here he paused, taking a break in the flow of words that had been carrying him away.
    She waited patiently.
    â€œAnd I’ve been meaning to tell you,” he said at last. “I really like you.”
    Marilyn’s first surge of delight was replaced almost instantly by a flood of panic and the desperate thought, What do I do now?
    Kyle reached for her hand. His own was warm and strong, and it made her feel safe.
    She stopped worrying about what to do next. They walked home in a comfortable silence, feeling safe with each other’s secrets. They lingered for a while on the front porch, then Kyle headed for home, and Marilyn slipped into the house.
    Her sense of safety ended as soon as she entered and crossed the threshold.
    Something was wrong.
    She had no idea what it was … or even why she was so sure of it, other than a prickling at the back of her scalp that made her want to turn and run.
    She stood in the front hallway and listened. She could hear her mother singing to herself in the kitchen while she prepared dinner. It was a nice, homey sound that should have made her feel better.
    It didn’t.
    The feeling persisted. Something was wrong.
    Marilyn remembered a time when she was little and there had been a fire in the house’s wiring. She had had the same vague sensation of fear then. As her parents had put it together later, she had smelled the smoke but hadn’t known she was smelling it, because the odor was too weak to register at a conscious level. She had only known that something was wrong and had wandered around the house acting nervous and distracted for hours, complaining to her parents that she was frightened.
    They had tried to calm her for a while, then finally they grew angry and told her to stop being foolish.
    Ten minutes later the fire broke out in earnest.
    She had the same kind of feeling now, an unmistakable sense that something was really wrong. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was, because it was registering somewhere below the level of consciousness.
    But it was there.
    And she was frightened.
    She went into the kitchen.