Persephone's Orchard (The Chrysomelia Stories) by Molly Ringle Read Free Book Online Page B

attention. She looked aside and blinked in wonder. A person flew beside them, like Superman, at the same speed as the horses. It was an old woman in a polka-dotted dress, with her sparse white hair in a braid down her back. And, like the horses, she glowed.
    A human ghost. Up close and in person this time.
    The old woman looked at them and smiled, then accelerated and zoomed ahead, her glow soon vanishing in the distance. Now that Sophie looked around, she saw other streaks from time to time, all headed the same way across the ocean.
    “Souls,” she said.
    Adrian nodded. “We’ll see more and more as we get closer.”
    She was about to visit the afterlife. Suddenly it sounded ghastly instead of intriguing. She let her head sink back onto the stiff, cracked leather seat. She closed her eyes and tried merely to breathe.

Chapter Five
    T HE GLOW OF A SUNRISE penetrated her eyelids. Sophie opened her eyes and looked around, disconcerted. She wondered if those minutes spent tucked under Adrian’s arm had been longer than she realized. However, at the speed they were traveling, they could have covered several time zones and swung around the Earth to meet the sun again. She squinted at the bright green and brown mass of land that swept forward from the misty ocean.
    “Europe?” she asked. “Africa?”
    “Really, I shouldn’t tell you.” Adrian sounded tired.
    Annoyed, Sophie drew an inch away from him, though keeping close enough this time to stay safe.
    The air warmed as the sun rose. Wherever they were going, it wasn’t the Arctic. Adrian pulled up on the reins, and their speed slackened. She caught glimpses of dark blue sea, white beaches on a curving shore, green hills, and expanses of beige earth.
    “Hang on.” Adrian tightened his arm, gripping her close. The horses dived straight down in a vertical descent, pulling the bus with them. It was like being dropped in the world’s highest roller coaster, and Sophie’s heart rose to her throat. Watching the ground swoop up to meet them, she couldn’t help making a squeak of terror. He wouldn’t crash them straight into the ground, right? Would he?
    At the last second, she made out the crooked black shape of a cave mouth in the rocks below. The horses and bus plunged through it. Darkness engulfed them.
    With a thud and an echoing splash, and not nearly as much bone-breaking clatter as she expected, they landed. Everything went still. She sat up and tested her limbs, stretching each one. Nothing injured. Incredible.
    While Adrian tucked away the whip, Sophie leaned out of the glassless windshield and looked around. They were in a deep cave, at the edge of an underground river. A blue piece of sky glimmered a hundred feet above them at the cave’s entrance. A stream of transparent humans—souls, like the old woman she’d seen—flowed steadily down into the cave, and flew along the river into a tunnel. Her jaw dropped.
    Adrian nodded toward the doorway. “Hop out.”
    Sophie dropped the blanket on the seat. The cave air was mildly cool but comfortable, with an occasional breath of warmth blowing down from above. She gripped the door frame and descended to the stone floor. Ghosts continued flying past, sending curious glances or smiles toward the two of them. It gave Sophie goosebumps.
    Adrian jumped out of the bus, dragged the reins along the floor, and tied them to a large metal ring chained to a stalagmite. The ghost horses, meanwhile, stood calmly, with an occasional toss of their immaterial manes, as if content to have arrived home.
    Kiri leaped down too, and stood watching Adrian, head lifted.
    Adrian finished tying up the horses, and turned to Sophie. “Come on.” He walked toward the tunnel.
    It looked thoroughly dark in there, the pure blackness of a cave. But she had nowhere else to go, and would rather stay near Adrian and Kiri than be left alone. So she followed, picking her unsteady way along the narrow riverbank. The smell of damp stone surrounded