Secret of Light by K. C. Dyer Read Free Book Online

visit to get Brodie’s pictures.”
    They circled the last group of large, standing rocks and carefully picked their way to the mouth of the cave. A salty tang in the air came from a fresh breeze blowing off the water. There were a few difficult moments as Brodie discovered that his pack, even off his back, was too wide to fit through the narrow slit in the rock serving as the door to the cave. Darrell and Kate did a small amount of repacking and a large amount of grumbling while Delaney wagged his tail and barked his impatience. After several sweaty moments of effort, Brodie and his pack finally squeezed into the cave.
    Once inside, Brodie switched on his headlamp and handed flashlights to the girls. They flicked on their lights and made a slow inventory of the cave entrance.
    â€œEverything looks the same in here,” said Kate.
    â€œLet’s keep moving then,” suggested Brodie.
    The temperature was warmer inside the cave than on the beach, but the air was dank and stale. Darrell walked along in silence, listening to the gentle echoes stirred up by their passage. The roof dropped lower as they neared the back. Brodie hunched his shoulders.
    â€œYou must have grown a bit since we were last here,” remarked Kate. “I don’t remember you having to duck before...” Her words ended in a loud gasp, and she pointed at the cave wall. “Look!” she whispered. “There’s a new glyph!”

    Darrell and Brodie hustled over to the wall. Darrell cursed herself silently.
Why didn’t I clean off the red chalk the day I met Professor Tooth in the cave?
    â€œWhat do you think it is, Brodie?” Kate peered at the image in the beam of the flashlight.
    Darrell stepped forward, hoping her suddenly reddened cheeks wouldn’t show in the glow of her friends’ flashlights. “Remember I told you I came back to the cave on the last day of summer school?” she asked. “I met Professor Tooth in here and she told me the school had been licensed and we could all come back in the fall.”
    Brodie and Kate both nodded.
    â€œWell, what I didn’t tell you is why I came.” Darrell hung her head and fiddled with her flashlight for a moment, the beam zigzagging wildly along the walls. Kate reached over and took the flashlight from Darrell’s hands.
    â€œLet me guess,” she said quietly, pointing the flashlight at the new glyph. “I see a man, a girl, and a motor-bike with a flat tire.” She turned back and peered at Darrell’s face in the shadows.
    â€œYou were trying to go back, right? To the time of your accident?”
    Darrell nodded miserably. “I thought I might be able to change things — to have my whole leg again — to bring him back, maybe.”
    â€œBut you didn’t draw the other glyphs, did you?” Brodie sounded puzzled.
    Darrell shook her head. “No, of course not.” She traced a finger along the cool rock wall. “I broughtsome red chalk I found in the art room. I was hoping the cave walls held whatever magic I needed to take me back. If I could find a way to harness the magic, maybe I could direct myself back in time and change my life to the way it should be.”
    They stood silent, lights carefully directed away from Darrell’s sketch. Brodie got out his camera and took a couple of pictures of the blackened glyphs, now little more than charred smears on the rock. “These are never going to turn out,” he complained. “There really isn’t anything left to take a picture of.”
    After a few moments, Darrell walked to the other wall and brushed the chalk dust off with her hands. Her sketch, already smudged, blurred into a red smear on the rock. She cleared her throat.
    â€œThat’s that,” she said. “Professor Tooth got here just as I realized my own artwork had no magic to it. She told me even
she
didn’t know why things happen the way they do.”