Sorcerer's Secret by Scott Mebus Read Free Book Online

purposefully stepped on some more twigs. The shape turned, stiffened, then relaxed.
    â€œI won’t be here long,” it said.
    â€œYou don’t have to go, Dad,” Rory said softly. “No one’s coming to get you.”
    â€œThey will, soon enough,” Peter Hennessy said, his eyes fearful. “I just wanted to see for myself . . . ” A tear ran down his cheek as he glanced at his wife’s body. “I did this. This is my fault. I never should have entered her life.”
    â€œIt’s my fault, Dad,” Rory told him. “I was the one they were looking for. And she paid the price.”
    â€œThis started long before you were ever thought of, son,” Mr. Hennessy admonished him. “I started it when I married her. I started it when I caught a glimpse of her reading down by the river. I started it the minute I crossed Kieft and didn’t kill Buckongahelas like I was told. Actually, it was way before that, to tell the truth.”
    â€œHow old are you, Dad?” Rory asked, risking the question that wouldn’t leave him alone. Mr. Hennessy glanced away, staring back out at his wife as he avoided the question.
    â€œHas Sooleawa figured out a way to heal them?”
    With a start, Rory realized that his father thought Bridget was also at death’s doorstep. He knew he should tell him the truth, but a perverse piece of him, the part that was still angry, decided not to. He shook his head. “She doesn’t know the magic, she said. Her mother used to know, I guess, but she’s long gone.”
    Mr. Hennessy nodded absently, even as his shoulders slumped at the news. “Alsoomse was very powerful. She saw right through me.”
    â€œWhy won’t you tell me anything about you?” Rory asked.
    â€œThere are things in my past.” Mr. Hennessy couldn’t look Rory in the eye. “Things were . . . done to me. They broke me, pure and simple. I am broken. I can’t go through it again. And I won’t let you go through it, either! You have to stay safe. You’re all I have left now.”
    Rory couldn’t believe his father would give up on his mom so easily. He could barely think, he was getting so angry. “Well, I’m going to see the Fortune Teller to find out what I can do to help them. The first door in the Tenements was destroyed, but there are two more and we’re going to find one.”
    â€œNo!” Rory was shocked to see that his father’s face had turned white. “The Tenements door was the firs door, the easiest to find. And her price there was high enough. But the price of the other doors is even higher. You don’t understand what she’ll require of you. It’s too steep! You can’t do it!”
    â€œHow do you know so much about it?” Rory asked.
    â€œPromise me you won’t go looking for the Fortune Teller,” his father begged him.
    â€œI can’t just stand aside and let Mom die!” Rory hissed. “Do you know where the other doors are? You’ve got to tell me if you do.”
    â€œRory, you have to listen to me. You can’t risk it. We’ll find another way to help your mother . . . ”
    Rory was so angry at all the cryptic hints and hidden meanings. Why couldn’t someone just tell him the truth? His stomach started to hurt the more he thought about it. Soon it was burning, and he almost doubled over with the pain. It was as if the copper spear Caesar Prince had thrown into the Sachem’s Belt had pierced his stomach after all.
    Mr. Hennessy noticed something was wrong. “Are you all right, Rory?” he asked.
    Rory felt the burning flow through his body. He tried to ignore it, wiping the sweat from his brow. Refusing to be distracted, he tried his question one more time. “Dad, you’ve got to tell me if you know. Where is the Fortune Teller’s door?”
    The burning intensified as his father opened his mouth,