The Emerald Atlas by John Stephens Read Free Book Online Page B

of the children seemed to be looking at the woods across the gorge and didn’t notice their arrival. One boy, however, was staring directly at them. He had a round face, a mop of wildly curly red hair, and very large front teeth.
    “What’re you looking at, you—” Emma began.
    “Emma.”
    Emma closed her mouth.
    “You ain’t from around here,” the boy said.
    He kept his voice low, and the look on his face was one Kate recognized. She’d seen it on children who after years in orphanages had decided no one was ever going to adopt them. The boy had no hope.
    “My name’s Kate,” she said, speaking in the same near-whisper as the boy. “This is my brother and sister, Michael and Emma. What’s your name?”
    “Stephen McClattery. Where’re you from?”
    “The future,” Michael said. “Probably about fifteen years. Plus or minus.”
    “Michael’s our leader,” Emma said brightly. “So if we all die, it’s his fault.”
    The boy looked confused.
    “That thing found us in the woods and made us come here,” Kate said. “What are they?”
    “You mean the Screechers?” Stephen McClattery said. A small girl had come up to stand beside him. “We call ’em that ’cause of how they yell. You heard ’em yell?”
    “I hear ’em when I’m sleeping,” the little girl said.
    Kate looked at her. She was younger than Emma and had pigtails and glasses with lenses that made her eyes look huge. She was clutching a very worn doll that was missing half its hair.
    “Is this your sister?”
    Stephen McClattery shook his head. “This is Annie. She used to live a house over back in the village.”
    The little girl nodded vigorously to show that this was in fact true.
    “Where do you live now?” Kate asked, though she already knew the answer.
    “The big house,” Stephen said.
    Kate glanced at her brother and sister. It was clear they were all picturing the large room with bars on the windows and row upon row of beds.
    “You’re orphans?” Emma asked. “All you kids?”
    “No,” Stephen said. “We got parents.”
    “Then why don’t you live with them?” Michael asked.
    Stephen McClattery shrugged. “She won’t let us.”
    Kate felt a shiver of dread; surely here was the answer behind the missing children. But before Kate could ask who “she” was, one of the children cried out, and the mob surged forward. The children were jumping, screaming, climbing over top of each other, their fear of the creatures seemingly forgotten. Stephen McClattery and the girl had disappeared into the crowd.
    “What is it?” Emma asked. “What’s over there?”
    Kate strained to peer over the heads of the children. Across the gorge, figures were streaming out of the woods. She realized why the children were yelling.
    “It’s their mothers.”
    The figures on the other side were all women. They were waving, calling the children by name.
    Kate looked around. The Screechers—that was what the boy had called them—were at the front of the mob, pushing the children back. This was their chance to escape. But where would they go? They were still trapped in the past.
    Then it came to her.
    “Michael! Do you still have the picture?”
    “No, it disappeared when I put it in—”
    “Not the one Abraham gave us. The other! The one you took with your camera! When we were in the room! Tell me you have it!”
    Michael’s eyes went wide as he realized what she meant. Putting Abraham’s photo in the book had brought them here. So maybe the picture he had taken in the underground study would get them back.
    “Yeah! Yeah, I got it right here!”
    But even as Michael reached into his bag, there was a new sound.
    Arruuuggga—arruuuggga!
    It was coming from the trees behind them, and Kate saw the children and their mothers fall silent and look toward the noise. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then she heard the unmistakable chugging of an engine, and a shiny black motorbike emerged from the forest, its thick, knobby tires