The Legend of Safehaven by R. A. Comunale Read Free Book Online Page A

to his eager protégé.
     
    “Tio Eddie, can I come in?”
    Freddie had heard the cutting and grinding noises coming from Edison’s wood shop.
    “Sure, Freddie. Here, take a look at this.”
    “What is it, Tio?”
    “It’s a gift, a gift for the mountain. Something Tio Galen said to Mr. Caddler that day struck me as appropriate. Think the old goat will like it?”
    He held up a three-foot-long wooden sign. On it, in large letters deeply engraved into the heavy solid oak wood, he had fashioned one word: SAFEHAVEN.
     
    They sat on their haunches, facing the house in the distance and the two-legged pack inside it that was of them and not of them. Their eyes reflected the amber, winter-solstice moonlight in luminescent green.
    The three in front kept ears and muzzles on full alert. The alpha male, a full one-hundred pounds, let out a solitary howl of unwavering tone. The male next to him, not as large but sleeker and more streamlined, joined in, their canine bodies taking in large gasping breaths to produce the contrapuntal vibrations of their vocal chords. The female, smaller but even more alert, added the second harmonic. The younger members of the pack sat in quiet respect, observing the ways that would govern their future lives and those of their pups.
    They were the Moonsingers of the mountain.

CHAPTER 3
Choices
    He closed his eyes, feeling the music, feeling the flow of mind to hand, as his fingers spread over the cracked and yellowed ivory keys.
    He was small for his age, wiry with the black hair and piercing brown eyes of countless generations of nomadic tribes. Olive-brown skin delineated a nose carried forward from some long-dead European Crusader seeking solace from the distant memories of his home country. And, maybe, the genes of that ancient warrior conveyed the message of something else.
    “ Ibni Faisal, taala ila huna wa aazif lena alhanen alal piano .”
    “Faisal, my son, come, play the piano for us.”
    He was a simple man, his father, a baker of breads and honey cakes, as his own father before him had been. Short with powerful arms, hairless and darkened even more by the ever-present heat of the great ovens, he marveled at what Allah had granted him: a son blessed with the gift of music. His arm encircled his wife, as they sat in the little room above the bakery shop, and he nodded with pleasure at his son, who sat down before the old, French upright piano.
    The yeasty scents of baked goods interwoven with the aromas of spices and honey used in the special pastries all mingled together in the hot, evening air of the little town.
    The boy took his seat, feeling the coolness defeating the searing heat of the day. He turned to his parents and his little yellow-brown dog, Fez, all waiting expectantly for him to work his magic on the keyboard.
    He would surprise them with a Chopin polonaise. He had heard it on the shortwave broadcast, and his mind processed the twisted helices of notes, until he could play it for real.
     
    “Sir, everything is secure. We’ve just done a full sweep. I think we’ve got a quiet one tonight.”
    Captain Lachlan Douglass nodded to his sergeant, an old man at twenty-four, one year younger than himself.
    What the hell am I doing here?
    Douglass had just been married and completed his training at the Pennsylvania State Police Academy, when he got the word: His Army Reserve unit had been called to active duty. Now, here he was in hell, experiencing the joys of one-hundred-thirty-degree days and ninety-degree nights in the Middle Eastern battle zone. His six-foot, three-inch, one-hundred-seventy-five-pound body protested the extremes.
    Ben, you wouldn’t know me now .
    He missed his gruff patrol-car partner, Ben Castle, in the same way a son misses his father.
    The beard would throw you.
    He rubbed his stubbled chin to wipe away some of the daytime debris of sweat, salt, sand, and frustration. Then his mind snapped back to the task at hand.
    “Okay, sergeant, let’s keep it