The Ruby Dream by Annie Cosby Read Free Book Online

breath came out
in a sigh as our little blue house came into view. Maisie herself stood in the
doorway, alive as ever, her floury hands hanging limply by her sides. I paused
to look at her but the old woman’s shoulders lifted slightly in silent
affirmation that she didn’t know the reason for the alarm, so I ran on.
    Instead of going to the mines,
which were a good fifteen minutes’ run away, or running up and down the coast
to find the trouble, I ran for the bakery. From Diamond’s Peak, I could look
down upon Killybeg and see what was happening immediately.
    I left Cath, whose plaintive
cries at everyone we passed were grating on my nerves, and began the climb. As
I took the stone stairs two at a time, I wondered if someone had died. If there
was a new ghost in the Haunted Wood, and a soul floating to the sky that very
moment. There were few enough souls in Killybeg as it was. My blood ran cold
and it felt as though chunks of ice were piercing my veins. That’s precisely
why I had to leave. There was nothing
in Killybeg but a lifetime of waiting for the call to go up – the one
that would some day send rescuers much too late to my own lifeless body.
    My black, dusty boots
stopped short of the last step. There was a frantic group in front of me. In
front of the abandoned diamond mine. And a great pile of rubble and rocks where
the gaping black entrance to the cavern used to be.
    Dust muddied my sight,
thick in the air like smoke. I edged nearer, but there were too many
townspeople, too much shouting, and too many rocks.
    “Get away, girl!” somebody
yelled, moving in a flurry too fast for me to recognize the face or voice.
    I stepped obediently
backward, stopping just in time to keep from striding right off the edge of the
hill and tumbling to my death. Shaken, I started up the path toward the bakery.
Surely Sarah would know which miners were stupid or desperate enough to enter
the old diamond mine. Once I was clear of the dust cloud, I took a deep, clean
breath of ocean air and scrambled up the grassy bank to leave the winding path behind.
    Sarah was already standing
on the edge, looking down upon the scene.
    “Careful, child,” Sarah
said softly. The barely visible wrinkles in her forehead were deeper than usual,
and a crevice of concern had been carved between her eyebrows.
    She grabbed my hand and
held on until I was back on flat ground, my boots even dirtier than before.
    “Who is it?” I asked,
breathless from the unorthodox climb. Sarah didn’t even spare two glances at my
appalling blue dress. The frock had been dirty the day before. Now it was a downright mess.
    “I’m not sure anyone
knows,” she said. “There was an almighty crash down below and the bakery shook,
and then everyone came running.”
    I remembered what she had
said about Oren the boat maker taking a tumble over the cliff’s edge, ending
all Sarah’s troubles. Sarah would never …
would she?
    There were shouts from
below, then, and we strained our necks to see over the familiar terrain.
    “Careful, child,” she said
again, putting an arm out in front of me. “It wouldn’t do to make the commotion
double.”
    The people shifting the
rocks down below paused as two men pulled something long and seemingly heavy
from the rubble. I couldn’t discern what it was. The dust was beginning to
clear, but I could still only see the shiny bald spot on the top of one man’s
head.
    “They’ll need water,” Sarah
breathed. Ever logical in her concern, she dashed away to the bakery.
    I stayed put, my grimy
boots planted on the edge. Whose family would be mourning tonight?
    The two men carrying the
heavy burden knelt amidst the group of townspeople. The shouts grew louder and
several people pointed toward the stairs. A little figure, bowed and gray, was
climbing up the stone steps with much difficulty. It had to be Jan, the only
one for three towns who had ever studied the art of medicine.
    I watched as the group
waited, tense and nervous,