The Summer We Lost Alice by Jan Strnad Read Free Book Online Page B

the town limits and out to the sleeping lake, wind our mad way through picnic tables and around trash cans and between the trees. We're dying, Alice and I, but we hang on. There is a kingdom at stake.
    Boo runs into the road where a car is parked, lights out as if lying in wait. Alice gasps. It's Sammy's car, and Catherine is in it.
    "Boo, no!" Alice says. She pulls back hard on the leash. Our feet scuff in the dirt. Boo's claws scratch for purchase, his legs pump, but our headlong rush comes to a momentary halt. Boo barks his protest. His voice cuts through the quiet night like a foghorn. He rears on his hind legs, straining at the leash, rampant, howling.
    The headlights of the lurking car come on and fix us in their beams. Catherine leans forward and peers through the windshield at us. Her face is stony, lips tight. She clutches her shirt close around her chest, but not before I see that it's unbuttoned and her bra hangs loose from her shoulders. Alice glares back at her, shoots her a look of sisterly defiance. In one instant, a pact is made.
    Don't tell.
    Boo's claws bite into the asphalt . Alice relents and I'm yanked nearly off my feet. The chase is on again.
    We skirt the lake and run past a cabin and a mobile home. I have no idea where we are, but Boo knows. It's dark, but he could make this journey blindfolded. I realize that Boo, also, is in thrall to forces stronger than his own will. It's his elemental nature that guides his legs, that commands them to bear him and his prize to a place as sacred to him as Stonehenge or the elephant burial grounds or the mountains of the moon.
    I'm gasping for breath and there's a stitch in my side, but I'm determined not to let go of the leash. I no longer care about finding the royal treasure, as if I ever really did, but I care a lot about not disappointing Alice.
    Now we're running through the graveyard alongside the nursing home. Boo darts between the headstones, his tongue lolling and saliva dangling from his lips. I wonder if the dead can hear our footsteps thundering on the roofs of their graves. I wonder if Mrs. Nichols, the witch, can see us, if she'll come after us. I glance over at the enormous, stone house. Lights glow through the dusty windows. The house is watching us.
    My foot encounters a brass vase of dead flowers and I go down. The leash slips through my fingers. I slide on the wet grass. My knee bangs against something hard and I cry out.
    Alice throws a look at me. She yells out my name, but she hangs onto the leash and Boo keeps running and she staggers along behind him. I stand up. Pain shoots through my leg. My head swims and I fall again. The earth spins beneath me. I reach for a headstone to keep myself from flying off into space. I look up, searching for Alice. I see her in the distance, her and Boo, but they swirl away like leaves in a whirlwind, sucked into the black woods.
    "Let go!" I yell. "Alice! Let him go!"
    I don't know if she hears me. I climb to my feet. I limp after them, my knee burning. I struggle to stay upright on the careening landscape.
    "Alice!"
    I reach the edge of the woods. I stop and listen for footsteps.
    I hear nothing. Something rushes through the branches over my head. I look up, but whatever it was—an animal, the wind, a ghost—has already moved on.
    Then I hear her voice. She calls out to me:
    "Ethan, run!" she cries.
    I glimpse her for a second, a tiny shadow in the distance. My heart leaps. I run toward her as fast as I can with my bunged-up knee. Tears well in my eyes. I wipe them, and when I look for her again, she's gone.
    I scream her name and listen hard for an answer. The woods are deadly still. I venture a few more paces into the woods, calling for Alice. I stop. If I venture any further, I'll only get myself lost.
    I limp back to the graveyard and sit with my back against a headstone. Now and again I call out Alice's name. I yell for Boo.
    Again and again I walk to the edge of the woods and call out for Alice.