Before Wings Read Online Free PDF Page B

for trouble. At the other end of the table, Aunt Erin stood abruptly.
    “I’ll be up at the corrals if anyone needs me. You all know what you’re doing this afternoon.”
    It was an order, not a question. “Aye aye, boss,” grinned Guy.
    “Adrien, you keep on with inventory. I’ll be back to check on things around three.” As Aunt Erin picked up her tray and headed across the dining hall, her thin lanky body was suddenly cast in sharp relief by a bolt of lightning that lit every window. Everything was reduced toblack and white. The hairnets gave a soundless cry, the mouths in their brilliantly lit faces opening simultaneously as thunder crashed down around them, then faded into a long stretched-out silence.
    “Tree on fire!” Aunt Erin ran for the door as Paul and Guy erupted from their chairs.
    “Which tree? Oh please, not the Wishing Tree,” cried Gwen, going after them. Adrien grabbed her raincoat, jamming her arms into the sleeves as she passed through the doorway into midday darkness. Rain was coming down hard—whichever tree had caught fire wouldn’t burn long. The deluge pounded her hood as she followed Gwen’s form through the bush, and sure enough, when they reached the others, the tree was smoldering but there were no flames.
    “It is the Wishing Tree,” Gwen wailed.
    A huge silver birch stood on a slight incline in a clearing. It had been split down the middle, and one half remained upright while the other lay on the ground, exposing the blackened gut. Slight whiffs of smoke rose delicately from the charred wood. Aunt Erin put a hand on the split trunk and stood silently in the pouring rain, not bothering to pull up her hood. Guy put his arm around Gwen and she leaned against him.
    In the wet and dark, nothing moved except the memories in Adrien’s head. Every summer she had spent here, her counselor had woken the cabin of girls in the middle of the night and taken them to see the Wishing Tree. It had always been a night full of moonlight, the Wishing Tree’s silvery trunk rising before them like a glowing earth spirit, summoning them into the whispering promise of its leaves.Every counselor held the ceremony differently—sometimes the girls stood in a circle, sometimes they found private places to sit and watch the tree, but at some point each one touched the tree’s shimmering bark and made a wish. That was the magic of it—a girl gave the tree a touch of herself, and it touched her too. Adrien remembered sending something into the silver bark, and the cool green wish the tree had slipped back to her. Now, in the rain, she stepped forward to touch the tree again, send one last wish into its dying life, but as she touched the warm trunk Aunt Erin grabbed her hand and pulled it off.
    “You’ve brought something with you, girl,” she said fiercely, the lines of her face made harsher by the rain. “I don’t know the meaning of it, but you be careful what you do here. You just be careful with what’s mine.”
    Aunt Erin turned and headed into the trees, her yellow jacket floating in the dark. Lightning flashed and distant thunder rolled. Guy cleared his throat uncomfortably, Gwen patted the tree and made soothing noises, but Adrien stared after the disappearing jacket. The first shock of her aunt’s words was gone and something new was growing inside her. It was true, she had brought something. The spirits on the lake, the storm, the split tree—in some way it all belonged to her. Far across the horizon, the last flicker of lightning danced through her brain, a promise of what was to come.
    “Erin’s upset. I’m sure she didn’t mean that.” Gwen’s voice reached toward her, soft and comforting. Adrien looked at the others, meeting their eyes one by one. It was easy, she felt powerful, made of deep dark earth, wet whispering trees, huge sky. Gwen blinked, Guy cleared histhroat. Only Paul met her eyes, steady, silent.
    “Of course she did.” Adrien turned and headed into the trees.