Comes the Blind Fury Read Online Free PDF Page B

with the jumble of boxes in the living room, he was sure June would give it up as a hopeless cause, but instead she scanned the mound expertly and suddenly pointed.
    “That one,” she said.
    “How can you tell?” Cal asked, baffled. The label on the box clearly said Miscellaneous.
    “Trust me,” June said sweetly.
    Cal hauled the box down from its perch near the top of the pile and ripped the tape off it There, right under the lid, was his toolbox.
    “Incredible!”
    “Precision labeling,” June replied, a bit smugly. “Come on.”
    She led him back to the studio, and settled herself on the stool while Cal began chipping at the offending stain. A few minutes later, he looked up.
    “I don’t know,” he said.
    “Won’t it come off?” June asked.
    “Oh, it’ll come off all right,” Cal replied. “I’m just not sure what it is.”
    “What do you mean?” June got off the stool and lowered herself next to her husband. What had been the body of the stain on the floor was now a pile of crumbling brownish dust scattered around her feet. She reached out and, hesitating, picked up a little of it, rubbing the dust between her fingers, feeling its texture.
    “What is it?” she asked Cal.
    “It might be paint,” he said slowly. “But it looks more like dried blood.”
    His eyes met his wife’s.
    “Michelle might have been right after all,” he said. He stood up and helped June to her feet.
    “Whatever it is,” he added, “it’s been there for years and years and years. It certainly doesn’t have anything to do with us, and it won’t take long to get that stain out. Once it’s out, you can forget all about it.”
    But as they left the studio, June turned and looked once more at the brownish mess on the floor.
    She wished she were as sure as Cal that she would forget all about it.
    Michelle paused on the trail and tried to guess how far down it was to the beach. Hundreds of feet. For a moment she toyed with the idea of trying to find another route down. No, for now, at least, she should stick to the path. There would be plenty of time later to scramble her way through the rocks and brush that clung to the face of the bluff.
    The trail was an easy walk, cut in switchbacks, worn smooth by years of use. Here and there it narrowed where winter storms had eaten it away, and there were occasional rocks in her path, which Michelle kicked over the edge, then watched while they gathered force in their plunge to the beach below, disappearing from her line of sight before she heard them crash at the bottom.
    The trail ended very close to the high tide line, but this afternoon the tide was out, and a rocky expanse of beach, broken irregularly by a series of low granite outcroppings, lay before her, curving outward in both directions toward the arms of Devil’s Passage. The water, trapped in the tight cove, boiled and eddied, its swirling currents twisting the surface into angry patterns that even to Michelle’s inexpert eyes looked dangerous. She began walking north, intent on discovering if it might be possible to follow the beach all the way to the foot of Paradise Point. It would be a neat way to go to school—along the beach, then up the bluff and through the village. Much nicer than taking the crowded MTA to Harrison in Boston!
    She had gone perhaps a quarter of a mile when she noticed she wasn’t alone on the beach. Someone was crouched over a tidepool, oblivious of her presence. She approached the figure warily, unsure whether she should speak, go on by, or maybe even turn back. But before she could make up her mind, the person looked up, saw her, and waved.
    “Hi!” The voice seemed friendly, and when he stood up, Michelle saw that it was a boy, about her own age, with dark curly hair, startlingly blue eyes, and a wide smile. Tentatively, she waved back, and called out a hello.
    The boy bounded across the rocks toward her.
    “Are you the girl that moved into the Carson house?” he asked.
    Michelle