Gives Light(Gives Light Series) Read Online Free PDF

to do with myself.  Dispirited, but resigned, I decided to go for a walk.
     
    The reservation really did dwarf the size of my former neighborhood, but as far as I could tell, its community, though widespread, was smaller.  There weren't any roads proper; just two lanes, one for the farms out west and the other for the woods out east.  I guessed there had to be a lake somewhere.  Bull pines and oaks grew side-by-side, the pines considerably more numerous.  The oaks would lose their leaves in winter; the pines would stay green all year long.
     
    My legs carried me north.  Next thing I knew I was standing in front of a house that bore the unmistakable look of years of abandonment and neglect.  There were vines tangling up one side, the windows beneath the roof eaves opaque with dust.  Empty planters hung beneath the windows, their edges crumbled, like termites had had their way with them.   A worn little gate blocked off a segment of smooth earth that had once been a garden--but for flowers or vegetables, I didn't know.  I didn't remember.  This was my home.  This had been my home.  The name "St. Clair" still hung beside the door, partially obscured by a crosshatch of spiderwebs.
     
    It must have been muscle memory that brought me here.  I don't know.  They say there are things your body remembers years and years after your mind's forgotten them.
     
    All the wind left my lungs, like I'd been punched in the gut.  I wiped wet hair out of my eyes.  I don't even know how long I stood outside that house before suddenly, impulsively--which really isn't like me--I pulled open the door.
     
    It swung open with ease, none of the resistance I had expected from the aged and swollen wood.  I didn't realize at the time how suspicious that was.
     
    The air in the front room was musty and thick.  Gray sunlight and warm rain leaked through chips in the ceiling.  It was a one story home.  I hadn't really thought about this house over the years--there were certain things I'd grown skilled at removing from my memory--but it struck me as familiar in a distant, cursory way.  The closet next to the front door.  The raw support beam that might have become another room had our time here not been cut short.  The twin bedrooms off to one side and the back door to the outhouse.  An alcove where maybe, I thought, I had sat on Mom's lap, and together we had watched the sunrise climb over the pines.
     
    Absence seemed to me such a heavy thing, especially absence of memory.  I hated that I couldn't remember Mom's face.  There were half-memories of soft touches I thought I could attribute to her, but I wasn't at all certain that I hadn't imagined them.  Mom was gone before I'd even had the chance to know her...  And now Dad.  Where was he?  Was he safe?  Was he alive?  Dad was a lot more than just a dad; he was my best friend.  He was all that I had.  I thought I was going insane.  My chest was tight and cold and I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs and I couldn't.  I couldn't make a sound.
     
    Frustrated, scared, my eyes misted over.  I slammed my fist into the dirty wall.  The surface layer of wood crumbled beneath my knuckles.  I swore soundlessly, rubbing my fist.
     
    Something had fallen to the floor.
     
    I paused.  I knelt in the dark and detritus, running my fingers through years of filth.
     
    I jolted when I felt fresh paper beneath my fingertips.
     
    I scooped up the paper.  I stood quickly and went into the alcove, squinting in the dim daylight.
     
    It was a drawing, notably devoid of the dust covering the rest of the house.  I ran my fingers across the neat gray lines.  Smoother than graphite; a charcoal drawing.  A drawing of a slender woman, her fair, curly hair bunched back in an unruly ponytail.  Her eyelashes were sweeping, her head and neck bowed, like she was tending to a garden or picking up something on the floor.
     
    My vision blurred.  I wiped my eyes hastily with the back