Sage's Eyes Read Online Free PDF Page B

off me no matter where I was, like some loose thread, but something much stronger than just curiosity was drawing me to the open cabinet that day. It was almost as if the winds that brought the whispering voices were at my back, urging me forward. My heart began to thump as I stepped deeper into my father’s office. All of the figurines he had on shelves—the owl, the eagle, and the bat in particular—seemed to turn toward me, their eyes tracking my every move. I paused. The silence in the house seemed to pound in my ears. It was as if everything in it was holding its breath. Would I dare?
    I glanced at myself in the antique mirror on the wall to my left. An image flashed across my eyes. It was quick, but I couldn’t help gasping. I saw a woman, dressed in clothes from colonial America, suddenly burst into flames. Around her, men and women were all smiling. The image disappeared as quickly as it had come, but I almost turned and ran out of the office. I caught my breath, and the chill that had washed over my chest dissipated. Whenever an image like that occurred, I was frightened or shaken for a moment but always recuperated quickly.
    There was no getting away from how wrong it feltto be spying on my father. However, I told myself that this wasn’t simply disobedience; it was defiance strengthened with the belief that I had a right to know everything. Why should there be such a cloak of mystery around things that others my age clearly had spread out before them, especially children who were part of the family? Cabinets weren’t supposed to be locked to keep them out. They were supposed to be locked to keep out strangers and thieves.
    Determined now, I knelt beside the open cabinet and began to sift through the files in the bottom drawer, the one that had been pulled open and left that way. In front of the files was a small wooden box. I took it out slowly and set it on the floor, where I turned it around and around, because at first, I couldn’t see how it could be opened. Then I realized there were two small indentions for fingertips, one on each side. I pressed into them, and the box snapped open.
    What strange contents, I thought. There were what looked like human bones, fingers and the nose portion of a small skull, maybe a child’s skull. Mixed in with them were tiny leaves of shrubs and a piece of frankincense. Why was that in there? What did it mean? I closed the lid softly and put the box back. I thought I could feel two strong hands gripping my shoulders, trying to pull me away, but I resisted and looked at the first file that seized my attention.
    The file had a college logo at the top of the first page. It was a bachelor of science diploma from a liberal arts college in Boston. This was no specialdiscovery, I first thought. I knew my father had gone to college, but I believed he had gone to a business school. I shrugged and started to put the page back into the file when I noticed the date. It made no sense.
    This diploma had been issued in 1908. How could my father have been in his early twenties in 1908? Was this his grandfather’s diploma? Did his grandfather have the same name, Mark Healy? That was obviously the only answer, but why keep something like this under lock and key? Why wasn’t it framed and on his office wall? Wasn’t he proud of his grandfather?
    I took out another document in the same file. It also had a university logo at the top of what was another diploma, a juris doctor degree from Cornell Law School in New York State. This, too, had the name Mark Healy, but the date was 1925. That couldn’t be my father, either, and the date was wrong for it to be his grandfather. Maybe it was his father’s, I thought.
    But my father and my uncle had told me their father’s name was Evan Charles Healy. This was all very confusing. I dug deeper and found pictures, old sepia photographs that were very faded, but the first one was clear enough to reveal a