The Edge of the Shadows Read Online Free PDF Page A

where it would lead if he gave his grandfather the information. So instead he said, “Wanted to tell her something. You, too.” He went on to share his good news: the GED and the invitation to play at Djangofest.
    His grandfather smiled and tossed down his rake. “We are due,” he said, “for a celebration.”
    Knowing that this would involve Whidbey Island vanilla and the trimmings, Seth sought a way to head his grandfather in another direction. That proved unnecessary as it happened because a shout of hello from the top of the hill and a “You! Ralph Darrow!” announced a visitor.
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    SETH LOOKED IN that direction to see they were being joined by a woman in overalls with disarranged gray hair somewhat tamed by a sagging French beret. Behind her trudged a boy. He looked either bored or ticked off but it was hard to tell which. His hair was dyed black, and his face bore bizarre mutton chop sideburns like something out of another century. He was tall and gangly with shoes the size of hockey stick blades and jeans so baggy the crotch was nearly at his knees. He wore all black. He was carrying a skateboard under his arm and gazing around as if to say there sure as heck wasn’t going to be a place to ride it
here
.
    Seth didn’t know either one of these people, but he figured his grandfather did. Ralph Darrow knew everyone on the south end of the island, especially old-timers, and this lady looked like an ancient hippie who’d come to Whidbey sometime in the late 1960s, probably wearing what she wore now: sandals, a tie-dyed T-shirt, jeans, and obviously handmade socks. When she reached them, she smiled, and said, “There you are, Ralph Darrow.” Seth saw that some of her teeth were missing.
    She was, he discovered, one Nancy Howard, and the boy with her was her grandson Aidan Martin. He’d been on the island for a while, he’d moved up here from Palo Alto, California, with his sister, he’d done “jack-darn-all to meet anyone and I mean even at the high school and don’t lie about that, young man,” so his grandmother Nancy had “hogtied him into the passenger seat of the camper” in order to do something about that. She’d heard Ralph Darrow had a young thing boarding with him, and Aidan here was going to meet that person. Nancy glanced at Seth expectantly, as if he were the young person in mind. She looked pretty doubtful about that. Seth was too old for high school and he looked it.
    â€œThat’s Becca King,” he told her.
    â€œShe’s out and about,” Ralph said to Nancy Howard. He extended his hand to the boy and said to him, “Ralph Darrow, Mr. Aidan Martin. This young man is my grandson Seth: builder, carpenter, and first-rate musician.”
    Aidan looked largely indifferent to the introduction, but this wasn’t something to deter his grandmother. She said, “You boys go get to know each other. Shoo, now. I want to ask Ralph about his rhodies.” She turned her back to do this, drawing Ralph over to his prized New Zealand specimen.
    That left Seth to deal with Aidan. He called to Gus and said to the boy, “Show you the pond if you want to see it.” Aidan shrugged. He shifted his skateboard to a spot beneath his other arm, and he shuffled along in Seth’s wake as Gus came loping from the porch, with the bone in his jaws like a duck he’d retrieved.
    The pond was old but not a natural feature of the land. Ralph had backhoed it into existence at about the time he’d also constructed the house. It lay immensely in a dip of the land, with lawn growing up to its edge on its near side and a deep green conifer forest leaping up on its far side. Trails led off into this forest, one of them to Seth’s tree house, others making long loops elsewhere. Gus headed for the tree house trail, but Seth called him back by means of a ball. Next to gnawing bones, Gus loved