The Emerald Atlas Read Online Free PDF Page A

steering reversed, then killed the engine so that the craft coasted in silently. It was a small, wide boat, the black paint on its wood hull chipped and peeling. There was only one man aboard. He deftly looped a rope over a pylon.
    “You three for Cambridge Falls?”
    The man had a thick black beard and eyes set so deep in his head as to be invisible.
    “I said, you three for Cambridge Falls?”
    “Yes,” Kate said. “I mean … we are.”
    “Come aboard, then. Time is pressing.”
    Afterward, the children disagreed about how long they were on the boat. Michael said half an hour, Emma was sure it was only five minutes, and Kate thought an hour at least. Maybe two. It was as if the fog played tricks not just with their vision but with their sense of time. All they knew for sure was that at a certain point, a dark shoreline rose from the fog, and, as they got closer, they could make out a dock and the waiting figure of a man.
    The boat master threw the man a rope. Kate saw that he was old and had a neat white beard, a neat if ancient brown suit, neat little hands; even his bald little skull seemed to have shed its hair to further the impression of neatness. He wasted no time welcoming the children. He took Michael’s and Emma’s bags, said, “This way, then,” and hobbled off down the dock with a practiced limp.
    Michael and Emma clambered out; Kate was about to follow when she felt a hand on her shoulder. It was the boat master.
    “You be careful in that place. You watch out for your brother and sister.”
    Before she could ask what he’d meant, he’d untied the boat and was shoving off, forcing her to jump onto the dock.
    “Hurry now!” came the voice through the fog.
    “Come on!” Emma called. “You gotta see this!”
    Kate didn’t move. She stood there watching the boat melt into the grayness, fighting the urge to call it back, gather her brother and sister, return to Baltimore, and tell Miss Crumley they would live with the Swan Lady.
    She was seized by the arm.
    “We must hurry,” the old man said. “There isn’t much time.”
    And he took her bag and hustled her down the dock to where Michael and Emma were sitting in the back of a horse-drawn cart, both of them wearing enormous grins.
    “Look.” Emma pointed. “A horse.”
    The old man helped Kate haul herself in beside her brother and sister, then leapt nimbly into the driver’s seat and snapped the reins, and with a jerk that made the children grab hold of the sides, they were off. Almost immediately, the road cut upward, and as they climbed through the thinning fog, the air once again became crisp and cold.
    They’d only been traveling for a few minutes when Michael cried out in surprise.
    Kate turned, and had Michael and Emma not been beside her and seeing the same thing, she would’ve thought she was imagining it. Rising up in front of them were the craggy peaks of a great mountain range. But how was that possible? From Westport, they had seen only rounded foothills, far off in the distance; these were real mountains, massive, stone-toothed, looming.
    Kate leaned forward, which was difficult given the pitch and how the cart was bouncing on the rutted dirt road. “Sir—”
    “Name’s Abraham, miss. Not necessary to call me ‘sir.’ ”
    “Well—”
    “You’re wondering why you didn’t see the mountains from Westport.”
    “Yes, si—Abraham.”
    “Light off the lake can be funny in the afternoon. Plays tricks on the eyes. Sit back now. We’ve an hour to go, and we’ll be hard-pressed to make it before nightfall.”
    “What happens at nightfall?” Michael asked.
    “Wolves.”
    “Wolves?”
    “Night falls. Wolves come out. Sit back now.”
    Emma muttered, “I hate Miss Crumley.”
    The higher they climbed, the more desolate and bleak the landscape became. Unlike the countryside around Westport, there were few trees here. The land was rocky, barren, wasted-looking.
    Finally, when the sun had slipped behind the