The Light (Morpheus Road) Read Online Free PDF Page B

smearing it around and wiping it back onto the wall. It was thick. It smelled like steak.
    It was blood.
    "Dad!" I screamed, and ran out of the room. "Dad, c'mere!"
    I stood on top of the stairs as Dad hurried up. "What?"
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    I ran back into my room with my dad right behind me. "I threw this thing and when it hit the wall, it shattered and spewed . . ."
    I looked to the bloodied wall to see ... it wasn't bloody anymore. The photo and the wall around it were completely clean. I felt dizzy. How could that have happened?
    "What did you throw?" Dad asked, confused.
    Only a few seconds before, the wall had been splattered with what I thought was blood. There was no way it could have run down and left no trace. At least not that fast. The floor was covered with broken glass and shattered pieces from the golden ball. I hurried over and picked up two of the larger pieces of the destroyed ball. I felt the inside for traces of liquid. It was bone-dry.
    "Was it Mom's?" Dad asked.
    I couldn't think straight. "Uh, yeah. I threw it at the picture."
    "You what? Marsh!"
    "It was ... I mean ... I shouldn't have. I know. I was mad. But when it broke, there was red stuff inside. Like blood."
    He hurried to the wall and touched the photo where there was a small gouge from the impact. He ran his finger over it like it was a wound. A wound I had caused. He didn't have to say anything. I knew what he was thinking. I wasn't normal.
    All I could say was "Sorry."
    Dad nodded. "I am too."
    "Was it valuable?" I asked.
    Dad shrugged. "I don't know, your mom was always collecting things. Listen, Marsh, I didn't mean to get you so angry. I just ... I want things to be good for you."
    "But I'm okay, Dad. Really."
    He gave me a small, sad smile that said he didn't believe
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    me. He didn't push it, though, and neither did I. He bent over to clean up the remains of the shattered globe and the glass from the picture.
    I wasn't mad at him anymore. I knew he was just as upset about Mom as I was, and when you're upset, you say things you don't mean. We usually handled it well. Sometimes we didn't. That was a fact of our new life. There was nothing to do but help him clean up.
    The storm had passed, at least for the moment. I was left with a mess to sweep away, a damaged picture, and the mystery of what had happened to the blood that was no longer splattered all over my bedroom wall.
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    Chapter 4
    Cooper and I didn't talk to each other again before his family left for the lake. A couple of times I thought about giving him a call to settle things, but didn't. I figured it was better if we both took some time to cool off.
    I tried to stop thinking about the broken globe and the blood. Whether it was valuable or not, it was one more piece of Mom that was now gone, thanks to me. I couldn't come up with any logical answers or explanations for what had happened, so I pushed the whole event out of my head.
    All the fun things I had planned to do didn't seem like much fun anymore, so I spent most of my time those first few days either reading or picking up hours at work. As long as I was going to be bored, I figured I might as well make some bucks. Not that I had anywhere to spend it. I actually started to think that Dad was right. I should get out a little
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    more and make some friends. I might have done it too ... if I knew how.
    I'd only been out of school for three days, and the summer had already become deadly monotonous. That changed when a visitor came to see me at work. I was hunched over my engraving machine, etching out a sailing trophy for the local yacht club, when I heard a familiar singsong voice call out to me.
    "Hello, Marshmallow!"
    I looked up to see Ennis Mobley step into my tiny workplace.
    "Ennis! Hey!" I jumped up and hugged the guy.
    Ennis was a guy my mom used to work with, but he was more like family. I think he was around forty years old, though I'm not the best judge. He was from Jamaica, which accounted for his singsong voice. Mom always