The Sign of Seven Trilogy Read Online Free PDF Page A

hear us.”
    That, Cal realized, didn’t make his stomach feel any steadier. “We need to get wood for a campfire.”
    â€œThe Boy Scout’s right,” Gage decided. “You guys find some wood. I’ll go put the beer and the Coke in the stream. Cool off the cans.”
    In his tidy way, Cal organized the campsite first. Food in one area, clothes in another, tools in another still. With his Scout knife and compass in his pocket, he set off to gather twigs and small branches. The brambles nipped and scratched as he picked his way through them. With his arms loaded, he didn’t notice a few drops of his blood drip onto the ground at the edge of the circle.
    Or the way the blood sizzled, smoked, then was sucked into that scarred earth.
    Fox set the boom box on the rock, so they set up camp with Madonna and U2 and the Boss. Following Cal’s advice, they built the fire, but didn’t set it to light while they had the sun.
    Sweaty and filthy, they sat on the ground and tore into the picnic basket with grubby hands and huge appetites. As the food, the familiar flavors filled his belly and soothed his system, Cal decided it had been worth hauling the basket for a couple of hours.
    Replete, they stretched out on their backs, faces to the sky.
    â€œDo you really think all those people died right here?” Gage wondered.
    â€œThere are books about it in the library,” Cal told him. “About a fire of, like, ‘unknown origin’ breaking out and these people burned up.”
    â€œKind of a weird place for them to be.”
    â€œWe’re here.”
    Gage only grunted at that.
    â€œMy mom said how the first white people to settle here were Puritans.” Fox blew a huge pink bubble with the Bazooka he’d bought at the market. “A sort of radical Puritan or something. How they came over here looking for religious freedom, but really only meant it was free if it was, you know, their way. Mom says lots of people are like that about religion. I don’t get it.”
    Gage thought he knew, or knew part. “A lot of people are mean, and even if they’re not, a lot more people think they’re better than you.” He saw it all the time, in the way people looked at him.
    â€œBut do you think they were witches, and the people from the Hollow back then burned them at the stake or something?” Fox rolled over on his belly. “My mom says that being a witch is like a religion, too.”
    â€œYour mom’s whacked.”
    Because it was Gage, and because it was said jokingly, Fox grinned. “We’re all whacked.”
    â€œI say this calls for a beer.” Gage pushed up. “We’ll share one, let the others get colder.” As Gage walked off to the stream, Cal and Fox exchanged looks.
    â€œYou ever had beer before?” Cal wanted to know.
    â€œNo. You?”
    â€œAre you kidding? I can only have Coke on special occasions. What if we get drunk and pass out or something?”
    â€œMy dad drinks beer sometimes. He doesn’t, I don’t think.”
    They went quiet when Gage walked back with the dripping can. “Okay. This is to, you know, celebrate that we’re going to stop being kids at midnight.”
    â€œMaybe we shouldn’t drink it until midnight,” Cal supposed.
    â€œWe’ll have the second one after. It’s like…it’s like a ritual.”
    The sound of the top popping was loud in the quiet woods, a quick crack , almost as shocking to Cal as a gunshot might have been. He smelled the beer immediately, and it struck him as a sour smell. He wondered if it tasted the same.
    Gage held the beer up in one hand, high, as if he gripped the hilt of a sword. Then he lowered it, took a long, deep gulp from the can.
    He didn’t quite mask the reaction, a closing in of his face as if he’d swallowed something strange and unpleasant. His cheeks flushed as he let out a short, gasping