This Raging Light Read Online Free PDF Page A

mostly closed, except for when she goes in to get something or put something in. We like it that way.
    Shadows fall. Wren holds on tight.
    When Mom would put her to bed, she’d sing her a song or read her a book until she fell asleep. Some nights when I got into bed early, their pillow talk was like a fan humming laughter and music to carry me to my dreams. Me? I stare at the ceiling, one hand on Wren’s back. Air in. Air out. Life.
    Mom left with a single suitcase and a computer bag, said she was going to gather her thoughts and she would be back soon. She said we could reach her by phone and that she would call every day either way. When we asked where she was going, she said she didn’t know. She must have known something though. She was going somewhere. Gave us a freezer full of food and a few hundred dollars, told me all the bills were paid for the month, and then walked out. She was a little slurry, kind of wide-eyed and dull. She barely hugged us when she got into the cab to the airport.
    It was like we weren’t there, like we were ghosts. But by then she was a shell. The Mom I knew was already gone, had been for a while. So saying goodbye wasn’t so much saying goodbye as it was letting go of the last of something that was a fading memory anyway.
    She never called.
    Now Wren holds me around the waist, almost unconscious. She rests her head on my shoulder. Her hair smells like wet dog, not because she actually came into contact with a wet dog but because (I have discovered) little girls smell like wet dog when they don’t wash their hair and their tween hormones come out of their skulls. She drapes her arm over my stomach, hits the mute button on the remote.
    â€œMom’s not a nurse,” she says, muffled into me.
    â€œNo,” I say.
    â€œYou said she is.”
    â€œI did, Wrenny girl.”
    â€œOkay,” she says.
    I want to ask the top of Wren’s head what we’re going to do. What does the future look like now? All I see is a black hole, an empty space where college and boys and food should be. If I don’t do something, pretty soon the house will disintegrate and fall into the ground. Someone will find out we’re here alone, Wren and I will have to leave and we will be separated, and my cell phone will be disconnected. Mom won’t be able to get in touch if something happens to her. And if she does come back, she will have that slack look on her face. She won’t try hard enough to get better. She won’t fight. And we will all be lost and listing in oblivion.
    Hundred-dollar bills from wandering souls aren’t going to cut it.
    Â 
    Wren is snoring. I have been staring at the ceiling for a kajillion years.
    My phone vibrates under my pillow. I don’t even briefly think it’s Mom. Only one person ever texts me at this time of night.
    KNOCK KNOCK,
it says. Eden.
    WHO’S THERE?
I manage to type, over Wrenny’s head.
    GET THEE TO THE RIVER
    GIVE ME 30
    Â 
    We have a spot. You go a little way up the tow path and then cross over, past the old train car. We don’t know how the train car wound up nestled between trees, wedged among rocks. We’ve always wondered why no one goes there but us, since it’s so obviously the coolest spot in town. It’s the perfect place to stare at the river and talk about stuff. We used to spend hours dipping our toes into the water on hot days, surrounded by lush green and sweet shade, back when we decided to be BFFs and had fake-gold necklaces to prove it. We even took a botched blood oath. Eden was in charge. The cuts took weeks to heal. Kind of like when she pierced my ears right on her rock. I should not allow her to wield sharp objects near my person.
    So much has happened at this spot.
    Now we meet at night, in the dark, because it’s the only time we have to really be alone. And before you judge me about leaving Wrenny home, consider that she once slept through an earthquake at