What Scares You the Most? Read Online Free PDF

dark cave opening behind them for a second. Then he turned and motioned for them to follow as he led the way back to the village.
    April and Kristen hurried to their cabin to pack their bags. “I can’t believe we’re getting out ofhere!” April exclaimed.
    Kristen glanced up from her suitcase. “Hey—what’s that on your head?” she asked.
    April turned to her. “Huh?” She moved to the mirror on the wall. “Where?”
    Kristen stepped up beside her. “On your temple,” she said. She pulled April’s hair back.
    And they both stared at the mark on April’s temple.
    â€œDid you always have a birthmark there?” Kristen asked, studying it.
    â€œNo,” April answered, gazing into the mirror. “It—it’s blue,” she stammered.
    â€œIt looks just like a moon,” Kristen said. “A blue crescent moon.”
    April pressed her fingers against it. It felt hot to the touch. Burning hot.
    How did I get that? she wondered.
    What does it mean?

11
    Deborah Andersen lay on her bed, staring at a black spider as it slowly zigzagged down the wall beside her bedroom window. She touched the cold whitewashed stone wall, trailing her finger along the spider’s path.
    She concentrated all her thoughts on the tiny black creature. A spider in the house was said to be good luck.
    Good luck.
    With a sigh, Deborah pressed her thumb against the spider’s hairy body—and crushed it against the wall. Dark brown blood seeped from its flattened belly.
    Good luck cannot help me now, Deborah thought bitterly. My life is over.
    The villagers had accused her of witchcraft. And now she faced a punishment worse than death.
    She huddled in her room in the small cottage she shared with her mother. Deborah knew these couldbe her last moments in this cottage, the house where she was born. But she could not find comfort in them. She hated the ugly village and its pinched, mean people, but she was terrified of what lay ahead of her too—terrified of the unknown.
    Alderman Harrison’s words rang in her ears….
    â€œDeborah Andersen, in our great mercy we have spared you death,” Harrison had pronounced. “But you must leave this village immediately—never to return. You will be taken to Plymouth. There you will board a cargo ship. The ship will carry you across the sea to an island in the new world—a tropical island where no people live.”
    â€œBut, sir—” Deborah had begun to protest.
    â€œYou are sentenced to live the rest of your life alone,” Harrison declared. “Alone on an island that no one will ever visit. Alone, where you cannot harm any of our good people with your witchcraft.”
    â€œBut I am not a witch!” Deborah had cried. “I have no powers. I am not a witch!”
    But no one—no one in the entire village—believed her.
    The day before, an evil spell had been cast on the Alderman’s son, Aaron Harrison. To everyone’s horror, the boy had been turned into a chicken—a chicken with Aaron’s wavy blond hair growing out of the top of its head.
    An angry mob dragged Deborah from her cottage and accused her of the crime. That night the villageburned mysteriously, with flames as cold as ice.
    This is Deborah’s evil work again, the villagers shouted. The witch’s revenge!
    And why did they accuse her? Why did they blame her for all the troubles in the village? What made them so certain that Deborah was a witch?
    Since the day she was born, the village of Ravenswoode had been cursed with unexplained illness, terrible storms, and ruined crops—one strange, unfortunate event after another. The once-rich farming land had, in the twelve years of Deborah’s life, turned to dust.
    But to the villagers, the strongest proof of Deborah’s witchcraft was the mark on her forehead. The blue crescent moon that floated over her right temple.
    Deborah hugged