Speak Through the Wind (50 page)

The whispers petered into silence, and one final toe-reaching behind me confirmed that I was on solid ground. Never taking my gaze away from my piece of the mirror, I took a deep breath, puckered my lips, and extinguished the flame.

And, nothing. Nothing but the darkness wrapped close around me. I kept my eye trained toward the shard of mirror until the glowing tip of my candle’s wick was swallowed by black.

“Well?” The girls gathered around me spoke as a chorus.

“I told you this was a bunch of nonsense,” I said, not allowing a drop of disappointment to come through.

“Or maybe you’re just never going to have a true love,” Phoebe taunted from the top of the stairs.

“Or maybe God knows the plans He has for me and He’s not going to reveal them through some childish, evil game.”

“Aw, save your Scriptures for Sunday school.” Phoebe positioned herself at the top of the stairs and intoned the fateful phrase with more conviction than any of us had mustered.

I felt my cousins gather around me, and Augustine’s small hand slipped into mine. My failure to see an image hadn’t shaken their faith; with the exception of the good-humored Rachel, they were believers.

Phoebe came down the final step, and we took a collective step back. I heard her sharp intake of breath, then a puff into darkness. Nobody broke into the silence that followed, but Augustine did squeeze my hand a little tighter, and I felt her shifting nervously from foot to foot.

“Thank You, God,” Phoebe whispered.

“You leave God out of this,” I said. “There’s nothing of God in this. It’s just, just—”

“You know who I saw, don’t you?”

“You didn’t see anybody. None of us did.”

“Who was it?” The eager voices of my cousins overrode my singular voice of reason.

“Chester,” Phoebe said in triumph.

“Cousin
Chester?” Rachel voiced everybody’s concern, but none of the girls could possibly have the same sick, seething stomach that I had.

“Not by blood,” Phoebe said, reminding all of us of her adopted status—the very factor that gave her such mysterious appeal and power. “Now all of you get back upstairs before we all get in a world of hurt.”

There was a shuffle as the girls found their way back to the stairs, and excited whispers as they made their ascent. I made my way to join them, but was detained by a grip on my sleeve.

“Now do you see?”

“This doesn’t mean anything.”

“It changes everything.” She jerked me hard against her and stood so close I could feel her lips moving against my ear. “Talk to your father again. Tell him I have to go with you.”

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

SPEAK THROUGH THE WIND
published by Multnomah Books
A
division of Random House, Inc.

© 2007 by Allison Pittman

Multnomah
is a trademark of Multnomah Publishers,
and is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
The colophon is a trademark of Multnomah Publishers.

eISBN: 978-0-307-56191-6

v3.0

Table of Contents

Here’s an excerpt from book 3in the Crossroads of Grace series