Read Online Between the Spark and the Burn by April Genevieve Tucholke - Free Book Online

And that’s when I knew we were going to stay.
    And maybe part of me was scared, but the other part, the louder part . . . the Freddie part . . . was licking its lips in anticipation.
    â€œPine, do you know somewhere we can spend the night?” I looked up and down the small rows of houses that led off the main street, and her gaze followed mine. “A campground, maybe? Or a hotel?”
    Pine shook her head, snuggling her chin into the scarf. “We had an inn once, a long, long time ago. A road ran through Inn’s End, and a train too. We were the last stop before the big forest. But then Pastor Walker Rose started preaching against strangers. Soon the train disappeared and then no more inn either.” She was quiet for a moment. “You could stay at the Lashleys’, I suppose. Their place is on the other edge of town. It’s the biggest house in Inn’s End—the one with the rope swing in front.”
    â€œDo they rent out rooms?” I asked, with no enthusiasm. I liked Pine on sight, but the thought of sleeping in one of the houses in Inn’s End, with the dead birds hanging on the door . . .
    But Pine shook her head. “No one rents out rooms here. Not since Walker Rose. The Lashleys . . . they had a little boy. He was really pretty, great brown curls, fat rosy cheeks. Everyone loved him. And then one morning he wandered into the woods and didn’t come back. They found him three days later, smashed to pieces at the bottom of a gorge. Little Hamish Lashley’s ma threw herself off old Witch William’s bridge. They told Ian not to marry an outsider, and a city girl at that, despite the money. But he would have her. He ran off then too. Who knows where, anywhere that’s not here, I guess. No one lives there now. It’s empty.”
    A raven cawed from overhead. I looked up. It was perched on the steeple roof, sitting with its chest puffed out as if to say
I’m not dead like the others. Not yet.
    â€œThat will work for the night,” I said to Pine. “Thank you. Will people mind, though?” I added, as I saw an old bent woman step out of a small, dark shop with three dead birds on the door and no sign. She shuffled down the street and disappeared into the night, never turning her head, not seeing us.
    Pine just shrugged again.
    â€œWell, that’s comforting,” Neely said, and grinned.
    â‰ˆâ‰ˆâ‰ˆ
    We hid our car back by the covered Witch William’s bridge, parking it into the trees a bit so the shadows would help hide it come daybreak. Just in case. Just until we knew what morning would bring. We grabbed sleeping bags, toothbrushes, clothes, and the picnic basket, and then headed back into town.
    The Lashley house was beautiful. Even with the dirty windows, and the overgrown shrubs almost covering the steps and door. The neglect, the decay . . . it felt like the Citizen. It felt like home.
    We stood in the dark, under the moon, watching the rope swing move this way and that in the frigid night wind. I could almost see the Lashley boy, curls and cheeks, sitting on it and laughing.
    â€œWell, I guess this is where we sleep tonight,” Neely said, taking in the house and smiling. “Should be memorable.”
    â€œNo.” Luke stood at the edge of the lawn, shaking his head. “Vi, I can’t do it. We can’t stay here. We’ll never be able to fall asleep, it’s not safe, they don’t want us here—that girl said so. What kind of town pours blood on gravestones? They’ll come for us in the night, sis, they will, I just know it . . .”
    Sunshine clutched her sleeping bag in her arms. “Luke’s right. This town is stupid and this house is stupid. And we’ll be stupid if we stay here.”
    I could have teased them about being scared. They would have done it in my shoes.
    â€œIt’s just for one night,” I said.