Read Online Captured by Melinda Barron - Free Book Online

comes for my part of the key.” He looked up from the fire. “Well, other than you.”
    “Key?” This was a new part of the story. “Mrs. Westergard said nothing about a key. She said the witch sent the three of you to the bowels of the Earth to punish your father.”
    “That is true, but there is more to the story than that.”
    Venise wasn’t surprised to hear that. There was always more to the story. The scholar inside her perked up. “Will you tell me the rest?”
    “Of course.”
    She clapped her hands together then went to her backpack and retrieved her laptop, praying it had survived the fall and that her battery still worked. She put it on the table and lifted the lid, thrilled to hear the familiar jingle that signaled the start up.
    “What in the name of Odin is that?” She glanced to where Rugoff stood, transfixed. His gaze never left the laptop and she smiled.
    “It’s a computer.” She stayed where she was, very aware when he took a few steps back and stared at the device as if it would come to life and kill him. “It helps me to store information, that’s all. It’s not alive, it’s a machine.”
    “Machine.” He whispered the word, his gaze never wavering.
    “Come and touch it.” She tapped the plastic. “Things have changed a little bit since you left civilization.”
    Rugoff stayed rooted where he was. Venise sat down and tapped a few keys to start a new file for his story. She kept her face turned toward the screen to hide her smile as he moved toward her ever so slowly.
    How hard it must be, she thought, to see things that were so totally foreign, and even frightening, especially when he’s spent so much time down here by himself.
    “While you talk, I’m going to type. The things here are called keys, and I press them according to the spelling of a word. It transfers the words onto the screen and then I can save the information to the hard drive.” She laughed as she looked at him. “And you have no idea what I just said. Just trust me. I need it, and it won’t hurt you.”
    He glanced at the swords hanging on the wall and she put a protective arm around the laptop. “Don’t even think about it.”
    He sat down opposite from her, keeping a wary eye on the machine. “Tell me what this woman told you.”
    Venise quickly related the story Mrs. Westergard had spun for her. She watched Rugoff, who listened with care, taking his gaze off the computer and settling it on her.
    “She tells a half-tale,” he said when she was done. “I wonder if it is because she does not know the whole thing, or because she does not want it to be known.”
    That thought hadn’t occurred to Venise at all. “Do you think she could be the witch? But what could she want?”
    Rugoff licked his lips and she wondered what he was thinking. There was silence between them while he thought, and she wanted to tell him to hurry up and talk to her, that she wasn’t the type who took waiting in stride.
    “You know my father killed the witch?”
    Venise nodded slowly, wondering where this was going.
    “I often wondered how she could provide me with food and other things I asked for when she was dead. But I convinced myself that she, somehow, could break the veil of death and still work her magic.”
    “So you think Mrs. Westergard is the witch, then. If she is, and she feels bad about what happened, why doesn’t she just end things and bring you back?”
    “I wish I knew.” He looked away from her, then cleared his throat. “But that’s not what you asked about. You wanted to know of the key. Before the witch died, she captured the green stone in my father’s throne and locked it in a bronze box. She fashioned it with three keys, and gave one to each son before she sent him spiraling down into the Earth.”
    “You’re kidding me, right?” Venise pushed away the computer. “Mrs. Westergard made it sound like it was some sort of romance story, like the sons were waiting for women to rescue them, sort