Read Online Craft by Lynnie Purcell - Free Book Online

did just want to visit town.
She would release him from something so simple. He gestured with
his chin to the forest behind the shack.
    “Fine…Go that way,” he said. “Walk
straight, until you run out of forest. Town is just beyond the
woods.”
    “That’s all? Just walk straight?”
Ellie asked.
    “Yeah, it’s not hard,” the boy said.
He looked at her skeptically. “That is, if you can walk in a
straight line…”
    Ellie raised her hand at his words.
The boy flinched automatically, and his eyes filled with fear. He
expected the worst from the gesture. She flicked her wrist, and the
ropes disappeared with a soft ‘poof!’. She waved her hand again and
said the words Eugenia had told her to say. She felt a ripple of
craft float across the air as the ward shifted slightly to allow
the boy to pass. Ellie pointed at a spot directly in front of
her.
    “Go on, get! I got a walk to start,”
Ellie said.
    The boy stood up slowly, not taking
his eyes off her for a second. He backed away just as slowly, each
step meticulous and careful to prevent tripping. He was convinced
that the moment he showed weakness in front of her was the same
moment he would die. Ellie thought his caution was a bit overdone.
It was the act of someone not as used to fighting as she had
thought. She stayed as still as possible, to prevent
misunderstandings between them.
    When he was nothing more than another
shadow in the night, Ellie took a deep breath to soothe her nerves.
Again, she thought about what she was doing and about the likely
consequences of that act. She considered the punishment she was
going to get for her rebellion. She knew nothing would ever be the
same. She could feel it in her heart. Town would change everything
or nothing at all. She would no longer have to wonder about what
was waiting for her. She was scared at the idea, scared to put
action to her dreams. That fear was exactly what Neveah and the
others expected of her. Her resolve hardened. She would not let
fear make up her mind. She was tired of fear. She was ready to
prove to the world, and to herself, that she could handle
anything.
    Her determination guiding her steps,
she followed the boy’s path into the woods.

Chapter 3: Caw
     
     
     
     
    Ellie had explored the woods around
her house many times during her life. She had spent long hours
running around the thick foliage as she played with characters from
her imagination. The trees around her shack were as familiar as her
house, only they held more fond memories. The forest was where she
was most free. She had never tried to navigate the woods in the
dark, however. She had never gone farther than a mile in the woods
during the day. Going farther at night was impossible.
    It did not take her long to feel
disoriented. She was only thirty minutes into the woods before she
could not remember which way was home and which way was town. To
her, both ways looked very similar. The thick canopy of limbs above
her head obscured the night sky and the pine trees closed her in.
There was no sense of space, nothing beyond trees and the hard
earth. She kept walking until she realized she had passed the same
fallen tree twice.
    She was going in circles.
    Feeling slightly disenchanted with her
adventure, she sat down next to the tree and gave herself up for
lost. Neveah’s long-held opinion on Ellie’s capabilities was right.
Ellie was not equipped enough to go on any sort of adventure. She
could not even get thirty minutes away from her house without
failing miserably. She was barely any closer to town and, now, she
did not know how to get back home. She was useless. All she was
good for was cleaning up after the others and taking Neveah’s
bullying. It was her place in life.
    How could she have thought it was
possible to go on an adventure when she did not even know which way
town was to begin with? How could she have been so stupid not to
ask for directions that were more complete? The characters in her
books would have