Read Online Crow - The Awakening by Michael J. Vanecek - Free Book Online

database or another.
    But the snag weighed on him. He was split between going out to the meadow or setting up his searches. Steven opted for the middle ground, downloading several census databases to the waiting servers and running a search program on them from the servers he had hacked into. Satisfied, he shut his laptop down and sat back. He could revisit the search tomorrow. It was time to see this clearing with his own eyes. He looked again out the portal. What could this mean? He had never been there that he could recall. And yet he was having dreams of it. Standing up, he put his sketchbook and a handful of pencils back in his backpack, then hesitated. If the tree was real, and the meadow was real, what about the monsters? What if they weren't psychological constructs as Dr. Dougherty had hinted at? He looked out with a little trepidation this time, not sure he wanted the answers. But, it had to do with his parents and he had to know for certain.
    As he was about to climb down, the glint of sun through the window momentarily blinded him. The angle reminded him that it was getting late. He stood up and looked out. The sun was getting low. "Oh, man!" he exclaimed, disappointed. Getting in trouble for being out too late was out of the question. Any chance of being grounded from the forest would set his search back significantly and he was so close to getting things seriously underway. He looked at the white snag in the meadow longingly. He really wanted answers, to touch it and know that it was real. But he knew he wouldn't be able to go right away. Disappointed, he opened the hatch and climbed out, glancing at the snag as he climbed down until the rest of the trees obscured its visibility. There was always tomorrow, he thought to himself.

Chapter 3
    She watched him from behind the trees as he climbed down, staying just out of sight in the boughs of the neighboring trees. The boy climbed down rapidly, very sure of himself. Sometimes it looked like he was falling more than climbing as he just barely slowed his descent by grabbing bark and branches with his hands and bare feet. At some points he was gripping just the bark and crevices of the tree trunk rather than branches, looking like a large squirrel and not slowing his pace as he clambered down the trunk. With nearly twenty feet yet to go to the ground, the boy pushed off and fell the rest of the way, landing on the soft forest floor with barely a thump. Without hesitation he started running, tearing almost silently through the brush as he grabbed his staff in full stride. Then suddenly all was silent except for the birds twittering in the waning sun, getting ready to tuck in for the night.
    Looking over at the tree house, the little girl that wasn't quite a little girl admired its construction. Sirel pushed off from the trunk behind which she had been hiding and daintily pulled herself through the branches as she floated weightlessly over to the ingenious domicile that looked as if it was as much part of the tree as the branches. She caressed the exterior, savoring the tight basket weave of the split branches, and tugged at the dense thatch of the roof, which remained solidly attached. She giggled and floated around the exterior, peeking into the windows and feeling around their frames where they were firmly attached to the structure, fascinated at the craftsmanship demonstrated by the ten year old child. She had spied on him back when he was building the tree house and wondered if even Penipe could have done a better job. She noticed the little solar panels, arranged on the branches as if large leaves of a tree. Then there was the odd tin-can antennae the boy had attached to the tree higher up.
    Sirel slipped leisurely through the little fan of branches at the bottom of the tree house and found the hatch. It was closed, but not locked - just enough to keep squirrels and other climbing creatures out. No Terran passing by would climb up there, much less notice the tree