Read Online Dead Level by Sarah Graves - Free Book Online Page A

and flung its sooty body into the trees where the wood ashes that permeated its feathers meant that it wouldn’t even get eaten by animals, or anyway not very soon. So I flung it hard , wanting its sad, forlorn carcass as far away as I could get it.
    Just then another dragonfly zipped by, brushing me with its wings; from high overhead a woodpecker set up a fast, chattery rat-a-tat. A fish jumped, landing with an extravagant splash down in the lake, and the sweet, sappy-sharp perfume of fresh lumber drifted up, waiting for me and Ellie to get to work on the deck.
    Off the end of the dock, a long ripple extended fast, heading for the other side of the lake. A small golden-brown head at the ripple’s tip belonged to a familiar creature:
    “Hey, Ellie! Cheezil’s here!” I called. It was our name for the weasel-like animal—thus his name, Cheezil the Weasel—who lived down by the dock somewhere; we hadn’t seen him all summer.
    Hurrying down the gravel path toward the dock, I watched him swim energetically away toward the far side of our small cove, feeling that the lithe, furry animal counteracted the dead bird’s influence at least a little bit. When he reached shore, I could just make out his slender form, scampering between the rocks and up toward a tiny log cabin, past a canoe that was overturned onto concrete blocks to keep snow from filling it up over the winter.
    Then he was gone, intent on some wild, weasel errand that onlyhe knew; so maybe things weren’t so bad after all, I thought, and when I got back to the clearing Ellie was setting up the barbecue equipment.
    “Lunch in twenty minutes,” she said. Lowering the truck’s tailgate, she arranged hot dogs, buns, and the barbecue fork in a neat row on it, then lit the grill. “I’m starved, aren’t you?”
    And just like that, everything was all right again. We were here, we were fine, and I was going to get a lot done while also having a good time during my week of solitude, deep in the Maine woods.
    And mostly, I was going to get the deck done. Dead bird or no dead bird, five-thousand-word essay or no five-thousand-word essay …
    Victor’s ghost, I added firmly to myself, or no Victor’s ghost.
    Harold got a motel room, then set about pursuing his hiking plan right away; after the long bus ride, his legs needed a good stretching out anyway, and the four or five miles the guys in the diner had described sounded fine to him.
    So only a little over an hour after he’d arrived in Eastport, the same taxi driver who’d brought him there helped Harold unload his hiking gear from the trunk of the cab, then left him standing at the dead end of a paved road.
    Ahead, a dirt track curved into the woods; the guys in the diner had said it led to a lake, and past that to an old dam and a granite quarry. Harold could hike in the two miles to the lake, they’d said, glancing without comment at his footgear—black socks and walking sandals that he’d bought especially for this trip—take a swim if he wanted, then continue on to the quarry and past it to another paved road leading back to the highway. If he started soon and kept moving right along, they’d told him, he could be in Eastport again by dark, and the cabbie had agreed.
    As for the return trip, just stick your thumb out when you get back to the main road, the cabbie had advised. Someone’ll be along. Hitchhike,the driver meant, causing Harold to realize again how different everything was here. In the city, sticking his thumb out might’ve gotten him a ride, but it could also have (a) gotten him murdered, or (b) made someone else think they were in danger of being murdered, if they picked him up.
    A chipmunk scampered across the road, pausing to rear up on its back legs to scold Harold. A bird sang; he didn’t know what kind, only that its song was about the prettiest sound he’d ever heard. When it stopped, the silence was so complete that his ears rang, and the smell of this place … pine sap,