Read Online Earth & Sky (The Earth & Sky Trilogy) by Megan Crewe - Free Book Online
Authors: Megan Crewe
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mentioning: the night of waiting by windows and increasingly worried phone calls after my brother left with his knapsack and a promise to pick me up a Ring Pop at the convenience store, and never came home. I can see it in the quiver of Mom’s hand as she ladles out the stew, in the way Dad stares at me for a moment as I pick up my spoon, as if he’s not yet convinced I really am here.
So I put on my best carefree voice and tell them about Ms. Cavoy pulling me aside to compliment my physics project, about gluing black silk flowers for Angela’s dance decor, about Bree and I breaking eighteen minutes on our three-mile run for the second time this week. Their daughter is happy, thriving; she isn’t going anywhere. It’s the best way I can make up for freaking them out: reminding them how much they don’t have to worry about me.
The only time my performance falters is when Dad says, “You had that field trip to the courthouse yesterday, didn’t you? You haven’t told us about the cases you saw.”
In an instant, I flash back to the courthouse hall—to the blast of light and the rush of heat. The echo of another past, where the explosion was real and lethal and I wasn’t here right now. The past Win says was the real one, before he changed things.
This scene, the happy family around the table, would never have existed. Mom and Dad would have been grieving my death, the loss of their second child. My hand clenches my spoon.
“Um, I’m not sure if I’m supposed to talk about them,” I say, which is thankfully true, because I barely remember anything from that morning except my panic. My voice cracks. I cover by stuffing a spoonful of stew into my mouth.
When I glance at the window, I half expect an icy stare to meet mine. There’s nothing outside but darkness.
By the time we’re clearing the table, the lingering tension has dissipated. Noam’s ghost no longer seems to hover between us, though he lingers in my head. I load the dishwasher and start it running, and when Mom and Dad have settled on the couch to peruse the evening’s TV offerings, I slip upstairs.
The bedroom between the master at the front of the house and mine at the back now serves as a guest bedroom/workout space. It used to be Noam’s. For years, I could push open this door and see his sketches tacked to the walls, the bright blue Converse sneakers he wore until the soles were falling off in their place of honor by the foot of his bed. Then one day Mom decided the waiting wasn’t doing us any good. I came home from a weekend at my grandparents’ house to find all of Noam’s stuff packed into cardboard boxes.
She hasn’t thrown any of it out. Most of the boxes are stacked in the attic, and a couple she keeps in what used to be his closet, beside the narrow shelving unit that holds her weights and exercise mat. I suspect she left them there so every now and then she and Dad can do what I’m about to do now.
I check the bedroom window first, confirming no alien gunslingers are lurking outside. Then I go to the closet and ease apart the flaps of the top box. There’s a pile of Noam’s sketchbooks, a box of acrylic paints, a huge Swiss Army knife he said he was going to use on camping trips. My hand is drawn to the worn baseball glove at the back. I pick it up. Sliding my hand inside, breathing the smell of old leather, I travel back through time the only way people are supposed to.
I was four when Noam decided he was going to try out for the baseball team. All his friends were. So they spent hours in the backyard throwing the ball back and forth, practicing pitches, then heading off to the park with the bat after Mom warned them not to break any windows.
One morning I got tired of just watching. Before his friends showed up, I grabbed his glove, marched into his room, and declared that I was going to play too. It seemed only natural to me that my big brother would humor me. He stood a few feet away in the yard and I held out the
So I put on my best carefree voice and tell them about Ms. Cavoy pulling me aside to compliment my physics project, about gluing black silk flowers for Angela’s dance decor, about Bree and I breaking eighteen minutes on our three-mile run for the second time this week. Their daughter is happy, thriving; she isn’t going anywhere. It’s the best way I can make up for freaking them out: reminding them how much they don’t have to worry about me.
The only time my performance falters is when Dad says, “You had that field trip to the courthouse yesterday, didn’t you? You haven’t told us about the cases you saw.”
In an instant, I flash back to the courthouse hall—to the blast of light and the rush of heat. The echo of another past, where the explosion was real and lethal and I wasn’t here right now. The past Win says was the real one, before he changed things.
This scene, the happy family around the table, would never have existed. Mom and Dad would have been grieving my death, the loss of their second child. My hand clenches my spoon.
“Um, I’m not sure if I’m supposed to talk about them,” I say, which is thankfully true, because I barely remember anything from that morning except my panic. My voice cracks. I cover by stuffing a spoonful of stew into my mouth.
When I glance at the window, I half expect an icy stare to meet mine. There’s nothing outside but darkness.
By the time we’re clearing the table, the lingering tension has dissipated. Noam’s ghost no longer seems to hover between us, though he lingers in my head. I load the dishwasher and start it running, and when Mom and Dad have settled on the couch to peruse the evening’s TV offerings, I slip upstairs.
The bedroom between the master at the front of the house and mine at the back now serves as a guest bedroom/workout space. It used to be Noam’s. For years, I could push open this door and see his sketches tacked to the walls, the bright blue Converse sneakers he wore until the soles were falling off in their place of honor by the foot of his bed. Then one day Mom decided the waiting wasn’t doing us any good. I came home from a weekend at my grandparents’ house to find all of Noam’s stuff packed into cardboard boxes.
She hasn’t thrown any of it out. Most of the boxes are stacked in the attic, and a couple she keeps in what used to be his closet, beside the narrow shelving unit that holds her weights and exercise mat. I suspect she left them there so every now and then she and Dad can do what I’m about to do now.
I check the bedroom window first, confirming no alien gunslingers are lurking outside. Then I go to the closet and ease apart the flaps of the top box. There’s a pile of Noam’s sketchbooks, a box of acrylic paints, a huge Swiss Army knife he said he was going to use on camping trips. My hand is drawn to the worn baseball glove at the back. I pick it up. Sliding my hand inside, breathing the smell of old leather, I travel back through time the only way people are supposed to.
I was four when Noam decided he was going to try out for the baseball team. All his friends were. So they spent hours in the backyard throwing the ball back and forth, practicing pitches, then heading off to the park with the bat after Mom warned them not to break any windows.
One morning I got tired of just watching. Before his friends showed up, I grabbed his glove, marched into his room, and declared that I was going to play too. It seemed only natural to me that my big brother would humor me. He stood a few feet away in the yard and I held out the
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