Read Online Heartlight by T.A. Barron - Free Book Online

he whispered. “If I promise not to go anywhere until I’ve made absolutely certain that the astro-vivometer is right—that there’s no chance at all of any mistakes—will you give me back the ring?”
    Kate hesitated. “What if it takes you more time than the Sun has left to check the machine?”
    The astronomer sighed in resignation. “That’s a risk I’ll just have to take. A risk we’ll all have to take. But maybe—maybe you’re right. Maybe there’s some mistake after all.”
    “Do you really truly promise?” demanded Kate. “And not like your promises to finish working by a certain time! I want a real promise. The kind that makes you fry in agony and pain and horribleness if you break it.”
    Grandfather was beaten. Shoulders slumped, he whispered: “I promise.”
    Slowly, Kate walked over to his side. Closing the top of the velvet box, she placed it in his lab coat pocket. “I’m sorry, Grandfather, but I had to do it.”
    The old man didn’t respond. He merely gazed despondently at the astro-vivometer in the corner. At length, he lifted his eyes toward her. “I feel so drained,” he said wearily. “Since you’ve laid these chains on me, would you mind getting me some of that tea I never got to finish? It would give me the energy I need to walk over there and start working on the machine.”
    Feeling both triumphant and a little sad, Kate nodded. “One cup of tea with cream coming up.”
    She walked through the lab door and down to the kitchen, with Cumberland limping behind her. Making a whole pot of tea was as easy as a cup, so she prepared a full teapot of his favorite brew. Her thoughts drifted back to the ghost in the lab, and she shivered despite the heat of the stove. When the tea was ready, she put it on a tray and carried it carefully down the hallway.
    As she turned into the lab, she suddenly let out a shriek. The teapot smashed on the floor.
    Grandfather was gone.
    “No!” she cried, running to the empty chair where he had been seated just a moment before. “He promised!”
    Cumberland whimpered and sniffed the chair. Then he turned his soulful eyes toward Kate, as if to ask: “Where is he?”
    Betrayed, Kate cursed the air and sat down dejectedly. “Grandfather!” she cried, hoping against hope that he would hear her and come back—from wherever he was.
    There came no reply.
    “I should never have trusted him,” she moaned. “I never imagined he’d really break his promise . . . not that kind of promise.”
    Her eyes fell upon the beaker, still holding a small supply of the mysterious green fluid. She glared at it angrily, then turned toward the astro-vivometer. There it sat, clattering away relentlessly, oblivious to all the distress it had caused. It was as if nothing at all had changed, nothing at all had happened, as if Grandfather had just gone out for a little Sunday stroll around the moon, or maybe Mars.
    At that instant, Kate had an idea.
    Maybe Grandfather had another ring! He said he’d planned to take her with him—to the moon or to Mars. Maybe . . . maybe that was why he made so much extra PCL! Enough for two rings! If only she could find it—but where could it be?
    Kate scanned the ruins of the lab. If she were Grandfather, where would she keep something so precious?
    She thought hard. The telescope? No, he uses that too much . . . The freezer? No, that sometimes freezes shut and can’t be opened for days. Where in this mess could anyone find anything? Maybe it’s not even in the lab at all . . . There are so many places to hide things in this old house!
    Then his words came drifting back to her: The best way to hide something special is to make it look as ordinary as possible. Was there a clue in there somewhere? But what could it mean? It isn’t possible to make a butterfly ring look ordinary!
    Kate shrugged her shoulders in discouragement. Then, by chance, her eyes fell on the old wooden bureau against the wall. The top-most of its slim drawers was