Read Online Nevermor by Lani Lenore - Free Book Online Page B

she could not keep the revelation to herself any
longer.  Wren was convinced that getting back to Nevermor was her one hope of
keeping together with her brothers, and she needed them to know it too.  She
decided to tell Henry.
    Henry, though
still quite swollen from his beating, had been given a job of scrubbing the
large pots in the kitchen.  Wren hadn’t crossed him many times today, though it
wasn’t as if they weren’t allowed to speak.  Nora expected them to keep at
their chores, but she was currently in class with the younger children and was
therefore preoccupied.  Wren did not have trouble meeting privately with her
brother.
    When she entered
the kitchen, Henry looked up from where he was hunched on the floor beside one
of the large pots, but he was not working.  He was leaned against the cabinet,
eating an apple he had stolen from the pantry.  Wren couldn’t blame him.  Nora
should have known better than to leave him unattended in the kitchen. 
    He jerked up
with a start, but relaxed again when he saw that it was only her.
    “What is it?”
Henry asked, not sounding so happy to see her.  “I’m not done yet and don’t
tell Miss Nora that I am, or she’ll put me to work at the chimney.”
    “I have to tell
you something,” Wren said quietly, kneeling down next to him.  “Do you remember
the story I told last night?”
    “Yes,” he said
cautiously, picking at a bit of apple peel to avoid looking at her.  “ Nevermore or something?  Is that supposed to be some kind of joke?  To go there, we’ll nevermore have any troubles?  I don’t know where you come up with all these silly ideas.”
    “I didn’t make
it up.  That’s what I came to tell you.  I really saw it.”
    He looked at her
then, wearing the expression of a true skeptic.  One eyebrow was arched high
above the other, which looked a bit funny because of how his face was enflamed.
    “What do you
mean?”
    “I mean, before
the storm woke me up, I was there .  I saw it.  I met the Rifter.  He
called me there in my sleep; said I was a dreamer .  It was so real .”
    Wren looked for
her brother’s reaction, and she could tell by the squint of his eyes that he
didn’t know what to believe.  She was sure that she sounded ridiculous, but yet
she felt desperate to convince him.  She needed his support.
    “Henry, I think
I was there.  I think we could go there!”
    “What?” he asked
carefully, no doubt wondering if she was trying to trick him for her own
amusement.  “You just told me yesterday that there was no sense in hoping for a
place like that – that all those stories you used to tell us weren’t true.”
    “It’s different
this time.  I made all those other things up, but I really did see this.  I
just have to find a way to get back there in my sleep, and then I can ask
Rifter how we might really go there!”
    Henry seemed
uncertain, and she couldn’t blame him for that.  It was a lot to swallow, but
there was no doubt in her mind anymore.  Everything was vivid: the sea, the
sky, the large moon.  It was too much like a memory to be false.
    “Wren, you sound
like a mad person,” he told her, but she could tell that he wanted to believe
it. 
    “Just say that
you believe me,” she urged, “and when you go to sleep tonight, you should
listen for the flute.  Maybe you will see it too.”
    He continued to
look at her face until finally he nodded.  Wren accepted his faith.  As she
left the kitchen, she wondered if she had done the right thing by getting his
hopes up.  Now she had to try her very best to find her way back there.  If she
could not make this happen, her brother might never trust her again, but it was
too late.  If they could not go to Nevermor, she would lose them both anyway. 
     
    2
     
    Wren and Henry
did not speak of it again that day.  She did not even mention it to Max as she
put him to bed, but as she lay down on her own mattress, she closed her eyes
with purpose.  She had