room that led to a stairway and circled back overhead on the second floor. There she saw a flit of movement in the shadows, heard the soft sound of a creaking floorboard. Faith realized something then that made her worry even more about a young girl prone to rash decisions.
The young girl with jade-colored eyes had been listening all along.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOFâNOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
Faith sat up in bed, startled by a sound she thought sheâd heard before. She was prone to serious disorientation in the first minute of wakefulness. The screaming sound was back, accompanied by sunlight shining through the old pane window on the far side of the room. The morning light was, as usual, blinding her.
âThey canât be watching that movie again, can they?â
And so it was that she retrieved her bat with her mind and started for the door still thinking that the scream, which had now dissolved into a melee of other sounds, was from a scene in a movie being played three doors down.
A projectile of some size and weight crashed through her window, and this event finally brought Faith Daniels completely awake.
âWhat the hell?â she said.
She heard the screaming voice again, but now she placed it in its actual location outside the lodge.
âLeave me alone!â was followed by a shrieking sound that could be projected only by a girl of a certain age.
âJade?â Faith said out loud. She wanted to take flight, leaving through the window where glass had just shattered into her room along with a rock the size of a brick, but she knew better.
No pulse activity. None , Clooger had said, and he was right. Way too risky.
She realized at that moment that even the semiconscious moving of the baseball bat, which she had done more than once, was something she should not be doing. She set the bat down, suddenly concerned about her own behavior, and fled for the door. As she ran down the hall and up a narrow flight of stairs she yelled for Dylan and Clooger and Hawk, but no one answered.
â What is going on around here?â she said aloud as she reached the top of the stairs, crossed the lobby, and threw open the doors to the outside world.
What she found there turned her blood ice-cold.
âI told you I had a secret of my own!â Jade yelled at the top of her lungs.
Dylan, Clooger, and Carl were all standing in a circle around her, none of them any closer than twenty feet.
âJade, stop doing this!â Clooger yelled. âYou have to stop!â
âOh, sure thing, Dad , whatever you say,â Jade shot back.
Faith watched as Jade moved her arm swiftly up and a rusted-out snowplow lifted off the ground with shocking speed. It flew skyward a hundred feet in the span of two seconds, turned a sharp right, and went flying into the side of what had once been a ski run.
âJade, no!â Faith screamed. âYou canât be doing this!â
Jade screamed again. She put everything she had into that scream, bending over and letting it rip in a fit of primal anger Faith understood all too well. Faith had never really been a screamer, but she knew how this girl felt: angry, out of control, manipulated, imprisoned.
As Jade screamed, all manner of objects lifted off the ground and began flying through the air so fast that Carl and Clooger had to take shelter behind a boulder the size of a small house. An entire section of ski-lift chairs and the cables and poles that held them aloft pulled out of the earth like so many toothpicks. The tangled mess flew skyward, a ratâs nest of metal that echoed down the mountain. Faith could tell Jade didnât have a clue how to control her pulseâa pulse sheâd kept secret from everyone, including Carl. The tangle of wires and chairs and poles fell toward the earth in the direction of Clooger and Carl. That was when Faith and Dylan looked at
The young girl with jade-colored eyes had been listening all along.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOFâNOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
Faith sat up in bed, startled by a sound she thought sheâd heard before. She was prone to serious disorientation in the first minute of wakefulness. The screaming sound was back, accompanied by sunlight shining through the old pane window on the far side of the room. The morning light was, as usual, blinding her.
âThey canât be watching that movie again, can they?â
And so it was that she retrieved her bat with her mind and started for the door still thinking that the scream, which had now dissolved into a melee of other sounds, was from a scene in a movie being played three doors down.
A projectile of some size and weight crashed through her window, and this event finally brought Faith Daniels completely awake.
âWhat the hell?â she said.
She heard the screaming voice again, but now she placed it in its actual location outside the lodge.
âLeave me alone!â was followed by a shrieking sound that could be projected only by a girl of a certain age.
âJade?â Faith said out loud. She wanted to take flight, leaving through the window where glass had just shattered into her room along with a rock the size of a brick, but she knew better.
No pulse activity. None , Clooger had said, and he was right. Way too risky.
She realized at that moment that even the semiconscious moving of the baseball bat, which she had done more than once, was something she should not be doing. She set the bat down, suddenly concerned about her own behavior, and fled for the door. As she ran down the hall and up a narrow flight of stairs she yelled for Dylan and Clooger and Hawk, but no one answered.
â What is going on around here?â she said aloud as she reached the top of the stairs, crossed the lobby, and threw open the doors to the outside world.
What she found there turned her blood ice-cold.
âI told you I had a secret of my own!â Jade yelled at the top of her lungs.
Dylan, Clooger, and Carl were all standing in a circle around her, none of them any closer than twenty feet.
âJade, stop doing this!â Clooger yelled. âYou have to stop!â
âOh, sure thing, Dad , whatever you say,â Jade shot back.
Faith watched as Jade moved her arm swiftly up and a rusted-out snowplow lifted off the ground with shocking speed. It flew skyward a hundred feet in the span of two seconds, turned a sharp right, and went flying into the side of what had once been a ski run.
âJade, no!â Faith screamed. âYou canât be doing this!â
Jade screamed again. She put everything she had into that scream, bending over and letting it rip in a fit of primal anger Faith understood all too well. Faith had never really been a screamer, but she knew how this girl felt: angry, out of control, manipulated, imprisoned.
As Jade screamed, all manner of objects lifted off the ground and began flying through the air so fast that Carl and Clooger had to take shelter behind a boulder the size of a small house. An entire section of ski-lift chairs and the cables and poles that held them aloft pulled out of the earth like so many toothpicks. The tangled mess flew skyward, a ratâs nest of metal that echoed down the mountain. Faith could tell Jade didnât have a clue how to control her pulseâa pulse sheâd kept secret from everyone, including Carl. The tangle of wires and chairs and poles fell toward the earth in the direction of Clooger and Carl. That was when Faith and Dylan looked at
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