Read Online Seeds of Discovery by Breeana Puttroff - Free Book Online
Authors: Breeana Puttroff
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library, feeling William’s eyes on her back the whole way.
6. The Bridge
This was it. Quinn took a deep breath as she searched for a rock to tuck her car keys and cell phone under. Finding a smooth, flat piece of granite, she lifted it and propped a small stick underneath, both to keep the weight of the rock off her items and to make the place easier to find again.
After the incident in the library today, she had decided that she was absolutely done waiting. She was going to follow him this afternoon, and if he went to the bridge again, she was going to follow.
And that’s exactly what had happened. She had watched William climb up the broken steps of the old bridge from a hiding spot behind a boulder on the riverbank, and again he had somehow just disappeared. She had seen him climb the first two steps, and then a pine tree had blocked her view. Now, he wasn’t anywhere. Her eyes scanned the entire length of the riverbank and the shallow running water. She was alone.
Fully feeling the weight of her stupidity, Quinn climbed the four crumbling stone steps, toward the end of the broken-off bridge. This time, she did not hold back or hesitate. She closed her eyes and stepped forward. Expecting only a loss of balance and the resulting short drop into the cold water below, she was surprised when it didn’t come. There was solid stone underneath her right foot. Maybe she had missed. When a second attempt with her left foot also failed to produce an icy-cold plunge into the stream, she opened her eyes.
* * *
William had never been so freaked out — or irritated — in his entire life. He had known the girl was paying attention to him after that stupid accident – had known that she had been following him at school and watching him in the library. That was obvious. However, he had never dreamed that she would follow him closely enough to see him going through the gate.
He was used to the curiosity, of course. That had plagued him off and on ever since he had first started staying with Nathaniel in Bristlecone, and had enrolled in the third grade at Bristlecone K-8. This was not the first time someone had tried to learn more about him.
There had even been a time, in eighth grade, when Allison Rivera had imagined she had a crush on the strange boy she barely knew. He had seen her watching him whenever they were in the same room together. He had noticed her attempts to sit by him in classes or choose him for partner work. She’d come up with silly excuses to start conversations with him, and twice, William had returned from his time in Eirentheos to find several missed calls on the caller ID from her number.
His intentional ignoring and paying zero attention to her had taken care of the issue quickly. She had moved on to Victor Marks, who had been happy to have her notice. The deliberate ignoring strategy had always worked, even on the inquisitive third graders, back in the days when William was a new phenomenon, a novelty in the small town, although it had taken awhile at first.
It had never been that difficult for William, to keep his distance from everyone. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t have been allowed to make an acquaintance or spend time with kids his own age while he was in Bristlecone – sure, it would have been difficult to maintain both a good friendship and his enormous secret, especially when he disappeared every weekend, and would never have been around to attend birthday parties or snowboarding trips. It would have been difficult, but probably not impossible.
The thing was – he had never wanted to. He could never wrap his mind around the kids in Bristlecone. They weren’t like him, or maybe he wasn’t like them. Most of them were only interested in such ridiculous things — television shows and video games.
William didn’t understand any of it, couldn’t join in with the conversations. He always spent most of his time
6. The Bridge
This was it. Quinn took a deep breath as she searched for a rock to tuck her car keys and cell phone under. Finding a smooth, flat piece of granite, she lifted it and propped a small stick underneath, both to keep the weight of the rock off her items and to make the place easier to find again.
After the incident in the library today, she had decided that she was absolutely done waiting. She was going to follow him this afternoon, and if he went to the bridge again, she was going to follow.
And that’s exactly what had happened. She had watched William climb up the broken steps of the old bridge from a hiding spot behind a boulder on the riverbank, and again he had somehow just disappeared. She had seen him climb the first two steps, and then a pine tree had blocked her view. Now, he wasn’t anywhere. Her eyes scanned the entire length of the riverbank and the shallow running water. She was alone.
Fully feeling the weight of her stupidity, Quinn climbed the four crumbling stone steps, toward the end of the broken-off bridge. This time, she did not hold back or hesitate. She closed her eyes and stepped forward. Expecting only a loss of balance and the resulting short drop into the cold water below, she was surprised when it didn’t come. There was solid stone underneath her right foot. Maybe she had missed. When a second attempt with her left foot also failed to produce an icy-cold plunge into the stream, she opened her eyes.
* * *
William had never been so freaked out — or irritated — in his entire life. He had known the girl was paying attention to him after that stupid accident – had known that she had been following him at school and watching him in the library. That was obvious. However, he had never dreamed that she would follow him closely enough to see him going through the gate.
He was used to the curiosity, of course. That had plagued him off and on ever since he had first started staying with Nathaniel in Bristlecone, and had enrolled in the third grade at Bristlecone K-8. This was not the first time someone had tried to learn more about him.
There had even been a time, in eighth grade, when Allison Rivera had imagined she had a crush on the strange boy she barely knew. He had seen her watching him whenever they were in the same room together. He had noticed her attempts to sit by him in classes or choose him for partner work. She’d come up with silly excuses to start conversations with him, and twice, William had returned from his time in Eirentheos to find several missed calls on the caller ID from her number.
His intentional ignoring and paying zero attention to her had taken care of the issue quickly. She had moved on to Victor Marks, who had been happy to have her notice. The deliberate ignoring strategy had always worked, even on the inquisitive third graders, back in the days when William was a new phenomenon, a novelty in the small town, although it had taken awhile at first.
It had never been that difficult for William, to keep his distance from everyone. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t have been allowed to make an acquaintance or spend time with kids his own age while he was in Bristlecone – sure, it would have been difficult to maintain both a good friendship and his enormous secret, especially when he disappeared every weekend, and would never have been around to attend birthday parties or snowboarding trips. It would have been difficult, but probably not impossible.
The thing was – he had never wanted to. He could never wrap his mind around the kids in Bristlecone. They weren’t like him, or maybe he wasn’t like them. Most of them were only interested in such ridiculous things — television shows and video games.
William didn’t understand any of it, couldn’t join in with the conversations. He always spent most of his time
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