Read Online Talisman of El by Alecia Stone - Free Book Online Page A

Alex began.
    Charlie cut her off, ‘Just wait here for us.’
    Alex folded her arms across her chest. ‘Yeah, sure, I’ll just be Little Red Riding Hood waiting for the wolf to come eat me.’
    ‘There are wolves here,’ the boy said, alarmed.
    ‘No,’ Charlie assured him, ‘there are no wolves.’ He looked at Alex and frowned, and then his gaze lowered, his eyes sweeping across the ground. ‘We need something big.’ Spotting a branch, he walked over to it and picked it up, hitting it against his palm to test its durability.
    ‘This is crazy,’ Alex grumbled. ‘You can’t go in there.’ ‘But that’s my house,’ the boy pleaded.
    ‘That’s not a house,’ Alex said. ‘You can’t live here. It’s too dangerous.’
    Charlie pulled Alex aside. ‘If we go now, he might not come with us. We can’t just leave him here.’
    ‘He needs an adult to take care of him. We have to go to the police –’
    ‘No!’
    Charlie glanced round and saw the boy take off in the opposite direction of the shack. ‘Wait!’ He dashed after him. Although the boy was fast, Charlie quickly gained on him.
    As he drew nearer to the boy, he stretched his arm out and grabbed him, forcing him to stop.
    ‘I’m not going to the police,’ the boy protested, shrugging Charlie off him. ‘You can’t make me.’
    ‘We’re not going to the police,’ Charlie promised him. Alex caught up with them. She looked at the boy, who watched her warily. ‘I get it. No police.’ She bent forward to catch her breath. ‘You act as if you robbed a bank or something.’
    Charlie met the boy’s eyes, his face a visible expression of unbearable shame. They broke their gaze when Alex straightened up.
    ‘What do we do now?’ she asked.
    ‘We check the shack,’ Charlie said. He looked at the boy.
    ‘What’s your name?’
    The boy hesitated a moment, his eyes shifting between them. ‘Richmond,’ he said.
    ‘I’m Charlie, this is Alex.’ Taking a deep breath, Charlie looked back in the direction they had come. ‘Let’s go.’ It took them a few minutes to return to the shack. Charlie and Alex dropped their bags beside a tree and proceeded towards the front door.
    ‘You know that curiosity killed the cat isn’t just a saying, right?’ Alex whispered to Charlie. ‘It’s a warning that we should leave when something’s wrong.’
    Charlie stopped and turned to her. ‘You want to see what’s inside, don’t you?’
    ‘Yes, but –’
    ‘But nothing. You’re not afraid, are you?’
    ‘No,’ Alex spat.
    ‘Then let’s go.’
    They advanced towards the shack with caution, Charlie in front, followed by Richmond and then a reluctant Alex. They moved along the front wall and ducked beneath the window. ‘I’m telling you,’ Alex continued her protest, ‘if that cat wasn’t so nosy, it would’ve been climbing trees with the rest of ’em –’
    ‘Shh,’ Charlie hissed. He got up and peered through the window but couldn’t see anything through the grime. Using the end of his coat sleeve, he wiped away a small patch of dirt in the bottom corner and looked in.
    ‘What d’you see?’ Alex asked.
    ‘Nothing,’ he replied.
    ‘Maybe it’s gone.’
    Holding a tight grip on the branch, Charlie headed for the entrance. The door creaked as it opened. The little light shining through the window was enough for his anxious eyes to survey the box room. Opening the door wider, he stepped over the threshold, Richmond, and Alex right behind him. The lack of fresh air was suffocating. Charlie couldn’t imagine how Richmond could spend half an hour much less an entire day in the room. There were no light sockets or lamps, only a bucket of charred wood in the corner, which explained the burning smell.
    Richmond nudged him and pointed towards the window where Charlie saw a flattened cardboard box on the floor, covered with blankets and mismatched cushions – a replacement for a bed, he guessed. But that wasn’t what Richmond was pointing