Read Online The Dig by Audrey Hart - Free Book Online Page B

love in you, your truest and deepest spirit. And then command in a happy way.‖

    ―Okay.‖

    I think of Aunt Sophia and Uncle Alex and my parents but it‘s not the kind of love Creusa means, and I know it. She has mistaken me for someone who wears charm bracelets and has seven BFFs. And now I‘ll never get out of here because I‘m not a googly-eyed nymph who‘s superconnected to the universe and made of sparkles and hearts. I‘m a loner. I close my eyes and think of the ogres who made an attempt on her life. I imagine I can hear them rustling through the forest, gunning for us, closer every second. Oh, how I‘d like to break them into—

    ―Hooray!‖

    I open my eyes but there‘s no heart to be found. The rock has just exploded.

    ―Don‘t be sad,‖ she says. ―It will take time to make perfect hearts. What matters most is that you know now that you can use your powers whether or not you or anyone else is in danger.
    You will be safe now. I just know it!‖ I don‘t have the heart—no pun intended—to lie to her, so we hug and then she heads back to the vale of the nymphs and I head deeper into the forest.

    To what? I don‘t know. It feels like a bad omen, starting a journey with a big fat lie. Creusa might be the last person I ever see, and she‘s not even a person.

    Practicing my powers reminds me of that time, in seventh grade, when I decided that since I didn‘t fit in and couldn‘t seem to make friends, I must be some kind of musical genius. So I signed up for band and chose the flute. I practiced with gusto. My lips got chapped and my fingers grew calloused and my neck ached from straining to the side for at least two hours every single day. And yet the more I practiced the flute, the worse I sounded. It was my first experience in life of being really bad at something.

    I hike all morning, taking breaks every half hour to practice my powers, and I never manage to make a single heart. I grab a new rock to try again.

    Remembering Creusa‘s advice, I close my eyes and try to think happy thoughts—whatever those are. I picture little pink cartoon hearts floating in the air like emoticons, but when I peek with one eye, the rock remains unchanged. Okay, try harder, I tell myself, and shut both eyes again.

    Happier , Zoe. I imagine swirling cotton candy and ponies and flowers and whatever else girls are supposed to like.

    I hear a crack .

    Excited, I open my eyes.

    The rock has broken in half.

    With a sigh, I toss the halves aside and sit on a fallen log. I remember now how it took me three months to summon the courage to approach our bandleader, Mr. Cullerman, and tell him that I had lost my flute on a bus. A lie, of course, but I didn‘t want him to think that I was a quitter. In reply, Mr. Cullerman simply walked over to the closet and unlocked the door with the keys that were always attached to his belt, reached inside and pulled out a new flute.

    So I did what any eleven-year-old liar does. I booked it for the hallway and ran all the way back to my room.

    A few months later, I was lugging books back from the library when Mr. Cullerman appeared on the main quad. There‘s no way to run away on the main quad. As we got closer, I shifted my books uncomfortably, nearly dropping them.

    ―Hi, Mr. Cullerman.‖

    He didn‘t stop walking. He just tipped his hat. ―Hello, girl who hates to play the flute.‖

    For weeks, I couldn‘t get his words out of my head. He had made such sense of it all. Why couldn‘t I just accept that I simply did not and would never like the flute? And that it wasn‘t worth tormenting myself just for a sense of belonging in the band? I chuckle now thinking about all those misguided hours in the basement of the music hall. I never had a passion for music and I‘d been too young to understand that the kids in the band were tight with each other because they all shared the same passion for music, resin and those flimsy metal music stands. I smile at a rock.