Read Online Water and Stone by Dan Glover - Free Book Online

but a rumor from the hills, they lived in a house not far from the white sand beaches that abounded with mamey and palm trees even growing in their front yard and sounds of the surf lulled her to sleep each night.
    She began to feel strange not long after drinking a cup of sweet purple punch her father brought to her after their dance. Yani loved dancing and often lost herself in the melody only coming to when the song stopped, dripping with perspiration and dizzy from whirling in circles. The drink had an unpleasant aftertaste which made her wonder if someone had inadvertently used fruit in the making that had gone bad.
    After downing the drink she felt so sleepy that she excused herself to go lie down in her bedroom... perhaps the punch was spiked with a bit of alcohol. She seemed to remember a secret smile on her father's face as he handed her the cup but she'd put it off to it being her special day and how proud of her he seemed.
    As soon as she shut her eyes she had the strangest dream. All different sorts of animals were gathered around her bed. The giraffe stared down at her from the ceiling humming a familiar tune while a hyena kept laughing at something none of the others seemed to find funny though the hippopotamus in the corner gave out with a guffaw every now and again.
    Suddenly she was no longer in her bed. The animals had evaporated and she was lying upon the beach under the warm Cuban sun but instead of waves of water lapping at her feet, the sand seemed alive as it looped and curled about her caressing her as a lover might, touching her in places no one had ever done before.
    A gust of wind came up blowing in dark tremulous clouds that covered the sun... a typical tropical rain storm that occurred with regularity on the island though this one turned the air cold like frost. When the rain began, instead of water writhing red lice fell out of the sky covering her now naked body and burrowing into her tender flesh like a thousand angry ants.
    Screaming herself awake she was still dressed and in her bed and through the closed door she could hear music and people in the living room outside her door talking and laughing. It had grown dark out while she slept and she had a throbbing headache right behind her eyes and she itched all over from having fallen asleep in the dress damp with sweat from her dancing
    Going to the bathroom to shower, after she undressed and happened to glance into the full length mirror on the back of the door she gasped... her body was covered from shoulders to feet in tiny red marks that looked like stings from an insect and some kind of gritty material clung to the folds of her skin where it left welts.
    A sudden realization came over her that it had been no dream... those animals had done something to her while she was incapacitated from the punch. But that was just a silly dream. Or was it? Perhaps her father had drugged her with spiked punch... but why? Why would her father who she loved above all others suddenly do such a despicable thing?
    Stepping into the shower to hurriedly wash the itchy grit from her body Yani began to recollect the man's many strange ways which she had heretofore put off to eccentricities that ran in his blood. He once told her how he had been born into one of the wealthiest families in Cuba who owned vast sugar cane estates as well as warehouses and ships and mansions in every port.
    There was no reason not to believe him. Still, it seemed odd at times how he'd never introduced her to any of his family. She simply assumed her grandparents were dead and her mother? No mention of that woman had ever reached Yani's ears.
    Growing up she'd never wanted for anything. While most of the island was a backwater her tiny family had luxuries the likes of which other families could only dream of, like running water and electricity provided by a special generator father had imported from the Americas.
    Other than Evalena and her father, she spent her time alone. As a small