Read Online What Kills Me by Wynne Channing - Free Book Online Page B

staring in my direction.
I dropped my necklace and froze. Something in his hand caught the
moonlight. It was an ax.
     
     

Chapter
12
     
    I should have run but
before I could react, he was ten feet away. He was wearing a
pea-green T-shirt and cargo pants. He looked up from under his
brown hat and squinted at me. A handsome man, he appeared to be in
his late forties. In a low, hoarse voice he said something in
Italian. I should have studied harder at
the language school . He took a step
forward and I stepped back. He pressed his thin lips together and
nodded once, then slid the handle of his small ax into his belt
loop. He repeated himself.
    “I’m sorry,” I muttered.
    “Young lady, are you lost?” he asked
in English.
    I said nothing.
    “My name is Noel,” he said. “Are you
lost?”
    “Yes,” I said.
    “Are you alone? I heard you talking to
someone.”
    “I…I was talking to a
toad.”
    “I see,” he said. “Did he talk
back?”
    I shook my head.
    “That is a good sign. Where are you
headed?”
    I didn’t know so I couldn’t
say.
    “Where did you come from?”
    “I’m from Canada.”
    “Well,” he said. He put his hands on
his hips. “You are a long way from home.”
    All of a sudden, my knees trembled and
my peripheral vision became fuzzy. Everything started to turn
sideways. Either the world was tipping over, or I was falling. Noel
rushed to my side.
    “Whoa, easy there,” he said. He held
my elbows and shook me until my lolling head rolled backward. “Hey,
hey, are you okay?”
    I tried to say that I was fine, but it
came out in a mumble. I felt woozy.
    He looked at my shackles. “Who did
this to you?” his voice was so far away. “Don’t worry. We can get
these off of you.”
    He lowered me onto my knees and kicked
a rock in front of me. He positioned my hands on either side of the
rock and pulled his ax free.
    “Now, don’t move.”
    He didn’t give me a second to answer
or even blink. With one swoop, he cut through the links between my
manacles. The chain that had held me to the wall jangled as it
piled onto the ground.
    “My house is nearby. Why don’t you
stop there, rest your feet, have something to drink and then you
can be on your way? I have some tools there to get these things off
of your wrists.”
    I tried to meet his green eyes but my
eyes would not focus. He had soot smeared across the bumpy bridge
of his nose. He interpreted my murmuring as an affirmative answer
and led me further into the forest. I was so tired. The journey was
a blur, punctuated by crickets, the whisper of leaves, trickling
water, and Noel’s encouragement: “Easy. Almost there.” I stumbled
over some rocks and had to grab his forearm to steady
myself.
    “Careful now,” he said. “We’ll need to
find you some shoes.”
    He lifted me over a creek, like a
father would a child, his hands under my armpits and in a sweeping
arc.
    “You must have been through something
awful,” he said, almost to himself. “You must be a very brave
girl.”
    Or a stupid girl,
following a stranger to his deserted house in the woods. He could
be a serial killer. Then again, I’m the undead.
    In the distance, I thought I heard the
tinkle of bells. “It’s just beyond these trees,” he
said.
    His squat, gray stone house sat in the
middle of a clearing, its roof shingles weathered and covered in
moss. On either side of the entrance was a shuttered window, and a
crystal wind chime dangled beside the wooden door. The air smelled
like firewood.
    I waited at the front door while he
went inside and fumbled for lights.
    “I keep telling Jerome to go into town
to fix our generator,” Noel said, his voice becoming soft and then
loud as he moved around the house. I heard the sizzle of a match.
He lit several lanterns.
    From the entrance I scanned
the living room on my left and a dining area on my right. Inside,
the walls were bare stone. If only the
ceilings weren’t so low I could show Noel my wall-climbing prowess
in