Places in the Dark
Chapter One
Part One
Port Alma, Maine
1937
More than anyone I ever knew, my brother Billy felt the rapid wings
of summer, how it darted like a bird through the trees of Maine,
skittered along streams and ponds, then soared away, bright and
gleaming, leaving us behind, shivering in coats and scarves.
It was on one of those fleeting summer days that he saved Jenny
Grover's life. He'd built a wooden raft out of planks discarded by a
local sawmill, packed the space between the boards with rags and
mud, then asked me to help him carry it to the spot where Fox Creek
widened and deepened, its current growing turbulent again just
beyond the bend, where it made its headlong rush toward Linder
Falls.
"I'm going to make it all the way across," he declared. He was
twelve years old, shirtless, barefoot, dressed only in a pair of
cut-off trousers.
"It's going to sink, Billy," I warned him. "Believe me, it's going
to sink like a stone."
He laughed. "If it sinks, we'll swim."
"We? I'm not going out on that thing."
"Oh, come on, Cal."
"No," I said. "Look at me."
Unlike Billy, I was fully dressed, having made no compromise with
summer beyond a pair of sandals.
"Okay then," he said. "You ... read full excerpt from: Places in the Dark ebook
