Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls Read Free Page B

inside all of the other pastries just so people won’t get suspicious, but every now and then, I go to my computer and print out a real one. I don’t give these messages toanyone specific, but somehow they always wind up finding their way to the person they were meant for.”
    “And you never eat the pastries,” I said slowly.
    She looked at me with exasperation then. “Would you?”
    “No,” I admitted.
    We watched each other for a while.
    “What does the prediction say?” I finally asked.
    She handed it over to me, like saying it aloud would make it even more real. “I wrotethis before Courtney went missing. Later, I thought that she must have gotten it.”
    I read the words on the slip of paper. Beware falling water.
    “I’m scared,” Sarah whispered.
    Well, so was I.
    “You can stay here tomorrow,” I said.
    “That’s not how magic works!” Sarah said angrily. “Trying to avoid things like this only makes them work out the way you were afraid of in the first place!Or else you become someone less than the person you were meant to be.”
    I didn’t argue. She was right. And the truth was, Sarah White had stayed safe behind her wards the first time she had sensed a monster standing outside her store. She must have known on some level that even if the monster went away, someone else a lot less qualified to deal with it than she was would suffer from its presencelater, but she had done nothing but hope the problem would go away. And a few days later, someone she cared about had paid the price.
    Sarah White wasn’t staying home.
    “It just says to be wary,” I pointed out. “There wouldn’t be any point in that if your death was a foregone conclusion.”
    She made a sound with her nose that indicated disgust, but her expression was a little more thoughtful.
    Ireached across the table and squeezed her arm, just once, gently, and let it go. I wanted the squeeze to say I like you, Sarah White, and you will not be alone when the time comes for a reckoning .
    Apparently Sarah took the gesture to mean I’m taking this chance to initiate physical contact while you’re emotionally vulnerable because I want to exchange bodily fluids . At any rate, shesmiled faintly and stood up. “You’re different from most knights. But you’re not that different.”
    She walked out of the room, and I didn’t protest or call out my innocence. I lost my innocence a long time ago.
    *  *  *
    At 5:30 the next morning, Sarah turned on a battery-operated CD player next to the river. It was three miles away from the Bonaparte Falls, but that didn’t matter.The being we were after would be attuned to sounds carrying over water. Sarah had warded the player to make it harder to find, and I was hoping the combination of magic and music would make the fossegrim curious.
    *  *  *
    The Bonaparte Falls were not breathtaking in their majesty, nor was there an obvious cave at their bottom, but I had not expected there to be. An accessible teen hangoutwould not have made a good lair. I was staring at the top of the falls from my perch on a large rock that jutted from the river, my rappelling line anchored around its base.
    “She’s chained to a wall in there,” Isaac said curtly. I was seeing a new side of Isaac, the Marine on mission. It looked good on him. “I didn’t see anything else with her.”
    “Where’s the entrance?” I asked. I was wearinga pair of swim trunks with deep pockets and a tool belt with a mallet and several glow sticks looped at my hips.
    “I’ll lead you to it,” he said, squinting in thought. “It’s going to be a tight squeeze, but you should be able to make it.”
    “Good work,” I said.
    He looked at me oddly and turned back. Isaac was walking on the surface of the water. He did not look remotely Christlike.
    I let the currenttake me to the top of the falls and regained my footing. These were not rapids, and the rocks sloped rather than being a sheer drop. As long as the line did not get