Into the Dark Read Free Page B

them burned to a crisp?”
    “Yup.”
    Mom smiled. She glanced over at Ingrid again. “What’s that on your finger?”
    “A compass ring,” Ingrid said. She extended her hand so Mom could see. “I’ll never get lost again.” Following the example of Sherlock Holmes—who carried a detailed map of London in his head—Ingrid had been trying for months, not too successfully, to do the same with Echo Falls.
    “Where did you get it?” Mom said.
    “Dad gave it to me.”
    “He did?” Mom was beautiful. She had lovely soft skin, still unlined, except for when she was worried or puzzled about something. Then two deep vertical grooves would appear, right between her eyes, two grooves that were visible at that moment. “That was nice of him,” Mom said.

three
    “U M.”
    “Hi, Joey.”
    “Hi.” Ingrid could hear Joey’s father, Echo Falls police chief Gilbert L. Strade, in the background saying, “Speak up. Don’t mumble.” Then came some bumping sounds, a door closing, and Joey again, his voice now clearer, silence in the background. “Hi,” he said.
    “Hi.”
    “I called yesterday.”
    “I was at my grandfather’s.”
    “Yeah. Ty said.” Silence. “Now you’re back.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Back home.”
    “Right.”
    “Guess what.”
    “I give up.”
    “’Member what I got for Christmas?”
    “Snowshoes?”
    “I tried them out today. In those woods.”
    “The town woods?”
    “Yeah.” Silence.
    “And?”
    “And what?”
    “You might like it.”
    “Like what?”
    “Snowshoeing.”
    “I don’t have snowshoes, Joey. You do.”
    “That’s the thing.” Long pause. “You know Play It Again?”
    “The secondhand sports store?”
    “I was in there the other day. Not yesterday but the day before.” Long pause. “Anyways,” said Joey.
    “Anyways what?” said Ingrid.
    “The thing is, they were in pretty good shape,” Joey said.
    “What were?”
    “Pretty good shape for the price,” Joey added.“Which I can’t tell you on account of they’re like sort of a present.”
    Ingrid, who’d been lounging on her bed with the cordless phone—not a cell phone, since she didn’t have one, thirteen being considered too young for cell phones at 99 Maple Lane—sat up. “You got me a present?”
    “It’s no big deal,” said Joey.
    “What is it?”
    “What is what?”
    “The present, Joey.”
    “I already told you,” said Joey. “Secondhand snowshoes.”
    “Oh,” said Ingrid. “Thanks.”
    “Not too banged up,” Joey said. “No warping or nothin’. And guess what?”
    “What?”
    “They’re red.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Your favorite color.”
    “Thanks, Joey.”
    “Hey,” said Joey. “So how’s right now?”
    “Right now?”
    “For trying them out,” said Joey. “Don’t you want to try them out?”
    Ingrid was actually in the mood—and this often seemed to happen after spending time with Grampy—for taking it easy, maybe whipping up a batch of peanut butter squares, her own recipe featuring white chocolate chips, and memorizing some of Gretel’s lines. “Outside?” she said.
    “Unless you’ve got snow in your room,” Joey said.
    He’d cracked a joke. Did that ever happen? Ingrid couldn’t think of a single example. And this was a funny joke, way funnier than any ever cracked by Brucie Berman, who’d once almost won a bet that he could keep up a rate of three jokes a minute for the entire school bus ride, and had been doing great until Mr. Sidney suddenly slammed on the brakes. Ingrid laughed and laughed.
    “What?” said Joey. “What’s so funny?”
     
    One of the nicest things about 99 Maple Lane—and there were lots, even though it didn’t come close to being the fanciest house in the Riverbend neighborhood—was the fact that it backed right up to the town woods, acres and acres of undeveloped land that stretched all the way to the river. Now—a few days after a heavy snowfall—the woods were silent, except for the light swishing of Joey’s