Linked Through Time Read Free Page A

planned my attack.
    He made his way up to the rafters. I waited until Corey’s back was turned before making a mad, slippery dash to a wooden ladder that led to the loft. Once at the top, I lunged repeatedly after Corey, crashing into piles of loose hay, raising clouds of dust into the air. Corey giggled maniacally, and the two of us jumped through the open hatch to the bales below, shrieking in mock horror when our legs sank knee deep into the bales.
    I paused, breathless. The first real smile I’d had in a week crept across my face. Corey sat across from me pulling sprigs of hay from his hair. I was glad none of my friends were here to witness my temporary display of juvenile behavior. They would never understand how I could have so much fun with just Corey and some hay. It almost made me forget I had been miserable only moments before. Almost.
    Corey grabbed a rope. “Want to play chicken?” he challenged.
    Chicken was basically a game of courage and stupidity. Two swingers, each on their own ropes, had to swing directly at each other from opposite corners of the barn. The first one to jump off in fright was the chicken and the loser. Once, I had gotten twenty-two stitches above my eyebrow when I refused to let go in a duel against one of my country cousins. I slammed into a barn pole and spent the rest of the day in the ER, but it didn’t stop me from playing again the next day.
    But that was ages ago. Back to a time when I actually enjoyed coming here.
    Thunder rippled through the sky, shaking the barn’s frame. I could feel a sudden change in the air; the hair on my neck seemed to pop with an electric current and the skin on my arms tingled.
    The first drops of rain plinked against the tin roof and Corey’s head whipped in my direction, his eyes round and afraid. Corey had always been scared of storms, but his fear had increased ever since our neighbor’s house was struck by lightning and burnt to the ground. That was three years ago, and Corey lived it over and over again with the beginning of every storm.
    Offering him a smile of reassurance, I couldn’t help but falter in my steps as Gran’s warning played in the back of my mind. I decided to end our night of fun before the storm could worsen, making our trek back to the farmhouse a soggy, traumatizing task. I grabbed the base of the wooden ladder leading up to the loft. Trying to distract Corey, who was hypnotized with fear as he stared through the open barn door to the flashes of lightning beyond, I yelled, “Race you to the house! You have to jump through the hatch, go across the bales, swing on the rope, and last one to the house owes the other a candy bar.”
    Forgetting the storm for a moment, Corey’s eyes lit up at the prospect of any sort of candy. He scurried up the ladder, quick as a mouse. “I like Snickers,” he said cockily, doing his best imitation of a tough guy swagger; his skinny legs looking more like a chicken’s than a little boy’s.
    I smirked. Corey didn’t have a chance, but I admired his determination. Leaning over, I grasped the heavy metal ring of the hatch. I planned on jumping through and pulling the hatch closed behind me, saving me a trip back up the ladder later.
    Another clap of thunder and a flash of lightning made Corey scream in terror. Without a second thought, he jumped through the opening, darted through the maze of bales, and was through the barn poles of the entrance before I could think to say “go”.
    I rolled my eyes heavenward. “Cheater!” I yelled at his retreating shadow. Thunder rumbled in response.
    Without his little wiry body around, the atmosphere of the barn changed drastically. An eerie feeling began to swirl in the pit of my stomach. Alone in the darkening barn, it no longer felt like a safe haven for play, but a keeper of things that went bump in the night. The base of my scalp prickled again and sweat popped out on my brow. The farmhouse looked so far away, the isolation upping my feelings