Palace of Mirrors Read Free

nobody there.
    “Eelsy!” Harper laughs, still rolling on the ground. “The dog went thataway. Better start running if you’re going to get him!”
    “I don’t mean the dog,” I say, with as much dignity as I can muster with mud caked on my nose and lips. “Somebody threw that dog out at me.”
    “You’re crazy,” Harper says. “Who’d throw a dog? That was Pugsy, Jasper Creech’s dog—you know, that big cowardly mutt? Pugsy probably just saw his own shadow, and got jumpy. Or, no—I know—maybe he saw a skunk, and now you’re going to get sprayed, and—”
    “It’s physically impossible for a dog to jump in that manner,” I say frostily. “He was thrown.
Flung.
”
    “But why?” Harper asks. “Why would anybody do that?”
    Because my enemies found out where I am. They’re lurking around, waiting to kill me. But the moment wasn’t right, so they just wanted to get away without being seen.
    Of course, I can’t tell Harper that. I’m not even sure I believe it myself. Maybe it is physically possible for a dog to jump like that. Maybe there was never anybody there except a dumb dog. Maybe I’m the coward who’s scared of shadows.
    “Maybe someone was following us,” I say, even though it’s illogical. The shadow was ahead of us on the path, like someone was lying in wait.
    Harper just shakes his head.
    “Who’d bother following us? We’re not anybody important.”
    “I—” I have to choke back the words. It’s strange how badly I want to tell Harper everything all of a sudden. Partly just to wipe that smirk off his freckled face, to make him know that
I’m
important. Partly because . . . I don’t know. We’re best friends. It almost feels like I’m lying to him, not telling. I want him to take my fear and the shadow seriously. I want him to take me seriously.
    “You were really scared, weren’t you?” Harper says softly. He stands up, brushes the dirt from his breeches. He steps a little closer, and I remember again that he’s a boy and I’m a girl. This is so weird. It wasn’t that long ago that we used to arm-wrestle and play leapfrog and chase and tackle, and it didn’t mean a thing. But now I can see that he’s thinking about putting his arm around my shoulder, to comfort me. He lifts his arm a hairsbreadth, lowers it again. Chickening out. For now.
    “Really,” he says huskily, “if there was any danger, if someone was following us . . . I’d protect you.”
    “With what?” I say. “Your harp?” I’m just trying to make a joke, trying to make it not so weird that he’s standing so close, that he’s offering to protect the same person he used to tackle and wrestle and pummel. But he recoils, just like I’ve punched him. The expression on his face crumbles. That was the worst thing I could have said to him. It’s probably the worst thing I’ve ever said to anyone in my entire life.
    Harper drops his fishing pole.
    “You know what? I don’t think I feel like fishing today,” he says. “Maybe I’ll just go back to bed. To sleep. Maybe I’ll just sleep until noon, and then I’ll spend my every waking hour playing that stupid harp!”
    “I’m sorry,” I whisper. But he’s already stalking away from me, throwing up clumps of mud up from his heels with every angry step.
    I pick up Harper’s fishing pole, and then I just stand there. I’m too scared to move. But I’m not afraid of shadows and phantom men and enemies anymore. I’m afraid that Harper will never forgive me.

  3  
    Eventually I force myself to walk the rest of the way to the pond. I cast both fishing lines and reel in big ugly catfish, smaller sunfish, humble monkfish. I’m having an incredibly lucky fishing day, but it’s no good without Harper. Still, when I’m done, I divide the fish into two baskets. I leave one of the baskets with his pole propped against the door of the hut he shares with his mother. I can hear ripples of harp music coming from inside. I rap hard against the