Ripples Through Time Read Free Page A

was little.
Something she told you.”
    “The way she describes it, it was all cherry blossoms and
honeysuckle. But things were bad at home. Before I met her. There were some
things she regretted, but I always tried to tell her, they made her a better
person…”
     
***
     
    “I’m cold.”
    “We won’t be in here for much longer. Stop fidgeting.”
    “And it’s dark.”
    Emily struggled to ignore her irritating friend, yet she
couldn’t help but admit that Olivia was right. It was certainly frigid and
cramped in here, and even from her position she couldn’t see more than a circle
of light at the end of their pipe. 
    They were tucked down close together inside a culvert that
ran beside Jakob’s Lane, Emily in front and Olivia just behind clutching her
ankles. Emily could just make out the dirt road ahead of them through the
opening, and her eyes were at knee height for most passersby—not that they saw
many passersby. 
    Water was seeping through her dress and she knew her mother would
yell at her as soon as she got home, but she didn’t mind. Outside the culvert
it was a beautiful spring day, the sun just past its precipice, and she was
hungry. She knew Olivia was hungry too, but they didn’t talk about it. 
    Hunger was just a fact of life she came to terms with long
ago, but she noticed it more now that she was about to get food. Her stomach
felt like it was eating itself.
    “Can’t we hide behind the  trees  this time?”
Olivia asked, her voice echoing through the pipe.
    “No, she’ll see us,” Emily said. “Don’t be a fat-head.”
    “We always hide in here though. She’s probably expecting
us.”
    Emily didn’t have a suitable reply. They sat in silence,
then she felt Olivia squirming against her calves, sloshing water on her bare
skin. She thought to say something and just sighed instead. 
    “Are we going to get in trouble?” Olivia asked.
    “No, OC. We won’t get in trouble.”
    “But what if she tells on us?”
    “She won’t.”
    “How do you know?”
    “’Cause she hasn’t yet,” Emily replied.
    “Oh yeah,” Olivia said. There was a short pause, then: “Why
not?”
    “Why not what?”
    “Why hasn’t she told on us?” Olivia asked.
    Emily hesitated. “She just won’t,” she said. Truth be told,
Emily had no idea why the little girl from up the street hadn’t told on them. They
had been here, inside  this  culvert, lying in wait for her half
a dozen times, and still no one else seemed to know about it. 
    Each time their fear and guilt made them promise each other
it would be the last; Emily worried that when she returned home her parents
would be there waiting for her: Dad’s punishment with a belt was terrifying
enough, but Mom always sent Emily to cut her own switch. 
    And she could never find one that wouldn’t hurt. 
    But there was no punishment after that first time. Nor any
subsequent theft, which meant the little girl wasn’t telling anyone. Emily
didn’t even know the girl’s name, even though she lived less than a twenty
minute walk from her home. 
    All she knew was the girl came from a rich family—always
walking in expensive clothes bought in a store—one of the few in the
neighborhood, and she didn’t go to their school. Her father was a thoroughbred
horse trainer at a nearby track. But even with the girl going to a different
school she would have no trouble figuring out who they were and tell someone
what was happening to her. 
    So why hadn’t she?
    “I think I see something,” Emily whispered over her
shoulder. Her voice echoed all around and she winced, fairly certain her words
could be heard well outside the culvert. She peered through the opening and
tilted her head to get a better angle, then saw a pair of shoes slip by along
the road. 
    Emily scrambled forward out of the culvert and onto the road
only a few dozen feet from the passing girl. She was small, maybe two years
younger than Emily, and pretty with shoulder length blonde