The Bone Flute Read Free

something that had crossed. Word from the dead.
    She tried to imagine what sort of gift you would send across such a chasm. It would have to be something unique. What would I send if I were Gilda? Camrose wondered. The map to a lost island. A box of jewels. A bottle of moondust.
    She pulled the outer wrapping off and dropped it on the desk. The package sat there looking neat and mysterious.
    TO MY GREAT-GRANDDAUGHTER
CAMROSE JANE ON HER 12 TH BIRTHDAY
    was inked across it in thick black capitals. Under that,
    NOT TO BE OPENED BY ANYONE ELSE3
    with two lines scored underneath so fiercely they bit through the paper.
    â€œImagine waiting all those years without opening it! How could they stand the suspense?” She felt a little sad because her mother, who died when she was two, would never know what was in it.
    Stop stalling! Camrose told herself.
    She took a deep breath, ripped a layer of sticky tape off one end of the parcel, and peeled off the paper. Inside was a hard, reddish-brown cardboard box with Tabac Havane Havana Tobacco printed on the lid. Tueros , it said. Cigares 25 Cigars .
    â€œCigars?”
    Camrose flipped up the lid. Inside was what looked like a letter, and … She tipped it out, shook the box, and looked at the bottom. And nothing. Only a letter.
    But still … word from the dead. All right! She sat down and unfolded the letter. There were three pages, all covered with that stern black handwriting. She smoothed them on the desk.
    My dear Camrose, she read. I’m sorry I can’t be there to explain things to you in person … Her lips moved silently for a few seconds.
    Across the room, the door creaked open an inch. Camrose slapped the letter face down on the desk, in case it was Bronwyn sticking her nose in. But Bronwyn didn’t appear.
    â€œDarn door.” Camrose got up and closed it, then returned to the desk. As she reached for the letter, the door inched open again.
    â€œBron?” She went and stood in the doorway. The dim upstairs hall was deserted. From downstairs came the crackle of canned laughter from a TV show. It sounded very far away.
    Up here, in the quiet, you could hear the cricks and ticks of the old house as it contracted in the cool of the night. Sounded almost like stealthy footsteps, if you let your imagi–nation run wild.
    Something gleamed in the stairwell beyond the banister rail–ing. A nail head, maybe. It looked like an eye, watching her.
    She stepped back into her room and closed the door firmly. Then she snatched up the pages of the letter and folded them.
    â€œCan’t keep this to myself!”
    What she really meant, and knew it, was, Don’t want to be alone. Not now, not here .

3
Word from the dead
    C amrose pulled on shorts, shoved her feet into sandals and wedged the folded letter into her back pocket.
    The window was open as wide as it would go. Pushing up the two hooks that held the screen to the window frame, she lifted it out, laid it flat on the asphalt shingle roof outside and climbed out herself.
    Her room was at the back of the house, overlooking a long shed where the lawnmower and gardening tools and bicycles were stored. To the right of her window was Dad’s, now dark. On that side of the shed stood a huge old chestnut tree. One limb snaked over the shed roof, with another, smaller branch reaching out about six feet above it.
    Steadying herself with one hand on the branch above her head, she walked quickly along the lower limb to the trunk. On a quiet night like this, the tree was as solid as a house. More solid than our house, she thought. Only the great tent of leaves stirred, with a sound like rain.
    A rope lay coiled in a hole in the trunk at the height of her head, just above a limb on the side away from the house. She pulled it out and let it uncoil to the ground. The top end was securely tied to the limb, and triple knots twice as big as her fist ran down the length of it.
    She had a good grip on the rope