The Books of Elsewhere, Vol. 1: The Shadows Read Free Page A

brightly colored cereal into a bowl and set it on the countertop.
    “You remember that I have to go to campus this morning, don’t you?”
    Olive pretended to remember. She nodded.
    “Good. It will only be for a few hours, and I know you’re old enough to take care of yourself, but if you need anything, you can call Mrs. Nivens, who lives next door. Her number is right here by the phone. The only thing you have to do all morning is move the wet laundry from the washer to the dryer. Okay?”
    Olive choked on her Sugar-Puffy Kitten Bits.
    “In the basement ? I don’t want to go down there by myself!”
    “Olive, really. It’s just a basement. You can turn all the lights on, and you only have to be down there for a minute.”
    “But Mom—”
    “Olive, if you are old enough to stay home alone, you are old enough to go into the basement alone.”
    Olive pouted and stirred the sludgy pink milk around in her cereal bowl.
    “Good girl. Well, I’m off. Have a good morning, sweetie.”
    Her mother gave her a coffee-scented kiss on the forehead and fluttered out of the house.
    With her mother gone, Olive decided to get the torture over with. After opening the door as wide as it would go, she stood in the basement doorway for a moment, looking down the rickety wooden stairs into the darkness. Then, like somebody jumping into an icy cold swimming pool, she took a deep breath and raced down.
    The basement of the old house was made mostly of stone, with some patches of packed dirt poking through, and other patches of crumbling cement trying to hide the dirt. The effect was like an ancient, stale birthday cake frosted by a blindfolded five-year-old.
    The basement lights were just bare lightbulbs dangling on chains from the ceiling. Swags of dusty cobwebs hung everywhere: in the corners, between the lightbulbs, over the old pantry shelves built along the walls.
    Olive turned on every single light before stuffing the wet laundry into the dryer. She was shoving in the last wet towel when the back of her neck started to prickle. She got this feeling whenever anyone was looking at her, and it had saved her from a lot of spitballs and snowballs. Olive whirled around. No one was there—no one she could see, anyway. Smacking the START button, she tore back toward the stairs, taking them two at a time, even though her legs weren’t quite long enough. Back in the safe sunlight of the kitchen, she slammed the basement door and took a deep breath. Then she realized that she had left all of the basement lights on.
    Olive knew that wasting electricity was a terrible thing. She had learned all about it in science class. It was almost as bad as wasting water or, worse, throwing a recyclable bottle in the trash. She couldn’t leave the basement lights on all day, with the environment already in such bad shape. She would have to go back down to turn them off, and then go back up the stairs in the dark. Olive gulped.
    Her parents had warned her not to let her imagination run away with her ever since she was three and had woken them night after night wailing about the sharks hiding under her bed. “Olive, honey,” her father had patiently explained, “when a shark is out of the water, it is crushed by the weight of its own body. A shark couldn’t survive under your bed.” Three-year-old Olive had nodded, and went on to imagine sharks slowly suffocating among the dust bunnies. But eleven-year-old Olive had a bit more faith in her imagination. Somehow, she felt sure that she hadn’t been alone in that basement. Someone had been watching her.
    With one hand on the wall, she edged down the stairs. The stones under her fingers were rough and cold. Still, having something to touch made her feel a teeny bit safer. She stood for a moment at the bottom of the stairs and looked around. Light from the bulbs brightened a few patches of crisscrossing wooden rafters against the high ceiling. Here and there, it lit up the uneven walls, making patterns in