The Soul Seekers Read Free Page A

much longer, going way down to a river rushing by in swooshing waves. I stood up to see, grabbing another handful along the way. With my feet planted firmly on the ground, I yanked my arm back to get a good pitch only to halt at the feeling of shock that came from within my tightened fist.
    A coin had made its way inside the jumbled mass of stone. I picked it out to inspect it under the faint moonlight. It wasn’t an easy task—the thing sizzled with some sort of electricity and felt viciously cold like dry ice. I could barely make out the carvings: the letters SS on the front, and on the back, a gothic face just showing through years of layers of mucky verdigris.
    I turned it around a few times, trying to ignore the prickly feeling of déjà vu which had seeped in. It made me feel nervous. I had the thought that I was meant to find it, that I had moved all the way from Colorado Springs to Springvale, just to find this coin. The idea made me furious.
    “Let’s just see how long it takes you to reach the river.” I closed my palm and drew my arm back for another pitch, but one bad step had me falling forward, helped by the rolling current of pebbles under my worn out sandals.
    My stomach seized as I slid over the edge. Screaming, I reached toward anything that might be secure but could only find a set of vines coming out of the rough wall. I grabbed at them quick, and pushed my legs into the sheared cliff below to stop my body from its frightening, pendulous sway. A river of pebbles slid over the planes of my face, over my body, and into the darkness. I took a long breath through my nostrils with my lips clamped tight, and then, like a fool, looked down. Through the shadowed moonlight I could see just how far the bluffs sunk into the valley, and it wasn’t for the weak. Anyone who fell from this distance, very simply, would die.
    “This is your chance, Emma,” a quiet voice announced in my head, and a vision of my falling, floating body consumed me for a moment. It was the ultimate escape: no more pain, no more arguments, no more me. Then I saw everyone crying—those who had made me cry when I was alive were now crying because I was dead.
    Shutting off the vision, I looked up and gritted my teeth. Springvale was a rotten place to live, but death? I clutched hard at the vines, and after a few panting breaths, somehow pulled myself up over the edge with just one tiny slip before finding a secure hold. I crawled up and over to the side of the boulder and held on, sharp breaths forcing their way into lungs that had been too scared to work.
    The coin flashed at me through the long, messy strands of my hair.
    For a moment I ignored it, but after a few more ragged breaths, reached out to grab the thing—and held it tight.

4: William
    There he was again, looking gorgeous as ever with books piled around in his usual way. Grabbing a cart full of Indiana history I walked past, only allowing myself a slight thought to the blue flannel shirt he was wearing yet again, and the sheen coming off the dark waves of his hair.
    I had almost died and this was what I was so desperate to see? A weird boy who never changed his clothes and who sat reading all day? Sadly, yes. It was exactly what I had been waiting for. As if knowing the state I was in, Ethel told me to organize the card catalog for an hour or so. It almost helped me to forget. No sooner was I done with that than I grabbed a cart and headed for the back.
    “Haven’t you been in that section a lot lately?”
    “Yeah, but, it’s a tough section.” I gave Ethel a weak smile.
    “All-righty then.”
    Ethel went back to her book and I headed through the tall rows of clothbound escapism, dust filtering down like snow in a haze of sunlight coming through the high windows. I could just make out Superman through Chaucer and Chekhov. His back was facing me, and for some reason I felt sad watching him. Why was he at the library every day? Didn’t he have anywhere else to go? I