The Soulkeepers Read Free Page A

parents. No pictures at all. That's what bothered
Jacob the most.
    Near the end of the hall, Jacob passed by
his cousin Katrina's open door and caught a glimpse of green eyes
and curly brown hair. He began to say goodnight but was stopped
mid-word when her foot shot out in a purposeful kick that slammed
the door in his face. A road sign that read "Private Property"
swung forward on its hook toward the tip of his nose.
    "Goodnight then," he said to the door. He
would have liked to be friends with Katrina. She was only two years
older than him and the only person close to his age he knew in this
town. But Katrina treated him like the plague, something to be
avoided at all costs.
    Suddenly, Jacob couldn't breath. The walls
billowed inward. The hall was too hot, too small. On his toes, he
jogged down the stairs, lifting his coat from the hook near the
door. His aunt and uncle's voices floated out from the kitchen and
he hoped their conversation was enough to cover the click of the
door as he pulled it closed behind him. He was desperate for air
and some time to think.
    Dodging left to avoid the kitchen window, he
wrapped the wool coat around him, and crept down the stairs into
the dark driveway. Fluffy white flakes floated down from the night
sky. Snow. He'd never seen it in person before coming here. He held
out his hand as he walked toward the street, watching the cold, wet
blobs melt in his palm: one second there, the next second gone.
    "Just like my life," Jacob said to no one.
The street was dark aside from the light of the moon. Enough snow
had collected on the pavement to give it a luminescent sheen.
    Once he reached the street, he glanced back
for any sign the Laudners had noticed his departure. All was quiet.
The Laudner's house was pale yellow with grey trim, a sort of long
box with two windows that jutted out of the roofline on the second
story like raised eyebrows. Katrina's room was under the left,
Jacobs under the right. The house stood alone on the north side of
the street.
    Directly across the street, the only
neighboring home was a looming gothic Victorian. He knew it was
called a gothic Victorian because the building seemed so out of
place here, he'd asked what it was. He'd thought maybe it was a
funeral home or a museum or something. It was gloomy and gray with
a black wrought iron fence out front. Dead ivy crawled up one side
of the place and wrapped itself around a tower the shape of a
witch's hat. In the wetness and moonlight, the roof glowed like it
was radioactive.
    As he walked between them, he thought the
houses were taunting each other with their stark differences. But
then, maybe the reason the Laudners didn't have more neighbors was
no one would willingly join this architectural contest of wills. Of
course Jacob wasn't used to any of this: the space, the cold, and
other more important things he didn't like to think about.
    Past the end of the Victorian's wrought iron
fence, Jacob gathered his coat around him. With nothing to break
the wind out of the north, an icy gust blew right through him and
towards the dead forest to the south. Ahead, shadows twisted, and
the sounds of a winter night danced eerily around him. The shrill
of an owl made him lurch back from the trees. Ice cracking off
wind-bent branches had Jacob turning on his heels. But it was the
scraping sound of wood on wood that sent a tingle up his spine. The
whine of rusty hinges made the image of a coffin lid dart through
his mind.
    He walked faster. The swish-swish of his
feet in the snow echoed in the night. Or was someone following him.
He stopped. The footsteps stopped. He glanced behind him, searching
the night. A ripple moved across the street. It was as if someone
folded the sky and then quickly flattened it out again on the
horizon. Something filmy and dark darted from one shadow to the
next and the memory of the accident gripped his throat. There'd
been a ripple in the woods, just like this one.
    He launched himself down the