Stone Rain (42 page)

Sarah looked at me very seriously. “It could go either way,” she said, and took me inside.

They drove until it got dark, then found a motel alongside the interstate. Miranda figured, why rush it, no sense driving all through the night. They’d take their time, make an adventure out of it.

Katie didn’t want to sit in a restaurant to have dinner. She felt scared when there were lots of other people around. Miranda said, “Why don’t we get some pizza, and some ice cream, and we’ll take it back to our room and we’ll sit on the bed and we’ll eat it right out of the box and then we’ll eat the ice cream right out of the container with two spoons.”

Katie liked that idea.

They went to bed early. They were tired from driving all day. So they got undressed and got under the blankets together and turned off the lights and listened to the trucks on the highway go by and disappear into the night.

“Tell me about the princess,” Katie said.

“Well,” said Miranda, “once upon a time, there was a princess, with very curly hair, who was only five years old, and she could do anything she wanted.”

“Even stay up late and watch TV?”

“Not that sort of anything. She could do anything that was hard, that took a lot of work, anything she set her mind to, she would do that thing.”

“Could she be a movie star?”

“Yes.”

“Could she be a hot dog person who sells hot dogs?”

“Yes, she could.”

“And would there be any dragons? Would there be dragons chasing her and trying to get her?”

Miranda wrapped her arms around Katie, brought her in close to her, felt the rhythm of her heart coming into beat with her own, her curls against her cheek, and she put her mouth to Katie’s ear.

“No dragons,” she whispered. “No more dragons.”

Thanks, once again, to my agent Helen Heller, and Irwyn Applebaum, Nita Taublib, and Danielle Perez at Bantam Dell for their continued support.

LINWOOD BARCLAY is the author of
Bad Move, Bad Guys
, and
Lone Wolf
. He is a columnist for the
Toronto Star
and lives with his family near Toronto.

His website is www.linwoodbarclay.com.