Page 118 of The Diamond in the Rough

“It’s okay,” I said. “I?—”

“Can you tell me where you are?” he asked, interrupting me.

“No—not exactly.”

“Can you describe it?”

“I’m in a well,” I said, hearing my voice crack. “It’s dark. Wet.”

“Brick or stone?” he asked.

“What?”

“The walls of the well. Brick or stone?”

“Brick, I think.”

“Did you wake up there?”

“N-no.” I described the room I’d awakened in, the rough journey through the abandoned room, out through the garden. The empty feeling of the house itself. “They said it was Garraway’s house,” I told him, hoping that might help.

“Did they knock you out when they took you?”

“Y-yes,” I told him, my head swimming. “Ra-Raj?”

“We’re going to find you,” he promised, his voice almost harsh in its intensity.

“I think I’m—I’m going to pass out,” I stammered. “I can’t?—”

24

Momma always toldhim to be careful, but he liked the way the wheels sounded on the bricks of the well. He wasn’t going to fall in. He was going to build a ramp and then jump his car across the top of it, and it would be the most amazing thing ever!

The fingerson my uninjured arm traced the wheel of a small metal toy truck. I was guessing that it hadn’t made it across the top of the well.

I really hoped the boy hadn’t fallen in with it, because I did not want the next thing my fingers touched to be bones.

I traced the wheel again.

At least the boy had been happy.

I was starting to shiver,and I hated it because every twitch sent a spasm of pain through my arm.

I clenched my teeth together, wondering at what pointthe human jaw would be strong enough to make them crack, and tried desperately not to shake.

There wassomething big on the wall, scrabbling and growling.

Or I’d finally lost it and was hallucinating.

Did you hallucinate before you died?

I didn’t know.

I hoped I was hallucinating.

Or that it was a squirrel.

I wasn’t ascold anymore.