Free Between the Spark and the Burn by April Genevieve Tucholke Page A

was a village nestled in the deep Maine woods like something from a German fairy tale. Freddie had taken us there once, when we were little. She met a young man in the forest at the edge of town and disappeared with him into the trees, leaving Luke and me just standing there, staring into the dark. When she came back, some ten minutes later, she was pale, but cheerful. I never did solve that Freddie mystery. It was just one of the many.
    â€œI don’t like it,” I added. “I don’t like that Theo mentioned a town so close to the Citizen.”
    Luke nodded. Sunshine nodded. Neely laughed.
    â€œLooks like our devil-boy has moved on, as that Pine girl said. The only question is . . .” Neely leaned back against the flowered wall by the big front window and smiled one of his careless smiles. “Which way did he go?”
    I opened my mouth to answer . . .
    And then I saw the lights, flashing in the dark outside.
    â€œThey’re here,” I said, and my voice was calm, strangely calm, like I had known all along what was going to happen.
    I heard Luke climb out of his sleeping bag. Felt his hand grip my arm, hard. Sunshine grabbed a thick marble candlestick from the mantel above the fireplace, and held it at her side, fist clenched like she was ready for it . . . but then her free hand went to her head, cradling it in the spot where the baseball bat hit it last summer. She dropped the candlestick on the ground and it thudded, deep. She backed into a corner of the room and crouched in the shadows, her long hair covering the white of her face.
    But Neely just kept standing at the window, shaking his head.
    â€œIt’s not what you think,” he said. And then he opened the door.

Chapter 8
    T ORCH LIGHTS.
    We stood out on the front step, watching, not caring who saw us now.
    Twenty or so men walked down the street outside the house. There were dogs at their heels and they were carrying torches,
torches,
like they’d been out hunting monsters. Twenty men and a swarm of dogs and one boy, tied up and held tight and dragged between them.
    The men were quiet, making no sound but the crunch-crunch of boots on snow. Their torches shifted slightly with each step, and long shadows slithered and danced across the trees and houses.
    The boy was slack, the firelight flashing off his long hair as it swung about his ears.
    Long, red hair.
    â€œIt’s him, it’s Brodie,” Sunshine said in a hollow, quiet voice, her eyes staring straight out, her body stiff and still except for the palm she still held to her head.
    I took her free hand and squeezed. Luke stayed hunched in the doorway behind me, and whispered
we need to get out of here, Vi,
over and over.
    People were coming out of their houses now, children in socks and women in white nightdresses under black woolen coats grabbed from a peg by the door. The children cheered at the sight of the red-haired boy, their arms raised. But the mothers . . . the mothers put their hands together under their chins, or one palm on their heart, and stayed as silent as the men.
    The four of us were out on the street now, our socks getting soaked up with snow. We watched the men march the boy up into the squat, white church, to the Gothic-arch-framed doorway. They pulled back the two heavy wooden doors and went inside.
    The church bell started ringing a minute later, urgent and crisp.
    Back inside the Lashley house.
    Neely said nothing and his cheeks turned red and his eyes went dark.
    â€œWhat are we going to do?” I asked, because no one had. “We can’t control Brodie. He almost killed us the last time. We should have talked about this. What the hell is our plan, Neely?”
    Neely started moving a bit, side to side, like he was eager and it was getting hard to stand still. “Don’t worry, Vi. He’s already captured. The town did us a favor. They caught him. I don’t know how, but they