Free The Peculiar Night of the Blue Heart by Lauren DeStefano Page A

know things that she didn’t understand. This morning, she knew that the blue creature had left something in the barn of the old farmhouse. Something important.
    Maybe, Marybeth thought, she could retrieve it and the blue creature would move on.
    She also knew that the blue creature was wary of Lionel, and that if he came along, the blue creature might attack him, or refuse to search for whatever it was it wanted in that barn.
    When she opened the bedroom door, she could just barely see Lionel asleep by the threshold. He was there every night to make sure she didn’t wander off. Mrs. Mannerd had given up and stopped pestering him about it, and Lionel didn’t seem to mind that he got kicked and tripped over when someone got up for a late-night glass of water or to use the toilet.
    And his presence there on the floor had helped. Marybeth had not wandered off against her own accord in some time.
    This time, it was her own decision to go.
    Carefully, she stepped over Lionel’s sleeping body. He growled at something in his dream and scratched at his ear. Marybeth waited until he was totally still and quiet, and then she moved down the stairs.
    She did feel guilty for going without him. But when anyone was around her, the blue creature was on high alert. Only when Marybeth was alone with it did she have a chance at soothing it.
    Sometimes she was able to hum the blue creature to sleep, but for now she was merely trying to keep it calm. She wanted it to show her whatever was in that barn, but she did not want it to take over her body. It was a fragile dance she was slowly learning.
    She hummed in her head as she buttoned her coat, and as she pulled on her boots, and wriggled her fingers into her tattered gloves.
    It was November now, and Marybeth had vowed to be rid of the blue creature before the first snowfall. The little red house was at the end of a long dirt driveway, at the bottom of a hill. When it snowed, they were stranded there for days. Marybeth suspected the confinement would cause the blue creature to panic, and there wouldn’t be athing she could do to console it, trapped in a house with seven other children.
    By the time the farmhouse appeared in the distance, the sun had begun to rise.
    â€œStay down,” Marybeth said, as the blue creature fussed about inside her. It was itching to take over. Marybeth understood. After the blue creature sent her running from the graveyard, she knew what it was trying to tell her. It didn’t belong there. It belonged here. “If you go about panicking, I’ll walk us back home and we’ll never get you sorted out,” she warned. “So behave.”
    She was bluffing, but it worked. The blue creature could tell her what to think and where to go sometimes, but it could never read her mind.
    It was her own heart thudding in her chest as she stepped off the road and onto the large yard in front of the farmhouse.
    She took a step toward the barn, which always called to her when she was here, but a sound stopped her.
    It was coming from the trees, a loud
whack
. Followed by another, and another.
    Slowly, she moved toward the sound, clenching and unclenching her gloved fingers to keep them warm. The chilly air was biting at her nose and cheeks.
    Whack!
    Whack!
    Whack!
    Not far into the woods, just beyond the tree line, there was a man in a plaid flannel shirt, loading logs onto a stump and chopping them into firewood.
    Marybeth recognized him as the old woman’s son, Reginald.
    His back was to her, and he froze with the ax over his head as though he sensed her standing there.
    â€œWhat do you want?” he said. “Why do you keep coming back here?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Marybeth answered honestly.
    Reginald set down the ax and turned to face her.
    The blue creature ebbed inside her arms and coiled around her heart, trying to take over.
    Marybeth clenched her fists.
Be still
, she told it. Her temples ached from the strain