The Bone Flute
  the
Bone Flute
Patricia Bow
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Copyright © 2004 Patricia Bow
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.
National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data
Bow, Patricia, 1946-
The bone flute / Patricia Bow.
ISBN 1-55143-301-X
I. Title.
PS8553.O8987B65 2004Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â jC813'.54Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â C2004-903707-2
Library of Congress Control Number:
2004108678
First Printed in the United States: 2004
Summary:
Camrose must find a way to claim an ancient bone flute and return it to its rightful owner.
Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP), the Canada Council for the Arts, and the British Columbia Arts Council.
Design and typesetting by Lynn O'Rourke
Cover and interior illustrations by Vladyana Krykorka
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Printed and bound in Canada
To Eric, James and Erinâmy best of reasons.
Table of Contents
W
here Camrose stood, on a ledge halfway up a limestone cliff above the Ottawa River, the rocks had already been in shadow for hours. But the light had just lifted from the shoulders of the hills across the river in Quebec and from the white spire of the church on the far shore.
It was sunset, 8:45 p.m., on Friday, July 26, Camrose's twelfth birthday. Th e date and time were important, but she didn't know that then.
“Don't take all day,” Mark said behind her.
“I'm going! Don't rush me.” She leaned out a little. Twenty feet below she could see the tops of two heads, one blond, one black: Krystal and Nadia, combing out each other's long hair. Jump wrong from here and she'd land on the rocks beside them.
“You can't miss,” Mark said.
“You go first.”
“All right.” He stepped to the edge, swung out his arms and tipped off. No fuss and nothing fancy. She watched him fade to a ghost in the dark water, then rise again, grow solid and break the surface with a splash. He climbed out onto the rocky ridge thirty feet from shore, the limit of where the swimming was safe.
“Don't wait too long,” said a low voice behind her.
“I
said
I ⦠”
It took two seconds to sink in: Mark wasn't behind her. He was down on the ridge. Camrose pivoted on one foot, but no one was there. On a ledge six feet deep by twelve feet wide there was nowhere to hide. She faced front again.
“So, now I'm talking to myself.”
“No.” The voice was dark and husky. “It's begun. Night's coming. Be ready.”
She turned again, slowly. Nobody. Nobody at all.
Stepping to the edge, she took a deep breath and dove. The water smacked her hands and then she was spearing deep. The cold bit into her skin. She kicked and rose, broke into air and sprayed water from her hair.
Climbing onto the ridge beside Mark, she pulled at his arm.
“Did anybody jump off the ledge after me?”
“Nope.”
“Had to be. There was someone standing behind me. Talking to me.”
He turned carefully on his rock, which was just big enough for his feet, and peered back under his hand at the dark cliff against the bright sky. “Can't see anybody.”
There were only two ways off that ledge. One was to jump.
The other was to pick your way down the steep path, watching out for loose stones. That took time.
There was nobody on the beach but Nadia and Krystal.
“Must've been somebody up on the street. Maybe in the Old Mill Mall,” Mark said. “Wind does funny things with sound.”
Camrose relaxed. “That must be it.” Trust Mark to find a sensible answer. “But who would say creepy things like âNight's coming. Be ready.'?”
“Lots of strange people around, even in Lynx Landing.”
Back on shore, Camrose needed less than twenty seconds to rub her hair into its usual tangle of dark red angles and elbows. Mark took about as long to dry off.
They had to wait another ten minutes while Nadia and Krystal (who hadn't seen anybody either) braided beads into a narrow lock above each other's left ear. Nadia's beads were gold; Krystal's were blue.
Up to a year ago, Nadia had been one of Camrose's two best friends. Nadia Patel, Mark Shoemaker and Camrose Ferguson, they were always together. Then Krystal Spears moved to Lynx Landing.
Lately, Nadia and Krystal had been trying to look and act as much like each other as possible. Mark said it was funny, seeing they weren't a bit alike, Nadia so dark and rounded, Krystal so thin and pale.
They climbed the cliff path and crossed Mill Street and Market Square. Krystal and Nadia were out in front, nudgâing each other and giggling. “We're playing Spot the Alien,” Krystal said over her shoulder. She pointed at Camrose. “Hey! There's one!”
Camrose laughed and pointed back, but it didn't feel like fun. It felt more like being shoved into a corner.
By the time they were walking along McKirdy Street beside the park, she'd made up her mind to tell them about Gilda's parcel. She ignored the nagging voice in the back of her head that told her she was making a mistake.
“This has been a pretty good birthday,” she said, off-hand. “Of course, it's not over yet.”
Nadia turned back and grabbed her arm. “
And
?”
“There's another present waiting for me at home. A package from Gilda.”
“Gilda!” Nadia tossed her hair. “Your great-grandmother?”
“Who else?” Camrose lowered her voice. “And she addressed it to me by name.”
“Wait a minute,” Mark said. “Gilda's dead.”
“That's right.” Camrose flicked her towel at a shop window.
Nadia shook her arm. “But didn't you say she died before you were born?”
“A year exactly before I was born. The box came in the mail the day after she died.” There, that made an impression.
“That's unreal!” Krystal shuddered. “How could she know your name? She couldn't even know you'd ever be alive!”
“Simple,” Mark said. “She made a wish. And Cam's parents named her for what was written on the package. Right?”
“Of course!” Nadia laughed. “That explains it. It's not like she could see the future, or anything like that.”
Camrose shook her head. “Dad said no. He said they'd already decided on that name, if another daughter was to come along. But they never told Gilda. So how do you explain that?”
“You don't,” Krystal said. “Sounds fake to me.”
“It's the truth!” Camrose felt her face heating up.
“Then maybe those other stories about Gilda are true too.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, she was pretty strange,” Nadia cut in. “My mother said, if people'd had any sense back then, Gilda Ferguson would've been in the loony bin.”
“That's a lie! Gilda was the best mayor this town ever had.”
“The weirdest mayor.” Krystal laughed. “Maybe it runs in the family! I mean, who's the one who hears spooky whispers when nobody's there?”
She grabbed Nadia's hand and they ran giggling across McKirdy Street to the corner of Grace, where they both lived.
Camrose stood fuming on the sidewalk. “To think I wasted my birthday money paying their way into the movie this afterânoon!”
“You shouldn't have mentioned that package. Krystal can smell boasting a mile away.”
“I wasn't boasting!”
“No?” He was all seriousness, except for the smile in his brown eyes. “By the way, what was in it?”
She took a few deep breaths to cool her hot cheeks. “The package? I don't know. I haven't opened it yet. I was keeping it back to the end of the day. As a treat.”
“Cam, you are kind of strange. Admit it.”
She burst out laughing. “Come on, let's go. I'm supposed to be home before dark.”
“Bit late for that now.”
“We'd better cut through the park.”
It was a perfect evening for dawdling. Soft, grass-scented, with a sky the color of peach ice cream. Too bad she'd already broken the home-before-dark rule a few times too many. She trotted onto the mowed lawn of the park and past the baseball diamond.
The game was over. Nobody left but a couple of boys throwâing the ball back and forth in the fading afterglow, and a ragged woman leaning against the chain-link backstop. She turned her head and stared as Mark and Camrose walked by.
A strange, sharp face it was. Her eyes shone small and bright through a curtain of hair. Camrose nudged Mark. “Don't like the looks of her.”
The trees in the west end of the park cut black scallops out of the bright sky. Camrose looked back. The ragged woman slouched along behind them, a dozen paces back, hands in pockets.
“Hurry up!” She set off bounding over the tussocky ground.
Mark came thumping behind her. The skyline bounced as she ran.
When the first gleam flickered through the trees, she thought: Sunset. Then: No, that's done. Then: Windows. Big windows full of yellow light. But there's no house there.
Then she was among the trees, following the cedar-chip path that was almost invisible in the dark under the layered leaves. Through the trunks ahead shone rectangles of light: window-shaped, red-gold and flickering.