Read Charcoal Tears for Free Online

tremulous and watery as the words blurred before my face—I had forgotten all about my mother’s whispered words as she finished reading me a story each night and turned out the light. Pushing the memory away, I turned the pages in search of the rhyme that had been quoted in the note, but my fingers kept catching on other pages instead, as the edges had been folded down. Opening to one of them, I found myself reading Three Blind Mice , my eyes drawn to a line that had been circled in red.
    They all ran after the farmers wife.
    My initial trepidation upon seeing the photographs returned tenfold, and I skipped to the next folded page: Goosey Goosey Gander . This time two lines were circled.
    I took him by the leg,
    And threw him down the stairs.
    The next marked page was Jack and Jill , and before even reading the lines, I instinctively knew which ones would be circled.
    Jack fell down,
    And broke his crown,
    And Jill came tumbling after .
    It was clear that the note had something to do with Noah and Cabe, as they were included in every single picture, but what did the messenger want exactly? Did they expect me to stop talking to the two boys, or were they trying to warn me about something? Or… perhaps more importantly… why did they care ? I shoved everything into the envelope and grabbed a blanket, moving back to Tariq’s room. He had finished eating, and was snoring softly. I shut his door, locked it, and slid onto the end of his bed. He grumbled something, kicked at me and then shot up into a sitting position, his sleep-tousled hair matted to one side of his face.
    “Seph?”
    I didn’t answer, and he hovered there for a moment. The tears were rolling silently down my cheeks, and he touched a palm to the side of my face. I screwed my eyes shut, and he watched me for a moment more before falling back. He threw his own blanket over me, fit a pillow beneath my head, and went back to sleep.
    Tariq was an amazingly simple person.
    In the morning he didn’t wake me up until the last possible minute, and when he did, he shoved a handful of clothes at me and pushed me toward the bathroom. I brushed my teeth, combed my hair and slid on the cotton shirt and pleated black skirt. It was a little nicer than what I usually wore, but I didn’t have time to change again. We both crept through the door and I left a twenty on the counter for Gerald. Hopefully he would buy food with it.
    The drive to school was quieter than usual, and I knew that Tariq wanted to question me, but he held it in. He reached over and squeezed my hand after we parked, and then slid out of the car, hurrying off. I sat there, staring at the dash until a knock on the window startled me; Cabe smiled down at me.
    “You coming in?” His voice was muffled.
    I pushed the door open and moved to retrieve my bag, but Noah was leaning against the passenger door. He opened it, slung my bag over his shoulder and began to stride toward the building entrance. Cabe coaxed my keys from me, locked the car, and walked after him. It took me a few moments to catch up to them, and they fell into place on either side of me again. I suddenly felt like the pictures stuffed into my bag were going to burn a hole through the material and spill out onto the corridor. I swallowed back my fear and tucked my hands against my sides, unsettled by the brush of their arms against mine. The other kids all stared at us, looking from the boys to me, and back again. Someone wolf-whistled and called my name. I almost tripped over, but Noah snarled something at them, and I managed to collect myself.
    “They think you’re new, like us,” Cabe said with a deep tone of amusement.
    I huffed out a breath—a reaction that seemed to amuse Noah. They followed me to homeroom and then Noah disappeared. We took our seats and a blond girl perched on the edge of Cabe’s desk.
    “Hey.” She smiled at him. “I had fun last weekend.”
    She slid me a look, smirking, and my eyes went wide, something