Read The Books of Elsewhere, Vol. 1: The Shadows for Free Online

streaking down the hall. By the time Olive and Morton had scrambled to their feet, the cat had hopped into the painting outside Olive’s bedroom.
    Olive turned back and got her first good look at Morton under the hallway’s electric lights. What she saw made her freeze in place. Morton’s skin, which had seemed nearly white in the moonlight, was actually a very pale peachy color. But it didn’t look like ordinary skin. Olive glanced down at her own arm. A normal person’s skin was full of tiny details: moles and freckles, fine wrinkles and fuzzy hairs. But Morton’s skin was perfectly smooth, and slightly shiny. It wasn’t skin at all. It was paint.
    She backed uneasily away from Morton toward the painting Horatio had entered. “Here,” she whispered, pushing the shakiness out of her voice. “I’ll help you through.”
    Morton took a step backward. “No. I don’t want to.”
    “Morton! Come on, before my parents hear us!”
    “I don’t want to go in there. I just got out.”
    Olive wanted to scream, but she knew she shouldn’t. Instead, she put both hands in her hair and pulled. “You don’t belong out here, Morton,” she said as quietly as she could manage. “You’re a painting . I don’t know what will happen if my parents see you, but it won’t be good. Now, come on!”
    Morton took another slow, sneaky step backward. Then he pivoted on his heel and took off toward Mr. and Mrs. Dunwoody’s bedroom.
    Olive darted after him. Morton raced around the hallway corner and through the bedroom door, with Olive skidding behind. He scurried around the side of the Dunwoodys’ king-size bed and stopped, facing Olive, with the bed as a barricade between them. “Boys are faster than girls,” he said.
    Olive stared at him, incredulous. Then she leaped onto the middle of her parents’ high, puffy bed and glared down at him.
    “Morton, stop it,” she commanded.
    “Morton, stop it,” Morton echoed.
    “I don’t sound like that!”
    “I don’t sound like th—”
    Olive grabbed at him. Morton dodged to the left. Olive mirrored him, her feet sinking deep into the mattress. Morton dodged to the right. Olive bounced after him.
    “Can’t catch me!” Morton sang. Then, using a bed-post for leverage, he launched himself back toward the hall.
    Olive leaped off the bed. In one bound, she was through the door. In another, she was down the hallway. In a final bound, she was planting her foot directly in Morton’s path, and Morton was sliding along the hallway carpet on his stomach, just like a puck on an air hockey table.
    Olive threw herself down on top of Morton, clamping one hand over his mouth. Her fingers nearly slipped off of his smooth skin. “Shhh!” she hissed.
    For a moment, they both listened. But the big stone house was quiet. Her parents hadn’t heard.
    Keeping one hand over Morton’s mouth, Olive yanked him to his feet and dragged him toward the painting outside her bedroom door. After straightening the spectacles on her nose, Olive locked her hands under Morton’s spindly arms and hoisted him toward the painting.
    “Hey! Don’t push me!” Morton complained, but Olive was already stuffing him through the picture frame like a wet quilt into a dryer. She pulled herself in after him and landed with an almost graceful somersault in the soft field. Morton was sprawled, face-first, on the grass beside her.
    It was cool in this painting, but not as chilly as it was in the forest. The air was very still. The sky hung above them like a pale gray canopy, moonless and starless, without a trace of sunset.
    Horatio was pacing impatiently on the grass. “If you two could manage to stop wasting time,” he scolded, “everything would already have been taken care of. Now get up and follow me.”
    Olive and Morton got up and brushed themselves off, each trying very hard not to look at the other.
    “That is not a good cat,” Morton grumbled.
    “Well, I trust him more than I trust you,” snapped Olive.