Read The Face of Heaven for Free Online

louder and the cows began trotting out between the tree trunks and branches. Lyndel walked swiftly toward them. They passed by her as she stepped in among the trees, under the spread of green leaves yellowed by the morning light. She saw the creek, brown with soil and silt, but none of the herd was there. Glancing to her left and right, she walked farther into the cluster of birches and aspens. Still nothing. So she headed into the sugar maples about a hundred feet away looking for a calf or milk cow in distress or the sign of a predator like a wild dog or coyote. But there was no sound and nothing at all was moving.
    Heading closer to the creek she paused to squint up and down the bank in the flood of fresh sunlight that made the dark water gleam. Picking up a small flat stone she flung it sideways. It skipped three times and sank in the middle of the creek. You’ll be sitting there at the bottom a long time, she thought and turned to start back to the farm.
    But then as she glanced off the right, she gasped. She looked closer, then turned away, nausea rising. It can’t be!
    But it was. It was the body of Charlie hanging from one of the sugar maples.
    Forcing herself closer, hoping against hope, she wrapped her arms around his legs, instinctively trying to push him upward and take the weight of his body off his neck, but she could only do it for a few seconds at a time. His face was no longer Charlie’s, yet she knew it was theman she had cared for. The word RUNAWAY was printed clumsily on a sign around his neck.
    Softly she spoke. “Charlie…”
    She called his name again and again, but he receded from her sight as if he were at the end of a long hallway with walls painted a bright white. Finally she sank to her knees in the long grass, sobbing, her cheeks burning.
    Then at once she felt a storm of strength emerge within her and she got up and began to run.
    Crossing the pasture as fast as she could she saw her father and brother standing in front of the barn. Shouting out their names, she kept racing for the gate. They looked up and began running to meet her. Her father was through the gate and caught his daughter as she fell into his arms.
    “What is it? What is it?” he demanded, his face full of fear.
    “Papa…Papa…Charlie is hanging…he is hanging…” Lyndel could hardly catch her breath and pointed to the maple trees. Her father placed her in her brother’s arms and set out for the sugar maples, his long legs eating up the distance in what seemed like only a few moments. Levi held her to his chest.
    “It’s all right,” he soothed.
    “It’s not all right,” she gasped. “He’s not alive, I know he’s not alive.”
    “You can’t be sure. Do you want me to walk you down there?”
    “I don’t ever want to go down to that creek again for the rest of my life.”
    “Hey!” It was Nathaniel’s voice. They turned to look. He was just driving into their farmyard in his buggy. “Anybody home?”
    Levi waved with one hand, holding on to Lyndel with the other. “Over here!”
    Nathaniel laughed and headed toward them. In one hand Lyndel could see he was holding a bunch of snapdragons of all colors mixed in with several branches of white and gray pussy willows. She watched him walk up to the gate and saw his boyish excitement at coming to pay a call on his friend’s sister. How good it was to see his smile, a smile for her and because of her, so that even in her sadness she felt a short,sharp surge of joy as he unlatched the gate, grinning and green-eyed handsome.
    But it couldn’t last. No, she knew somehow that everything was going to change forever when he found out what had happened to Charlie. She couldn’t guess what that change would mean for him… and possibly for her with this new fondness that seemed to be springing up between them…or even if it might bring about its sudden end. So she savored the last few seconds of his burst of playfulness as he walked up to her and Levi across the