The Canopy Keepers by Veronica G. Henry EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Veronica G. Henry
- Language: English
- Genre: Black & African American Fantasy Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 4 MB
- Price: Free
Sequoia National Park
Middle Fork Dorst Creek Campground
September 2014
Syrah Williams doesn’t always dream, but when she does, she dreams of
trees.
Here’s the way it would go: Soon after Daddy tucks her in for the
night, she’s fast asleep. And then they call. She hears the sound. No,
that’s not quite right. She feels it. Like a lawn mower, or maybe old Mr.
Brooks’s leaf blower. Feels it deep down in her chest.
Behind the place where Daddy says her heart lives.
The trees are the superhumongous ones.
Her favorites.
The Giants.
Her arms don’t reach very far when she wraps them around the
trunk. Cheek and ear pressed against bark that is warm and spongy. She
listens to the Giant’s song, a drumbeat that goes on and on. And it smells
sweet, like cinnamon sprinkled on apple pie.
Branches, thin and wiry like her legs, curl down from the very top,
what she knows is the canopy. They form a basket just big enough for
her to sit in with her knees tucked into her chest.
Lifting up, up, up.
She closes her eyes so she won’t be scared, but she still is. She’s
learned not to look down, not yet. Syrah lifts her face, finding comfort in
the gentle breeze tickling her skin, fluttering her long lashes.
The Giant sets her atop its shoulders, and they walk through the
forest. Her forest. Birds greet them with their chirpy little songs.
Squirrels leap into Syrah’s lap and flick their fluffy tails, tickling her
nose. All the animals speak to Her, to the Giant. And also to Syrah, even
if she doesn’t understand them.
On those nights when she dreams of the Giants, their walk always
ends at the top of that mountain—Moro Rock, at home with the clouds.
But tonight she doesn’t want to dream. She’s here.
Syrah figures she’s just about the proudest four-year-old who ever
lived. She and her big brother, Oakly, have a tent all by themselves. He
earned the nickname because he couldn’t stop blabbing about the blue
oak tree he’d read about in school. Made their father take him to see one
the very first time they came to the park, back when she was too little to
remember.
Mama and Daddy are snoring like baby bears in the other tent.
Mama says Oakly sleeps the sleep of the dead. Syrah isn’t sure what that
means but figures the dead must be a pretty quiet bunch, because her
brother always is.
At home, when she crawls into his bed to protect him from the
monsters that live in the closet in the corner of his room, he is so still she
puts her palm over his nose to make sure his stinky breath is coming out.
He only swats her hand away and raises his arm so she can nestle there
in the crook made just for her.
For More Read Download This Book
EPUB