Written in Stone by Rosanne Parry Page A

putting them in a room with a lock.
    After dinner, he said, “I am accustomed to the rough life. Set up a cot for me anywhere.” As if we were the sort of people to have extra cots lying around not in use. Susi rolled out her blankets on the floor and hauled the cot downstairs.
    “He’s used to the rough life,” I whispered to Susi. “Let’s make him sleep out on the front porch.”
    Susi laughed it off. “Mr. Sharp-Sides would scratcha hole in my good floors if I let him sleep on them,” she said.
    I could sleep on anything if I made up my mind to, but something old Sharp-Sides said during dinner stung my brain awake.
    “Carver?” he said after we were fully introduced. “Are you the Carver family who keeps the whole cycle of Raven dances?”
    “Yes,” I said, and I might have said more, but I saw greed jump up like a flame in his eyes. Suddenly, he seemed to have eight tentacles on each hand, long and grasping like the devilfish.
    I remembered what Grandpa said: “This man is looking to take from us.”
    No matter how hard I tried to sleep, I could see his greedy eyes looking at the chest of my father’s dance masks. In my dreams, I saw coins dripping out of slippery, wet fingers that closed around the chest and dragged it to the bottom of the ocean.
    The more I saw those long hands, the more I burned inside. I made a plan. I didn’t wait for daylight.

11
The Seal Hunter’s Beach
    I woke early the next morning, before the sun rose. I tiptoed around Susi’s room by candlelight and gathered up my things. I left a note.
    I am going to bring a bigger canoe and get Henry to help us bring Mr. Glen’s luggage to Grandpa’s house. If the weather gets bad, I’ll stay at La Push
.
    It was not exactly a lie, I told myself. Henry knew Mr. Glen was arriving, and he would come to get him eventually. I made a quick drawing for Susi: the forest, the mountains, the lake, and the colors, green, purple,and blue. I packed my things in the fish canoe and paddled away silently, as soon as it was light enough to see.
    The air was dead calm, and thick fog hovered a few feet above the ocean. I should not have been out on the water that day. I should have faced the museum man and told him my father’s things were not for sale, not at any price.
    I paddled as quickly as I dared. Headlands and sea stacks were invisible to me. I navigated by counting freshwater inlets. The rain the night before last washed mud into all the rivers and creeks. Each stream spread a slim brown fan over the salt water. The lighthouse at Destruction Island was nothing but a color change in the clouds, and the Hoh River, swollen with rain, pushed at my paddle as I crossed its outflow.
    After an hour on the water, the fog rose just enough to see the beach. La Push came next. I headed farther out to sea. The people of the village might recognize me from the shore. They might busybody themselves up the coast to Grandpa’s house in Ozette and tell him I was coming before I had a chance to steal what was mine. I dipped my paddle quietly and pulled hard until I was past the Quileute Reservation.
    Once I crossed the outlet of the Calawah River, I knew I was safe. Only empty beaches between thereand Ozette. The relief of it made me giddy. I imagined men chasing me down the beach dressed like the Keystone Kops who were always chasing Charlie Chaplin. I snorted out a suppressed laugh. The honk of it made me giggle, and the giggling almost made me pee. The monstrous disrespect of peeing in my grandmother’s fish canoe while planning cold-blooded theft of ceremonial objects and leaving my family forever made me laugh so hard, I had to set down my paddle. I held my sides in and clamped my knees together. Tears collected on the point of my chin and dripped into the collar of my coat. The echo of my laugh barked back at me.
    A jolt of panic hit. There shouldn’t be an echo over open water.
    I swung my head around, peering through the shifting mist. There was barely