Memorymakers by Brian Herbert, Marie Landis Page A

scratching her painfully and filling the air with a sharp smell of spice.
    “Help me!” she cried, her eyes closed.
    But no answer came.
    Emily was pushed backward. She stumbled, inhaled air with sharp, pain-fused gasps and tried to shout again. Terror thickened her voice and only a mumble of sound escaped her lips.
    Then as suddenly as it had begun, the wind whispered itself away and the woods were silent once more.
    Directly in Emily’s path stood the huge, snouted beast she thought she’d left behind, its back arched in an angry curve. Sharp teeth protruded from its half-open, underslung jaw. Emily stood mesmerized, and desperate thoughts fought their way into her mind.
    You’re not here! she thought. Go away!
    The folds of the monster’s skin, the sheen of its horns and the glisten of its tiny pig eyes all seemed lifelike. Beads of saliva dribbled from its mouth, and she thought she saw its eyes flicker. When she looked closer, the eyes became flat and unblinking. Dead eyes. Eyes of stone.
    “You’re only cement!” she shouted. “You can’t run or make noises or eat. You can’t eat me!”
    The animal vanished from her path.
    Emily looked back through a filtering of bees, and saw the snouted beast statue on the side of the path, exactly where it belonged, its back arched above the underbrush. She stared at the animal, and it stared back without expression.
    “I’m dumb,” she said. “Dumb, dumb . . .”
    Victoria’s criticisms flashed through her mind, hostile whisperings. “Little Miss Crazy Brat.”
    Moisture dripped from the beast’s mouth, and Emily’s throat tightened. She thought she detected a small movement of its jaws, a minute trembling, and she suppressed a scream.
    “You’re a statue . . . a statue,” she repeated to herself as she turned to leave. Fortified by these words, she walked briskly along the path, somewhat comforted. Until she heard a sound behind her, slow and thudding, gaining on her.
    She ran. And bumped into Thomas at the exit.
    “I thought something was after me!” Emily wailed. “There was a wind and . . . ” She let her tears flow, with great, heaving sobs.
    Thomas put his arms around her and held her until she grew quiet. “You’re okay now,” he said.
    “Sometimes you seem older than I am,” Emily said.
    “Not just because I’m bigger? For other reasons, you mean?”
    “For other reasons.”
    They rejoined their grandparents and walked back to the car.
    “This amusement park is getting an old-fashioned merry-go-round,” Panona said. “I read that Jabu Smith is bringing in a real antique with wood carvings you don’t see everyday. People don’t do much of that anymore. Takes too much patience and time.”
    “Someday the last craftsman will die,” Nonna said. “Then what?”
    “Hats off to Jabu Smith and people like him,” Panona said.
    They drove down the highway to an oceanside eatery that advertised kilometer-high hamburgers and ice cream cones as big as Antarctica.
    On wooden tables outside, they spread a plethora of food in the bright sunlight, and Emily and Thomas began gorging themselves.
    An ocean breeze wrapped around Emily, a perfect, warm breeze that caressed her and soothed her from the harshness of the other wind.
    “Smell the flowers in the air,” Nonna said, “all mixed with briny odors from the ocean. It’s the wind blowing petals from a tropical paradise, bringing perfume from faraway.”
    “The wind is sharing its bounty,” Thomas said with his mouth full.
    “One day you’ll write poetry, young man,” Nonna remarked. “Same as I do, but more cheerful, from the happiness in your heart.” She gave Emily a hug. “And you, dear one, will wear a rainbow. I wish . . . Well, it doesn’t matter what old folks wish.”
    “Wish what?” Thomas asked. He was always the curious one.
    “That life gives you the best of everything,” laughed Nonna. “And more selfish things. I’d like to steal you from Victoria and your dad so I