Stranger

by Sherwood Smith

They had taken out the ceiling and replaced it with glass.

  “Paco helped us.” Mia sat down beside him. “He’s an apprentice glassmaker. We made a deal with him and his master.”

  “A lot of people helped,” Jennie added. “It was a big job. Don’t worry, we didn’t tell them anything personal. We just said we thought you’d like it.”

  The stars shone as clear and bright overhead as if there were nothing there but the still night air. Sometimes when he’d stretched out alone on the desert sands, just as he was drifting off to sleep, he’d felt as if the world had turned over and he was falling into the sky. The stars he gazed at now were laid out in the same brilliant patterns across the same vast black sky, but Jennie and Mia sat warm beside him, ready to catch him if he fell.

  RACHEL MANIJA BROWN (www.rachelmanijabrown.com) is the author of the memoir All the Fishes Come Home to Roost: An American Misfit in India.

  She works as a therapist, specializing in the treat-ment of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).

  SHERWOOD SMITH (www.sherwoodsmith.net) is the author of many fantasy novels for teenagers and adults, including Crown Duel and the Mythopoeic Award Finalist The Spy Princess.

  They both live in Southern California.

  If you would like to be emailed when their next book comes out, please visit the following link:

  http://eepurl.com/Tzv25.