Excerpt from Saving Elijah by Fran Dorf, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to conjure up the vision again, the sea and salt air, my son in his future, but I saw nothing. I heard nothing. There was nothing to smell in the air except my own sweat and parfum de hospital.

"I need to draw some blood."

I opened my eyes. A technician was standing in the doorway, holding a white plastic tray packed with tall skinny vials.

"Again?"

"I'm sorry."

I took my son's hand. Maybe this time he'd feel them sticking him, and it would wake him up.

The technician had so many vials to fill, had to be thirty, at least.

I couldn't watch him take still more blood. I closed my eyes, and that was when I heard the guitar song again. "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod." Was it possible there was a singing vampire in the hematology department?

No. It had to be a sign from God, a little number God dreamed up, exactly like the Great Barrier Reef. Who else could possess an instrument that yielded the sound of a symphony; a melody so simple and yet so complex; a lullaby, hymn, spiritual rock me baby? Who could make those frets shout "Hallelujah" like a whole gospel choir? Who could hold a note for so long without taking a breath, or would even know the lullaby I sang to my son?

Who, indeed?

Reprinted from Saving Elijah by Fran Dorf by permission of Putnam Pub. Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc. Copyright (c) 2000 by Fran Dorf. All rights reserved. This excerpt, or any parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.