Free Hare Moon by Carrie Ryan Page A

moving only to breathe, and when no one comes after her, she experiences an elation unlike any she has ever contemplated.
    This is true freedom , she thinks, feeling the draw of liberation. This is what it means to believe in yourself and reach for what you most desire .
    She stays on the path for only a moment, the Unconsecrated coming near to press against the fences on either side. She stares down the path to where it disappears into the Forest and she wonders what lies on the other side of the forbidden horizon.
    Tabitha knows enough to slip back through the gate quickly, though, and seals it shut as flakes of rust scatter from the abandoned metal latch. The feeling of those few moments, of being bare to the world beyond, vibrates through her, a new energy that ebbs too fast so that she immediately craves it again.
    After that day she crosses through the gate again and again. She’s timed the Guardian patrol just right so that she knows when to slip away, when tosprint down the path. And the lightness of freedom is unlike anything she’s ever known. It consumes her.
    Sometimes she tells herself she won’t ever go home. Yet she always does. Because she’s a good girl, and there are still some rules she’s not ready to break. But she’s not so “good” that her skin doesn’t start to feel tight and itch, as if her body’s shrinking and the only thing that will release the compression of it is to escape to the path.
    So she does, pushing farther and farther into the Forest. She learns to ignore the Unconsecrated, who follow her every step; learns to listen instead to the way the wind tickles its way through leaves overhead, and to the chirps and whirs of birds.
    The sun feels brighter and the shade cooler in the Forest, and she starts to wonder why it’s off-limits. She likes that she doesn’t have to think about what’s next when she’s on the path: it’s just one step and then another, and the fences keep her moving straight ahead.
    One day, she walks far enough to find a second gate and she stands for a long time staring at it, wondering if she should go through or if it’s a sign that she’s wandered too far.
    She sets her hand on the metal latch, feeling a pattern of rusty prickles beneath her fingers. She still hasn’t decided what to do when a voice calls out to her. “You’re here,” it says.
    Startled, she runs her gaze through the Forest and down the path and finds a pair of eyes looking back at her. A young man approaches the gate from the other side.
    Not expecting anyone else to be on the path, especially a stranger, she needs a moment to find her voice. “I am,” she responds as quickly as she can, because to show her confusion and shock would make her appear weak. Tabitha never likes to appear weak. “Are you expecting me?” she asks, suddenly not sure whether she’s awake or asleep.
    She notices that the young man has his sleeves rolled up and his forearms are exposed. She’s seen forearms before, of course, but there’s something different about his. Something so informal and intimate about the sloppiness of the sleeves pushed to his elbows, as if it’s an invitation to push a finger underneath the fabric and tempt the sensitive skin there.
    The sun glows off the blond hair covering his arms. His fingers look long and tan, curled slightly as he stops on the other side of the gate. “Not especially, but I’m glad you’re here,” he says. She looks up from his arms to his face.
    He’s smiling at her, eyes slightly crinkled because the sun is at her back.
    “I think …” She tilts her head and ponders for a moment because she doesn’t like to be rash with her words. “I think I am too.” She grins at him.
    She learns that his name is Patrick and that he comes from another village in the Forest.
    “I didn’t know there were other villages in the Forest,” she says, but she has to struggle not to let him see what this knowledge does to her, how it makes her blood pump