Free If I Fall by Kelseyleigh Reber Page A

around.
    A slender woman, wearing a pale blue dress that creates the S-curve silhouette every girl so desperately wishes to have, stares at me from across the room. The dress’s sleeves puff out over her arms before coming to a halt at the lacey cuffs. Beautiful white lace drapes over her full low bust and creeps up into the stiff, high-boned collar. Beads are elegantly threaded into the hem of the dress. The crystals glitter as she steps closer, the hem brushing the floor and rippling with her movement. A sash encompasses her narrow waist and a broad-brimmed hat trimmed with colorful feathers and a stuffed hummingbird completes the ensemble. I feel myself sigh at its beauty, knowing I will never be able to afford something so lovely.
    I force myself to raise my gaze, looking the fashionable woman in the eye. Her pink lips are pursed in a pleasant smile that stretches her skin; laugh lines wrinkle around her aged green eyes.
    “Miss Hamilton, correct?” she says. I cannot speak. Words cower behind the swollen weight of my tongue. “Is that not your name?”
    I nod. She smiles, continuing to move forward.
    “I am sure you have already guessed who I am. I am Adam’s mother, Mrs. Laurence,” she says. “I am sorry we had to meet under such conditions.”
    Conditions? Conditions as in me being unconscious and carried here by her son? Or conditions as in me trying to slip out of their cabin unnoticed with a stolen hat? What a wonderful first impression I have made , I think.
    “Would you be so kind as to close that door? I would very much like to speak with you if you don’t mind.” Her voice is innocent and pleasant. I surrender to the power of her authority and do as she asks. I close the door and sit down on the chaise. Mrs. Laurence sits down opposite me in a large winged chair.
    She stares at me, her green eyes not prying for answers, but keenly interested. An awkwardness surrounds me in its chilling cloak. It makes me want to itch at my skin, as though it is an irritation I can soothe just by raking my fingernails across it. But instead, my hands are iron fists at my sides. The skin stretched taught over the white of my knuckles. I wait for her to speak.
    Another smile lights her face as she says, “My son tells me you took quite the fall earlier.”
    I search for my voice. “I suppose I did, yes.”
    “You two were speaking to a man when it happened?” she inquires.
    I shift uncomfortably in my seat. There it is again. That unexplainable itch, pricking its way across my arms, my thighs, my back. I nod.
    “By the sound of it, this man was a Radical.”
    What is she playing at? What does she know? I can feel her leading up to something, probing around the matter that truly occupies her mind before she strikes.
    “I believe so, yes,” I say. “He was talking to us.”
    “About?”
    “About the Marked,” I whisper, my voice cracking on the last syllable.
    A smile spreads up her face and into her eyes. I know we have finally reached what she truly wishes to discuss.
    “And that was when you fainted?”
    “Yes, but I was simply light-headed. I had a long day. I was tired and I hadn’t eaten much.” The excuses fly out of my mouth and I am helpless to stop them.
    Mrs. Laurence leans forward, her kind eyes full of sympathy and knowledge. “I know, Elvira.”
    Time freezes. My heart stops in my chest. I feel the blood cease pumping. I feel my breath halt in the middle of exhaling. Green eyes fix on my violet ones. My body is rigid. Unable to move. Frozen. Only one thing moves freely through the suddenly icy world. My voice. Slow and quiet, it whispers a question, so innocent and full of pain.
    “You know?” My voice falters. My throat aches. My hands tremble.
    She nods solemnly. “I know why you fainted when you saw the Radical.” She pauses. “I know what you are.”
    The world unfreezes, flooding in, snapping back, and collapsing down on top of me in one fell swoop. She knows. She knows! My promise