Free Heart of Stone by Anya Monroe Page A

She had to remain a blank slate in order to go through with this. Leaving.
    “I’ve never been more sure of a single thing in my entire life.” Sophie tied her bag shut, and put her hand on the door, wanting to leave.
    “Remember when we were children and our mothers would let us stay in this room for hours in the winter? How we would plot ways to torment the children in the village and to sabotage the headmaster?” Henri sat on her bed, not taking Sophie’s cue.
    “I remember but, Henri, this is not the time for a walk down memory lane. If you don’t remember, I’ve suddenly become privy to the fact that my entire childhood was a farce.”
    “Not all of it.”
    “Yes. All of it.”
    “Not you and me. We were real. We are real.”
    “Don’t be like this. It’s no secret that I’m not interested in the life you offer me.” She hated herself for getting into this with him. He was ruining the friendship they’d built for seventeen years.
    “The kiss was real. At Joseph’s party. I kissed you and you kissed me back.”
    “Henri. It was one solitary kiss. One kiss a relationship does not make.” Forcing the issue exhausted her, but he pressed her to explain. “Now. If you’d like to go with me through the woods, you are welcome to escort me, as a friend .”
    “I will.”
    “Good, now let me say good bye to my moth … to Francesca. Meet me in five hours, back here. Try and get some sleep, alright?”
    Henri nodded his head, and then slipped out. She hoped he wouldn’t cry in the alleyway or something ridiculous. He did seem quite wounded. How was she to know one single kiss would cause her best friend to become love-crazed?
    Sophie attempted to sleep, but her mind reeled with words from Miora, words from her not-mother, words from Henri. She tossed and turned, and then eventually stood and went to say “good-bye.”
    Walking into the kitchen, bag slung on her shoulders she saw Francesca wrapping bread and cheese in cloth.
    “You don’t have to do that, you know. You aren’t my mother,” Sophie snapped.
    “Shush, child. I owe you this. Take the food, and know I don’t hold it against you for wanting to go.”
    A moment of stillness passed between them during the time most children would grow emotional over leaving their home for the first time. The time fashioned for tearful goodbyes.
    “Take these gems, too.” She held out a modest pouch and Sophie took it, knowing she would need these stones for her trek. The generous gift came unexpected. “These gems are from the man who called you his daughter. Remember, if striking out on your own doesn’t go as you hoped, I am here. I will still be in this small village. The village I came to with a babe in my arms those many years ago. I came here to give you life and you have lived. Even if it wasn’t how you wanted.”
    Francesca’s eyes teemed with tears, and the wrinkles of her face revealed how hard raising Sophie had been. Being her mother had taken a toll on her in more ways than one.
    “Well, thanks for the gems, and the food. Bread Henri baked, I suppose.” Sophie stuffed it in her pack.
    “I suppose he did. He delivers bread here every single morning for you, although he says it’s for us.”
    “Yeah well, I owe him one then, okay?”
    “Sophie, sometimes the adventure we’re looking for is in front of us.”
    “Sure.” Sophie thought her mother a fool. If she had any clue about the omen Miora sentenced her to tonight, she would understand that Sophie had little choice. “Alright, I’m off. I’ll write, so you don’t think wolves or something dramatic has eaten me.”
    “I love you, Sophie Bijou.
    “I know you do.”
    Sophie left her mother’s house without a tear or a hug or a kiss. She left without saying the words her mother spoke, because they meant nothing except expectation. She never thought to say the things she didn’t feel.
    Henri waited for her, more distressed than he had looked the night before. It was annoying