Free The Unquiet by Mikaela Everett Page A

before I saw hers. That is what threw me. She was not supposed to be in the barn; she preferred the trees. She stood there, frozen, but a friendliness crept acrossher face when she recognized me. It stopped me for too long, and by the time I recovered I had already forgotten how to be a good sleeper.
    I say all this as though it were past, yet I say it inside a moment when I have lunged for her, but she is steadier than I am, and stronger. Blood is running down my arms and down the side of my face where the rock hit me. I am lying on the ground, and her hands are around my neck.
    I cannot breathe.
    I am going to die.
    I want to beg her, tell somebody, please don’t forget the history of me, that I was here. That I tried. That I failed.
    It will happen quickly, and this is how it will go: I die and she lives, but the moment I am dead, our people come to silence her before she can reveal what she has found out. If I am still alive somehow, they will kill me, too, and then we both will have ended.
    But then suddenly the blackness around my eyes begins to fade, and Edith is pulling me up. “It’s okay,” she keeps saying. “You’re going to be okay.”
    Gray does all the work. He removes the evidence. I don’t even hear her scream. I gasp for air until my eyes clear up and my throat stops hurting. They wipe the blood from myforehead, from the corners of my mouth, and I am ashamed of the way I feel, like a little child needing to be cared for. I am crying and shaking, and I don’t know where one stops and the other starts. How did they get off the bus? When? Why are they here?
    â€œDon’t say anything,” they tell me when I open my mouth and shut it for the third time. “Don’t say anything. Just go and be a sleeper. This part doesn’t matter.”
    They don’t wait for my response. They blend into the dark as they hurry away.
    My enemies, my friends.
    Over time I turn this night into a dream, a myth, a false memory. It never happened, and I have begun the rest of my life with more secrets. They heap themselves on one another until there are nearly more than enough to bury me, but I will wear this face. I swear. From now on I will wear it well.

Chapter 13
    M y grandfather sends me into town once a week with a box of apples and apricots on my bicycle. No matter how early or late I leave, Cecily insists on coming with me, her lip bitten in concentration as she rides over the bumpy road on the tricycle she should have given up two years ago. “It’s good for me to know,” she says in her serious voice, “everything you do in the city so that I can take over when I’m older. Right, Lira?”
    I nod in agreement. She looks pleased with herself. “Someone has to take care of the trees,” she adds.
    My grandfather, Da, has been putting all sorts of ideas in her head about the family legacy, about how the well-being of the orchards will fall to us one day. Some afternoons he gets the sudden urge to walk us both through the trees and vines again, make us take everything in while he watches, as if within twenty-four hours we might have forgotten what apples look like, what unripe grapes feel and taste like. As if he can teach us to love his life, his job, his orchards as much as he does. I neglect to mention to Cecily that since I am barely fifteen, it’s very unlikely that she’s going to take over anytime soon. “You look ridiculous,” I yell instead, turning back to laugh at her. “You’re going to have to learn to ride a proper bicycle soon, because that thing is going to give out on you. Just look at the rickety wheels.”
    She makes a face and pedals faster, although that gets her nowhere. Sweat trickles down from the sides of her pink helmet from the effort. “I don’t get in your business,” she growls, “so why are you getting in mine?”
    â€œYou’re six,” I say. “I’m