Free Memory Girl by Linda Joy Singleton Page B

activity I find invigorating too,” she goes on. “My compound borders the cliff, so I take walks at the edge of land and sea. Where do you usually walk?”
    Is this a trick question? So I’ll admit I regularly break rules?
    â€œOn marked trails,” I answer carefully, bending the truth.
    â€œThose trails only circle around buildings.” She spreads her arms wide. “If I lived here I would want to explore wilder places by the sea.”
    â€œThat would be against the rules.”
    â€œBut I would go anyway,” she says, leading me away from the building to a dirt path winding into thorny berry bushes. “Scientists make their own trails.”
    I am unsure what to say, confusion rising. What does she want from me?
    Scientist Lila stops at a berry bush, its shiny, red-gold leaves hiding prickly thorns. She reaches into a berry bush and plucks a juicy red berry.
    â€œNo!” I shout, rushing to her side. “Don’t eat that!”
    â€œWhy not? It looks ripe and delicious.” She lifts it to her mouth.
    I slap the berry from her hand. “It’s poisonous!”
    She raises her brows, not alarmed as I had expected but smiling. “How do you know about puha berries?”
    â€œThe leaves are distinct.” I point to the reddish leaves, the only way of telling the safe berries from the poisonous ones. There’s an antidote, but if not taken soon enough, paralysis could linger for a week. I made this error once, and now won’t even eat the safe green-leaf berries.
    â€œThank you for the warning.” Scientist Lila twirls the red berry between her fingers. Her nails shine unnaturally with square tips. “Nature taunts mere humans, packaging the puha berry so it appears as safe as a verberry. But the puha berry is more interesting. If you crush it into a powder, it can heal infection.” She tosses the red berry aside, then bends over a clump of wild grass, plucking a scruffy green weed. “Did you know common weeds can be used for medicines?”
    â€œYes,” I say remembering the scarifying day I found Petal almost dead in my cave, moaning and barely able to move. I didn’t know how to help her, but after a while, she crawled to the edge of the pond and nibbled on lavender sea grass. Within minutes she spit up, healing herself.
    â€œDid the Instructors teach you this?”
    I shake my head. “I learned from watching animals.”
    Lila’s smile softens the lines in her face. “I knew we were alike, noticing small things that others overlook and stretching boundaries. Do you agree?”
    â€œUh … it’s possible. I guess.”
    â€œA good answer. Stay open to possibilities. Questions begin every scientific discovery. It takes a special person to answer the call of science.”
    If she’s hinting at what I suspect—more than I everdreamed—I can escape the Crosses and live at the scientists’ compound. No one will call me “Milly.”
    She grasps my hands, and I can’t look away from her. Her flowery perfume mingles with my dizzy thoughts, making it impossible to think. “Your curiosity and resourcefulness would be wasted on menial jobs,” she says. “I’ll only ask you once more: Do you want to live with the Cross Family?”
    Absolutely not
, I think. But the scientists’ compound is so isolated, its mystery and secrets separate from ShareHaven. Only Grand Sarwald knows how to journey there. Would I be trapped there in a cage of secrecy? Never seeing Marcus or Lorelei again?
    Still, it would be thrilling to learn science and create miracle discoveries. And once I’m a scientist, I can make my own rules. I’d find a way to see my friends. A wondrous future is within my reach. I only need to say yes.
    I breathe in hopes and dreams and Lila’s flowery perfume. My gaze sweeps down from her silvery hair to the dirt-stained hem of her shimmering purple