Birthmarked by Caragh M. O'brien Read Free Book Online Page A

parchment, and when she smoothed it open, she was startled to see her mother s handwriting:
    Destroy it. Destroy this. to to WZMMRL.
    Gaia frowned at the last letters, surprised at the gibberish. She flipped the paper over, looking for clues, but the back was blank.
    “Got yourself a love note?” a man s voice asked.
    Gaia turned, quickly thrusting the note back in her pocket.
    A short, bearded man was standing in the door-way beside her, shaking out a towel to create a cloud of flour. Her family always bought their bread from Harry’s on the west side, so she’d never visited this bakers shop. Now, as he pointed to her pocket, she felt a blush rise in her cheeks.
    He chuckled and gave a teasing jerk of his head. “Let me guess. You’ve got yourself a sweetheart inside the wall, pretty girl like you. Isn’t that right?”
    Gaia blushed more deeply and turned to face him fully. She watched his friendly expression turn to surprise, then wincing pity.
    “You’re Bonnie’s daughter, then,” he said. All the teasing -was gone, and his voice was quiet and warm, like a loaf of good black bread. His brown eyes, gentle and concerned, lingered on her scar as if he would heal it if he could.
    Gaia’s surprise rose in her lungs like a swift bright bubble. “You know my mother?” she asked.
    He took a quick look up the street, then made a beckoning nod and backed into his doorway again. He had a way of ducting his chin so that his dark mustache and beard concealed his lips.
    “You don’t remember me, do you?” the man said. “I’m Derek Vlatir. My wife and I lived in Western Sector Three when our kids were little. I’ve known your parents my whole life. Please come. Come in.”
    Curious, Gaia followed him into his bakery. In the blue’ walled kitchen, Gaia looked around at the two great ovens, the sacks of flour, and a long wooden table with slabs of brown dough upon it. Sunlight gleamed on a row of measuring cups. Through another doorway, strung with a curtain of brown beads, she could see a single counter that served as the front of his shop. Though there was nothing unusual about the bakery, Derek’s quick movement to close the door behind them and his furtive glance into the other room put her on alert.
    “We only have a minute,” he said.
    “You’ve heard something,” she said.
    He nodded, and she saw now his concern for her went far beyond mere pity for her scar.
    “I don’ t know how else to say this. Your parents are in the Enclave prison,” he said. “They’ve been accused of being traitors, and this morning they were sentenced to death.”
    Gaia backed against the doorframe. “That’s impossible,” she said. “They’ve done nothing wrong!”
    “That may be,” Derek said. He looked back over his shoulder and took a step nearer to her, speaking softly. “But they’re set to be executed next week.”
    “How do you know this?” Gaia demanded, suspicious. Her heart was pounding with fear. He might be tricking her. He might be a guard in disguise testing to see if she herself was loyal or not.
    “Listen,” he said. “I know this is hard to hear. It’s hard for me, too. I’ve known your parents since we were kids, so when they were arrested, I asked my baker friends inside the wall to try to see what they could find out. I kept hoping I would have better news, and then this morning I heard this. You have to trust me.” He held up his hands, as if they could plead for him.
    “Why didn’t you come tell me?”
    “I’ve tried twice already,” he said. “Both times you were out, and I couldn’t exactly leave a message. I was planning to come again today and wait for you if I had to. I’m sorry, but your parents aren’t coming back.”
    Her throat tightened, and she clutched her hands into hard fists. She didn’t want to believe him, but he had no motivation to lie. The note in her pocket. Had her mother sent it because she knew she was going to die?
    “They would tell me,” she