Bloodfire (The Sojourns of Rebirth) by Matthew Medina Read Free Book Online

alone, even for a moment, they
grabbed every chance they could to retain some of the intimacy
that had been lost by their unending responsibility.
    The whole span after she had found out her family name,
Catelyn had been giddy with excitement to share her new secret
with the other children, and so after midday, when the neighbors
gathered together, she first approached Lydia, a girl who had seen
two more sojourns than her.
    Catelyn rushed over to her as she sat in the dirt of the
deserted lot where they were meeting today.
“Lydia, you’ll never guess what I found out!” Catelyn said
excitedly.
Lydia looked up, her slack jaw open as she was filleting an
earthworm with a rusty needle she had in one hand. Despite being
older than Catelyn, Lydia was not particularly smart, Catelyn
knew. She had dull, vacant eyes and a distant look as Catelyn knelt
down in the dirt beside her. But though the two of them didn’t
share much in common, she was one of the only other girls that
was even close to Catelyn’s age, and Catelyn felt something of a
sisterly bond to her as a result.
She leaned in close to whisper in Lydia’s ear, a broad smile
of pride on her face, and she revealed her name to the girl. When
she withdrew and looked at Lydia’s face, Lydia was smiling broadly
as well, and her face cracked into a riotous laugh. Catelyn was
taken aback somewhat.
This was not exactly the reaction that she’d expected.
Lydia was laughing so hard and so loud that the other
children looked over to see what was so funny. Two of them
initially ran over to see what was happening, and like a flock of
pigeons, soon that prompted all of them to come over. Suddenly
Catelyn’s pride turned to ashes in her mouth, as she realized that
soon, all of the children would probably hear her secret from
Lydia, and then they would all be joining in on the joke. Though
Catelyn still wasn’t sure what that joke was, or why Lydia found
her name so funny to begin with.
The oldest of the children, a rather nasty boy of twelve
named Marton who Catelyn had never liked, ran faster than the
others and he stopped short and stood over Lydia, an expectant
smile on his pock-marked face.
“What’s so funny, freak?” he asked Lydia.
Instead of saying anything, Lydia stood up, revealing to all
the other children that she had laughed so hard that she’d lost
control of her bladder. The other children all started to point at her
soiled grey trousers, jeering at her for her incontinence, but
Catelyn was still watching Lydia, as she stood on her tip toes and
cupped her hand over her mouth, and whispered the joke to
Marton. Catelyn flicked her eyes over to him, and looked him dead
in the eye.
His blue eyes lit up and, almost as though she were
watching him in slow motion, a great big smile appeared on his
face and he turned to the other kids with arms outstretched.
“Hey! Cool it. All of you, listen to me!”
The other kids were still caught up in their mirth about
Lydia’s wet pants, but she was totally unaware, and instead was
looking at Marton’s face. Everyone knew that Lydia had a crush on
him for some reason Catelyn couldn’t understand.
Finally Marton had enough.
“Knock it OFF! Listen!”
Being the oldest, and being tough and fast enough to
thrash all of the younger kids if he wanted, Marton tended to get
his way a lot. The other kids stopped their teasing of Lydia and
settled down to pay attention to what he said. Unlike Lydia,
Catelyn knew that Marton was actually quite smart, at least when
it came to surviving and navigating the social hierarchy of
children. But she didn’t like him, because the only thing he ever
seemed to be interested in was bullying the others in their group.
The other kids looked to him now.
“What is it, Marton?”
“What’d she say, M?”
“Why was she laughin’ so hard she peed her pants?”
With a withering look, Marton looked straight at Catelyn
when he told them.
“You all know Catey over here’s just a big smarty