Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater Read Free Book Online Page B

can’t believe we’re doing this,” Gansey said.
Adam replied, “I can.”

6
T
     
    his was not Blue’s real life.
    As she leaned against the wall outside the guidance counselor’s office, she wondered when she would start to think of school as an important thing again. After an extraordinary summer full of chasing kings and disappearing mothers, it was hard to really, truly picture herself going to class every day. What would any of this matter in two years? Nobody here would remember her, or vice versa. She would only remember that this was the fall her mother vanished. This was the year of Glendower. She peered across the linoleum-basted hall to the clock. In an hour she could walk back home to her real life.
    You are coming back tomorrow , Blue told herself. And the next day. But it felt like more of a dream than Cabeswater. She touched her palm with the fingers of her other hand and
    thought about that flag Malory had found, painted with three women with red hands and her face. She thought about how the boys were off exploring without her.
    She became aware of Noah’s presence. At first she just sort of knew that he was there, and when she considered how it was that she happened to know, she realized she could see him slouching beside her in his rumpled Aglionby uniform.
“Here?” Blue demanded, though really she was pleased. “Here, and not in the raven cave of death?”
    Noah shrugged, apologetic and smudgy. His proximity chilled Blue as he pulled energy from her to stay visible. He blinked at two girls who walked by pushing a cart. They didn’t seem to notice him, but it was difficult to tell if it was because he was invisible to them or just because he was Noah.
    “I think I miss this part,” he said. “The beginning. This is the beginning, right?”
“First day,” Blue replied.
“Oh, yeah .” Noah leaned back and inhaled. “Oh, wait, no, it’s the other one. I forgot. I actually hate this part.”
Blue did not hate it, because that would require acknowledging that it was really happening.
“What are you doing?” Noah asked.
She handed him a brochure, even though she felt selfconscious sharing it, as if she were giving him a list for Santa Claus. “Talking to the counselor about that.”
Noah read the words as if they were in a foreign language. “Ex-per-ie-ence di-verse fo-rest types in the A-ma-zon. The Schooool for E-col-o-gy fea-tures a stud-y a-broad — oh, you can’t go somewhere .”
She was very aware that he was probably right. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“People are going to see you talking to nobody and think you’re weird.” This amused him.
It neither amused nor worried Blue. She’d gone through eighteen years as the town psychic’s daughter, and now, in her senior year, she had already held every single possible conversation about that fact. She had been shunned and embraced and bullied and cajoled. She was going to hell, she had the straight-line to spiritual nirvana. Her mother was a hack, her mother was a witch. Blue dressed like a hobo, Blue dressed like a fashion mogul. She was untouchably hilarious, she was a friendless bitch. It had faded into monotonous background noise. The disheartening and lonesome upshot was that Blue Sargent was the strangest thing in the halls of Mountain View High School.
Well, with the exception of Noah.
“Do you see other dead people?” Blue asked him.
Meaning: Do you see my mother?
Noah shuddered.
A voice came from the cracked office door. “Blue? Sweetie, you can come in now.”
Noah slid into the office ahead of her. Even though he looked solid and living in the strong sunlight through the office window, the counselor looked right through him. His invisibility seemed downright miraculous as he sat down on the floor in front of the metal desk to pleasantly eavesdrop.
Blue shot him a withering look.
There were two sorts of people: The ones who could see Noah, and the ones who couldn’t. Blue generally only got along