Curio by Evangeline Denmark Read Free Book Online Page A

furrowed. Grey rubbed her eyes and lifted her chin. Her voice sounded foreign in her own ears, small but hard. “They did this because of me.”
    He winced. “No, Grey. Your grandfather is right. The Council goes too far. Their greed has gone unchecked for too long.”
    â€œBut I defied them. I don’t know why. Something happened inside me.” She pressed her clenched fist into her torso. “I told them Whit hadn’t done anything wrong. I told them to take me instead.”
    â€œOh, Grey.” Her name creaked from behind Father’s clenched teeth. He covered his forehead with his hand. “You have no idea what you did.”
    A knock on the back door yanked her off the sofa. Father followed as she hurried through the kitchen and the mudroom to crack open the door to the backyard.
    â€œAll’s clear,” Granddad whispered.
    Grey looked over her shoulder. Her father stood in the kitchen, backlit, his expression lost in shadows. He gave a slight nod. She bolted into the night, still wearing her bright red coat with the full potion bottle in the pocket.

CHAPTER
    5

    T hey stooped under the Bryacres’ covered porch and Granddad knocked on the back door. The chill of the winter evening stung Grey’s flushed cheeks, but beneath her clothes sweat glazed her skin.
    When the door inched open, Granddad bowed to whisper, “It’s us.”
    He loped away into the night as Josephine opened the door just wide enough for Grey to slip through. Hands balled into fists, Grey followed Whit’s mother into the familiar kitchen and on to the small parlor in the front of the house. Her own mother sat in a drab armchair, busy rolling strips of white cloth. She looked up, brows arched.
    Grey lifted her palms. “I had to come.”
    Josephine turned and Grey sucked in a breath. She was the same Mrs. Bryacre Grey had always known, and yet the face didn’t belong to her neighbor. It was as though some feature was missing, and the shock of its absence overwhelmed.
    Grey plunged her hand into her pocket and withdrew the bottle of potion. “I brought this for Whit.”
    Mother shot up, sending bandages rolling down her scarlet skirt and across the floor. “What are you doing?”
    â€œThis is my choice to make.” Grey dropped the bottle into Josephine’s hand. “Can I see him?”
    Josephine curled her fingers around the potion as if she might squeeze the glass to grit. She nodded once.
    Grey ignored her mother’s protest and followed Josephine down the hall. After peeking into Whit’s room, Josephine held the door open. “He’s resting as best he can. I must speak to your mother before . . .”
    Grey didn’t hear the rest of the sentence. She stood at the threshold, breath snatched from her lungs.
    Whit lay on his stomach, limbs draped over an iron-framed bed. His face was turned away from her, toward the wall. He was naked to the waist and strips of gauze clung to his back in rows from his shoulders to his belt. Crimson seeped in lines, too many to count, through the light bandages. Grey pressed her fist to her lips. The same gauze-covered, bleeding stripes marked Whit’s upper arms as well.
    Vomit surged up her throat, but she clamped her mouth shut and dragged in air through her nose. The pine scent of the healing ointment invaded her lungs and for a second her head spun, but the sharp odor at least overpowered the taste of bile on her tongue. She blew out a steadying breath. The shock lessened with each second she refused to look away.
    â€œWhit?” Grey crossed the carpet and knelt at his side.
    He startled, flinched, then moaned. His head moved, pressing into the mattress then shifting to face her. Sweat-soaked hair stuck to the blanched skin of his forehead and cheek. Against the white of his skin his eyes were the deep blue-gray of a shadowed ravine. The corner of his mouth not hidden by the swell of the mattress