Heart of Stone by Anya Monroe Read Free Book Online Page B

always what you need . Hear this. You need to learn about your birth, about your parents, and why it matters.” Her words were fierce and forceful.
    Sophie couldn’t look away from the old woman’s crystal clear grey eyes. Looking in them, she saw herself.
                  “Why don’t you tell me? If you know so much, tell me about my birth yourself!” Sophie shouted, pulling her hands away, but Miora wouldn’t let her go. Sophie found herself sinking deeper in this stone reader’s gaze.
                  “That is not the way the stones work. They don’t tell the whole story. The Death stone doesn’t always mean a grave dug in the ground. Sometimes the end is the beginning.”
                  Sophie saw Miora’s crystal eyes fill with vibrant colors, as though every precious jewel was carved in the sockets of her face. Sophie gulped in horror.
    “Your eyes, what is happening to them?” she screamed, grabbing Henri’s arm in fear.
    “Jou-Jou, it’s okay. You’re seeing things. Her eyes are the same as they were when we entered. Clouded over.” Henri tried to comfort her friend, but Sophie looked at him like he was crazy.
    “Sophie, it’s true, Miora is blind, and that is why her eyes are that way.” Emel spoke gently, placing her hand on Sophie’s shoulder. She tried to steady the wild girl who heard revelations of a life she didn’t understand, a life she didn’t want.
    “You see them, my child. You see my eyes for what they truly are. Crystal balls that tell the future.” Miora let go of Sophie’s hands at last. She lifted a heavy leather cord from her neck, where a moonstone hung. She pressed the stone in Sophie’s hands.
    “The stones never lie. Take this, and run.”
    Sophie stood confused, but clutched the moonstone nevertheless. Turning abruptly, she stumbled out of the wagon, letting the night air rush her lungs. She remembered how to breathe.
    Henri and Emel followed, looking at one another nervously as they approached Sophie who stared at them blankly. It was hard to know what to say when someone was told to run away.
    “Jou-Jou,” Henri started. “It’s okay.”
    Sophie whipped around to her friend, a blaze of fear spread across her chest.
    “No, Henri. It isn’t. Nothing ever is. You and me, we’re too different, you heard Miora. But even before she said anything, I knew I needed to go. I don’t belong here.”
    “It was five measly stones drawn from a bag, Jou-Jou. Can’t it just be a funny story you tell our children some day?” Henri tried to take another step toward her, but Sophie continued to back way.
    “What are you talking about? Children? I would never … I can’t … Henri. Listen to me. I don’t want to be with you. I never have. I want to go.”
    Henri flinched at the cold words his best friend spoke. Words that held Sophie’s truth, words that separated the two.
    “Then go,” Henri said. “You want to do this next part alone, then do it.” He looked at Sophie, this girl with messy black hair and a complicated maze of emotions.
    Sophie knew she was a girl Henri didn’t want to let go of, not even a little. She was a girl he wanted to protect, a lot. A girl who wasn’t his. A girl who never was. Sophie didn’t know how to be the girl he wanted.
    “Fine. I will.” She stood in place, not moving an inch because she knew the only place for her to go was back home.
    “So, where will you go?” Henri asked, as though daring her to leave.
    The campfires at each wagon were still ablaze. Beznik, Emil’s brother stood nearby playing a slow, melancholy song on the fiddle. She found that ironic. Even the music knew her mood; it wasn’t just the stones that read her. It seemed everything and everyone knew her better than she knew herself.
    “Not back in that freak’s wagon,” Sophie said pointing to Miora’s blue and yellow painted home on wheels.
    “That is so mean, Sophie! Don’t talk about Miora like that, she is so