Khe by Alexes Razevich Read Free Book Online Page B

fruit.
    No one knew what I had done. The doumanas assigned awa were happy enough to count in fruit from the old tree with their poundage. No one seemed to think it strange that a tree that had hardly even leafed for as long as most of us could remember suddenly fruited.
    It scared me, thinking that maybe I had truly had some hand in it.
    ***
    When I awoke the next day, two new dots had appeared on my wrists—small as the iris of my eye and as dark-blue as the speckles on a preslet egg. Now there were ten, scattered like stars on my skin. It wasn’t Commemoration Day. This shouldn’t be possible.
    I slipped out before my unitmates awoke, went to Simanca’s dwelling, and showed her. She didn’t take my arm and examine the dots like she had last time. She turned her back and strode away, taking Min and Gintok with her. I didn’t know what I had done wrong, to make Simanca shun me like that.
    Tav stayed behind. She stroked my neck and said, “Don’t blame Simanca for her anger, Khe. She already told you the marks are unimportant. You were wrong to come again over the same matter.”
    I hung my head. “No one else has marks like mine.”
    “You know that you’re not like your sisters,” Tav said softly. “Comparing yourself to them will only make you unhappy.”
    I looked up, straight into her eyes. “I’m not unhappy. I’m frightened .”
    I needed to say the words even though the mass of muddy brown spots on my neck already showed my fear.
    “Oh, Khe,” Tav said. “You’re worried over nothing. The marks are just something…unique to you. What does The Rules of a Good Life tell us?”
    Didn’t she hear me? Didn’t it matter to her at all that I was so scared I could hardly stand there before her without shrieking? Did she not see the colors on my neck? I sighed and gave her the answer she wanted. “Only the obedient heart knows peace.”
    Tav smiled. “Exactly. Go now. Your unitmates will be up and there’s work to be done.”
    ***
    “I saw you,” Thedra whispered, standing next to me in the morning meal line in the communiteria.
    “Saw me what?” I asked in a normal tone.
    Thedra still whispered. “What you did to the old tree. I know you made it bloom and fruit.”
    My throat went dry. I dropped my voice. “Lots of trees that don’t set fruit one year make up for it in the next.”
    “Not that tree,” she said. “First the kiiku, then the awa, now the preslets and that dried up tree. Khe, it’s not natural.”
    Behind me, Simanca’s unitmate, Gintok, grumbled and said to get a move on, we were holding up the line and she was hungry. I moved forward.
    “We’ll talk later,” I told Thedra.
    “Too late for talk,” Thedra said. “I have to tell Simanca. I can’t hold this a secret. You know that.”
    I knew. The commune had no tolerance for private knowledge. For the good of the group, all things must be public.
    “There’s nothing to tell,” I whispered furiously. I felt my spots light brownish green with shame at the lie. I knew Thedra saw it.
    Gintok gave me a small shove. I bit back my irritation and stepped forward again.

Chapter Six
    Beware the secret heart that holds the hidden lie .
    --The Rules of a Good Life
    I was mending a torn hip wrap when a knock at the door was followed by Tav walking into our receiving room. She glanced around the room.
    “Are you here alone?” she asked.
    I nodded. “Stoss wanted a walk. Jit and Thedra went with her.”
    “Just as well,” Tav said. There was a strained coolness to her voice. “You are to come to us, but first, Simanca wants you to wrap a bandage around your left wrist. If anyone asks, you are to say that you cut yourself slightly.”
    “Why?” I asked, meaning both why was I summoned and why was I binding a non-existent wound?
    Tav shrugged. “Because that is what Simanca wants.”
    Which answered both questions at once.
    ***
    The orindle, Pradat, wearing the green hip wrap that marked her official medical researcher