Laura Jo Phillips by Berta's Choice Read Free Book Online Page B

of every day.  “But I’m really kind of busy right now.  Jareth wants to do one more session, and we still have a busy ten days ahead of us to get Arima House and the Rami Houses finished by the deadline.  Then I’ll be getting the first group of berezi settled in, which I’m sure will be hectic.”
    “Why does Jareth need to do another session?” Hope asked, glancing over at Berta.  Even though the transformation had been gradual over the past six weeks, Hope still had a difficult time remembering that this young, dark haired beauty with the deep blue eyes and cherry lips was the old woman that had greeted them in the Brethren compound not even a full year earlier.  Until she opened her mouth.  Berta’s exterior had changed, but she was still the same person on the inside.
    “He says there are still a few internal things that need to be touched up,” Berta said.  “I don’t mind.  At first the sessions were draining and difficult, but I’m used to them now.  Or maybe just stronger now.”
    “So you haven’t contacted the Falcorans because you’re too busy?” Hope asked as she turned onto the gravel road that would lead them to Arima House about a mile away.  “I know that you had reasons for sending them away that had nothing to do with age, but I thought that age was the largest factor.”
    “It was a big factor,” Berta said.  “But it wasn’t the largest factor by any means.  Unfortunately, as talented as Jareth is, there are some things that cannot be healed so quickly.”
    “Like scars?” Hope asked hesitantly.  It was something she’d never asked Berta about, but it was impossible not to notice that the woman always wore long sleeves, regardless of the weather.
    “Scars aren’t the only things that can’t be healed,” Berta said. 
    Hope nodded in understanding.  Clearly she was concerned about matters that went far deeper than scars.  “Berta, I want to say only one thing to you.”
    “What’s that, Hope?”
    “You were forced to spend the past sixty years of your life alone,” Hope said.  “Now that your body is young again, you may easily live another sixty years.  Will you now choose to allow history to repeat itself?”
    Berta looked at Hope in surprise.  After a moment she shook her head and sighed.  “I’ve been struggling a lot with choices lately,” she admitted.  “Even so, I have to confess that I hadn’t really thought of my future in that way.”
    Hope reached over and patted Berta’s hand.  “I know you hadn’t,” she said.  “But I think you should.”
    Berta raised one hand to finger the sapphire earring holding the tiny disk that the Falcorans had given her.  She never took them off except to clean them, and had developed a habit of touching them often that she was scarcely aware of.
    “You don’t think they’ve already been told?” she asked.
    “You swore us all to secrecy,” Hope reminded her.  “Myself, the Bearens, Talinka, Jareth, even the Dracon princes.  Only the builders have seen you, and they have never been told your name, as you well know.  Unless you think one of us has broken our word, then no, I don’t think anyone has told them.”
    “Of course I don’t think that,” Berta replied.  “I know better.  But there are a lot of people coming and going here with the airfield and the garrison.  It’s not far fetched to think that someone else has seen, and understood what they saw.”
    “Of course, you’re right,” Hope said as she turned into the drive before Arima house.  “However, I think that if the Falcorans had knowledge of it, they would already be here.”
    Berta nodded.  She thought so too.  The real question was, did she want to wait until someone else told them, or did she want to tell them herself?
    Hope parked the ground-car and they got out and walked toward the small gate that opened into a large garden that wrapped around the house.
    “It’s beautiful, Berta,” Hope said.  “Very