Matched by Ally Condie Read Free Book Online Page B

glances. Adoptions were and are virtually unheard of in our Province of Oria.
    We heard a knock on the door. “Stay here, Cassia,” my father said. “Let us see who it is.”
    I waited back in the kitchen, but I heard Xander’s father, Mr. Carrow, at the door, his deep loud voice booming through the foyer. We aren’t allowed to go into one another’s residences, but I could imagine him standing there on the steps, looking like an older version of Xander. Same blond hair. Same laughing blue eyes.
    “I talked with Patrick and Aida Markham,” he said. “I thought you’d want to know. The boy is an orphan. He’s from the Outer Provinces.”
    “He is?” My mother’s voice held a note of concern. The Outer Provinces are on the geographic fringe of the Society where life is harder and wilder. Sometimes people refer to them as the Lesser Provinces, or the Backward Provinces, because they have so little order and knowledge there. There’s a higher concentration of Aberrations there than in the general populace. And even Anomalies, some say. Though no one knows for certain where the Anomalies are. They used to be kept in safe houses, but many of those stand empty these days.
    “He’s here with full Society approval,” Mr. Carrow said. “Patrick showed me the paperwork himself. He told me to tell anyone else who might be concerned. I knew you’d be worried, Molly, and you, too, Abran.”
    “Well, then,” my mother said, “it sounds all right.” I edged around the corner to look into the foyer, where my parents’ backs were to me and Xander’s father stood on the steps with the night behind him.
    Then Xander’s father dropped his voice, and I had to listen closely to hear what he said over the low hum of the port in the foyer.
    “Molly, you should have seen Aida. And Patrick. They seemed alive again. The boy is Aida’s nephew. Her sister’s son.”
    My mother’s hand went up to her hair, a gesture she always made when she was uncomfortable. Because we all remembered vividly what had happened to the Markhams.
    It was a rare case of government failure. A Class One Anomaly should never have been unidentified, let alone allowed to roam the streets, to sneak into the government offices where Patrick worked and where his son was visiting him that day. We all kept quiet about it, but we all knew. Because the Markham boy was gone, murdered while he waited for his father to come back from a meeting elsewhere in the building. Because Patrick Markham himself had to spend time being healed, since the Anomaly waited in the office, quiet, and attacked Patrick, too.
    “Her nephew,” my mother said, her voice filled with empathy. “Of course Aida would want to raise him.”
    “And the government might feel like they owed it to Patrick to make an exception for him,” my father said.
    “Abran,” my mother said reproachfully.
    But Xander’s father agreed. “It’s logical. An exception as recompense for the accident. A son to replace the one that they shouldn’t have had to lose. That’s how the Officials see it.”
    Later, my mother came to my room to tuck me in. With her voice soft like the blankets she settled around me, she asked, “Did you hear us talking?”
    “Yes,” I said.
    “The Markhams’ nephew—son—starts school tomorrow.”
    “Ky,” I said. “That’s his name.”
    “Yes,” she said. She bent down and her long blond hair swung over her shoulder and her freckles looked like stars scattered across her skin. She smiled at me. “You’ll be nice to him, won’t you?” she asked. “And help him fit in? It might be hard to be new when everyone else belongs.”
    “I will,” I promised.
    As it turned out, her advice was unnecessary. The next day at Second School, Ky said hello and introduced himself to everyone. Quiet and quick, he moved through the halls; he told everyone who he was so that no one had to ask. When the bell rang, he disappeared into the groups of students. It was shocking how