Skylark by Meagan Spooner Read Free Book Online

a lighted pathway leading into darkness. At least it was darker in there—I hurried through the doorway, eager for a little more concealment.
    As soon as I was through, the door clanked shut behind me. Suddenly I remembered the paper bird folded in my pocket, and what I had done. What if they could sense the magic on it? I turned and pressed my hands against the door, trying to find some way of opening it—but found only smooth metal.
    The lighted pathway brightened a little, leading to a chair ahead of me. A voice coming from all around me said, “Please be seated in the chair. Once you have been seated, please remain motionless.” The same voice, the same metallic hollowness.
    I headed for the chair, which was lit with its own light. My bare feet made sharp sticky noises, echoing strangely, as though the room was an odd shape. I couldn’t see beyond the pool of light ahead of me.
    The light pulsed, emanating from glass panels in the chair. I could feel a faint ache beginning in my temples, and knew that if the lights got any brighter my headache would return with a vengeance.
    Suddenly I realized that this was the Machine the Administrator had mentioned. I saw no glass wires waiting to trap me. I listened to the tinny voice repeat its command two more times before I climbed gingerly into the chair.
    It was warm. My skin crawled, trying to shrink away from it. My body blocked out most of the lights in the chair as I settled in. A band swung down from the top of the chair to encircle my forehead, touching lightly at either temple.
    Don’t panic , I commanded myself, closing my eyes and trying to breathe normally. I tried to imagine Basil’s voice chastising me for being silly and scared, but even that failed me. Basil, I thought, would be afraid, too.
    When I opened my eyes, there was still faint light coming from the chair beneath me. I tried to see the shape of the room around me, but the dimness of the light only played tricks on me. I got the impression of other machines, shrouded in shadow, my eyes picking out the faintest edges of metal just beyond the pool of muddy light. I waited, my skin prickling, for something to happen—for the chair to come alive, or the voice to give me my next order. But nothing happened.
    In school, the harvest was always spoken of as a transition. It was the rite of passage into adulthood, the process by which our childish pools of Resource were drained away and we were ushered into the roles that would be ours for the rest of our adult lives. We grew up being told how wonderful a feeling it was to contribute our Resource to the city. People spoke of the feast, of the joy of becoming a functioning piece of the larger clockwork, of the satisfaction of leaving childhood behind. But no one had ever spoken about what the harvest was . I’d looked forward to the feast, and to moving on, getting out of limbo. Why had I never asked what they’d actually do to me here? Why hadn’t I asked if having my magic stripped from me would hurt?
    The waiting was agony enough by itself, every inch of me twitching against the sticky warmth of the chair, which still hadn’t adjusted to my own body temperature. Every involuntary spasm of my nervous muscles made the light from beneath me jump and shiver in the dim air. I couldn’t lift my head. A flash of memory—the sewer tunnel, being unable to move. I struggled for breath.
    Without warning the lights in the chair went out. The blood rushed past my eardrums as vertigo swept through me, leaving me fuzzy-headed and dry-mouthed. My skin tingled as all the hairs on my arms stood to attention. I tried to lift a hand to scratch at my elbow, but found I could not move.
    My lungs constricted, panic gripping me. The darkness closed in around me, and no matter how I pulled, I couldn’t unstick my body from the chair. It was as if I was made of metal and some giant magnet had collected me.
    My dizziness swelled as a sound, the same dissonant humming I’d