The Beneath by S. C. Ransom Read Free Book Online

been mulling over my idea for the last hour or two, and the more I spoke to Aria, the more I knew that I had to keep her safe – from the Farmer, from her arranged marriage and from a community that wouldn’t teach girls to read.
    Aria gave me a grateful smile. “Yes, please.”
    “Underneath this flat is an empty one, and I have the keys. You can live there as long as you’re quiet. No one will ever know.”
    Aria looked puzzled.
    “Is that OK?” I continued, leaning towards her.
    “I’m not sure that I understand.”
    “You can go and live downstairs! There’s plenty of room, and the floors are so thick that Nan will never be able to hear you – as long as you keep the TV down.”
    “You mean I’ll have a whole dwelling, just for me? Not sharing with you or Nan or anyone?”
    “Yup, your own place.”
     
    Lily is offering me somewhere to live, somewhere I’ll be safe from everything. I should be grateful – and I am – but I’m also confused. Why is she doing this for me? She doesn’t know me and doesn’t have any idea about why I really came up to the place with the trains.
    I think of Dane and of all the time we hid together, making our plans to snatch Lily and take her back down with us. I wonder what he is doing. He’ll know by now that everything has gone wrong, that the mission has failed, but not how. Does he think that I fell to the Crop or that I chose to abandon him and start a new life Above? Will he try to find me?
    I also know that by now everyone else will know I’m missing, and that means I can never go back. The Farmer will never allow it.
    I have nowhere else to go.
     
    The next morning was Saturday so there was no school, but we still got up early. It was a bright and sunny day, not overcast like the day before, and Aria gasped as I took her outside to get to the downstairs flat.
    “Ow – that really hurts,” she said loudly, clasping her hands to her eyes. We weren’t even in the sunshine but rather on the shadowy side of the street.
    “It’s only a few steps. Here, I’ll lead you. Keep your eyes tightly closed.”
    I manoeuvred her through the gate in the old iron railing and down the steep, narrow steps into the tiny courtyard. The place felt permanently damp, with green moss growing on the walls, and crumpled copies of Metro blown into the corners. I unlocked the door and ushered Aria inside.
    The flat was owned by Nan’s friend Marjorie, but she had broken her hip and was living in a care home while she recovered. Nan was supposed to be looking after the place but as she couldn’t easily get down the stairs she had asked me to do it. I often used it to revise as itwas nice and cool. The rooms I’d not been using were a bit dusty, but we opened the windows, which looked out on nothing but the mossy brick walls and a tiny patch of sky above, changed the sheets on the bed and soon it looked quite homely.
    Settling down at the kitchen table we spent another hour looking at the alphabet, but it was clear that we were going to need some proper books to help us, as well as a good supply of paper and pencils.
    “What we need is the library,” I said, looking in vain through Marjorie’s Mills & Boon books for something suitable for Aria to practise on. “Come on, we can be there in fifteen minutes.”
    “What’s a library?” asked Aria, carefully putting all the papers into a tidy pile.
    “Oh, you’ll love the library! It’s a whole building full of books that you can borrow.”
    “Will they have books that will help me learn to read then?”
    “Loads. They have a big selection for little kids that have pictures and words so that you can see what is what.”
    “And they’ll let us in?”
    I couldn’t help laughing at the question. “Of course, even us! Let’s go.”
    The sun was still shining, so I rummaged in the kitchen drawers until I found an old pair of sunglasses for Aria to wear. She wasn’t convinced they would help, and kepttaking them off and