The Fire Children by Lauren Roy Read Free Book Online Page A

otherwise she’d had to have encountered other families. If she’d been heading west, say, she might have found Old Moll and his whole clan.
    Thinking of Old Moll summoned the memory of his miniature city. She tried to remember where everything had been, even with some of its houses unfinished. Her family’s house was in the southeastern part of town; the Worship Hall to the north. The market was dead center. She thought of other buildings: the school, the cobbler’s, Jaik’s butchery and the livestock penned up nearby.
    The easiest way...
    ... but it was forbidden.
    Yulla squinted up the stairway, though the darkness remained as thick as ever. If she could open the cellar door up there though, and see where she was...
    Just a quick peek. To see what street I’m on.
    No.
    She made herself back away. The temptation sang within her, urging her to make the climb, to turn the knob and press against the door, to see what it was like up above during the Darktimes. Had the flashes she’d seen come from the Fire Children? Were they in the house above her right now, burning the occupant’s offerings to taste what life was like on the world beneath their sky?
    She wanted to know. She wanted to know so badly, to glimpse Mother Sun’s children and run back to her family—even Kell—and tell them she’d seen them, seen the Fire Children, and describe what they looked like, here among their houses.
    They’d burn me alive. They wouldn’t know any better. It’s why we hide in the dark.
    She kept backing up, trying to encourage that tiny, reasonable voice before she gave in to her clamoring curiosity. It was so easy to imagine herself going up above to explore, tucking herself into the hiding spots that had always stumped Kell and her friends when they used to play hide-and-seek—Yulla was good at finding places where she could see the people looking for her, but they couldn’t see her. Did the Fire Children even know how to play hide-and-seek? Would human games interest them at all?
    Stop it stop it stop it.
    Back, and back, and back, until she bumped against the far wall. Her hands reached out for something to anchor her, to keep her from plunging straight across to the stairs, darting up them and throwing wide the door.
    Her fingers closed over a lever.
    All the resisting she’d been doing against going up the stairway meant she had no reserve against this new discovery. She pushed on the lever. It didn’t budge. She grabbed at it with both hands and threw all her weight against it, until her feet nearly left the ground.
    Slowly, slowly, as though no one had thrown it in a hundred years, the lever inched downward. It let out a screeeech as it did, one that they’d surely heard in far-off cellars. The sound was old and sluggish and rusty, but the lever moved inexorably, down and down until it stopped with a clack .
    The ground rumbled beneath her feet, and when she reached out to steady herself on the wall, she felt the vibrations of a great machine working within. Wildly, she thought of the pulleys Abba and his friends had set up when they’d raised a new roof onto Jaik’s butchery last year.
    Anything else her spinning mind kicked up disappeared in the scraping of stone on stone above her. Yulla covered her head, afraid she’d started another cave-in. She dropped into a crouch and sent up a prayer to Mother Sun: Save me, spare me, I’ll never fight with Kell again, I’ll do all my chores, I won’t complain when Aunt Mouse serves beans, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll...
    It wasn’t Mother Sun who answered her.
    It wasn’t Sister Moon, either, though the light that bathed Yulla when she finally dared look up was nearly as gentle. A shaft of pale blue fell on her from high above, beaming down through thick, rune-carved glass.
    Mystified, Yulla rose to her feet and squinted into the brightness. It took her eyes a few minutes to adjust, but when they did she realized the cavern wasn’t as bare as she’d thought. Heaped