Thorns by Kate Avery Ellison Read Free Book Online Page B

the chicken cages, shivering and waiting for me to speak. They were like birds—timid, skittish, their hands fluttering restlessly. The clothing hanging from their bodies was far too thin for the weather. They needed blankets, scarves.
    “Stay here,” I said. “I’ll bring you food and warmer things to wear. And don’t worry—you’re safe now.”
    The girl blinked at me.
    Safe . I thought of Officer Raine and the rest of the Farther soldiers less than a mile away in the town. Did my words about safety sound as hollow to her as they did to me? Could this child ever feel safe again after what she’d been through?
    “I’ll be right back,” I promised, and then I shut the door and leaned against it while I caught my breath. In my mind’s eye, I saw the cuts on her arms. A shudder ran through me, and I pushed off the door and hurried to the house.
    When I returned with milk and a stack of clothing and blankets, they were waiting, sitting together with their backs to the wall and their hands clasped.
    “I brought you warm things. You’ll sleep here tonight.”
    They took the clothing and stripped out of their rags, revealing their bodies. Skin stretched over bone. Bruises made purple patterns across ribcages, chests. Cuts told a story of unimaginable cruelty. My hands formed fists, but I hid them behind my back so the children wouldn’t see them and think I was angry at them.
    The girl dressed the boy first. Jonn’s shirt and pants swallowed him up, and he looked at the sleeves flopping over his hands and made a barking sound like he was trying to laugh but had forgotten how. When she’d finished with him, the girl pulled on one of Ivy’s nightgowns and turned to me expectantly.
    “You can sleep here,” I said, going to the middle of the room and crouching down to press the button for the trap door. The stone panel slid aside, revealing steps into a dark room below. “You’ll be hidden.”
    “Safe,” the girl said.
    I nodded.
    They climbed down the stairs slowly after me. A faint glow lit the room—a few of the phosphorus fungi from the deep Frost had burrowed into the cracks of the walls, and a bluish light tinged the air. I made them a bed of blankets and poured the milk into bowls. They looked so malnourished that I was afraid to give them anything more substantial.
    “I’ll be back tomorrow,” I said. “Don’t worry. A man is coming to help you. He’ll take you somewhere safe.”
    The girl’s lips parted in a ghost of a smile.
     
    ~
     
    The fire cast red-gold light across Jonn and Ivy’s faces as we worked silently on the quota. Outside, the wind howled and hissed across the snow.
    Worry gnawed a hole in my stomach. I hadn’t told them about the children in the barn. I’d hidden their dirty clothes in my quota basket and set out the lantern at the edge of the yard, but I hadn’t spoken a word of it yet. I didn’t know what to say.
    Putting down the yarn, I paced to the window and peeked through the shutter at the yard. No snow fell from the sky tonight. Cool black shadows swathed everything, and a sprinkling of stars dusted the sky. At the edge of the yard, the lantern I’d hung earlier glowed against the trees like a single, captured firefly in the night.
    Would Adam see it?
    “You’re restless,” Jonn observed from his place beside the fire.
    I tapped my fingers against the shutter, avoiding the question in his tone. “Ann said that Everiss and Dan are no longer betrothed.”
    His hands stilled. He looked up.
    Ivy sighed loudly. “Everything is going wrong,” she grumbled. “The Farthers, the village, even love is falling apart.”
    “Did Ann say why?” Jonn asked, and I didn’t miss the way his eyebrows pinched together.
    “No,” I said. Why did he care about a bit of village gossip? Did he think the news made me miss Gabe? Did he think I would go crazy in a fit of lonely passion and leave them while I forged off in the Frost? “I don’t know what happened between them,