Until the Beginning by Amy Plum EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Amy Plum
- Language: English
- Genre: Contemporary Literary Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
JUNEAU
MILES HAS BEEN DEAD FOR ONE HOUR. I DO NOT know if it is true death-if he
died of blood loss after I dug the bullet out of him—or if this is the deathsleep that I summoned by giving him the Rite. There is only one way to
find out, and that is to wait seven more hours and see if he starts breathing
again.
I rise and leave my post at the door. Turning away from the blazing red
of the sunbaked desert, I enter the cool darkness of the one-room shack. My
vision swims as my eyes adjust, and it is a few seconds before I can see
him. Not him. His shell.
The vacuum left by his spirit’s departure pulls me across the room, and I
stand over him, looking down at his naked body. He is a study in white and
red: The little bit of skin that isn’t smeared with clotted blood is the shade
of curdled milk. Honey-colored curls brush his paste-white forehead. His
lips are parted, his jaw loose. Blood is smudged across his cheek, but
whether it is his or mine I don’t know.
I hold up my palm and see that blood still oozes from where I cut
myself with the ceremonial knife. The contents of my bag are strewn across
the floor. I squat down, and from the pile of stones, dried herbs, and
feathers, I pull a strip of cotton and wrap it tightly around my hand to bind
my wound.
And with that small, final act of caring for myself, I am suddenly
drained of my adrenaline-fueled vigilance. My defenses finally down, the
full force of what I have done strikes me. I sit down on the floor, resting my
head in my hands.
I may have killed this boy. I may have sent him away forever.
I performed a ritual on him—gave him a powerful drug—that has only
been used on members of my clan. On people who were ready for it, whose
spirits already embraced the Yara. Who looked to Gaia for strength.
And Miles . . . he is not strong. He wants to be. There is much in him
that is good. But he hasn’t even started thinking about his place on earth . . .
his part in the superorganism that makes up Gaia.
Never mind spiritual strength; all of my previous Rite-travelers were in
perfect physical condition when I led them into death-sleep. They weren’t
like Miles, barely conscious with a bullet freshly dug out of his side. He had
lost a lot of blood. Was already dying.
What have I done?
Miles could be lost in death, unable to find his way back. Unable to
recognize the signposts along his path. That is . . . if he is actually in deathsleep and didn’t undergo true death before the Rite took effect.
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