Read Online Banished by Sophie Littlefield - Free Book Online Page B

smoothed it out and entered the words in the search engine. Soon it became obvious that the words were Irish, and after poking around in an online Irish-English dictionary for a while I had a pretty good idea of what the lines said:
I commend to this magic
The souls and bodies of our poor countrymen
Heal this withered flesh
These torn and cursed limbs
This tainted blood
    I wished I had copied the whole page. I had no idea what kind of magic the author meant, but I felt a strange excitement building inside me. Healing: could it really be a coincidence that I’d found the words after the thing that happened to Milla in the gym … and right before Rascal had been hit by the truck?
    Before I left the lab, I looked up the airport code from the ticket I’d found in Gram’s room. DUB stood for Dublin …  Ireland . How could the words from the pages in the closet be related to what was happening now, to the plans that Gram was making in secret?
    I didn’t know who had written those words or hidden the pages in the closet. I didn’t know what Prairie Clover meant, but it still felt like those words held the key. I had to find out more, even if the one person who could help me hated me for reasons I didn’t understand. There had to be a way to make her talk to me.
    I waited until school was nearly over. When the last bell rang I bolted out of class and ran down the hall to the lab, because I knew Milla had science last period. When she shuffled out of the classroom, head down, at the end of the stream of kids, I stepped in front of her and blocked her path.
    I opened my mouth to ask if we could go somewhere to talk, but her expression changed from wariness to recognition, her eyes widening and her lips parting in surprise.
    “Where’d you git that?” she whispered.
    “What?”
    “The necklace.”
    My fingers went to the red stone pendant. I hadn’t taken it off since I found it in the closet. I’d kept it under my shirt at home so Gram wouldn’t see it, but at school I’d let it hang in front.
    “I—I found it.”
    “Did your grandmother give it to you?”
    I wasn’t sure what to say. If I could have thought of a lie that would keep her talking to me, I wouldn’t have hesitated. But I had no idea what she wanted, what would hold her interest. All I could think of was to ask her if she’d go somewhere to talk to me, somewhere private. “Look, could you, could we—”
    Milla shook her head, already backing away. “I don’t have anything to say to you.”
    “But I have to talk to you. To someone. I’m—I don’t—I’ll give you—I’ll give you money if you want, I don’t have a lot but I can get more.” I could sense that in a second she would turn and run down the hall away from me. “The necklace! I’ll give it to you.”
    “Don’t take it off,” she snapped. “I don’t want that thing anywhere near me.”
    I wasn’t sure what it was, what it could do, but it clearly had an effect on Milla. I held the stone delicately between my finger and thumb and twisted it in the light coming through the high windows. The sun bounced off the stone and danced across Milla’s face in bloodred streaks. Her expression went from wariness to resignation.
    “You won’t let it drop, will you,” she sighed. “So let’s git this over with.”
    We went to one of the practice rooms by the band room, a musty space with old acoustic tiles lining the walls, and music stands and a scarred piano. There was only one chair, so we sat on the floor, our knees pulled up, the sound of someone practicing scales on a cello reaching us faintly.
    I didn’t tell her everything. I told her about the men in the car, about my fears that the authorities would separate me and Chub. I didn’t tell her about Rascal—I didn’t want her to think I was crazy. I told her about the men who came to the house, the deals Gram did out of the basement.
    When I talked about Rattler, Milla dropped her gaze to the floor and went