Read Online Changing of the Glads by Joy Spraycar - Free Book Online

tipped off the one foot she perched on.  How did he get so close without her hearing him?
    “Such sayings should not be coming from you,” he admonished, adeptly catching her before she hit the ground.
    “Thanks.”  She brushed non-existent dirt from her clothing.  “Why? Don’t you cuss when you’re annoyed?”
    He shook his head. 
    “Never?”  Zalphia studied his face.  Fingers of thought reached in and examined his memories.  He stood stone-still, a tiny grin on one side of his face as she combed and prodded her way through his fights and his childhood.  He had been hurt before, sometimes badly, but he was telling the truth.  Not a harsh word ever passed his lips.  But not only that, he never even considered saying what she so often let roll off her tongue with ease. 
    He was so different from anyone she had been around.  Most who spent their days amongst the Glads cursed excessively.
    Max laid a hand on her shoulder, a kind look deep in his blue eyes.  “It is not our way.  It should not be yours either.”  He shook his head.  “Living amongst the worst humankind has to offer has truly changed you.”
    “Humankind?”
    “Yes, humankind.  They are the ones who inhabit this planet.”  He lowered his pack to the ground.  “Here, sit.  We must rest.”
    Zalphia looked around.  The ground was covered with many of those needles.  Sit? Here?  Really?
    She glanced at Max.
    He rolled his eyes and sank cross-legged onto the bed of knife points.
    If he could endure the pointy spikes, so could she.  Crossing her ankles, she gingerly lowered herself down.  Thanks to the covering over her buttocks, the offending points were held at bay, and she relaxed.  If she’d had on just her Glad gear... well, she didn’t want to think about what that would feel like.
    “You are humorous.”  He chuckled, and she realized she hadn’t pulled her mind away from his.  The channel remained open, but she drew back, closing the door between them.
    A quick flick of his tongue across his upper lip and then his teeth raking his bottom one drove all thought of pine stickers from her mind.  She wanted those lips again, the same action they’d taken inside the arena.
    “Zalphia,” he began.
    Her eyes flicked to his, and she was glad he hadn’t just read her thoughts.
    “We are not originally from this world.”
    “Of course we are,” she said.  “At least I was born here, weren’t you?”
    “No, I wasn’t.  And neither were you.  We did come as infants and were placed with human parents as their own children, but we are from another planet.  Selestia.  We came here to turn these children back to the path they were meant to follow.”
    “I don’t understand.  My mother said I was her child.”
    Max nodded.  “You were her child, as much hers as if you came from her own body, but you didn’t”
    “How did we get here then?”
    “That is difficult to explain.  Selestia watches over the lower planets.  This one has not developed in the way set out for them.  Something changed the path they were following.  We...”   His finger wagged between the two of them.  “We were sent to change that path.  The Elders placed us here with our human parents.  However, when you were very small, someone discovered your mental abilities, the way you can reach into other’s minds.  Because of that, they took you to be a Glad.  You and I both would have been taught by Simeon if you had remained with your mother.”
    Here he went again, talking about this Simeon character.  “How could anyone possibly know about my abilities?  I’m not sure I even knew about them back then.” 
    “That is unclear.”  Max shook his head.  “It even seemed to stump Simeon, and he sees most of what goes on here on this sphere.  As it was, he taught me what I must do to free you, and what we must do together to accomplish our mission.  That is when he sent me to be trained as a Glad.  It was the only way