Read Online Of Delicate Pieces by A. Lynden Rolland - Free Book Online Page B

he had to pull me through it or I couldn’t do it.”
    “That’s only because your brain was limited at the time. You wouldn’t have believed you could cross through those bars even if he told you.”
    Alex ran her fingers along the tough, cold gate. The crooked “bars” extended high above them and felt as strong as steel.
    “Any spirit can get through if they know how,” Skye explained. “The gate has energy, like anything else, but you can feel the strength of it, right?”
    “Is that to keep newburies from knowing how to go through it?”
    Skye stuck her hand through the gate. “If that’s the case, they failed. It’s really easy to go in and out.”
    “Is it safe?”
    “In my opinion, we’re more at risk waltzing through that fishbowl of tourism in Broderick Square.”
    “Good call. You know,” Alex cocked her head, “you kind of remind me of Jonas sometimes.”
    Skye scrunched her nose.
    “It’s a compliment,” Alex murmured, breathing deeply as a breeze rustled the leaves.
    Skye touched her hand to the tree and her face clouded.
    “What?”
    “Nothing. It’s just a little tired.”
    “Who?”
    “The tree.”
    “How do you know that?”
    Skye shrugged, and Alex jutted her chin forward to show that she wanted a legitimate answer.
    “I know how to listen. Stop looking at me like I’m insane.” Skye stepped backward through the gate, watching Alex the entire time. She appeared on the other side, grinning like a goof.
    If she wanted to change the subject, she’d succeeded. Alex’s jaw dropped down into the moss below. “How did you do that?”
    “I pictured myself walking through. And I did.”
    “But I didn’t see you go through it. You appeared there.”
    “Didn’t look the same in my mind. Walk through it, Alex. Sometimes you’re like a brand new dead kid. If you don’t believe half the things we do, and if you can’t see it in your mind, how the heck do you expect it to happen?”
    “Chase calls me naïve.”
    “You’re naïve enough to think this isn’t possible. Shift your mind enough to put you on the other side.”
    Alex blinked, and in that split second she pictured her projection as a chess piece, moving from one square to the next. She found herself on other side of the gate, on the outside looking in.
    “Whoa!” She grinned at her friend. “Are you gifted, Skye?”
    “No!” She let out a brisk cough of humor. “No way. Why do you ask?”
    “I’ve wanted to ask you for a long time. You understand things, you know, kind of the way Professor Duvall explains them.”
    “Not at all. Not gifted. I grew up with a bunch of tree hugging drug addicts. They were all different there. If I had the abilities of the gifted, I would have used that power to turn the rapist who murdered me into a beetle.”
    Something fell at their feet. The impact was heavy, like bitterness. Skye had never given any details about her death.
    “If I was magical, I wouldn’t have died. He lived in our colony for three years, and no one saw him for what he was. They had other things on their minds and in their bloodstreams, distorting life.” A branch lowered to her shoulder. She patted it. “There was nothing magical about my life.”
    “After something like that, how are you so sweet all the time?”
    “Because death is so much better.”
    Skye’s seriousness felt foreign. Alex wanted Skye to go back to preaching about the properties of flowers and herbs and stones. She wanted her to throw her hair over her shoulder and giggle at the boys trailing behind her.
    “I’ll tell you my secret if you tell me yours,” Alex offered.
    “No offense, but your secrets hover over the heads of the newburies in the vestibule every morning.”
    “Not all of them.”
    Skye considered this. “Fine.” She spun on her heel.
    Alex stared at Skye’s back. “Why did you turn around?”
    “I can’t look at you while we do this.”
    “Why?”
    “Just because. You go first. I’m not sure you have a