Read Online State of Grace by Hilary Badger - Free Book Online Page B

with me.’
    ‘You want cherries?’
    ‘And apricots.’ Gil smiles. ‘Please.’
    Brook shoots me one more look before wheeling around and disappearing in the direction of the orchard.
    ____________________
    Obviously me and Gil aren’t just walking. He has something particular in mind, so he takes me somewhere special, to a bunch of magnolia trees with glossy green leaves and a pond in the middle. Blaze’s pond, which in the late afternoon isn’t glowing yet.
    ‘How did you know about this place?’
    ‘I looked for it, after Blaze mentioned it.’ Gil smiles. ‘At least, Brook looked for it. We like to know everything that goes on.’
    We bash through the trees and Gil says over his shoulder, ‘Dot’s definitely created more spectacular things.’
    From which I figure out Gil hasn’t seen the pond glowing. As in, he’s missed the point of it completely.
    ‘You took one today, I assume.’
    A capsule, Gil means. And by asking that Gil is telling me that what I thought was going to happen really is going to happen.
    ‘As if I wouldn’t!’
    The capsules are what makes it safe for us to hook up all the time. I keep my bottle beside my bed. The bottle’s green but the capsules inside are see-through, filled with multicoloured balls that rattle around when you shake them. I take mine as soon as I wake up, the same way I’ve done ever since I was created. The bottle’s the first thing I see when I open my eyes – if I spend the night in my own hut, that is.
    Capsules are just one thing that the Books say about hooking up. There’s also stuff about all creations having natural desires and how it’s fine in Dot’s eyes to hook up with whoever you want, as often as you want. It’s not like we have to hook up once a day or anything like that though. It’s just about having fun and being happy.
    ‘I’m surprised Dot’s never wanted you and me to do this before.’
    Gil has his hand on my shoulders and I know he wants me to sit down. So I do. The green grass at our feet is long and soft and littered with glossy leaves that the trees all around us have dropped. Gil pulls me onto his lap so our faces are close enough to touch. I creep my hands across his back, the way I know he wants me to. The way Dot wants me to. My fingers find nubbly things underneath his skin and across his shoulders. Gil closes his eyes. I feel his lips against my cheek. He wants to hook up, that’s obvious. It’s just, I’m not sure I do.
    For one there’s the way Gil feels,all cold to the touch. His snake-lips are thin and papery as a page of one of Julius’s prenormal books. Dry too, which explains why he’s always licking them. I notice all these things about Gil because our first kiss isn’t one you lose yourself in or anything. What I mean is, I don’t start kissing Gil then suddenly look up and see the sun’s gone down and nighttime’s here. Every rotation of his head, every time our teeth clank, I notice it all.
    ‘This is nice,’ Gil says. ‘Very dotly.’
    That’s when I get it. I finally figure out what’s going on with those dreams. Those people and places aren’t real, just like I always thought. I’m seeing them because Dot wants to test me. That’s why she made them up and planted them in my head. Some creations are dotly and some are predotly, and Dot wants me to prove to her which one I am.
    If I were a less dotly person, the wide-awake dreams might make me doubt my faith in Dot. Maybe that’s what’s going on with Blaze. It could be that he’s predotly.
    Not me, though. I’m absolutely, definitely, one hundred per cent dotly. I’m going to show Dot my faith’s unshakable. I’m going to show her I believe .
    The best time to start, obviously, is right now. Gil has always been superdotly. So even if I’m not totally convinced I want to get close to Gil, I’m going to do it because it’s what Dot wants.
    I close my eyes. So far I’ve been kind of holding myself apart from Gil just a little bit,