Read Online Thorn Jack by Katherine Harbour - Free Book Online Page A

diminish his looks.
    â€œHe’s a Fata.” Christie’s mouth curled, and, since she’d never seen him react with scorn to anything—even Angyll Weaver—she became intrigued.
    â€œAre they all genetically blessed, the Fatas?”
    â€œA fire killed his family in Europe a while ago. He grew up with the Fatas. They’re his cousins.”
    â€œIs that Nathan Clare?” Sylvie had arrived. She sat on the picnic table, opened her bento box, and popped a rice ball into her mouth. “He’s lovely, isn’t he? Like the whole damn Fata family—I suspect genetic engineering.”
    Finn, gazing after Nathan Clare, couldn’t imagine losing both parents at once.
    â€œTERROR AND AWE.” PROFESSOR FAIRCHILD, who taught Gothic Literature, leaned against his desk, looking as if he’d just gotten out of bed. He had the face of a poet and a British accent and didn’t seem to notice the avid gazes of some of his students. With his constant air of distraction, he didn’t seem to notice much outside of a book. Finn suspected he didn’t even have a TV.
    â€œThese emotions, combined, create the sublime, something sadly absent in modern life. Can anyone describe the sublime in other terms?”
    Nathan Clare, it turned out, had also chosen this class, the last one of the day. So had his friend Aubrey Drake, but Aubrey seemed to be paying more attention to the leaves fluttering past the windows. Nathan looked up from his notebook, the lecture hall’s fluorescents shining in his curls. “The sublime is a terror of something you love, something that could destroy you or save you.”
    â€œThank you, Mr. Clare. And is there anything”—Fairchild addressed the entire class—“that makes us truly feel such nowadays?”
    â€œReligion?” someone said.
    â€œDrugs.”
    â€œSex.”
    â€œMy mom.”
    â€œThat’s so inappropriate, Drake.”
    â€œI meant that in a ‘something you love that could destroy you’ kind of way.”
    â€œYou see”—Fairchild’s gaze fell upon Finn, who had not said a word—“we’ve become a race of cynics. How can the dreadful, the venerable, the sacred and sublime, reveal themselves to our dulled minds? We are no longer capable of experiencing the possibilities of otherworldliness. Cynicism, not science, has killed our divinities.”
    â€œYou mean our being snarky has shot down our gods?”
    â€œThank you, Mr. Drake. You have, just now, made my point.”
    THE SUN HAD DECIDED TO make an appearance, red and sullen and descending, as Finn walked home with Christie—Sylvie had biked to work at her parents’ shop. Beneath a scarlet hoodie, Christie’s clothes were more rumpled than usual and he seemed distracted. Finn began to approach the subject of his messiness when someone hollered at them from across the road.
    Christie turned. “Fantastic.”
    Three figures were walking steadily toward them: a pale-haired boy, a girl with black-and-gold hair, and a tall boy whose long dark hair was streaked with blue. The Rooks. As they drew closer, the girl smiled. The blond boy was expressionless, hands shoved in his pockets.
    Finn sighed, annoyed, as the tall boy stepped forward. He wore Christie’s woolen hat, and his coat was lined with black feathers. The slighter boy wore a necklace of them, and the girl’s hair was plaited with more plumage—they seemed to take their birdlike family name very seriously. Finn could see the crazy on them now.
    The tall boy jabbed a thumb at the girl, who pouted. “Hip Hop has issues with you, Hart.”
    â€œReally?” Christie tilted his head and Finn sighed as he continued, “Maybe she shouldn’t assume things.”
    The tall boy smiled, revealing a diamond in one tooth. “You’ve made my sister feel bad. Now, I’m gonna make you feel bad.”
    Christie tugged on