Read Online Under a Painted Sky by Stacey Lee - Free Book Online Page A

That’s the sound of the wind passing through the broken harp and blowing the prince’s blood to the moon.” She leans back on her hands and squints at the sky.
    â€œWhat’s it all mean?” Cay asks.
    â€œWhat do you think it means?” asks Andy.
    Cay rubs his whiskers. “Never trust a monk?”
    â€œDon’t take stuff that don’t belong to you,” ventures Peety.
    â€œThat’s not it, you dummies,” says West. “He forgot to listen to the harp. The music was all around him at the end, but he got too greedy.”
    â€œWhat do you think, Chinito?” asks Peety, using the word for “China boy.”
    Everyone looks at me. “Well,” I say, still mulling over the story, which reminds me of Icarus, whose wings melted off when he flew too close to the sun. “It’s a parable of caution. The story represents man’s struggle with others, nature, and ultimately himself, which is the hardest one of all. The prince didn’t understand he was fighting himself until it was too late.”
    No one’s looking at me anymore. West crosses his arms. I’m close enough to see the gooseflesh on his skin.
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    One by one, the boys start to nod off. I wait until I hear them breathing deeply, then scoot closer to Andy. “Was that a story from your ancestors?”
    â€œNah. I made it up.”
    â€œIt’s a good one.”
    She smiles. “Tommy, my little brother, needed stories to help him get to the end of the day. Isaac and I took turns telling ’em.”
    â€œYou followed classic Greek story structure. I’m impressed.”
    â€œBest stories are the ones everyone can see themselves in. But you explained that meaning real well.”
    I thank Father for that, and also Pépère, my Sorbonneeducated grandfather, who passed everything he knew to his adopted son, who in turn taught me. Such an education was typically saved for males from reputable families, but Father didn’t care. Studying was one of the ways to improve one’s station in life, along with doing good deeds. He schooled me in music, philosophy, history, language, and, of course, literature.
    â€œYou done real well today,” Andy says softly, halfway to dreamland already.
    My stomach turns in loops as I once again worry about the journey ahead. “The Little Blue’s only a day away,” I whisper. “Maybe I should’ve bargained for farther.”
    â€œWe’ll think of something.” She sighs.

9

    SLEEP DOES NOT COME EASY TO ME, BUT BEFORE I know it, I awake to the sound of male laughter and the tantalizing smell of bacon. Scrambling to sit up, I try to make sense of where I am. West’s brown eyes pin me like a bug from where he sits two yards away near the fire, chewing a fingernail. I stretch my eyes back down the trail. If the deputy’s still after us, he hasn’t caught up yet.
    At least the wind has died, leaving behind a morning crisp as a water chestnut.
    â€œIt’s gonna be a good day,” says Cay, wiping tears of laughter from his face. He gestures in front of him, then rests his hand on the top of his head. “Bacon in the pan and a Mexican fried egg.”
    Twenty paces away, Peety helps Andy off the ground, cursing loud enough for me to hear his Spanish. The great gray mare stands beside them.
    â€œWhat happened?” I ask, my alarm raising the pitch of my voice to girlish levels.
    â€œOur wrangler’s introducing your friend to the remuda,” says Cay.
    I yank on my boots. “The remuda?”
    â€œWhat we call our horses. That gray one he just fell off is Peety’s Andalusian, Lupe, and she’s the easy one.”
    West stops biting his nail and flicks his finger to the sky. “He ain’t hurt.”
    Sure enough, Andy brushes off her trousers and says something to Peety. His curses stop abruptly. Andy marches back to us, arms swinging