The Seeker - Isobelle Carmody [54]
I quickly closed the door on the cabinet, the forgotten letters falling from my lap. There was no time to reopen the cupboard and replace them, so I thrust them in the narrow space beneath it and crept to the edge of the hinged shelves. My heart pounded at the knowledge that I was trapped.
But the voices faded without anyone coming into the doctor’s chamber. Relieved, I waited until the voices had faded completely and then made my way back to my own room as fast as I could. Twice I had to conceal myself as older Misfits passed. By the time I was in my own bed, I was soaked with sweat and dizzy with fatigue. But even as I drifted to sleep, I seemed to see Selmar’s dead eyes, gazing emptily at me.
I slept only two hours before being wakened. I had missed firstmeal, and there was no chance to talk to Matthew and Dameon, for they had already been taken through the maze to the farms. Nor had I any opportunity to speak to them at midmeal, for there were other people clustering about them. Too tired to eat, I stretched out in a patch of shade and slept, waking only when everyone was returning to their labor.
It was not until nightmeal that I finally had the chance to speak with them, but before I could whisper my news, Matthew leaned across the table and told me softly that the new Misfit was sitting at the next table. I looked where he had indicated, and my exhaustion fell away in my shock, for I knew that face.
It was Rosamunde! She seemed to sense my gaze and looked up. As I had expected, she recognized me. What I did not expect was the look of blank bitterness she gave me.
18
IT WAS SEVERAL days before I had the opportunity to speak to Rosamunde.
After that first meal, she did not come to the same sitting. I only saw her from a distance on the farms once or twice; then at last, one midmeal I saw her come out of a barn to collect her lunch. I followed and sat down beside her.
“What do you want?” she asked listlessly.
“Do you know me?” I said in a low voice.
“You are Elspeth Gordie,” she said flatly.
Bewildered by her manner, I leaned closer and asked, “Is it Jes? Has something happened to him?”
“I don’t want to talk to you,” Rosamund said dully.
I bit my lip and suppressed an urge to shake her. “He would not have let you come here alone. He cared about you,” I said. Her face trembled with some feeling, so I pressed her. “He’s my brother. You must tell me if he’s all right.”
She looked away from me. “Leave me alone,” she whispered.
“I know that you denounced me,” I said, desperate to get a response from her.
Her face paled a little. “You knew?” Then the bitterness I had seen that first day in the kitchen returned to her eyes. “Of course you knew. You read my mind. I should have guessed you were like him,” she said colorlessly.
I reeled at her words. “Are you saying that Jes can read your mind?” I said at last.
She gave a heavy sigh. “All right. I might as well tell you everything, though I wonder why you don’t just read my mind and find out for yourself.”
I glanced around uneasily, but no one was close enough to have heard what she was saying.
She looked up at me with sudden pathetic appeal, and for a second I saw the old Rosamunde. “You know, we were so happy in the beginning, before he found out what he was. It didn’t matter about us being orphans, because soon we would get Normalcy Certificates. Then the boy came. Harald.” The deadness returned to her features.
“Who was he?” I prompted.
“Just a boy, but somehow he was different from the rest of us. Nobody liked him much, because he would speak when he ought to have stayed silent, or he would refuse to do something or argue with a Herder. You could see he would never get a Certificate. Jes didn’t like him any more than I did, to begin with. Then all of a sudden, they were the greatest friends. I couldn’t understand it. But when I asked