Chapter 16: What Felicity Saw

I went down in Ash's flannel and my bare feet.

Ash came behind me with his jeans on and nothing else, and he stopped on the porch steps.

Felicity stood in the frost on the lawn with her hands pushed deep in her coat pockets.

Her honey-blonde hair had come loose from its pins.

"Did Mom let you out?" I said.

"I climbed down the trellis." She tried to smile. "I haven't done that since I was twelve."

"Your heart."

"I took my pills. I'm fine. Please, let me say it."

I folded my arms.

The cold bit at my legs, and I didn't go back inside.

"The night of our first shift," she said. "I was in the circle's back row, with a blanket on my shoulders."

"I'd already collapsed on the field. They'd carried me over to watch you."

"I know where you were."

"You put your hand on the Stone, and it lit up so bright I couldn't look at it."

Her voice shook.

"And I was so glad."

I felt that one in my stomach.

"I thought, thank God, it isn't me. I can't carry that. I'm not strong enough."

"Then Dad pulled your hand off, and he looked across the circle at me."

"What did he say?"

"He didn't say anything. He just looked at me, and I knew."

"I could have stood up. I could have said, it's Sigrid, it's always been Sigrid. I had my chance."

She wiped her face with the back of her wrist.

"So I sat still. I've been sitting still ever since."

"Why?"

"Because everyone was already looking at me like I might die," she said. "And suddenly they were looking at me like I mattered."

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