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I’ve decided the S is for Star. Apollo’s star. Even if I never see her again, I will die with that truth on my body.
My mother talks to me now. She’s not like she used to be before Ellie died, but sometimes I even catch her smiling to herself. And sometimes she smiles at me, too. Those days give me hope, too. Maybe she’ll kill him, I think. Then I hear them, making the sounds that tell me she’s not going to kill him.
She’s more involved in running the town. She goes with him on his monthly supply runs now, too. Those are days I have come to dread.
The first time they went on their run after my public shaming, he chained me to the post in front of the house.
I’d had a blistering sunburn by the time they came back. So, next time, Mama asked if they could chain me instead to a tree with a big leafy shade. He agreed. I wish they’d left me in the sun. I couldn’t do anything but scream when ants crawled all over me and started to bite me.
Ms. Grover, the old lady who makes all of the cheese in the town, heard me.
She came and poured water on my legs to get rid of them and then drowned the anthill. I watched them wash away, and all I could think was how Apollo would be sad to see them die.
Ms. Grover begged me not to mention it to Jeremiah. Of course, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t wish his special brand of attention on anyone.
The only place I find anything worth living for is in my dreams. I get to see Apollo and relive the stories in the books that we shared. We lie in our hammock and watch the gods in the book of Greek myths act out their stories for us. My dreams have become the escape that my book had been. And thanks to Apollo, I have a lot more.
So, when I hear my mother’s voice barreling through tonight’s dream just as Zeus is about to turn his love Io into a cow, I groan and put my pillow over my head and pray I’m still dreaming
.
“Graham, honey, you have to wake up now.” When her familiar tea and mint tinged breath wafts into my nostrils, I groan again—this time, in defeat.
Even though in my dreams, Apollo and I lie down facing each other, close enough for our noses to touch and I’ve never smelled her breath. Apollo’s hair always smelled like strawberries, but in my dreams … nothing.
I miss her so much.
“Graham. I need you to wake up.”
I open my eyes to find my mother’s face is inches from mine.
She’s holding a flashlight between us. The shadows give her face a ghoulish shape. Her eyes are … different. For years, they’ve just been sad. Or panicked or blank. But now, there’s something urgent in them that wakes me up.
I sit up and realize that the shackle around my wrist is gone. “What’s going on?”
She moves down to the shackle around my ankle, and with the slip of a key, she unlocks it. “We’re leaving,” she whispers as she looks over her shoulder at the closed bedroom door.
“Now.”
Freedom
Graham
Those words clear away the cobwebs of sleep in my brain, and I sit up with a start.
“What do you mean?” I forget to lower my voice, and she winces and looks back at the door.
“Please, be quiet.” Her whisper is desperate. She presses two fingers to my lips and gives me a warning glare.
She reaches down to the floor beside where she’s kneeling and pulls a rucksack onto my bed.
“The police are coming tomorrow. Somehow, he knows. He’s planning on poisoning everyone tomorrow morning at breakfast. I’ve given him something to make him sleep. You and I are going to leave tonight.”
My heart starts to race, my pulse thrashes loudly in my ears. I put my feet on the floor and stare in disbelief. We’re leaving. He’s going to poison breakfast. I turn to look at her.
“What about everybody else?”
She ignores me. “It’s dark, so you need to pay attention.” She puts the backpack into my lap.
