Grace by Elizabeth Scott Page A

water?’ and she smiled and shook her head and pressed up against me even though she was shaking with fear. Even though we both knew she didn’t want to be near me.”
    “Because of who you are.”
    He smiles at me, starlight showing a quick glimpse of teeth, of his mouth curled feral. “Yes,” he says. “Because of who I am. What I did. The Minister of Defense wrote a poem celebrating my accomplishments after I got out of the hospital. He read it to me while he had people pull Mary out of the wardrobe. He’d found her there two days before I came home—he didn’t believe that I didn’t know who’d tried to kill me, and he knew where to look—but he waited until I was there to take her out. The Minister said he knew I’d want to see how I’d managed to kill her.”
    “And you watched him pull her body out?”
    And after that, he’d watched Keran Berj hang her corpse.
    “Of course,” he says. “I know what happens when you don’t obey. You die. I know that better than anyone, don’t I?”

CHAPTER 33
    I look at him. “Don’t you see that’s why there has to be change? All Keran Berj brings is death. You know that. You just said so.”
    “And what will your People do?” he says, staring at me. “What changes will they bring? What did they do to you when you didn’t obey? When you didn’t die like they wanted? ”
    “They didn’t kill me. And they don’t teach children to kill their parents.”
    “You’re right,” he says. “They just left you behind instead, made it so your only choice was Christaphor and then me. And of course they teach children to kill others, or kill themselves and others. Isn’t that what you learned? What you were?”
    Yes.
    I sit silently for a moment and then spit out, “Why didn’t you do what Mary would have wanted you to?”
    He looks away then. “You already know I don’t want to die. Isn’t that why we’re both here? ”
    “No, not that and you—you know what I mean. Why didn’t you kill Keran Berj? ”
    “I . . . what change would that bring? You think his death would truly make this world different?” He blows out a breath, closing his eyes briefly.
    “You tried to do it,” I say, shocked. “You did try to do it and you failed, didn’t you? That’s why you’re really here.”
    “I didn’t try to kill Keran Berj,” he says, his voice brittle. “I wanted the Minister of Defense to die because he—I wanted him to die, and he did. I got up one night, got out the pistol Keran Berj gave him for his birthday, woke him up, and shot him.”
    “You . . . you lived with him?”
    “He was my guardian.” Jerusha says. “He was the one who helped me write what I’d heard my parents say for Keran Berj. He came to their house, ate dinner with them, and then asked if he could take me for a walk. He sat me down on the bench by Keran Berj’s statue in Berj Park and said he’d been given my letter. He said he was proud of me, that he could tell I was special, and that he’d help me with my letter, make it better.”
    “So he—”
    “No,” Jerusha says. “I wanted to do it. I didn’t want to leave home and go somewhere far away. I wanted to stay in school with my friends. I wanted to be like Keran Berj said he was. So I wrote down everything the Minister told me to and when my parents were arrested I stood next to Keran Berj and told them they were bad for wanting to leave.”
    He touches my arm and when I flinch, he lets out a little sigh. “That’s exactly what Mary did when I told her the story. That’s how I knew she came from the People. Every girl Keran sent me had that response trained out of her. He’s good at it, wants to keep all their fear for himself. But Mary was—there was still something real about her. Inside her. She believed in things and I . . . I wanted that for myself. Just for a little while.”
    Like she was a thing. Like she wasn’t a person. I wonder if anyone has ever been real to him and a shudder travels across