Friday, October 11, 2013

Mythology:The Wicked excerpt



“Right now I need you to measure souls like a guardian.”
I’ve done it lots of times before. It was one of the first things that Jonathan taught me to do after I transformed, and it has always come relatively easily to me.
Glad to give my attention to something else, I concentrate until I feel crackly dry heat right behind my eyes. Jonathan once told me that every guardian perceives a soul’s state a little differently; the way I see it is in the whites of someone’s eyes. Through experimentation and comparison, we determined that white means a healthy or “intact” soul while damage to me looks like jaundice of varying degrees.
Jonathan clears his throat, and when I look over at him, he makes a gesture with his hand. Like he’s waving me out there.
“What?” I say, my eyes widening.
 “Pick one of them to save and cast your protection.”
My glance sweeps through the mourners again before coming to rest back on Jonathan. “You’re serious?”
“Perfectly,” he says patiently. “Choose one.”
He rests his elbows on his knees and looks down at his clasped hands. Apparently, today’s lesson starts now.

I get up and move away from him, weaving through the people who are mingling in the reception area and some who have already migrated into the chapel. He wants me to “choose one,” huh?



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