Across the Universe Read Online Free PDF Page B

trees.
                  It moves again, to my left, like a shadow so thick it could block out the sun. I switch course and barrel toward it, but catch my foot on an exposed root. I go down with a thud, landing sprawled out on the forest floor with my nose buried in dirt.
                  Two strong arms wrap across my chest and pull me to my feet, and I struggle and fight against them until I realize it’s Noah. I turn into him and bury my face into his shoulder. He smells of oak and spices and everything that The House lacks, and I want to stay there forever. His hand tangles itself in my hair and gently pulls me away until we meet each other’s eyes.
                  There, again, over his shoulder, darts a black-clothed figure. I am torn from Noah’s intense gaze and stumble through the trees in search of what I see. Noah follows me, crashing through the brush and fauna.
                  I break out from the edge of the woods back onto the beach, the sand sucking my toes back into its depths. Noah knocks into my back, stealing the breath from my lungs as I stare out at the lake.
                  There, near the tide, stand three cloaked figures. Each one is hooded in black, causing their faces to recede into the darkness of the fabric. The hands that dangle from their sleeves are rotten and skeletal. At the sight of them I’m filled with dread, as if my stomach has been dipped in ice water. Chills course over my skin and sickness wells up in my throat. I can’t explain it, but part of me knows: these things are wrong , out of place, and something to be feared. I take one step toward the beings but in that time they notice me, and suddenly they are smoke in the wind, blowing up and up and away into the night, disappearing past the moon and onward into the universe beyond.
                  “What the hell were those things?” Noah asks. “Are they members of The House, like you?”
                  “No, they’re not,” I reply.
                  He adjusts his glasses, struggling to draw air back into his lungs after the exertion of his run. “They turned to smoke like you. What else could they be?”
                  I round on him, anger bubbling up my throat and cancelling out the bile. “You think I’m like them? They’re awful, I could feel it! And you think they’re like me? The House would never let those—things—into its quarters, and even if they did, I’d know about it, wouldn’t I?”
                  Noah takes a step back, holding his hands up in front of him in surrender. “Sorry I asked. I just—well—people don’t turn into smoke that often around here, okay? What am I supposed to think?”
                  I stomp off through the sand, the mix of emotions coursing through me leaving me unable to focus. “You’re supposed to think—I don’t know! Not what you just did! After all I told you, you think you’d have a better idea of who I am.”
                  Noah replies, but I don’t hear his words. I slam my eyes shut and focus on The House, anywhere but here, and I am a swirling cloud of smoke floating into the atmosphere.
                  When I dare to look out again I see Nim asleep in the corner, leaning against the wall, and the orb holding my universe floating serenely in the basin in front of me. There are no hooded figures or befuddled boys to deal with, and yet I find my skin prickling.
                  I am not the only one that turns to smoke in the night, and whoever the cloaked figures are, I need to find out why they came for me.

Chapter Five
     
                  By the time I return, half the torches in the Watch Room are extinguished. Nim is asleep in the corner, her head resting against the wall. I take the orb my universe rests in out of the basin and the sound of my fingers brushing the bowl