Hare Moon Read Online Free PDF Page A

to make her theirs.
    “How did your father die?” Her voice is defeated.
    Patrick slowly walks toward her, she can feel when he’s just behind her. When he inhales, his chest brushes against her back and she closes her eyes, aching for him to take his finger and run it up her spine.
    “He was infected,” he says softly.
    She clears her throat. She will not sound weak. “How?” she asks.
    “A woman from another village. They checked her over when she arrived, but she’d hidden the bite by cutting off her own finger. They thought it was under control after my father got infected, that they could keep it from spreading farther, but …”
    Tabitha winces. “But your brother? And you?” She thinks about the book in the basement, the story of her village scribbled in the cramped margins of the words of God. It’s the way her world has always been.
    “He’s not infected, Tabby,” Patrick says. “Nor am I. I promise.”
    “The rest of your village?” She clenches her fists tighter and prays to God, Please, just this once, let the answer be what I need it to be . She’s been a loyal believer for so long, all she asks is for this one small token in return.
    “Chaos,” he says simply. “My mother shoved my brother into my arms and told me to save him. I ran to you.”
    She clenches her teeth to stop from crying out.
    She turns to face him. “Do you love me?” she asks.
    His expression softens and his lips part. “More than anything,” he says, stroking her cheek with the back of his fingers.
    She feels the tears in her eyes. She doesn’t want to give up on the dream of running away with him. She doesn’t want to turn back to her village and its claustrophobic fences and rules.
    But Patrick has asked for her help and she loves him. “Then I will help you,” she says.

    As planned, Patrick and his brother stay on the path until darkness falls and wraps itself thickly around the village. Tabitha spends the hours kneeling in the Sanctuary. Her lips tremble as she prays, the words hollow in her heart.
    When she’s sure no one will see them, Tabitha leads Patrick and his brother into the Cathedral. The boys is wide-eyed, astounded by the warren of hallways and the soaring Sanctuary. She takes them to her room and tells them she must leave them there.
    “I have duties,” she says. She doesn’t know why it’s so hard for her to meet Patrick’s eyes. Maybe it’s because he’s sitting on the bed. Her bed where she’s dreamt of him and thought of his fingertips sliding along the back of her calves to her knees.
    She shivers and looks down at her hands. If the boy weren’t there … would Patrick touch her like that when she returned?
    “We’ll be okay,” Patrick says. His little brother sits next to him on the bed, silent.
    “I’ll try to bring food,” she says. Patrick nods. She find it strange for him to be here in the Cathedral, with its sharp stone walls and ceilings, rather than on the path with the fresh air and the leaves and the light and the freedom.
    Tabitha walks to Midnight Office, welcoming the silence of thoughts.

    Tonight she’s slow with her prayers. Ami and Ruth kneel beside her, their heads bowed, but she sees them glance at her and then at each other. She knows they sense that something is wrong, but she keeps her fingers twined tight and her lips moving in praise of God and doesn’t allow her friends the chance to interrupt.
    When she goes back to her room there’s a promise of morning in the air, the sweetness of grass and dew. She slips open the door and Patrick is asleep under her blankets.
    The hare moon is still in the sky somewhere, allowing her to see his face. She stands for a bit, the moans of the Unconsecrated threading through the fences as she stares. He sleeps with his lips parted, one hand thrown out to the side as if waiting for her to slip her fingers into his.
    It’s as though he cares for nothing. Has no fears.
    Tabitha knows she herself sleeps curled around