Marie's Journey (Ginecean Chronicles) Read Online Free PDF Page A

her long, fair hair almost brushed the floor, moving in sync with the wavering lights. Everybody applauded something the elder had just said and she did the same, looking right and left to get an idea of what they were doing. Madame Carla wasn’t big on formalities and the elders at the Institute never had any propensity for them, either. The intensity in this elder’s voice and her regal appearance intimidated Marie. A priestess-in-training syndrome it was called. A joke, a cruel, cheap expression used by pure breeds when they wanted to put a fathered woman back in her rightful place: way beneath them. But the expression did come to Marie’s mind in regard of the long-haired beauty talking to the apprentices as if they were garbage. You aren’t better than us, just older, she thought and then, with a hint of malice on her mind, added, You’ll never be anything else . Just a fathered woman like me. Apparently, she was the only one who wasn’t focused on the elder’s words. Four or five more bursts of applause and another elder, a slightly less exalted copy of the first, took her spot to tell the first story of the night.
    Marie liked to hear a good tale like anybody else and her eyes and focus zeroed in on the newcomer.
    “Darlene is one of the best storytellers. You’ll see.” Cina elbowed Marie. “I’m sure you’ve never heard anybody so good.”
    Cina wasn’t exaggerating. Darlene had a gift. The whole time the elder spoke, not a single breath was heard. Darlene’s voice was pleasant enough, but the quality of the narration was what kept everybody glued to the story she slowly unraveled. “What a complicated plot, and with so many characters.” Marie shook her head in awe, unable to shush her inner thoughts. “She sure has a great imagination.”
    “It’s said she’s friends with the captain…”
    “Oh, do you mean…?” Marie lowered her voice to a whisper.
    “I mean what you’re thinking. Darlene has special permission to watch TV with her pure breed friend.”
    “I’d give anything to watch a TV show again.” Marie had a glimpse of a television show once and sighed at the memory. Madame Carla installed the television for the pure breeds who occasionally visited the Institute to snatch promising fathered girls. Although usually locked, during one of those visits, someone left the television room open and she snuck in and turned on the big screen. She had reverently taken the remote control in her hands and flickered through channels until she had found the program she was looking for. She had loved every one of the four minutes the wondrous experience had lasted before a pure breed caught her and sent her away. In her mind, she still played the photograms over and over, adding parts to the story she imagined happened right before and after those four minutes. It was a historical show. The actresses wore beautiful dresses and there was a duel being fought over a wife’s stained honor. The pure breed had showed up at the exact moment the pistols shot. Marie had begged the woman to let her see the end. Still to this day, she didn’t know who had died because of the gunshot. Marie’s malcontent toward pure breeds and what they stood for probably took form that day.
    “Me too,” both Cina and Laila commented, bringing Marie back to the present.
    Verena was silent. Marie noticed how the girl watched Darlene as if she were the last drop of water in the desert and felt sympathy for her. She knew exactly how that story was going to end, with Verena’s heart broken. It wasn’t uncommon that fathered girls, especially if beautiful, chose to elevate their lives by attracting pure breeds’ attentions. It normally meant a job inside that pure breed’s family and a series of privileges that lasted as long as the fathered girl’s beauty stayed fresh. Not the life Marie would have wanted for herself, but good enough for many other fathered women. When you were born on the wrong side of the woman