The Chosen One Read Online Free PDF Page B

wondered. Rule my body? Is he the reason I want to stand so close to Joshua?
    “Kyra,” Joshua had said, when he saw me walking to meet him. His voice, low in the dark, headed straight for me and caught me somewhere in the heart.
    All the thoughts of what we shouldn’t be doing were gone.
    We whispered long into the night, sitting in the shadows of the Temple. His arm was around my shoulder. I petted his face like Mother does with Father.
    “I saw you today,” he said, “walking over to the Fellowship Hall with your music.”
    In the dark I grinned. “You shouldn’t watch me like that,” I said.
    He stretched his long legs out. Rested his head against mine.
    “Tell me,” I said. “Tell me when you notice me.”
    “All the time,” Joshua said. His breath was warm in the cool night air. I could hear him smiling.
    “Tell me when.”
    “Okay. Let me think.”
    I waited, wanting to stay like this forever. I wanted to be like this in the open. In the daytime. In front of others.
    “I notice you going into church,” Joshua said. “I notice your hair, how blond it is. But how in some light it looks like it has red in it. I notice the way you smell when we’re close. And the way you walk when we’re headed home from church and your family gets out of the Temple first. I notice how you are with your family and how you hold your little sisters.” He took a breath. “I’ve seen you stand out on your doorstep and look off across the desert. I’ve watched you walk toward the Compound fence and then on past that. You’ve been walking for years.”
    “You’ve noticed me for years?” This I can’t believe. I’m so pleased with the thought that Joshua noticed me early on, I can hardly stop smiling.
    “For a couple of years now, Kyra,” he said. “I notice you all the time.”
    I slung my arms around his neck, kissed his face all over.
    “Kyra,” he said and his voice was low. “Kyra, I want to Choose you.”
    “What?” My voice came out high in the night. Too loud for what we were doing. Loud enough to be found out.
    “I’m sixteen,” he said. “Almost old enough to make a Choice.”
    I dropped my arms from around his neck. “Well, not for three more years,” I said.
    “I’m not that far from seventeen,” Joshua said. “And two years will go fast after that. I’d work with my father. Raise money. Get us a place of our own.” He paused. Took my hands in his. “Would you let me Choose you?”
    In that moment a whole line of men, old men, went past in my head. Their mouths in O shapes, their eyes wandering like hands over some of us unmarried girls.
    “Would you Choose me, Kyra?” Joshua asked. His face was close to mine, his lips touching my face.
    “Yes,” I said. “Yes.”
     
     
    NOW JOSHUA HOLDS ME by the shoulders. “What do you mean?” he says.
    I tell him everything, everything.
    “Your uncle?” he says.
    I nod.
    “This isn’t good,” he says after a moment. “He’s an Apostle.”
    We stand quiet, me leaning against Joshua, the two of us swaying.
    “I have four Sundays,” I say. “Four.”
    Joshua nods. “I’ll think of something,” he says.
    And I believe him. For the first moment since the Prophet has made his announcement, I feel like maybe, maybe, I have a chance.
     
    __________
     
    IN THE MORNING I am awakened by Mother Sarah throwing up. The walls in this trailer are thin and I can hear her where I lie next to Laura, who snores beside me.
    I came in late, late. No one was awake. I found a note from Father on the kitchen table. “I will talk to them, Kyra,” it said.
    So now there are two people looking after me. Two people that I love.
    I crawl out of bed and hurry in to where Mother is. The bathroom smells of vomit.
    “Mother?” I reach for her. Her hair, braided long, trails like a snake on the bathroom floor. I can feel the bones of her back.
    “Go on to bed, baby,” Mother says. Her voice sounds hollow echoing up out of the toilet bowl. She glances