Gypsy (The Cavy Files Book 1) Read Free

slumps into the grass and mud, trying its best to bury itself alongside the era that constructed it. I nudge a clump of mangled earth and gray pebbles with my toe, resting my elbows on my knees. The sun has crested in the sky, signaling lunchtime, but I’m not really hungry.
    I squint up at the glowing ball. “Don’t you have training soon?”
    “Every day. It coincides with your nap time, doesn’t it?” She bumps my knee with hers.
    “I like to mix it up. Sometimes I take a walk down by the boathouse or paddle one of the canoes out on the river.” Most days, while the Operationals, Substantials and Developmental are working on honing and maximizing their mutated genetics, I choose the water.
    I drift and think about how, when Edward Darley built this plantation, the river was the road. It ferried visitors from neighboring homes, and the family rode it to their house in the city.
    There’s a question that lives inside me, restless and separate. It feels like a dragon breathing fire, molten words that spurt into my belly while the canoe rocks gently: What would happen if I oared past our property line and into Charleston?
    I’m not like the others, after all; I could hide out there in the world. No one would know what I can do, not unless I tell them.
    But I stay. And the dragon seethes.
    I want to change the subject. My afternoons are mine, and I like them that way. “How’s training? Manage to walk through anything solid yet?”
    Her face glows. “Yes. I stuck my arm through a door the other day.”
    “What? Why didn’t you tell me? That’s amazing!”
    Whether or not our mutations can be developed has been a pet project of the Philosopher’s and one of the reasons for our tests and our ever-changing holistic medicine regiment. Potential progress from any Cavy might mean my own ability could evolve into something useful, but I’m not holding my breath.
    “I don’t know. It was just my arm, I couldn’t get all the way through. And it’s one of those old doors. It’s half faded into history already.”
    “It’s amazing, ” I reassure her softly. Because it is. Jealousy and pride wrestle inside me, neither winning, neither losing. I’m used to not being able to decide.
    She shrugs, then gets up to stretch, but the sparkle in her dark eyes betrays her pleasure. Her feet disappear, then come back. She repeats the exercise with her shins, then her knees, followed by her thighs, vanishing one section at a time until she’s doing a convincing impression of the Headless Horseman, which never fails to freak me out. I don’t think she realizes she’s doing it—melting away pieces then bringing them back before doing another chunk was the first assignment she’d conquered, and now it’s like comfort food.
    It’s her tell. She’s got something on her mind, something more than training.
    “What’s going on?” The quiet, unsettled feeling breaks free of her restraints and tweaks my nerve endings.
    “Nothing. I have a weird feeling, that’s all.”
    “Are you still thinking about that guy who showed up here last week?”
    We had a stranger at Darley, the first one since any of us came to live here. He claimed to be lost, and the Philosopher let him charge his phone before giving him a map and directions to Magnolia, another plantation situated several miles down the river. Haint’s the only one who laid eyes on the stranger, because we’ve been instructed and drilled on the proper procedures should a stranger ever wander onto the property. They boil down to one thing—stay invisible. Haint’s the only one who can accomplish that but still be wherever she wants, and her penchant for eavesdropping is legendary. Maybe it comes with the territory, because who could resist?
    The man was middle-aged and alone, she reported. Handsome, tall, disheveled, and sporting a pair of eyeballs that never quit moving. Even with his jeans, T-shirt, Windbreaker, and sneakers—typical attire for plantation