Altered Read Online Free Page B

wanting to avoid me.
    That doesn’t mean I am going to let her.

THREE
    I GLANCE AT THE SIGN HANGING ON a post by the door: THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. Curious indeed. After a few moments navigating the store, I see no signs of life, but what I do find holds my attention: relics from a forgotten world, particularly an old radio. I forget my quest and stare at it, tentatively reaching out to touch its buttons, but it’s as dead as the one hidden in the secret cubby in my parents’ home. A product of yesterday, and nothing more.
    I’ll have lost Valery completely by now, if it was even her at all, so I linger in the store and riffle through the books, knocking years of dust off them. A copy of Shakespeare’s sonnets catches my eye. I read it over and over as a child, stealing it from the stash of contraband in my parents’ room. We had a few books, and if my parents minded my reading them, they certainly never said anything. I understand now how precious they were, and more than anything I want to take this volume with me. I couldn’t protect those books. I couldn’t protect my parents, but I can have a piece of them again.
    “Not many young people are interested in books these days,” a raspy voice says. A face, lined and gaunt, follows the words, appearing in the doorway. The woman limps over, resting against a cane, and I notice that one of her feet is made of steel and wood.
    “My parents had it,” I tell her. “I read it as a child.”
    “Quite the luxury,” she says. “Books
and
having the time to teach your child to read.”
    I pause, not sure how to respond. This conversation is heading in a dangerous direction. Many of the Icebox’s inhabitants are refugees, but that doesn’t make it any safer to admit I am one myself.
    “Keep it,” she offers.
    “I couldn’t,” I say. “Not without paying.”
    The shop owner seems to grow an inch at the mention of payment. She can’t do much business selling radios that don’t work and books that can’t be read.
    “I don’t have any money though,” I admit.
    “Well,” she mutters, shaking her head, “at least you can read.”
    “I have this,” I say, unlatching an earring. I only offer her one, because I know the emeralds in the pair are real and because I know the boys will be furious if I come back missing both. We’ve been hawking our possessions strategically and we’ve been saving the earrings until we have a plan for getting back to Arras and need real money.
    “You’re either proud or an idiot,” she says, but she accepts the earring. “Look around, take some more of this junk off my hands. An emerald for a book isn’t a fair trade, child.”
    I pocket the sonnets and consider asking for the radio, but purely out of nostalgia. It will do us no good, and I’ll be forced to abandon it as soon as we are on the move again. Instead I trail my fingers along the dusty spines of books. The books my parents kept were full of stories and poetry, but many of the books on these shelves recall the history of Earth. It’s the information I’ve been seeking. This woman has been collecting it for me, safeguarding the information against the entropy that envelops so much of this world. I wonder how many generations of owners stacked these shelves and traded the past before her.
    The tinkle of a bell interrupts my thoughts, and I turn quickly to the door to see who has entered. In my haste, I knock a few books off the shelf, but the old woman has vanished into the recesses of the shop, so I retrieve them quickly before she notices. Jost appears at my side, looking decidedly displeased.
    “What was that about?” he demands, not bothering to bend down and help me.
    “Valery. I couldn’t let her disappear,” I say, stacking the books neatly. “But I lost her, and this was the only shop open—”
    He stops me. “Your earring.” My hand flies to my naked earlobe, but it’s too late to cover it up.
    “I traded it,” I admit in a low voice, but