Curio Read Online Free Page A

wasn’t long before her classes at the Council Girls’ School covered Gregor Mendel’s theory of inheritance and the science of disease according to Pasteur, Koch, and Lister. With the lesson came an explanation of the Chemist Council’s regulations and dedication to monitoring the starvation trait passed down from the region’s settlers. If Mercury City, Colorado, were to be an example of health, industry, and morality to other cities, then nothing could interfere with the Chemists’ work.
    And Grey had no intention to. Until one afternoon almost a year ago, when Whit had sauntered around the corner onto Reinbar and headed toward their usual meeting spot. The blue of his Council School uniform deepened his eyes, and a smile tugged his lips the moment he caught sight of her. Her stomach fluttered and heat trailed over her skin. By the time he reached her, she could do nothing but stare at the ground, mentally measuring the gap between them. They walked home together as they always had, but this time Grey never moved an inch into the three feet of space separating them. Her body told her what no one had ever fully explained.
    And now he’d touched her.
    She closed her eyes and felt his arms behind her back and beneath her knees once again. Her skin tingled with the memory of being pressed against him. Despite the blood and the panic, something deep inside her responded to Whit’s touch. She deserved to be in the Council jail tonight. Not him.
    Determination quieted the heat building in her veins, replacing the fury with a numb shell. Tomorrow the deputies would return Whit to his home. And she would be waiting with her ration.

    The first blast woke Grey and rattled the framed sketch on her wall. End of the night shift. Her pocket watch read quarter to six. Father would be preparing to leave for his daily trip to the ration dispensary.
    She untangled herself from the sheets and scrambled to dress in the cold. First came thick stockings rolled up over her calves, then oxblood knee pants tugged on beneath her nightgown. With shirtwaist and chemise laid out and ready, she yanked the gown up over her head and let it drop to the floor. But before she could retrieve her undergarment, her hand froze and her breath fled. A strange mark bloomed on her belly, spreading out in all directions from her navel like a veiny blue flower. On instinct she cupped a hand over the symbol. She hadn’t been struck. Maybe the cause was internal. Some kind of poison? But she wasn’t sick or in pain. With a deep breath she steeled herself for a closer inspection. The thread-like design forked into branches and twigs like winter tree limbs. She traced one line with her fingertip. What could cause such a reaction?
    The sound of muffled conversation from her parents’ room sent her into a flurry. She wasn’t going to stay behind today. After buttoning the shirtwaist over her chemise, she double checked that the layers of material concealed the mark. Satisfied, she laced on boots.
    When she stepped outside her room, Granddad was closing the door to his chamber down the hall. He raised bushy eyebrows when he saw Grey.
    â€œI’m going with you and Father to get the ration. I can’t just wait here . ”
    He strode toward her, not one floorboard creaking beneath his boots. How could such a massive man move so quietly? Nothing about Granddad made sense. He swore he’d forgotten his own age, but only crow’s feet marked his smooth face. He wore his hair long, stood head and shoulders above everyone else, and told stories of trapping and hunting in the Rocky Mountains when Mercury was a tent city on the banks of the Rio de Sangre—one hundred and fifty years ago.
    Now, as he towered over her, she caught a whiff of chemicals and dust instead of sage and wood smoke.
    â€œI just thought I’d—”
    â€œI know what you’re about.” He waved away her response and continued.