Page 67 of A Grave Not Made For Mourning
“When did Jasper graduate?” I ask. The small amount of excitement I feel for him crumbles under the overbearing weight that settles in my chest.
“He didn’t,” Pa mutters. “He works at blue beam.”
I shake my head. “But he was going to be ahealer.” A great one at that. He could patch me up with more ease than growing berries.
“He enjoys the farm,” Pa says, filling another plate with food.
That’s not right. He went to the best school in our hometown. Everyone always saw me as the special child, the prodigal daughter, but that’s how I saw Jasper. Steadfast, reliable, powerful. He was the one who deserved the spot at Visnatus. He deserves more than to be an agronomist.
“Why didn’t he graduate?” I mutter, almost to myself.
Pa turns to me, shrugging with a frown tugging at his lips. “Healing’s not as urgent here as it is in the other worlds. But agriculture? That’s what matters.”
Because our world supplies the rest. Jasper isn’t a healer because I took his spot at the academy. I eat the food he grows; I heal the elites that he should be healing.
I killed his mother, and I stole his dream.
I don’t evenwantto be a healer.
“Will they be back soon?” I ask, taking deep breaths as Pa turns away, his attention fixing on the food once more. I ignore how eager I am for an escape, in case Pa reads me again.
“Jasper, yes. Cassius is hard to determine. Sometimes he’s home late.”
“Do you wait for him?” I ask, regarding the meal.
Pa meets my gaze, nodding once. “Always.”
I watch a firefly hover around the berries on the table. I breathe in the familiar smell of the wood. All of the wood in Visnatus is finished; it doesn’t have a scent anymore.
The minutes of silence pass by with the fireflies buzzing wings.
“What has been bringing you about?” Pa asks.
He sits next to me, his hands folding together over the wooden table. I’m not sure how to answer his question. If I tell a lie, he will know. If I tell the truth, I don’t know what he’ll think.
But he might have answers.
At this point, I’d do anything for them.
“Did you know Ma worked for Folkara?”
Pa picks at the loose wood on the table. “Yes,” he answers slowly. Cautiously.
I begin to feel constricted in my clothes, in the seat.
Claustrophobic in my body.
“Do you know what she did for them?”
He continues picking at the table. “She occasionally helped them decipher their prophecies, sometimes the stars,” he answers. Helies.
My skin feels as if it is stretching too tight over my bones. He knows more than he lets on.
“What about Isa?” I pull at my gloves. “She worked for Folkara too—”
His palm meets the table with a loudthump. “We do not speak of her, Wendolyn.”
Pa’s face grows red, as if the mention of Isa is too much for him to swallow. He’s choking on it.
