Banished by Sophie Littlefield

Author:Sophie Littlefield [Littlefield, Sophie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Speculative Fiction
ISBN: 9780385738538
Publisher: Ember
Published: 2010-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

“How could you not have known my mom was pregnant?”

Prairie’s jaw tensed and she didn’t look at me. She hadn’t slept at al , and it showed in the faint lines under her eyes and around her mouth.

“When I left Gypsum, I moved to Chicago. I wrote to Clover almost every day,” she final y said. “I knew there would be trouble if Alice ever found out that Clover knew where I was, so I told her to make up a story that we’d had a real y bad fight and that we swore we’d never speak to each other again.”

“Why would Gram care?”

“She had … plans for me. Just like I think she did for you.”

Her words fil ed me with dread. “What do you mean?”

“You have to think about who Alice was, when she was younger.

She tried to be a Healer for a long time before she gave up.

Mary told me that Alice was devastated when she final y had to accept that she didn’t have the gift. She never got over her failure, and to cope with it she turned al her misery into blame.”

“Blame? But who could she blame for that?”

“Alice decided that the reason she was damaged was that the Tarbel s had mixed their blood with outsiders. That they’d married and bore children outside the families, and that had corrupted the lineage.”

“What do you mean, the families? What families?”

“Our ancestors al emigrated here together. The Morries, the Tarbel s, we’re al descended from the same vil age in Ireland.”

“We’re Irish?”

“Yes.” Prairie smiled, but it didn’t reach her troubled eyes. “Our ancestors lived in the same vil age for centuries. When they came here, they started over. New names, new skil s, new homes, but the plan was always that they would stay together.

They were known as the Banished, and they—”

“Wait.” I cut her off. What had Mil a said— Ain’t any of us Banished got any say in things. “Why were they cal ed that?”

“No one remembers anymore. I mean, there were al these stories. When your mom and I were little, Mary would tel us bedtime stories about faeries and blessings and curses.”

“You don’t believe in them.”

“I …” Prairie hesitated, choosing her words careful y. “It’s not that I don’t believe. The blessings were real, even if I can’t explain them, even if they don’t fit neatly with what science tel s us. The Banished are united by some … powerful things. Mary always told me that we Tarbel s were meant to serve the Banished, to heal them when they needed us. But that wasn’t the whole story. The rest of the women had a responsibility to keep the vil age, the people, together after they left Ireland.

That’s why we can sense each other, why we are drawn to each other.”

At last, an explanation for the way I felt when I was around the Morries, even if it sounded crazy. A part of me was relieved that I hadn’t imagined it. That it might be real, even if it was something out of a fable.

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