Teri Hall - The Line 01 by The Line

Author:The Line
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-12-20T14:56:13+00:00

CHAPTER 13

RACHEL FOUND HERSELF at the place next to the Line where she had tried to Cross—it seemed so long ago—without being conscious of having left the greenhouse or of walking to the spot. She peered into the dark, unable to see anything past a few feet. She was shaking. The moment she had seen the glow in the distance—such a soft, strange light, briefly glimmering and then eclipsed—her body had begun to tremble.

It was real. Somebody was out there.

She stood waiting, trying to breathe calmly. She listened intently, but there was no sound. She flashed the minibeam twice and listened more. There was nothing. The night was still.

Then she heard it. A faint rustle of grass, just once, somewhere straight ahead of her. She squinted into the distance but saw nothing. Another rustling, to the left this time, closer. A denser darkness rose there, shambling forward. Rachel couldn’t discern anything but movement for a long time. She held her breath, listening as the sounds got nearer. Slowly, a form began to take shape—a human form. It was extraordinary to see it, out in the meadow where nothing had ever been but birds and trees, on the other side of the Line.

At first, Rachel couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. As the distance between them narrowed, she could see through the gloom of twilight that it was neither. It was a boy, about her age. She could tell that he saw her—he was walking straight toward her. He came to a halt three feet away from her. He seemed unwilling to get too close to the Line.

They stared at each other for a time, eyes wide.

“Hello.” He spoke quietly, and she was somehow surprised that the sound of a voice could penetrate the barrier of the Line, though she had often heard the birds singing beyond it.

“Hello,” she whispered. She could make out tousled brown hair. He was taller than she was, and very lean. But he looked no different than any boy in Bensen, really, except for the way he was dressed. He wore a shirt and pants made of some thick, rough fabric. They had no ornamentation of any kind, unless you counted the buttons down the front of the shirt. He carried what looked like a jacket crumpled under one arm. In his hand was a lantern, made of real glass surrounded by a rusty metal framework. Rachel flicked on the minibeam and adjusted it to the brightest setting.

“Turn that thing off!” The boy dropped as if he had been shot. “Do you want us both dead?”

Rachel fumbled with the switch and extinguished the light.

“Sorry.” She felt bad for being careless, but at the same time she didn’t care for his tone. Pretty bossy for someone who needed her help. “I just wanted to see better.”

The boy stayed low to the ground, looking all around in a way that reminded Rachel of an animal, sniffing the air. Finally, he stood up again, scowling. “Yeah.

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