Esme's Gift by Elizabeth Foster

Author:Elizabeth Foster [Foster, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781925652833
Publisher: Odyssey Books
Published: 2019-11-30T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

After devoting her weekend to mastering her Gift, Esme was forced to catch up on more everyday concerns. She had no clean clothes, she hadn’t written to her father in a week, and she’d fallen so behind in her schoolwork that she panicked whenever Rank glanced her way in class. She was meant to deliver a progress report on her history project by Friday and suspected that writing ‘I’ve made no progress’ wouldn’t net her a passing mark.

‘But you found out something at the ghost grim,’ Lillian reminded Esme, after a fruitless Tuesday study session in the library. ‘Conor said that Mann snapped, moments before he died. Started jabbering about how he regretted everything, how he was “tricked” into it all.’

‘I don’t know if that’s relevant to my topic.’ Esme sighed. ‘I don’t know what’s relevant to my topic. That’s the problem.’

She eyed Lillian’s fat notebook on the desk of their reading nook with envy. Lillian had almost finished her entire essay, weeks in advance—mostly because she’d spent every lunch time here in the library, hiding from her love-struck classmates.

‘Still,’ Lillian urged. ‘What Conor gave you … that’s new information, isn’t it? It might be more relevant than you think. Why don’t you study the Battle of the Citadel, see where that takes you?’

Inspiration crystallised in Esme’s head. ‘Hm … maybe I could use my Gift.’

‘Huh?’

‘I could go to the site where Mann died, try to look into the past. See if there’s any truth to what Conor was saying.’

Lillian paled. ‘Er, are you sure that’s the kind of thing you want your Gift to show you? Conor said a dozen soldiers ran their swords through Mann.’

A memory flashed into Esme’s mind: the water’s memory, now her own, of a young Nathan Mare showing Augustine the bruise on his shoulder. Esme had decided not to share what she had witnessed with Daniel and Lillian. She felt she owed it to the teenage Mare, the Mare who hadn’t yet committed any crimes, to respect his wishes and keep his confession confined to the keeper’s treatment room.

‘Augustine warned that my Gift would expose me to all kinds of unpleasant things.’ Esme pushed back her seat and stood up. ‘Might be better to prepare myself for history’s dark side now, rather than get thrown into the deep end later.’

‘Well, if you’re sure,’ said Lillian, stuffing her notebook into her bag, ‘we can get a ferry there after school.’ She looked out the window to the misty lagoon. ‘It’s been raining on and off all day, though.’

‘Perfect,’ said Esme.

‘Why?’

‘You’ll see.’

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.