Boundless by Cynthia Hand
PROLOGUE
The first thing I’m aware of is the dark. Like somebody just shut off the lights. I squint into the inky nothingness, straining to see something, anything, but my eyes don’t adjust. Tentatively I feel with my feet along the floor, which is oddly slanted, as if the room is being tilted downward. I take a step back, and my leg strikes something hard. I stop. Try to regain my balance. Listen.
There are voices, faint voices, from somewhere above.
I don’t know what this vision is about yet, where I am or what I’m supposed to be doing or who I’m hiding from. But I do know this: I’m hiding.
And something terrible has happened.
It’s possible that I’m crying. My nose is running, but I don’t try to wipe at it. I don’t move. I’m scared. I could call the safety of glory, I think, but then they would find me. Instead I draw my hands into fists to stop the trembling. The darkness closes in, encasing me, and for a moment I fight the urge to call glory so hard that my fingernails break the surface of my palms.
Be still, I tell myself. Be quiet.
I let the darkness swallow me whole.
1
WELCOME TO THE FARM
“How you holding up, Clara?”
I jolt back to myself in the middle of my bedroom, a pile of old magazines strewn around my feet, which I must have dropped when the vision hit. My breath is still frozen in my lungs; my muscles tense, as if they are preparing me to run. The light streaming through the window hurts my eyes. I blink at Billy, who leans against the door frame of my bedroom and offers up an understanding smile.
“What’s the matter, kid?” she asks when I don’t answer. “Vision got you down?”
I gulp in a breath. “How did you know?”
“I get them, too. Plus I’ve been hanging around people who have visions for most of my life. I recognize the post-vision face.” She takes me by the shoulders and sits down with me at the edge of my bed. We wait until my breathing quiets. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asks.
“There’s not a lot to it yet,” I say. I’ve been having this vision all summer, since Italy with Angela. So far there hasn’t been much to go on but darkness, terror, an oddly slanted floor. “Should I tell you anyway?”
Billy shakes her head. “You can if you want, if it would help you get things off your chest. But visions are personal, for you and you alone, in my opinion.”
I’m relieved she’s so laid-back about it. “How do you do it?” I ask after a minute. “How do you go on living like normal when you know that something bad’s going to happen?”
There’s pain in her smile. She puts her warm brown hand over mine. “You learn to find your happiness, kid,” she says. “You figure out those things that give your life meaning, and you hold on to them. You try to stop worrying about the stuff you can’t control.”
“Easier said than done.” I sigh.
“It takes practice.” She claps a hand on my shoulder, squeezes. “You all right now? Ready to come up swinging?”
I conjure a weak smile. “Yes, ma’am.”