Peaches

hearts too. There was strength, and there was also just the determination to look strong. She guarded herself like a secret.
    But now—even having watched her for years—I could still be surprised by her. I was carrying some clover home at dusk, and just passing the council fire when there was a buzz among the villagers, and a shadowy figure appeared. It sent the well-organized group around the fire into a shudder, and a few carefully perched bowls into the fire. She’d approached so quietly they hadn’t noticed her. She was so dirty that it took a moment to recognize her.
    Her arms were piled with foreign items—a telescope, a glass, and a little wooden box. She dropped the load and stared at everyone with her inscrutable eyes, her crow feather cocked at an angle.
    Standing there, hair pasted to her back, covered in sweat, blood on her shoulders where a freshly killed rabbit lay, arrows pointing above her head, she was a triumphant and fearsome sight. No one could have guessed the way her heart pounded.
    “I’ve saved the Englander,” she said. Everyone scattered.

Credits
    Cover art © 2012 by Getty Images
Cover design by Oceana Garceau

Copyright
    PEACHES . Copyright © 2005 by Alloy Entertainment and Jodi Lynn Anderson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
    Epub © Edition JUNE 2012 ISBN: 9780062223111
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