Read Elysium for Free Online Page A

honor — was given to her in exchange for a promise. A promise that she would inwardly be as innocent and pure as she appeared. A promise to remain a woman-child. A promise she had kept for fifteen years, half of her appointed period of time. But Adrianne had a secret.
    The soft sounds of her sandals scraping the stone-tiled floor resounded beneath the high ceilings of the Cloisters’ inner hall. She was alone. Thomas had gone to his room in the lower levels. Everyone else was at the games. Adrianne had the place to herself. It was a monastic hall filled with centuries-old art collected by diligent and discerning hands. Her favorite room was the one with the tapestries. A room with ceiling-high, hand-embroidered wall hangings that depicted an elk hunt. Each panel showed a different stage of the game played by noblemen of old, in search of the mystical creature who seemed to elude them at every turn. Adrianne had been told that these images held a metaphor for virginity, that the elusive elk was a symbol of the strength to withstand the temptation of copulation. It always seemed like such a thin explanation. Every time Adrianne looked upon these beautiful tapestries she thought of sacrifice and marriage.
    She entered the next room. Before her the marble statue of Vesta, the veiled virgin goddess herself, looked down with maternal eyes. Within her hand was carved an oil lamp burning stone flames, and etched at her feet were stalks of wheat and barley. The image overshadowed everything. Its gaze went into far-off places. The statue had been brought here from a garden in lands overseas. It was said that it had once been painted — sienna, burnt umber, olive, ochre. Its alabaster appearance was all that was left after years of exposure to the elements.
    She saw this statue on the first day she arrived in these halls. It was so long ago and her memories were hazy, as if it had all happened to someone else and not her. But that night, when she was still a child and the cold pricked her skin with needles, Adrianne and her mother came here.
    They rode up on the train. It was late. The only other passengers in the car were asleep with their eyes open. Purple bruises marked her mother’s chin and around her left eye. She held Adrianne close as they drifted between sleep and wakefulness to the hum of the engine and the occasional rumble and scraping of metal on metal over the tracks. They passed many stations. The doors opened and closed, opened and closed. Finally they reached the end of that part of their journey, and her mother ushered Adrianne to her feet and out into a desolate subway station, a labyrinth of hallways and stairs and corners that smelled of pee.
    Their heels clicked and echoed in the silence. They came to an elevator so old Adrianne was afraid to go inside. When she hesitated her mother pulled her along as she was not playing any games that night. Up and up and up, then out onto the street above. Ahead of them was an entrance to a dark place full of trees and a sign with arrows. Adrianne could read the letters, but not the words. Then, when she had no idea where she was, it had seemed the scariest of all medieval forests. A place where goblins and trolls and duppies lived. The hoot of an owl. The cry of a wolf. The growl of a cougar. She heard them all in her imagination. But it was just a garden path leading to the Vestals’ hall.
    Her mother’s desperate pull dragged her through the park until they came to the Cloisters. Her mother pounded on the door. Everyone was asleep because of the hour. But that did not deter her. Purple bruises gave her strength. Purple bruises made her determined. She pounded on the door until it was finally opened. A woman in white greeted them and let them inside. There was a stillness in the hall. A calm. A silence. Only the crackle of the burning wood. That’s when Adrianne saw Vesta for the first time. The perfect alabaster marble statue gleamed in the light of a hearth, a slight