Read State of Grace for Free Online

to be about.
    By the time I finish with the Books, the light on my ceiling’s turned pink. It’s morning, which makes it definitely late enough to go the gazebo and ask Dot if she’d mind giving me some answers.
    In my personal opinion, the gazebo’s the dotliest thing ever. Some creations feel closest to Dot in the newfruit grove. For others, it’s when they’re swinging in their hammocks in Dot’s sunshine.
    For me though, it’s totally the gazebo. I’ve always loved it there. First off, it’s supergorgeous. Completely white and everything, with walls that are just lattice to let the breeze blow through. On the inside, fixed to the lattice, are these big terracotta planters with flowers spilling over the side. Hanging from the ceiling, billowing, are silky banners with Dot’s picture on them. There’s always a dottrack playing, piped from these little black boxes in all four corners of the ceiling.
    The floor’s just grass, but there’s these huge, squishy cushions to lie on, green, purple, raspberry pink and lemon yellow. And obviously, there’s the bubbles. The whole gazebo’s filled with them, which is how our conversations reach Dot all the way out there in the beyond. Whatever we think or say in the gazebo, the bubbles soak up. Then they drift out through the diamond-shaped holes in the lattice, into the fringe then into the sky. We only have to see the bubbles floating through the air to know Dot’s listening to us.
    When I get to the gazebo it’s empty, naturally. I’m pretty sure none of Dot’s other creations has been awake half the night just thinking, the way I’ve been. It’ll be ages yet before anyone else wakes up and gets here.
    The Books say it doesn’t matter when a person talks to Dot, as long as everyone makes sure to once a day. Most of us go to the gazebo after breakfast but before picking in the newfruit grove. That’s the best way to get maximum time in bed but also leaves the whole day after picking free for having fun. That’s my thinking, anyway. Plus, I like to do stuff when everyone else does, obviously, because what’s the point in doing anything if you’re alone?
    I’m not really the all-alone type. But right now, I’m sort of glad to find the gazebo empty. There’s a squishy-squashy feeling inside me. Precalm, I guess you’d call it. I choose a purple cushion and drag it around till it’s facing the extra-giant portrait of Dot that hangs on one lattice wall of the gazebo.
    By this point I’m sweating all over again, even though the gazebo’s one of the coolest places in creation. I’m guessing that’s because I have no idea what to say to Dot or exactly where to start. So I sit down and just stare up at the portrait. It’s the same one as on the banners, the same as in the Books. You know, just Dot’s head and shoulders, her sheet of long, pale hair, her black skin and her eyes shaped like two almonds, rounded at one end and tapering to these little points on either side. Even now, in the state I’m in, I notice how the portrait always looks like it’s smiling.
    The only choice I have is to jump into it.
    Hello, Dot?
    I don’t need to talk out loud or anything because Dot knows everything I’m thinking. I mean, the gazebo is full of bubbles. She’s going to hear me, right?
    It’sWren.
    That’s a kind of pointless thing to think too, obviously, since Dot knows who I am already. Apparently now I’m a blurter inside my head as well as when I’m talking out loud.
    I had this dream .
    Pause.
    But I guess you know that.
    More pausing.
    I was in the dream. Well, a different version of me was. But I wasn’t here. I was … I don’t even know where. Can you tell me? It’s something to do with the wren Gil found, isn’t it? Or something to do with Blaze?
    Parked there on the cushion looking up at Dot’s face, I tell her the whole prenormal story in this waterfall gush. How Blaze said the rhyme that I somehow knew without knowing. The miniature creature