"Unspoken" by Sarah Rees Brennan . [Lynburn Legacy, book I] . [N8,5]
17.09.2012
Probably the shortest book I have read in a long time. Not that it’s that short, literally, but it felt that way because I could neither stop reading nor want to. It’s the first in a trilogy and ends in an appropriately intriguing place. SRB’s style and plotting have both improved since The Demon trilogy and the sense of humour is here dispensed more freely through Kami, a delightful protagonist. The magic is handled masterfully, especially the telepathic bond between Kami and Jared, who both believe the other to be imaginary until they try and mentally talk to each other while in the same elevator. I love how she uses this forced intimacy to discuss what’s wrong with the ideals of love, the desire to be absolutely known and how that desire would translate into reality (very creepy).
Now I have to go lay down and have paroxysms of joy over this again.
Quotations, with spoilers:
[Spoiler (click to open)]
“He’d be excellent decoration for our headquarters,” Kami said. “You have to admit, he’s very good-looking, and I need a photographer, so can I keep him, please, oh, please?”
Angela sighed. In the cupboard, the sigh was like a gust of wind. “Kami, you know I hate guys being around all the time. They won’t stop staring and bothering me and giving me the sad, sad eyes like a puppy dog until I just want to kick them. Like a puppy dog.”
“So you have some puppy issues,” Kami observed.
The cupboard door swung suddenly open.
The new boy stood framed by the bright light of the o ce. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said. “But I can hear everything you’re saying.”
“Ah,” said Kami.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I can take a hint. Especially if the hint is along the lines of-” He did a good imitation of Angela’s dismissive gesture. “Go away now.”
Angela looked fondly reminiscent. “We’ve had some good times together, haven’t we? I’ll always remember them. After you go away.”
The boy’s brow wrinkled slightly. “Also, you might not have noticed, but this is a
cupboard.”
“My mum’s place is Claire’s,” she said. “Bakery in the morning, restaurant in the evening.
Best food in Sorry-in-the-Vale. We’ll take you there when we have weekend staff meetings.”
“I’ll look forward to it,” Ash said. He still had hold of her hand.
Kami shook hands firmly, then pulled her hand away and walked over to her desk: she needed it to take notes.
Ash pushed himself off the doorframe and into the room, toward her. “You did an awesome job out there in the woods,” he said. “And with the article.”
Kami beamed. “Thank you.”
“But I think you and Angela should leave this to the police from now on.”
“What an interesting thought,” Kami said. “Thank you for sharing it with me. Let me share a thought with you: Actually, I can walk myself to class. And I can also handle myself, so I’ll be doing what I want.” She shouldered her bag and headed out, moving past him.
“You’re welcome to try,” Kami said serenely. “I’m planning to take a shortcut through the woods on our way home.” She sailed down the school steps. He was keeping up with her so far, but then, they had barely started.
“A shortcut through the woods that mysteriously brings us to the scene of a crime?”
“The woods aren’t signposted,” Kami said. “It’s easy to get a little lost, wander about. Who knows what you might stumble upon!”
“Kami,” said Jared. “I can read your mind.”
“Well, that won’t hold up in court,” Kami informed him. “It sounds crazy.”
Kami’d always thought her mother had a face like a woman in a Pre-Raphaelite painting. She wasn’t like Angela, always fashionably dressed with flawless makeup. Claire Glass was usually in quiet rebellion against her beauty, pinning her hair up, always in loose jeans and sweatshirts. Kami had never seen her mother look tragic before.
“Nevertheless, my price has doubled,” said Rusty. “I’ll want six dinners prepared lovingly for me in the next two weeks.”
“Four,” Kami told him. “And you’re ridiculous. You can cook.”
“Be reasonable, Cambridge,” said Rusty. “Not doing things you can do is the whole point of laziness. Not doing things you can’t do is just sensible.”
“It’s not what it looked like,” Kami said. “We’re not like that. He’s my friend, that’s all.” Except that wasn’t all. He was always part of her thoughts, and now that he was real, he was inescapably part of her life, but it was as she had told her mother: saying he was part of her or that they were more than friends sounded like love, but it seemed like loss as well. All the words she knew to describe what he was to her were from love stories and love songs, but those were not words anyone truly meant.
They were like Jared, in a way. If they were real, they would be terrifying.
She looked at his face, the shadows and angles of him, and had such a vivid thought that she could almost imagine she was acting on it: walking to him across the waving grass, feeling his body, so separate and so different from her own against hers, muscles and sinews shifting against hers. She imagined her fingers on the warm nape of his neck, drawing his head down.
Only she could not do it with all her feelings laid out before him: this would not just be her telling a guy how she felt with no assurance of a return. There would be no way for her to escape afterward. Human beings were not meant to be bound together like this. She did not know how to bear it.
“Do you remember what you said to me the third time we met?” Kami asked. “That we should date?”
Jared did not answer, but his eyes went shocked silver.
“If we cut the connection,” she said, “I would.” Even with her walls up, she could feel his anger. Of course, she thought, of course she would say something like that and he would be angry. She wondered what he could sense, what might be slipping past her wall.
“I wish you hadn’t said that,” said Jared. “It’s like blackmail.”
“It’s like you have no other use for me but this connection,” Kami said. “Without it, what would I be to you? Just some ordinary girl. Nothing special about me at all.” She remembered the first time he had seen her. He hadn’t been impressed by her. She looked away and saw birds bursting from the trees, taking wing from the sorcerer’s wrath or just fleeing because winter was so close.
“That’s ridiculous,” Jared said curtly. “And this whole conversation is ridiculous. There’s a murderer on the loose. If we weren’t linked, you would have died in that well. We can’t afford to break the connection now.”
Kami could see the fact that there was a sorcerer killing people was a great relief to Jared. She thought of Nicola Prendergast and felt nothing but fury.
“So we have to keep it for now,” she said coldly. “We can break it later. I want to find out how.” She turned her back on him and strode back across the garden before he could answer, through the iron door with the drowning woman on it, and back through the stone corridors to the flight of steps that led to the parlor.
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