Even though the skirt is a bright plaid of red and navy blue, the blouse is white, like the clothes she wore when she was a tithe. She doesn’t know how to make regular friends. “And no one has to know what happened.”īut her only real friends at her old school were tithes. “You’ll make new friends,” her parents had told her. And because her parents wanted to give her a fresh start, she now goes to the parochial school near the church. Now they attend a larger Roman Catholic church in an older suburb of Chicago that reminds her of the formality, ceremony, and beauty of the cathedrals of Rome. Her parents thought it would be uncomfortable for her at their old church, so now they go to a new one. In pretending to be ordinary and pretending to be glad she has this long, unpredictable future, maybe she’s learning how to live like a normal girl.Īfter she was brought home from her “adventure” as they call it-the one that brought her all the way to Tucson, Arizona, with a notorious tithe-turned-clapper-turned-rebel-nothing was the same. She once read that sometimes you have to act like you believe until you can believe. She needs time to re-boot for this unexpected future. She spent her entire life preparing her body to be divided. But if she doesn’t act like an ordinary fourteen-year-old girl, her father turns moody and her mother cries. Like when her mother makes her favorite meal-rigatoni Amatriciana-or when she and her father watch their favorite shows. Most times she’s glad to be around her folks. Then they didn’t sign the unwind order when she turned thirteen. Then chose her to be a tithe to save dozens of people. Her parents chose her embryo self to save her brother. Sometimes Miracolina is uncomfortable in her evolving relationship with her mother and father. It flows in hues of gray and black and streetlights that don’t disturb the shadows. The sun illuminates secrets she holds close. By Neal Shusterman & Michelle Knowlden MIRACOLINAĭaytime smothers her in vibrant colors.

Unbound stories from the unwind world