The Enforcers escorted him to his large bus-box.
The crowd of Citizens silently turned and shuffled toward their Compounds.
I stayed as long as I could, staring at the empty stage. His last words still hung heavy in the air.
No exceptions.
CHAPTER FORTY
We had no sooner entered our Living Space than the half-hour-till-dusk warning bell sounded. Time for David to strap his energy cell on his thigh; time for me to unplug my bicycle from the download bar; time to do our duties as Citizens, but no time for the promise I had made earlier to David.
I took my headscarf off and ran my fingers through my hair, putting pressure on my scalp with my fingertips. “Who are the other groups outside the Republic?” I asked. “The ones the Authority says are disrupting the food supply.”
“From what Mom and Dad told me, it sounds like there were three different kinds of people when the Republic was being formed.” He took off his Gatekeeper shirt and pulled a clean one on while he talked. “First, the believers, the ones who wanted everything Fabian and the Authority promised.” His voice was muffled through the fabric.
He pulled this shirt down; his hair flopped across his forehead. “Second, the protesters, who didn’t believe the promises and held rallies, spoke out. They were at great risk.” He bent down and adjusted his shoelaces. I watched his fingers, his strong hands. “They were dealt with by force.”
I thought of my aunt and my grandmother and wondered how many others had died alongside them—how many at the train depot that day, and how many across the country.
“The last group was quiet, watchful. Kept their eyes and ears open, but stayed back, sort of in the shadows, you could say. Some of them slipped away. Left their homes and disappeared before the actual relocation. They’re out there, somewhere. The Authority calls them ‘traitors’ but we call them the ‘shadow people.’ ” He motioned with his hand, pointing at the window slit and beyond. “Those are the ones he was talking about. I don’t think they are an actual army. The Authority is always looking for them.”
“Are they a threat? The ones who slipped away? Should we be afraid?”
He looked thoughtful for a minute, then answered, “I can’t say for sure, but I don’t think they would hurt Citizens. Their battle is with the Authority. And, I would guess, they are busy trying to survive.”
“So, you really don’t think they’re dangerous? Those others out there? Disrupting the food supplies—”
“Emmeline, the Authority wants us to be afraid. Fear makes us more dependent on them. I worry much more about the Authority’s power than I do about the shadow people.”
I brushed nourishment cube crumbs off the counter into my hand and tossed them through the window slit for the birds.
“Well, what about your parents?” I asked. “I don’t see them as anything like what you described.”
He nodded. “You’re right. I guess there was a fourth group. Like my parents. And yours. I don’t know exactly how to describe that group. They really didn’t believe all the grand promises but, at the same time, they didn’t realize exactly what was happening. They were sort of passive nonbelievers. And then it was too late.”
I wondered, if I had been an adult when this was happening, what group I would have belonged to. And, for that matter, what group did I belong to now?
David tucked his shirt into his uniform pants. “I do worry about something else that was said at the meeting.”
I already knew what he was going to say. Knew that, no matter what we did, some sadness would follow. I was no longer a contained child in a contained space. Life had pushed me forward and now life was mine to deal with, any way I could.
“If we have a baby, that baby will never be ours. It will belong to the Republic, not to us. Just as you said.” He shook his head and his dark hair fell across his forehead again. I brushed it back with my fingers. I liked the feel of his hair and the little wave across his forehead. “But if we don’t reproduce,” he went on, “then our pairing is dissolved. We’ll be reassigned. No exceptions. That’s what he said.” He put his hands to his face, covering his eyes as though shutting out the thought of reassignment.
I took his hands and held them tightly in mine. “We can’t let that happen,” I said.
He stared at me, not blinking, not smiling, and asked again, “What choice do we have?”
What choice, indeed. It was either have a baby and give it up to the Republic, or have our pairing dissolved. Two terrible, evil options. Surely there must be a third. I would think of it. I just needed time.
“I don’t know, David. I don’t know what I’m saying.” And, in truth, I didn’t know. Who was I to say we could prevent something from happening? Who was I, a mere Citizen, to say we could change anything?
“It’s too big right now to think about.” I went to him and he wrapped his arms around me. They were strong across my back, his chest wide and firm against mine. My David, my fortress. “We can talk more later.”
He nodded and pressed his lips to my forehead, then pulled the energy cell strap through its loop, tightening it on his upper thigh. The conversation was pushed deep into the corners of our Living Space, where it would linger in the shadows—a lurking darkness, ever present.
“I think I know something about Lizzie,” I added quietly, putting on my own thigh cell.
“What?”
“A while ago, before we were paired, I saw a woman who might have been Lizzie’s mother being taken away.”
“What makes you think she was Lizzie’s mother?”
David picked up my headscarf from the counter and helped me tie it firmly under my chin.
“She took my nourishment cube. Said it was for her children. Elizabeth and Andy. That’s what she said to me. Then, when she was getting on the bus-box, she asked the one Enforcer if he was Andy and if he was taking her to Lizzie.”
“At least for one brief moment she thought she had something to look forward to. How sad.”
“Later I saw them beat the old lady’s husband, but I don’t know what happened to him after that. I never saw him again.”
David pushed a stray bit of hair into place under my scarf.
“I hate hiding your hair. It’s so beautiful.” He opened the door but we lingered inside, still talking, reluctant to leave each other. “Are you going to tell Lizzie? About her mother, I mean.”
“Should I?”
“I don’t know. I can’t tell you what to do. But it’s interesting, isn’t it, that you know something she doesn’t.”
The tight, tense feeling in my chest eased when he said that.
I started to remove my bicycle from the bar. David reached down and did it for me. He made it look so easy.
“Randall’s still the Village Gatekeeper?”
I nodded. “Lizzie and he . . . I don’t know . . . they act like they’re somehow connected. Like they’re a team or something.” I straddled my bicycle.
“I knew him from the Gatekeeper’s barracks. He was always on edge about one thing or another. That limp of his. If he were born now, since the Perfection Standards were imposed . . .”
I grabbed the handlebars. Dusk was fast approaching.
David leaned closer and whispered, his breath warm against my cheek. “I don’t trust Randall. Be careful.”
I dreaded leaving David. I dreaded spending the shift with Lizzie and her horrible histories. But I would see Elsa. Maybe even hold her, feed her. I could deal with Lizzie if it meant I could hold Elsa. I could deal with anything if I could be with Elsa.
I pushed my bicycle past the gate, past the flag, and then started to pedal toward the Village.
I pedaled in rhythm to my thoughts. El-sa, El-sa. Da-vid, Da-vid. Care-ful, care-ful.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The day-shift Gatekeeper was alone when I got to the Village. He smiled at me, made a note on his clipboard, and took the handlebars of my bicycle.
“You must be Emmeline,
” he said. “Let me help you with this.” He walked the bicycle to the security bar and fastened it. “I’m Paul.” He nodded and went back to the gate. He was tall and thin, and his face had a golden tan from so much time in the sun. I wondered what group he would have belonged to in the before-time.
Lizzie and Randall came around from the corner of the building, heads tilted toward each other, talking in whispers. They looked so serious, worry creasing their foreheads. I couldn’t tell if they were arguing, and I didn’t want to stare. But they saw me standing by my bicycle, straightened up, and fell silent. Randall went to the gate. Lizzie went into the building and I followed her.
The corridor was shadowy and cool, filled with the smells of childhood: sweaty boys, milky babies, chalky classrooms, sanitizing solution. I could hear their sounds, too, the stirring and rustling of blankets as they struggled to fall asleep. A cough, a giggle, a whisper.
Barb gave the change-of-shift report in the dim light of the corridor. She had a toothy face, with large, uneven teeth.
“Nothing to report, really,” she said. “Classroom teachers report no problems. Babies have been diapered. Some took their bottles. Some didn’t. The older children did their sanitizing washings.”
I wanted to ask about Baby Six—Elsa—but I couldn’t let this woman know I cared. I didn’t know what group she would have belonged to.
“Supplies arrived,” Barb continued. “Transport team delivered them on schedule. No additional torch was received . . .”
That would be my torch. I would still be working in the dark, dependent on Lizzie.
“ . . . and that is it. Nothing to report, really.”
How can that be, I wondered. A whole village full of children and there was nothing to report? Some babies eat; some don’t? And this is the future of the Republic?
Lizzie yawned.
“All right, then. I’m out of here,” said Barb. She started to leave, then turned back. “By the way, Joan wants to see you in the morning.”
“Did she say why?” I was afraid to look at Lizzie.
“No. But she sounded serious. Maybe even angry. So I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Hard to say. But you better follow directions.” And with that, she was gone.
Lizzie was rigid, tense, and silent. She started pulling diapers off the shelf. She handed some to me and I followed her down the hall to the nursery. It was a repeat of the night before: the restocking of diapers and then back for the nourishment bottles, the silent propping of bottles without touching the babies or making soothing sounds. In the darkness, the babies were merely little mounds covered with blankets, small and curled.
We moved like two pale shadows through the nursery—me trailing behind her like an afterthought, her cutting our path with the torch. Lizzie, her thick body blocking my view, propped Elsa’s bottle last.
We went back to the supply closet and Lizzie sat down heavily in the rocking chair. She may have been silent, but her body language was speaking loudly. My job was to figure out what it was saying, and how it could help me.
I sat on the stool again, with my knees against my chin and my back against the wall. Such a cold, hard wall, it sucked the warmth out of a person. Lizzie switched off her torch. She and I alone in the dark, with only the sounds of our breathing and the creak of the rocker in that tiny room. The longer we sat, the louder the sounds seemed. Sounds trying to fill a vacuum. Louder and louder. All the while, I only wanted to hold Elsa. It was up to me to break this vacuum.
“When do you think my torch will arrive?” I asked her.
“Beats me,” she said. “That’s up to Joan. Used to be my job to order supplies. I was good at it, too. Now it’s her job. Seems to me, seeing as how she’s David’s mother and you and David are paired, well, I’d have thought she’d take better care of you.”
I listened for the message beneath the words. What was important to her? Being good at something? Yes, that was it. Last night she told me she made good grades. And she was proud of her system for waking up the older children. Tonight she told me she was good at ordering supplies.
“Oh, Lizzie,” I said quickly, “I thought you knew. She told me in my interview that her job, under the rules of the Authority, was to treat all the workers equally. Said she had to follow the rules.”
The rocking slowed and I heard Lizzie shifting in her chair.
“She said that?”
“Yes. She also said you were a very good Caretaker, and said that I would learn a lot from you.”
The rocking stopped.
“She did?”
“Of course. And she was right. Just look at what you taught me last night. I mean, about the history of the Republic. Things no one ever taught me before.”
“I was lucky to be raised in the Village, where I could learn stuff. Lucky that I wasn’t quite four when they made the announcement. You weren’t so lucky. And I got really good grades in history.”
There it was again.
As timidly as I could, I asked, “If I don’t know about something, well, I can ask you, can’t I?”
“Depends.”
“Depends on what?” I asked.
“Depends on what you ask me.”
We were both quiet for a few minutes. I stood up just to get away from the cold wall. I would have to figure out what I was allowed to ask.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“Nowhere. Just standing up.”
“You could go hold Baby Six.”
I took a sharp, startled breath.
“You can go hold Baby Six,” she repeated, “while I go outside to talk to Randall.”
She turned on her torch and handed it to me.
“You can use this while I’m gone.”
My hands were shaking as I slipped the band over my headscarf. Was this a trick?
“One more thing,” she said. “You can ask questions. But don’t ask about Randall.”
She left the supply cupboard and I heard her footsteps fading down the corridor.
I had a torch and it seemed as though Lizzie and I had a deal.
She went to Randall. I went to Elsa.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Elsa was asleep on her belly, her knees pulled under her, covers off, her little bottom a raised round mound. Her nourishment bottle was almost empty, and had become wedged between the rail and the mat so that the nipple stuck up like a pink thumb. She was making sucking motions, her round cheek and rosebud lips moving in rhythm. Standing there watching her in the light of my torch, I was filled with warmth, but at the same time, an overwhelming sense of responsibility. She was mine, not the Republic’s.
As gently as I could, sliding my hands under her face and belly, I lifted her. She was light and warm, like sunshine in my arms, and I cradled her in my left arm. With my right hand, I stroked her cheek. She stirred and opened her eyes for a second, a bubble of nourishment on her lip, then she curled against me.
How much time did I have before Lizzie returned? I listened but heard no footsteps. Somewhere a child whimpered. Carrying Elsa, I went to the corridor and listened. There it was again, a whimper. I followed the sound into the boys’ sleeping room, my torch moving across the beds, one by one, until it lit on one boy, sitting on the edge of his sleeping mat. He was bent over with his hands on his belly and he looked frightened.
I walked to his side and slid my torch away from the center of my forehead so the light wouldn’t shine in his eyes. “Are you okay? What do you need?” I whispered to him.
He looked down at the floor as though he was ashamed. “I need to go to the washing-up area.”
“All right, then, I’ll walk you over. I have my light to show the way.”
He shook his head.
“Why not? It’s okay. Come on.” Our whispers hadn’t wakened Elsa. All around us were little snoring noises, like punctuation marks in the dark.
“I can’t,” he said. “It’s not washing-up time. I’ll get in trouble.”
Washing-up tim
e? At first, I didn’t understand. And then, in an instant, I remembered.
The rules. Always, the rules.
“Well, I give you permission to use the washing-up area now. I’ll walk over with you.”
“You can do that?” He looked at me, his eyes wide and unblinking. “You can break a rule?”
I smiled and looked down at Elsa. “Yes,” I said. “Sometimes.”
When he was finished, I walked with him back to his bed. I smoothed the blanket over him, rough fabric on young skin. Before he turned on his side, he motioned for me to bend closer. I leaned over and Elsa squirmed in my arms.
“Will you be here tomorrow night?” he asked.
“I hope so,” I said.
“So do I,” he said, and he curled up on his side, making his body as small as he could against whatever dark things might be lurking about in the Children’s Village. I waited till he was asleep, then walked through the girls’ sleeping area.
This is where Elsa would sleep in about three and a half years. Here, one among many. She would be no better than anyone else. No extra hugs, no extra anything. And if she woke in the middle of the night, needing to use the washing-up area, would the Caretaker on duty be willing to break a rule? I walked past one row of beds, then back past another, my torch sliding across the children. Each was lit up for a second before I passed on to the next child. All the girls appeared to be asleep. Still holding Elsa in my left arm, I used my right hand to pull the blankets up around those who had kicked theirs off. Tucked them around shoulders, frail and thin. The air from the window slit had grown cool and damp with the green-brown smell of wet grass and leaves.
I wondered why Lizzie had gone outside to talk to Randall. Had they been arguing? It certainly had looked that way. Questions, answers—eventually, piece by piece, I would learn whatever I needed to keep Elsa safe. Information was my currency.
I carried her, still asleep, into the supply cupboard, and sat in the rocking chair. We rocked with a slow, even rhythm, and I murmured against her soft, silky hair: “Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home. Your house is on fire and your children will burn.” I felt strands of her hair, fine as cobwebs, lift against my lips. I could feel her, smell her, hear her, and, in the bouncing light of the torch, see her.