Concealed in the Shadows

  I’m on my feet again, leisurely descending the hill to give my outerwear time to dry and my mind the time it needs to process all that hassles it. Scenario one is least likely. I’ve never heard of it being granted, but it is within the realm of possibilities. In this odd chance, Evvie would be given a variance to live with me under Merideth’s continued guardianship. If my sister is able to live under my care, it is more plausible that this would have been granted through scenario two. I would be allowed to legally adopt Evvie, putting the next four years of her life on my parenting account, in accordance with the law.

  Everyone in Miles is allowed thirty-six combined years of parenting. I presume this to be uniform throughout the disjoint nation, but I guess I’ve never looked into it. This is just one piece of the finely printed details of the 2015 bill to contain population growth. Notice the wording. They didn’t choose reduce or control, but contain. This broad and ambiguous wording was intentional. It did not prevent the government from immediately construing and enforcing a physical and numerical boundary.

  Adopting my little sister in accordance with scenario two would allow me to bear only one child of my own, if I ever decide to do so. Additionally, I could adopt and raise a four-year-old who has been orphaned, and whose otherwise willing relatives all already have two children. Similarly, I could foster three or four teenage girls, depending on their ages, until they turn eighteen. Doing this would eradicate their chances of facing the prevalent abuse that comes from male fosters that adopt young girls from the orphanage. I have considered adoption of this type to be a part of my future. I know what it’s like to fear that fate.

  It’s a nonsensical and unjust system, especially for the unfortunate children who mourn the recent loss of their parents, and aren’t allowed consolation and care from their loving relatives. Instead, the cold authority of the law requires these tragic children to be stuffed into the overcrowded orphanage. There, children wait to be handed over to any requesting guardian or foster, suitable or not.

  My sister and I didn’t have a single living relative left when my mom died, so the orphanage was as good a place as any for us. We didn’t find the system quite as unforgiving as children who had relatives they could have lived with, if not for the law.

  Scenario three is the status quo. Evvie continues to be the foster child of Merideth Layton and is not granted a variance to live with me. It’s not what I’m hoping for, but Evvie would be plenty fortunate to live out her ‘childhood’ under Merideth’s guardianship.

  Merideth is safe, means well, and doesn’t live terribly far from the transitions building in Sector Seven where I live. Merideth can also give Evvie a lot of worldly things that I can’t dream of affording. Some of these things I would refuse to provide even if I could. To me, it’s critical that Evvie grows stronger and wiser than the average inhabitant, and those traits aren’t fostered by possessions from the trendy, technological, and media-infested world.

  The fourth scenario is the one that I refuse to allow. This is only a possibility if for some reason Merideth forfeits her guardianship of Evvie, but the county does not transfer that guardianship to me. Such a situation would leave Evvie in the hands of Miles’ governing body as she approaches a fragile age for orphaned girls. My stomach roils as I walk through the thickening forest. The slimy leadership looks the other way as despicable men adopt and either keep the girls to themselves or enslave them in underground brothels. That’s a poison that no amount of love could erase from Evvie’s heart. She would forever be a broken woman, assuming she could even get out at eighteen.

  Such an adoption would undoubtedly be a closed one, where I’m not permitted an iota of knowledge about who has custody of my sister or in which sector she’ll reside. These girls vanish underground. Their instruction monitors mark them truant, and eventually it’s assumed they’ve dropped out of school. Evvie’s TabFile rarely goes a few hours without an update, but it would sit untouched for days. Her friends would wonder, What’s up with Evvie lately? I would know.

  I can’t risk losing her like that. If that verdict is delivered today, I’ll make sure she never leaves the orphanage unless it’s with me under the glow of the moonlight. I have to be ready for anything.

  I drag my damp clothes from the branch overhead and pull them on, turning my tenseness into a renewed will. I suck down the last of the water from my pack with an aspirin for my knotting stomach. I tuck the bottle back inside my pack, along with not much more than the flowering part of two sunflower plants that I picked at the foot of the hill.

  I head toward a lake formerly called Spotted-Eagle, which is due west of my entrance pond. The circle around the south side of the lake is relaxed. With my shoes sticking in the muddy bank, I bend down and fill my bottle with water, and place the sunflowers inside. When I reach Spotted-Eagle’s northwestern bank, I shut and reattach my pack.

  The rotation of the cameras on EPA 7-8 and EPA 8-9 are shrewdly synced to maximize exposure outside the county’s limits. When I first sense that I’m within viewing distance, I duck into the cover of tall, weedy growths that sideline the lake. I slowly creep through the brush; searching with my hands for the large stones I’ve laid to mark my crawling path.

  Here it is. I have transformed the former home of a pocket gopher or a large rodent to stow a pair of binoculars. The binoculars are needed to outwit the cameras and to check for early morning occupants of the street. I check for people and cars first. There are none. Next, I spy on the 7-8 camera to my right. I nod my head to count the seconds as I scan across to the 8-9 camera. After calculating, I replace the binoculars and bury them shallowly. The timing game begins again.

  I dart short distances, carefully angling my body behind grasses, bushes, and scattered clusters of young larch, ash, and aspen that aim to add to the effectiveness of the electric barrier. I suppose they have thickened and grown, but they’re nothing impressive compared to the forestry surrounding my exiting point.

  I’m careful to turn this way and that as to avoid the view of both cameras as I approach the only bur oak I’ve ever encountered. It stands tall and sturdy amid the two EPA buildings, with two overarching, parallel branches that reach into Miles.

  By the time I arrive at my reentry oak, I’ve regained plenty of strength to climb to the lower of the twin branches. Aware of the watchful eyes that are alert even at this hour, I wrap my arms high around the tree and raise my right foot to a knot that sits at my naval. I pull myself up the tree and quickly change my hold. This is the pinnacle of the excursion. I unwrap my arms and clench grips of bark with just my shaking fingertips. Dropping my head, I push through the seconds until I can release my tortured fingers from their narrow holds at my shoulders. My arms envelop the trunk again, but there’s not a moment to recover. The next and final branch of the climb has to be done with haste, yet precision.

  My final foothold to mount the lower branch faces town. I quickly power up and around to it and hoist myself up to grapple tackle the chest-level limb. Swinging atop it, I use the trunk to stand—my feet now elevated about eight feet above ground. I take hold of the higher branch at my rib cage to steady myself as I jut toward Miles County.

  With each stride outward, the bottom branch sags more under my weight. Just before the inner ring of the electric barrier, I begin to endure pulsating shocks as my chip advances toward the consuming underground wire that drives the force field. There’s no time for timidity as I dart across the thinning and warping strength of the oak’s limbs.

  I know I’m across the barrier once my fingertips no longer reach the top branch. My feet are the only surfaces connecting me to the oak, but I don’t fret over poor their balance for as soon as my hands are free, I confidently step backward off the branch. Both hands firmly grab the lower branch as I fall, and hang on for just an instant to slow my decent and save my heels.

  After a bit of a tumble, I stand tall, check the camera and the street, brush my palms against my pant legs, and release a sigh
of relief. From Sector Eight where I’ve landed, I round off today’s run with a light trot back to the transitional-living center in Sector Seven.

  My building is as dormant two hours later as it was when I crept out before daybreak. There are still no passersby to concern me while I retrieve my key from under the ceiling tile. I head inside, lay my pack on the floor, and squelch off my wet shoes. I head to the bathroom to rally through a cold shower that will wash the evidence of the earth from my hair and fingernails.

  Afterward, I draw on a silky, simple black dress that belonged to my mother. She had only worn it once, to my grandmother’s funeral service. It feels crisp and stiff, and reminds me why I hate dressing up. I wasn’t made to belong in the city. This dress is all I own that can attempt to transform me into the presentable, responsible young adult that I need to be in front of the judge this afternoon.

  For good measure, I extract a small jewelry box from my rickety, top dresser drawer. From under the delicate lid, I remove a strand of Tahitian pearls that also belonged to my mother. I clasp them around my neck, and poke in the matching earrings. Examining myself in the full-length mirror that lazily rests against the side of the dresser, I find that I do appear a little older, and certainly more financially secure, in this sleek attire with my hair tucked into a low barrette. I feel uncomfortable, and look strangely foreign to myself, but this appearance can only help my case.

  I think about eating, but I’m too nervous to muster an appetite. It may come all on its own in a half an hour or so. I’m usually famished about an hour after a hard run.

  My body is still tired, and desperately wants to flop across my bed, but instead I sit neatly on the edge, being careful not to wrinkle the dress.

  This time, my tablet unlocks readily when I open it and press my thumb to the scanner. Oddly, I’m a little disappointed that it doesn’t ask for my typed and oral password. Maybe my tablet boycott over the last few days was feeding an underlying desire to say my father’s name. My stubbornness was certainly meant to further escape from reality until today, when I need to be present and focused for Evvie.

  I still don’t bother listening to any of the older messages of which I’m again notified. They’re all too predictable. The first one I delete permanently is from my instruction monitor, likely to nag me about fulfillment of my weekly EduWeb hour quota. I agonized through a few hours on Monday, but completed none while my tablet hibernated the rest of the week.

  Another of the older messages is from Evvie, probably just to check on me in her sweet, motherly way. She worries about me living all alone just as much as I worry about her living apart from me. There are three new messages from Merideth, which is atypical, but understandable with the trial being this afternoon. I’m sure one, if not two, of those are to remind me about meeting at the coffee shop next to the courthouse at ten o’clock this morning. I’ll see her soon enough and I’ll deal with listening to her then, when I absolutely have to.

  The three additional missed messages that weren’t there at four o’clock this morning gravely concern me. While I was out I received a no subject call from Evelette Harter at 4:37 AM. At 5:11 AM, she called again, adding urgent to the description. At 5:56 AM, Evvie left another urgent message. I tap this notice and listen intently, my heart beginning to race.

  “Sydney?” Immediately my heart caves as I listen to my sister’s tearful tone. “I can’t sleep. I’m worried about tomorrow.” Today, she should have said. She was probably hopeful at that time that she’d fall asleep and rise after the sun, making it feel like a new day. There’s a long pause, followed by a carefully whispered message. “Think of a way that I can talk to you even if I don’t get to come with you. Meri can’t know, only you. It’s extremely important, Syd. Try to figure something out… I can’t.”

  “Call Evelette Harter,” I tell my tablet more urgently and less carefully than Evvie was wise to sound.

  “Calling Evelette Harter, Yes?” it asks aloud.

  “No. Cancel call,” I command.

  “Canceling call, Yes?”

  “Yes,” I confirm. I don’t want to wake Evvie if she’s managed to fall asleep, but that’s not the main reason I change my mind about returning her call. I can’t give into by my instincts, which scream for me to call my little sister, to see what’s bothering her, and to tell her that I’ll make everything all right. Believing that freedom of speech exists is a costly mistake. I need to take time to consider my reaction to Evvie’s call. I also want her to trust that I have a plan when she does hear from me, and the best way to convince her of that is to figure one out.

  Before now, I hadn’t considered that Evvie might have a desire to escape should none of the first three scenarios be granted. She has no idea that I already plan to steal her away from the orphanage and attempt to get out of Miles if scenario four is her fate. This might be a suicide plan, but like that day two years ago when I first made the jump, what choice do I have?

  Veering from my EduWeb requirements, I once read an article on the Internet about a refugee who tried to escape into the mountains surrounding his county. The article didn’t say which, but there is a prominent mountain range within Region Two, so he could have been an escapee from a neighboring county. This man must be really smart and crafty, or he must have been that way if he’s no longer alive.

  He allegedly jumped the barrier and booked it toward the distant mountain, which is much farther off than the close cover I’m lucky to have surrounding Miles. The article’s daring writer almost highlighted the man’s genius and bravery. The picture showed a stout Mexican-American man with a beaming smile. It was captioned: Rico Aves, a Man for True Freedom.

  I spent some time looking for archived articles by the same newspaper or magazine, whichever it was. I also searched for information on the history of the free man. In both fields, I found nothing, not a single trace of this Rico Aves or the source that glorified him. An hour later, when I thought of something else to search, the domain of the article produced no results. The site had been blocked or disabled.

  I have two theories regarding this man, and since this is the only escapee attempt I’ve ever heard of, I guess it’s appropriate to say that I have two theories regarding all refugees. One theory is that Rico Aves was tracked and sent for. Some secretive, special task force captured him and he either remains in their custody still, or is dead, and that’s why nothing of his history can be found.

  My second theory is that the government was paying no special attention to this man. He escaped easily, and was welcomed into the neighboring nation to the north. In this theory, Rico Aves smiles to encourage me. He invites me to join him in true freedom.

  I can’t know which theory is true, but I hope for the latter. My plan stands. I don’t have proof of a single case where someone has escaped and made it, but that doesn’t deter me. I would rather us both be dead then chance Evvie being abused or enslaved underground. I won’t sit powerlessly as somewhere, by the hand of someone, Evvie cries for help.

  I need a way to guardedly detail my plan out for her, should the worst happen.