Lush Trilogy

by S. L. Baum

  “My father did, I was just up late on my tablet. I’m exhausted.” I felt bad that I couldn’t tell her what I was doing, but I didn’t know who I could trust. Lily was extremely close to her mother and if she told her, who in turn told her father, who then told someone on The Council… well, I’d be in big trouble. The kind of trouble I knew I never wanted to be in.

  “Reading again.”

  I nodded my head in false agreement. It made me feel better that it wasn’t a spoken lie. “Let me brush away this morning mouth,” I told her, “and then we can go downstairs to eat. I hope somebody left something out for us to warm up. There wasn’t much in there last night. Did you not eat breakfast, either? Why are you so starving at eleven?”

  She looked at me with a guilty grin. “No.”

  “Well, that’s your own fault.”

  “You better hurry,” Lily warned.

  I scowled at her. “Ugh. I will.”

  “Don’t give me that face,” she said and then held up a small bag. “And I have these.”

  “What is that?”

  “Mom’s carrot cookies.”

  “Lily, have I ever told you that you are the best friend a girl could ever ask for?”

  “Not lately, Blue.”

  “Well, you are!” I beamed, giving her a quick hug before rushing off to brush my teeth.

  Downstairs we found a note that instructed me to press start on the warming drawer, and then let it run for ten minutes. I assumed Dallas, our chef, wrote the note because I didn’t recognize the handwriting. I pressed the button, poured two glasses of juice, and then Lily and I sat down at the table.

  “I feel like I’ve been gone for ages. I have no idea what is going on with everybody!”

  Lily laughed at me. “Blue, you’ve been gone for what… ten or eleven days? Right? You didn’t miss all that much.”

  “Well, I don’t know. You could have had a huge fight with Fisher, or maybe you requested to be considered for a Marriage Contract, or maybe you found some other, more interesting, young man and your intentions have changed.”

  Lily put her hands over her eyes and laughed even harder. “I can’t even look at you when you start with the crazy assumptions. Fish and I are just fine. Nothing major has happened in any direction whatsoever.”

  “Stuff has happened,” I insisted.

  She lowered her hands, placing them on the table. “Let’s see… Stone and Rosebud are happy as can be. The Pets are still confused, nervous for the outcome, and they don’t have much longer. Coral got completely soaked in a fire alarm mishap…”

  “Yeah.” I nodded.

  “Yeah, what?” Lily looked at me with confusion. I wasn’t supposed to know that. I just got back last night, and communications were down.

  “Oh, yeah? That’s crazy. That must have been a sight!” I said.

  “It was. She was soooo mad.”

  “I’m sure she was. Anything else?”

  “We all trained at the CEC.”

  “Well, I know that.”

  Lily took a drink of her juice and made a face. “This is bitter.”

  “Aspen hates sweeteners.” I shrugged. “She says they ruin your figure. But we have some.” I got up and searched through one of the drawers behind me.

  “I want to know what happened with you.”

  “Boring Lush Ambassador stuff.” I came back to the table and gave her a sweet cube to put in her drink. “But my tour of the Medical facilities was interesting. Did you know there are three types of drugs that will affect your memory?” I paused, waiting. Lily shook her head. “Well there are pills to take it away, pills to bring it back, and ones to preserve the memories you have.”

  “I swear, I know a few people who must have been given the take it away ones.”

  “Like who?” I asked.

  Lily leaned in a little closer to me. “Yesterday, my mother came home from the butcher shop and said the butcher had completely forgotten her name. She said he looked at her as if he had no idea who she was. She has been going in there every week for years! The moment she walks in the door, he always shouts, ‘Cheyenne, what can I get for you?’ But yesterday he looked confused, even after my mother asked for her order; he said he didn’t have one for her. Mother told me that it eventually came back to him, but only after she reminded him of their entire conversation.”

  “Strange.”

  “That’s what I thought! She told my father she thought that someone had drugged the butcher. She said it like she was trying to be funny, but I don’t think she really was!”

  “Why do you think someone would do that?”

  “I have no idea. But I bet it was one of the Banished.” She uttered that last word with venom. “I hope nothing like what happened in Three will happen here in One. My father has been working some late hours.”

  “Since the attack?”

  Lily tapped her finger against her temple, and thought for a moment. “I think it started a few days before that, actually. I bet your father has been working nonstop too.”

  “I imagine so.”

  “Do you think the food is done yet? Maybe we can take it out early.”

  “I’ll check,” I said with a smile and got up to look.

  I took the dish out of the warming drawer and inspected the contents. It looked fine to me, so I started to plate the food. While I methodically portioned out the lunch, I tried to decide if I could trust Lily with what I knew. After her story about the butcher, I thought maybe I could. But then when she mentioned the Banished, she said it with such distaste that I was hesitant to try to explain anything. I decided to keep my knowledge to myself for the time being, but I hoped that soon I could speak freely with her.

  “Something smells delicious.” She stopped talking and pointed to her belly. “Did you hear that? It was my stomach.”

  I smiled and shook my head at her. “Oh, Lily.”

  “Oh, Blue. Feed me!”

  A few hours later we were sitting on the couch, some silly comedy played on the big wall screen, and we were laughing at the exaggerated way one of the actors pronounced his words. When a gorgeous, well-preserved, slightly older woman came on the screen I started to smack Lily on her knee.

  “What?”

  “I saw her!” I exclaimed, pointing to the woman. “When I was in Two, I saw her at the Medical Center. Apparently, she gets to try every proven beauty and maintenance drug, the moment it is done being pre-tested on other people. Lily, Citizens of Two will volunteer to try out creams, and drugs, and shots, and lots of other things, before they are certified as safe. They just sit in a little cubicle in this big room and let themselves be experimented on. Can you believe that?”

  “How else are the Medical officers going to know if something works or not?” Lily scrunched her face at me as if I had just said something ridiculous.

  “I don’t know. I guess by testing it.” I couldn’t really argue against her point. “But what if the things they are testing completely fail?”

  “I’m sure they wouldn’t be testing it if they thought it would fail,” she reasoned.

  There was nothing I could say to argue my point further. She didn’t seem to see my line of reasoning at all, so I let it drop and changed the subject. “I just realized that it is a week day and you are not at the CEC.”

  “It was closed down the day after the attack. Only necessary business and a few private tutoring sessions are going on this week. They said that it will be back to business as usual next week. I’m not complaining.”

  “Neither am I. I just wondered.”

  “Goodness! Did you hear him?” Lily pointed at the screen. “I – am – not – going – to – leave – you!” She mimicked the actor’s voice perfectly.

  “Unless – my – Peace – Keeper – brother – shows – up,” I recited the next line, with an attempt at imitation, and then slumped against her. I tilted my head back to look up at Lily’s face. “Well, that was a worthless try on my part. I don’t sound anywhe
re near as good as you do!”

  She leaned into me. “Fish and I have watched this three times in the last week or so. I’ve been practicing my over acting skills. I think I have it down by now.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you’ve seen it so many times? We could have watched something else.”

  Lily shook her head. “It makes me laugh, and I wanted to watch it with you. You’re my best friend, Blue.”

  “Lil, promise we’ll be friends, no matter what.”

  “Of course we will. Why wouldn’t we? We’ll enter Marriage Contracts at the same time, and then each have our first child, of course mine will be adopted but I’ll make sure it coincides with the birth of yours. You should have a girl, first. Then we’ll have two little girls that will go to Training Tech together, be best friends like us, and maybe even be chosen for the same field of study at the CEC.”

  I sighed. “You’ve got it all worked out, don’t you?”

  “I do.”

  “What about the Banished and the attack on Three?” I asked her. “You don’t think that puts a kink in your plans?”

  She rubbed my arm, her small attempt to comfort me. “No. Our fathers will figure it out and put everything back on track,” she said. She didn’t have any idea what was really going on in Concord, but she was probably right. Our fathers would figure it out, they would somehow make it all better, and everyone would continue on with their blissful ignorance. “Now back to the video. This is a good part,” she pointed at the screen. “No more talking.”

  I placed my hand over my mouth and turned my head to watch, but not exactly pay attention. While Lily laughed and smiled at something that happened on the wall screen, I thought about how I was going to make my father remember. That was what I was supposed to do, that was what had been assigned to me.

  A limited supply of memory drugs sat upstairs in my travel bag, and more were stored with Gilbert. I thought about what I’d been told about them. A daily dose of Pink Memory was recommended for naturally forgetful Citizens, which would preserve their memories. Even one dose of White Memory would start erasing things from a Citizen’s mind. Yellow could help bring back lost memories. Even though I was fairly certain I’d been given White ones in the past few weeks, I’d been able to recover my memories on my own, by concentrating on what I should know and forcing myself to remember. But my mother was truly a lost memory for my father. I would need to find a way to feed the yellow pills to him, without anyone being the wiser. Once those pills were in his system, I hoped to coax the memories of Hope out of the recesses and back into the forefront of his mind.

  When my memory had been fuzzed out, I needed triggers to bring it all back. But I wasn’t sure if there was anything of Hope’s that remained and could be used as a trigger. I didn’t know much about her; I didn’t have anything of hers. As I pretended to watch the comedy video with Lily, I twirled the flower ring around my finger. It was the only thing I knew of that once belonged to my mother – except me, of course. But somehow the association between the two of us had been erased for my father.

  Gilbert had known my mother, and I had some vague memories of her. Once I asked Gill for a few specific memories of Hope, and made sense of my own, I’d be able to casually mention things associated with her in front of my father. But I’d have to make sure that Aspen wasn’t around when I did it. Gathering information would take some time, so the ring would have to be a start. As a child, I’d worn it around my neck, on a blue ribbon. I knew there was blue ribbon upstairs in my room. “That’s a good start.”

  “What did you say?”

  I twisted my head to look up at her. “What?”

  “You just said something that sounded like good start.”

  I hadn’t realized I’d spoken aloud. My eyes darted to the wall screen. “Good heart. That character may talk funny, but I think he has a good heart.”

  Lily nodded her head. “Oh, I completely agree. He’s always looking out for her best interests. He really does have a good heart. See. I knew you’d like this one.”

  “I do. I’m so glad you came over to watch it with me.”

  Lily was gone by four. She had promised to help her mother with dinner; they rarely used a chef, so some form of preparation was necessary. After I hugged her, and promised to go over to her house the next day, I went upstairs to find a blue ribbon. The chime of the door alert brought me quickly back down the stairs.

  “What did you forget, Lil?” I asked as I opened the door.

  But Lily wasn’t standing outside… Thorn was. “I guess that means I’ve got good timing and you’re alone.”

  “Thorn! You have the best timing.” I reached out and grabbed his hand. Without saying another word, I turned around and led him into the house.

  He pulled me into a hug, after I closed the door, and kissed my cheek. His mouth lingered near my ear. “I know we need to talk, but there are probably sound recorders in here,” he whispered.

  “We should go for a walk,” I suggested as we pulled apart.

  Thorn smiled. “I’d love to go on a walk with you.”

  “Wait here while I run up to my room and put on some shoes.”

  A few minutes later we were walking toward the park near my house, our hands clasped together and swinging between us with every step we took.

  Thorn’s fingers squeezed mine. “I think if we talk out in the open, keeping our voice very low, we will be fine. My father wants us to be careful.”

  “Thorn, this is bigger than anything I could have imagined. Concord is not what we’ve been brought up to believe it is.” I shook my head and looked down at my feet as we walked. “The Council knows best. Concord will protect us and keep us safe. The Council makes fair and wise decisions. Citizens should work in harmony to glorify Concord. Concord, Thorn, glorify Concord… but in reality, Concord used to maintain that so called ‘harmony’ through kicking Citizens out, and now leans on erasing their minds, or just exterminating them from existence. That sounds fair and wise, doesn’t it?” Tears of anger, frustration, and fear threatened to spill from my eyes.

  Thorn squeezed my hand again and, when I looked up at him, he gave me an encouraging smile. “We have to find a way to expose it all, publically, to make Citizens aware of what is happening in Concord.”

  We walked toward the park in silence; there was so much to think about. I didn’t know where to start. But there was one thing that was absolutely clear. “We need more evidence.”

  He gave me a single nod in agreement. “We need to know things that only someone on The Council could get access to. There is so much that we’ve been kept in the dark about. We know that the injustices to the Citizens of Concord are innumerable; we just don’t know how deep it goes.”

  “Is that we, you and me? Or the same we I’ve been hearing about since I left on my tour?” I asked.

  “It’s both. You, and me, and my father, and your driver, and so many other people that will need to work together… to find out the entire truth about Concord. But we have to be careful, because we shouldn’t act upon anything or let anyone know our suspicions until we are sure we know everything.”

  We arrived at the park and made our way to the tree. I’d started to think of it as our tree. “I really would like for us to figure out a way for us to meet this we. But I still haven’t told you the most important thing…” I lowered my voice to barely a whisper. “I know my mother is alive. She is out there somewhere, and she’s been trying to contact me. I received a message from her when I was in Three. She said to make my father remember.”

  “A message? How?”

  I closed my eyes and pictured the black, oval object as it fell. “It dropped out of the sky,” I told him. “Out of this thing that resembled a bird, but wasn’t. It was written in such tiny print, but it said, ‘Make your father remember. It’s the only way.’ And then the thing burned into ash. It’s hard to explain.”

  “And how are you supposed to make your father remember?”

&
nbsp; I opened my eyes and looked at him. “I have these little yellow pills that are supposed to bring memories back. If I can get them into his food, or dissolve them in a drink, I think he will start to remember her. It will take a little while for the drugs to build up in his system, but eventually, with my guidance, the memories will return. They have to.”

  Thorn began to trace my Lush Brand with his finger. “What happens if he remembers and it all goes downhill from there?”

  I shook my head. “It won’t. It can’t. If she thought he would make a huge confession about the memories to Aspen, or my grandfather, why would she have sent the message? She obviously trusts him enough to want him to remember.”

  “But do you trust him?”

  “I guess I have to. Thorn, he was the one who came to Visitation Days. He was the one who praised me. My father was the only one who continually showed care and concern for me while I was at Training Tech. If his attitude toward me was the same as Aspen’s, he never would have been the kind of father he was. I think that if he hadn’t lost his memory, he would have been an even more caring father. So maybe, just maybe, he’s always cared for me, despite what Aspen would have him do, because there is something in his memory that just won’t die. I am part of her, and I think he really and truly loved her.”

  “Then why did he let her become one of the Banished?”

  “I don’t know. She was trying to escape with me, he took me away from her, and that is the last thing I remember about my mother. I just have to hope that there is a reason behind it all.”

  “I hope you are right. If not, you’re in deep trouble.”

  I grimaced. “If I’m not, I think we are all in deep trouble.”

  Thorn leaned against the tree and put his arms around me, pulling my back into his chest. “We don’t have much longer. The sun will start to set soon, and with the curfew…”

  “With the curfew in place, every good Citizen needs to be at home,” I finished his sentence for him.