by Amanda Thome
He runs for the clue before he bothers to see if his arrow made contact. It buzzes through the air and strikes the last tether just as he strides under the clue catching the next challenge.
‘You may want to run to the next and final stop for you have to travel north 440 feet once then twelve times more before you have reached the cure. Now take these berries and be on your way, pace your run or else there may be no more days.’
He shoots me a sideways glace and I half expect he won’t accept my dare. Putting it together yesterday I thought it would be something we could laugh at. I’d make him see how foolish he was for even suggesting eating churn berries that day. But really what’s so funny about this? I’ve seen death before, had it dig it’s long and jagged claws into my heart. Maybe death has a plan, or maybe it strikes at random, all I know is I shouldn’t be mocking it. I shouldn’t be toying with something so harsh.
The blood red berries look striking against his tanned palm and I realize what a stupid idea this is. If I didn’t prepare enough of the cure last night, or if the container spilled into the river he’ll die. He only has thirty minutes to drink the bine root.
I scream, “Garret NO!”
But it’s too late. I watch horrified as he tips his head back throwing the blood red fruit down. He swallows and my stomach turns. He wipes his forearm across his red lips. A dark and heavy blanket coats my heart, like deaths preparing to tear it to pieces yet again.
“Are you coming or did you wanna just stumble across my body later?” He hollers over his shoulder as he bounds rock to rock down the river bed heading one mile due north.
I break into a cold sweat realizing that in thirty minutes he could be gone. Images cross my mind of his blond hair bounding down my walkway when he was no more than the acorn-eyed boy. My chest lurches as my heart slowly crumbles like the dried flowers that sit under my bed. I run to catch-up with him, counting my steps. Two hundred and one, two hundred and two, two hundred and three. It’s a nervous quirk of mine.
The branches along the riverbed reach across my path and whip my face, striking me so hard I look like I’ve been seared with a whip, but I keep running. My feet and heart pound in unison. If the cure isn’t right he’ll die, there’s nothing I can do to stop it. What would I do then? I need to think of words to say when Central comes for his body. I won’t let him down like I did Mama. My throat clamps down, squeezing its way towards my chest. I can’t think of words to say. How could I? He feels as much a part of me as my own breathing does, as my own heartbeat, which I’m sure pumps in the same rhythm as his. My being is too intertwined with his, without him a half of me would die too. How do you say words for a death you’re bound so closely to? I’m frantic to keep him safe. He’s ahead of me, closing in on the final clue.
The mile run over the rocks and through the trees only leaves fifteen minutes to release the cure. Without it his stomach will heave and he’ll be doubled-over in pure agony as his insides work from his stomach into the world outside, and then he’ll die.
He reaches the clue and with shivering hands unfolds it…
‘The Outer wear blue when the Inner wear grey, when Inner wear blue Outer wear green, when Inner dress in green Outer take this color. With this color comes their jobs. The missing color tied to the final letter in the second most coveted job of those that wear blue when the Outer wear green is where the spear must strike.’
Dozens of submerged river rocks lay in front of him. I painted them blue, green, and grey with the letters ‘R’, ‘T’, and ‘P’ for healer, attendant, and develop. Just some of the jobs assigned to us in the Inner. He needs to find the grey rock with the letter ‘R’ and spear it to complete the riddle and release the cure.
Garrett struggles with the puzzle as sweat collects on his brow. I hear a loud scream escape his mouth. I turn seeing him doubled in pain; the churn berries are taking effect. Water hits my thighs before I realize I’m running. Out of the corner of my eye the spear buzzes past my head falling a full twenty feet short of the grey rock.
Garrett’s never been great with a spear but he generally wouldn’t miss a shot this easy. He’s failed and is dying. My legs spring into action as I lift my knees trying to break the water’s surface. I run for the spear as Garrett falls on all fours coughing and gasping. I reach the spear as the coughing stops. A loud thud sounds from behind me. Death’s blanket rips my insides down, pulling my chest like it’s playing a game of slow torture.
The spear’s mired in the mud, I tug and twist and still it won’t come loose. Sweat pours out of me as I throw my full weight behind my final pull, just then the suctioning mud releases. The force knocks me on my back and I lay disoriented. Water rushes over my face; there’s a dull buzzing inside my head. I blink, water blinds my eyes. I latch onto my inner drive, that character I’ve built to be strong and fight. The end of Garrett will mean the end of me, and I won’t end yet. The buzzing stops and I push to my feet with seconds to pinpoint the target. I cock my arm back and pitch the spear watching it pierce the target exactly where it needs to.
“Drink! Garrett drink” I coax as I try tipping the cure to his lips. I cradle his head in my palm looking into the same glassy eyes my mother had just before she died. Bile rises into my mouth.
“Nessa,” he whispers. He’s barely alive but there’s hope.
“Drink Garrett. Drink.” I tilt the cup, hoping he’ll sip.
His strong body that looked so oversized earlier now looks frail as I cradle him. I sing to him the way my mother used to do for me. I can’t let him go, not like this.
Chapter 8
I wish I’d stop wasting my time wondering what she’s doing. I can’t count how many times I’ve played my sight over and over in my head. I’ve got to have faith. That’s what I keep telling myself. I’ve got to believe that whatever she’s doing, it’s something to get her to me.
No matter how I order the flashes I saw during my sight, I know that our time is coming. I take my leap soon. In just a few weeks I’ll test again. I’ve got no choice but to test at the top again. I’ve got to get on stage like I saw. I bet the banquet in the Inner is even more outrageous than the one we had in the Outer. It has to be, everything in the Inner is better.
I bet they feel more pressure to make the leap here too. Of course the people in the Outer wanted to leap to the Inner. Getting here puts you one step closer to the perfect life Central offers. But it wasn’t Central that we were leaping to. It was still leaping into a less than perfect sector. We could never leap directly to Central, not without coming here first. Here in the Inner they get to hope and know that if they leap, they go straight to Central. That had to be intense growing up with that pressure.
Sometimes I imagine her studying, dealing alone with the pressure she must have felt her whole life. I picture her next to me as I practice my skills. I pretend she’s with me, helping me learn. I’ve got to find her. One of these nights I’ll see her and then I’ll know that I’m not crazy. I’ll know what I need to do and that it’s right.
Chapter 9
It’s almost like I’m having an out of body experience, I see Garrett lying across my legs but I can’t entirely process it. My mind takes me away like a shuttle rocketing off course. I’m transported to a time years ago, a time different than now.
I remember standing in front of our window, watching the sun break the hilltop east of my home on the first day of January, I knew I’d finally be starting education. I turned six the day before but was still wearing my grey play-clothes, not the blue uniform that children six to sixteen wear.
Papa still had his family quota at the factory to meet and with Mama gone he had to work twice as hard to fill it. Either way he looked the end result was a mark against the family: one mark if a regulator caught me without my blues, one if Papa didn’t meet his quota.
I still hadn’t learned how to use the shuttles to get to the post where I could collect my Central-issued supplies. On our sixth birthday we’re supposed to learn how to naviga
te the shuttles and collect the tools we need to begin one of the most important tasks of our lives: the leap.
On my first day of education I watched jealously as the other kids stood in their blue uniforms. Their hands gripped the Central issued blue bag swollen with supplies they needed to succeed. The other kids waited on the platform dancing foot to foot in excitement, holding the hand of a proud parent. I was so envious of them and hysterical that I had to take the one item I’d wanted to preserve. I wished I had anything but the bag I was holding. I wanted to keep it untouched as a way to remember Mama.
I’d searched our home for anything to carry what few supplies I had. All I could find was Mama’s burlap bag. It was the one she carried her work provisions in. When Central took her body they took all her materials except the tattered bag. In their opinion it wasn’t salvageable.
I wished I had my mothers hand to hold but the thought suddenly sickened me as I remembered how cold it had been in her last moments. When the sleek white shuttle pulled up, I turned waving good-bye to the family that wasn’t there and I blew a kiss to the mother that was just a memory.
The other kids laughed at me as I walked along the darkened aisles. I didn’t blame them. The shuttle operator made me scan my card to prove I was actually six. Of course she believed everyone else was old enough to ride the shuttle unaccompanied, they were all wearing their blue uniforms.
I walked straight to the back, taking an empty seat. The black seats looked cold and uninviting. I folded my legs to my chest. I wanted to make myself dissolve, I tried collapsing within myself by wrapping my slight arms around my legs. I jammed my eyes against my knobby knees, letting tears escape the corners as I listened to the others laughing. Why me, and what I wouldn’t give to be in any of their shoes I thought. If they only knew how delicate and vulnerable my heart was I wonder if they still would’ve laughed.
The shuttle made its final stop at education and I purposefully exited last. My legs tingled as I uncrossed them, dropping them sluggishly to the floor. I took three hesitant steps off the shuttle and was overwhelmed by the sight of swarming children.
Kids my age all-smiling, some doubled over laughing at one person. I spotted the acorn-eyed boy folded in laughter too and realized they were laughing with him, not at him like they did to me. So strange that the same act can evoke such different emotions. The joke from a friends lips brings cheerful laughter, a sound of pure joy. Yet the same sounds, the same laughter from the lips of those against you, from those laughing at you can be so hurtful and so harsh. My anger was mounting when the education chime sounded, breaking me from my rage.
The chime indicated the start of education. A sea of blue flowed into the building like water breaching a dam. Once inside, several kids including myself stopped in our tracks. The lights were nearly blinding and brighter than any lights we’d ever seen. The education building was strikingly bright white. I followed the sea of blue into our room, feeling a lurch in my stomach as I realized it was time to pick my seat.
Mama always told me to sit front and center. She said it would “Keep you focused on the educator. The more focused, the more engaged, meaning the better you’ll do on the leap.”
Everything revolves around the leap. When I was very young Mama would place our only chair in the front of the room and clap her hands, practicing for this very moment. I’d race to beat her, gliding gracefully into the seat. That was then and I couldn’t sit front and center anymore, not without my supplies or uniform.
I had to hide the best I could, I picked the seat in the back corner. The educator entered, the entire class sat at attention. She was a slender women dressed in all white with her brown hair drawn neatly into a tight knot at the nape of her neck.
It took her less than ten minutes to spot me in the corner. “And whom do we have here?” Her sarcastically sweet voice was piercing like her eyes. “I refuse to believe you’ve come to education out of uniform.”
I swallowed, preparing to speak. “I’m sorry ma’am…I’m Vanes…”
“Enough.” She cut me off. The others giggled. “You’ll leave my classroom immediately and won’t return until you’re prepared to follow the rules.”
My cheeks blazed as the others snickered, all except the brown-eyed boy sitting front and center. I bolted from the room, tears threatening to fall. In my embarrassed rush I left my mother’s burlap bag with my scan card inside. I had no way to prove I was six. For minutes I braced myself outside the classroom door debating if I should go back to get it. Finally I gave up, I’d find a way home.
Rolling clouds passed lazily by as I waited on the shuttle platform. Finally the sleek vessel arrived. The shuttle attendant shot me a nasty glare. She half-barked at me.
“Where’s your supervision?”
“I don’t have any, but I’m six…”
She closed the shuttle door, leaving me alone on the platform. I was angry at Papa for making me look foolish and forcing me to break the rules. I remember thinking we could get a mark against the family for this, and three marks meant neither Emma nor I would have a chance to make the leap when we turned seventeen.
It took me almost two hours to walk home. My legs were no bigger than miniature twigs and they shook with exhaustion when I reached our entrance. I scarcely had enough energy to open the creaking door and once inside I fell to the floor next to Emma’s wooden crib. I slept so solidly I imagine I looked like a discarded pile of grey clothes.
I slept for hours next to the crib; Emma apparently sensed my exhaustion because she didn’t stir. After hours of sleep I was woken by the jingle of the doorknob. I shot up immediately. My heart bounded with alarm as I tiptoed across the room. I backtracked a few steps, collecting an umbrella to use as a weapon. I reached the door, flinging it wide. I grunted something unintelligible hoping to startle the intruder away.
There was no intruder, just my mothers burlap bag wrapped around the doorknob. The bag was brimming. I pulled it open exposing my blue uniform and education supplies. I snapped my head up to see the blonde haired boy rounding the corner, walking into the horizon. Why? That’s what I wanted to ask him. I wanted to know why he would do that for me. Why give me the flowers and now the bag. That night I dreamt of flowers turning into acorn-brown eyes and for the first time I could remember, I was happy.
Chapter 10
Garrett twitches, momentarily breaking my mental reflection. His body relaxes and I continue to seek refuge in my memories.
I recall sounding accusatory and angry without meaning to when I saw him at education the next morning. “How’d you get that?” I asked. His eyes stared straight into mine.
“You left your bag, it had your scan card in it. I knew the way to the post, plus you needed your card to get the supplies so I did it for you.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Now they can’t send you home. Hey, I didn’t know your name was Vanessa. I like it.”
“I go by Nessa. I don’t know your name at all so I can’t say if I like it.”
“Garrett” he answered.
“Garrett?”
“Yup.” He answered with his smile.
The bell curtailed our conversation. The sea of blue repeated the routine like the day before. The educator walked into the room, craning her head sharply to the back expecting to see me in grey.
She singled me out twice, probing questions I didn’t know. I’ve been told that before the divide school wasn’t taken as seriously, but here in the post-divide education is one of the ‘BIG 3’ that decides our life. The other two factors are skills and lineage scores. The leap is a combination of all three. I remember thinking if I didn’t catch-up I’d be assigned a job like trash disposal.
I can imagine my small six-year-old self pretending to sit calmly at my desk, though all the while I was mentally fixated on my imminent failure. At days end I waited for the shuttle with my mind racing to devise a way to catch-up. I heard his voice.
“We could work together.” He paused as I dumbly stared at him. “
Study I mean.”
I expected him to be kidding, possibly mocking me like the other kids. My immediate reaction is to say ‘no’ but all I could think about was trash disposal. Maybe a partner was what I needed, maybe we needed each other, I tried telling myself. If I didn’t make the leap I’d never know what lies beyond the concrete walls where the regulators patrol. I accepted his offer.
From that day on Garrett and I meet here, on the river between our two homes. Together we’ve played, studied, practiced, and mastered the skills essential to cross the concrete walls into Central.
Chapter 11
Garrett’s coughing shakes our intertwined bodies as I cradle him along the riverbed. Between his earth shaking coughs there’s a horrible gurgling sound from deep in the back of his throat. He hasn’t said another word and I don’t even know if he can.
My fingers comb through his golden hair just as his coughing silences. I watch the rising and falling of his chest, I’m cast into a trance watching the rhythmic breathing. Rise and fall. Rise and fall. Rise and fall. Over and over it repeats.
His raspy voice snaps me out of my trance. “I wasn’t serious.” I don’t know what he’s talking about; maybe the churn berries affected his mind. “Yesterday,” he half chokes. “On the shuttle. The thirty-minute thing, I was kidding.” He clears his throat, flashing his smile. “You didn’t have to kill me to prove your test making skills.”
“Garrett, I’m sorry.” I sound desperate.
“It’s ok. I took the berries.”
“Why’d you do that? It was stupid!”
“I knew you’d save me. At least I did at first. There was a little doubt when I was on all fours dying. I remembered what an awful healer you are. I thought for sure I was a goner.” He playfully jabs his elbow into my stomach.
