Missing Pieces

by Meredith Tate

  “Where do we go?” I ask. “Should we head down there?”

  “I don’t like how dark it’s getting.”

  “Hey!” booms a voice.

  We whirl around, jerking our fists up. A burly, unshaven, sweatshirt-clad man stands before us, Banishment scar etched across his cheek—the first reprobate. My pulse rockets through my chest.

  Does he plan to rob us? Rape us? Kill us?

  I gulp.

  A jovial smile blooms across his round face. “Welcome to Lornstown, the walled city!”

  I jump at the depth of his voice. My eyes flash from my quivering best friend, to the stranger, and back.

  “I’m Michael, but everyone calls me Mikey. So glad to meet you folks!”

  He thrusts out a grubby hand. Keeping my eyes locked on him, I shake it. His firm grip leaves a dirty film on my fingers.

  “And what do they call you?” He’s got one silver-crowned tooth on the bottom and a gap between his top front teeth. “You kids got names?”

  Piren’s hand trembles beside me. I reach out to steady it.

  “Aw, I don’t bite,” Mikey says. “Well, not hard anyway. Promise.” He winks.

  Mikey’s hiking boots are caked in several layers of mud. His green eyes glimmer, even in the setting sunlight. My tense arms relax. In a weird way, I trust him.

  “Tracy Bailey.”

  “Piren Allston.”

  He gives us a sly smile. “Those fake names?”

  I gape.

  Shit. Maybe we should have given fake names.

  “Ha! I’m only kidding. Come on, don’t be shy. You look starved half to death.”

  Our new friend presses ahead down the path, beckoning us to follow. Piren signals me with his hands.

  “What do we do?” he mouths.

  I freeze. “I don’t know,” I mouth back.

  Above our heads, stars twinkle, offering their reassuring light. They’re probably the same stars we watched together yesterday, from the treehouse floor, wrapped in each other’s arms. A warm calm settles over me; I feel like we’re going to be okay.

  I tug Piren’s hand with a squeeze, and we follow Mikey down the hill.

  Pebbles crunch beneath our feet when we reach the main road below. A few street lamps dangling from wooden posts light the way, illuminating the stretch of gravel. Two women stride past us with a nod, their hands entwined together at their sides. My gaze follows them as they pass.

  Huh?

  The dirt road is devoid of vehicles, and layered with bulging bumps and rocks. It’s only slightly less treacherous than the path from the bus. Log cabins line the street on both sides, lights flickering in almost every window. Curtains flutter as we trek by, hiding peeping faces. Each cabin is constructed of thick tree trunks plastered in green moss—overgrown treehouses.

  Do people live in these?

  “So, what’s your story?” Mikey asks. “You know, why’re you here? Are you two Banished or—”

  “No.” Let’s not rush things.

  “We chose to come,” Piren says. “We ran away.”

  “Yeah?” Mikey says. “Thought so. Didn’t think I saw scars on your pretty faces.” He spins around. “I take it your Assigned Partners didn’t work for you, huh?”

  Piren tightens his grip on my hand.

  What’s safe to say to this stranger?

  “Eh, it’s okay. You two look like you’ve seen a ghost. Anyway, I’ll tell you ’bout me. Been here six years, married to Lilian. You’ll meet her eventually. Anyway, city Assigned me to this girl, Karen Otis. Now, Karen’s a fine woman, really she was…”

  “This dude is crazy,” I whisper.

  “Crazy awesome,” Piren says.

  “Now, Karen’s mother kept telling her, she should—”

  Shouts burst from our left, and I leap a foot in the air.

  “Geez, you two are jumpy.” Mikey halts beside the door of the noisy building.

  “What…what was that yelling?”

  Mikey chuckles. “Probably one of Ed’s dirty jokes. He’s a rowdy one. You’ll see. My apologies in advance if he’s too much; that guy’s got no filter.”

  He indicates toward the door. A brown hanging sign above our heads advertises this building as “The Lighthouse Restaurant.”

  Mikey yanks open the door, unleashing an explosion of laughter from inside that practically bowls me over. He walks in.

  We step through the entrance after him, squeezing together to keep our grip on each other. Piren’s hand is sweaty and hot from holding mine so long, but I don’t care.

  People pack The Lighthouse wall-to-wall. Some stand off to the side, but most huddle around a bulky, wooden table in the center of the room, cackling.

  “Hey, everybody! Look who I found!” Mikey thunders, waving his arms. “It’s Piren and Tracy, from the city!”

  Two hundred eyes flash to us. The room falls silent. A fork clinks against a plate.

  I inhale a shaky breath, offering the crowd a weak wave. “Hi.”

  Everyone leaps to their feet, erupting in applause. People clap and stomp, whistling, smiling and happy. Dozens of healthy, normal people, cheer for us.

  My mouth hangs open.

  This is not what we expected. This is not what we expected at all.

  Piren Allston

  The crowd thrusts us to the center of the room, into folds of people. Men and women of all ages, races, and sizes pat us on the back and cheer, proclaiming variations of “Welcome to Lornstown!” While some faces bear the slash of Banishment, others are clean, unmarred faces of runaways. Misfits. Outsiders. They swarm us, pushing and shoving to shake our hands.

  Trace beams beside me, her cheeks growing pink as she greets everyone.

  Is this real?

  A pale older woman with wispy white hair and a floral dress hobbles up to the table. Her crooked nametag identifies her as Loretta. She slides a tray of salami sandwiches down the table to us. Trace pounces, stuffing one in her mouth. Stomach grumbling, I follow.

  Mikey climbs up on a chair and raises his hands. The commotion dies to silence, all eyes descending on Trace and me.

  “Um…thanks everyone. This is…very nice,” Trace says, her mouth bulging with food. I nod in agreement.

  “So, who are ya’ll?” a guy in the back shouts. “Runaways? Adulterers? What?”

  Trace scarfs the remainder of her sandwich in one bite. “Well, this is my best friend—” she nudges me with her elbow, mid-gulp “—since age seven.”

  I cringe at her public use of the words, waiting for someone to excoriate her.

  But they don’t.

  Aw’s and sympathetic pouts fill the room, as if everyone holds some sort of mutual understanding. My ears burn, but I can’t fight my growing smile.

  “One of those stories, eh?” Loretta saunters over.

  “One of what stories?”

  The crowd parts to let her through. “Honey, it’s the biggest reason we see a new face around here. Falling for the wrong person—or as I call it, the right person.” She brushes my cheek with her fingertips. “Let me tell you, honey, you ain’t weird. It happens all the time.”

  The room explodes with cheers. Hands thump us on the back.

  “It does?”

  “Sure thing.” Loretta collects our empty plate. “Someone’s not happy with their Partner, loves someone else, wants their best friend instead…You’re no different. When you love someone, really love someone—” she takes my hand in her wrinkly fingers and presses it to Trace’s “—nothing else matters. And that’s how it should be.”

  Several people nod. Trace laces her fingers into mine, and as if jolted with electricity, I sense our shared thought: they understand.

  The room buzzes with a hundred voices aimed at Trace and me. Some people want updates on family in town they haven’t seen in years. Others want to congratulate us on “making the move.” After several rounds of meet-and-greets, everyone settles around the table. Loretta pushes Trace and me into seats at
the head.

  One by one, the Lornstowners share their stories.

  Bill and Pasha met at work. They chose to leave their Assigned Partners within days, embracing their Banishment. They call their Banishment scars “Battle Scars.”

  Lauren ran away from home and her abusive Partner. She now owns a small construction business and lives happily here by herself.

  Constance felt smothered by her family and wanted to make her own decisions. She ran away a month before her Assigned wedding and fell in love with Albert, who left for similar reasons.

  Mark didn’t exactly want to be Assigned to a woman; he was Banished for this and now lives with his husband, Erich, and their adopted baby daughter.

  Tom’s Partner died in a freak accident two months before their wedding. Wanting kids, and dreading solitude, he ran away to start a new life. He settled in Lornstown and is expecting his first child with his wife, Olivya.

  Janet was Assigned to Kevin’s brother, but wanted Kevin instead. They were Banished together when the affair was discovered.

  Eloise and her Partner, Martin, were Banished when Eloise became pregnant before their wedding. They live together in Lornstown with their three children.

  Partners Wren and Carmen were married with two children, but became pregnant with a third child. When forced to choose abortion or exile, they chose exile. They now have five kids.

  As each person talks, the balloon in my chest expands, threatening to pop from the excitement inside. Each person is different, but somehow the same. Each person, estranged from the herd, found acceptance among the outcasts. We belong here as easily as everyone else.

  A familiar woman strides through the restaurant. I whip my head to the left in a double take. Long black hair waves down her back, flowing freely as she walks. A bearded man carrying two mugs leans in to kiss her cheek.

  It’s an older, pregnant, still beautiful Ashley Wyman. Scarred but glowing, she clutches the hand of the same man she wanted long ago. He whispers something in her ear, patting her engorged belly.

  They’re still together. It’s possible.

  Tracy Bailey

  These people are…crazy? Maybe. But I don’t care. Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe Piren’s crazy. Maybe we’re all a little bit crazy, but maybe that’s what happens when you’re with that one person who makes you feel all jumbled inside.

  No one cares Piren isn’t my Partner. No one castigates me for abandoning Sam. No one calls me a slut for holding Piren’s hand. No one harasses me to plan my stupid wedding. And for the first time in forever, I’m in a room full of people, yet there’s no one I want to strangle.

  I lean against my best friend at the table and bury my face in his sweatshirt. He wraps his arms tighter around me. I close my eyes and inhale his cinnamon scent, enveloping my senses.

  Freedom. This is freedom.

  Constance plops down next to me. Her floor-length, wavy brown dress brushes the wooden floor. Long, black braids flop against her back as she moves. Her unscarred face is free of makeup, aside from cherry lipstick, which accentuates her most striking feature: her shiny white teeth and unwavering smile.

  “So, I bet you both have a lot of questions,” she says, chewing a wad of gum.

  My cheeks ache from grinning all night, but I can’t stop. “Right now I’m just overwhelmed. You’re all so nice.”

  “Well, thanks,” she says. “You sound so surprised.”

  “Oh, I uh…”

  “Ha! I’m joking. I know, I know, the miserable Lornstowners, right?” She gestures around the room with her hand. “We’re out here all alone, drowning in our own depression. Ha!” She slaps her thigh. “Tracy, right?”

  I nod. She blows a gum bubble until it bursts, then sucks it back into her mouth.

  “Tracy, I mean, we of all people know it’s not easy being Banished. We try to make this a second home for everyone who comes our way, regardless of who you love or who you are.”

  “That’s…really cool.”

  “Yeah, I know, right? See Casey over there?” She nods toward the corner of the room. “Tiny redhead with the green shirt?”

  I nod.

  “Came here last week. That’s her boyfriend, Todd. Poor things nearly wet themselves when they met dear old Mikey.”

  I cock my head. “What’s a ‘boyfriend?’”

  “Wow. Just, wow. You really are a lost little lamb.” She pats my arm. “Boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever, it’s a word for someone you want to be with. Not married, just with.”

  “Like a lover?”

  “Ha! That’s great. Yeah, I guess you could call it that.”

  Piren leans in. “Will you be my girlfriend, Trace?”

  “Sure, but only if you’ll be my boyfriend.”

  “I don’t know. You’re kind of a pain in the ass.” He strokes his chin as if deep in thought. “But you do bring me chocolate, so I guess it’s a deal.”

  “Well, I get the worse end of the deal. I mean, I have a boyfriend who drives like a crazy person.” I shove his arm and turn back to Constance. “You’re not scarred, not Banished, so you must not be trapped behind the walls, then? You can leave whenever you want?”

  She shrugs. “I could, I guess. I’d have to explain where I was the past twelve years, and I don’t think they’d like my answer. Haven’t ventured a trip past the walls since I came.” She wads up her gum in a tissue. “Plus, I don’t care to. Those people are prudes.”

  “Tell me about it.” I shake my head. “How do you guys get food? And medicine? I mean, aren’t you disconnected from everything?”

  “We’re self-sustainable with food—grow it all ourselves. Sometimes we make trades to passing travelers, if they don’t know we’re Lornstowners. I mean, passersby see a nice guy on the side of the road selling fruit, and boom! Easy trade for some aspirin.”

  “Wait, the road? All the way back by the bus stop? So, people do venture outside the wall?”

  She smirks. “Not supposed to, but they do. Only way to make trades with travelers. We gotta send unscarred people, of course. They’re the only ones who can pass through the wall without fear of instant identification. Otherwise it blows the whole thing.”

  “But what if someone sees them leave Lornstown?”

  She shoots me a sideways smile. “No one’s been caught yet. They’re sneaky.”

  Sneaky, huh? I could do that job. Sounds fun.

  “What about medical care?” Piren leans over my shoulder. “Like, doctors? Dentists?”

  “What, you think they all fell in love with their Partners too?” She snorts. “Please, we’ve got more doctors here than we know what to do with. They’re kind of a nuisance, actually. Think they know everything about everything.”

  “What about Internet?”

  “Well, the town cuts us off from theirs, but we wouldn’t want that censored BS anyway. We’ve got some people working on developing a Lornstown network. I’d say it’ll be up within the next few months.”

  My eyes drift to the silver device on the table beside her. “And phones?”

  “Same thing, really.” She picks up her cell and rotates it in her hands. “The town blocks our area code, to keep any of our phones from reaching people back home. And when someone’s reported as a runaway, their line is cut off too. It won’t even work to check the time.” She thrusts her phone in my face. “But look! Magic! We have our own phones we—gasp—make ourselves!”

  I arch a brow. “I see that.”

  “Better than the shitty town ones, if you ask me. We text and call each other all the time.” She nods at a guy across the table, whose fingers zip across his phone screen faster than Veronica’s. “Some people, a little too much.”

  I twirl a ringlet of hair around my finger. “Where do you all live?”

  “Cabins. Didn’t you see them on your way to The Lighthouse? We keep some empty ones for new people, so you guys can live there a few months while you settle. Quit doubting us!” She pokes my arm. “We’ve got it all right here
: schools, doctors, stores, restaurants, everything. Self-maintained and proud of it. Who needs some stuffy town anyway?”

  Loretta slides a beer across the table to Constance.

  “Thanks, Etta!” Constance takes a sip, and yanks my hand out of Piren’s. “Want to meet my son? He’s only four.”

  “Oh…umm…”

  “Evan!”

  Footsteps patter against the floorboards. A small figure races into the room, screeching to a halt beside us, the top of his head barely visible over the tabletop. My heart rate accelerates to an alarming zip. I cup my hand around my eyes, obscuring my view.

  “Don’t let him over here,” I mouth to Piren. “I don’t do sick kids.”

  “What?” His forehead creases. “You okay?”

  “Evan, say hi to your new friend Tracy!” Constance says. The boy tugs my sleeve.

  I rub my hands down my pant legs. Clenching my jaw, I rotate down to greet the boy.

  Dark hair curled atop his chubby face, his hazel-brown eyes blink up at me. He shares the same dimpled smile as his mother, with a large gap from a missing baby tooth.

  “Hi,” he says, covering his blushing face behind plump fingers.

  This isn’t possible.

  “Hi, Evan.” The words slip out in a breathy whisper. “He’s…healthy.”

  “What?” Constance scrunches her face. “Oh, you can’t really believe all that garbage, do you? Please! Evan’s fit as any Partner-produced child; I’d stake my life on it.” She gulps a swig of beer and returns her attention to her son.

  I slink down in my seat, cheeks burning.

  Well, I’ll be damned. What a cute kid.

  “Do they have weddings here, Constance?” Piren asks.

  I raise my eyebrows.

  “I’m just curious! I mean, they have everything else here…”

  “All the time,” Constance says. “Please, we love weddings. Mine was crazy. Big open party out in the field, it was the best. We celebrated all night, dancing under the stars.”

  “Age twenty-four, right?” I ask, staring at the table.

  “What?” She tilts her head. “Honey, I got married at thirty-two. Anna over there, she’s sixty-one, never been married. Man, you’re both sheep. Welcome to freedom, friends.” She lifts her drink to us in a toast.