Solstice

by Jane Redd

  I bit my lip, gazing at him as my eyes burned. “Sol—” my voice broke.

  We stared at each other. We stood a couple of feet apart, but it felt there were only inches between us.

  “What if . . .” he whispered, “What if the rules could be changed?”

  “That’s impossible.” I thought of the Council of Judges that I’d been sentenced by. The entire government was based on rules that were set up to protect the city from itself, and everyone had to follow rules or our society would fall apart. The rules were essential to our survival until more land mass was created. Otherwise the List of Failures would take over. I had read my grandmother’s journal. There was no mercy.

  “Serah and Daniel thought that curing a disease would be impossible,” he said. “I wondered about it myself at first. But here we all are, trying something that we thought would never work.” He paused, moved closer, and lowered his voice even more. “You believed in the impossible. You came up with the idea.”

  He was standing too close to me. I couldn’t think straight. I wanted to touch his face and erase the tiredness from his eyes.

  “That’s the difference between you and me,” he continued. “I might know every lesson ever taught to us, but you want to make things better for everyone. You care about others whereas I . . . I care only about you.”

  I stared at him as the sound of rain grew louder against the awning. I suddenly hated the rain. If it hadn’t started raining, then our society wouldn’t be slowly dying and none of us would be in this mess. I swallowed hard. “Sol, you have to learn to care about yourself.” I took a small step to the side. One more step and I’d be standing in the rain. “You can learn to forget me. You can learn to control your emotions like I have.”

  His hand touched mine; I hadn’t realized how close he was. I hadn’t moved far enough away. His touch sent a shiver through me; I wanted to run through the rain back to the dorm while at the same time holding him close.

  “Don’t leave the University,” I begged, selfish panic overtaking me. “You’re the most promising student.” I couldn’t tell him my other reasons.

  “If I stay I’ll eventually become like them,” he said. “Unfeeling, uncaring. Ruthless. I saw the way you looked at me when you found out I turned in the cult members. I don’t want you seeing me like that.” His voice softened. “But you . . . the Legislature needs someone like you. You should stay.”

  I shook my head. This wasn’t happening. I couldn’t believe we were having this conversation, couldn’t believe what Sol wanted to give up. “The government needs your mind, Sol. You’re smarter than half our professors. It would be a waste if you worked at a lower level.” I took a deep breath and continued, “Besides, I can’t be the only brilliant scientist.”

  “Jez, finish the science project,” he said in an urgent voice. “Visit the C Level population. Help find a cure. Find Chalice. Bring her back to the University. They’ll listen to you when you win the science competition. They’ll grant your request—”

  “You have to stay here, help me finish the project,” I cut in, trying to keep my voice steady. I met his gaze, and his eyes seemed lighter, with pale blue-green mixed in with the gray. Like the sky right before the Solstice.

  He shook his head, and I remembered how his eyes had moistened when he’d talked about his caretakers in the school yard. Sol might not be a true Clinical, but he felt emotion, somehow. “I don’t know how you’ve suppressed your emotions for so long. I feel like I’m going to break in half if I don’t do something about it.”

  I looked around quickly. Seeing no one, I grabbed his hand. “Sol, let me help you. This is manageable. Please don’t leave the University.” I grasped his other hand, and whispered, “Please don’t leave me.”

  He closed his eyes as we stood hand in hand. I didn’t dare move. Didn’t dare wonder what might happen if I buried my face against his chest and wrapped my arms around him.

  When his eyes opened, they were wet. “This is goodbye, Jez.”

  “No,” I said, tightening my grip on his hands.

  Instead of pulling back, he leaned forward. His lips pressed against my tear-stained cheek.

  “Don’t leave,” I said, wrapping my arms around his neck, taking a risk in the shadows.

  He held me for a few seconds, his face buried against my neck. It wasn’t a fierce or possessive hug like the one in the classroom, but one of someone who’d already given up. All too soon, he released me. One of his hands smoothed my hair back. “I care about you too much to jeopardize anything.”

  I took a staggered breath. “Just give it some more time.” I held back a sob. “Leave the science group, but stay at the University.” He clenched his jaw, but I pressed on, “Please. If it doesn’t work then you can leave the University.”

  After a long moment of avoiding my gaze, he said, “All right.”

  Relief poured through me. I wouldn’t see Sol at the science group, but at least he wasn’t throwing his intellect away on a lower society level. This also meant we probably wouldn’t have a chance to talk for a long time after this, if ever again.

  He was already turning away when I stopped him with a question. “Before you go, can you tell me if you ever saw a picture of when it first started to rain?”

  “No images,” Sol said, “But my caretaker’s grandfather had some news reports on the origins of the Burning.”

  I held my breath, listening.

  “It wasn’t the people who started the Burning, Jez.” Sol looked directly at me. “They’re the ones who stopped it.”

  “But the people were the ones who cleansed the evil from the earth,” I said. The rain had increased, and now it dripped from the awning, splashing near our feet.

  “No,” Sol said. “My caretaker’s grandfather told me that when it didn’t stop raining, the governments of the different nations turned to scientists for answers. Global warming was among the topics debated.”

  “My grandmother’s book talked about the meteorologists holding international meetings,” I said.

  “That sounds about right. But no scientist or meteorologist could come up with a satisfactory explanation and it only continued to rain. Every day . . . Are you sure you want to hear this?”

  I nodded, a pit in my stomach, but I wanted to know.

  He looked nervous now as he glanced around. “The religious zealots were the ones to be executed by the governments.”

  My stomach lurched. “For not stopping the rain?”

  “For not finding the cause.” His eyes were on me again, gauging my reaction.

  “My grandmother’s book said that criminals were killed—it didn’t say anything about religious zealots.”

  “She may have not known. News was getting harder and harder to come by with the devastating floods.”

  I nodded. He was probably right, but that didn’t make it any easier to stomach.

  “The zealots said that God was punishing the people—that the earth had been cursed.”

  “So their god made it rain?” I stared at Sol.

  “Yes. According to the zealots, God was making it flood.” After several heartbeats of silence, he said, “They thought God would stop the rain if they could get rid of all evil and sin.”

  Just the fact I stood here, in rain that hadn’t stopped in forty years, was proof enough that the zealots had been wrong. “But why attack the zealots? It wasn’t their fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.”

  “Science and religion have always been at odds—but the world was big enough to contain both in the Before,” he said.

  “Until it started to flood,” I said.

  “Until the world started to shrink, and the scientists took over, eventually becoming the Legislature.”

  I let out a breath, trying to comprehend it all. My mind was spinning.

  “When the Legislature formed, new rules were put into place to protect the diminishing population,” he said. “There wasn’t room for disobedience.”

 
; “And those who disobeyed were executed,” I finished.

  “Yes,” he said, his voice quiet. “Like your grandmother.” His hand brushed my cheek. “Jez . . . I’d better go.”

  My eyes stung with tears. “All right.” I reached for his arm, but he moved back.

  “Goodbye, Jezebel.” He stepped into the rain, walking backward for a few steps, then he turned away.

  He walked to the corner of the building, and then he was gone. I closed my eyes, seeing his gray eyes and feeling his final touch on my cheek long after he’d disappeared. It took everything I had not to follow him, not to run after him and beg him to stay.

  I’d seen the pain in his eyes—the confusion, the hopelessness. He was truly afraid, and I knew what that was like.

  Tears sprung up again, and I wiped at them furiously. Maybe he’d change his mind. Maybe he’d show up to our science group tomorrow after he had a chance to consider it.

  I was shivering in the cold. The rain was now a full downpour, and my shoes were soaked, my feet numb. Still, I couldn’t move. I wanted to stay in this spot—the place where I’d last touched Sol.

  I probably would have stood there for hours if the message icon on my tablet hadn’t lit up. It was from Sol. My finger hesitated over it, not sure if I could handle whatever he had to say.

  Finally I opened the message and read: Sorry.

  One single word. Nothing more.

  Thirty-three

  In my dorm room, I stared at the final message from Sol until my eyes slid shut from exhaustion. I couldn’t bring myself to delete it. It had been five days since I’d last seen him. He never showed up for the science group, and although I tried to catch glimpses of him coming in or out of the men’s buildings, I didn’t see him anywhere. I knew he was around, but he’d obviously been careful to avoid me completely.

  I kept the rose stone Sol had given me in my pocket now. It was the only way that I could make him real. He might have found a way to avoid me, but all I had to do was touch the rose stone, and I felt him near.

  Daniel and Serah were totally mystified about why Sol had been taken off the project. To avoid their speculation, I spent every spare moment in the chemistry lab, concocting various creams using plant leaves delivered from the Agricultural Center—anything that might treat River Fever. The University had given us clearance to start a test group in two weeks. We would go to one of the C Level training centers, and ten women would be assigned to try our ointment.

  So far the forerunner was the Lemon Balm plant. Its small jagged green leaves made a nice oily pulp that was surprisingly cool and moisturizing on the skin. But even with the science project moving forward, each minute and each hour thoughts of Sol battled inside me as I worried and wondered how he was doing.

  I checked the news reports to see if any information came through. But there were only the standard reports on weather and the status of certain criminals. I had sent him a couple of short messages, but there had been no reply.

  It was as if he’d disappeared.

  * * *

  The morning arrived that we’d be leaving for the C Level training center. I woke early and slipped out into the corridor. It was nice to be able to come and go as I pleased, but my freedom from restriction was only bittersweet. Everything inside of me ached. Everything wanted to see Sol, if only to know he was all right, that he was working on controlling his emotions.

  I met Daniel and Serah at the University entrance where Dr. Luke joined us a few minutes later. We carried our vials of batch #12 cream, made primarily from lemon balm leaves and watercress, in a satchel, ready to be distributed and administered to our test subjects. Each woman would report in at the end of each day with her progress.

  As the four of us climbed onto a tram that would take us to the training center, my stomach was in knots. The last time I’d been on a tram, Sol was sitting next to me. How he’d managed to avoid me for so many weeks, I had no idea. A couple of times I thought I’d seen him from a distance, but it always turned out to be someone else.

  Dr. Luke sat across from us, absorbed in whatever he was reading on his tablet. Serah and Daniel were quiet, staring out the windows as the tram sped through the streets.

  It was just barely raining, a mist really, and the streets were bare. Everyone was at work, fulfilling one more day of assignments in order to make it to the next. At one stop, a couple of officials climbed on. They looked in our direction, but when they saw us traveling with a professor, their interest waned.

  I had lived in the B Level district my whole childhood and had never been to the C Level areas. The factories and housing units sped by as we descended one hill after another. I hadn’t realized how close the C Level streets were to the ocean.

  Serah and Daniel both sat straight up. “Look at that,” Daniel said, pointing out the window across from us.

  Since the rain was so light today, it seemed the fog had lifted as well. From our seats we could see beyond the rivers and the massive docks, out to the ocean.

  The ocean was a dark gray mass, churning angrily, with white caps cresting the waves. I stood and crossed to the window.

  There were boats everywhere. Everything from rudimentary rafts to the sleek black vehicles belonging to officials. Large fishing vessels moved slowly through the water, the rails covered with seagulls that stood wing to wing.

  “I’ve never seen the ocean this close up,” Serah said.

  “Neither have I.” I exhaled in amazement. The clarity of the day showed just how big it really was.

  The tram continued to move toward the ocean. I thought of Rueben arriving at the docks and trying to find a way across. Where had he gone? There weren’t any Lake Towns within sight. It was like heading into a vast nothingness.

  Serah touched my arm. “Look over there.” I followed her direction. A cluster of officials stood together on a dock. A raft-type boat bobbed in the water a couple of dozen paces away, like it was coming into the dock. But the officials had formed a barricade, blocking it.

  Dr. Luke turned to look. “Those must be Lake People.” He shook his head. “They’ll never be allowed to dock.”

  I stared through the window, trying to get a better glimpse of the people on the raft. There were four people, two of them quite young—children who were maybe five or six.

  The tram turned a corner, and I lost sight of them for a moment. Through gaps in buildings, I could see that one of the Lake People, a tall man, was standing in the raft, his fist raised.

  “What do they want?” Serah asked Dr. Luke.

  He was reading something on his tablet again. Without looking up, he said, “Now that they are over the disappointment of not being allowed to enter the city, they’re probably begging for food.”

  My heart ached. I thought of the desperate people who had come all that way. The tram slowed and came to a stop in front of a building that blocked the view of the ocean.

  Dr. Luke looked up. “We’re here. Gather your things.”

  We each picked up our satchels and followed the professor off the tram. I hoped for another glance at what was happening out on the water. “Do the officials ever give in and offer some food?”

  Dr. Luke shook his head. “They would be foolish to do so.” He glanced at me, probably surprised by my questions.

  I fell silent. I didn’t want the professor to wonder about me too much.

  We arrived at the training center and entered a narrow room with beige walls and beige floors. Metal chairs lined the walls, and there was nothing in the center but a single table. I wondered what type of training took place here. No one was in the room yet, and Dr. Luke told us to sit down and wait.

  The professor disappeared through a door, and Serah and Daniel took a seat. I crossed to the windows to see the ocean again. The rain had picked up, making the view hazier than before. The officials had abandoned their barricade, and the raft of Lake People was nowhere to be seen.

  Dr. Luke entered, followed by ten women. They all wore gr
ay or blue shirts and pants. Their hair was cropped short to their scalps. They might have looked like men, but for their delicate features, and they were all quite thin. It was their smell that surprised me—like spoiled food.

  One woman glanced at me, her eyes bright with curiosity. I nodded in a friendly way, and she quickly looked away.

  They sat along the wall, their hands clasped and their expressions blank for the most part. They all seemed oblivious that we’d come to help. I wondered what their skills were and what sort of jobs they did.

  Daniel launched into an explanation of the treatment we were giving them. The women seemed a bit more interested after that. Serah asked the women to pull up their sleeves. I winced as the women revealed arms covered in irritated red rashes. It looked much more painful in person than in the image I’d seen.

  Serah handed the ointment samples out to the women and I followed behind, demonstrating how to apply it. I held my breath more than once, trying to grow accustomed to how the women smelled. No one met my eyes as I worked.

  Daniel wrote down the names of each woman and a few details about them as Serah and I helped the women one by one. I asked the first woman what her job was. She glanced at me for an instant then lowered her head. Why wasn’t she answering? I knew she’d heard me.

  When I moved on to the second woman, I tried not to gasp. Her skin was worse than the first woman’s, with red welts raised high above her skin. When I applied the ointment, she winced, but didn’t pull away.

  “Where do you work?” I asked her.

  She seemed less reserved, or maybe more intelligent than the first woman. “We boil ’n preserve vegetables.”

  “Is it hard work?” I asked.

  She gave me a strange look as if she didn’t understand the question.

  When I finished, I moved onto the next woman, the one who’d seemed curious when she first came into the room. “Do all of you work with food?” I asked.

  She nodded. I was surprised to see how green her eyes were.

  I lowered my voice and asked, “Do you know a woman named Chalice?”