Dark Parties

by Sara Grant

  He checks the brass clock on his desk, the one with the funny mix of letters instead of numbers, lots of X’s and I’s. “You’re right, Neva,” he says, organizing the papers in front of him and tucking them in a leather portfolio.

  As he stands, I gesture to his lab coat and then help him slip out of it. Before he can remember to transfer the key to his vest pocket, I hang his lab coat on the coat rack. “Have a good meeting,” I say as he hustles out the door, his arms laden with books and papers. I watch him scurry down the hall. Then I slip back into his office and lock the door behind me. I take the tiny key from his lab coat pocket.

  I stand in front of the secret panel. I can’t get the key into the lock. The tapping of the key aiming and missing and sliding seems to echo in my dad’s wood-paneled office. I wipe the sweat from my forehead on the sleeve of my white lab coat. We have been getting along, which makes me feel majorly guilty about what I’m about to do.

  The key slips from my fingers. The white gloves don’t help much. I should take them off, but I can’t risk fingerprints. I must calm down. I pick up the key and squeeze it in my fist, letting the ridges dig into my palm. Dad said earlier he’d be in the meeting all afternoon. No one comes in here. No one dares to disturb Dr. George Adams. I walk across the room to check the office door. It is locked. I wedge a chair under the doorknob. I can’t be too careful. Dad will flip if he returns and can’t get the door open, but it’s better than finding me in his secret room.

  I concentrate, slip the key into the lock, and turn. The wooden panel clicks open. Warm musty air sneaks through the crack. With one finger I push the panel open farther. The space is only big enough for one person to slip through sideways. I sidestep through the opening. A dim overhead light flickers on. I whip around, but the door must have triggered the lights, if you want to call them that. The room is barely illuminated. It’s about the same size as Dad’s office but much more sparse. One wall is covered with metal filing cabinets. Another wall has a glass display case; the final two walls are bookshelves. A large metal table is centered in the room.

  I hear a faint click and air begins to circulate. My presence in the room has altered the balance of this space. To my right I see a control panel with tiny green and red lights. Everything about the room is monitored: light, temperature, humidity, and sound. As I move closer, my steps and breath seem to make the green and red lights twinkle. Sweat is dripping down my back. I don’t want to set off any alarms. I study the control panel—nothing to indicate a security system. This is an archive. These monitors are to maintain old documents, not guard the room’s contents. I take a tentative step forward and then another.

  The books on the shelves look exactly like the books in his office. I wonder what makes them so special. I pick a volume at random and gently separate it from its neighbors. I don’t even know how to pronounce the name on the spine. The book seems to vibrate in my trembling hands. I lay it on the table and crack it open. The pages in front of me have a landscape of some mythical place covered in snow. The images look like photographs, but they must be lifelike illustrations or computer simulations. One image has icy white boulders jutting out of the ocean. Another has strange black-and-white bird creatures. I excitedly flip to the first few pages, expecting to read some fantasy tale, but instead the book reads like a history book about a land mass with a funny long name on the south of something called a globe.

  I pull out another book. This book doesn’t have any pictures, and the words are familiar. I recognize the letters, but they form no words I’ve ever seen. Some words have funny hash marks over a vowel or silly looking squiggles under the letter c. Another language? It’s almost too much to take in. I put both books back where I found them.

  I don’t have time to study each book. I don’t even know what I’m looking for. My heart is racing. I walk to the display cases. Right in the center is a big ball. The ball is decorated with green shapes in a field of blue. I recognize one green shape; it looks like the outline of Homeland. I lean in as close as I can without touching the glass. But the shape has another name on it. That’s strange. It looks so tiny on this big ball.

  I survey the other items in the display case, mostly old, yellowing books with frayed or missing covers. There is also a collection of devices that look like Dad’s InfoScreen, only smaller. I slowly turn in a circle. I feel a tightness in my chest. I think I’ve discovered that my grandma was right. There was life outside the Protectosphere—a whole round ball more. But what was and what is are two very different things.

  I want to stop and look at everything, read everything, touch everything, but there’s not time. Think. The books are too old to give me any current information. The exhibit cases are locked. I skirt around the table and read the labels on the filing cabinets. Each drawer is labeled with a number and a letter. This coding makes no sense. It’s as if the answers are right here in front of me and I don’t know what questions to ask. Just do something, I tell myself, but the adrenaline coursing through my veins makes it hard to think straight.

  I pick a drawer at random and open it. I flick through the old green file folders. I can’t really read anything in this light. The papers in the files are yellow and thin with words that have nearly faded.

  I’m breathing faster. My sweaty hands are making my cotton gloves damp. I leave a smudge on one piece of paper as I return it to its folder. I need to calm down. I go to the first drawer of the filing cabinet and check the very first file. Fragments and dust is all that remains of whatever was in the folder. These must be the oldest files. If the files are ordered chronologically, then I need the last one, the last piece of information. The last three drawers are empty. The next one has four hanging files. I pull the last file out and lay it on the metal table. My hands shake and the file rattles as I open it.

  The file is lying open on the table, but the rattling continues. It’s the office door. Someone is turning the doorknob. Oh, my God! My heart stops.

  I flip the file closed. But I can’t leave empty-handed. I can’t take the whole file. My dad would certainly miss an entire file. I open it again and remove the last sheet of paper. I fold it several times and stick it in my bra.

  Now someone is knocking on the door.

  I put the file away and glance around the room. Everything looks exactly as I found it, or I think it does. I slide out the door and pull it shut behind me. I push it once to make sure it’s closed.

  “Neva!” It’s my dad and now he’s shouting. “Neva, are you in there?”

  Think, Neva. How am I going to explain why the door was locked? I pull two books from the shelves as I pass. I throw one on the leather couch and one on the floor, accidentally ripping its cover. I yank off my lab coat and gloves and toss them behind me. I race to the coat rack and slip the key back in the pocket of his white coat. I remove the chair from where I’ve wedged it under the doorknob. I rumple my hair and pinch both cheeks. I half close my eyes as I open the door and answer, “Oh, hey, Dad. Sorry.”

  He pushes the door open and I slowly walk to the couch and plop down. I pick up my coat and gloves.

  “Why was that door locked?” he demands, walking the perimeter of the room.

  “Hey, I’m sorry… really,” I say, and make a big production of fluffing the pillows on the couch. “I finished all my work. I was reading up”—I glance at the cover of the book—“on The Standardization of the Status Quo.” I rack my brain for some tidbit I’d learned in history class. “Uniformity equals equality,” I say, recalling a familiar quote from one of our founding fathers, Dr. Benjamin L. Smith maybe.

  “Do you think I’m an idiot?” He’s standing near the entrance to the secret archives.

  “No,” I say, and fake a yawn. I stretch my arms over my head. I lower them when they start to shake.

  He walks toward me. “What were you doing exactly?”

  “I started reading and then, well, I got a bit sleepy, so I thought I should lock the door. I didn’t want anyone to catc
h me napping.” I scoot to the far end of the couch.

  He picks up the book from the floor, noticing the ripped cover.

  “Oh, yeah, about that. Sorry. It slipped out of my hands when I dozed off, you know.” I go to take it from him, but he holds it closer to his chest and strokes the ripped cover.

  “I’m very disappointed in you, Neva.” His words hollow out a place inside me. He finds the empty slots in the bookshelf for the two books and slips them into place. “Please leave.”

  “But…” Why do I want to apologize? I want to make him understand. The grimace on his face looks as if he’s in physical pain.

  He runs his hands over the spines of the books. “Just go home.” He bows his head as if he might pray.

  How could he lie to me my whole life with stories of our perfect history? Now I know there’s more, so much more that we don’t know, and yet I feel as if I’ve lost something that I can never, ever get back.

  CHAPTER

  SIXTEEN

  “Meet me at your mom’s,” I whisper into the phone. I walked two blocks before I felt safe using a phone booth. Even now, I keep turning in half circles, anchored to the phone, making sure no one is behind me.

  “What, Nev, is that you?” Sanna’s voice comes in loud bursts between the static. She says something else, but it’s lost in the crackling air.

  “Meet me at your mom’s.” I speak a little louder and more slowly, hoping that my message won’t get lost.

  “Nev, great! You’re ungrounded. Woohoo! Man, have I missed you. But no can do right now, I’m—”

  “Just do it.” The static suddenly clears. “Just you. No excuses. This is important.”

  Sanna finds me resting against her mom’s tombstone. “Here.” I take the article from where I tucked it into my bra. The sweat, folding, and friction have turned the sheet of paper into sixteen jagged squares. I hand them to her.

  “Whatcha got there?” She kneels down and places the pieces on her mother’s grave. I sit next to her. I carefully arrange the squares to re-form the sheet of paper I stole from my dad’s archive. I feel bad about the lying, the stealing, and the look on my dad’s face. He didn’t need to tell me he was disappointed. I see that look in his eyes all the time. But this time it was worse—much worse.

  “I think it’s an ancient newspaper,” I say quietly.

  “A what?” She touches the crumbling paper.

  “I stole this from my dad’s secret archives.”

  “His what?” Sanna looks at me in amazement. “You stole something from the history guru?”

  I nod.

  “Nev, I thought we agreed…” She moves closer to get a better look.

  “Read it.” I should feel proud of myself. But this feels wrong. Even if he’s a jerk, he’s my dad. We read between the ripped spaces. The paper and the print have degraded. The headline is the only thing that’s easy to read: COUNTRY CLOSES ITS BORDER TO PEOPLE AND IDEAS. The rest of the words are fuzzy as if water damaged. The photo under the headline is only a blur of gray dots.

  The story, what we can read of it, talks about a mass exodus. People were thrown out or chose to leave when this country planned to seal itself off. I find myself scanning ahead, trying to find out more about the outside, but the story is more interested in what is being trapped inside. One scientist wagered that the experiment would only last a few years, until certain natural resources were depleted. Another doctor predicted that inbreeding and illness would eventually cause the country to reengage. Sanna and I glance at each other when we read that.

  We recognize one name: Dr. Benjamin L. Smith. In the article, he defends the years, technology, money, and manpower necessary to protect his country and its way of life. “Our culture is in danger of extinction. No cost is too great to ensure we are not swallowed by globalization.”

  “What’s glow-ball-a-zation?” Sanna asks.

  I shrug. “Sounds like a disease.”

  “You think that’s why they closed us off?”

  “You think everyone out there’s dead of globalization?”

  She shrugs.

  The last half of the article has been ripped away. I run my finger along the article’s jagged border and wonder what we are missing.

  “What’s this date all about? December 15, 2051,” Sanna reads. “How can the article be from the future?”

  But I know the answer. My grandma told me once. “When we sealed the Protectosphere, we reset the calendar to 01/01/01.”

  “Nev, this is a-maz-ing!” Sanna puts her arm around my shoulders. I wonder what Braydon would think. I try to shove him out of my thoughts.

  “It proves there was something outside.” I push the puzzle pieces into a pile.

  “What those people in the article said is happening. Our resources are dwindling. We are getting sicker.”

  “I could get in real trouble if this gets out. My dad could get fired or”—I look at the scraps of paper—“worse.” I lie back on the cool grass and Sanna stretches out beside me. We stare up at the Protectosphere. It looks different somehow, cloudier now that we know more about our history. All we are told is that we closed our borders after The Terror. But our founding fathers kicked people out. The article doesn’t sound like we were protecting ourselves. Our founding fathers made a choice. People outside were alive and well when we sealed the Protectosphere.

  I sit up after a long time. “You have to keep this for me.” I shove the scraps of paper at her. I know it’s asking a lot. “Just until I can figure out what to do next.”

  “Oh, Nev, I don’t know.” She’s pushing them back at me, but I wave them away.

  “My dad almost caught me,” I say, and tell her about my heart-stopping escape from the archives. “Hide it somewhere safe. You can’t show this to anyone or tell anyone about it.”

  * * *

  I wander around until after ten. I want to hide in the shadows, but my fear keeps me tethered to the light. I move from one light source to the next. These streets that I’ve walked hundreds of times don’t feel the same. The air that rushes past smells unfamiliar. I am lost even though I’m standing outside my house. I wait for a light in my parent’s room. In the Adams’s house, when Grandpa’s old mantel clock strikes ten, then—as if programmed—my parents go to bed. Mom finds me and kisses me on the forehead. My dad calls from somewhere that I should “sleep tight.” I’m never sure what that means exactly.

  The light in my parent’s bedroom window comes on. A silhouette steps into the frame; I can tell by the slump of the shoulders that it’s my mom. She looks around before closing the curtains. She’s probably looking for me. I wait ten more minutes before I head to the front door.

  As I reach for the doorknob, the door is yanked open and I nearly stumble into my dad with the force of it. He’s looming there. “How could you?”

  I regain my footing. I’m overcome with the urge to run.

  He walks into the living room. I’m supposed to follow. I shuffle after him. I expect to see my dad commanding the center of the room, expanding to fill the space. But instead, he sits on the couch, hunched forward collapsing in on himself. “How could you put me in this position?” he asks again, but the power has drained from his voice.

  I don’t know what to say.

  “I know you went into the archives.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking—”

  He shakes his head. “Please don’t make it worse by lying to me. I know that room. I can tell when it’s been violated.”

  “I’m sorry, Dad.” The words slip out.

  “You shouldn’t have gone in there.” He doesn’t look up. “You can’t come back to work. I don’t know how I’m going to explain this without raising too many questions, but I’ll think of something.”

  You always do, I want to say. He’s a master of making up stories.

  “Why, Neva?” He absentmindedly twists a lock of his hair around and around his finger.

  “I can’t believe you keep information
about what’s outside locked away.” I wait for him to tell me I’m wrong. To tell me he’s not part of the conspiracy to keep us here.

  “I should have gotten rid of it a long time ago. I was supposed to, but it’s history, our history.”

  “What is all that stuff?” Our eyes meet for a second.

  “It’s from before, a few books, a few artifacts. Nothing really. Things the government has confiscated over the years.”

  It’s the first time my dad has ever admitted there was a before. I want to know more, but I don’t ask.

  “Let me make this perfectly clear.” He begins to push himself off the couch, but then he sinks back down. “Forget about everything you saw in there. I’ve destroyed it all.”

  “What?”

  “You gave me no choice. I can’t risk anyone finding out about those documents, those things. Not now.”

  He sighs. “Neva, you can’t know… I hope you never know… what I’ve done to protect you.”

  I am ashamed. He destroyed generations of secrets to protect me. That’s what he means, isn’t it? He doesn’t know. He hasn’t guessed that I have stolen something. I wish I could take it back. Maybe I could have trusted him. Maybe he could have learned to trust me.

  “Dad, things are getting worse.” I clear my throat and speak up. “They are. I know you don’t want to see it. The government is—”

  “That’s enough,” he shouts over me.

  “Is everything all right down there?” Mom yells from the top of the stairs.

  “We’re fine, Lily,” Dad quickly calls back. “Go back to bed.”

  “Neva?” Mom calls.

  Dad glares at me. I get the message loud and clear: Do not upset your mother.

  “I’m home, Mom,” I shout. “I’m fine.”

  “Okay, don’t you two be up too late.” We hear her retreat to her bedroom.

  Dad waits to hear the bedroom door shut. He pulls himself to his full height and faces me.

  “Neva, don’t you ever say anything like that again.” He seizes me by the shoulders. His eyes, usually an intense black, seem to have softened to a muddy brown and are pleading with me. “Do you hear me?” He’s shaking me now and my head flops back and forth in agreement. “I can’t protect you. I can’t protect anyone anymore.”