Read Children of Eden Online

Authors: Joey Graceffa

Children of Eden (13 page)

BOOK: Children of Eden
5.26Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

It is a while before I realize that this isn't just an acceleration of the plan, a blip that will keep me from Lark for the night, a delay of my hopes. This is the end of everything I've known.

“They've found out about us. About you,” Mom tells me as she starts to throw all my clothes into a trash bag.

I sit down hard on my bed. Oddly, the first thing that comes out of my mouth is “Why can't I use a suitcase?”

“We have to burn your clothes. We have to get rid of everything that has anything to do with you. When you're gone, we'll sterilize the room, eliminate any prints, kill any DNA evidence of you . . .”

My brain is still fuzzy with sleep, and with Lark. “But Mom, what will I wear?” It seems like the most important
question, somehow, in my sleep-addled confusion. When I fell asleep, I was planning my outfit for tonight with Lark, and now . . .

“It doesn't matter—anything! Just throw something on.” She's completely distraught. My clothes are flying, tumbling, balled up as she hurls them into the bags. “Hurry! Get dressed!” She tosses me a belted tunic in rich saffron-orange and a pair of shimmering gold pants from Ash's school uniform.

Slowly, I pull on the pants and turn my back to strip off my nightshirt. The tunic top is made of the supple material that is supposed to mimic the softest doeskin. I haven't worn it before. Mom picked it up only a week ago, and it still has the price tag on it. It cost an exorbitant fee.

I stand there, shirt poised to slip over my head, an idea almost clicking . . . but not quite.

“Hurry!” Mom barks again, and I realize she's terrified. Whatever I was almost thinking is lost. I belt the tunic and turn, kneeling down beside her as she throws away my entire life.

“Mom, stop a second and tell me what's happening.” I try to sound calm, soothing, but her naked fear is contagious. She takes a deep breath, then another, looking like she's considering how much I should be allowed to know. “Tell me everything,” I insist.

“Our friend in the Center just tipped me off that they know about a second child. He didn't have many details, so I don't have any idea how they could possibly know, but now we're all in terrible danger.”

Oh, great Earth! I've been so selfish! All this time I was only thinking of myself, of taking my life into my own hands and freeing myself from my captivity, of exploring the world, of making a friend for the first time in my life. I took pains
not to be caught, but I was thinking only of
me
not being caught. It was a risk I was willing to take—for myself—and I trusted first in my own abilities, then in Lark, to keep me safe.

I never really thought about what it would do to my family if anyone found out about me. It was in the back of my mind, but only as a logical thread, not as a real conscious fear.

Now, looking into my mother's frantic eyes, I realize what I might have done. To her, to Ash, to my father.

But how could they know about me? If a scanner or bot had detected me, I would have been swarmed with Greenshirts right away. They wouldn't have given me a chance to go home. If I had been spotted and marked, I would have known. The reaction would have been immediate, and brutal.

Unless someone had turned me in. Someone who I'd shared my secret with. Someone I trusted.

I shake my head. No, not Lark. It can't have been Lark. She would never do that. I think of the passion in her eyes when she talks about the problems of Eden, the inequality, the injustice. I remember the way she looks at me, soft and curious.

I won't let myself think that, I decide. But I'd be a fool not to.

Right now, though, I need to calm Mom down and figure out more clearly exactly what is going on. “Do we really have to leave now?” I ask, my hand reassuringly on her arm. “Are they coming right this second?”

She takes a deep, shuddering breath. “No. Maybe. He just said that there's a report of a second child who has been spotted in this circle.” She claps her fingers over my caressing hand. “You've been careful, haven't you? I know you sometimes go to the top of the wall and peek out.”

I bow my head, ashamed.
Oh Mom
, I long to say,
I've done so much more than that
.

“I've
thought about telling you not to do it,” Mom continues. “But I know how hard it's been for you all these years. I didn't want to begrudge you that little bit of freedom and exploration. It's so inadequate compared to what you deserve.”

“I'm sorry, Mom. I . . . I don't think anyone spotted me.” Just a Greenshirt, and Lark, and maybe even other people, too. Oh, how could I have been so stupid, so selfish?

“I don't think it was anything you did. It might not even be you. There are other second children in Eden. He didn't think they'd zeroed in, but he knows that they're tracking a second child in our circle. It's only a matter of time before they figure it all out. When they come, every trace of you has to be gone.
You
have to be gone.”

I nod, understanding. It's a shock, and I know that wherever I go I'll have to lay low for a while, but when the hunt dies down, when they don't find me, I'll be able to see my family again. See Lark again. (Unless she . . . No, I can't go down that road.)

“I'm sorry this is all so abrupt. I thought we'd have more time. There are things . . . But I'll save that for later. I'm taking you to get your implants now, and then you're going directly to your new foster home. Oh, there's so much I have to tell you!” She throws her arms around me and for a second I feel like a little kid again, small and utterly safe in her embrace.

“It's okay,” I reassure her. “I know it might be a while, but when I come back, you can . . .”

Her look stops me, chilled. “Rowan, you can
never
come back.”

I feel as if I'm dangling from the top of a wall high as a mountain, clinging by a single hold that's starting to slip. I grasp at anything. “You mean, not until it's safe?”

“Oh my love, never. You can never come home. You can never see any of us again.”

My hand slips and I tumble into the abyss.

She tells me how long they've been working to arrange this foster family for me, a chance at a completely new life where I can be real, accepted, walk the streets of Eden as a free individual. I listen numbly as she explains how I can have a new family, which baffled me before. I thought someone would take me in for love, for commitment to a cause, for belief that all people deserve to live. But no, it turns out someone is just doing it for the money.

Just like the way my family hid me—the extra, living child—some families with an eye to profit hide the fact that their one legitimate child dies. Instead of reporting it to the Center, they do whatever possible to make it look like the child is still thriving. Maybe they say she moved to another circle to help her grandmother. Maybe she supposedly developed an illness and rarely leaves the house. They hold the spot of the missing child, and all the while work with black marketers to find some second child to replace the dead one. Of course the family is paid an exorbitant fee for taking the child. It's enough to set up someone in a whole new circle, if they're clever enough to hide the source of their windfall.

Needless to say, it's mostly people in the outer circles who hide a child's death and hope to profit from it. Mom tells me that the family I'll be going with lives in the next-but-one outermost ring. The slums, even more decrepit than Lark's old circle.

I feel sick. I've become a financial transaction.

“Mom, they don't know for sure who I am or where I live. Can't I get the surgery and . . .” I was going to say hide out with a friend, but I can't tell her about Lark. Mom would be so disappointed in me if she knew what I've done. And she'd believe that Lark betrayed me. Betrayed all of us. I wouldn't be able to stand hearing her say that.

I can fight the truth in my own head, but if it comes from my mom's mouth it will seem real. I don't want to believe it. I can't.

“I can hide out, just ride the autoloop for a few days, find a place in the outer circles to hole up. And then after a few days, a week, if no one has been here to investigate . . .”

Mom shakes her head sorrowfully. “It has to be now, and it has to be for good.” She seems to harden herself, standing and turning her back on me to resume throwing my every possession into the trash. I'm hurt, until I realize that she's just trying to carry on, to protect me as always. If she gives in to emotion she'll collapse and she won't be able to protect me.

Protect me by giving me away to money-hungry strangers.

I grit my teeth. This is
my
life! Two nights in the city were enough to fill me with a sense of my own purpose and strength. I decide here and now that even though I have no choice but to go along with Mom's plans, there's no way in hell I'm going to stick with them for the rest of my life. I'll get the eye implants so I can fit in with the rest of Eden. I'll go live with the mercenary family that wants my family's money more than they want me. But it won't be for good. There will come a time when I can be with my family again. When I can be with Lark. When I can stand proudly and be myself, and be with whoever I want, even if I am a second child.

I can't fight this now. But I see a battle coming. Resolutely, I pick up my favorite stuffed animal—a ragged chimpanzee I've cuddled with since I was a baby—and shove it into one of the garbage bags.

At that moment, Ash comes in, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Mom, with her back turned to him, flashes me an urgent, adamant look and shakes her head almost imperceptibly. I immediately understand: don't tell Ash too much. But is that fair to him? To me?

“What's going on?” he asks. “Why are you throwing away all of Rowan's stuff?”

Mom composes her face carefully. “I'm not throwing it away, silly,” she lies with an ease that astounds me. “There's been a change in plans, and the doctor who will perform her surgery is being reassigned tomorrow, so we have to go tonight, right now, to get her implants. We decided it's best if she moves to her new house right away. Since we're moving fast, we don't have time to pack up neatly.” She turns to me. “But you don't mind, do you Rowan?”

I gulp, but manage to say, “No, of course not. Who cares about a few wrinkles? I'll iron once I get there.”

She's really not going to tell him that someone is actively hunting for me? That I'm never supposed to come back? I open my mouth to tell him myself, then snap it shut. I'm a coward. I don't want to see that look of despair in his eyes. Selfishly, I leave it to Mom to tell him, to bear the brunt of his sorrow. I wonder if he'll forgive me, once he knows. But I just want this last moment with him that isn't marred with too much grief. I will hold it for both of us. What he knows is sad enough.

He's taking it pretty well, though. Mom excuses herself (I hear the hiccup of a sob as she departs), and Ash dumps out a trash bag and starts methodically folding the clothes Mom shoved inside. The repetitive, precise action seems to give him focus, and he talks fairly calmly as he folds. But he doesn't talk about what's happening. He tells me about yesterday at school, how he missed a question on his Eco-history test, how the latest fashion calls for tiny iridescent robotic butterflies in the hair, how Lark seemed strangely tired but happy all day . . .

I understand. He desperately wants everything to be normal. He doesn't want the patterns of the last sixteen years to change.

“I don't know what I'm going to do without you!” I blurt
out suddenly. The shirt he is folding drops into his lap in a messy heap.

He gives a little laugh. “You? What about me? What am I going to do without my sister watching out for me?”

“How do I watch out for you? I'm never out with you.”

“You might not be with me, Rowan, but you always have my back. Whenever I need advice, reassurance—anything—you're there for me. Always. I've been thinking more and more about your bravery, and you've inspired me. You know, I think I'm finally going to ask Lark out.”

I gasp, just a little, then bite my lip.

“What?” he asks, a little sharply. “You don't think I should? You think she'll say no?”

“I . . . I don't know anything about relationships,” I say truthfully. “I think you should do whatever feels right.” It felt right when Lark kissed me. But it was nothing like any kind of romance I ever imagined.

“Well, don't worry about that,” he says, making an attempt to sound breezy. “You have enough to think about.” I sniff. “Listen, I'm doing my best not to cry, too, so let's just look forward to the next time we can see each other. It will be soon, right?”

He looks so eagerly hopeful that I feel my throat tighten. But I manage to say, “I'm sure it will be.” Then I fling my arms around his neck. I can feel his tears dampening my shoulder. Mine are falling, too. It's not fair. He should know.

But Mom, who has apparently been lurking just outside the door, bustles in and says it's time to go.

Ash takes my hand and we walk out into the main living quarters.

“It's only for a little while,” Ash whispers, more to reassure himself than me, I think. “We'll be together again soon.” I choke back a sob and hug him.

“Come on, we should go,” Mom says.

“But you have to say good-bye to Dad,” Ash says, with that same look of vague confusion I always see on his face whenever the issue of Dad's relationship with me comes up. Mom and I make sure it rarely does. She and I glance at each other now.

“Right,” she says, nodding decisively. “He's in his room. Go on, but be quick.”

I'd rather not, but with Ash watching, I should pretend there's at least some normal feeling between us. I knock softly at the bedroom door, but when I don't get an answer I just push it open slowly.

BOOK: Children of Eden
5.26Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

In Maremma by David Leavitt
in0 by Unknown
Strongman by Denise Rossetti
Perfect Victim, The by Castillo, Linda
The Barbary Pirates by William Dietrich
Wildflower Girl by Marita Conlon-Mckenna