Elected (The Elected Series Book 1) (3 page)

“Great-grandfather was our first Elected.”

Apa answers back with another fact along the same lines. “Our family is the only line that has held the Elected positions in East Country since the Eco-Crisis Accords were established in twenty-one fifteen.”

“We’ve been in office for seventy years.”

“Very good. You will marry Vienne and start your own family.”

I shudder for a moment at the sound of Vienne’s name. She’s the one they’ve been training to be my match. But I don’t love her. I don’t even know her. I shake my head and close my eyes, trying to eject thoughts of her from my mind. It’s too much to deal with at this precise moment. Then I look up again at my father, knowing he’s waiting for me to go on.

“I will rule as the Elected until my oldest son turns eighteen.”

“Then you and Vienne will leave just as your mother and I are leaving, so your son can act as an independent ruler.”

I pause, thinking sadly about my parents’ departure, which will take place the night before I turn eighteen. We’ll have the entire evening together, alone, to say our goodbyes. And then they’ll ride out on horses into the wilderness. I won’t know where they’ve gone or if they’re even okay. I won’t have any more contact with them. It’s a silly rule. Why must I lose my parents when all other children get to keep theirs? Sometimes the thought of being the Elected and having been born into this legacy is repugnant.

But this is what my grandfather did with my father when he turned eighteen. My grandfather left East Country so my father could make his own decisions—fully come into his own. It’s always been this way since our family came into office. We need the current leader to stand on his own two feet, not rely on past generations to make decisions.

My generation is well aware responsibility lies with us. Our parents won’t live forever. Radiation residue causes cancer to start in the thirties to forties. But I know people used to live past one hundred before the eco-crisis. Because the Elected family gets to take the serum in the form of neat, purple pills, we don’t ever feel the effects of radiation. Cancer is one of the sicknesses the purple pill eradicates. Thus, my parents are in their fifties and thriving. Other children come into their own because their parents become feeble and die. I guess I should be thankful because, in my case, I come into my own since my parents leave and nothing more.

My father knows I’ve deviated from our exercise, lost in thought.

“Continue along a different topic,” he says. “This exercise was meant to help you compose yourself, and I made you even more upset.”

It’s true. A solitary tear breaks free from my left eye and runs down my cheek. My father raises a hand and wipes my tear away with one of the most tender signs of affection I think I’ve ever received from him.

His gesture reminds me of the final day I was allowed to feel my parents’ warmth. The day I learned I’d be the Elected, all nurturing abruptly stopped.

I was four years old, playing with a plastic necklace on the carpet of my bedroom floor. It was December then, so the air was warm and humid. My parents and Tomlin came into my room together and I was surprised, even at that young age. I knew something important was happening if the three of them were there together. Apa sat on the edge of my bed, while my mother bent over me and picked me up into her arms. Tomlin stayed rooted in the doorway, like he was uncomfortable with the ensuing events.

“Aloy,” my mother said. “Your father and I have something we need you to do.”

“Yes, Ama?” I asked, my face upturned and wide open with trust.

“We need you to give up your necklace and not wear it again.”

I looked stricken, eyeing the floor where the colorful beads lay discarded.

“Why, Ama? Why must I give up my necklace?”

My father bent down and took the jewelry in his hands. At this, I reached out toward him, away from my mother’s arms, struggling to get the beads back, if only one last time.

“Because we are telling you to,” my father retorted. He put the trinket away in the folds of his light coat.

I looked toward Tomlin for help, not having received an adequate answer from my parents. “Tomlin, why can’t I have my necklace?”

Tomlin shifted on his feet, still standing by the door, looking out of place. But I was insistent. Tomlin was my teacher, and he explained everything. I fully expected him to explain this too.

Tomlin didn’t speak at first, but I was used to this. He was thoughtful in his responses, so I’d learned to wait for him.

After a moment passed, he said, “Do you remember how I taught you girls learn how to get pregnant and care for children and how it’s the most important thing in the entire world?”

I did. I remembered the conversation clearly.

“Yes. Girls are supposed to think about how to make a baby all the time.”

“Right. Well, there is one job even more important than that.”

Now I was curious. I leaned forward in my mother’s arms, forgetting about my necklace now tucked away with my father.

Tomlin cleared his throat awkwardly and continued, “Your father’s job is the most important. Being the leader of our country, making sure everyone abides by the Accords, making sure all of the women have resources to get pregnant. That is the most important.”

“Ah,” I said. I idolized my father, and this just gave me more evidence he was the biggest, strongest, most important man in the world.

Tomlin looked toward my parents. “May I?” he asked.

“Please, yes,” my mother said. “Tell her.”

Tomlin shifted on his feet again. “Aloy, one day you’ll grow up and take your father’s position. You will be the Elected and lead our country.”

My eyes got big. “Me, Tomlin? But what about Apa?” I looked toward my father with worry.

“Umm...” Tomlin faltered, not wanting to scare me too much. “He will still be here.” It was the only lie Tomlin ever told me.

“Oh, good,” I said.

“Yes,” said Ama. “But there is one thing you must do to take Apa’s position.”

One thing? That was it? I hugged her around her neck. One thing didn’t sound hard.

My father stepped toward me. “You will have to pretend to be a boy,” he said. “No more playing with dolls. No tea parties. No dresses.”

I looked at my father like he just told me the sun didn’t come out in the morning. “But why not, Apa?”

“Because you need to look and sound like a boy. No one must ever know you are a girl.”

“Ever?” I asked.

“Ever,” my mother replied. “We have indulged you, and in so doing, let you play with whatever you liked up until now. You’ve been hidden away in this house because we wanted to protect you, but now it’s time for our countrymen to see you out in public.”

I contemplated this for a minute. “Can I play with my toys when I’m alone?”

A sneak of a smile appeared on the corner of my mother’s lips, but it was gone just as fast.

“No,” my father said. “You must say goodbye to everything that seems female, even in private.”

He started walking around my room, picking up my things and tucking the small items into his jacket pockets. My kaleidoscope, pink and pearly colored. My candy colored teapot, child size and perfect for recreating tea time in my own world of play. My favorite doll, which lay upon my pillow.

At this, I cried out. “No, Apa! No!” I tried to wrestle my way out of my mother’s arms, pulling at her to get down. I needed to save my things, especially the baby doll, tattered from my four years of love.

My father was unyielding, loading toy after toy into a box that he brought forth from a nearby closet. When he was done, I was red faced and sobbing. All of the things I played with were gone.

I had no other friends except these dolls, stuffed animals, and trinkets. To my four-year-old self, this was my life.

“You will learn not to care for these things,” my father said. “They are material. You must now focus on the immaterial. Learning to play fight. Knowing what it is to make a dying person feel strong. Learning to lead. There is no more time for dolls. Stop crying!”

I didn’t understand any of my father’s words as a four-year-old. What he said was cold, but over time I learned they were true. Over the next few years, my time was scheduled with Tomlin or some other trusted teacher every second of the day. Eventually, I learned not to miss the doll as I fell to sleep each night. I learned not to show emotion or cry when I was upset. It was a slow process, but I suppose, one that needed to happen.

Now, fourteen years later, in this prison, I take the opportunity to lean into my father’s chest and shake with an onslaught of sobs.

“All right,” Apa says. “Take a moment and let it out. I’ll give you two minutes. Get this episode out of your system now while no one is watching.”

I choke on my tears, trying to hold them back. When I’m sure a minute’s passed, I lift my face from my father’s heavy brown jacket, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand.

“Come, now,” says my father. “Tell me another fact. We were doing so well there for a while.”

I think of the only fact I know to be utterly and unequivocally true and spit it out before I can change my mind.

“I am a girl.”

3

My father takes a hard look at me. I match his stare for a few seconds but finally look down. I’ve said out loud the one thing my parents tried to cover up since I was four. My father clears his throat and abruptly stands. I catch his sleeve in my hand, trying to make it right and keep him here with me. In the two short weeks we have left, I shouldn’t be callously throwing away even a moment. But Apa pulls away gently, prying my fingers from the fabric.

His back is to me. “I am aware of that. You should b
e wary of voicing it before more people become privy.”

And then he’s gone. I sigh, resigned to the fact I’ve pushed my father too far and can’t take back my words now.

I peer into the prisoner’s room again, trying to imagine what it would take to trade your life for your beliefs. To know the consequences of your actions but to do them anyway. East Country’s laws and subsequent punishments are clear to everyone, but once in a while someone still breaks a law. The people who break the Technology Accord by inventing something man-made know the punishment is death, but they believe so strongly in technology as a way to advance society, they take the risk anyway. The rogue faction for technology is my father’s biggest opponent. And soon they will be mine.

But is my family so different from these people? Am I not also breaking a law by pretending to be a boy? I am specifically breaking the Fertility Accord by playing the part of a male so I can take office. It’s also punishable by death, but long ago my parents determined it was worth the risk.

As I was a baby at the time, I didn’t have a say. My parents decided their lives and my own were worth the risk of death. I used to be angry but eventually came to terms with it. Either I take office by pretending to be a boy, or a new family must be chosen to lead. A new Elected family would open the floodgates to the Technology Faction and one of their own being put in a position of real power. We’d potentially be right back where we started when machinery, cars, fuel, and technology caused global warming and the eco-crisis over a century ago.

Twenty years ago when my brother ran away, my parents were devastated, as my mother was way past prime birthing age. It’s hard enough having one child, let alone two. And hardly anyone can get pregnant anymore past the age of twenty-five. Not with all the side effects of widespread radiation.

Thus, when Ama got pregnant a second time, my parents were elated. And then I came out into the world. Yes, they were happy I was born a healthy child to add to our declining population. But I was a girl. And girls could not, by law, be the Elected.

They tried to have another boy after me, but my mother didn’t get pregnant again. So, within days of my fourth birthday, my mother and father decided they would pretend I was a boy. I’ve trained to appear masculine ever since.

I don’t cry in public. I don’t learn about fertility as all of the other girls do. I don’t let anyone hear my singing voice. Since I can’t alter the soprano lilts of my voice when it’s singing, I don’t engage in that pastime at all. I don’t show tenderness. My free-time is spent play fighting with a sword or a knife, something boys do to burn off extra testosterone. Obviously, I don’t have too much to waste. But, in the East Country, all of the boys learn to play fight, so I continue the farce.

I keep up this constant act, even on days when my fully developed chest aches in its tight, cloth bindings. In these moments, I almost undo the bindings and throw them in the fire. But I always stop just in time, cinching the cloth tighter still.

Only Tomlin, Ama, Apa, and now Vienne are aware of my womanhood. It’s a secret I will have to keep until Vienne’s and my first born male is eighteen, and Vienne and I leave East Country for good. At that time, I plan to rip the bindings around my chest into a million shreds and never crush my lungs and rib cage again. I will wear skirts and grow my hair long. I will sing as loud as I can, knowing I’ve fulfilled the duties to my country and can now be true to myself.

Until then, however, I wait. And when I do get so angry about my predicament that I feel like testosterone is indeed eating away my insides, I practice swordplay with a tutor until his arm falls slack with fatigue.

A prison guard breaks my concentration with a loud swish of the door opening. “Oh, excuse me, Sir. I didn’t know you were still here.”

“It’s okay. I was just leaving.”

I walk out into the frigid air again, wishing Apa was still with me for the walk back to our house. I want to ask him more questions—like how many executions he’s watched? Or if he talks to the person’s family afterwards? And how they’re absolutely sure the prisoner did the suspected offense? But those questions will have to wait until my parents and I are alone together for the ceremonial last night. I’ve already developed my list of discussion topics—things I mustn’t forget to ask. It’ll be the last time I get to ask their advice on how Vienne and I are supposed to conceive a child when I don’t have the correct biological parts. Or how I’m supposed to hold off a revolution of the Technology Faction—a movement growing for more than fifty years.

I am so engrossed in my thoughts, looking down at the dirt by my shoes as I shuffle along the path, I miss, entirely, the sound of an arrow whizzing past my cheek. It’s only when I see the arrow piercing the ground in front of me that I spin around to get on the defensive. A wave of adrenaline races through my bloodstream. My throat constricts in fear as I whip my head, looking in every direction to see from where the arrow might have originated. But when I spy no person furtively running away, and there are no more arrows threatening me, the adrenaline subsides, leaving me shaken and off balance. I stand in the same spot, my legs feeling like rocks.

I’m not the only one surprised. Three guards from the nearby prison run to my side, covering me in a protective triangle of their bodies, their eyes also whipping around to find the perpetrator.

My mother is running to my side too, having seen the incident from our front house windows. She’s flying out the door, her skirts swirling up dust as she runs.

“Who did this?” she asks, pulling her way into the tight triangle so we’re facing each other.

“I didn’t see anyone!”

“Only one arrow? That was all?” We can’t argue this wasn’t an attempt on my life—only how much of an attempt. Out here, in the wide open, it couldn’t be just any old target practice or play fighting.

“Only one. Do you think it was a warning? Or did they truly mean to kill me?” Everything I’ve assumed about murder no longer being part of human nature—that people are more civilized than generations past—comes crashing down. I am aghast, my eyes wide at the jumble of thoughts coursing through my head. No one ever tried to assassinate my father or my grandfather before him. Suddenly, all I can think is that I’d better get to shelter before any more arrows are aimed at my head.

“Come,” my mother says, like she’s thinking the same thing. “We will discuss this in the safety of the house.” Before we leave, Ama pulls the arrow out of the ground and tucks it into her skirt.

The guards follow close behind, their faces and bodies pointed away from us to watch for any more arrows.

Once in the house, my mother leads me straight into a room where Tomlin and my father are talking. She closes the doors behind us so we’re the only people inside.

“What is this about?” asks Apa. He glances over at me, probably thinking I’ve blubbered to my mother about witnessing my first execution. He can’t help but give me a disapproving look.

“There’s been an attempt on Aloy!” says Ama. I see her face in the mirror in front of us. It’s white with fear. I’m about to say something to comfort her when I realize the face in the mirror is mine, not hers. I am the one whose pallor is dim, the one who is shaking like a leaf.

Tomlin rises out of his seat and makes his way to me. He inspects my face and body for injury while my mother explains what she saw.

“Up in the hills. I think the arrow came from there.”

“Are you sure?” asks Apa.

“We will have no way of knowing,” Ama says. “No recourse!”

“Of course there is recourse,” says Apa. “For one, Aloy will have guards around him at all times. He will never be left alone. And I will go into town today to find out who trains in archery. Few arrows could have been shot so far.”

Ama hands Tomlin the arrow, and he turns it over and over in his hands.

After a minute or so he gives us his report. “I’m afraid it is quite like a long arrow.”

I come out of my stupor, able to wrap my head around something in the conversation. “A long arrow? Like the ones from before?”

Tomlin comes to stand near me, placing the arrow in my hands, always aiming to teach me something, even at a time like this. “No, not exactly the same. Look at the wood.”

I peer at it closely. The wood shaft was whittled. It’s not sleek and pristine like the long arrows from the past. It was not formed from machinery but from a person’s meticulous handicraft. Before our Technology Accord was signed, people killed one another with small arrows, which could travel great distances, propelled by a digital signal. Countries carried out assassinations this way. It was a single shot, which could precisely target one person and kill without inflicting ancillary damage. No one else would be hurt, only the person for whom the arrow was intended.

But long arrows wouldn’t work in our day and age. “This one is similar to the long arrow. It has the same design. The same tip. But there could be no signal to guide it,” I say.

“Thus, the miss,” says Tomlin.

“Where would they have found a piece of long arrow?” asks my mother.

“These were taken out of circulation years ago,” says my father.

“They saved it all these years. For me.” Though I don’t have enough evidence to know this for certain, the idea washes over me like icy bathwater.

My mother notices the whiteness of my face and brushes a hand across my brow. “You need rest. First an execution and then an attempt. Too much for you in one day.” She stands closer to me and then looks at my father and Tomlin, letting them know she’s taking me away. We exit the room as the two men keep discussing how to find the assassin. Ama hurries me up the stairs and off to my bedroom, tucking me into bed with the express order to sleep. “I’m going to return to Tomlin and your father. See if we can devise a plan for determining the offender.”

She pats my hand and almost leans in to give me a hug. My body unconsciously inches toward her outstretched arms, anticipating the touch, wanting it. I’ve seen other mothers embrace their sons, and I can’t help feeling jealous every time. I know my mother’s reserve is a show she puts on because of who I am. Not all boys in East Country are treated to this same harsh standard. I look up into Ama’s face, almost begging her to hug me like when I was a toddler. But I hate myself for needing this. I squeeze my eyes shut, my mind chiding my body for its weakness. At the last second Ama thinks better of it and instead wraps my blankets more tightly around my shoulders, almost ensuring I can’t sit up to embrace her.

The lack of intimacy has made me long for and yet abhor physical touching now. I don’t know how I’ll ever learn to touch my future wife without wincing.

I lie in bed thinking terrible thoughts of my upcoming role and who my new enemy might be. I’ve interacted with almost all of the townspeople through the years, and they’ve been extremely welcoming to me. Yes, there are people who disagree with my family’s strict adherence to the Accords, even after all these years, but the majority favor my father and me, as well as the laws.

This leads me to think that their anger is not directed at my family’s reign but at me specifically. But why? Have I not always followed my father’s leadership style? Am I so different?

As my hands trace the flat, smooth skin of my stomach, I think yes. I am different. I’m a girl. And I shouldn’t be in office at all. No one has said they suspect my gender, but perhaps they can just tell I have no business taking this leadership role. Maybe unconsciously, they know I’m not fit to rule the country. Even with all my training, I don’t have my father’s authority. Tomlin says it’s something that can be learned, but I’m not so sure about that. I’ve tried to master it for years, and I still doubt myself.

I fall into a fitful sleep, but when I hear a noise in my room, it jars me awake. The mid-morning sun is high in the sky, which must mean I slept straight through to the next day. I don’t make a movement, trying to assess the sound. It’s footsteps coming from across my bedroom near the window. I expect to see my mother or a maid, but the figure is a man. It’s too slender to be my father and too tall to be Tomlin.

My hand instinctively juts out from under my bed covers and finds the small whittling knife on my nightstand. I use it merely to carve wood, but it’s the closest weapon I have. I close my fist around its small handle, ready to plunge it into my attacker should he step forward. I lie in wait, at the defense. But then I think, if he has a weapon, he could strike me from afar. So, I gently lift the sheets off my body and step out of bed, now on the offensive.

His back is to me, and since my footsteps are light as a feather, he doesn’t turn.

I wonder why the guards at my door didn’t stop him, but I have little time to ponder because I’m now inches from the man’s back. He still doesn’t move. He’s got something in his hands at waist level. It must be an intricate weapon. One he’s getting ready to use.

I lift the knife higher in the air, ready to advance on him, when the thing in the man’s hand lets out a loud “Squawk!”

I falter for a second, the tip of my foot catching against a raised floorboard, and it’s in that brief moment the man hears me and abruptly turns.

“Hey!” he says, stepping backward against my window when he sees me so close.

“Get back!” Still, I don’t hear guards ready to storm in and rescue me. So I stand my ground, knife raised, ready to inflict damage against this man myself if I need to.

I look at him closer. He’s not even a man. He’s my age.

“Watch what you’re doing with that thing!” The boy’s voice sounds familiar, but I can’t think where I’ve heard it before. I concentrate only on keeping my ground. Keeping him in place.