by Eliza Taye
Filled with anger and annoyance at the system of his world, Garrett knew beyond a doubt that he had to keep searching for information about The Council. There had to be something there. Something to explain why someone who was so ready, so prepared to live out a life they had planned for had been robbed of it in the last moment. Feeling remorse for her, even though none of it was his fault, Garrett, muttered under his breath, “I’m so sorry, April.”
By then, April had already made her way to the staircase. Her hand rested on the rail as she responded, “I am too.”
Chapter 7
Garrett cradled the open book in his hands as he sat on the floor of the library. The dusty cover had opened to reveal a title page with the words A Brief History of the World of Taeopia. Carefully, Garrett turned the page to reveal the table of contents. Glancing over the chapter titles, nothing immediately caught his eye, so he turned to the next page. A preface took up the next fifteen pages, which Garrett skipped.
Finally, he arrived at the first real page of text and began to read: The world of Taeopia has a long heritage. From the dawn of the age of this world, The Council has held that heritage in trust. There have always been two divisions of our people—the Decided and Undecided. Those who knew the way, and those who were yet unsure. The Council held sway over all, and they ruled justly….
Excited, Garrett began skimming through the introductory chapter, trying to find more on The Council, but after a few more mentions, they ceased being referenced. Frustrated, Garrett leafed through the entire book, page by page, striving to find a passage on the origins of The Council. He glanced through every line of text, searching for any key words. He lost track of time until a voice behind him shattered his focus.
“Garrett, the library is closing. I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to leave.” April stood looking down at him with a sympathetic smile, holding a lamp in her right hand.
“Can’t you stay open just a little while longer? Or can I possibly take this book with me?” Garrett glanced down at the open page. He was on page 816; only about two-thirds of the way through.”
“No, I can’t keep the library open any longer. We can’t afford it. And I’m sorry, but you cannot take a book outside the library.” April’s smile disappeared and she pursed her lips. “It’s unfortunate, but those are the rules. However, you could always come back and read it if you like.”
Sighing hard in frustration, Garrett slammed the book closed and returned it to the open space on the bookshelf. “That’s fine, I guess. I didn’t quite find what I was looking for anyway.”
“Did you check the other books on the shelf? Maybe they had what you were looking for.” April lovingly drew the fingertips of her free hand down the spine of the book next to the one Garrett had returned.
Watching her, Garrett realized that she cared for each book as if it were a friend or family member. She loved them as if they were living breathing things. “No, I didn’t have time to check. I got caught up in looking at the one you showed me.”
“That’s a pity, but as I said, you’re welcome to come back whenever you want to. We’re open every day.”
Nodding, Garrett took the initiative to head toward the spiral staircase. “I don’t know if I’ll have the time, but I might decide to return. Will you be here if I do?”
“Oh, yes. I practically live here. I spend more time here than I do at home.”
Garrett couldn’t help smiling. “Well, maybe you can help me when I return.”
“Maybe I can,” April smiled back as they both descended the stairs.
As Garrett walked outside the library, he could hear April locking the door behind him and shutting it with a muted thud. Curious, he watched her for a moment. He wasn’t used to places being so securely locked. Who would steal a book?
Not wanting her to catch him staring, he moved on towards the exit of the Undecided sector. Mentally, he retraced everything he’d read while at the library. According to the book, The Council had existed since the dawn of their world. But who had first appointed them? Did they appoint themselves? How did someone become a council member? Had anyone ever put it in their Life Plan and had their desire fulfilled?
The book had defined the roles in society and how they were split between the Decided and Undecided, with the Decideds getting preference to whatever they wanted. The Undecided were left with the jobs that none of the Decided wanted, but sometimes had the freedom of their job choice. At first, there were no divisions; no Decided and Undecided sectors of cities, and no provinces. Everyone lived together in one place. However, as the population grew and other parts of the world were explored, people began to branch out. Somewhere along the way, the Decided and the Undecided built their own separate worlds within the cities contained inside each province. What had caused them to separate, though? Was there a war?
Exasperated with the concise version of history and wanting a more in-depth one, he made up his mind to research more on the history of the world when he returned home that night. Stopping to reach into his pocket, he pulled out his interwave and checked the time. Swiping his finger across the flat screen, it came to life and projected the time of 8:00pm.
Good, he still had plenty of time to return to his house with his flimsy alibi still intact. Luckily, he had paid enough attention to his surroundings when the little girl had shown him the way to the library that he was able to retrace his steps back to the main street.
Opal softly closed the door to the shelter behind her. Leena and Mrs. Shaffer had both opted to stay the night with the children, so she was the only one to leave. After a long day at academy and with the children, she was tired and ready to return home and go to bed herself.
Gazing into the night sky, she watched as the two moons grew ever closer. Before long, the day would end and a new one would begin. To her, the days seemed to drag on longer and longer the closer it came to Declaration Day. For the better part of her life, she’d been waiting impatiently for the Declaration Day Ceremony. Although many people dreaded the day, she looked forward to it with such anticipation that her heart felt like it would burst from the wait. Exactly one week and one day separated her from the moment when all her planning and dreams would come to fruition.
Opal turned from the path leading from the brick building and towards the main street leading from the Undecided sector. The street was still alive with people, either returning from work or going to work in the Decided sector. Opal pitied the people who had to walk back and forth every day, sometimes for miles due to the lack of transporters on this side of the city. If only there was more she could do to help them.
As she watched a man slowly make his way across the street, she thought she saw a familiar face. He had short black hair and tall with a lengthy stride, reminding her of Garrett. But she simply closed her eyes and shook her head, Garrett wouldn’t be on this side of the city. When she opened her eyes, the figure was gone. Chuckling to herself, she couldn’t believe she’d just imagined her best friend there. Being in the Undecided sector made her think of him more than she’d like to admit. She wanted to be positive and hope that he would throw his Life Plan together in time, but a nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach told her to worry about him—a lot.
Sometimes, she felt like an old mother by the way she nagged him about his Life Plan, but she reasoned that she’d do the same for her sister Gabrielle. Except for the fact that Gabrielle wanted to be like her so much that she’d already written several mock Life Plans of her own. Their laidback parents weren’t worried about either of them. If Garrett didn’t look so different than her, she would have thought the two of them had been switched at birth. His parent’s attitudes toward Life Plans were the same as hers and Garrett’s lackadaisical attitude about Life Plans more closely resembled her parent’s attitudes. Neither of them had ever pushed Gabrielle or her to do anything.
Pushing those thoughts from her head, Opal continued down the main street until it turned into the pathway out of the sect
or. The dark tunnel was so pitch black that she had to dig in her bag for the flashlight she always carried with her to light her way. Shining the light in the tunnel, she could see that she was alone. Taking her time, she made her way through the empty fields and to the last transport stop. A transporter was at the station, but she’d been expecting that. Line four only ran until 8:30pm at night. She’d have to walk another mile and a half before she reached the next transport station with a line that ran past 8pm.
Pressing on, she strolled under the well-lit mosaic walkway, thinking of the dimly lit Undecided sector. Did they really deserve to have less of things just because they couldn’t make up their mind by the time they were seventeen what they wanted to do with their lives?
Unsure of how to answer her own question, she continued into the night.
Garrett watched Opal pass by the transporter with wide eyes. He sat as still as he could inside the transporter, hoping she wouldn’t notice him. When he walked into the cross street in the Undecided sector, he’d looked left and saw her. For a moment, it appeared that she’d seen him too, so when she closed her eyes, he bolted. Arriving on the other side of the outer bridge before she did, he’d quickly discovered that line four was shut down for the night. Convinced she would notice him if he continued walking down the pathway toward the main part of the city, he decided to wait for her to pass by him before trying to make his way home.
Once Opal became a speck in the distance and rounded the corner out of sight, Garrett left the transporter behind and made his own way home. Thinking of how many times Opal had made this trip, he figured that it wouldn’t be a big deal for him to return to the library the following day. True, he would have to make another excuse that his mother would believe. She’d never believe that he’d gone to the library two days in a row. No, his mom was too smart for that. However, he had a whole day to come up with a better excuse.
His interwave rang in his pocket. Retrieving it and holding it up to his ear, the call automatically answered upon contact with his skin, “Hello?”
“Hey, Garrett, what are you up to?” wondered Opal.
Startled, Garrett responded, “Nothing, just sitting in front of my desk, staring at the empty page that is my Life Plan.”
“You still don’t know what you want to do?”
Garrett shook his head even though he knew she couldn’t see it. “Nope. There are so many possibilities and none of them really strikes me as something I’d be okay with doing for the rest of my life. In fact, in class when Mr. Gargen made me write, I listed everything I knew I didn’t want to happen in my life. That seems to be the only thing that I can write down.”
“What were some of the things on that list?”
“Well, number one was that I wouldn’t marry Miranda.”
Opal’s laughter was as sweet as honey. “That’s so obvious to everyone except Miranda that I think The Council’s got you covered on that one. No way they’d do that to you.”
“I don’t know. I’m not convinced that The Council is comprised of nice compassionate people.”
There was a pause at the other end of the line before Opal responded. “Are you still obsessed with finding out more about The Council?”
“Yeah, I am. They’re just so mysterious and no one seems to know anything about them. I mean people that should know about them don’t. If they hold the fate of everyone in the world in their hands, why don’t we know anything about them?”
“That’s never been the way it is. Perhaps if we all knew them, it would be more difficult for them to effectively do their jobs.”
“Do you really believe that?” questioned Garrett, his eyebrow instinctively raising.
“I don’t know, Garrett.”
“Well, at least agree with me that it is odd.”
On the other side, Opal pressed her lips into a thin line of defeat and replied, “I suppose so.”
“See! I tried to tell you! But why is it that no one else seems to care? Could it be some kind of conspiracy?”
“Garrett!” Opal’s tone shifted to irritated. “The entire world with the exception of you wouldn’t be stuck in some kind of conspiracy…that doesn’t even make sense.”
Garrett covered the microphone of the interwave as someone in a personal transporter zoomed by on the street. He’d entered one of the more well-to-do areas of the city as he moved toward the nearest station with a line eight train. He knew Opal would be headed for a line six train, so he had to avoid that one. When the sound had gone, he said, “Fine, you’re probably right about that.”
“Where are you? I thought I heard something in the background.”
Kicking a random stone in the street back into the yard in which it must have come from, Garrett tried to brush it off. “That must be something on your end.”
“No, I don’t think so. It came from your interwave.”
“Oh, that must have been the movie my parents are watching downstairs. I’ll have to ask them to keep it down.” Garrett pretended to call downstairs to his parents, garnering him some looks from the few people out and about. Grimacing, he returned the interwave to his ear. “How about now?”
“Yeah, it’s quiet now. But, hey, I have to go. I’m at the transport station. I’ll see you at academy tomorrow, okay?”
“Yeah, see you then.” With relief, Garrett ended the call.
As Opal climbed into the transporter lit with bright white lights, she sat in a random empty seat and rested her feet. Reflecting on the day she’d had, she couldn’t get over the celebratory surprise from the kids at the shelter. Their warmth and kindness were so sincere. What Garrett had said about The Council being unkind and unforgiving, perhaps he was right. Those children didn’t deserve to live that way just because they were born into Undecided families. Although, in a way, those children would be given a second chance when they were allowed to write their own Life Plans. If they succeeded in getting their plans approved, they would be allowed to leave the Undecided sector behind. But how could you dream to be something better if all you’d known was a life of poverty and misery?
Opal pondered these ideas as the transporter left the station and slid across the thin rails throughout the city. Rail line six wouldn’t take more than twenty minutes to reach her home neighborhood. From there, it was only a five-minute walk to her house.
The glow of the moons fell upon the grassy patches between the buildings and neighborhoods. The iridescent light of the ever-lit lamps gave her side of the city reliable light throughout all hours of the day in the busiest parts of the city. No one had to worry about walking to work in darkness. An air of peace and serenity lay everywhere around her. Secretly, she hoped that every child she’d grown to love in the Undecided shelter would feel this way one day.
Before she realized it, the transporter slid to a stop, and then she trudged the five minutes to her house. By the time she opened the door, the clock in the kitchen showed it was 9:25pm.
At the sound of the door clicking closed, Gabrielle emerged at the top of the stairs. “Opal, you’re home!”
Dashing down the stairs at breakneck speed, Gabrielle ran into Opal’s outstretched arms. “You missed our game of Tri-stops.”
“Oh no, really?” Opal gave her sister a tired grin. “You know that’s one of my favorite games to play.”
“I know, but Mom and Dad insisted that it’d be okay to play without you.”
“It was. You know I’m always home late on Fourth Moon. Besides, I know you will wait up and play it with me.”
“Yep! I have the game pieces set up in your room.”
“All right, let’s play then! After you.” Opal gestured to the stairs as her sister turned to run back up them.
As she climbed the stairs, she couldn’t help wondering what Gabrielle’s fate would have been if she’d grown up as an orphaned Undecided child. Shaking the morbid thought from her head, she refocused her mind on winning a game of Tri-stops.
Chapter 8
The increas
ing brightness of the lights alluding to daylight came through Opal’s window, awaking her to a new day. Groggily sitting up, she yawned and stretched her arms toward the ceiling. Her purple wonderland was the first thing that greeted her eyes in the morning. Throwing off the covers and scooting over to step out of bed, she started when something soft and cushy greeted her toes.
Glancing over the edge of her bed recognition dawned on her when she realized that she’d almost stepped on Gabrielle’s calf. The two of them had stayed up so late the previous night that Gabrielle had asked to sleep in Opal’s room with her. Opal had agreed and took her sleeping bag out and laid it on the floor for her sister. Gabrielle had used the excuse that she was too tired to go to her own room and sleep, but Opal knew the truth. Gabby just wanted to spend every possible moment with her sister before she left home.
Stepping wide to avoid harming her sister, Opal climbed out of bed, then kneeled on the floor and leaned over to kiss her sister’s forehead. Gabby stirred but didn’t wake as Opal stood back up and left her room to use the bathroom.
The house was quiet since Opal was always the first one to arise in the morning. She liked it that way. The serene mornings were just what she needed to help her get started for the day. Being the only morning person in her family, it wasn’t difficult to do. She was also the only light sleeper in her family, so the increasing lights from the lamps outside her window always woke her, meaning that she never needed to use an alarm.
Stopping in front of the mirror in the bathroom, she stared at her reflection. In a matter of days, she’d be considered grown, but did she look it? Examining her smooth skin and intense gaze, she felt like she was an inconsistent merger of the two. Her eyes held the wisdom of ages, but her skin resembled that of a child. Hopefully, she’d look more grown-up by the time she finished her law degree, or else no one would take her seriously in the courtroom.