The Burn

by Annie Oldham

  Chapter Three

  Dad offers to clean up dinner, so Jessa and I make a dash for our room. When the door closes, Jessa throws herself at the closet.

  “I can’t believe the grilling Dad gave you. It’s like he thinks you’re some kind of deviant or something. What do you think of this?” She pulls an orange skirt out of the closet.

  When Jessa started out, I almost expected to be able to open up to her about how I was feeling at the table. A stupid thought, I know, but still I want to talk to somebody about this “explore the Burn” madness. But with Jessa it’s almost easier not to talk. She doesn’t understand the insanity I’m experiencing, she just wants me close and is excited to be going to the dance with me tomorrow night. I love her for it.

  Jessa hauls out every skirt and dress in our closet to find the perfect ensemble for the dance. After she choses a black skirt with a hot-pink shirt, she turns her scrutiny on me.

  “What are you going to wear?”

  I lie on the bed, staring out the window. The ocean frowns back at me. I squint, straining my eyes for the surface that floats thousands of feet above me, hoping I can see some kind of light that isn’t man-made. Then a light does appear faintly in the dark. Lazily, an angler fish swims into view, all teeth and blind eyes and the long, glowing dangler hanging down in front of its mouth.

  That’s what life is like down here. You hope for glimpses of light, and when you find it, you realize there’s nothing there but a gaping mouth and sharp teeth and it’ll swallow you whole if you aren’t careful.

  I throw a book at the window. It thumps against the borosilicate and the fish darts away. The light fades into the black.

  Jessa sighs, long and dramatic.

  “Sorry,” I say. She raises an eyebrow. I drag myself away from the window. “No, really. Sorry. I’ve just been thinking about a lot.”

  Her eyes quiz me.

  “I was just feeling like I…like I should go…” What am I doing? I can’t tell any of this to Jessa. The watcher next to the window records all of this, and Jessa will be implicated.

  “Like I need to change vocations,” I finally stammer out.

  “Again?”

  I nod.

  “Do you realize how many times you’ve changed?”

  “Five. And you’re the last person I need to remind me.”

  “Sorry. But someone needs to tell you. Again. I really thought we’d have fun on the field together. I was excited when Dad told me they thought farming would be a better fit—more light, more quiet time, helping something grow.”

  When she says it like that, farming does sound like a good fit. She’s right—there is light. Practically identical to real sunlight except that it won’t end in a supernova. That has to be better, right? Maybe I should try to like it. Maybe I’ll go tonight and give it one last try. I probably don’t have very many days left until my Burn exploration begins, so I better make sure I know what I’m doing.

  Then she grows quiet. “And maybe you should stick with it for Dad.”

  I snort. “Yeah, right. Dad gives me as hard a time as he can. Why would I make it easier on him?”

  Jessa is suddenly busy with her hair, not looking at me. “You know it’s hard on him every time you do something like this. He just thinks he’s a failure. That if Mom were still here, you’d be fine.”

  I sit electrified. I’ve noticed the way Dad cries, the way he consoles himself by talking to someone who will never talk back to him. But I’m hardly concerned. He brought it on himself. But then a sliver of guilt pricks my heart. Dad lets the grief eat himself from the inside out. The devil in me wants to tell her why he cries so much about it. But I can’t.

  I sit up. “You’re right. I’ve got to go.”

  Jessa’s eyes can meet mine again. “What? But what are you going to wear?”

  “The red one’s great,” I say as I leave.

  Dad looks over from the monitor as I make for the front door. Several other colony councilors are on the screen. He mutes the discussion.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Umm, just to the pod at Field #3. I left something there this afternoon.”

  “It can’t wait until tomorrow?”

  “No, it’s important.”

  Dad checks his watch. “Okay, but be quick. You need to clock in for bed in forty-five minutes.”

  I nod and hurry out the door.

  The corridors are quiet. Most colonists are inside for the night. A few stragglers come off the transport, and most of them eye me with surprise as I hurry by. They all know who I am, of course. Everyone knows who I am. My dad is the speaker, so there are countless times I’ve been seen with him at official functions. And I am a twin. That stands out in people’s minds too. And my mother left us. That’s the stain that nabs me the most glances. I can just imagine what people think. We strive for peaceable living. So why did the speaker’s wife run out on him? If only they knew. It is a dirty secret I am too ashamed to tell. Maybe that’s part of the reason I am so eager to get out of here. Too many secrets, too many things to hide. Too many times Dad tried to overcompensate for being the only parent. With the ocean pressing down on me, it feels like it could bury everything under its weight. The Burn feels more exposed—more honest.

  The transport doors gape wide open and the transport is empty. This is the last transport back to the vocational quarter, and then one more transport back to the living quarter to arrive at 21:55, just in time for me to clock in before bed. I glance at my watch—perfectly synchronized with the clock on the transport—and tell myself not to miss it. I can’t imagine how much trouble I’ll be in if I don’t make it home for curfew.

  The door slides closed behind me, and the voice comes on, “Last transport to the vocational quarter. Upon exiting, you will have thirty minutes before the last transport leaves for the living quarter.”

  The transport jumps up the tube and whisks me toward the vocational quarter. I feel a rush of adrenaline. Pathetic, I know. But I’ve never been on this last transport. I gaze out the clear sides. The transport enters part of the tube that runs next to the ocean, and I stare at the blackness. Am I really considering leaving? Even though all this monotony is really grating on me, this is home. It is unchanging. Reliable.

  And black. Much too black. Black surrounds me all the time. Sure the artificial lights cut through the dark, but if those go out, there would be nothing to guide me. One of the first things I learned when Dad was teaching me to use a submarine was to check and double check my instrumentation before undocking. If any of that failed when I was out in the Trench, I’d get so turned around that I’d be lost forever. I think about what Mr. Klein said in class once on a day we studied Burn navigation, that even on the darkest nights up on the Burn, you can use the stars to guide you. I wonder if he is the best man for what the councilors want to happen in Burn History classes. Mr. Klein makes it all sound so hopeful.

  I press my hand to the glass, and wonder if there’s anything to feel out there besides the empty cold. Then the tunnel burrows back into the colony, and all I can see is a blur of lights and machinery.

  I get off by Field #1 and walk down the corridor to Field #3’s pod. I put my hand on the scanner and the door hisses open. There’s a lot of security around here, though not a lot of violations. The founders were meticulous from the beginning. I am only given access to the field I am currently assigned to. That protects our food from kids who could just be goofing off or someone who is sleepwalking, I guess. No one comes down to the fields to goof off. There’s nothing to do down here. And they can’t get into one of the lockers to grab a radiation suit anyway, so they’d totally fry.

  Which is kind of what I have in mind.

  This plan of mine is stupid. I will march into the field with those solar lamps blazing and lie down among the corn and just try to catch a glimpse of what it might feel like to be up on the Burn. Just a peek. For just a minute. To see if it can be all I have been building it up to be in my
head.

  The importance of the solar radiation suit was the second lesson I learned when I switched vocations to agriculture. The first was how dangerous the solar lamps are. All of that overloads my brain as I walk toward the door that opens onto the field. But I don’t hesitate. I need to do this. It is my last test to see if I really am ready to abandon all this.

  The door opens too slowly.

  “Let me out there.” I realize I said it aloud. It’s like the door gives me time to change my mind, but it’s pointless. I squeeze out through the gap.

  I gasp and feel my arms. I’m warm. Actually, truly warm. I glance at the temperature monitor on the wall. 85 degrees. I’ve never felt warm down here. Sure, under my covers at night, or after a shower. But never just walking down the corridor, or sitting in the Juice Deck—everything is too perfectly climatized. Even our radiation suits are temperature controlled. A shiver of pleasure runs down my back. I walk into the corn.

  I never realized how green the corn is. Through the filtered visor of the suit or the filtered plastic looking into the field, the corn is green, a dull grayish green that looks half alive. Now with naked eyes, this is vibrant and soft at the same time. The leaves shine under the artificial light. I have the wackiest urge to just touch the leaves. I do. They are smooth under my bare fingertips. The tassels on the ears of corn flutter in air currents swirled by the air circulators. The tassels feel fuzzy and ethereal. The soil is rich brown and smells alive. I never even knew dirt had a smell.

  I kneel down between rows of corn, my bare hands in the dirt, my fingers raking through it. How long have I been in here? I look at my watch. Twenty minutes until the last transport. I will stay for five more minutes.

  A trickle of sweat runs down my back. It’s 85 degrees in here, and I never knew that was enough to make me sweat. With the added humidity, I feel deliciously slippery. My head feels tired and sluggish, and I lie down in the dirt, squinting up through the overlapping leaves of corn at the artificial lamps over head that I imagine are the sun.

  Then the speaker crackles on. “The last transport leaves in five minutes.”

  I jump up. Did I actually fall asleep down here? I look around. I’m still alone, and I don’t see anyone through the field’s glass. No one knows I’m here. I look down at myself. I’m covered in dirt. I run to my locker and rip off my shirt and pants and change into the spares.

  I bolt out into the corridor and jump onto the transport. There are two other people there, probably getting off cleaning shifts. One of them raises her eyebrows at me, but I shrug it off. Probably wondering what the daughter of the speaker is doing on a transport by herself so close to curfew. What have I been doing? I took a cat nap without a radiation suit lying on the dirt in Field #3. It sounds so crazy. But then I smile, remembering the warmth and the smells. The reddish light through my closed eyelids. Definitely not wasted time.

  I make it back to my house at 21:57. Dad is still up, reading a bulletin. He doesn’t look up when I come in.

  “You’re cutting it close, young lady. Next time you forget something and feel the need to go get it so close to—”

  Then he looks up, shocked. My clothes are clean, so are my hands. He shouldn’t be able to tell what I was doing. Then I notice my arms.

  “Terra, you are bright red! What have you been doing?”

  A burn? For only being on the field for maybe fifteen minutes? Could I really have a burn already?

  “The only place you could have—” Dad clamps a hand to his mouth. “Were you out on the field without a suit on?”

  I nod and hurry toward my room.

  “If your mother could only see—”

  “Well she can’t, can she? Because you made her leave.” Why am I doing this to him? Only an hour ago Jessa helped me realize how much Dad is hurting. But I can’t stop; the momentum behind my words propels me on. “You really must have loved her to mess things up so badly.”

  Dad’s mouth hangs open, and the tears surge up in his eyes. All I want from him is the truth. To set the ashes free from just one of the dirty secrets we all hide down here. To watch the remains of it fly on the wind and go rest somewhere in peace. The guilt claws at my stomach and I have to escape that look on his face.

  “I’ve got to clock in.” I turn my back on him and go to my room.

  If I had known how agonizing sleeping in a bed would be with a sunburn, I would have stayed up and faced my dad’s wrath, sorrow, and the punishment I will face from missing clock-in. Some time in the middle of the night, I wake up feeling like the skin is being peeled from my arms. Just having sheets on my burned skin is torture. I roll to one side, but my cheeks on the pillow aren’t any better. A tear slips out, but the salt water running down my face is even worse than the bedding. I grit my teeth, sit up, and stay sitting up the rest of the night.

  When Jessa wakes up, I’m already dressed and packing my bag for the day. She yawns and stretches, and then finally looks at me.

  “Good grief, what happened to you?”

  I shrug and try to keep the light fabric of my shirt away from my burned skin. “A few minutes on the field without a radiation suit.”

  “No way. For real?”

  I nod. Her mouth opens in the wackiest smile I’ve seen on her.

  “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. They just had another radiation suit reminder last week. How could you forget?”

  “Don’t tell Dad that. I’m already in enough trouble as it is.” I go into the common room.

  Dad waits in the kitchen, sitting in front of his egg white omelet with his hands on each side of the plate, palms down, like he holds the table steady to keep himself from chucking it at me. Or he could be holding himself together from the outside in. Gram eats her omelet in dainty bites. I sit at the table, and Dad gives her a look. She grabs her plate.

  “I think I’ll finish this in the other room while I get a sneak peek at lunch.” She darts out into the common room. The monitor hums to life, but the volume isn’t up very high. If I weren’t in so much trouble, I would have laughed at Gram trying to eavesdrop on what’s going on.

  Dad doesn’t waste any time.

  “Terra, how could you be so completely thoughtless? So forgetful? So negligent? I know agriculture isn’t your strong point and you’re probably considering changing vocations again—”

  I nod.

  “—but I really wish you wouldn’t be so reckless. You don’t know how damaging those sun lamps can be.”

  I look at my skin. I have a pretty good idea.

  “Why did you really go there anyway? I know you’re not so idiotic as to forget a radiation suit. And don’t tell me you forgot something. You wouldn’t go out on the field just because you forgot something. I don’t want excuses. That’s not something anyone in this family would do. It’s not something a daughter of a speaker would do.” He finally takes a breath. I don’t know what to say. I haven’t thought ahead to come up with some excuse. Anything to save me from trouble.

  Then Dad takes another deep breath. He brings his hands up and rubs his eyes. I know he will let it go. Then he looks at me.

  “Speaking of vocation changes, considering your work record, I thought maybe it was time you made a change. Have you thought about trying public service?”

  My temper flares. So that’s it? I’m being groomed to be the next speaker? I was determined to keep my mouth shut, to be kind, but everything I’ve been feeling over the past few days comes spilling out before I can put a clamp on it.

  “Really, Dad? Public service? You think I have any desire to be a speaker like you or Gram? I hate it down here, and if you knew anything about me, you’d know that. Why would I want to be an advocate for this stupid, messed up place? I’m very seriously considering following in Mom’s footsteps, and I don’t mean being a nutritionist.”

  I shouldn’t have said it. That Mom comment goes way too far. But I have to tell someone what’s rolling around in my head before it explodes, even if it
is my dad.

  He’s horrified and looks like his nose has just been punched—his eyes water and his face is red. His mouth quivers, with sadness or rage, I don’t know. I don’t want to stick around to find out. I grab my bag and run out the door as fast as I can. He doesn’t even have time to collect himself to tell me how much trouble I’m in.