by Nan Higgins
“I’m not sure. We’ll think of something.”
* * *
Dad decided that night would be a good one to cook burgers on the grill and eat on the patio. I made some potato salad and cut up some carrots and broccoli and arranged them on a tray with ranch dressing. Mom made her signature pecan pie, which she put in the oven right as we were sitting down to eat. Watching my parents fill their plates and fix their burgers and go about their business as if they hadn’t been keeping me from the truth about my own life was infuriating. Now that the reality about who and what I was had surfaced, the lies should have stopped, and yet they were still going out of their way to keep me from learning all that I could about my abilities.
“So why do I have to stay behind at AfterCorps for my agent training when the protocol is for trainees to be out in the field?”
They both stopped and stared at me.
“And why do I keep having to hear important news about my life from Nick instead of from you guys?” The question I didn’t ask, the one that consumed so many of my thoughts lately, was how could I ever trust either of them again?
“We want to keep your life as normal as possible,” Mom said. “And we just thought that since you’ve had a lot less time to acclimate to being a special than most, it would be best to ease into your hands-on training.”
“Yes, exactly,” Dad said. “I know you’re grown, Aria, but you have so much to learn about this world. And no matter how old you become, you’re still our daughter, and your safety and well-being are of utmost importance to us.”
“You weren’t even going to discuss it with me?”
“Aria, listen to me,” my mom began.
“No, you listen to me. You let me grow up with absolutely no idea that AfterCorps existed, let alone how all of these changes could happen. My entire life has changed in the last month, and you let me be completely unprepared for my future. You didn’t tell me anything about who I am, who our family is, and now that I’m actually in training and trying to get a grip on all this, I’d think you’d be involved and wanting to participate. And I’d expect that you’d want me to jump in with training and learn as much as I can from the only people who’ve been willing to teach me.” The words tumbled out of me as if propelled by the force of the frustration and anger that had been building toward my parents since the night I saw my first ghost.
“Dad, everyone I’ve met at AfterCorps has so much to say about you, about our family, my great-great-grandfather. They have expectations that I don’t know the first thing about because even now, you’re keeping me in the dark. You’re the great leader of AfterCorps, the one everyone talks about, admires, respects.” Everyone I’d come across at AfterCorps knew so much more about my family than I did, and it was crushing. Why was I such a stranger to who we really were? “You haven’t shared anything about my heritage with me, and I want to know why!”
My parents were silent. They looked at each other for a long time before my dad cleared his throat. “This hasn’t been easy for us, Aria. As much pride as I take in being an interpreter and in being a Jasper, it can be very, very dangerous work. We shielded you, not because we wanted you to be ill-equipped, but because we desperately wanted you to have a normal life. Your musical talents, while quite extraordinary, are not supernatural, and I—”
Mom rested her hand on his arm. “I think we hoped, rather naively as it turns out, that your phenomenal musical gifts were a sign that you were meant for this world, the reg world, instead of the AfterCorps world. It was foolish, and I’m very sorry that it caused this transition to be even more difficult for you.”
“Okay,” I said. It felt like the truth, but somehow, not the whole truth. “And now that you know I’m…meant for the AfterCorps world, why have you been keeping such distance with me?”
“I guess…I guess I wanted you to experience it as any other new interpreter would and not as the daughter of Nathan Jasper, great-great granddaughter of Myron Jasper.”
Now he was outright lying. I was almost positive of it. What I didn’t know was why. If he truly wanted me to experience training as anyone else would, he wouldn’t have told Nick to keep me out of the field. Did my parents think I was stupid?
“If I have to do ghost school, I want to do the same kind of training any other new interpreter would.” I paused. “Unless you’re having second thoughts about whether I really need to do this?”
“We’re not having second thoughts.” My dad’s voice was coarse.
“But what would happen if I just didn’t become an interpreter? It can’t be true that every single person who has interpreting abilities has to be one. There have to be people who possess the gift who just go out and become dentists or baristas or—”
“Singers?” Dad asked.
“Why not?”
He sighed. “Sure there are. But they all have to go through training first, at the end of which, everyone must make their own decisions about what to do. Most choose to stay with AfterCorps, but a few have walked away.”
“It seems…wasteful to make someone go through years of training who doesn’t have any interest in being an interpreter.”
“You have to tell her,” Mom said.
“Tell me what?”
“Those who decide not to utilize their gifts at interpreting can go out into the world and pursue whatever they wish, but it comes at a price. They must be cut off completely, not just from AfterCorps but from their family of interpreting origin.”
“You mean I wouldn’t be able to see you again?” That couldn’t be.
He shook his head. “You can walk away from being an interpreter, but you can’t walk away from the fact that you inherited the gift. If you choose not to use it, you will create, for lack of a better word, a sort of static. It interferes with the ability of the interpreters in your life to communicate with priors clearly and is considered a major security issue. For my own safety, we would have to…” His voice wavered. “We’d have to cease all communication.”
Now I’d have to choose between my dreams and my family? It seemed too terrible to be true. If I was going to have any kind of normal life, I’d have to do it without my father. None of this had been fair from that initial bombshell on the night of my quickening, and the injustice grew with every stone I turned over.
“I think I need to have some time to myself. I’m going upstairs.” I grabbed my plate with the now cold burger and headed toward the screen door to go inside.
“I’m sorry we went over your head about going out in the field. We’ll think more about it,” Mom said. “You’re right; we should have discussed it with you before making a decision.”
“Thank you.”
I went upstairs and texted Sloane to tell her what my parents said.
Are you okay? she asked.
I’ve been better. But hey, at least I got them to reconsider my field assignment.
We could end up out in the field together. She sent this with the wide-eyed emoji. You might get sick of me.
Doubt it. Kissing emoji.
Despite the devastating news, I was smiling when I set my phone aside to read the chapters from our textbook. I struggled with my ability to focus on the words in front of me as I kept thinking about the impossible choice I would have to make in a few years.
Later, I turned on my night-light and got into bed. I lay there, staring at the ceiling and thinking about how to find out how Clara’s husband really died. Something Sloane said earlier kept rattling in my brain, and I couldn’t figure out why it was significant:
“There wasn’t much of anything in terms of paper…it looks like Jasper Funeral Home has gone digital.”
I sat up and grabbed my phone.
Jasper Funeral Home may be digital, but AfterCorps isn’t, I texted. We’ve been pushing paper all day!
The three little bubbles popped up to signify she was typing back to me. And we’ll be pushing it all day tomorrow too. You’re a genius.
Meet me in the parking lot at 8:30 tom
orrow morning so we can figure out what we’re gonna do?
See you then. Her text included another kiss emoji, and I sent one back before lying back down. After my roller coaster ride of an evening, I thought I wouldn’t be able to sleep, but soon after my head was back on the pillow, I did.
Chapter Twenty
We decided we would ask Sandy and Janet where records were stored and see if they needed help filing.
“My mom is always complaining about having to file things in the records room,” Sloane said. “Besides, even if they say no, as long as we find out where it is, one of us can sneak in.”
“I should be the one to sneak in this time.”
“Whoever gets the best opportunity should do it,” she said, and I rolled my eyes.
“Let’s go.”
As it turned out, we didn’t even have to ask. Janet and Sandy told us our main job would be filing in the records room that day. “I’ve been saving all my paperwork for the last week to give to you two,” Sandy said.
“Me too,” Janet said. “This is happening at the best time.”
“It sure is,” I agreed.
They showed us to a locked door near Sandy’s station, and she swiped a key fob on the monitor next to the handle to let us in. “If you have to go to the bathroom or anything, you’ll have to get one of us to let you back in.” She showed us into a room that was probably four times the size of a two-car garage, filled with nothing but rows of shelves with boxes of paperwork.
“Jeez,” Sloane said. “When is AfterCorps going to move into the twenty-first century and get computerized?”
“Probably never,” Sandy said. “There’s too much at stake. We can’t take the risk of being discovered, so we will be stuck with paper and ink indefinitely.”
“Makes sense,” I said. “What do you need us to do?”
She pointed to a table inside the door that had stacks of papers on it. She explained that each prior had a box for their paperwork that was housed here until a year after they transferred. She showed us where their information was kept and told us to make sure the paperwork went into the right box.
“Only half of this place has records for priors,” Sloane said. “What’s in the rest of it?”
“Oh, periodicals, newsletters, that kind of thing. It kind of died down these last few years, but AfterCorps newsletters used to be a big deal. We’re modeled after traditional business corporations, you know, and we follow a lot of trends that white-collar businesses are prone to.”
This interested me. Since I didn’t have the same pool of knowledge Sloane did with regard to AfterCorps, a newsletter might help me get a feel for this place and our culture.
“Anyway, holler if you need help,” Sandy said. “I’ll be out at the counter.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Sloane said.
“Yes, thank you,” I added.
Sandy slipped out, and when the heavy door closed behind her, Sloane and I made a beeline to the row that housed priors with last names starting with B.
“There.” She pointed at a box several feet above our heads. “Braverman, Solomon.”
I grabbed a small ladder at the end of the row and climbed up, almost losing my balance when I handed the heavy box down.
We opened it and started going through his papers. “If the death certificate is in here, it’s probably at the bottom,” I said, “since that would’ve been one of the first pieces of paperwork he had after he died.”
Several minutes of carefully skimming documents and setting them aside later, we got to the death certificate with a page stapled behind it.
“Cause of death, massive heart attack,” Sloane read.
“What’s the other page?”
She flipped to the document behind the death certificate. “It’s the AfterCorps certification that the cause of death listed is actually the true cause of death.”
“How would anyone at AfterCorps know that?”
“The data analysts capture all the pertinent information, remember? It’s part of the report they make up.”
“I thought we couldn’t risk being digital,” I said. Sloane was right that every time we got new information, it just brought up new questions.
“I don’t think these screens work the same. For one thing, they aren’t online, not the way we know it. For another, I’ve seen what the data analysts do. Did you ever see that old movie, The Matrix?”
“A long time ago. Don’t tell me it’s a black screen with green letters and numbers.”
“That’s exactly what it is,” she said. “And data analysts are trained to read code…the code being every event in a human’s life. It’s a system developed over the last few decades; your father gathered a whole tech task force to make it happen.”
“I didn’t think this business would be so…so clinical.”
She shrugged and went back to reading the AfterCorps certification. “Hey, look at this.” She pointed to a section marked “Validation” at the bottom of the page. “It says that the cause of death was heart failure, the cause of which could not be contributed to either lifestyle or genetics, and therefore the root cause of death is inconclusive.”
“Inconclusive?” I looked at the stacks of papers we’d set aside from Sol Braverman’s box. “Do you think we can find more answers in here?”
“Maybe.” She frowned and pulled her phone out. “We’ve been at this for over an hour. One of us should do some actual filing in case someone comes to check on us. We don’t want them wondering what we’ve been doing all this time.”
“They’d probably think it was something dirty,” I said and giggled.
“That would be nice too.” She threw me a crooked grin. “Do you want to file or keep looking through here?”
“I’ll file for a bit, and then we can switch if you haven’t found anything.”
“Deal.”
I went over to the table, grabbed some papers, and began filing while Sloane sifted through Mr. Braverman’s documents. I stepped around her and the mess of papers surrounding her on the floor whenever I had to go past where she sat. We worked in silence, but it was nice. Lately, any silence around my house had been awkward when my parents and I were in the same room, and it was comforting to be together in companionable quiet.
I’d gotten about a third of the way through the papers when Sloane called for me. “Solomon filed paperwork with the courts before his transfer.” She stood and met me at the end of the row, the paper shaking in her hands “He requested an investigation and punishment for crimes against him. He said Clara Braverman was responsible for his demise.”
“It says that?”
“Word-for-word, look.” She thrust the sheaf of papers at me.
“Holy shit. We need a copy of this.”
She shook her head. “They’ll want to know what we’re doing if we go out there and start making copies. Let’s just take these.”
I nodded. “Okay.” I watched her carefully place them inside her notebook, then in her backpack.
“I’ll clean up the mess, and then I can help you with the filing,” she said.
When Sandy came to check on us, we had finished about three-fourths of the filing, but she brought in another giant stack. “The other clerks found out you were doing the dirty work for Janet and me and decided to really let you get a feel for the hustle we run.”
“But we can’t finish all this today,” Sloane said.
“I know. Nick cleared us to have you again tomorrow, and when you’re done, you’ll get your field assignments for next week.”
“Super,” Sloane muttered, and I nudged her when I noticed how sad her mom looked.
“Anyway, thank you for your help today, girls. You’re free to go; just be back here in the morning, okay? You’ll go back to class with Nick for your next assignments in the afternoon. Sloane, I’ll see you at home. I have to go to the flower shop; we’ve got some big arrangements that need to go out this evening, and I need to check they’re all set. Dinner is in
the Crock-Pot; it’ll be ready by six. Go ahead and eat if I’m not home by then.” She turned and held open the heavy door. Sloane gave her a quick peck on the cheek on the way out.
“Thanks,” I said to her.
Once outside, I peered at Sloane, who was digging her keys out of her pocket.
“I think you hurt your mom’s feelings,” I said.
She sighed and shook her head. “I think you’re right. She wants me to be a clerk so badly, and it’s the absolute last job I would want. I try to tell her that while not making her feel like I don’t respect the work she does, but it’s not always easy.”
“I’m sure it’s not. Do you think she takes it personally?”
“A little bit, maybe. Mostly, I think she just worries. In her mind, being a clerk is the only safe job with AfterCorps. Or the safest job, anyway, and she’s right about that.”
“And you don’t want to be safe?”
“I know you haven’t been raised to know anything about AfterCorps, but your dad was still a funeral director. You already know that death comes when it comes, right? It’s not that I’m reckless; I want to get all the training I possibly can so I can learn how to protect myself. But if there’s anything AfterCorps has taught me, it’s that life is too short to play it safe.”
I didn’t know if it was the brightness of the sun glaring down on us or the passion with which Sloane spoke, but her eyes were almost silver.
“I get that,” I said.
“I’m glad.” She draped her arms across my shoulders. “Hopefully, someday, my mom will get it too.”
“She will,” I said. “Your mom is great.”
We hugged good-bye, and I headed home. I couldn’t stop thinking about Sloane and her desire to work in what everyone agreed was the most dangerous sector of AfterCorps. I knew almost nothing about what that entailed, and I’d been so wrapped up in my own issues that I hadn’t asked about what kind of risks were involved in the CDU. Since it had the name “demonic” in the title, it seemed pretty serious, and I resolved to talk about it with her soon. When I got home, I had a text from her waiting for me: I just realized we haven’t been on an actual date yet. Wanna fix that?