by Ally Condie
“Yes,” I say.
“Who do you think had to be more brave?” she asks. “The Pilot who let him go, or the man who had to start all over in a new world?”
“They were both brave,” I say.
Her eyes are level with mine. So I see when she closes them and lets herself fall for me: right when my lips meet hers.
CHAPTER 63
CASSIA
Ky and I stand together at the top of the steps of City Hall, holding hands and blinking in the brightness of an end-of-summer day in Camas. No one notices us. They have other things to think about on their way up the stairs. Some look uncertain, others excited.
An older woman stops at the top of the steps and glances at me. “When do we write our names?” she asks.
“Once you get inside to vote,” I tell her.
The woman nods and disappears into the building.
I look at Ky and smile. We have just finished putting our names to paper, making a choice about who we want to lead.
“When people chose the Society, it was almost the end of us,” I say. “It might be the end of us again, forever this time.”
“It might be,” Ky agrees. “Or we might make a different choice.”
There are three candidates offering to lead the people. The Pilot represents the Rising. An Official represents the Society.
And Anna represents everyone else. She and Eli came back to Camas with us. “What about Hunter?” Ky asked Anna, and she said, “I know where he’s gone,” and smiled, sadness and hope mixed together in her expression, a feeling I know all too well.
This voting is such a large and impossible task, such a beautiful and terrible experiment, and it could go wrong in so many ways. I think of all those little white papers inside, all those people who have learned to write, at least their names. What will they choose? What will become of us, and our lands of blue sky and red rock and green grass?
But, I remind myself, the Society can’t take it all again unless we let them. We can get our memories back, but we will have to talk with each other and trust one another. If we’d done that before, we might have found the cure sooner. Who knows why that man planted those fields? Perhaps he knew we’d need the flowers for a cure. Maybe he just thought they were beautiful, like my mother did. But we do find answers in beauty, more often than not.
This is going to be very difficult. But we came through the Plague and its mutation together, all of us. Those who believed in the Rising and those who believed in the Society and those who believed in something else entirely all worked side by side to help the still. Some didn’t. Some ran and some killed. But many people tried to save.
“Who did you vote for?” I whisper to Ky as we walk down the steps.
“Anna,” he says. He smiles at me. “What about you?”
“Anna,” I say.
I hope she wins.
It’s time for the Anomalies and Aberrations to have their turn.
But will we let them?
In the debates on the ports, the Official was clear and concise, statistical. “Don’t you think we’ve seen this before?” she asked. “Everything you do has been done before. You should let the Society help you again. This time, of course, we will allow for greater increase of expression. Give you more choices. But, left too much to your own devices, what would happen?”
I thought, We’d write something. We’d sing something.
“Yes,” said the Official, as if she knew my thoughts, as if she knew what everyone in the Society was thinking. “Exactly. You would write the same books that other people have written. You’d write the same poems: they’d be about love.”
She’s right. We would compose poems about love and tell stories that have been heard in some form before. But it would be our first time feeling and telling.
I remember what Anna called the three of us.
The Pilot. The Poet. The Physic.
They are in all of us. I believe this. That every person might have a way to fly, a line of poetry to put down for others to see, a hand to heal.
Xander sent a message to let us know where he is now. He wrote it out by hand. It was the first time I ever saw his writing, and the neat rows of letters brought tears to my eyes.
I’m in the mountains. Lei’s here, too. Please tell my family that I’m fine. I’m happy. And I’ll be back someday.
I hope that’s true.
My mother and Bram wait for us on the steps down to the river.
“You’re finished voting,” Bram says. “How was it?”
“Quiet,” I say, thinking back to that large Hall full of people and the sounds of pencils on paper, names being written slowly and carefully.
“I should be able to vote,” Bram says.
“You should,” I agree. “But they decided on seventeen.”
“Banquet age,” Bram says. “Do you think I’m going to have a Banquet?”
“You might,” I say. “But I hope not.”
“I have something for you,” Ky says. He holds out his hand and there is Grandfather’s tube, the one we found in the Cavern, the one that Ky hid for me in a tree.
“When did you get this?” I ask.
“Yesterday,” Ky says. “We were in the Outer Provinces again, looking for survivors.” After the mutated Plague was under control, the Pilot let Ky and some of the others try to find those who are still lost, like Patrick and Aida. The hope was that some of them might have found their way to the Rising’s old camp, the one on the map near the lake.
So far, we’re still looking.
“I brought this back, too,” he says. “It’s the one Eli saved.” He holds out his hand and I see the label on the tube. Roberts, Vick.
“I thought you didn’t believe in the tubes,” Bram says.
“I don’t,” Ky says. “But I think this one should be given to someone who loved him so they can decide what to do.”
“Do you think she’ll take it?” I ask Ky. He’s talking about Lei, of course.
“I think she’ll take it,” Ky says, “and then let it go.”
Because she loves Xander now. She’s chosen to love again.
Sometimes, I felt angry that Grandfather hadn’t told me exactly which poem he wanted me to find. But now I see what he did give me. He gave me a choice. That’s what it always was.
“It’s hard to do this,” I say, holding Grandfather’s tube. “I wish I’d kept the poems. That would make it easier. I’d have something of him left.”
“Sometimes paper is only paper,” my mother says. “Words are just words. Ways to capture the real thing. Don’t be afraid to remember that.”
I know what she means. Writing, painting, singing—it cannot stop everything. Cannot halt death in its tracks. But perhaps it can make the pause between death’s footsteps sound and look and feel beautiful, can make the space of waiting a place where you can linger without as much fear. For we are all walking each other to our deaths, and the journey there between footsteps makes up our lives.
“Good-bye,” I say to Grandfather, and to my father, and I hold the tube in the river and pause a moment. We hold the choices of our fathers and mothers in our hands and when we cling on or let them slip between our fingers, those choices become our own.
Then I unstop the tube and hold it in the water, letting it take the last little bit of Grandfather away, just as he wanted and asked my father to do.
I wish the two of them could see all of this: green field planted with cures for the future; blue sky; a red flag on top of City Hall signaling that it is time to choose.
“Like climbing the Hill,” Ky says, catching my eye and pointing to the flag.
”Yes,” I say, remembering the feel of his hand on mine as we tied the scraps to the trees to mark where we had been.
Beyond the City of Camas, the mountains rise blue and purple and white in the distance.
Ky and I climbed the Hill, together. Xander is in the mountains.
Even though Xander is gone, even though all cannot be as everyone would wish, there is satisfaction in knowing that something good and right and true was part of you. That you had the blessing, gift, good fortune, perfect luck, to know someone like this, to pass through fire and water and stone and sky together and emerge, all of you, strong enough to hold on, strong enough to let go.
I can already feel some things slipping through my fingers like sand and water, like artifacts and poems, like everything you want to hold on to and can’t.
But we did it. Whatever happens next, we managed to help find a cure and begin a vote.
The river looks alternately blue and green as it reflects grass and sky, and I catch a glimpse of something red swimming in it.
Ky leans in to kiss me and I close my eyes to better feel the moment of waiting and want before our lips meet.
There is ebb and flow. Leaving and coming. Flight and fall.
Sing and silent.
Reaching and reached.
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AUTHOR’S NOTE
Throughout the Matched trilogy, I have mentioned and/or quoted from several works of art. While most of the works are attributed in the text, I wanted to include a completed list here for those who are interested in reading or seeing more of these artists’ beautiful work.
PAINTINGS:
Chasm of the Colorado, by Thomas Moran (referred to as Painting Nineteen of the Hundred Paintings)
Girl Fishing at San Vigilio, by John Singer Sargent (referred to as Painting Ninety-Seven of the Hundred Paintings)
POETRY:
“Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas
“Poem in October” by Dylan Thomas
“Crossing the Bar” by Alfred Lord Tennyson
“They Dropped Like Flakes” by Emily Dickinson
“I Did Not Reach Thee” by Emily Dickinson
“In Time of Pestilence, 1593” by Thomas Nashe
In Crossed, I also mention Ray Bradbury and Rita Dove, whose work, along with that of Wallace Stegner and Leslie Norris, inspired me during the writing of this series.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank:
My husband, who sees beauty in both poetry and equations, and who never fails to believe and build up;
Our four children, who are the how and why of everything I write;
My parents and my brother and sisters;
Dr. Gregory F. Burton, (who generously let me use his Goldilocks/Xanthe analogy in the text, and who helped me with the immunology involved in the story) and Dr. Matthew O. Leavitt (who lent his expertise as a pathologist). Any science that works regarding the Plague, its mutation, and the tablets is due to Dr. Burton and Dr. Leavitt—the fiction is all my fault;
Ashlee Child, R.N., who answered many questions about nursing and patient care;
Dale Hepworth, fisheries biologist, who sent me information and photos of sockeye salmon (the “redfish” Lei tells Xander about in Reached);
My cousin Peter Crandall, a commercial airline pilot, who helped me with the flying scenes in the novel, and introduced me to the Osprey, the inspiration for the Pilot’s ship;
My ancestor, Polly Rawson Dinsdale, and the other pioneers who ate sego lily bulbs to survive hard times and inspired the use of that flower in this story;
Josie Lauritsen Lee, Lisa Mangum, and Robison Wells, who waded through early drafts and gave valuable and empowering feedback;
Lizzie Jolley, Mikayla Kirkby, and Mylee Sanders, who were unfailingly patient and kind with my children and with me;
My agent, Jodi Reamer, who piloted this series from beginning to end, guiding always with gusto and good humor back to where we needed to be (and on to places I hadn’t dreamed of);
My editor, Julie Strauss-Gabel, who served as physic and poet, nurturing the manuscript and shaping it with her unparalleled intelligence and perception;
The wonderful team at Writers House, including Alec Shane and Cecilia de la Campa;
The fantastic people at Penguin: Scottie Bowditch, Erin Dempsey, Theresa Evangelista, Felicia Frazier, Erin Gallagher, Anna Jarzab, Liza Kaplan, Lisa Kelly, Eileen Kreit, Rosanne Lauer, Jen Loja, Shanta Newlin, Emily Romero, Irene Vandervoort, and Don Weisberg;
And you, the reader, for taking this journey with Cassia, Ky, and Xander, and with me.
is the author of the Matched trilogy. Before becoming a writer, she taught high school English in Utah and upstate New York. She lives with her husband and four children outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. Visit her online at www.allycondie.com.
Make the Matched Trilogy your next book club pick!
Questions and Topics for Discussion
MATCHED
Matched is told in first person; how would the story be different if someone besides Cassia were telling it?
The Society only allows citizens to own one object from the past. What can readers learn about Cassia’s world from this rule? If you were asked to select a single item to pass down to another generation, what would it be and why?
What is the purpose of the three emergency tablets each member of the Society is required to carry with them at all times? Why is Cassia encouraged to never take the green tablet? Consider the lack of effectiveness the tablets have on both Xander and Ky. In your opinion, does this put them at an advantage?
Each member of the Society is assigned a job as well as a spouse. Consider your personal strengths. What role might you play in such a community? What problems might arise from being given a job based only on your strengths?
Readers learn that in Cassia’s Society, only one hundred pieces of art, music, and literature are saved from the past as a way to ensure that their world isn’t too cluttered. Do you agree with such a practice? What are some of the other outcomes for the Society by providing such restrictions?
Throughout the course of the novel, Cassia, Xander, and Ky learn that the world as they know it might never be the same. In what ways will it be better or worse for them? Have you had an experience that reshaped your life? In what ways have you changed due to this incident?
On Cassia’s grandfather’s eightieth birthday, he and his family participate in his Final Banquet. What is your opinion of how death is treated by the Society? How does Cassia’s attitude toward this prescribed death sentence change throughout the course of the novel?
CROSSED
Crossed opens with Ky performing an informal last rites ceremony for one of the lost as he recites the poem “Crossing the Bar” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. What can readers infer about Ky from his actions? What is it about this particular poem that makes it so special for Ky and others who wish to change Society?
In Crossed, readers gain a better understanding of the Society’s intent to preserve DNA of Society members in good standing in hopes of overcoming death. Are there any parallels to the preservation tactics in our present society? If you were given a similar opportunity, would you want to participate? Why or why not?
Throughout the novel, the story is told in alternating chapters by Ky and Cassia. In what ways does hearing these diverse perspectives benefit the story?
While considering his compass and the scrap of green silk from Cassia’s gown from the Matching ceremony, Ky states, “Because in the end you can’t always choose what to keep. You can only choose how you let it go.” Explain his statement. In what ways does this speak to the events that transpire through the course of the novel?
Why does Ky seem so reluctant to serve as the Pilot for the Rising? Do
you agree with his decision? Why or why not?
Trust is a major theme throughout the novel; offer specific examples where a character’s willingness (or unwillingness) to trust others (or himself) proves advantageous or disastrous.
THE MATCHED TRILOGY
Readers will discover that the Matched trilogy draws the reader into a unique world with disturbingly close echoes of our own and one that asks penetrating questions about how we live together in a society. These books challenge readers to consider the following:
What must we give up, for example, in order to live in peace?
How much should the individual lose of himself or herself for the collective good?
Can we ignore and minimize pain in our lives—both physical and emotional—to live happier existences?
Are we destined to love one person or can our choices influence how and who we love?
Turn the page for a look at the next captivating story
from #1 New York Times bestselling author
ALLY CONDIE
Chapter 1
My twin sister, Bay, and I pass underneath the brown-and-turquoise banners hanging from the ceiling of the temple. Dignitaries perch on their chairs in the gallery, watching, and people crowd the pews in the nave. Statues of the gods adorn the walls and ceiling, and it seems as if they watch us, too. The temple’s largest and most beautiful window, the rose window, has been lit from behind to simulate the effect of sunlight through the panes. The glass shines like a blessing—amber, green, blue, pink, purple. The colors of flower petals Above, of coral formations Below.
The Minister stands at the altar, which is made of precious wood carved in an intricate pattern of straight lines and swirls, of waves that turn into trees. Two bowls rest on top of the altar—one filled with salt water from the ocean that envelops our city, one filled with dark dirt brought down from Above.