by G. C. Julien
CHAPTER 6 – LUCY
Lucy – Present Day
“Do you remember your lines?” Nola asks.
“I, Lucinda Cain, pledge my allegiance to Eden,” I say.
“Then Eve will ask you: ‘Lucy Cain, today marks the day you decide your role in our society. What trade do you wish to pursue?’”
“I choose Technician,” I say.
“Very good,” Nola says. “It’ll be short, but it’s important you get the lines right. Eve is pretty particular about keeping the ceremony traditional.”
Particular? Aunt Eve has always been a bit OCD. At least, that’s what my mother called it, whatever it means. It’s weird to refer to Eve as Eve when she’s the one who cared for me after my mom died. They used to be best friends. She’d visit us all the time in our apartment to talk about rebellion groups and what we needed to do to stay safe.
I remember her always fixing my mom’s picture frames on the walls. She’d open and close our kitchen cupboards, then smile down at me when I’d catch her and say, “Just giving the plates some fresh air. It helps them stay clean.”
I believed her then. I was only five. But now, looking back, I know that’s weird. My mom tried explaining it to me once. She said something along the lines of obsessive, but I never remembered the actual term.
And now, I’m supposed to repeat some lines in front of a room full of women as part of a ceremony. Will Aunt Eve treat me like a stranger? Over the last few years, she doesn’t visit me in Division Five as often as she used to. Then, about six months ago, she stopped coming to my Division entirely.
She’s been acting a bit funny. I’ve seen her a few times, but she’s usually walking fast and avoiding eye contact. Could it be she’s stressed out or something? Or, is her OCD getting worse? I hope she’s nice to me at the ceremony. I miss my Aunt Eve.
“Are you ready, sweetheart?” Nola asks.
I slip on my lace sandals, even though they barely fit me anymore, and stand up. “Ready.”
She shrugs both shoulders excitedly and grins. “You look marvelous.”
“Thanks, Nola.”
Her fingers dancing, she extends a hand and I grab it. “Come on now, it’s almost time.”
She leads me down the corridor of Division Five and into the main hall. It’s a big room in the shape of an octagon with shiny white floors. Up top, for a ceiling, there’s nothing but glass windows. It fills the room with a lovely natural light.
But we don’t cross the main hall. Instead, we turn right and go into Division Four. I’ve been here a few times. At the end of the corridor, there’s a theater room. It looks like one of the rooms we had at my old school, where kids would perform plays. There’s a stage and everything. And in front of the stage, there’s a bunch of chairs for people to sit on.
When I walk in, I receive a lot of stares and a lot of smiles. Women sit all over the room, and at the front, there’s a row of empty chairs. I know these chairs belong to my teachers because they have talked about the ceremony before and about how they always get to sit at the very front. I’m excited to see them. Even though I miss my old friends from school, I’m lucky to have gotten such nice teachers here in Eden.
Nola leads me around the audience and through an old wooden door at the back of the room. I’ve never been in here before. It looks like an old office or a lounge. There’s a small brown suede sofa in the back underneath the barred window, a rack of long jackets beside it, and an empty garbage can that’s fallen over. Aside from that, it’s pretty bare.
The one thing that surprises me though is that there are no other kids. I suppose it’s because, in Eden, I’m officially becoming an adult.
“You can sit, honey,” Nola says. She leaves only a crack in the door and presses her face against it, peering out into the crowd.
“What’re we doing in here?” I ask.
She smiles back at me. “It’s like a school play. You have to wait to be called up.”
Part of the ceremony, I realize. I make my way to the sofa, pull up my dress, and plop myself down with a sigh. This is it. There’s no going back after today. Will I regret it? What happens if I change my mind in five years? What happens if I don’t want to be a Technician anymore?
For the first time, I start to feel anxious.
Why does it have to be so official? Eden is paradise, right? At least, that’s what all the women here keep telling me. So why is it that I have to make such an important decision at my age? I’m only sixteen. I’d only be in the middle high school now. But instead, I have to commit to a trade. I have to officially announce what I’m going to do for the rest of my life.
I rest my head back and look up at the rectangle-tile ceiling. Cobwebs line every corner, and the metal brackets holding the tiles have a bunch of rust on them. My heart beats a staccato in my chest. Why am I so scared? Did I make the wrong decision?
But then I see my mother’s face form in one of the tiles above me, and I remember what she told me one day before she died:
“Lucy, I need you to promise me something,” she’d said, her fingers digging into my shoulders. “Promise me that no matter what happens in this lifetime, you’ll always trust this.”
She then poked a finger against my chest, right below my heart.
“Always trust your gut, no matter what.”
Lucy – Flashback
My mom rushes into our apartment and closes the door behind us with a bang. She locks the chain and the big metal lock thing over the door handle. She only does that when she’s scared.
When she drops her purse and keys on the table beside the couch, it sounds like a bunch of metal making music. She pinches the middle of her nose and walks back and forth.
“Mom?”
She ignores me again. Why won’t she talk to me? I’m not a toddler. I can handle it.
Then, it’s like a lightbulb lights up in her head because she reaches into her purse and pulls out her cell phone. She hovers her hand over it, pokes at something on the screen, and presses it to her ear.
“Eve? It’s me.” Her voice is all shaky. “There were two of them. I don’t know what to do. I think I lost them, but I can’t be sure.”
She stops talking for a minute, and I can hear Aunty Eve’s voice on the other end, but I can’t understand anything she’s saying.
“Yes, I’m sure. I know. Yeah. Okay. You’re right. Okay. I’ll be here.”
She stands up, drops her phone on the couch, and lets out a long breath.
“Are we in danger?” I ask.
She wasn’t expecting that from me. Her eyes become soft and full of love. She wraps her arms around me, kisses my forehead, and says, “No, of course not, sweetheart.”
But I know she’s lying. I’m not stupid. I can see it on her face. And I know because of the way she drove home and the way she locked the doors. She’s scared of something or someone.
“Is Aunty Eve coming over?”
She smiles. “Yeah, she’s coming.”
I always like it when Aunty Eve visits. She usually brings me something special like a cookie or a cupcake.
“Are you hungry, babe?” my mom asks.
“A bit,” I say.
“Let me make you some noodles, okay?”
She gets up and heads to the kitchen. The sound of pots and pans hitting each other bounces around in the apartment, and it sounds like she’s whispering to herself.
I want to help. I know I’m just a kid, but if she’d tell me what’s wrong, I could help. I don’t like seeing my mom this upset.
“My H-Cap’s in my purse, Lucy.”
Now I know something’s wrong. Mom doesn’t like it when I play on her H-Cap for more than an hour a day. It’s a rule she says is for my own good. Something about my eyes and my brain. It sucks because I love playing Catch Alfred. It’s a game she downloaded for me last month. It’s a ghost game. You have to stare at the screen until you see something move, and then you poke that spot to catch Alfred. If you miss it, you
lose points. If you catch it, you win points.
I’m far along in the game.
My mom hates the game, though. She says it drives her insane, whatever that means. But that’s only because she’s not good at it and she always loses. Every time she plays, she pokes too far, and her finger goes right through the game and messes it all up.
Mom likes to talk about the type of toy she grew up with instead. She says it was a lot easier when they had tablets and gamepads because the screen was solid. The H-Cap (I think it stands for holo-something capsule) looks like a small white handle that fits in your hand, and when you press the power button, it shoots out a screen at one end. You can either play in the air, or you can put the screen against a wall or on your lap. I usually play it in the air like most kids my age do. My mom prefers to have it on something flat.
But she’s letting me play with it again even though I already played for more than an hour this morning. That’s how I know something’s wrong. She wants to keep me distracted. But I don’t mind because I want to play.
I stick my hand into her purse and pull out her H-Cap. I’m about to open the game when the apartment’s beeper goes off. I hear something loud bang in the kitchen, and my mom swears.
“Mom?”
“I’m okay—just dropped something. Can you answer that?”
I get up and tap the answer button on the security machine. “Hello?”
Aunty Eve’s face pops on the screen. She has a huge smile on her face as soon as she sees me.
“Hey, kiddo!”
“Hey, Aunty Eve! I’m letting you up now.”
I press the big green button on the screen, then go to the door and start unlocking the chain, but my mom scares me. She wraps her hand tight around my wrist.
“I got this, Lucy. Go sit and play, okay?”
I’d be lying if I said I’m not a bit hurt that she doesn’t think I’m able to answer the door on my own. I sit down on the couch and turn on the H-Cap. I open the app, and the game’s music goes off. The sound comes out through the speakers of the handle, and it tickles my hand.
My mom’s head is right in front of the door’s little peephole as she waits. Aunty Eve doesn’t have time to knock because my mom unlocks everything and opens the door real fast. She tells Aunty Eve to come in quickly.
As soon as Aunty Eve is inside, my mom shuts the door hard and locks everything up as fast as she can.
“Jesus, O. You’re losing it.”
“I’m not losing it!” my mom says, but her eyes turn to me and I quickly look away. I don’t want her to know I’m not even playing my game. I want to know what’s going on.
She calms down and whispers, “I know what I saw, okay?”
“Hey, kiddo,” Aunty Eve says, and she smiles over my mom’s shoulder. “Brought you something.”
I drop the H-Cap and jump to my feet. She sticks a hand in her pocket and pulls out a banana oatmeal cookie wrapped in a blue-and-yellow package.
“Thanks!” I say.
“Hey, can you do me a favor?” she asks. “Can you go hang out in your room for a bit? I need to talk to your mom in private.”
Even though I don’t like being treated like a baby, I like how honest Aunty Eve is. She isn’t sneaky. If she wants something, she asks. I like that. So I listen to her, and I take my cookie and the H-Cap into my room.
“I’ll bring you some noodles as soon as they’re ready,” my mom shouts out.
I close my door and press Start on my game, but only so the music plays loud. Then I sit down on the floor and push my ear against the door.
CHAPTER 7 – EVE
Eve – Present Day
I force myself out of bed even though I feel like a pile of bricks from a demolished haunted house.
I open my closet doors and pluck out the white suit farthest to the right. There’s a row of matching suits that I obtained in one of Acitok’s abandoned stores—all identical—but I always pluck the one on the right. It’s a feeling I get. Any other choice feels like terrible luck.
I slip into my suit, soften its cuffs, then zip up my shiny, knee-high red leather heels.
There’s a blue bucket of water by my bed with a rag cloth dangling off its top lip. I soak the cloth in the water, twist it with both my hands, then gently dab away the sweat from my forehead and neck.
Some days are easier than others. Some days, I look at what we’ve accomplished together as women and think to myself, We won.
Other days, such as this one, I begin to question our likelihood of surviving. Days blend together, and I lose the drive I once had. I’m drained.
When I was fourteen years old, my mother had me evaluated by a psychiatrist for my mood instability. Some days, I’d come out of my room dancing, while others, I’d lay in bed all day envisioning the afterlife.
This feeling was and still is, unbearable. It comes out of nowhere.
I think of Dr. Nali, the woman my mother forced me to see, and a faint smile creeps onto my face. When I entered my very first session with my pierced septum and my black-dyed hair, she didn’t judge me—not the way most adults did.
She sat across from me and smiled. She was a little Indian woman with a small brown bun fastened at the top of her head and a silky green outfit wrapped around her entire body, almost like a cocoon.
“Have a seat,” she said, a small voice accompanied by a thick accent.
I stood there, eyes shifting from side to side, not wanting to move a single muscle. It took time for her to gain my trust, but she was patient every step of the way.
But what I’ll never forget about Dr. Nali was the day she dragged her chair in closer to mine. At this point, I still hadn’t divulged anything about my personal life. I wasn’t ready. She sat still, staring at me from behind narrow charcoal eyes, her knees mere inches away from mine.
“Let’s start with the abuse,” she said.
Now, I inhale a deep breath and pinch the skin over my right eyebrow—a quirky crutch of mine when I feel an unwanted, heightened sense of emotion. It might have something to do with an old eyebrow ring I used to play with.
The window by my bed is entirely fogged, and the air around me is heavy and humid. If there’s one thing worse than not having my medication in Eden while in a depressive state, it’s waking up to a rainy day. On such days, most women and children remain indoors, the younger ones running about the corridors, their laughter echoing through iron gates and across the walls.
It drives me mad.
But these women have expectations. I’m expected to be a strong leader—not a pathetic human being whose actions reflect her weak state of mind.
Consistency is what feeds strong leadership. If I’m not consistent, the women will begin to doubt me. They’ll see me as a loose cannon—as someone capable of making a wrong decision inspired by feelings.
I won’t allow it.
I brush my short hair to the side, pull my shoulders back, and make my way in front of my mirror.
You’re beautiful—look at you.
These women are lucky to have you.
You’re the greatest leader all of Eden could ask for.
My lip curves downward, almost as if capable of identifying the lies I tell myself. But I fight this instinctive reaction and force a wider smile.
You can do this.
I tug at the bottom of my coat and walk out of my room and toward the main hall.
I’m too lost in my thoughts to realize several women sitting on the benches across the main hall, their conversations echoing up and across the high ceiling. The main hall reminds me of a shopping center’s food court, only much cleaner and in the shape of an octagon. Glossy yellow and gray tiles cover the floor, and nine entryways every five or six meters—one for each Division, and one for the main entrance. The walls look like they’ve been painted over a hundred times before someone finally painted them a matte yellow. The color brings life to the room, which is what I’m assuming was the intent given that it was a shared space a
mong prisoners.
The main entrance lies behind Plexiglas, another set of iron gates, and a massive steel door. On the outside of this is another path leading out to the wall’s main gates—a barrier constructed of steel and solid wood that lies between our concrete walls.
But the main entrance is rarely used now. Opening the front gates exposes all of Eden to the dangers of the fallen world. Although we used to venture to nearby cities upon first establishing ourselves in Eden, we learned following a series of violent attacks and brutal rapes that we are safest inside the walls.
“Morning, Eve.”
My heart skips a beat—I didn’t see her.
“Good morning, Agatha,” I say, my lip twitching upward.
Smile, damn it.
I try harder, and it feels foreign.
Agatha is probably the eldest of the women in all of Eden, which has earned her a great deal of respect. The journey to this prison was not an easy task, and many women died along the way—especially the elderly.
She smiles up at me, her dry colorless lips stretched on her loose-skinned face.
“How’re you today, Agatha?” I ask her.
She shrugs. “Oh, you know, getting by.” Her voice almost sounds like a rusted nail turning in wood.
“Still nice and strong, I hope,” I say.
Someone bursts out laughing at the opposite end of the room, and I swiftly turn around, prepared to condemn them for their rudeness.
Two women sit on the wooden bench between the entrances to Divisions Four and Five. They’re touching hands and leaning into each other as if sharing some of the world’s deepest secrets, and I realize their laughter has nothing to do with me or with Agatha.
I hate being on edge like this.
“I’m holding up well,” Agatha says. She rubs her veiny, sun-damaged hands together and gently rubs her knees. I can tell she’s in pain. “Are you making your way to Lucy’s graduation?” she asks.