“Lornstown is a terrifying place indeed. With rampant disease, starvation, complete disconnection from technology, and some of the highest crime rates in the country, it’s earned its reputation for having a ‘murder a minute.’” Melanie shudders, as if her own words gave her goose bumps. “But no need to fret. Law-abiding citizens needn’t worry.”
She taps her computer keyboard, and the screen comes alive. “Darn thing’s old as dirt, but it works. Here’s how the Assigning process goes. It’s simple.” Fifty kids snap out of their stupor and huddle closer. “We enter information about the parents, their genetics, the gender of the child, blood type, et cetera, and give the computer time to process. Then, usually before the baby is one year old, we have a Partnership with another baby in the same town. We know very early, but as you all know, it’s our little secret until the child is six.”
Melanie pulls up a profile on the computer, punching buttons with her stubby fingers. As she types, numbers and names flash onto a square projector screen to our right, like rolling movie credits on crack. The computer beeps and hums as it scans and processes the information. After a few seconds, a photo of a chubby-faced newborn baby boy materializes on the screen.
“See this little guy here?” Melanie jabs her finger at the image. “My nephew, William. Ran his data myself. Can’t wait to see which little baby’ll be Assigned to him, to give my big brother some grandchildren someday.”
I squint at the boy’s picture, imagining a groom’s tuxedo instead of a onesie.
Creepy.
“It’s a waiting game now,” Melanie continues, “but soon enough, when I open Will’s profile, a little girl’s face will appear alongside it. Computer does all the thinking for me.”
Across the room, Sam scratches his head. Lips parted slightly, he gawks at the screen like it’s a magical creature. Every time he sports that dumbfounded expression, my mind jumps to an image of a hairy orangutan. I shoot the stink-eye at the computer.
You. Yeah, you, Computer. You Partnered me with this idiot. Thanks a lot.
The machine beeps and whirs, singing its magical Assigning song. The class watches in awe, absorbing every second of the experience.
What dysfunction could my parents possibly have in their genetics that caused this frigging computer to spew out Sam and me together? Those bastards.
“Let’s do a little test to see how well it works, huh?” Melanie strokes her chin. “I’m going to hand out surveys for you to take, to categorize your personality by key traits. Take the survey—by yourself! No sharing answers! We’ll run your info into the computer, and you can bet your hat the machine will spit out your Partner’s name with yours. You’re what, thirteen? Fourteen? Been Partnered for years, but you’ll see—your Assigned Partner’s still compatible today. Genetics plan everything, folks.”
Everyone grabs and pushes until the stack of papers is depleted.
My mouth tightens as I scan the thirty-question survey. The questions are ridiculous. How do I handle being afraid? How often do I cry? Am I an extrovert? What color best describes me?
How the hell is this supposed to prove anything?
I answer the best I can, checking off boxes with my number-two-pencil nub, and hand my survey back to Melanie. The computer scanner sucks up everyone’s papers, much to our shared delight.
How will Sam’s answers compare to mine? Maybe he’ll surprise me…
“Okay, here we go.” Melanie studies the jumbling screen. The computer whirs and beeps, as text comes into focus. “Isabella Jaris and Michael Dorney?”
Wow. Trippy.
The Partnership raises their joined hands in the air. Everyone cheers the computer’s accuracy.
“I see we have some success. Okay, next! Let’s find some Partnerships!” She types into the computer. “Alan Carrey and Antonia Henders?”
Alan high-fives a blushing Toni, as the class breaks into astounded applause.
Eight more couples fly by, all accurate Partnerships. Everyone is transfixed on the projector screen, mesmerized by the whole thing; one-hundred-percent accuracy indeed.
“Okay, okay, last one for today. We’re low on time,” Melanie says. I suck in a deep breath. “Let’s see…Tracy Bailey—” I rise up on my tiptoes “—and Piren Allston.”
My heart stops.
What?
Silence. A sharp breath catches in my throat.
No, that’s impossible.
I find Piren’s unblinking eyes among the horde, jaw hanging from his stunned face. For the first time in this game, the computer’s answers elicit no cheers.
“Tracy and Piren? Are you guys Assigned or what?” Melanie scans the crowd. I slink down behind my peers, hiding my reddening cheeks behind my hands.
No no no no no.
Suspicious stares burn into my skin as my classmates’ harsh whispers boil like a kettle around me. My heart thuds against my ribs. I can almost feel the rumors starting, draping speculation over me like a dark cloud.
Stop whispering. Stop. Shut up.
I blink back a curtain of warm tears.
Why?
“Um, they’re not a Partnership,” Amanda says from the front. “Tracy is with Sam Macey. Piren is with Lara Goodren.”
I fidget my fingers around my belt, not daring a glance at their accusing faces.
Don’t look at Piren.
Don’t look at Piren.
Any association with him will condemn me.
Don’t look at him.
Melanie glares at the computer, pounding in more numbers.
“Here it is, here it is…Just a glitch, folks. Sorry about that. Right here, see? Sam Macey and Tracy Bailey. Right here. My mistake. Just an error! The Partnership is accurate.”
She stumbles into a new topic, drawing attention to another part of the room.
Computer, you frigid bitch. Why do you hate me so?
“Thanks for making me look like an idiot,” Sam says, shoving past me. Ragged breaths rip through my lungs, but I don’t dare respond.
Piren sweeps up beside me.
“You okay?” he mouths.
I shrug and brush by him to join the rest of the class. Tears cloud my vision, and I suck them back into my brain.
Pull yourself together, damn it!
“And if you look over here…”
Melanie’s voice turns to static in my ears.
Stupid Melanie. Stupid Melanie and her stupid effing computer.
My best friend slouches up front, jiggling his restless leg. My gaze softens.
But…what if…
I tighten up, shaking off the thought.
Computers glitch. It happens. That’s all it was—a glitch. But who cares? Piren’s my best friend, and I don’t care who knows it. Of course we’re compatible. That’s why he’s my best friend.
Piren Allston
Mason’s First Kiss Ceremony was yesterday, and I’m still shaking. It was so freaking awful, it’s giving me anxiety about my own First Kiss, albeit four years away.
The TV news anchor called it “the worst disaster in a decade.” I felt like puking the whole time, so my stomach and I are inclined to agree.
This girl Ashley Wyman caused the commotion. I recognized her as the dark-haired girl who knew Mason at the mall. She’s Stephanie’s friend, or at least she used to be.
The first hour was fine. Dozens of high school seniors sat poised and ready for their big moment. Five hundred beaming spectators chatted amongst themselves, eagerly awaiting the event to begin. Orange and red leaves clung to branches over our heads, blowing in the cool autumn breeze.
The Mayor gave his drab speech on the sanctity of the Ceremony, and the Master of Ceremonies started announcing couples for their First Kiss. Everything went smooth, until they called Ashley up to kiss her Partner on stage. She went white as a ghost. Seriously, I thought she was going to faint or something. Trembling, she approached her Partner, a lanky kid named Jonny Loris.
“Poor thing, she looks petrified
,” Mom whispered to Dad beside me.
Right when Ashley was supposed to kiss Jonny, she broke down crying and bolted off the stage. The audience gasped and whispered, unsure what to make of it. That’s never happened during a sacred Ceremony before. At least, not in my time.
At first, I thought Ashley got stage fright in front of all those people and cameras, because I could imagine that happening to me. But within minutes, the truth reared its ugly head.
Ashley has been having an affair with a twenty-year-old. The story unraveled as people in the crowd pieced together bits of the screwed-up puzzle. Ashley quivered, hands splayed over her face as accusations flew like poison arrows through the open-air stadium.
Someone recalled spying her at Laney Park one night with a non-Partner; he assumed Ashley and her lover were Assigned and didn’t think twice about seeing them together. Another witness swore she saw Ashley kiss her lover through a car window last summer. The crowd grew unrulier with each new revelation, pointing and shouting. Ashley rattled with sobs in the corner. With evidence stacked so high against her, her silence solidified her guilt.
Ten minutes into questioning, a woman identified Ashley’s lover in the audience. He was tall and pale with dyed-black hair and a sleeve tattoo. Two men jumped into the crowd and dragged him by the scruff of his neck, shoving him to the stage for sentencing.
By this point, the crowd’s jeers escalated into an ear-splitting insult soup.
Fists clenched, the Mayor drew his tight mouth up in a thin line.
“I have no words,” he said, spitting into the microphone, “for this level of blasphemy. Disrupting a Ceremony is a vile crime, but disrupting it with adultery is reprehensible.” His face flushed crimson as he thundered words dripping with venom. The crowd rose to their feet, cheering him on.
The Mayor read aloud Ashley’s indiscretions: hand holding with a non-Partner, flirting with a non-Partner, and kissing a non-Partner. Someone in the audience even threw in an accusation of second base, in cruder terms.
Ashley’s Partner Jonny swayed at the side of the stage, biting his fingernails. I couldn’t tell if he was actually listening to the whole thing or was too shocked to absorb his newfound lonely life. The whole thing sucked. I wasn’t even involved, and I wanted to evaporate.
Usually, Banishments attract a handful of spectators. People with nothing better to do flock downtown to ridicule the perpetrators. This time, half the town was present. It’s the closest I’ve seen to a raging mob.
“Go back to your whore house!” a man shouted at Ashley to rumbling applause from the crowd.
“See that boy?” a woman in the next row said to her young son. She pointed to Ashley’s non-Partner, whose name no one bothered to learn. “He’s a cowardly insect that belongs with that slut.”
Mason and Stephanie joined the jeers. I even heard Stephanie call Ashley a bitch, and they were once close friends. My parents whispered together, shaking their heads and glaring at the perpetrators.
I got to my feet with my brother and the rest of the crowd. Everyone pumped their fists in the air as the Mayor signed the paperwork. Usually, he reads the Banishment decree off a scripted sheet of paper, but this time he improvised; he sprinkled in his own attacks and swears against the criminals.
“You!” The Mayor stretched his fingers toward the adulterous couple. “You are unworthy of love. I don’t want you in my civilized society, and if I see either of you again, I’ll shoot you myself like the animals you are!”
The audience roared with delight.
Four uniformed men rushed the stage, jumping on the perpetrators. Two of them yanked Ashley’s arms back, throwing her to the ground. She thrashed her legs, but the men’s strength overwhelmed her. The other two men wrestled Ashley’s lover, pinning him and pressing his face into the dirt. The audience cheered as the offenders hit the ground.
The Mayor drew his switchblade. He grabbed Ashley’s lover by his hair and pried the boy’s face upward.
“May this scar be a reminder of the devastating choices you made. May this mark serve as a universal sign of your adultery.”
He slashed his blade into the boy’s cheek, spattering blood across the stage. The boy grunted as his captors released their grip.
The Mayor strode to the other end of the stage. Crouching beside Ashley, he wiped his bloody blade across her dress before drawing it again.
“May this scar—”
“No!” The scarred boy leapt to Ashley’s side. Guards lunged, pinning him to the ground. Blood smeared across his marred cheek as he struggled to break loose, kicking a guard in the shin.
“Restrain him!” the Mayor bellowed.
One of the guards plunged his fist into the boy’s stomach. The sputtering boy crumbled into a heap on the stage as the crowd jeered.
“Take him down!” a man shouted.
“Cut the whore!” shouted another.
The Mayor said his lines and marred Ashley’s face as she sobbed, tears mingling with blood across her face.
“You are both hereby Banished for life, as of this very moment,” he said. “For ruining this Ceremony, I grant you no grace period. You will be escorted to Lornstown immediately, where you will rot for eternity. You are never to pass back through the Lornstown gates into civilization or communicate with any citizen of my town again, under penalty of death.” A handful of isolated hoots rang out from the crowd. “Now get the hell out of my town and don’t come back.” He spit a wad of saliva at their feet.
Ashley fell to her knees, crawling to her mother in the audience. She reached out a quivering hand, but Mrs. Wyman flinched away. Her face contorted in horror.
“You’re no child of mine. You’re nothing but a dirty slut. A tramp. You’re dead to me. I hate you. I wish I never had you.” Mrs. Wyman kicked her heeled boot, striking her daughter in the side. The crowd erupted with laughter.
A heavy pit dropped in my stomach.
She cast aside her own blood family.
I glanced at my parents, standing proudly beside my brother and me. My insides churned.
I can’t even…
I screamed along with the crowd, shouting with as much force as my lungs could muster. I bellowed until my throat grew raspy and dry. And when I couldn’t shout any more, I pumped my fist in the air to the beat of the crowd’s angry shrieks.
Guards clapped handcuffs over the couple’s wrists, leading them to a waiting shuttle—their last ride through civilization before eternal damnation in Lornstown.
As the guards dragged the criminals away, something struck me. While cuffed, the adulterers touched hands behind their backs. It was only a brush, but it happened. Faces stained with blood and defeat, they stared over the heads of the crowd as they passed. I know it can’t be love, but something inside me wants to call it that. When they disappeared behind the tinted windows of the SUV, my fist unclenched and dropped back to my side.
Less than twenty-four hours since the Ceremony, news of Ashley Wyman’s adultery infected the entire town. Rumor has it the Wymans locked themselves in their home in shame.
The Burial, when we mourn the adulterers’ souls in a fake funeral, is scheduled for Wednesday. After that, they’ll be dead to the town. No one will speak of them again.
I feel bad for my brother. By the time the Ceremony resumed, the audience was in disarray. Mason and Stephanie’s First Kiss was met with feeble applause. Half the crowd had already dissipated, trailing after Ashley’s shuttle to squeeze in final insults. The rest weren’t paying attention anymore.
Mason’s still fuming from his stolen moment. I listened to his rant on the drive home, but my mind wandered. I replayed the scene in my head: Ashley, reaching for her lover’s hand, as they carted her away in shackles. She embraced the suffering and accepted Banishment, all for an adulterous relationship. A faux love, doomed to fail.
How could anybody, Banished forever, torn from their family and society, ever find peace? Is anything worth that kind of pain?
&
nbsp; Tracy Bailey
“You should really treat Sam better,” Mom says, taping pink streamers to the wall.
“It’s my birthday. Can you not?” I blow a clod of hair off my face. “I treat him fine.”
“Well, I’ll see about that. I invited him to your birthday party.”
“You what?” I leap up. “Are you trying to inflict pain upon me?”
She narrows her eyes, and I know the conversation is over.
I fall back onto the armchair.
Great. Getting fondled by my stupid Partner is exactly the gift I desired for my fifteenth birthday. Not.
Dad strolls in with a fistful of balloons from the dollar store. “Hey there, birthday girl.” He kisses the top of my head. “Can’t believe you’re almost twenty.”
“I’m only fifteen. Sheesh, don’t rush it.”
“Only five years away.” He ties the balloons around the armrest. “But to me you’re still that same little bundle we carried home from the hospital.” He ruffles my hair. “Same little brown curls, only they’ve multiplied like wildfire.”
“Ugh, Dad…” I knock his hand away and pat down my frizz.
Veronica furiously pounds keys on her cellphone. “Ollie’s on his way.”
“You invited him to my party?” I throw my head back and groan.
“Aw, come on, Trace.” She gives me her best puppy-dog pout. “He likes you!”
“No he doesn’t.”
She bites her lip.
“Fine.” I fling my hands up. “He can come.” I suppose he’s another one I should treat better, given he’s my future brother and all. This frigging event will be less of a party and more a test of my patience.
“Yay!” Veronica crushes me in a hug.
“You know—” I untangle myself from V’s arms “—you’re quite codependent for a pair of seventh graders.”
She shrugs. “I love him.”
“You’re spending so much time together, you’re beginning to mimic each other’s mannerisms.” Seriously, I’ve started referring to them in my head as The Wonder Twins.
“That’s not true!” She runs her hand over the back of her head.
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