The Knowing

by Sharon Cameron

  I don’t answer. I pull his hair until he brings his mouth up to mine. Then he tugs on mine until my chin comes up, so he can kiss my neck again. I laugh, and then I shiver. “And after that,” he says just below my ear, “no more sneaking off into the blacknut grove. Unless … you’re just into it … ”

  I laugh again, and I close my eyes, enjoy his weight and his smell and the roughness of his chin. But I Know the other half of this problem. He doesn’t have Joanna’s approval. She thinks I’m … complicated. But I have a plan for that.

  And I begin the next day, when Joanna comes over on the transport. I’m waiting to one side, for the usual flood of Earthlings to go past, off to research or build or plant, and I’m surprised to see Nathan stepping off the dock, heading immediately down a side street. How did he get permission to stay overnight on the Centauri? Then I’m afraid I Know. And then Joanna is stepping down, and since Beckett didn’t come back to the ship, she’s not terribly pleased to see me.

  “I have a surprise for you,” I say. Her brows disappear into her hair, but I smile, and tilt my head, and she follows. When we get to the gates, I give the supervisor Annis’s note, which is permission to allow Dr. Joanna Cho-Rodriguez privileges for visiting Underneath.

  I can see I’ve gotten her attention.

  She follows me down the sloping entrance hall, down corridors and stairs. I Know she’s seen the visuals, but doing is different from Knowing, and her eyes are big. Then we go down the last, short staircase; I unlock the door and let her into the dust and rot of Uncle Towlend’s office. But I have a lamp ready.

  “My family name, of course, is Archiva,” I say, lighting the flame. “We were the keepers of the Archives until … ” I’m being yanked by memories here. I take a moment to still them. “Until they were closed. Now I’m the last of that name. But the Council thinks the Archives should be reopened, and … I thought you might want to help.”

  Joanna looks unsure, until I open the other door and she steps out onto the balcony. I hold up the light and her mouth drops. She says nothing for so long that I finally just hand her the lantern, so she can move and see what she wishes.

  “I’m going to start cleaning up the office, so you’ll have a place to work when you’re not in here. I’ll leave you now, to get oriented.”

  She still hasn’t spoken.

  “Unless you don’t want to?”

  “No,” she whispers. “No, I’d be happy to help.”

  And we practically don’t see her again until sunsetting, when she comes out to help Sean move their belongings from the Centauri into Uncle Towlend’s empty chambers. It seemed appropriate, somehow. I chose to stay in my bedchamber. Memories are there, but I want to see if they can fade. I want to Know if I can heal. We put Ari and Luc in Adam’s old room, and I can hear it when they laugh. And that’s a new memory that isn’t bad. And it means that Beckett is home much more often, which makes Joanna happy.

  Or so she thinks. My balcony is just not that hard of a climb.

  We all go together, the Outsiders, the Earthlings, and the ones left from Underneath, to the upland parks to watch the Centauri launch. It’s both bitter and sweet to see it go. The ship is leaving with thirty-two of our Outsiders and a generous number of blood samples. We’re keeping fifteen of its crew, including Dr. Lanik, who’s holding Jasmina for a missing Annis, while Grandpapa shoos the children away from the cliff edge. Sean and Joanna stand together, still and solemn, while the Centauri goes up and up, and then sideways fast, becoming a burning light before it winks and is gone. Beckett puts his chin on my shoulder. We’re staring at an empty sky.

  “Well, that’s done,” he whispers. He means this is home. Then he looks down at my empty hands. “Hey, where’s the moonshine?”

  “What?”

  “Where’s the moonshine? You were supposed to get a bottle from Cyrus for Mom and Dad, to toast New Canaan … ”

  I turn around and look at him, wide-eyed. “I forgot,” I say. “Beck! I forgot!”

  “Congratulations,” he says, shaking his head. I hug him hard.

  We go back for the moonshine, and when I open the workshop door, Annis is red-eyed and stone-faced, alone at the table in the dimming light. “He’s gone,” she says. “Nathan’s gone!”

  I knew he’d been going to see Jill again, but he wasn’t on the list of those going to Earth. Or did he hide being on the list? Annis is crying, without any hope of comfort, and Grandpapa joins her soon after. Beckett and I exchange a glance.

  Not like this, his expression says. And I agree.

  We prepare all through the dark days. I see patients with Dr. Lanik. I’ve retained almost all of my knowing since not drinking the amrita, but the information is not as vivid, and sometimes I have to work hard to retrieve it. Beckett helps Sean document memories from both Outside and Underneath, before they can fade, and I take my mandatory orientation classes for tech. Medical and educational, that’s the technology the Council decided to introduce to New Canaan, and so that’s the tech Earth left us.

  And I begin dreaming again. For the first time since I was a child. And my dreams are still of him.

  It’s almost sunrising and I’ve gone to do an inventory of the medical supplies—with pencil and paper—and also to do a bit of clandestine packing, when I notice that the seal on one of the amrita bottles is the tiniest bit loose. I lift it to my nose, then tear off the seal and smell again. Water. I check the others. Three more, just water, and the tiny bottle of Forgetting, the one that Reddix gave to Beckett, is gone. And I know who did this. Nathan. Jill, it seems, realized the potential after all.

  I have to tell Annis. We have working communications now, through the re-launched satellites, and she sends a message. But her words won’t fly any faster than the ship, so it may be far too late by the time the message gets there. We don’t tell anyone else. Earth is beyond our control, and so many other things are here, within our grasp.

  I meet Beckett at Uncle Towlend’s desk, which is really Joanna’s now, and sometimes Sean’s, the room clean, organized, but with the same soft chairs. I set the book of maps on her desk, with the inscription from my ancestor, and the book that describes Nadia’s journeys outside the old city’s walls. And then together, we set down my book on the desk. The only written account of the Knowing. And in the back is a page to say what—and who—we choose, signed last night on my balcony. I hope the story of Nadia will help Beckett’s parents understand what we’re doing. I hope my book will help them understand who I’ve been and who I am now.

  I pick up my pack, which is huge, Beckett hoists his own, takes my hand, and we leave the office—up the stairs, out the gates that are never shut, past one or two sleepy people moving too early for the waking, the mountain shadows deep, except for the place where the mountain isn’t.

  We are so hemmed in here.

  I climb with Beckett up through the gated fields, already prepared for the sunrising and the planting, across the groves, and then up through the dark of the thick-growing brush. We find a cliff, but instead of looking out over a barren plain, what stretches below us are rolling hills, the first streaks of sunlight shining from behind us, showing the new yellows and blues.

  Beckett is hoping to find a colony out there. Another lost outpost of Earth. I don’t know if we’ll find that. But what if all we find is … a place. An open space. For a new city. A city without walls. We could be builders after all, if we wanted to. The architects of a new world. The ones to get it right.

  Or maybe just the ones to get it a little bit better.

  Beckett grins, and the rising sun is gold on his face. “Ready?”

  I turn to face the unknown. And I am.

  “Acknowledgment” seems like such an inaccurate word, when what I really want is to say thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who made this book possible, and that’s a lot of people.

  First to my critique group: Amy Eytchison, Ruta Sepetys, Howard Shirley, and Ang
elika Stegmann. Let’s just keep on doing this forever, shall we?

  Second to the entire Middle Tennessee writing community: SCBWI Midsouth, Parnassus Books, the SEYA Book Fest, you know who you are. Your support makes me who I am as a writer. I don’t deserve you.

  Kelly Sonnack, truly the best agent I could have ever signed with. Never have I stopped counting my lucky stars. Plus, I admire you to pieces.

  Lisa Sandell, truly the best editor I could have ever been paired with. You stretch me and challenge me in the most patient of ways, and suddenly here comes a book I would have never guessed I could write. Perhaps you are magic. Thank you for being my friend.

  Brooke Shearouse, you are the most excellent of publicists. Please find things for me to do so we can go more places together.

  All those lovely, lovely people in the Scholastic offices who not only make beautiful books, but make me feel like one of the family: David Levithan (love you, David!), Elizabeth Parisi (for yet another gorgeous cover), Rachel Gluckstern, Olivia Valcarce, Rachel Feld, Isa Caban, Mindy Stockfield, every single person on the Scholastic marketing and creative marketing teams, Tracy van Straaten, Lizette Serrano, Emily Heddleson, Michelle Campbell, Ellie Berger, Lori Benton, John Pels, Sue Flynn, Jacquelyn Rubin, Jody Stigliano, Chris Satterlund, Alexis Lunsford, Elizabeth Whiting, Alan Smagler, and the whole sales team and everyone on the Scholastic Reading Clubs and Book Fairs teams. And a special shout-out to Nikki Mutch, Roz Hilden, and Terribeth Smith. You three ladies are the best!

  Aunt Brenda, this book would not exist without your willingness to share your porch, your extra bedroom, your popcorn, and hot beverages. Love you.

  And finally, Philip, Elizabeth, Stephen, Chris, and Siobhan. You are my family, and family is everything.

  Sharon Cameron’s debut novel, The Dark Unwinding, was awarded the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators’ Sue Alexander Award for Most Promising New Work and the SCBWI Crystal Kite Award, and was named an ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults selection. Sharon is also the author of its sequel, A Spark Unseen; Rook, which was selected as an Indie Next Top Ten Pick of the List selection; and the companion to this book, The Forgetting, a #1 New York Times bestseller and an Indie Next List selection. She lives with her family in Nashville, Tennessee, and you can visit her online at sharoncameronbooks.com.

  Turn the page for a sneak peek at Sharon Cameron’s companion to The Knowing:

  The Forgetting!

  I have forgotten.

  When I first opened my eyes I saw a room of white stone, and the light was bright, too bright, coming into the room from two high windows. I have never been so afraid. I don’t know this room. I don’t know this girl who woke with me, or these children who cry, their faces streaked with black lines. They’ve forgotten, too. But this book was tied to my wrist, and the book says I have a family, and that my family will be marked with dye so I’ll know them. I think I have to believe the book.

  There is violence outside. We’ve barred the door. I don’t know what else is outside this room, but I think there are more of us, and that they did not wake up with a book. I want to scream like they are. I want to cry like the children. I want to claw my own skin and find out what’s buried inside. I want to know who I’ve been.

  The book says I knew this Forgetting would come. That it’s happened before and will happen again. We have to write it all down. Everything about us, as the book has told me to do now. The children with the marks on their cheeks run from me. I think I am their mother. I will read them this book. I’ll tell them their names and I will tell myself mine.

  We are made of our memories. Now we are nothing. It feels like death.

  What have we done to deserve this piece of hell?

  THE FIRST BOOK OF THE FORGETTING

  PAGE 41

  I am going to be flogged, and I don’t know why I’m so surprised about it. No one could take this many risks and never get caught. I don’t want to be caught. I drop flat onto my back without a sound, stretching full length along the top of the wall, a wall that’s only a little wider than I am. There’s a long drop on either side. I clutch my pack to my chest, squint my eyes against the brightness of the sky. No. I’ve always known I would get caught. I just didn’t think it would be today.

  I chance another quick glimpse over the edge of the wall. There are two people down there, standing close together in the shaded alley, my rope ladder dangling just above their heads. I don’t think they’ve seen it, and I don’t think they’ve seen me, though practically everyone else can. The walled city of Canaan spreads like a wide and shallow bowl of winking glass and white stone below me, and here I lie, ten meters high on its rim. Just one set of eyes on the streets during the resting, awake—as I am, as those two below me are—one pair of hands pulling aside a sleeping curtain from a well-positioned window, and they will see. And they will come for me.

  My fingers find the twisted rope of the ladder, tied to a metal ring sun-hot and burning through the cloth of my leggings. I could pull up the ladder, flip it back over to the forbidden side of the wall, climb down, and wait until they’ve gone. Or I could try jumping for the roof of the Archives. That would be an easy drop, only the width of the alley and a meter or so down. But that roof is thatch instead of turf, the pitch steep, and how could either of those people in the alley not notice a girl jumping over their heads? Or the ladder pulling back up, for that matter? It’s a miracle they missed it coming over the wall the first time.

  And so I force myself into stillness, into patience. Balanced high inside the dome of the blue-violet sky, the white city on one side, a wilderness of mountain and waterfall on the other, eight weeks of the sun’s trapped heat scorching my back through the wall stones. I’m not good at patience. The wind blows, a hot, swirling breath, and I wonder if it can push me off this wall; I wonder which side I’d rather fall on. Two words float up from the shaded alley.

  “How many?”

  It’s the kind of question asked when you think you haven’t heard right. I know most of the people of Canaan, at least by sight, though not by the tops of their heads. But the murmur of the answering voice I know right away. Polite. Always pleasant. It’s Jonathan of the Council, enforcer of Canaan’s many rules. Finding him in defiance of those rules is my second non-surprise of the day. Jonathan will have me flogged all right. And enjoy it. I wonder how many stripes you get for climbing over the wall.

  “Eleven,” says Jonathan.

  It takes a heartbeat to understand this answer wasn’t for me.

  The other voice replies, much louder, “And what am I supposed to say to these people when they request their books? What reason am I supposed to give?”

  This is Gretchen of the Archives Jonathan is talking to.

  “The reason is mine, Archivist. What you tell them is your affair.”

  I hold my pack tighter to my body. My own book is inside, its tether worked through a hole in the cloth, tied to the braided belt at my waist. Surely Jonathan can’t be telling Gretchen to not let eleven people read their archived books. Your books are your memories, who you are. The thought of being denied one of my books brings a familiar tingle to my fingers, my legs. I shove the feeling down. I can’t afford to panic, not here, on the wall, right over Jonathan’s head and in full sight of the city. Then I catch a movement from the corner of my eye. One of my braids is free from its pins, dangling over the wall edge like a long blond banner.

  And there’s no more talk in the alley. The pause grows so long I can almost see the two necks craning upward, watching my braid flutter and the rope ladder sway. I think of the ridge of scars I saw on Hedda in the bathhouse, her back like a badly plowed field, and I make a decision. If they come for me, I’m going to pull up the ladder, climb down the other side of the wall, and go back into the mountains. Then I decide the opposite. Hedda survived. And my mother and my sisters need me. Even if they don’t know it. It’s only seventy days until the Forgetting.

  The moment passes when
Jonathan’s pleasant voice says, “Here is your list.” After a soft word from Gretchen his voice comes back, this time with an edge. “And what if your food ration depended on doing what you’re told?”

  I pretend to be Gretchen of the Archives. Well, Jonathan of the Council, if your own ration depended on how much you love punishing a rule-breaker, I’m pretty sure there would be nothing left to eat in Canaan. And if you’d just look up, you could see one great big rule being broken right now …

  Gretchen says none of these things, of course. I never say them, either. But I almost wish she would. I need for her to end this so I can get off this wall. I snag my wayward braid, tuck it up behind my head, and wonder what Janis, Canaan’s Head of Council and Jonathan’s grandmother, might have to say about back-alley meetings during the resting. I’d bet she doesn’t know anything about them.

  More muttering from Gretchen, and then the air settles into quiet, lulled by the chick chick of the suncricket song. I risk another look over the edge of the wall. The dim alley is empty. No feet on the flagstones, no creak of an opening window, no shout that means I’ve been seen. As far as I can see, the city sleeps.

  I move. The pack goes to my back, feet over the wall as I roll onto my stomach. My sandals find the rope ladder and I shinny down, but only halfway, a meter or so above Jin the Signmaker’s roof garden. I get my feet planted sideways, push hard, and make the short drop into the garden, half turning as I fall. I land feet, knees, then hands in the prickling grasses, the view from below now obscured by the huge, hulking, windowless building that is the Archives.

  I hurry to a bed of dusk-orange oil plants and pull out a pole made from a fern stalk, light and thin, its end carved into a hook. I reach out, catch the hanging ladder with the hook, and work the ropes up and over the wall, letting the weighted last rung finish the job of pulling the ladder over to the other side. Then I slide the pole back into its hiding place and straighten, listening.