by Shelly Crane
But Mom couldn’t get rid of this. And neither could I. This was Dad’s book. He’d won it in some weird card game for my mother’s day of birth, and it was the only thing we had that was left of him, and that was of value. He died six months later in an accident in the mines, but it was like he had been trying to take care of us with this book or something. He knew we’d need it.
But he had to know Mom would never sell it.
I watched as she went to our secret hiding place, grabbing the book, and we sat down to read until I fell asleep.
**
The next night when Mom came home from work, I knew something was different. She was smiling deviously. And Mom never smiled deviously.
“What is going on?” I couldn’t help but say.
“You’ll see. Sit.”
I moved to grab Lolly, but she stopped me.
“No. No more Lolly.”
I stilled. “What?”
Lolly was my one and only friend. I saw no one, ever. I had no friends. I only left this pod once a week to go to school. And during that time we weren’t really allowed to speak or play games. The rest of the time, I sat there and waited for Mother to come home, playing with Lolly, biding my time, finding mindless, quiet things to do. So what did she mean No more Lolly?
“Happy day of birth, Soph,” she told me, her face lighting before she even revealed what was behind her back. She had a new doll in her hands, the one I saw in the sky in the 3D advertisements on the way to school every week. As soon as I touched her hand, a small prick in my finger jolted me. I snatched my hand back, but the doll giggled and apologized before saying my name.
“Sophelia. Mommy.”
“She knows my name,” I whispered up at Mom conspiratorially.
Mom laughed. “She knows lots of things now that she has your DNA. She’s the Around Landu edition. She’s practically a tutor. I want you to be able to know everything you want to know.” She squatted down on her haunches and looked into my face closely, cupping my cheek. “The key to surviving on this planet is to learn, and not just learning what they want you to know.” She touched my temple. “Our minds are human and God made our minds so big we can hold so much information, but the Landu Militia want us to curb ourselves, want us to think we’re dumb and only worth the weight of the silver in our pockets. Don’t ever think that, Sophelia. Do you hear me?” She didn’t give me a chance to answer. “You are worth more than what is in your pockets. You’re worth what’s in your mind and what’s in your heart.”
I was breathing heavily, understanding smacking into me. “Mom, how did you afford this?”
“Don’t you worry about that. You are more important to me than anything,” she said fiercely, a tear grabbing onto her lashes and not letting go. My heart started to pound heavily. “It’s your day of birth and I wanted to make sure that you knew, that you didn’t just listen to my words, that you saw my actions and understood what I would do for your freedom, for your future, for everyone’s. You’re so young, I know you don’t know, but I need you to understand, baby. This isn’t the end; this is just the beginning.”
My heart hurt it pounded so hard…and then I realized it wasn’t my heart I heard pounding; it was footsteps.
She looked back at the door and then at me. “I thought I had at least a day. I didn’t think they’d find out so soon,” she said and looked infinitely sad. “I hope you’ll understand one day, Sophelia. I did this for you. For us. I love you more than I love gravity, oxygen, bread, water. I love you more than I love anything this world could offer me.”
The footsteps on the ladder rungs up to our pod got louder. “Mom,” my voice quivered. I was old for my age, Mom would say sometimes. Most kids my age were. We grew up fast and hard, and learned what heartache was way too soon. But Mom always said I was especially more grown up than the rest, that I had something special that other kids didn’t have—gumption. She said that kept me out of trouble and in the know of things that went over other kids’ heads. Right then, I wished I could be a kid again, a kid who had no idea what was going on or what was going to happen.
“We have to hide your doll. They know we have contraband. It won’t matter. Leave Lolly there, but we’ll put this one with Daddy’s book. She’ll be safe with Daddy’s book, okay?”
So she hadn’t sold Daddy’s book to get my doll. Then how?
“Here, Soph.” She held the doll out to me. “You’re the only one who can turn the doll on and off now. Tell her to turn off.”
I leaned close to the doll’s ear. “Um, doll, turn off until I get back?” The doll powered down, closing her eyes and everything. It was dramatic, but I was sure that was part of the doll’s show.
She turned and stuffed the doll gently next to Daddy’s book and then stood next to me. She held my hand so tightly and murmured things to me.
“Remember that life gives us things to make us stronger, baby. You be so strong. Mommy will be, too. You remember all the things I told you. You remember what Mommy told you about the Militia—how they aren’t here to help us when they say they are. Do as you’re told until they take you away from here. And then when you see Militia…you run. Don’t let them break you, baby. Mommy will be with you always. I love you so much.”
I said things back to her because I knew she wanted me to, but I was so scared I could hardly do anything else. When they finally knocked on our door, I squeaked.
“Don’t cry, baby,” she whispered, and I looked up at her. “This is the way it has to be. To save you and me and everyone else. It’ll be okay. One day, you’ll understand. I promise you. Be strong—”
The door opened with a loud squealing clang of metal on metal before five Militia sentries came in. One grabbed my mother by her hair and one took me by my arms, pulling them behind my back. I didn’t scream, I didn’t cry; I just watched in awe-filled horror as they asked her where “it” was.
“I don’t know,” she said softly and looked over at me. “Please, it’s my daughter’s day of birth.”
One of them looked at me, cutting only his eyes and then his face. “Happy day of birth, little one. Aren’t you going to be a pretty thing one day?” My mother fought against her captor with effort, but she had always told me the Militia were given vitamins to make them a little stronger than us. And I’d never been this close to one. They were huge. “Did Mommy bring you home a present?”
His question snapped me back to reality and I didn’t have enough time to school my features. My face must have given me away and then my worried look to my mother was the second blow to our plan.
“Mommy,” I whispered, not knowing what else to do.
“It’s okay, Soph,” she soothed and nodded to me. “Give him the doll.” I squinted. She couldn’t mean the doll she’d just— “Give him Lolly. It’ll all be okay, I promise you.”
I gulped. Oh. Lolly. She was being sneaky. I looked up at the giant mass of man holding me and he smiled with his perfectly straight white teeth. He probably thought he was encouraging me, but it made me feel more anxious about his intentions.
“Go on, little one,” he said, and nudged me with his leg against my hip.
I left his grasp, still treading softly, as if our neighbors didn’t know the Militia was in our house. The entire compound had to know with all the noise they had made. I took Lolly in my hands, looking at her tattered hair, and gave her hair one last stroke before I let my disappointed gaze move back up to the giant.
He took that as the cue he was waiting for and tugged the doll from my fingers, albeit gently. He bent down to be at eye level with me. “You know you aren’t supposed to have this here, don’t you?” he said, his voice almost a whisper.
I nodded. “Yes,” I answered in kind.
“You know your mother broke the rules by bringing this to you.” It wasn’t a question. “You have to follow the rules, pay for privileges, work really hard, and then get them. That’s how it works. You can’t steal and trade for things that don’t belong to you o
r that are above your station. Don’t follow your mother’s example.”
Mommy scoffed behind him, but the man didn’t turn to look at her. He continued. “You just keep following your routine, be a good girl, and someone will come for you soon.”
It hit me then. They were taking Mommy. “You’re taking Mommy because she gave me a doll? She’s going to confinement because of it?”
They stayed silent and that was my answer.
“Will I have to go, too? I can’t stay here?”
One of the other sentries chuckled under his breath. “You can if you can come up with your own taxes in ten days, sweetheart.”
“Quiet,” the sentry in front of me barked over his shoulder and all the men flinched a little. He must have been someone with authority, which made me wonder why he was trying to put on a show of kindness for me if he was so high up in the ranks. He did this often—took mothers and fathers from their homes and put them in confinement for the rest of their lives for not paying taxes, for breaking rules, for all sorts of things. And now here he was trying to act as if he was doing me a favor? I felt my lips twist with the effort not to cry in front of him as he looked back at me. “Listen to me, little one. Your mother broke the law.”
“For me,” I whispered. I saw his jaw clench. Even my mind could understand then. “Do you have a daughter?”
He sighed and his face hardened. Too far, Sophelia. Too far.
“She—whether or not I have a daughter has nothing to do with the fact that your mother broke the law; laws that are clearly laid out for all citizens to follow, to keep us all safe.”
“All this for a contraband doll?” I muttered, understanding even in my youth that there was clearly something I was not understanding.
His look over at her was swift before he rose. “Time to go, Wendy.”
It had been two years since I’d heard someone call my mother by her name and it punched me in the gut. I’d only ever heard my father call her that before.
She tried to leave the sentry’s grasp, but he held tight. “Let me,” she begged. She looked over at the sentry in front of me. “You know where she’s going. You know what’s going to happen to her. Let me say goodbye.”
They stared for long seconds, weaving awkwardness in the air that I thought the other sentries could feel, too, before he finally nodded his head. The sentry didn’t look happy about letting her go, but he did so.
Mom ran to me and fell to her knees roughly. As her arms wound around me, she whispered so low in my ear I barely heard. I thought that was probably the point. “Don’t sell the book, no matter what. Not even for taxes. Don’t ever let them find it or the doll. You’ll need it one day. Save it. Come back for it. Don’t worry. You are so strong. I know you are. Things get rough before they get better. But you’re so strong. Remember that.”
“Can I come see you in confinement?” I asked, but I knew I couldn’t. No one was allowed to.
“I’m not going to confinement, baby, and I need you to be so strong for me right now.” She leaned back and smiled through her tears again and I’d never been more scared than I was right in that moment when I looked into her worn face. “I’m going to be in a better place. I’m going to see Daddy. But you are going to help people. You are the helper, Sophelia, the one who will take all the bad and ugly and make it what it was supposed to be in the first place. You will bring this world to its knees one day.”
I opened my mouth to say…something. “I—”
“One day you’ll get to fly, Soph, just like Pan and Wendy. Fly away home to a better place where everything is brighter, boys are never lost, and mothers don’t ever leave. But right now? Don’t mourn me,” she whispered. “I love you and I planned this. All is as it should be. One day, you will understand.”
My eyes bulged. Mourn?
“That’s enough. It’s time.” The sentry took her arm and lifted her up. She stroked my face once more before making her way to the door where one sentry had already made his way out and started his decent down the ladder. She turned and gave me that tearful smile. I tried to smile for her. I tried, I really did, but it turned into tears before I could even process what was happening.
I ran to her before I could think. And before I could even enjoy my final hug with her, I was being pulled off and she was being ordered down the ladder. “It’s all okay, Soph,” she said, her soft, soothing voice meant to calm me as it usually did. “All is as it should be,” she reiterated. “Thimble kisses.”
I nodded as I fought. “Thimble kisses.”
I yanked against the man once more before I gave up, taking a deep breath when I saw her face disappear below the bottom of the door. She was gone and so was the fight in me with her. The other sentries left leaving me with the man who was part Militia, part father. And neither of those helped me right now.
His grasp on my arm stayed firm and steady, but he turned to place me in the chair gently, again with a gentleness I didn’t understand.
“Soph?” he tried. “Is that what she called you?” I stayed quiet, unable to process what was going to happen to me. I had heard stories of children who couldn’t pay their taxes after they lost their parents for one reason or another. They didn’t come back to school and from the whispers I never wanted to find out if what I heard was true. I was now one of those children. “Hey.”
I jerked my gaze up to him. “Yes?”
His jaw worked back and forth before he spoke. “Like I told you: stay here, go to school on your assigned day, do as you’re told.” I could have sworn I saw him gulp. But why? “There will be someone coming by in a few days after tax day to get you when your family’s payment doesn’t come in. They’ll…process you.”
Process. That sounded…painful.
“Will I have to leave my pod?”
“Yes,” he answered quickly. “They’ll take you somewhere. You can’t stay here by yourself forever. Without taxes the water and food will stop coming.”
“I can take care of myself,” I grunted.
When he smiled, it transformed his entire face. This was the face he used with his own daughter, I was sure of it. “Of that I have no doubt, little one. But you can’t stay here alone that long. We have to find a purpose for you, a place amongst society. Your work placement will probably happen a little sooner than others.”
“Will I do what Mommy did?”
Mom worked in the mines and she hated it. I hated it, too, on her behalf. They mined salt, minor metal minerals, building materials that were worthless on the black market, and other things like that. I didn’t want that job. It made your face and the inside of your lungs black.
His face morphed back into what it was like before and I knew he was trying to hide something from me. “I don’t think so. Okay, time for me go. You remember what I said—”
There was a loud noise outside and several screams mixed together. Somehow I knew—this was it—what Mom had been talking about. She said I needed to be strong, and I tried to remember that. My sentry ran to the door of our pod and looked down to see what the commotion was. When I saw his back rise and fall with deep breaths, I walked behind him on my soft footfalls and peeked around his arm.
Mom was lying on the ground at the bottom of the ladder, her leg twisted beneath her in a way that wasn’t normal as two of the sentries stood around her and the other two still made their way down the ladder. Our pod was eleven stacks up. There was no way she could have survived the fall. Mom had always warned me about the ladder, about how careful I had to be, about always hooking the rope around my waist before going down or coming up, even if I had to wait for other tenants to go first.
A noise escaped my mouth, startling the sentry. “No,” he barked and turned me to face the other way. “You don’t need to see that.”
Wailing continued all around me as my vision blurred. A crackling filled the air and the sentry lifted his wrist to talk into the screen on his forearm to tell them he was with ‘the girl’, and the traitor had fallen t
o her death.
“Traitor?” I whispered.
He ignored me and kept speaking to them. I noticed the wailing had stopped. I guess it had been me. I slid down the wall next to the door to the floor, feeling the cold metal against my skin through my thin clothes. This was a fickle planet—almost too cold in some months and too hot in others, never just right, but our pods were warm enough. When I didn’t have school I usually just left on one of my father’s shirts. It made me feel close to him and sometimes Mom would smile when she looked at it and it made me feel nice to make her smile, even if just for a second.
I looked down at my bare, dirty legs on the floor and knew that she’d never smile at me again. A sob crawled up from my gut painfully. I looked up at the man to find him watching me.
He looked fascinated. “I’m surprised you’re not bawling your eyes out, little one.”
I straightened my back and wiped under my eye. “Mom always told me to be so strong. To not let anything break me.”
He seemed angered by that. He shook his head as he got back down on his haunches and looked closely at me. “Your mother told you wrong, Soph,” he said, gentle but firm. “Being strong is not going to keep you alive; it’ll get you killed. Doing as you’re told and laying low is the way to live long on this planet, little one. And there’s many ways to look at being strong. Is it strong to defy your government and break the law? Is it strong to put your people and your daughter in danger?” I gulped. I knew what he was trying to do. “Is it strong to do it all anyway knowing that your daughter is going to go some horrible place that is going to—” He sighed. “She’s a convict.” I gasped because that word was only used on rare occasions, for rare people. Bad, bad people were convicts.
“No.”
“Yes,” he reiterated. “She’s an enemy of the people. A traitor. You don’t know the things she’s done. And now she’s trying to turn you into one, too.”
“No, that’s not what she—”
“Then why would she go to so much trouble just to bring you a doll for your day of birth?” His eyebrows rose in waiting.