First Girl

by Julie Aitcheson

  Gabi felt as though someone had ripped her grandmother right out of their home and hidden her away under the cover of a lie. The lie was that everything would be fine, that tomorrow would come and they would all stand around her Care Center bed joking about the bad food and all the fuss over their very unfussy gram. There was another lie too, a slippery one that Gabi couldn’t track. It was not possible that her father’s version of what triggered the alarm was true and that Gram’s confession to Gabi was also true. They canceled each other out. Gabi trusted both Gram and her father, but the circumstances were far from normal, and she knew that adults often stretched the truth when they thought it necessary.

  Gabi knew, for example, that some of the Returned were brought back from the Tribes against their will. The official Unitas position was that all Returned were voluntary penitents, members of the flock who had gone astray and now wanted nothing more than to be redeemed. But sometimes it was not possible to reach the afflicted with Unitas’s message of peace, unity, and protection. Temptation was too strong in some of the more remote areas, where sin raged like a killer virus. For individuals brought back from those places, the return to the fellowship was a longer road. This was a major factor in the size and strength requirements for most Minders. Until the rescued became the Returned, they were a danger to themselves and others.

  Gram had always answered Gabi’s questions as honestly as she could, without dumbing things down or giving a pat answer, and she freely admitted her own doubts about many aspects of the fellowship. In contrast Gabi often felt as though her father couldn’t see through any lens but the doctrine. Now, with no one to confirm or deny her suspicions, Gabi’s own feelings were all she had to go on. She leaned back against her bed and reached into the waistband of her skirt. The whale photo was stuck to her, and she peeled it away slowly so as not to tear the delicate paper. Remnants of ink marred her skin, which was as white as the paper itself. The passcard fell onto the carpet, where her father’s ID photo stared up at her from the seascape on the rug.

  I’ll return the card tonight after he goes to bed, Gabi resolved. She had no intention of repeating her escapade.

  The paper was as fine as onion skin, and it made a moist sound when she peeled the pages apart. There was a stark beauty to the flayed whale flipper, pinned open so that it resembled a fleshy flower. The bones were tapered ivory, perfectly notched and fitted end to end. Gabi’s middle finger, the longest on her hand, fell far short of the elongated whale digits even though the photo wasn’t to scale, but the resemblance was unmistakable. Though the last whales in existence had no use for their fingers and toes, they’d possessed them still, and there could be only one reason. They may not have needed hands and feet in the ocean, but they would have been very useful on land. The yearning to rush down the hall and process the revelation with Gram landed like a punch to the throat. There was nothing to do but stare, stricken, at the page and wait for the agony to subside.

  If she hadn’t latched her gaze on to that page as an anchor, Gabi might have missed the awkward blue ants marching around its perimeter. No, not ants. Hieroglyphics? The markings were smudged in places, and a quick lift of her shirt confirmed that mirror images of them were stamped onto her belly. Upon closer inspection, she realized that the tiny scrawl, sloppier than she had ever seen it, was Gram’s.

  Gabi scooted over to her bedside table and placed the page in the circle of light cast by her lamp. Her eyes snagged on her name. Gabriela. The letters were crowded against each other, and a tremor was evident in the handwriting, but it was still legible.

  “Dear, Gabriela,” it began, “you are young and unwell, and you might think it unfair of me to burden you, but I know you are strong inside. I now realize that it is precisely what has been kept from you that has blinded you to that strength. I am determined to give what I can of it back, and the time left to do so is short. First, I want you to look inside my suitcase. There is a letter stitched into the lining of the lid that you must read. By giving it to you, I am breaking a trust. I hope it is the right thing. The case is hidden in the box spring of my bed and the key to it taped to the bottom of the potted rosemary plant on my windowsill. Second, what I have seen today has caused me great pain. I don’t know what any of it means, but I know that it must be stopped. Do what you can. Learn the truth. Find someone you trust to help you, as I have trusted you. You will know soon whether or not your father—” There, the words stopped.

  Whether or not her father what? Could be trusted? Knew the truth? And what was that? Gabi was no closer to it than she had been when Gram first hinted at her secret. There was no mention of Mathew in the message, and Gram had instructed Gabi to find “someone.” If she had meant for that person to be Mathew, wouldn’t she have said so? Anyway, it was irrelevant. Gabi had discovered nothing. The notion that she might seek out the very knowledge that had terrorized Gram was absurd, given that she’d barely pulled off peeking at a silly old book without getting caught. But at least Gram hadn’t left her completely empty-handed. Was it possible the answers Gabi sought were just down the hall?

  THE SUITCASE was smaller than Gabi remembered. When she was little, she’d fantasized about curling up inside of it among Gram’s secret treasures and being transported back in time. It weighed little as Gabi extracted it from between the wooden ribs of the box spring, where a slit had been cut in the sheer material stretched across the bottom. Though Gram had expressly told Gabi to find the suitcase, she felt guilty for the intrusion. For a moment she thought about putting it back and pretending that she’d never read Gram’s final message.

  The room was lit only by a small night-light and the sliver of moon hanging outside Gram’s window, but it was enough to reveal the waxy leaves of the rosemary plant in its ceramic pot. From the mantel in the living room, the antique clock ticked. Though Gabi could still feel the dying vibrations of Mathew’s rock music in the hall, her brother slept. His snores met those of her father, who had fallen exhausted onto the couch without taking off his shoes. She didn’t envy them the moment they would have upon waking, when they remembered that the Lowell family had once again become an amputee. Better to stay awake, she thought, than to suffer the false amnesia of sleep.

  The pots of soil were rich with the compost Gram cared for as though it were a beloved pet, feeding it food scraps and hair salvaged from their brushes. Whenever Gram let Gabi water the plants, she encouraged her to smell the dark earth, to press her fingertips into it and feel the springy difference between it and the hardpan outside with its pitiful fuzz of algae.

  “This is how soil used to be,” Gram would say. “This is what alive feels like.” The dirt was similar in color to the small waxy squares of chocolate they got in their rations at Christmas, but better. It hummed with a deep note like a recording Gabi had once heard of the inside of a beehive.

  Gabi lifted the rosemary from its base with a soft scrape. There was nothing there.

  She checked the underside of the pot and the other plants as well, but there was no trace of the key. Gabi dug her index finger into each of the pots, wincing as she felt the root filaments tear, her finger wriggling in search of a metallic edge. Her finger sank up to the knuckle in each of the pots before it touched bottom, but there was nothing to find. Perhaps Gram had been delirious from the heart attack and medication or muddled by the jarring noise of all those machines. If there was no key, then maybe there was no story other than the loss of a beloved family member, which would make the message bordering the whale photo nothing more than the ravings of a fatally ill woman. Only the note didn’t read like that, nor had Gram’s demeanor suggested she was off-kilter.

  The memory of the way the house had felt and smelled when Gabi and Mathew returned from the Care Center came back to her. Gram’s plants had initially masked the detergent smell, but it was actually stronger in Gram’s bedroom than anywhere else. Gabi lifted the rosemary pot, base and all, from the windowsill and carried it over to the tiny night-light. Holding th
e pot close to the light, Gabi saw that the inside of the base was coated with a thin layer of soil except for the unmistakable outline of a key.

  Could Mathew have discovered it when he came back to the house to pack an overnight bag for Gram? But why would he have gotten anywhere near the pots? Having lived her entire life knowing things that she didn’t know how she knew, Gabi recognized the familiar weight of certainty. The investigators had touched things, moved things. They had toppled the precarious book towers in Gabi’s room, and they had taken Gram’s key.

  The thought that every inch of the Lowells’ home had been rifled through made Gabi nauseous. She made a move to replace the suitcase but halted midmotion when she realized no one was left who knew about it. She had no idea what was going to happen to Gram’s things now she was gone, but Gabi couldn’t bear the thought that any of her grandmother’s treasures might get thrown out. They were Gabi’s inheritance, every scrap in that suitcase a testament to the bond of love and trust she and Gram had shared. She did a quick scan of the room to make sure nothing looked amiss before tucking Gram’s suitcase under her arm and fleeing back to her room.

  Gabi pulled her door shut and settled onto her bed with the suitcase, stumped by the dilemma of how to open it without causing irreparable damage. This ratty suitcase, more than the potted plants or the bottles of Naylor’s Pro-Bac crowding the towel closet in the guest bathroom, had the power to keep Gram alive. Gabi would rather leave it in one piece, the mystery within concealed forever, than deface it. She felt around her head for one of the large pins that hadn’t been knocked loose by Mathew’s rough handling that morning and pulled it from the nest of curls. Gabi pulled the bendy metal of the bobby pin apart and prodded the keyhole with it. After a few minutes, the lock gave way and Gabi looked at it in awe. She had actually done it, she marveled, and opened the case.

  Though she would have gladly hurled the suitcase and all its contents off a cliff to have Gram back for even a few seconds, Gabi couldn’t deny how thrilling it was to finally get to open it for herself. The lining of the case was a pale shell-pink, ruched and tacked down along the edges so that everything within nested in a puffy cloud. Littered across the silky material were the odd assortment of treasures Gram had shared with her over the years: the illicit seed packets, the small jade elephant figurine, a scrap of a favorite T-shirt, a photo of Gram as a teenager carrying a banner amid an enormous crowd, protesting the oversight of drinking water supplies by pharmaceutical companies.

  Gabi picked through seashells, creased postcards, and old photographs, most of which depicted strangers long dead or Gabi’s father in early childhood. There was one photograph of Gram and Grandpa when they were first married and a few from some of the trips they’d taken when Gabi’s father was a baby, but hardly anyone was printing photos by then. Everything had gone digital, and when technologies crashed during the Strain, it wiped billions of memories clean. Reluctant to make a tear in the lining, Gabi upended the contents of the suitcase onto the bed and ran her hands around the inside. She closed her eyes to heighten the sensitivity in her fingers, as she had with the lock, and within a few minutes, she felt a small seam on the inside of a pleated fold. The seam was right under Gabi’s finger, and by angling the suitcase more toward the light, she was able to discern where Gram had stitched up a tear about four inches long. Using the end of the hairpin, Gabi worked the delicate threads apart. The opening was just big enough for Gabi to slip her hand into, which she did, feeling around for the letter until her fingers brushed the corner of an envelope. The envelope came out easily, the tear having been tailor-made to accommodate it.

  There must have been some mistake. The letter was not even addressed to her. It had been scrawled on what looked like the torn edge of a paper hospital gown. The script was a loose and flowery cursive, so different from the businesslike block print Gram used. The letter opened with the words “To My Dear Naomi.” Who was Naomi, why did Gram have a letter meant for her, and what possible reason could she have for wanting Gabi to read it? Any hope Gabi had that this letter might resolve the day’s mysteries was dashed. And yet, Gram’s message had said that this letter was something she had held on to as long as Gabi had been alive, and that in showing it to her, she was “breaking a trust.” Gabi had never known Gram to break her word for any reason, and the fact she would mention the letter on her deathbed spoke to its importance. Whether Gabi would understand that importance was a selfish concern. She flattened the torn edges of blue paper onto her bedspread and began to read.

  My Dearest Naomi,

  It is the agony of my life that I let you go, but you must know that there never was a child more wanted. I will not tell you that I was given no choice. I chose for you when you could not, as all parents must do. It was not only for you but for a greater good that I send you into the arms of our enemies. You are not safe with me, though I would do anything to keep you so. The world has become an ugly place. I must admit that, were it not for you, I would leave it without a trace of longing. Tend to your heart and spirit, and keep your body safe. Never be ashamed. You were intended from the tiniest detail. I don’t know that it will ever be safe for you to read this letter, but I leave it as a legacy of my love for you.

  Gabi rolled onto her back, the letter clasped to her chest. Somewhere out there was a girl like herself, who had never known her mother and perhaps felt as wrong and alone in the world as Gabi did. Was she here in Alder? Was Gabi meant to find her so that she could give her the letter? Who was the woman who had written it, and how did it fall into Gram’s hands? With every passing moment, the world made less and less sense. Gram was gone, her father was acting strangely, Mathew had retracted into a hard shell to grieve, and the letter only made Gabi feel more alone.

  Gram had meant for her to have the letter, had safeguarded it for over a decade and a half and broken her own ironclad code of honor to pass it along. Though its relevance was as hidden from Gabi as the gibberings of the Messengers, it touched her deeply. One phrase in particular lodged itself in her brain, even as she slipped under the waves of sleep. “It was not only for you but for a greater good that I send you into the arms of our enemies….”

  Chapter FIVE

  MATHEW WAS silent as they drove to the temple where nearly every fellow in the branch awaited the chance to give their condolences to the Lowell family. He kept his natal Bible close, the one given to him upon the rite of baptism with his name worked in gold lettering at the bottom right corner. Gabi had one too, same as every other fellow, but she hadn’t looked at it since completing her final year of basic doctrine studies. Mathew thumbed through the pages wearing a look of fierce concentration.

  Her father had woken different as well, even more preoccupied and detached than he’d been the night before. Just before the Lowells left their car to cross the plaza to the temple, Sam swiveled around to look at his children in the back seat. Gabi could feel unspoken words filling the gulf that lay between them, but her father only sighed, shook his head, and got out of the car.

  Mathew and her father weren’t the only ones who were different. Though Gabi’s eyes were inflamed from crying and dehydration, she felt as though the body she’d become accustomed to dragging around like a broken cello had been replaced in the night. When she’d risen that morning, her legs didn’t tremble under her weight, and her head didn’t swim at the transition from sitting to standing. Her room seemed to have subtly changed as well, beyond the fallen columns of books. It took Gabi a moment to realize what that difference was. Silence. The room was free of the soundtrack of her labored breath. There was plenty of oxygen for the taking, and Gabi’s body absorbed it hungrily.

  When Gabi raised her arms to pull off the soiled shirt she’d worn the day before, she noted that the ache in her neck was still there. As she dressed, she turned her body this way and that in the shaft of morning sunlight spilling in through her bedroom window, confirming that the blue cast of her skin had mellowed to a softer shade. Perhaps it was
just adrenaline from dealing with so many emotional curveballs at once, but whatever the reason for the improvement, Gabi wasn’t taking any chances. When her father slid her morning dose of medication and a glass of water across the counter toward her, she’d pinned the pills under her tongue while she swallowed, and spat them out in her napkin after he turned away. Sam would never condone Gram’s little experiment if it meant risking Gabi’s safety. Gabi would tell her father when she was sure she could manage without the pills long-term. This lie, at least, would be worth telling to give her father some good news.

  THE MEMORIAL service rang hollow for Gabi. Though Gram had touched many lives through her work at the Care Center, she did not have many friends in the branch. Gabi knew that Gram had been mindful of Sam’s standing in the community and the added weight given to how his family presented itself in public, but she wasn’t one to bite her tongue and had opinions aplenty about how the Unitas doctrine had changed over the years. Gram thought it best to avoid the temptation of public outbursts by confining her social circle to family and a few of her Minder colleagues. There were plenty of opportunities for lively discussion in the privacy of their home, where Gram and Gabi’s father could debate freely without fear of being overheard.

  So why were all these people standing up and talking about Gram as though they’d known her well? Gabi felt as though they were just reciting bits of doctrine and inserting Gram’s name here and there to create the illusion of real grief. After a couple of hours, half the temple had spoken, and the other half were still gearing up. Gabi couldn’t bear hearing Unitas buzzwords like fortitude, charity, and compassion batted around. They suited Gram, but there were only three people in the whole place who could have known that for sure.