Solstice

by Jane Redd

  Chalice looked at me from across the room. Her hands were clasped in front of her, her ring turned around, exposed. There was no mistaking it now. My mouth went dry, and I tried to think of some excuse I could offer for Chalice. Nothing came.

  As the inspectors reached her, she held out her wrists.

  My stomach clenched with anger at Chalice for breaking the rules. Then at whoever had turned her in. “No,” I croaked out, at the same moment feeling Sol’s hand on my arm, as if he’d anticipated my movement.

  I wanted to race across the aisle and defend Chalice, but it wouldn’t help her and would only get me into trouble. Despite the sharp anger building inside me, I knew it was futile to resist the inspectors, especially with the recruiters present. They’d know instantly that I was different.

  As an inspector clamped cuffs on Chalice’s thin wrists, I wanted to shout, It’s only a ring!

  The pressure of Sol’s hand increased on my arm, and not even his nearness could distract me. But I managed to keep my mouth shut.

  Chalice’s narrow shoulders sagged as if a large weight had just been piled on top of her. The inspectors escorted her out of the room and into the pristine hallway.

  “What will happen to her?” I whispered.

  “Detention.” The word brushed against my hair. “Hopefully.”

  “Hopefully?” I had avoided Detention at all costs, since I couldn’t afford to miss lessons.

  “It’s better than Demotion.”

  Demotion meant she’d be kicked out of A Level, and her chance at a University education, and subsequent career, would be lost forever. Sol’s hand had dropped from my arm. I glanced at him—his eyes were trained on the metal door that had closed behind Chalice, but I could still feel the touch of his fingers. It meant nothing to him, I knew, to touch me, but I had felt it all the way to my heart.

  Dr. Wells told us to retake our seats. My entire body trembled now, and I worried that Sol would see my fear. In fact, the recruiters could probably see it from the stage.

  But it was too late to sit apart from him. Sol followed and sat right next to me as the lights dimmed around us again.

  The head recruiter spoke loudly, and I jumped in my seat. “You will now return to your schedules, and in the next two days, you’ll be interviewed individually.”

  Cold flushed through me like I had fallen into a deep pond. Before I knew it, we were all shuffling out of the auditorium, through the echoing hall, and just as we reached our classrooms, the intercom came on again, announcing lunch period.

  My heart rate slowed a notch as I turned toward the school yard. I had no appetite for boiled sweet potatoes, and I was only too thankful to be away from the recruiters’ eyes. I needed time to process the fact that my roommate had just been sent to Detention and tomorrow I might be facing recruitment testing.

  For once, I regretted being at the top of my class.

  I walked into the cement yard, which was basically a broad pad of sloping concrete that kept the rain running off. A high iron fence surrounded the area, intended more to keep others out than to keep us in. The rain had picked up from its morning drizzle, and I hadn’t brought my umbrella. I might be cold and wet, but thoughts of Chalice suffering in Detention chased away my complaints.

  I should have known Sol would follow me, which made me want to hide in my room so I wouldn’t have to keep fighting so hard against my emotions. When he came to stand next to me, the rain stopped pattering on my head. We had to stand close to fit under an umbrella he’d found—standing close was both a good thing and a not-so-good thing.

  “Jez,” he said, his voice low. “Where did Chalice get that ring?”

  “She won’t tell me where she found the metal.” I couldn’t look at him now; I had to wait until his voice stopped vibrating through me. “But I think she carved it herself.”

  “How did she learn to make those symbols?”

  I forced my breath out. He had seen the ring clearly, then. “We saw them in the museum a year ago, before the exhibit was removed.”

  Sol went quiet, and even though I felt upset about Chalice, having Sol next to me was comforting. Don’t focus on that, I told myself. Don’t listen to his breathing or look at the way his fingers curve around the umbrella.

  Sol grasped my hand. “Are you wearing one of those rings?”

  My breath fled again. “Of course not.” I knew I should pull away, but his hand was so warm.

  “You’re still freezing,” he whispered, slowly rubbing my hand.

  A warm shiver shot through me, and my hand tightened around his for a second before I reluctantly drew it away. I didn’t want him to sense anything; as it was, my face felt much too hot for having such cold hands.

  But he was watching me closely, and I wished I knew exactly what he was thinking. I’d never had a friend like him—one I couldn’t stop thinking about even when we weren’t together. One where I had to close my eyes and bury my face into a pillow to shut out all thoughts of him so that I could fall asleep.

  Thinking about the Separation made my chest hurt.

  “Promise me you won’t do something stupid,” Sol said.

  Another focused breath, and I dared to look at him. His longish hair was black against the backdrop of gray, matching his murky eyes.

  “When have I ever done anything stupid?” I asked.

  “I guess that’s a yes?” he said.

  My eyes flitted away, and I hid a smile. “Correct.”

  A few kids came into the courtyard. They hardly looked in our direction, moving on past toward the tree line. They had a couple of umbrellas between them and huddled in a group, most likely talking about Chalice.

  “This may not be the best place to talk,” Sol said, pulling my attention from the other students.

  “About what?” Curiosity pushed away thoughts of Chalice shivering in some cold Detention room.

  “We don’t have much time left together now,” he said. “I want to tell you some things.”

  My chest constricted more, if that were even possible, and I shoved my hands into the pockets of my royal blue jacket as I peered up at him through the gloomy afternoon rain. He was nearly a head taller than me, something that made me feel safe when I was with him.

  “What things?” I asked. And how do you know them?

  His voice dropped to a whisper. “About the past.”

  Normally I would have been excited to hear something new—about the Before or the Burning. But not right now, not after what had just happened with Chalice. “No,” I said, perhaps too quickly. His eyes flickered with something I couldn’t quite describe. Disappointment? Did he . . . I wondered . . . did he feel something, too?

  I broke eye contact. If I could read any emotion in his eyes, he could read far more in mine. I looked around at the other kids in the school yard, standing in their groups, clustered together. They were still too far away to hear anything we said, yet I worried.

  “Please.” Sol leaned toward me, his voice just audible.

  I wanted to close my eyes and lean against him, let my cheek rest against his chest—just once. Instead, I pulled away so that I was barely beneath his umbrella, also keeping my voice low. “Why?”

  “After the Separation, I won’t be able to share my memories with you.” His gray eyes absorbed mine, and I felt my resistance weakening. “We don’t have much more time.”

  “All right,” I whispered back, my pulse racing.

  He seemed to relax, and his body bent toward mine.

  “My caretaker had a book filled with pictures,” he said. “I found it before he was Taken.”

  “Pictures?” Pictures were images of people and places from the Before. Now, pictures could only be seen on the WorldNet. “Real ones?”

  He nodded.

  I thought about having an image—a picture—to carry around. Would I have kept them all together in a book? “Do you still have any?”

  “I destroyed them when my caretaker left. I didn’t want his nam
e to be blotted out from society records, and I didn’t want to get cited.”

  I nodded, understanding. Had his caretaker broken more rules and told Sol about the Before? If so, how did his caretaker know so much? The forbidden “pictures” were destroyed, and that was a relief, but my heart hammered to think of what could happen if our instructors or, even worse, the Legislature, discovered what Sol had seen, and that he hadn’t turned in his caretaker for breaking the rules. The Legislature was afraid that we’d rebel, remove the Harmony implants, and civilization would regress into a rebellious society and become extinct.

  I knew I should shut him up now, before it was too late. Before his memories became my memories. I fought against the curiosity bubbling up. Naomi’s words echoed in my mind: Jezebel, don’t ask so many questions. I had almost conquered my questions when Sol said, “My caretaker had pictures of flowers that blossomed in the sun.”

  Thirty-seven years of rain had put a stop to all blossoming. “Tell me what they looked like.” I had seen images of flowers on the WorldNet, but I wanted to hear it from Sol.

  He hesitated, and the color of his face warmed. I watched him closely. Was he fighting an emotion?

  “Are you sure you want to hear this?” he finally asked.

  I realized that I did want to know more—so that when we were separated, I had more of Sol to remember. The time left between us was sliding away with each moment. “Whisper in my ear,” I said.

  Sol’s eyes clouded as if he were seeing something from long ago. A bead of water dropped onto his face, and I clenched my hands to keep from brushing it away.

  He leaned closer, his breath soft against my skin. “The flowers had bright colors, like red and pink. Some were white or yellow.”

  Inside, I smiled. “Like the sun.”

  He nodded. “They weren’t grown for food, like our plants, but for beauty. Some of them grew wild beneath the sun and blue skies—fields and fields of them.”

  Naomi had told me much of this, but I couldn’t admit it. It would be incredible to see an entire field of flowers. I wondered how long it had been since Sol saw the pictures. “How old were you when your caretaker was Taken?” I asked.

  “Ten.” His voice sounded odd, and I looked up at him. His eyes looked moist, as if he were actually sad, but there was no way he could feel sad like me. Being Taken was simply the cycle of life.

  “And you still remember the pictures?” I asked, digging myself deeper. I glanced around, checking to make sure none of the other kids had moved closer to us. I couldn’t afford Detention so close to the Separation. I wasn’t like Sol, or even Chalice. I had to stay at the top of my class. I had to get chosen for the science program.

  Sol bent close enough that his breath warmed my cheek. I ignored my racing heart as he spoke. “They were impossible to forget—they were so beautiful. The pictures were old and fragile. They were given to my caretaker by his own caretaker, who he called ‘grandfather.’ He was over sixty.”

  Now I was surprised. Sixty-year-old people only existed in the O Level society. Others, like Naomi, were Taken when their duties were accomplished.

  The rain came down harder now, and Sol’s voice penetrated the din. “He told me the sky was blue almost every day, not just at Solstice. In the summer it stayed blue from dawn to dusk.” His dark gray eyes traveled from my face to my shoulders. “Blue like your jacket.”

  I hunched my shoulders as if to pull the jacket closer and tried to imagine the color splashed across the sky, replacing the low gray clouds and the ever-present rain. I remembered Sol talking about summer in assembly. I leaned closer to him, stealing some of his warmth. Even during the day of Solstice, the clouds remained, parting just enough to allow the brilliant sunlight through.

  “A year was divided into four seasons of weather patterns,” he continued.

  “Seasons?”

  “Spring, summer, fall, and winter.” A hint of a smile touched his lips. But it was gone so quickly, I wasn’t sure if I’d imagined it. “It rained a lot in the spring.”

  I shuddered. I knew rain.

  “In summer, the sun shone from early morning to late evening,” he said.

  How would it feel to have several days of sunshine in a row—even weeks? Did they cancel school and work so everyone could stay outside and feel the sun all day?

  “In the fall,” Sol continued, “the rain came back, but the sun still shone most days.”

  “So it was gradual . . . a cycle.” I urged him on despite knowing some of the answers already from pestering Naomi. I didn’t want Sol to stop talking.

  “Exactly,” he said.

  “And the fourth season?”

  “Winter. That’s when it snowed.”

  I’d heard about snow in whispered corners from other students who were no longer with us—some who’d been Demoted for breaking serious rules. I didn’t realize that snow was a part of the winter season. I could never trust anyone to ask more about snow. Those students I’d heard the whispers from had been Demoted and never returned to school. They were imprisoned or reassigned to C Level to do menial tasks the remainder of their life cycles.

  “Have you seen pictures of snow?”

  “No.” Sol shifted the umbrella and his hand brushed against my back.

  His touch warmed me. As hot as the sun. I breathed out, slowly, letting the heat subside. All I knew was that the snow was colder than rain. “Tell me about the snow.”

  “My caretaker’s grandfather said the snow was as cold as ice. It made you shiver all over. But it wasn’t hard; it was soft somehow, and white.” He made a noise that was almost a laugh and grasped my hand. “You’re still freezing—this is probably what snow feels like.”

  “Tell me about the summer,” I said. Could he feel the pulse in my hand throbbing like mad?

  “In the summer, the sun became so hot that whole forests dried up and sometimes caught fire.” He kept his voice soft and his head close to mine so I could hear his words.

  I casually pulled my hand away as I tried to imagine a fire so big that it covered a whole forest. “Is that what started . . .” my voice dropped to a whisper “. . . the Burning?”

  “No, Jez. Do you want to talk about the Burning, too?” He was teasing me now. We were taught to focus on the world as it was now, and how the Legislature had restored it to order. The earlier civilization had destroyed the world with poor choices long before the rain came.

  “Of course not,” I said. But something inside me broke, and I blamed it on the extra exertion I was making, standing with Sol and trying not to feel anything. “I don’t understand why man would destroy his own beautiful world.”

  Sol raised his eyebrows—my statement had bordered on argumentative. Jezebel, do not argue. He leaned in, his dark hair falling across his forehead. “To make it better, of course.”

  I thought I saw confusion in his gaze just for an instant. Maybe he was like me. But even as I thought it, I knew it wasn’t true. I had watched him carefully enough over the past months—his calmness and control—to know he was not fighting against strong emotions like I was.

  I wanted to agree, like a good citizen, but my stomach twisted at the thought.

  The civilization that came before us had mired itself in thievery, child abuse, prostitution, murder, and government corruption. It had allowed pedophiles to live a street away from elementary schools, built strip bars at the edge of decent neighborhoods . . . The List went on. Every child over the age of five had the List of Failures memorized.

  The world Before was a black stain on humanity. Our world—our gray world of Order—was faultless.

  But still. I wanted to hear more. I glanced around the yard again. Lunch must be almost over, but no one had made a move to go inside yet, despite the heavy rain. My heart thumped and seconds slipped away.

  “What else did your caretaker tell you?” I asked as casually as possible as I shifted away from him, hoping he wouldn’t notice. There was only so far I could move and no
t remain under the umbrella. The class bell rang, and the other students broke up their groups of umbrellas and started heading for the doors.

  We watched them pass by, then Sol said, “We should go, Jez—”

  “Tell me more about the flowers, then we’ll go in.” I didn’t want to be late, either, but we could spare one minute more.

  His breath swept my face in a sigh. “Flowers were grown only for their beautiful colors. Golden sunflowers that were dark yellow with black centers.”

  I nodded, closing my eyes and becoming lost in the image he created. Remembering this would help me when I was isolated in my own science lab, separated from Sol and Chalice.

  “They had oval petals and stems growing as high as your shoulders. Red flowers called peonies—so red it looked like the color of blood—with long green stems. Thousands of them grew in the same field. There were violet and pink flowers called roses that had small circular petals all grouped together. My caretaker said they smelled like the most expensive perfume.”

  I exhaled, imagining a perfume-scented plant. “They must have been beautiful.”

  He nodded and looked at me with an almost-smile. It wasn’t a true smile, but I pretended it was, and it melted something inside me.

  “Now we have the same memories.”

  “Promise to tell me more tomorrow,” I whispered before I could monitor myself. I didn’t mention the recruiters—maybe if I pretended they didn’t exist, it would all go away. We hurried into the building. When we stepped onto the thick mat just inside the school and removed our raincoats, my stomach coiled into a knot. Another morning had faded, another day half-over. Another hour closer to the Separation.

  The pale green floors seemed to extend a mile, forming a wide corridor lined with tall metal doors. Sol and I stopped in front of one, and he raised his palm to the small ID kiosk on the right. The door swooshed open, and we both entered the square classroom containing twenty-two desks and chairs, the same pale green on the walls as on the floor. Twenty pair of eyes turned to look at us.