by Caela Carter
It can’t be her because the girl behind me is happy and talking and in a restaurant, which is a place full of food. It can’t be her because Jaycia is doomed.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I mean, ‘oh my goodness.’” She giggles and it breaks the spell.
That’s her laugh.
It’s really her.
I turn my head and look up at her.
She looks mostly the same. Her eyes are a little brighter. Her hair is a little longer. Her body is a little thicker. Healthier.
She looks OK.
Totally un-tortured.
“Jaycia,” I say. “Hi.”
She puts her hands under my arms and drags me out of my seat. Then she throws her arms around me.
I’ve never been hugged by a kid before. But now Jaycia is here and she’s alive and she’s OK and she’s hugging me. Her arms knock the shock right off my shoulders and what’s left is . . . relief. Happiness.
I hug her back. We squeeze each other. Then she starts dancing around a little and she’s laughing and I still can’t do that but I smile. And I’m happy.
“You’re OK,” I say, when the hug is over.
Jaycia’s Abomination was my Abomination. But Jaycia is here in front of me. Jaycia is OK.
Jaycia squeals. “Oh my God, I thought they were never going to let you out of there! But you’re here! You’re really here.”
I don’t want to be here, Father. I promise. It’s hard to mean it with Jaycia smiling at me like that.
“What does this mean? Is it over? Is he gone? Did they finally find out everything about the tea and the Hungry Days and all that?”
She’s talking so fast and dancing around so much I can barely keep up with her words. I have no clue what she’s talking about.
“Who is this, Zylynn?” Louis asks. His voice seems to come from far away, as if Jaycia and I were in our own invisible room and he’s on the other side of the door.
I don’t turn around. “This is—”
“Janice!” Jaycia cuts me off. “Please, please, please call me Janice now.”
Charita stands and puts an arm around my shoulders. She stretches her other hand out to Jaycia and they shake hands like two Brothers. “I’m Charita. And this is Louis—” He stands too. “Zylynn’s father.”
And like that, I’m scared again. My head goes back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. He’s not my father. He’s not my father. He’s not my father.
“Oh, Zylynn,” Jaycia almost-whispers. “You’re still so confused.” Then her arms are back around me but it’s not a happy hug this time. I don’t reach up to hug her back.
She’s OK.
But she’s stuck in Darkness.
How can that be?
“You’re going to figure it out, all right? It’ll be scary but you’ll figure it out and then everything will be better. Believe me,” Jaycia says. “That’s how it happened for my mom too. And you weren’t in as deep as her. You weren’t in as deep as a lot of people.” She lets go of me and looks at Charita and Louis. “She really wasn’t,” Jaycia says. “Zylynn was the only one who ever asked questions. She was the only one who let me laugh.”
I can’t stand the talk of fathers and mothers and the other things Jaycia is saying that I don’t understand. Things that make it seem like I’ll have to choose between her and Light, between love and safety, something I don’t think I can do.
“I . . . I saw you. In Target,” I say.
“Really? On Thursday?”
I nod.
“You really did,” Charita whispers.
“I was there that day! You did see me! Where were you?”
“Oh my gosh,” a new voice says. I look up, and standing next to Jaycia is Marmelon, one of the women who used to be at the feasts, who used to be a Gatherer. Her hair is long and gray and tied up behind her head like it was the last time I saw her. But she’s not wearing the long white skirt anymore. She’s not crying or sighing. She’s smiling. She barely looks like her old self. “Zylynn. Would you look at that, Janice? It’s Zylynn. She got out!”
They’re both laughing and laughing but I’m getting more and more scared.
What happened to Jaycia? Why does she have a new name? Why is she here with Marmelon? Why is she laughing so much when she’s supposed to be tortured every day?
Charita says, “You must be Janice’s mother?”
“Sure am,” Marmelon says. Even though she knows better. Or used to know better.
“And you were at the compound too?” Charita asks.
Marmelon puts a hand on Jaycia’s spiky hair and shifts it back and forth. I wonder, for a second, what it would feel like if Charita did that to my hair.
But, no. That’s not what I wonder. I wonder how I can get back Inside.
It may look like Jaycia’s OK, but she’s not. I should know that. I have to trust Father Prophet. She must be being tortured in some way I can’t see, can’t understand yet. Marmelon too.
“I’m not proud of it but I got us roped in,” Marmelon is saying. “I just—I was having a hard time, you know? And I met a Gatherer. And everything she said seemed to make sense. The promise of freedom and no decisions to make . . . it was too much for me right then.”
“It can happen to anyone,” Louis says.
“Yes. I thought, this! This is how I can keep my baby girl safe. But the next thing I knew, it was like I couldn’t think for myself anymore.”
Louis and Charita are nodding.
“Janice got us out though. She never fell for it. She’s got a brain of steel, my girl.”
So many mys. So many times so many people are breaking the Ultimate Truth here: my mother, your father, my girl.
Charita says, “Why don’t we talk over here and let these two catch up?”
And then it’s just me and Jaycia sitting at the table. And suddenly it’s like the middle of the night when it was only the two of us awake no matter how loud she was being. Suddenly it’s private. I’m back in friendship.
Jaycia laughs again. My friend.
Even I’m breaking the Ultimate Truth, out here in the Darkness. It’s terrifying.
I’m still going to love her even if she’s stuck in the Darkness. I think Mother God would be OK with that.
“When did you get out?” Jaycia asks. “How did you get out? How are you? They seem nice. Do you like them?” The string of questions flows easily from her mouth, each accented with a hint of a giggle.
“How are you so happy?” I ask. “You know you’re stuck here forever, right? You’re stuck in the Darkness and you’ll be tortured every night and—”
“No,” Jaycia says. She tries to keep talking but I don’t let her.
“Let’s go back, OK?” I beg. “I know what we did was really wrong. It was terrible. And I know you’re already thirteen but maybe we can beg Father to forgive you and then you won’t be stuck in the Darkness anymore?”
Jaycia puts her hand on my shoulder to stop me from talking. She shakes her head. “We didn’t do anything wrong, Zylynn.”
“But the Abomination—”
She cuts me off. “We didn’t do anything wrong.” Her head is still shaking. Her hand is still on my shoulder.
“The cheese,” I hiss. It’s so awful I can barely admit it, even though Jaycia was there with me.
“We didn’t do anything wrong,” Jaycia says, a little too loudly. Almost like she’s angry now.
“We stole that cheese,” I argue. “We stole it and then we ate on a Hungry Day.”
Jaycia slaps her thigh, her eyes are dark now. “They were starving us,” she says. “Don’t you get that? They were killing us.”
“Please,” I whisper. “Please. Let’s go back. Let’s go home.” I pretend I can’t see how her head is shaking. “I don’t want you to be stuck in Darkness forever.”
“I want to be here,” she says quietly. “You’ll figure it out, eventually. Then you’ll want to be here too. I promise. Everything they told us Inside was a
lie. Everything.”
“No,” I say. “The Liars are on the Outside.”
Jaycia nods. “I know it’s hard, Zylynn. It was your whole life. But it was all lies. Everything.”
“No,” I say again. Louder this time. There’s no punishment for yelling here so I might as well.
“Ask Louis, Zylynn. Talk to your father about it.”
“The Prophet is my Father!” I yell.
People are looking at us now. Jaycia isn’t smiling or laughing anymore. She’s ducking her head.
“The Prophet was a Liar and a thief,” Jaycia says. “He took all of our money, mine and my mom’s and everyone else’s too. He tricked us, all of us. He’s got your mother captured there still—”
“MY MOTHER IS GOD, MY MOTHER IS GOD, MY MOTHER IS GOD.” I’m being so loud Charita and Louis and Marmelon rush toward us. Then I hiss, “You were there. You know the truth, Jaycia.”
“God. Please don’t call me that, OK?” Jaycia says.
“It’s your name!” I wail. “Of course I’ll call you that. That’s what Father wanted!”
“No, Zylynn, look—”
I cut her off. I interrupt her. Something else I’ve never done. “It doesn’t matter. I won’t call you anything. I don’t ever want to talk to you anyway. You were my friend but you turned your back on the Light and now you’re just a no-good, evil, dirty Liar.”
Jaycia has tears in her eyes now. Louis and Charita are right near us, but I can see Marmelon holding them back, whispering to them.
“It’s never going to be over,” my friend whispers.
“The Light will always win.” I spit the words at her. “You know that.”
Jaycia takes a shaky breath. She pulls a pencil from her pocket and scribbles on a napkin. “OK,” she says. “Here’s my phone number. In case you ever figure everything out and you need me.”
Then she gets up and leaves.
There are ten numbers scribbled on the napkin. Under them is one word. Janice.
I’m crying hard as I clutch the napkin. So hard I let both Louis and Charita hug me when she’s gone.
The Darkness did get Jaycia. I don’t understand how it’s torturing her, but it did worse.
It turned her into a Liar.
I’m standing beneath my lightbulb in my room. No. The lightbulb in the room.
After Jaycia left, everyone in the restaurant was staring at us. Louis said we would take the food to go. We took it back to their kitchen in little white boxes and ate it there. I didn’t get a chance to ask them to take me home. Charita tried to talk about what happened, about me yelling, while we ate lunch. But I didn’t say anything, and then Louis said we didn’t have to talk.
He said I can talk when I’m ready.
He doesn’t know I’ll never be ready.
I’ll be gone. I’ll be back Inside. And then I’ll forget I ever yelled like that. I’ll forget my old friend is stuck in Darkness. I’ll forget that Jaycia is just another Liar now.
I have to pray before I go to sleep so I’m trying to make myself say the words I should and nothing else. Just the bedtime prayer. No extra words or thoughts. I’m trying not to talk to Mother because Father Prophet said not to. Because I need to get home. Because when I wake up I will only have three days left.
I can’t make my brain be quiet. Curiosity is a tornado spinning in my skull and I can’t make her stop. Is Charita really also a mother? Where’s the person I came out of? Why is Charita giving hugs like that to the kids who came out of her and the person who I came out of is gone?
Is Louis really a father? What do they mean when they say he’s my father?
Is Jaycia really a Liar?
If I pray while the questions run in circles, I’ll ask them by accident. I’ll ask them to Mother God. Then I will have done that terrible thing again.
The Liars keep asking me what I want to do, to wear, to eat, where I want to go. I only have to ask to go home.
Tessie.
I only want to learn a little bit more before I do.
I squint at the light, trying to make it blur like they do if I stare into the lightbulbs next to the bunks Inside for too long. But it’s too weak.
Father Prophet will punish me for wanting answers. And for talking to Mother God. And for eating so much, wearing colors, liking Charita, calling Jaycia my friend out loud . . . I’ve committed so many Abominations he’ll punish me right up to my ceremony.
The next time they ask, I promise him, I’ll tell them to take me home.
Tessie . . . Tessie . . . Tessie . . .
The word is bouncing in my skull all night.
Fifteen
ELSIE IS WALKING TURTLE AROUND MY room again. The morning light is streaming in through the window.
“Hey, Zylynn,” she says. “How old are you?”
“Twelve. Almost thirteen,” I say.
I watch her as she moves Turtle over the desk, then she makes him walk on the wall like a bug. Then he climbs my leg until he’s sitting in my lap and she’s sitting at my feet.
“But you’re barely bigger than me,” she says.
“So?” I say.
“So. Twelve. That’s old.”
“How old are you?” I’m getting used to all of these questions coming out of my mouth. The Darkness keeps eating my words.
“Five,” she says. “Junior’s seven and Jakey’s three. Except Jakey will be four soon and then I’ll be six. When’s your birthday?”
“Wednesday,” I say.
She shoots up on to her feet and puts her little hands on my shoulders. “Wednesday like the next Wednesday that’s coming? Like the next time it’s Wednesday it’ll be your birthday?” She’s jumping up and down. I don’t know why she’s so excited. It’s not her ceremony. She won’t even be there.
Unless I can figure out a way to take her with me.
I nod.
“And today is Sunday,” Elsie squeals.
I nod again.
“How many days till Wednesday?” she asks.
“Three,” I say.
“Three days! We’re gonna have a party!” she yells. “Party! Party! Party!”
Party (n.): a social gathering of invited guests to one’s home or elsewhere for purpose of conversation, refreshment, entertainment, etc.
“No,” I say. “I won’t have a party. I’ll have a ceremony.”
“Oh,” she says. “Cool.”
If I take her with me, if I make her a new soul, Father will be so happy with me. I won’t be hit or hungry.
I take a deep breath. “Do you . . . ,” I say. “Do you . . . do you want to come? With me? To my ceremony.”
“Sure!” Elsie cheers.
And I smile so big. So huge.
After lunch, Charita says, “Come on into the living room, guys. I want to show you something.”
Guys is Junior, Elsie, Jakey, and sometimes Louis. It’s another one of those code words like honey and babe and Dad.
The kids all get up from the table, leaving their plates at their seats. I stare at them. I can’t believe that they do this all the time. Crusts and orange slices and an inch of milk: they leave so much behind. It’s like they’ve never been hungry.
My own plate is in front of me where I sit at the table. It’s empty. But I’m not hungry enough to eat the peanut butter crusts off Jakey’s plate. I get itchy. This is the first time I’ve ever been alone in the kitchen.
I wonder how big that fridge can actually be. I wonder how much food I would see if I opened the door.
I stand and tiptoe a few steps before I hear Charita call my name. “Zylynn? Would you bring me my water?”
I freeze. Did she see me somehow? Is opening the fridge here a Mistake? An Abomination?
I haven’t been punished, yet, but I know there are punishments in Darkness. Punishments worse than Hungry Days or pingings or anything I could even imagine when I was in the Light. I’m sure of it.
I don’t touch the fridge.
Charita’s g
lass of water is on the counter. I pick it up and go into the living room. The kids and Charita and Louis are all sitting on the floor around the low table. They call it a coffee table even though it never has any mugs on it.
There are six huge, shiny books on the table between them. They’re all looking through them, smiling, pointing, talking, squealing, laughing.
“Thanks, Zylynn,” Charita says.
I turn to go. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be here or not. I don’t belong. I don’t want to belong.
But what are they looking at? How come they can laugh and we can’t?
Charita grabs my wrist and tugs it lightly. “Do you want to see this, Zylynn?” She points at one of the books. It’s full of pictures, a photo album. I’ve never seen one before. “That’s Elsie as a baby,” she says. I look at Elsie as a five-year-old, then Elsie as a baby. They don’t look too much alike. Elsie as a five-year-old has braids and green eyes and a crooked front tooth. Elsie as a baby looks like a bald raisin. It’s weird to be able to see two of her at once.
I point to the picture next to her. “Is that one Jakey or Junior?” I ask.
Charita laughs. “That’s Elsie too. In the hospital, one day old.”
Hospital (n.): an institution in which sick or injured persons are given medical or surgical treatment
I gasp. “Why was she in the hospital?”
Charita turns to smile at me. “Just to be born,” she says. She starts flipping pages in the book. “There she is at a month old.” Elsie, the real one, comes to stand behind Charita’s other shoulder. Charita keeps flipping pages. Junior and Jakey and Louis stare at the other books, mumbling and giggling every once in a while.
Charita says, “There she is at six months, see that big smile?”
I nod, even though Charita can’t see me. It looks a little more like Elsie now with tufts of her hair and greener eyes.
“Here we are at the zoo,” she says. “And the park. The library.” She squeezes Elsie’s hand. “Here’s your first birthday party!”
This picture is stuffed with people and I have to squint at it to find baby Elsie, but she’s in it, pulling Charita’s hair. Yeah, there’s a younger version of Charita there, and Louis next to her, Junior on his shoulders. And behind him are the two gray people from yesterday, only not as gray. And next to him—