by Tahereh Mafi
“Friends of Ferenwood,” he boomed, caterpillar voice creeping out of his caterpillar lips. “I congratulate you all on the first day of spring.”
The crowd cheered and stomped and raised their glasses of cider.
“Today is a most auspicious occasion,” Lottingale went on.
And on, and on and on.
He spent the next ten minutes giving a speech about the great day that is the day of their Surrender, and I can’t be bothered to remember it all (it went on for nine minutes too long, if you ask me), but suffice it to say that it was a heart-warming speech that excited the crowd and sent jitters up Alice’s skirts; and anyway, I hope you don’t mind but I’d like to skip ahead to the part where things actually happen.
They would all perform. All eighty-six of them.
Only after all of the twelve-year-olds had surrendered their gifts would they be allowed to take seats with their families, where they’d attempt to eat a meal while the Elders took a break to deliberate. Once the decisions were final, an envelope would appear on their plates, their tasks carefully tucked inside.
Of the group, only one task would be announced to all of Ferenwood; only one child would be celebrated.
Only the best.
Alice held tight to this reminder as she watched Valentina Milly take the stage. She was the first of them, and Alice admired her for it. Valentina stood in the middle of the square with a great, quiet sort of dignity, never once letting it show that she’d been crying in the bushes just a moment before.
And then she sang.
She had the voice of a featherlily, effortlessly charming the lot of them. Valentina sang a song Alice had never heard before, and the words wrapped around their bodies, sending shivers up tree trunks and hushing the birds into a stillness Alice had never seen. The song was so lovely that Alice was blinking back tears by the end of it, certain that something strange and frightening was coming to life inside of her.
Alice knew then that Valentina Milly had no ordinary voice, and though Alice was terribly jealous, her hands found themselves clapping for her competitor all the same.
Next came Haider Zanotti, a boy with the bluest hair Alice had ever seen. Electric, violent blue, thick and rich and so gorgeous she was sorely tempted to run her hands through it. Haider stepped into the very center of the square, took a bow, and then jumped. Up. High. Straight into the sky. His hands caught something Alice could not see, and he was suspended in midair, fists clenched around what seemed to be an invisible ladder. He hoisted himself up and climbed until he was standing taller than the tallest trees, a speck in the distance held up by nothing at all.
The crowd gasped and some got to their feet, shielding their eyes against the sun as they tried to get a better look at where he’d gone.
Then, Haider jumped.
He fell fast toward the ground and a few people screamed, but Haider was prepared. He held both arms out as he came down and, with just a few feet to fall, latched on to the air, his fists curling around some impossible bit of sky. He hung there for just a moment longer before dropping to one knee.
When he finally stood up, Ferenwood had, too. They were so excited and so impressed that Mr. Lottingale had to beg them to stop cheering so the proceedings could move forward.
Haider rejoined the line looking very pleased with himself. Alice knew she should’ve been happy for him, but she felt the knot in her stomach tighten and so she bit her lip, hugging herself against the sudden chill creeping down her neck.
Olympia Choo was up next.
Olympia was a big girl, tall and rotund, her hair pulled back so severely she looked much older than twelve. She walked onto the stage with not an ounce of nonsense about her. And when she looked out over the crowd, they seemed almost afraid to look back.
Olympia clapped.
And everything broke.
Chairs, tables, glasses, pitchers, plates, and even one poor man’s trousers. Everything came crashing to the floor, and the citizens of Ferenwood with it. But just as they were about to start shouting out in disapproval, Olympia whistled, and all wrongs righted themselves. The tables repaired, chairs reupholstered, glasses pieced back together, and torn trousers were suddenly good as new.
Alice looked down at herself; a loose thread in her skirts had sewn itself back into place. A smudge on her knee, wiped away. Even her braid was suddenly smooth, not a single hair out of place.
Alice couldn’t help but be astounded.
Olympia was just about to clap again when the crowd shouted NO! and ducked down in fear. Mr. Lottingale ran up to shuffle Olympia offstage.
That meant Alice was next.
And oh, she was terrified.
Only three others had gone before her, and already Alice knew she had made a great mistake. No one had been around to prepare her for today, not Mother who didn’t seem to care at all, and not the teachers she no longer had. Alice thought Father had given her this gift before he left— instilling in her this need to dance. She thought it was her talent. The gift she would surrender.
Alice was only now realizing that this was a true talent show, and she—well, she was no talent at all. She could not sing awake the soul, could not climb air, could not right every wrong. She could only offer a dance—and she knew then that it would not be enough.
Alice wanted to cry. But no, that wouldn’t do.
Mr. Lottingale was calling her name and it was too late to give up now. Too late to tell Oliver she’d made a mistake, that she should’ve chosen Father over this moment of humiliation.
Suddenly Alice was sorry.
She was standing onstage, all alone, staring out at some ten thousand faces, and she could not make herself look at Mother.
So she closed her eyes.
The music found her the way it always did, and she let herself lean into it. She met the rhythm in her bones and moved the way she had a hundred times before.
Alice danced the way she breathed: instinctually.
It was an in-built reflex, something her body needed in order to survive. Her arms and legs knew the rules, knew how to bend and twist and dip and switch. She spun and twirled, hips swaying, moving to a melody only she could hear. The moves came faster, quicker, more elegant and grand. Her feet pounded against the earth, drumming the ground into a clamor that roared through her. Alice’s arms were above her now, bangled arms cheering her on, and she threw her head back, face up to the sky. Faster, faster, elbows unlocking, knees bending, bangles raining music down her neck. She moved like she’d never moved before, soft and slow, sharp and fast, heels hitting and ankles flicking and fingers swimming through the air. Her skirts were a blur of color, her whole body seized by a need to know the elements, and when she was finally done, she fell to the floor.
Head bowed.
Hands folded in her lap.
Skirts billowing out around her.
Alice was a fallen flower, and she hoped she looked beautiful.
She slowly lifted her head.
The audience was looking on, only politely engaged, still waiting for her to finish. Still waiting for her talent. Alice got to her feet and felt the sun explode in her cheeks.
“Are you quite finished, dear?” This, from Mr. Lottingale.
She nodded.
“Ah,” he said, his slack jaw quickly firming into a smile. “Of course. Please rejoin the line, Ms. Queensmeadow.”
There was a halted smattering of applause, the guests looking around at one another for a cue on how to react. Alice swallowed hard against the lump in her throat and walked back to her place in line, staring firmly at her feet and hardly daring to breathe.
Eighty-two others performed after she did, and Alice wouldn’t remember any of them. There were a great many talents on display that day, and hers, as it turned out, was the strength to keep from bursting into tears in front of everyone.
<
br /> Alice could not make herself sit with Mother.
After the ceremony she found a quiet branch in a very tall tree and tried desperately to stay calm. She was inhaling and exhaling in tiny gasps and she scolded herself for it, rationalizing all the reasons why she was being ridiculous. Surely, she considered, she was just being hard on herself. She was intimidated by her peers, this was normal. Besides, she’d not expected such great talent, so she was taken by surprise. And anyway, everyone was probably feeling the same insecurities she was. Most importantly, she hadn’t been paying attention to the other performances; certainly someone else could’ve done worse.
This went on for a while.
Alice pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them tight. She would not cry, she’d decided. There was no need. So maybe (probably) (well, definitely) she wouldn’t get the best task—that was okay! Perhaps if her hopes hadn’t been so high, her disappointment wouldn’t have been so great, but she would learn from this and be better for it, and whichever task she did get would be just fine. She’d be grateful for it. Maybe it wouldn’t be a coveted task—maybe she wouldn’t even get to leave Ferenwood—but still, it would be a task, and she would be happy to finally have a purpose. It would be the start of something new.
It would be okay.
She’d finally calmed her nerves long enough to make it down the tree. There she stood, half collapsed against the trunk, and promised herself, over and over again, that everything would be okay. She had done her best, and she couldn’t have asked for more of herself.
She had done her best.
Finally, the Elders reappeared. They were all smiling (a good sign!) and this gave Alice great hope. Her shoulders sagged in relief and she managed to peek out from behind the tree.
Mr. Lottingale was the first of the ten Town Elders to speak, and each of them took a moment to say something encouraging and inspiring. They spoke with such sincerity that for a minute Alice felt silly for having reacted as she did. They were looking out at the crowd with great pride; surely she’d done better than she thought.
She inched forward a bit more, no longer hidden from view. But just as Alice was considering joining Mother’s table, the atmosphere changed. A trumpet blared and there was glitter in the air and thick, shimmery, plum-colored envelopes appeared on breakfast plates before her peers. The excitement was palpable. Everyone knew that an envelope contained a card of a specific color; each color represented a different score. There were five categories altogether, and Alice had them memorized for as long as she could count.
Score 5 || Green = Spectacularly Done
Score 4 || Blue = A Very Fine Job
Score 3 || Red = Perfectly Adequate
Score 2 || Yellow = Good Enough
Score 1 || White = Rather Unfortunate
Children were tearing their envelopes open—some with great confidence, others with great trepidation—while Alice was still straining to see if anything had arrived for her at Mother’s table.
It had, indeed.
Alice’s heart would not sit still.
She couldn’t read Mother’s face from here, but she could see Mother holding the envelope in her hand like she wasn’t quite sure what to do with it; and though she looked around the square just once, Mother didn’t seem to mind that Alice wasn’t around to pick it up. Mother often said that she could never be bothered to understand why Alice did the things she did, and now, more than ever, Alice thought never being bothered was a very lazy way to love someone.
Oliver’s back was to her, so Alice couldn’t see his face, but Mother was smiling at him, so he must have been speaking. He was likely using his gift of persuasion to ruin her life. Sure enough, after only a few seconds, Mother handed him her envelope. Just handed it over. Her entire life folded into a piece of paper and Mother just gave it away to a boy Alice wanted to kick in the teeth.
Alice nearly stomped over there and did just that.
But the truth was, Alice was still scared. She wanted to walk back into a crowd of Ferenwood folk knowing she was one of them. It was bad enough she’d been born with hardly any color, that her skin was the color of snow and her hair the color of sugar and her eyelashes the color of milk. She never liked to admit it, but the truth was true enough: By Ferenwood standards she really was the ugliest. Her world thrived on color, and she had none.
But a task did not care about color. It did not depend on anything but magical talent, and talent was something Alice thought she had; Ferenwood hearts were born with it. She, Alice Alexis Queensmeadow, had been born with a Ferenwood heart, and her talent needed a task.
She could not walk into that crowd without it.
Alice didn’t want to look at Oliver as he headed her way. She didn’t care for his pompousness and she certainly didn’t want to hear him tell her how terrible her talent was. She didn’t know what Oliver had surrendered, but Alice felt certain it was something stupid.
Oliver cleared his throat. She noticed he’d slung a well-worn bag across his body. He must’ve been on his way somewhere, and Alice hoped that meant he’d finally leave her alone.
“Hello Oliver,” Alice said curtly, plucking the envelope from his outstretched hand.
“Alice.” He nodded.
“You may go now.” She narrowed her eyes at him.
Oliver crossed his arms and leaned against the tree trunk. “Open it,” he said.
“I do not wish to open it in front of you,” she sniffed.
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t be so stiff. Just because you won’t be getting the best task doesn’t mean—”
“And how do you know I won’t?” Alice snapped, petulant in an instant. “There’s no saying I can’t still—”
“Because Kate Zuhair already did,” he said with a sigh. “Really, Alice, calm yourself. No one is judging you.”
“Oh,” she said, blinking fast. It was a small consolation, but Alice was relieved to hear that at least Danyal Rubin hadn’t been the one to best her. Still, her pride would not let her be calm. Certainly not in front of Oliver.
“I got a three, you know.”
Alice looked up. “You got a three?”
Oliver nodded. “And it’s still the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I’m not sure you’d want a five even if you’d earned it.”
Alice swallowed hard. She’d never admit this to anyone, but after that performance, she was actually hoping for a 2. Anything but a 1.
1 would be humiliating.
“Go on, then.” Oliver tapped the envelope in her hand. “All will be right as rainlight as soon as you open it.”
“Alright,” she whispered, wondering all the while why Oliver was being so nice to her. Probably he was still hoping she’d ditch her task in order to help him with his.
Which would never happen.
Her hands shook as she broke the seal on the envelope, and it was there—as fate would have it—right there, in front of Oliver Newbanks, the boy who’d crowned her the ugliest girl in all of Ferenwood, that Alice was faced with the worst reality of all.
In her envelope was no card she’d ever seen before. It wasn’t yellow or even white. It was black. A simple rectangle cut from thick, heavy paper.
Oliver gasped.
Alice flipped it over.
SCORE 0
The clouds chose that exact moment to come to life. The sky broke open and rain fell so hard and fast it nearly hurt, showering them all in what were supposed to be tears of happiness. Alice felt the cold and she felt the wet, and she felt her bones breaking inside of her, and finally she lost the strength to be brave and gained instead the heart of a coward.
So she ran away.
She ran until her chest cracked, until her lungs burned, until she stumbled and tore her skirts and the tears could no longer be held.
She couldn’t tell who was crying harder: he
rself or the sky.
By the time Oliver found her, Alice was nearly at the edge of Ferenwood, right on the border of Fennelskein, hiding under a penny bush. Alice hiccuped a sob and the pennies shook, silver chimes mocking her pain. She sniffled and choked back the last of her tears and turned her face to the clouds. The rain had stopped and the sun was bright in the sky and hundreds of rainbows had arched over everything, lending an ethereal glow to the world. Alice found the beauty unexpectedly cruel.
She did not know what happened to children who were not tasked. There had only been three children to fail their Surrender in all the hundreds of years it had gone on, and Alice had assumed they simply evaporated back into the ground. Returning to Ferenwood life certainly seemed impossible.
Maybe she would follow in the footsteps of Father and just disappear.
“Go away, Oliver,” Alice said quietly. She didn’t want to be mean to him, as he’d done nothing in the last hour to deserve it, but she also wanted to be left alone.
He crouched down beside her. “Come out from under there, Alice. I can see right up your skirts.”
“Go away,” she said again, making no effort to cross her ankles.
Neither one of them spoke for a little while.
“You really were splendid today,” Oliver finally said.
“Yes, very.”
“Oh come off it, Alice. I mean it.”
“If you’ll please excuse me,” she said stiffly, “I have a great many things to do.”
Oliver grabbed her ankles and tugged so hard Alice nearly fell into the brook nearby. She had just gotten her mouth full of terrible things to say to him when he plucked the envelope out of her clenched fist and held her black card up to the sky.
“You’re supposed to unlock it, you know.”