DELIVER ME

Kate Jarvik Birch

Bloomsbury Publishing, London, New Delhi, New York and Sydney

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First published in April 2014

by Bloomsbury Spark, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing, Inc.

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ISBN 978-1-61963-536-4

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Cover design by Tom Forget

Chapter One

There were forty-eight of us. Forty-eight girls all dressed in identical gray jumpers. In a

few minutes we were to be given our exams and by the end of the day, we’d know whether we
graduated to the gray cotton slacks and blouses worn by workers, or, if we were lucky, the silken
robes of the Carriers.

“For sixteen years you have grown up together,” the Grand Councilman said, addressing

us. “As a group you have learned and labored side by side, sacrificing your own needs for the
betterment of the collective.”

The Councilman gazed out at the group of us gathered under the domed roof of the Great

Hall and paused. We must have looked familiar to him, four-dozen girls cut from the same mold.

I turned to my left where my best friend, Odessa, stood erect, her chin raised proudly

towards the Councilman. Odessa and I shared our July birth month and so we were here together
on selection day, ready to learn what future we would wear. Behind the Councilman, nine
wooden mannequins, polished to a sheen after one hundred and seventy years of use, displayed
the royal blue robes. Odessa’s eyes were trained on them with a look of pure concentration. The
robes wouldn’t be passed out until the end of the day after we’d finished our exams and our
scores had been tallied.

Maybe the robes had been set out as inspiration or encouragement, something for us to

think about if the tests became too difficult, an actual embodiment of what our future would hold
if we excelled in the next few hours. They were far more exquisite than I’d imagined. On a few
occasions I’d seen the elegant, everyday robes that the Carriers wore, but I’d only heard stories
of the selection robes. In person, even from twenty feet away, I could see how intricate they
were, embroidered with small silver stitches in a pattern that reminded me of the morning glory
that climbed the fence outside the dining hall.

Standing in front of the robes, the Grand Councilman looked gigantic: almost seven feet

tall, barrel-chested, a behemoth of a man. If I stood next to him I might not even reach his
shoulder.

“You girls have exemplified the power of our Union,” the Councilman went on. “Today

your lives will change. Only nine of you will be chosen to be Carriers, but all of you will labor to
make our Union whole.”

“Odessa,” I whispered, poking her in the ribs. “Is that how you thought the Grand

Councilman would look?”

Odessa gave a small shake of her head, but I couldn’t tell whether she was motioning for

me to be quiet or whether she was telling me that this wasn’t the way she’d imagined the Grand
Councilman to look either.

As a girl under sixteen, I’d never seen a man up close before today. Of course I’d heard

of them, learned about their heroics in history class and watched their messages on the projector
during the State of the Union address. I’d even seen the guards from afar as they circled the outer
walls separating the military compound and women’s compound. But up until today I’d never
been in the same room with one and I hadn’t imagined that they would look so different from us,
as if they were another sort of creature entirely.

What startled me most was how much I wanted to reach out and touch them: the firm

muscles along their jaws, the pronounced ridge of their noses. The Councilman’s close cropped

hair looked so different from the women’s long hair and I wondered how it would feel; soft like
mine, or prickly and stiff like the bristles of a brush.

I nudged Odessa in the ribs again. “What do you think the skin on his face feels like? It

looks thick.”

“Shh,” she hushed.
“Sorry, Dess,” I muttered.
I hadn’t had a chance to speak to her since we’d left our barracks early this morning.

We’d been marched straight to the meeting hall and now all the worry and pent up energy rose
up in me, simmering just below my ears with a low hiss.

Without shifting her gaze, Odessa reached down and grabbed my hand.
“Testing will begin promptly,” the Grand Councilman said. “Your examiners will escort

you through your assessments one by one. There will not be another opportunity to repeat your
tests. You will have one chance and one chance only. This evening I will return to read your
results at the selection ceremony. Good luck, and may the Union strengthen you.”

The Grand Councilman gazed back over us one more time before stepping aside as a

military officer took his place at the podium.

“Line up by order of IM number,” the officer said. “Move quickly and quietly. Once

you’re lined up, you are to remove your outer clothing leaving only your undergarments. Fold
your clothes neatly and set them next to your place in line along with your personal effects. They
will be returned to you after your physical exams.”

We’d all been given a small brown sack before we left our barracks this morning to place

our belongings in. And even though we didn’t have much, the few small things we did own were
treasured. There was a great rustling and murmuring as the forty-eight of us shuffled into lines
according to our numbers. Within minutes we had stripped down to our underwear and stood in
columns of soft white skin. We didn’t have the luxury of private showers or dressing rooms in
the barracks so I was used to being undressed around the other girls, our bodies as familiar to
each other as the cots we slept in and the tables we ate on.

The line moved quickly and soon I stood at the front.
“This way,” an officer said, leading me down a hall and into an exam room.
The room wasn’t equipped with much: a sink, a scale and a table with a few doctors’

instruments. Against the wall, behind a solid oak table, a military officer sat ready to record my
results. Suddenly, dressed only in my undergarments, I felt bare, exposed in a way I never had
before and I tried to fight back the heat that rose up through my neck and spread across my
cheeks.

“Stand straight with you arms to your sides,” one of the examiners ordered.
I stood stiff, trying not to shiver while my waist was measured and then the length of my

legs from hip to heel, the span of my arms, the size of my hands and feet. The examiner called
out the numbers in a terse voice and the officer scratched my tallies into a ledger. Between
measurements he stared at me with cold eyes and every once in a while he jotted something
down in the chart, perhaps taking into account some imperfection he’d spotted, my dark hair, my
tall forehead.

With small silver calipers, the examiner measured the proportions of my face. She was

precise, calculating the distance between my eyes, the length of my nose and the fullness of my
lips.

I once read a few pages ripped from a book about the Greeks. Like our Union, they

thought proportions were important. They called it the Grecian Ideal, a way to measure

perfection with actual numbers, not the intangible idea of beauty, but something real and
calculable.

One of my keepers let me read it one night before bed. The ripped pages had been passed

down to her from a teacher she’d had when she was a girl and I’d liked them so much that she
allowed me keep them for months, hidden beneath my cot. Sometimes Odessa and I would look
at the pictures really early in the morning before anyone was up and I would imagine what it
would be like to carve out my best friend’s image, the way the Greeks had made statues out of
marble.

I thought about those stone people now.
“…and then let it out slowly,” the examiner said, looking at me sternly.
“What?”
“Take a deep breath and then let it out slowly,” she repeated.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw the officer scratch a note in my file.
I took a deep breath and released it slowly while the examiner moved a stethoscope over

my back and across my chest. Suddenly, I was keenly aware of the feel of my heart pounding,
worried its rapid thumping would detract from my score. A Carrier needed to be calm. A Carrier
should control her emotions.

“Step on the scale and then quickly get dressed,” the examiner said, pointing to my

clothes which had been placed in a small basket next to the table. “They’re expecting you in
exam room 14B and you’re already running a few minutes behind.”

I turned away from them and quickly pulled on my blouse. My fingers trembled,

struggling to button the front. The eyes of the officer pressed at my back making me trip over my
feet as I stepped into my jumper.

The examiner tapped her foot impatiently. “Move along,” she said, pointing me across

the hallway to the next exam room.

It was a long, thin room, probably thirty yards from the door to the far wall; more a

corridor than a room, designed specifically for the agility exams and it occurred to me that there
must have been a half a dozen of these rooms lined up in this part of the building, miniature
gauntlets made to test our physical resolve. At the far end of the room there was an exercise bar
for measuring pull-ups and next to it a table, where two officers sat ready to record my scores.

My head spun, my breath coming in short, shallow gasps. If I kept it up I wouldn’t make

it through half of my agility tests. Taking a deep breath, I tried to think about Odessa. How was
she faring? Better than I was, I hoped.

I needed to try harder. That was clear. I couldn’t just do well; I had to be spectacular.

Odessa and I had dreamed about being Carriers together since we were four. But we weren’t the
only ones. It was the same dream for every little girl in our Union, a trophy dangled before us
from the day we learned to talk. We wanted to be prized. We wanted to be treated to a life of
purpose and splendor. But Odessa and I wanted it more than anyone else.

“You’re five minutes late,” the agility examiner said as I closed the door behind me.
“I’m sorry,” I stammered.
“Talking will only waste more time,” she said. “We’re going to start you off with sit-

ups.” She pointed to the floor. “Get into position. You’ll have five minutes to execute as many as
possible. Don’t let your shoulder blades touch the ground. If I see they do, the sit-up won’t be
counted.”

I nodded. We’d been practicing for the agility exams since we were twelve.
The examiner motioned to one of the officers to start the timer.

“Go.”
I started off strong, pacing myself by counting to two between each sit-up. My breath

had slowed down and I felt strong. Inhale down. Exhale up. In school, three hours each day were
dedicated to fitness and agility training. Sit-ups weren’t my strongest skill, but I usually managed
to rank in the top twenty-five percent of the girls my age. It was all about concentration. If I
could let the breathing take over, I was able to focus on something else: a picture I’d seen or a
passage I’d read, then the time would slip by and before I knew it I’d be done.

The timer beeped.
“One hundred and three,” the examiner called out to the officers.
I moved on to pull-ups. My back and forehead were wet with sweat, but oddly I could

still feel the places on the corners of my temples where the cold clasp of the calipers had pressed
into my skin.

By the time I was finished with my pull-ups my arms were weak, about as solid as the

oatmeal I’d eaten for breakfast, but we were finally moving on to the area I excelled in—sprints.

“Your final test will be a timed run. You’ll have twenty minutes to complete as many

lengths of the room as possible. If you get tired you may rest, but if you stop for longer than two
minutes your test will be cut short.”

I nodded, saving my breath.
My body wasn’t used to coming to a halt and changing direction in the middle of a run,

but it adapted easily and after a dozen or so laps I’d found my pace. My lungs felt good, my
breath open, and I actually enjoyed hearing the slap of my feet on the wooden floor. I wasn’t
keeping track of the time or my number of laps. My body felt renewed, my arms had regained
their energy and they pumped steadily at my sides. If I needed to, I could run for hours.

I raised my head towards the high ceiling, smiling for the first time all day. As I lowered

my eyes they fell on the officers at their table. They frowned, taking note of my expression and
turned to talk quietly to one another.

As quickly as my good mood had come, it disappeared. It was stupid of me to think that

this run was anything but serious. If I messed up on this I wouldn’t have any chance of becoming
a Carrier. For the remaining eight minutes I stared straight ahead of me, concentrating on
pushing myself until my muscles burned. When the timer beeped I collapsed on the floor,
panting.

The examiner handed me a small cup of water and a towel to wipe my forehead. For the

first time her eyes showed a bit of compassion.

“Well done,” she said. “I’m sorry you don’t have time to rest. We need to move you

along. Follow me.”

She escorted me into the final exam room. It was small and windowless with a large desk

sitting squarely in the middle. As she turned to go, the examiner gave me a slight nod. Behind
the desk a single military officer sat straight-backed and unsmiling. Like the other men I’d seen
today he was dressed in a heavy gray uniform, the right shoulder decorated with six gold stars.

He leaned forward as I walked in, resting his elbows against the table, his big-knuckled

hands knotted in front of his face. Without smiling, he motioned for me to have a seat and
flipped quickly through my file. Finally, satisfied with what he’d read, he leaned back in his
chair and appraised me. His stare was intense, and although it felt inappropriate to match his
gaze I couldn’t get myself to look away. His eyes were the same deep amber color as Odessa’s,
but inside of them there was a tinge of cruelty, or anger that I couldn’t quite read. The look
frightened me.

Finally, he cleared his throat and flipped my file to the first page.
“G447-72?” he asked, staring down at the folder in front of him.
I nodded.
“The last exam you’ll be given today will be testing your knowledge of the Union’s

history, as well your reasoning skills.”

I nodded again, but didn’t speak. Perhaps I seemed stupid, but I wasn’t sure if he wanted

me to respond and so I opted for silence.

The officer cleared his throat, “Our Union is different from any other that has ever

existed,” he said, leaning forward to make sure he had my attention. “We don’t leave our
citizenship up to chance. The mark of a powerful nation is a population that is strong both
physically and mentally. We can’t afford even one Carrier who will bring down that standard.
You may be beautiful, and you may be able to run fast, but I’m here to evaluate your mental
state. Are you psychologically fit enough to take on the challenge of carrying the future
generations within your womb?”

He stared at me as if he expected an answer, but I didn’t move.
“Being a Carrier is a lifetime commitment. Are you prepared to serve your Union

unwaveringly?”

I thought about what it would mean to be chosen. Once selected, the nine of us would be

moved into the Carrier residence. Our bodies would be pampered and nourished, preparing us to
carry our first fetus. It would be our duty to deliver a total of ten babies, one every year until we
turned twenty-six. It was a higher calling.

“Sir, I’ll serve our Union with all my body,” I said. It was a stock comment, the kind of

thing we were taught to say as little kids, but it seemed to satisfy him.

The officer narrowed his eyes at me and shuffled the papers in front of him. “You’ll have

thirty minutes to complete your written exam, after which time I’ll be administering the IQ test.”

He slid a test packet and pencil across the table and started the timer.
“You’re wasting time,” he said, tapping his pencil against the table.
The thirty minutes felt dreadfully long. Most of the questions didn’t appear to have been

written to test our knowledge of the Union’s history so much as to quote all the precepts we’d
been taught over the years.

List the Union’s founding principles, it said.
1. The Union is bound together as one in likeness and solidarity.
2. True order can only be achieved through obedience.
3. Unity is the work of the collective. Selfishness is the work of the individual.
4. Diversity is the root of all evil.
With this doctrine may we all succeed in building a stronger Union. One people. One

Union. One Future.

How many hours in the classroom had we spent reciting these principles?
Faith, loyalty and honor to the Union. Doubt not, and we shall accomplish all.
The words were practically hardwired into my brain. We chanted these words together

every night before bedtime.

I flew through the verbal and spatial problems, marking the answers only seconds after

reading the questions. The first few were simple analogies: ruthless is to mercy as insipid is to…
flavor, eavesdrop is to conversation as trespass is to… property. Even the logic questions were
fairly elementary. I’d anticipated a staggering jump in difficulty, but the questions were simple:
Gail’s bunk has four roommates. The first is named April. The second May. The third June.

What is the name of the fourth roommate? I giggled out loud at the answer spelled out in the
question. How could anyone possibly get these wrong?

“Quiet,” the officer reminded me and I concentrated the remainder of the exam on

keeping my face emotionless.

I closed the packet with three minutes to spare and passed it across the table
“I’m glad to see the situation delights you so.”
“No, it’s not that,” I stammered. “One of the questions…”
“Silence please,” he interrupted, “You didn’t come here to socialize. Need I remind you

that today is an important and sacred day, not one to be taken lightly?”

My stomach flipped slightly at the officer’s sharp words.
“I’m sorry, sir.”
The officer ran a hand over his face and licked his lips before he went on. “Whereas the

first part of your testing was designed to highlight your intelligence, this latter part will give us a
look inside your psyche. I will begin by reading a word. You are to tell me the first word that
pops into your mind. Next I will hold up an inkblot image. You will tell me the first thing that
comes into your mind upon seeing that image. It might not be the thing it most closely
resembles, simply the thought it implies. We will alternate between words and images until
we’re done. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”
“All right.” He flipped open to a new page in my folder. “Let’s start out with a simple

word: life.”

“Breath,” I said.
He held up a picture from a stack of thick white cards. The image wasn’t a drawing or a

photograph. It looked as if a bunch of ink had been spilled over the paper and had been sponged
up. The remaining picture was peculiar, a big blob at the bottom part of the page that tapered off
into a scaly splotch before spreading back out at the top in a shape like wings.

It reminded me of the dragons from the old fairytales that one of my favorite keepers

used to tell us, but that wasn’t what the officer wanted to hear.

“Jumping jacks,” I replied instead.
The officer wrote something down in the open file and read out a new word. “Pursue.”
“Honor,” I said, trying to think of what he would have said had our roles been reversed.
The words and images came faster now. It left me disoriented and I fought to stay

focused. We continued on for the good part of an hour. I tried to say the words I thought the
Union wanted to hear, but as the officer rapidly fired the words and images at me it became
harder to come up with them. After a while, the part in my brain that was trying so desperately to
come up with satisfactory answers finally grew tired and I started saying whatever word came to
mind. Ideal, he said. Grecian, I replied. Loyalty, he said. Friendship, I replied. Happiness, he
said. Love, I told him.

Love.
It was a preposterous word to use. The Union didn’t condone love, but the notion of it

persisted anyway, whispered between us in quiet moments. There were other words the Union
didn’t mind, words like camaraderie and fellowship and unity, but for some reason those words
never seemed like enough to me.

Finally, the officer held up the last image, a heavy swirl of lines in the middle of the

page. I couldn’t make out a form in the madness, the pure black inkiness. The image seemed
hopeless, as if any purpose in it had been blotted out.

“Tragedy,” I said.
He glanced up at me for a split second. His face was lit with a hint of confusion before he

jotted down his final commentary among his notes.

“That concludes your exams,” he said, “You may be excused.”
As I stood to go there was a knock on the door.
“Yes, what is it,” the officer called, the irritation in his voice clearly showing.
The door opened and four men entered, one of them carrying a small brown bag like the

one I’d brought my personal belongings in this morning. My stomach twisted. That wasn’t my
bag, was it? Surely they hadn’t gone through our belongings while we were being tested.

“It seems we have a problem,” one of them said. “If you’re done with number G447-72

we’ll need to take her in for questioning.”

The officer who had been administering my exam glanced over at me. On his face he

wore a look of pleasure, of validation, as if he’d expected this from me all along. Quickly he
looked back to the man who’d spoken. “Yes, we’re done here,” he said. “You’re free to take the
girl.”

Chapter Two

The officers didn’t speak as they led me to a small, windowless room at the back of the

building. They closed the door behind them, motioning for me to sit and I tried to compose my
face. What did guilt look like? Could they see it written plainly across my mouth or in the flutter
of my eyelids?

With a flourish, he dumped the contents of the bag out onto a large wooden table. A

collection of objects clattered out: four small, smooth stones and a bright blue feather fell on top
of a stack of papers and a pale gray scarf. The papers had been neatly stacked in the bottom of
the bag, but now they fanned out across the smooth surface. The remnants of a dried daisy
skidded to a stop in front of me. The flower had been secured between the pages to keep its
fragile body safe, but as it had been shaken out onto the table a dozen petals had come loose.

One of the officers cleared his throat, expecting me to look up at him, but I couldn’t take

my eyes off of the discarded petals, already crumbled into flakes across the tabletop.

He cleared his throat again and I drew my eyes away from the mess, trying to blink back

the tears.

“Number G447-72, can you confirm that these are your belongings?”
I nodded slowly.
“Speak up,” he said, “for the record is that a yes or a no.”
“Yes,” I choked.
One of them began rifling through the items, clumsily crushing the blue feather so that

the shaft bent. Finally he found what he was looking for and handed over a folded piece of paper.

“How about this,” he said, shaking the paper open.
I didn’t need to look too closely. I knew what the paper was. I knew every word, every

wrinkle and smudge, every shadow in the faded photographs.

I nodded my head.
It had flitted through my mind this morning when I’d taken the paper out of its hiding

place in the hollow metal tubing of my cot that I should leave the page behind. But I couldn’t
bear to give it up. My favorite keeper had given it to me for my twelfth birthday, one of the only
presents I’d ever gotten. And besides, it was so harmless, a single sheet of paper ripped from a
book about dance rituals from the Old World. The women in the photos were dressed in white,
their long, thin arms as elegant as the swans they were meant to be.

“So you don’t deny that this is yours,” the officer asked, obviously expecting another

answer from me.

“It’s mine,” I said.
“And do you know that this is an unauthorized text, banned by the Union?”
I looked the man in the eyes. “Yes sir. I had suspected it.”
I had no idea what the punishment was for possessing unauthorized reading material.

Detention? Prison? My stomach turned. I couldn’t be sentenced to a Threshing, not for this
offense. It was illogical to worry about it, but the thought still flitted through my mind.

The Union only broadcast the Threshings four times a year. All the girls in the barracks

were called together in the meeting room and settled around the big projector screen mounted on
the far wall. It was one of the few times we were shown moving pictures and they intrigued us,
even though the images were gruesome. Maybe because the moving pictures were such a
novelty, it never really sank in that the Threshings were real events, happening to real people.
How could it seem real to see a man’s head being cut off, or a woman being drowned? As a child

it had always seemed like make-believe, horrible fairytales like the ones the mean keepers told us
to scare us into behaving.

But it felt real now.
The officer glanced around at his fellow men, confused by the ease of my confession.

“Did you not realize the penalties for possessing unapproved reading material?”

I took a deep breath and composed my face. “I thought it might not be allowed, sir, but

the pictures were so pretty. I didn’t want to throw it away.”

The man glanced down at the page as if seeing it for the first time. His forehead crinkled

as he studied the pictures. I wondered if he was drawn to the same one that I was; the row of
dancers bowed down, arms outstretched over their heads as if they really were birds, small and
vulnerable, tucking their heads beneath their wings.

The officer shook his head and looked back up at me. I knew what he was waiting to ask

me.

“And where did you get it?”
My mind raced but my voice didn’t falter as I spoke. “I found it,” I said.
The officer raised his right eyebrow, but didn’t speak.
“It was outside the ped 15 unit… stuck in between a crack in the foundation by the

windows in the dining hall. I know that I should have told one of the keepers, but I was worried
that I’d get in trouble for having it.”

I thought I saw a small flicker of relief dance across the officer’s face. He wanted to

believe me so that he didn’t have to track down another perpetrator.

“Ped 15?” he repeated. “Okay. Well I’m going to have to confiscate this from you,

anyway.” He studied the images. “It might seem like an innocuous artifact, but if it hasn’t been
approved by the government, we can’t take our chances.”

Without another thought he tore the page in half, folding it before he tore it again. I

closed my eyes, wishing that I could cover my ears to the brutal sound of ripping paper. When I
opened my eyes they were thumbing through my file.

“High marks,” one said, pointing to one of the pages.
The officer crumpled the remnants of my dancing swans inside his palm and focused on

me. His eyes took their time traveling across my body and my muscles tightened, fully aware for
the first time that I was alone with so many men. I swallowed hard. That urge I’d felt to touch
one of them earlier was gone.

“I’m not going to report you for this,” the officer said. “There’s no need to spoil things

for someone as promising as you.” As he spoke, his eyes traveled down over my body before
they slowly returned to my face.

For some reason his words didn’t comfort me. There was an undercurrent flowing

beneath them that filled me with an unexplainable sense of dread.

“Take her back to the waiting room,” the officer said. “We wouldn’t want her to be late

for the selection ceremony.”

For the second time in one day, the forty-eight of us stood together in the Great Hall. The

looks on our faces had changed from those of hopeful anticipation to nervous exhaustion and a
few of the girls had dropped their heads as if they already knew the outcome of today’s test.

Odessa’s demeanor was unscathed. Her posture was straight; her eyes still fixed solidly

on the selection robes. The testing hadn’t seemed to ruffle her the way it had some of the other
girls who looked wilted. But I knew her too well and I sensed her worry in the way her fingers
fluttered at the edge of her jumper, looking for something to hold onto.

“Your exams have all been scored,” the Councilman said, “You’ve all excelled in

strength, fitness, and mental agility, but the future of our Union depends on only the finest
Carriers. We cannot afford a weak population, not in body or in mind.”

A mournful wail escaped the lips of one of the girls at the back of the group. None of us

turned to look. Instead we stood with our eyes pointed forward as if nothing out of the ordinary
was happening. Maybe we were afraid we would see ourselves in her face. The guards
descended on her quickly, escorting her from the building and when her cries had faded the
Grand Councilman went on.

“Young women, your futures are indelibly connected. No one can erase the bond that ties

our nation together, but you must remember that although your lives will take drastically
different directions from this day forward, you all sprang from the belly of our Union. It is your
responsibility to see she lives on.”

Odessa’s fingers suddenly flitted away from her side and reached out for mine. She

squeezed my hand and turned to face me, “Wynne, you’re going to get picked. I know it.” The
pink in her cheeks was gone and her skin had taken on a sickly pallor. “What if they don’t call
me? I have this awful feeling, like I’m getting pulled along and …I feel like I can’t breathe.”

“They’ll call you, don’t worry. You’ll be the first one they call,” I told her.
I hadn’t said a thing to her about the interrogation earlier, but the sick sensation I’d had in

my stomach since they brought me back to the waiting room hadn’t gone away.

The flitter of a smile played at the corner of her lips. Odessa knew she was beautiful, but

that didn’t keep her from doubting herself. She had everything the Union wanted in a Carrier:
she was tall and slender with broad shoulders and full hips, the kind of woman who could
effortlessly bring ten babies into this world. But there was a quality beyond even those physical
attributes that had always given her the appearance of nobility. I don’t know what the Greeks
would have called it, elegance or grace. Maybe it wasn’t something you could give a name to
after all.

We were all beautiful in our own right, bred to have only the finest genes. But like

blossoms from the same plant we weren’t identical; similar yes, yet the small recessive traits that
stayed hidden in our DNA would appear every few generations, setting us each apart in subtle
ways. Like the color of my eyes, pale blue like water, compared to the deep umber of everybody
else my age. I’d learned in school that my eyes simply lacked the outer layer of pigment theirs
had, so the light shone through my iris, illuminating the slight color inside it. Still, I wondered if
this small difference had hurt my chances.

“I messed up on the history questions,” Odessa whispered, “I forgot a bunch of dates. My

mind went blank.”

“It probably wasn’t as bad as you think,” I told her.
“And the officer who was giving me my test breathed so loudly through his nose that it

sounded like he was snoring. I could hardly concentrate.”

“I bet everybody messed up some. It’s not the end of the world. Even if you did miss a

few questions, you’ll make up for it in some other part.”

She shook her head, and shrugged, looking back up at the selection robes with a new

intensity.

The night before, Odessa and I had stayed up late, the way we used to when we were

little, whispering about what it would be like once we were Carriers. We pushed our cots
together so our faces were almost touching, so close the tiny puffs of her breath fluttered against
my cheek.

None of us had been outside the small world of the ped units and we liked to imagine

what the Carrier residence was like. We were used to tight quarters, the rows of small bunks in
our sleeping barracks and neatly lined tables in the dining hall, and the thought of space to
stretch, to be alone, was an indulgence we could hardly fathom.

The Carriers didn’t share barracks like the rest of the population. They lived in a large

stone building near the Union offices. It wasn’t like the worker units or the barracks, which were
long, narrow buildings only a few stories high, clad in weathered gray clapboard and dark
shingles. The Carrier residence was built to be beautiful, to reflect on the outside the importance
of what it contained.

I’ve seen pictures of palaces from the Old World, buildings with high elegant windows

and stately columns. The government says our Union has thrown off all the shackles of the Old
World, but it’s clear the Carrier residence is still tied to the designs of the past.

From the upper windows in our barracks we could see the grand building, erected on a

small hill in the very heart of the city so its pale stone walls would be seen from almost any
direction. All the cities in the Union had a regal manor to house their many Carriers; just over
one thousand in each city to meet the capital’s quota. But the buildings were not all equal. I’d
seen pictures of them all and ours was the most glorious by far. Ours was the only one built out
of granite. When the sun hit it just right, the pale gray stone shone.

Of course none of us had ever seen the inside, but our history books contained long

passages describing the opulence, the large bedrooms, the high ceilings and private balconies, the
fancy linen, thickly woven rugs and real down comforters. They wanted us to know it, to dream
about it, to aspire to it.

Odessa and I each had different things we fantasized about. Odessa was obsessed with

the fresh fruit, and the fine cuts of meat, the cream and sugar we would get every morning with
our breakfast oats. She imagined that we would have all the paper and pencils we wanted and we
could rest our bodies on cushioned lounge chairs and spend the day drawing. I fantasized about
those things too, but mostly I dreamt of my time being my own, not dictated by anyone. If I
wanted to draw, I’d draw. If I wanted to read, I’d read, and not just about the history of our
Union, but about whatever I pleased. No one had come right out and told me I’d be able to do
this once I was a Carrier, but that didn’t stop me from dreaming it.

“Do you think the beds are really big enough for two people to fit in?” I’d asked, my

voice so low I hardly heard the words once they left my mouth.

In the dark I’d seen the white of Odessa’s smile. “I hope so.”
“When we’re Carriers we should still share a room. Do you think they’ll let us?” Odessa

had said, her eyes large and glistening in the dark, “I don’t want a room all by myself. I’d miss
you too much.”

Odessa and I couldn’t remember a night we’d spent apart. When we were little, Odessa

used to be afraid of the dark and sometimes when she would wake from a bad dream I’d sing to
her, happy little melodies I made up about talking mice, or girls who could fly. Even though we
were practically grown and she didn’t need me to sing to her at night anymore, sometimes I still
stroked her hair after the lights turned out and hummed some of those old tunes.

“When we’re Carriers,” I’d told her, “We can do whatever we like. If we want to share a

room, we’ll share a room. No one would dare separate us.”

Other girls had friends, best friends even, but none of them were like us. It seemed that

other girls were always orbiting in and out of friendships. When we would graduate from one
unit to another, dynamics would shift, but Odessa and I were always constant. We could

understand each other without speaking. We could make each other laugh with the smallest
facial expression, like our very own language of winks and nods.

Odessa had sighed and laid her head against my shoulder, and I closed my eyes and

hummed the tune of a song I used to sing when we were little, about two girls who flew away
and made their home on the moon.

“And now the time for selection has come,” the Councilman said, opening an ornate

leather ledger containing the nine chosen names. “When called, please step forward and take
your place behind me.”

Around me, I felt the whisper of a collective breath drawn in by all the girls. We held it

deep in our chests, afraid to let it go, afraid to breathe.

The Grand Councilman studied the paper in front of him, “G454-71.”
His voice reverberated through the hall, bouncing off the carefully carved stonework and

the dark wooden floors. For a moment we all stood still, letting the number ricochet around
inside us.

The girl who stepped forward carried an air of superiority about her that had always

bothered me. I didn’t think she was any more beautiful than Odessa or me, and her hair was a
strange color, tinged with a bit of orange, but she was taller by at least a couple of inches. I knew
she was strong, but I also knew with certainty that she wasn’t any smarter than us. In class her
answers always sounded rote and memorized, as if she didn’t really give thought to what she was
saying, but had taken great care to repeat things word for word from the textbook.

Maybe I was completely off base, assuming I knew what the Union wanted in their

Carriers. Maybe it was all about beauty, height and strength, maybe nothing else really mattered.
Maybe the rest of the test was simply a formality.

The Grand Councilman watched as the first of the robes was placed over the girl’s

shoulders before he turned back to us with an expression of satisfaction on his face. The look
sent a chill through me. He looked back down at the ledger in front of him and called out the
next number, “G458-89.”

G458-89.
Of course I recognized the number. It was imprinted in my mind, the digits as clear in my

memory as they were tattooed into the soft skin of Odessa’s forearm. The breath of air I’d been
holding escaped my lips and I turned to my best friend, pushing her forward to the podium.

Odessa, beautiful Odessa.
I knew she would be called. Maybe she hadn’t been first, but she was close. Pride pushed

at the inside of my chest and I suppressed a cheer. If only we were allowed to clap at least, but
the selection was a sacred moment and I had to keep my emotions contained. Later tonight I
could tell Odessa how proud I was of her.

On the podium, one of the elegant Carrier robes was being placed over Odessa’s

shoulders. From somewhere deep inside my head a low humming had begun. My fingers and
toes felt strange, tingly. I rubbed my hands together, trying to concentrate on the Grand
Councilman’s words.

Six more numbers were called and progressively, as each girl took her place on the stand,

I began to see the panic setting in on Odessa’s face. Normally, she would have caught my eye
and made a funny face to break the tension, but she hardly looked like herself up there. The color
still hadn’t returned to her cheeks and a bit of perspiration had sprouted on her forehead. In her

eyes I saw the look of someone desperate, someone hungry. Only one more number left to call.
Around me some of the girls were weeping silently, maybe it was because they were overcome
with the pressure of it all, or maybe they realized their dreams of being a Carrier were dying out,
merely the flicker of a flame remaining.

The last robe hung limply on its form. Beneath the other selection robes the bodies of

eight lucky girls fidgeted, waiting to see if one of their friends would be called. I caught
Odessa’s eye and tried to smile, but my lips stuck to my teeth, tight and dry. The moments
clicked slowly by, an eternity of waiting. What sort of future would I have if I wasn’t a Carrier?

Finally the Grand Councilman spoke, “The ninth and final Carrier is…D456-06.”
Odessa covered her face with her hands, but I couldn’t move; my body was completely

numb.

It wasn’t my number. It wasn’t. My number hadn’t been called.
For a moment things slowed around me. Sixteen years had brought me to this point in

time and here I was completely unprepared. The air seemed to vibrate, my mind racing to catch
up with the real world. I could almost see the split before me. In one direction was the future I’d
imagined, in the other lay the hazy reality I’d stepped into.

I didn’t get to say goodbye to Odessa. One minute she was behind the podium and the

next she was gone, swept away from me.

Chapter Three

My head spun. I turned to look at the other girls. An identical look of confusion paralyzed

each face: jaws slack, eyes vacant. None of us noticed that an officer had begun speaking to us
from behind the podium. It took a few moments for the recognition of his voice to sink in and
slowly we raised our eyes towards him. Our ears gradually began to comprehend his words.

“…The Union will not tolerate complaint or self-pity. Your future has been decided and

it is now your duty to turn your life over to serving the Union completely.”

A few last sniffs sounded from among us. It was time to do what we’d been bred for. It

was time to get to work.

“Your exams have been carefully evaluated and your individual capabilities have been

taken into consideration in determining your initial job placement. Some of you have been
chosen to be members of the Junior Guard,” he said, holding up a fist-sized red patch in the
shape of a star. “Wear these well and help uphold the Union’s values.”

With this announcement the mood in the room shifted ever so slightly. We took a deep

breath en masse and stood up a little straighter, ready to move on with things.

Behind us the double doors leading to the assembly room opened. Inside, two tables were

covered with neatly stacked piles of blouses and pants; our new uniforms, the wardrobe we
would wear for the rest of our lives.

A small buzz had started to thrum through the room. Some of the girls turned to each

other to wonder out loud about what job they’d be assigned to.

As a child I had directed all my energy into imagining what it would be like to be a

Carrier. Now that things had changed, my mind was churning, trying to dredge up all the jobs I’d
ever heard of, but I could only think of dreadful things: slaving over the hot tubs of soapy water
in the laundry division, or baking huge vats of oatmeal in the kitchen.

Behind one of the tables a few officers were calling out numbers and issuing uniforms

along with new work assignments. A few of the girls were already clutching red stars. I strained
to listen as some of the girls were told their new jobs: clerk in marking, production coordinator
for the warehouse. They were handed a gray stack of clothing and dismissed. Most everyone was
being assigned as workers, but a few unlucky girls had been marked as servants. Along with a
gray blouse and pants, a yellow headscarf had been placed with their uniform.

The girl who stood in front of me was assigned to be a cleaning laborer. She turned to

face me with a ghastly expression.

“It’ll be all right,” I started to say, but I didn’t get to finish my sentence.
“G447-72,” one of the officers called.
My number.
As I stepped forward my legs wobbled. Maybe my muscles were overly exhausted from

the exams, or maybe the stress of the day had finally gotten to me. I staggered forward, bumping
into the edge of the table and caught myself, sending a stack of clothes tumbling into a pile on
the floor.

The officer glared at me, “Your uniform,” he said, pointing to the pile.
I scooped them up. There wasn’t a red star on top of my pile, but I didn’t really care. One

less thing to worry about.

He opened a file and pulled a paper out, checking it against the ledger in front of him.

“All right, you’ve been assigned to the delivery unit. Your new barracks number is listed

at the bottom of this paper along with a brief description of your responsibilities.” He handed me
the sheet. “A mentor from your division has already been assigned to you. Do you have any
questions?”

Sure, I had plenty of questions but I couldn’t form them into words. My mouth felt

heavy, full of rocks. I mumbled out a, “No, sir,” and turned to go.

A group of girls had clustered together in the center of the room, clutching their new

uniforms and their small brown bags holding their personal items. They murmured softly over
their assignments.

“What barracks are you in?” a girl asked me, stepping off of the periphery of the group. I

looked up at her. It was Maren. We weren’t close friends, but she’d always been friendly to me
and Odessa. I wasn’t surprised that she hadn’t been picked to be a Carrier. She was a pretty girl,
but she was quite a bit shorter than the rest of us and her nose had a very different look to it,
turning slightly up at the end.

I glanced down at the assignment paper the officer handed me, but the thick block of

words were a barricade my mind couldn’t penetrate. My eyes circled the page, trying to find a
place to enter. I scanned down to the bottom where the officer had pointed out the barracks
number.

“Fifty-nine,” I said, looking up at Maren’s face.
Her eyes were lined with soft pink, as if she’d been crying, “Maybe fifty-nine is lucky.

I’m in it too.” She smiled. “What’s your assignment?”

I tried to remember what the officer had told me, “delivery something,” I said.
“I’m in the wool mill. I thought it would be awful but the description doesn’t sound too

bad.”

Oh, I’d forgotten about the job description. I started to scan over the paper, but I was

interrupted by one of the officers.

“Line up according to your new barracks number,” he said, continuing to list off

numbers as he motioned to the lines we needed to arrange ourselves in. Maren and I shuffled into
the sixth line with a few other girls.

I clutched my new uniform to my chest with the sheet of paper on top. I was impatient to

read it. Already an officer was leading our group back through the Great Hall, out of the large
double doors, and down the wide front steps of the Union Building.

Earlier this morning as we’d walked from our barracks to the center of the city, the

surroundings had all been new and bright with possibility. As little girls we’d never strayed from
our quarters. We’d had everything we needed there: our sleeping accommodations, the dining
hall, the school and small playground. Even the track we ran each day only circled the field
directly behind our buildings. From it we could see the walls of the other barracks where we’d
lived as smaller children, moving over a building as we grew from baby to toddler to grade-
schooler. Every year we’d graduated up, moving to the next unit in the small circle of buildings
that surrounded us.

But this morning, for the first time, we’d walked out the front door of our barracks and

through the courtyard, past other units looking almost identical to the ones we’d grown up in.
The barracks and work units had seemed to go on forever, but then we’d rounded another
building and had come out into the large square separating the barracks from the factories. From
the upstairs windows in our barracks we had been able to see the tips of the smokestacks but up
close they were massive, pillars of stone rising high into the sky above our heads.

We’d passed the factories and the mill. Behind them a wide river and a high brick wall

separated the women’s compound from the men’s, and closer to the Union buildings the river
split into two streams that circled the city center, turning it into an island. A group of military
officers guarded the bridge leading into the city. I’d never seen so much water up close before;
couldn’t have imagined the way the early sun shone off of it, throwing the light against the little
ripples so the surface glittered; a million shards of gleaming glass. As we’d walked the rest of the
way to the Great Hall I had still seen the bits of light floating in front of my eyes, dusting the city
with promise.

But now as we marched back past the same buildings towards the barracks, I saw the

landmarks for what they really were. The stone on the Union buildings was dull. The glassy
surface of the river reflected the pewter gray of the sky.

At the bridge, the officer leading us halted, pointing us towards a small stone building.

The factories loomed large in front of us. We hesitated at the edge of the bridge, shifting our
weight from one foot to the other, unable to take the first step.

“What are you waiting for,” the officer said impatiently, “Proceed to the IM building for

numbering and then move on to your new barracks. Your mentors are waiting for you.”

I reached for Maren’s hand. It was much smaller than Odessa’s, but her skin was

comfortingly warm and she squeezed back with enough strength to give me courage to step
forward.

“I’d almost forgotten,” I said, standing still and looking up at the building.
“I don’t remember it…from last time. Do you?” she asked me.
I shook my head. Everyone in the Union gets their first set of numbers when they’re born.

To a baby the pain must be temporary and once the needle leaves her skin and the mark has bled
and scabbed up, the memory doesn’t even live on in her consciousness. I’ve known some people
who say they can remember getting their second set of numbers at eighteen months old, but I
don’t remember it. I might be able to convince myself that somewhere deep in my brain I
remember the scab, remember the raw pain on my little arm, but that could be a dream or
someone else’s memory I mistook for my own.

“I don’t remember either,” I said.
At the door, a woman stood ready to take our numbers. We filed past her, still in order of

our new barracks number and she lifted the sleeve of our blouses, taking down the six digits on
our forearm, adding three more to a slip of paper which she handed to us as we passed, pointing
us down a hallway towards a grouping of closed doors.

I looked down at the small card in my hand. G447-72, it said. The numbers were familiar.

I saw them more than I saw my own reflection. Scratched next to the numbers I’d carried for
most of my life, were three new digits: W99. The W meant worker. If I’d been chosen to be a
Carrier there would have been a C in front of the last two digits. But that hadn’t happened. For
the rest of my life I would have the W etched into my skin to remind me of my position in the
Union. Worker. That was all I’d ever be.

Behind the closed doors the machine buzzed, droning like a hive of worried bees. The

sound made my stomach clench and for a moment I thought I might be sick.

The line moved quickly, too quickly. I tried not to watch the faces of the girls in front of

me as they exited the little rooms clutching a bandage to their forearm, but I couldn’t draw my
eyes away from them. Some were pale white, ghostly forms of girls floating past me down the
hall and out of sight, while others were red from crying.

The door to my right opened and a technician beckoned me inside. In her hand she held a

metal pen with a two cylinders stuck to the end of it. A long cord connected it to another
machine. I stood frozen inside the doorway, staring at it. I remembered the shape. From
somewhere deep in my mind the memory of it surfaced. A bit of bile rose in my mouth, but I
pushed it down, the strong taste of acid burning the back of my throat.

“Sit down,” the technician said, taking the paper out of my shaking hands. “Don’t worry,

this will only hurt for a minute. I’ll be fast.”

The machine flipped on, buzzing madly and I stared up into the technician’s face as she

wet a piece of transfer paper and aligned the new numbers on my arm. Her eyes were soft. Inside
them I saw a look of pity, or apology. What a terrible job to have.

The machine buzzed and I closed my eyes to the pain. Where was Odessa? Were there

already three new digits marked into her soft skin? Three new digits that I’d never know.

“All done,” the technician said.
I stared down at my arm, surprised at how quickly she’d worked. She wiped off a little

blood and applied a small amount of clear ointment to the new numbers before she wrapped
them in a bandage.

I stood to go, “Thank you,” I said.
The words surprised me as they left my mouth, but they felt right.
She looked back up at me, confused. Maybe my face appeared a little startled too by the

unexpected bit of gratitude.

“Good luck,” she said.
We lined back up outside the building, waiting for the last few girls to finish up inside.

Maren’s face was pale, but she smiled at me as she came and stood beside me in line.

“I’m glad I don’t have to do that again,” she said.
We walked quickly away from the IM building, happy to be done with that place. Maren

and I led the group of four other girls who were also assigned to our barracks. We retraced our
steps from this morning past the mill, past the factories and into the square leading to the
barracks and work units. It felt funny, not being escorted through the streets, but there was a
peculiar new sense of freedom, as if I’d suddenly stepped into a life that wasn’t my own.

The barracks radiated out from the center of the city. Walking back from the government

buildings towards the outside of the women’s compound, we followed the inner courtyard
between the first and second row of barracks working our way outward. None of us knew exactly
where number 59 would be, but we ticked off the numbers as we passed.

All my life I’d stared out the windows across the city towards these barracks but I’d

never really considered how many of them there were. I guess I’d always just taken for granted
how huge the Union was, and that wasn’t even counting the other cities besides our own. I knew
they were out there, even if I’d never seen them with my own eyes. I’d read about them in our
history books and heard the Grand Councilman speak about them in the quarterly broadcasts.
There were twenty-two cities in all, stretching 800 miles from the Western Ocean to the
mountains. And ours was perched on the Eastern edge, the last bastion of civilization before the
crumbled remnants of the Old World.

The smooth pebbles rolled around in my bag as we walked and I clutched my belongings

closer to my chest, as if these small artifacts could ground me. I fought back tears thinking about
the page that the officers had torn up. I could still see the dancers behind my eyes, but I was
worried that soon they would start to fade.

At least I still had my little stones. If the officers had known the story behind them they

would have taken them away from me as well. But only Odessa and I knew that story.

“This is going to take forever,” one of the girls complained, clutching her bandaged arm

as we tromped along.

I walked beside Maren and thought back to the day that Odessa and I got our stones.

Keeper Bethna had given a whirligig made of a large button and a ball of twine to her small
group of favorites. But there was only one button and, of course, the girls didn’t want to share
with us so they snuck off to their hiding place next to the staircase.

It was Odessa’s idea to make the babies. She was nine, and for the past year she’d been

obsessed with the little girls that we saw out of our windows playing on the slides at the ped 3
playground. She wanted to hold them in her lap and tell them stories, but we were only allowed
to play with the girls in our own unit.

We snuck the hair trimming scissors from Keeper Bethna and used them to cut up one of

Odessa’s old jumpers. I tied the strips of gray fabric into a little ball to make a head and attached
it to larger pieces of fabric for the body so that our little babies looked like they were wearing
long gray jumpers to match our own.

Odessa’s eyes shone when I handed her the baby. She held it gently, the way I imagined

that she would hold a real baby, cradling it against her chest and humming as she swayed slowly
back and forth.

We took our babies outside and sat in the shade of the lone sycamore tree that stood in

the middle of the grass field between the units. Odessa named her baby Winnie and I named
mine Dess and we sang them all the songs that I’d made up and fed them puzzle-shaped chips of
bark that we peeled off of the tree. Everything was fine until we came in for lunch and Keeper
Bethna saw our babies.

“Where did you get these?” she demanded, snatching them away.
Odessa started to cry right away, worried because we’d stolen the scissors to make them.
“We made them from a rag,” I said, hoping that she’d give them back once she realized

that they weren’t worth anything.

“Are these supposed to be dolls?” she asked.
I shrugged. “They’re supposed to be babies,” I told her.
“No, these are dolls,” Keeper Bethna said, tearing at the little cloth bodies. “You are not

allowed to play with dolls. It teaches unhealthy associations.”

I didn’t know what unhealthy associations were, but I hated to watch my best friend cry

into her pea soup. After lunch when Odessa went to lie down on her cot I went outside to the
running track and walked around the broad loop until I found four of the most perfectly round
stones that I could see.

When I came back inside Odessa was asleep on her cot. I could still see the tracks on her

skin where she’d wiped away her tears with dirty fingers.

I shook her awake and opened her hand, placing the little stones in her palm.
“What are these for?” she asked, her voice still a little shaky.
I leaned in close to her. “This is our new rock family,” I whispered, pointing to each

pebble, “The black one’s the father, the gray sparkly one’s the mother and the two white
speckled ones are Winnie and Dess.”

Odessa smiled and closed her fingers around the stones.
We didn’t play with our rock family in front of anyone else. When the weather was nice

we went outside with them and played at the base of the tree where we made little houses out of

sticks and leaves and if it got too cold or wet to play outside we moved our game into the storage
closet on the second floor. Sometimes we found leftover cotton balls or tissues that we could turn
into beds like the ones we imagined that they had in the Carrier residence.

Now, as we cut through the small alleyways leading to our new barracks, I reached into

my bag and pulled out the two white speckled stones. I was grateful that Odessa hadn’t taken
half of our family with her. It felt good to hold them together in my hand.

“Look,” Maren said, coming to a stop. “There’s number 53.”
Some of the girls ran ahead towards the next grouping of barracks.
“Here it is,” someone called out, “Number 59.”
I rubbed my fingers over the smooth stones and turned to Maren. “It looks like we’re

home.”

Chapter Four

Barracks 59 was identical to all the others, except, of course, for the large, black 59

painted above the door. Like all the others, this one opened into the dining hall, a long narrow
room lined with two rows of wooden tables and chairs, enough to seat the two hundred and fifty
women living here at one time. The room was empty now, the tables wiped clean and the chairs
all pushed neatly underneath them.

But unlike the ped units, this building felt empty, quiet. I’d only ever occupied rooms

with dozens of other girls and the stillness was unsettling. It pushed the little group of us closer
together, clumped inside the front door.

“Where is everyone?” Maren asked.
“I guess they’re working,” I said.
“Of course they’re working,” said the girl standing behind me, “What did you think,

they’d be throwing us a welcoming party?”

On the far side of the room a woman dressed in a gray blouse and pants, that matched the

ones we’d just received, walked through a pair of double doors. She was a lot older than the
keepers we always had in our ped units. Most of them were girls in their early twenties, girls
young enough to be able to contend with so many children. This woman was quite a bit older.
The streaks of gray in her hair and the lines around her eyes weren’t so obvious from a distance,
but as she walked briskly across the room towards us they became clear. It wasn’t too difficult to
imagine that her body had once been lean and spry, but the years had left their mark, adding girth
to her hips, pulling at the skin along her jaw line. She stopped in front of us and put her hands on
her hips.

“Why does it take longer every month?” she asked, “I’ve been waiting around for half an

hour. If the selection committee thinks I have so much extra time in my day to wait around, why
don’t they come clean fifty toilets? Maybe then they’ll see what a difference half an hour
makes.”

She stared at each of us, taking us in. We stood silently, wondering if she really expected

us to give her a response.

“Oh come in, come in, I’m the house mistress,” she finally said, shooing us back through

the double doors and into a long hallway running the length of the building. “I’ll quickly show
you the bunk you’ll be sharing and then you’ll need to hurry off to your work assignments. Your
mentors won’t have much time with you today.”

I followed her down the hallway with Maren clutching at the back of my jumper. Already

I saw these barracks weren’t as similar as I’d first suspected. The sleeping quarters in our old
barracks had been one long, open room spanning the back of the building with rows of cots lined
closely together. But here there was a long hallway running the length of the building. It was
lined with closed doors that we sped past. Finally, we came to the end of the hallway and the
mistress stopped and opened the last door on the right.

“I’ll let you organize yourselves,” she said, “As you can see we still have a couple of

empty beds. It’s not likely they’ll fill up, but if someone gets transferred here it could always
happen, so don’t count on the extra space.”

I followed her into the room. It wasn’t large, about fifteen feet wide by twenty feet long

with a window on the far side of the wall. Instead of cots there were five beds spaced out against
either wall. In between each was a narrow dresser attached to a small, built-in desk. I’d always
assumed the worker’s units were cramped. I’d never imagined a desk or a dresser of my own.

“You’ll find extra uniforms in the drawers. I expect they’ll fit you all, except maybe

you,” she said to Maren, “You’ll have to ask your mentor to order you a smaller size.”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Maren’s face redden.
“I’ll give you ten minutes to settle in and change into your uniforms,” the mistress said,

“Then you’ll really have to get going. You probably won’t get written up for tardiness on your
first day, but you better not take your chances.” She gave us all a weak smile and closed the door
behind her.

None of us spoke. We stood near the doorway, eyeing the beds, the dressers. After a

minute I stepped forward. “If none of you mind, I’ll take the bed by the window.”

“Actually, I think I’d better take it, being in the Youth Guard and all…to keep an eye on

things,” the girl behind me said, pushing past me. She walked over to the bed by the window and
set her uniform down before turning around to face me.

I recognized her from school, but it took me a moment to remember her name, Anika.

She had light hair the color of dried grass and her eyes were particularly dark, spaced a little too
close together. We’d never gotten to know each other very well. We hadn’t sat next to one
another in class or at the dining hall or even played with the same group of girls on the
playground when we were little.

“Come on Lindy,” she said, urging her friend to step forward and take the bed across

from her before switching her attention back to me. “I’m sorry, Wynne,” she said, folding her
arms across her chest, “I know you’re probably missing Odessa and it’s really not that I want to
make things any more difficult for you. It must be hard to see your best friend make
Carrier…and you… being made a worker and all. But the Youth Guard is important and it’s not
something I take lightly. We have to be more diligent now than ever. After all, we don’t have
keepers to monitor things anymore. But I promise, I’ll do my best to keep things in order.”

Anika walked forward and gave me a little hug. “Don’t worry. If you start missing

Odessa too much remember we’re all here for you.”

I nodded dumbly. Something about Anika’s words didn’t feel comforting at all, but I

couldn’t think about it right now. My mind couldn’t move past Odessa. Odessa. Why did Anika
have to keep saying her name? The pain flashed new and for a moment I was grateful for the
numbering on my arm, its ache clear and distracting.

Slowly, I sat down on the bed closest to the door and slipped out of my jumper and into

my uniform, lying back against the pillow. My assignment paper crinkled underneath my elbow
and I pulled it out. I still had a couple of minutes before we’d get sent off to meet our mentors.

One bed over from mine, Maren was looking over her paper as well. She didn’t speak to

me, but I could tell by where she’d placed herself that she was my friend. On the other side of the
room Anika and Lindy were exploring the new space, opening the dressers and looking under the
bed. They cracked open a small door on the side of the room and let out a happy shriek. “It’s a
toilet,” they yelled. “We have our own bathroom. There’s a shower too, and a sink.” The two
other girls jumped up to see.

I was tempted to get up too, but I hung back on my bed and read my job description. If I

was going to be expected to start working I at least wanted to know what I’d be doing.
DELIVERY UNIT was stamped at the top of the page. I wouldn’t mind delivering things:
messages, boxes. A courier. Maybe I’d be taking packages and files back and forth. I could get
outside. Maybe I could even run.

I read on.
Job description:

Delivery unit: Carrier and newborn assistant
I skipped forward, scanning over the next paragraph. Delivery. It couldn’t mean that sort

of delivery.. I didn’t know anything about babies or pregnant women.

But that was exactly how it appeared. Assistant will be responsible for both pre and post

delivery care of Carriers and newborns, it said.

Why would they give this job to me? It stung. A slap in the face. I wasn’t good enough to

be picked as a Carrier, but I could wait on them, like a servant.

The door opened and the house mistress walked back in carrying a large, spiral bound

book, “Okay, girls. It’s time to send you off to your work assignments. I need you to line up and
tell me your new job title so I can send you to the right place.” She nodded her head at Maren,
“We’ll start with you.”

Maren stepped forward timidly, “Wool mill,” she said, leaning forward to look at the

notebook.

“It’s not so bad,” the woman said, “I’ve worked there before.” She circled something on

the paper in front of her and tore it out of the book. I glanced over Maren’s shoulder at the paper,
which appeared to be a map of the city. The wool mill, circled in red ink, looked to be fairly
close to our barracks, just a straight line down the alleyways towards the river.

The mistress raised her head. “Next,” she called.
Anika pushed Lindy forward.
“Paper recycling,” Lindy said, and again the woman circled the location on the map and

handed the paper over.

Anika stepped forward. “Clerk, identity marking unit,” she said, clearly pleased with the

position she’d been given. I couldn’t imagine why. How could she want to go back there? I
didn’t care if the position was prestigious. I didn’t want to set foot in that building again.

“Well I don’t really need to give you one of these,” the mistress said, a little annoyed,

“You just came from there. Certainly you can find your way back.”

Anika shrugged.
“And how about you,” she asked, looking at me.
My throat constricted as I thought again about my position. “Delivery,” I said, barely

getting the word out.

The mistress looked up from the map without circling anything. “What? Are you sure it

said that? That can’t be right,” she said. “Where’s your paper?”

I handed her the crumpled sheet lying on top of my bed and she held it up close to her

face, scanning over the writing. Her forehead crinkled, concentrating, and she skimmed over the
paper one last time before looking back up at me.

“Well this looks right. I suppose I’ll have to send you there and if there’s been some

mistake they can always send you back. I’ve never heard of anyone being assigned to delivery
right out of selection. It’s usually a second or third assignment.” She smiled at me. “I guess you
should be proud of yourself. The committee obviously saw some potential in you.”

I tried to give her a feeble smile, but my heart wasn’t in it. Potential? Obviously they

hadn’t seen enough to pick me as a Carrier. No, I wasn’t proud.

The mistress ripped off a map and handed it to me. “The delivery unit is actually behind

the identity marking building. If you’d walked out the back door you would have seen it.” She
circled the spot on the map and handed it over to me, smiling.

I nodded thanks, wishing I had time to look back over the job description once more, but

the Mistress was already finishing up with the other girls and was once again shooing us into the
hallway.

We set back out through the side streets. One by one the girls split off until it was just

Maren, Anika, and me.

“Wow, that’s really great about your assignment Wynne,” Anika said, smiling, “I think

delivery is just as prestigious as IM.”

“Thanks,” I said, but my response lacked any luster.
Anika’s stride slowed a bit and she fell back behind us. The boldness of her stare hit my

back and Maren and I walked in uncomfortable silence until we reached the mill.

Together, we stared up at the large building. It wasn’t quite as foreboding as some of the

other factories surrounding it and we both managed a brave smile.

“Good luck,” I called to Maren as she walked through the front door.
Across a small courtyard I saw the dark stone of the identity marking building and

beyond it, the rooftop of what must have been delivery. Anika didn’t say goodbye to me as she
stalked off to her new job.

The delivery unit was far nicer than the other buildings surrounding it. The stone was

pale and smooth and the tall, thin windows resembled the ones on the Carrier residence. It hadn’t
occurred to me that the delivery building would have to be nice to maintain the same level of
luxury Carriers were used to.

There was a set of grand double doors at the front of the building. I hesitated, unsure. Off

to the side I noticed a smaller service entrance. I walked through, hoping I’d chosen the right
door. Inside, shelves stacked with linens and boxes of supplies lined the walls.

In front of me a door swung open and a woman walked through carrying a box on her

hip. She stopped when she saw me.

“Finally,” she sighed, “I was starting to think the committee had made a mistake.”
“I’m sorry,” I squeaked, “I hope I haven’t thrown off your schedule.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” she said, stacking a pile of clean white sheets onto one of the shelves.

“Luckily, it’s been a quiet day. We had one birth this morning and we have another Carrier
laboring right now, but the baby probably won’t come for another few hours. There will be
plenty of time to show you the ropes.”

She smiled at me and stuck out her hand for me to shake, “I’m Etta, your mentor.”
I reached out timidly to shake her hand. Etta was a commanding presence, taller than me,

barrel-chested and big boned. Her bearing reminded me of the military officers I’d seen earlier,
although she lacked their hard edges. If she’d been born a boy she would have been assigned to
the military.

Overhead, the light flickered. The lighting in the room was harsh, bringing out a

roughness in the pink skin on her face, but I thought I could see the beauty that used to reside
there, years ago when her skin had been smoother, her hair still full and shiny with youth.

“I looked over your scores,” Etta said, “I don’t think you’ll have any trouble picking

things up.”

“You saw my scores?” I blurted out.
I wanted a chance to look at them so badly. What faults had they found in me? What had

gone wrong?

Etta cocked her head, a little surprised by my enthusiasm. “Yes, your scores were sent

over with your job assignment. Your marks were high.”

She paused, perhaps thinking that I wanted her to elaborate on how well I had done in my

testing. Maybe she thought I was bragging, saying I’d done well enough to land a job here, but
that wasn’t what I meant.

Etta went on, “I have every confidence you’ll excel, as long as you’re a hard worker and

don’t let the Carriers get to you. You have to remember that even though we shared the same
childhood with them they’ve led different lives since they were chosen. They’re different sorts of
people than we are. Remember that and it won’t get to you.”

“Okay,” I said, thinking of Odessa. A different person? Surely she wasn’t going to

change into someone else.

Etta motioned for me to follow her, leading me through the storage rooms and then into

the newborn unit. Only two of the cribs held babies, but there was room for a dozen more.

“The babies only stay here for a short time. We see to their numbering and make sure

they get the doctors’ approval before we deliver them to the infant unit.”

“Where are the doctors?” I asked, looking around.
Etta laughed uncomfortably, “I guess I should warn you about the doctors too. They’re

almost as bad as the Carriers. The best advice I can give you is to keep your distance. Answer
them with, ‘yes Doctor’, and don’t stare at them.”

“Don’t stare?” I asked. “Why?”
“They look different than us. Have you ever seen a child with a birth defect?”
I shook my head.
“Well sometimes there are babies born that obviously won’t grow up to be potential

Carriers. Sometimes they’re abnormally small or have a defective limb: one leg that’s shorter
than the other one, something like that. After their eighteen-month inspection if they’re seen to
be…” she paused, finding the right word, “physically substandard, then they’re sent away.
There’s a special site outside each city that raises them. They only focus on schooling since
there’s no need to fuss with physical training. They grow up to be very smart, the ones that live,
that is. They’re good at delivering babies, even when things go wrong. But they’re… strange.”

I nodded as if I understood. “And are they all women?”
Etta nodded. “Yes. They live here on the premises, but I’ll show you the entrance to their

quarters another time.”

She pointed out all the things I needed to remember to care for the infants, “Really the

babies are easy,” she said, “feed them, keep them clean and let them sleep. It’s the Carriers that
are difficult.”

She led me up a staircase to the second floor. The hallway was wide and lined with shiny

wooden floors.

“Yep, it’s beautiful,” she said, catching my gaze, “but let me warn you, when you’re not

delivering babies you’ll be spending plenty of time cleaning this place. Bigger is definitely not
always better.”

Half a dozen doors lined the hallway on both sides and Etta opened the first one we came

to. “We have twelve delivery rooms,” she said, leading me inside, “but I’ve never had more than
seven in use at once. Usually we only have about three or four a day.”

The room was large, at least twice the size of my new room at the barracks, with high

ceilings and tall windows looking out over the river. Along one wall a big bed was made up with
thick, rose colored linens and covered with a dozen pillows. On the far side of the room, next to
the window, a chaise lounge and two tall backed chairs sat on either side of an elegantly carved
table. The whole vignette was so pristine and untouched that I wondered if any of the Carriers

had ever even sat in one of the chairs. Overall, the room looked the way I imagined one of the
Carriers’ bedrooms would look, were it not for the table lined with shiny doctor’s instruments
sitting next to the bed and a few tall machines whose cords cluttered the polished floor.

From down the hall a bell chimed.
“Time to work. Follow me,” Etta said, leading me down the hall to the last room. “They

ring when they need you.”

From behind the door a woman moaned and cried out in pain.
“Pay attention and don’t get in the way,” Etta said.
Inside, the room was dark. The curtains had been pulled and the only light came from an

overhead lamp that shone on a woman lying in the huge bed. She was propped up against the
pillows and the mound of her large belly protruded upward, a small mountain blanketed by the
white sheets. Her hair was wet with sweat, plastered back against her broad forehead and a look
of concentrated pain enveloped her face. Even so, it was obvious to see she was beautiful. Her
cheeks were full, her smooth skin unblemished and flushed with a healthy glow. Behind her
head, her hair fell in a thick braid across the pillow. It was pleated in an intricate design and I
wondered if the other Carriers had done it for her, if someone was taking such care with
Odessa’s hair.

I was surprised by the careful way Etta approached the Carrier: coming at her slowly,

hand outstretched, almost as if she was a creature Etta was afraid to startle. “Can I get you some
ice chips?” Etta asked, wiping her forehead with a cool cloth.

The Carrier flinched at Etta’s touch. “I’ve been waiting for you for ages,” she

complained, “I shouldn’t have to ring the bell.”

Without giving a reply Etta spooned a few small pieces into her mouth, “Just a little bit

longer now,” Etta said, “the doctor should be arriving soon.”

The woman glared up at Etta, as if she had personally delayed the doctor’s arrival, and

for the first time I realized how young she was. She must have been eighteen or nineteen, only a
few years older than me.

Beside me the door opened and the doctor walked in, glancing quickly in my direction.

For a split second her eyes appraised me, but just as quickly as she had looked, she dismissed
me.

I was happy to be pushed up against the wall in the dark periphery of the room, instead of

in the bright center where the doctor bustled about the Carrier, feeling her stomach, measuring
the time between contractions.

What Etta had said about the doctor was true. She did look different from us. I tried not to

stare, but she looked so odd, so small and wiry next to the vast body of the Carrier. Physical
beauty and strength had always been stressed as one of the most important things we could strive
for. Yet her demeanor told me this wasn’t true at all. Yes, she was short and thin, probably only a
little over five feet tall. She probably couldn’t run very fast, or lift more than twenty pounds, but
those things didn’t seem to matter. She carried herself with purpose, maybe even pride, barking
orders to Etta, and speaking to the Carrier in short terse sentences. It was obvious from the sound
of her voice she didn’t submit to the Carriers. In fact, I heard a bit of disdain in her voice.

For an hour Etta and the doctor hovered around the Carrier, checking her heart rate as

well as the baby’s. I watched carefully, trying to remember not only the instruments and
machines that the doctor called for, but the strong, clear voice Etta spoke in. It was clear that she
was juggling the two of them: the doctor and the Carrier, always wary of them as if they were
venomous snakes that might strike at any moment.

Finally, it was time for the baby to be born. Around me, the air came alive. The Carrier

gave one final push, letting out an exhausted wail. For a few long moments the sound hovered
above the bed. And then there was silence. For a few seconds the room was completely quiet and
then the baby’s first cries rang out, shrill and shaking, punctuated by little hiccups. I caught my
breath, startled by the emotion rising in my chest.

Etta motioned for me to come forward. “I know it’s overwhelming,” she said, “it’ll take

some time until you can do it by yourself. But this is the easy part.”

She handed me the baby, still wet and slippery from birth, and motioned for me to dry it

off. I set the baby down on a small padded table and toweled her dry, careful not to bump the
stub of the umbilical cord the doctor had just snipped. My hands shook and my heart pounded
unsteadily in my chest.

Etta stepped in and finished cleaning the baby. She put on a diaper and swaddled it before

handing it back to the doctor.

For the first time since the baby was born it occurred to me how quiet the Carrier had

become. I’d almost forgotten she was there. When I glanced over, she had rolled onto her side so
her back faced us. For a moment I wondered if she was asleep, but when I stepped closer, I
noticed she shook with each breath, silently crying.

The doctor checked a few things off on her chart and handed it to Etta before leaving. She

didn’t say a word to any of us as she wiped her hands on a clean rag and turned to go. She closed
the door with a loud click and Etta carried the baby over to the woman’s side.

“I’ll need a name,” she said to the Carrier. “It’s a girl.”
“Sophina,” she whispered without opening her eyes.
“Good girl,” Etta said, stroking the top of the women’s head, “It’s a beautiful name.

She’ll carry it well.”

We left the room, turning off the bright overhead light so the Carrier was left in soothing

darkness. She didn’t move as we carried the baby out of the room and I wondered if she’d even
gotten a look at it. Maybe she chose not to.

“How many babies has she carried?” I asked as we walked down the hallway. I wasn’t

sure if the question was appropriate, but I needed to know.

We walked for a moment in silence as Etta stroked the top of the baby’s head.
“This was the third,” she finally answered.

Chapter Five

For weeks I followed Etta through the delivery unit. The babies were no trouble; their

complaints were easily mended with a bottle or a clean diaper. It was the Carriers who fussed
endlessly. From morning until night we changed them into clean gowns, fetched them bowls of
soup and cup after cup of ice chips. We came running when they rang their bells, massaged their
swollen feet and wiped the perspiration from their faces.

But after four weeks, I was finally done with training. On my next shift I would be

entirely on my own. I’d be stuck with only the doctors and the Carriers. Yet, somehow, I felt
ready.

Most nights I didn’t arrive back to the barracks until well after suppertime. Inside the

bunkroom all the girls would have already gotten ready for bed, collapsing on their beds with
identical looks of exhaustion while Anika led them in recitations from the Union Book of Virtue.

I felt the weariness too. It crawled up inside me, filling the space inside my bones with a

concrete weight that made my limbs feel as heavy as cinderblocks. With the last energy I could
muster I would slip into my new cotton pajamas, grateful for the soft fabric.

Today, for the first time in weeks, Etta decided to let me go early as congratulations for

finishing my training.

Together we walked solemnly to the service door. It was the last time we would work

together and we both realized how much we would miss the other’s company. From now on,
even though we’d still be working in the same building, we’d be busy with our own assignments.
After tonight, she would go back to being alone too.

“I have a little something for you,” she said, reaching into her pocket. “A little thank you.

But don’t open it until tonight.”

She handed me a small white envelope, “Your exam scores,” she’d said.
“Are you allowed to give this to me?” I asked.
She shook her head no, but didn’t say the word, “They’re yours,” she said, “You have the

right to see them.”

Now, as Maren and I sat on our beds after supper I put my hands in my pockets and held

the paper tight against my body. I couldn’t read it until everyone had gone to sleep and the
anticipation was building inside me.

Across the room Anika sat in front of Lindy on the bed, picking small bits of paper pulp

out of her hair while we recited the “Proclamation Against Arrogance”.

“We should be humble and prudent, guard against arrogance and pride, and serve the

Union heart and soul,” our voices rang out in synchronicity.

Anika tossed a clump of pulp in the garbage and Lindy sighed.
“Feeling sorry for yourself won’t get you anywhere,” Anika said to Lindy. “You work for

the Union, not for your own satisfaction.”

As far as jobs went, Lindy had it the worst. Every night as we lay in bed I listened to her

tell Anika how horrible it was at the recycling plant. Since she was one of the new workers she
was given the worst jobs, like climbing in the huge vats of soaking cardboard to break up clumps
that jammed the rotary arms.

Tonight she was telling Anika about how she had to clean out the vats after they’d been

fully drained. It had taken her six hours to clean one vat and she’d gotten in trouble for not
working fast enough.

The rest of us in the room sat on our own beds pretending not to listen, but secretly we all

relished Lindy’s stories, which made us thankful for our own jobs.

When there was a knock at the door, we all turned our heads simultaneously. The house

mistress opened it a crack and poked her head in.

“Good evening girls,” she said, “I hate to bother you, but we’ve had a new worker

assigned to the barracks and yours is the only bunk with any open beds.”

She opened the door a little wider and walked in leading a short, dark-haired woman. For

a moment I mistook the woman to be a doctor, but in her eyes I saw a wild, frightened look,
nothing like the doctors’ cold indifference, and although her body was tiny she didn’t have the
small deformities the doctors always had. Once I looked past her face it was obvious to see from
the clothes she wore that she wasn’t a Union citizen. They were tattered and dirty, her pants
ripped at the knees. Underneath the filth, her shirt had once been dyed a soft red, nothing like
the gray uniforms we wore.

Behind me some of the girls gasped and covered their faces with their hands. They’d

never seen anyone like her before. And even though I was used to the strange appearance of the
doctors I couldn’t help staring at this woman. She wasn’t beautiful compared to the Carriers, but
I was entranced by her green eyes, set wide apart on her round face.

The mistress sensed the apprehension in the room immediately, “This is Tamsin,” she

said, pushing the woman forward into the room. “She comes from a very small village outside
the Union’s boundaries. Under great risk to her life she traveled here because she wanted a better
life for herself and the Union has generously agreed to allow her to stay in return for her loyalty.
She just got through with reconditioning so please make her at home here. Our way of life may
still seem a little foreign to her and it’s up to you to help her become one of us,” she paused,
“The Union unites us. Together we are one.”

Out of habit we repeated her, “…the Union unites us. Together we are one.”
Satisfied that we’d understood, the mistress brought Tamsin into the room and sat her

down on the empty bed across from mine.

“You’ll have to wear these clothes until I can find you some smaller ones,” she said,

pulling a new uniform, as well as a pair of pajamas, out of one of the drawers.

“If you have any questions you can ask one of the girls. They’ll be happy to help you.”
Tamsin sat on the edge of her bed looking absently at the job assignment in her hand.

Even though I guessed she might be even more than twice my age, she reminded me of a little
girl sitting there.

“All right then,” the mistress said, looking around the room, deciding whether or not she

had anything else to say. When she couldn’t think of anything else she backed quickly out of the
room and closed the door behind her, leaving us alone together.

“Do you think she can read?” I whispered to Maren.
Tamsin was still staring at the job description, but her blank expression was unchanged,

as if nothing was getting through.

Maren shrugged, unable to stop staring at the woman’s peculiar appearance.
I sensed a subtle shift the girls had made with their bodies, leaning ever so slightly away

from the woman, afraid that the air she breathed might somehow contaminate them; make them
different, like her.

A few minutes passed in uncomfortable silence and I peered around, wishing someone

else would go to her first, but they sat unmoving on their beds.

I inched over to her side of the room and sat down slowly at the bottom of her bed, “What

job were you assigned?” I asked.

I waited for her to look up at me, but she didn’t move her eyes from her lap. Hoping to

get a glimpse of what was written on the paper I scooted a little closer to her.

She raised her eyes and flinched, startled to find me so close. Instinctively she raised her

arms up in front of her face as if to protect herself. When she lowered them I saw her eyes were
glassy with tears.

“I…I don’t deserve the Union’s generosity,” she said, her voice trembling slightly, “But

there was nowhere else to go. Six months ago an army came… they ruined our crops, took our
sheep. My husband and the other men tried to fight them off, but they failed. We were out of
food. I tried to make soup out of the roots, but… but it wasn’t enough to feed my family. My
children…” her voice trailed off, realizing she’d said too much and she crumpled the paper in her
hands.

Around me the girls had grown stiff with fear. It wasn’t the slight drawl in Tamsin’s

accent that frightened them, or even the look of misery on her face, but the words themselves.
She’d said the word husband, the word family. Those weren’t concepts that were allowed in our
vocabulary. But just because we were forbidden to talk about families didn’t mean we hadn’t
learned what they were. In fact, Tamsin reminded us of the danger of families and why the
Union forbade them. We’d been taught in school about the destruction of the Old World. Our
textbooks said the family unit had made the old nation weak. The family was small and easily
broken, but the Union in its collective strength would keep us safe.

I shifted my weight on the bed, unsure how to respond to Tamsin. Secretly I wanted to

hear more about the place she’d come from, but I didn’t want her to get in trouble. I reached
forward and removed the crumpled paper from her hands.

“It says you’re assigned to the laundry facility,” I said, flattening out the paper and

setting it next to her on the bed. “It’s probably not that bad. You’ll get used to things here.”

She stared forward, lost in her own world and for a second my eyes followed her gaze

toward the blank wall in front of her, as if the images in her mind flickered there for me to see.

“The shower’s back through that door, if you want to get cleaned up,” I said standing up.

Immediately after I’d spoken I wondered if I’d offended her, if she thought me rude for pointing
out how dirty she was. But a few minutes later she grabbed a new pair of pajamas and went back
to the bathroom and closed the door. We heard the shower start and for the first time since she’d
entered the room we looked around at each other.

“She shouldn’t be here,” Anika said, looking at the bathroom door.
“You don’t think it was our army she was talking about, do you?” Lindy asked.
“Of course it wasn’t our army,” Maren said, “The Union doesn’t prey on helpless little

villages. Our army is organized to defend us, that’s all.”

“Even if it was our army, it’s not our place to question,” Anika said, “Besides, she’s

clearly inferior. Probably the rest of the people in her village were too.”

“You can’t be serious, Anika,” I said, “You don’t think the army has the right to kill

people, just because they’re not like us?

“Don’t tell me what to think,” she snapped, “There’s a reason our Union is strong and it’s

because we’ve bred out bad genes like hers.”

“Apparently we haven’t bred out all the bad genes,” I mumbled.
After the words left my mouth I knew I’d made a mistake. Anika’s face turned red and

her eyes narrowed at me.

“Oh, I’d be careful if I were you Wynne. Someone might start questioning where your

loyalties lie. You wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea about you.”

Instinctively I reached into my pocket and touched the envelope Etta had given me. A

few minutes later the bathroom door opened and Tamsin walked out. She carried her old clothes
folded up and squeezed close to her body. The pair of pajamas she wore hung limply around her
tiny torso, the arms and legs each rolled three or four times to keep her from tripping over them.
She shuffled to her bed, pulled back the covers and climbed in, still hugging her clothes tight.

An hour later everyone had finally fallen asleep. I stared up at the dark ceiling, thumbing

the edge of the envelope Etta had given me.

Underneath the covers I tore open the envelope as quietly as I could and pulled out the

thin sheet of paper folded up inside it. The paper crackled as I opened it and I slowly raised it out
from under the covers and held it close to my face so I could make out the writing, but the room
was too dark and as much as I strained my eyes to see, I couldn’t make out the words.

Silently I snuck out of bed. A beam of moonlight from the window pointed a silver finger

across the room, stopping at the foot of Maren’s bed. I could see better directly in front of the
window, but I didn’t want to be that close to Anika. Instead, I sat down on the floor beside
Maren’s feet.

This time I could make out the writing. My number and date of birth were printed in the

top left hand corner of the page along with the selection date. Below it read: STATUS:
WORKER, as if I needed to be reminded.

My eyes bounced over the scores, a row of bar graphs that resembled a tiny mountain

range running across the page. In the first section, physical proportions, it took me a moment to
realize my scores had been ranked against the ideal. For height and weight I’d scored 97%
because I was slightly smaller than what the Union wanted for their Carriers, but my limbs must
have been the right proportion because I was given a 99% for the length of my arms and legs.
My facial features were all similar, clumped up in the high ninety percentiles. Written next to
these percentages was a short sentence noting my unusual eye color, but I couldn’t find any
indication that this abnormality had caused me to have points deducted from my score.

My physical fitness scores weren’t too surprising. I’d done well on sit-ups and pull-ups,

but my running score was off the charts. Next to the score of 100% was a notation from the
examiners. “Excels at speed (far superior to the standard). Highly effective trait genetically,
however it is marked by an increased rise in endorphins, loss of concentration and a rise in
euphoria.” I thought back to my test and remembered how happy I’d felt while I was running.
How could happiness be a fault? It wasn’t a distraction; if anything it heightened my senses.

I skipped forward to my last set of scores. It was obvious I’d done well in the written

tests 100% in both history and on the written IQ, yet underneath my scores written in bold
lettering it read: NOT RECOMMENDED AS CARRIER- free thinking, emotional. I thought
back to the officer who’d administered my tests and anger spread up through my head, blurring
the page in front of me.

I wiped away a few hot tears and read on, “The Union should NOT select number G447-

72 as an official Carrier. Very likely to become a bender after only two babies, three at the
most.”

My hands shook as I finished reading. Bender? What did that even mean? And what did

it mean, free thinking?

From behind me, Maren’s mattress creaked as she sat up in bed. I quickly folded up my

exam scores, but it was too late.

“What are you doing?”
“It’s nothing,” I started to tell her, closing my fist around the paper. But it felt wrong,

lying to her. She was the only friend I had anymore. “It’s my exam scores,” I said, unfolding the
paper and holding it up to show her, “My mentor gave them to me… but please, don’t tell
anyone. I don’t want her to get in trouble.”

“Don’t worry.” Maren said, slipping out from under her covers to sit next to me on the

floor. Her body was still warm from bed. “You can trust me.”

In the moonlight her face looked pale and kind and a lump rose in my throat. Maren was

wonderful, but I missed Odessa. Who else had I ever whispered to in the middle of the night?

“Are you okay,” Maren asked, sensing my melancholy.
I nodded, afraid if I spoke my voice would break. I took a deep breath and studied her

face. Beneath the soft smile I saw a trace of sorrow.

“Are you liking your job?” I asked.
I hadn’t been the best friend to Maren. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d asked her

how she was doing. Normally, she was so happy to see me when I got home late from the
delivery unit that I mistook her excitement for happiness.

“It’s okay,” she said, “I really can’t complain. It’s not bad work like Lindy’s or anything.

In a few weeks I might get to start working on the loom, which looks pretty fun. Did you know
that the mills also make all the fancy fabrics for the Carriers and the Union buildings?”

I shook my head.
“My mentor has worked in the mill three times, so she’s in charge of the silks,” Maren

went on, “It’s funny because I think she actually loves what she’d doing.”

She reached down and played with the hem of her shirt.
“Is there anything you’d really love to do,” I asked her. “I mean if you could choose.”
Maren’s eyes grew large and she laughed uncomfortably, unsure if she should answer.
“I guess I’d really love to work with the little kids,” she finally whispered, “before they

got old enough to go to school. I remember when I was really little there was this Keeper, Emile,
who used to take special care of me. Do you remember her?”

I shook my head.
“Well, she was so kind to me. She used to hold me on her lap and rock me,” Maren went

on, “Sometimes she sang to me or brushed my hair. I missed her so much when we moved up to
the next unit. I’d like to be like her.”

I smiled, imagining how great Maren would be at that.
“How about you,” she asked me.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, “Sometimes I feel like there’s something else I should be

doing, but I don’t know what it is. But I guess it doesn’t really matter.” I laughed a little and then
caught myself, looking around to make sure I hadn’t woken anyone. “Is it silly to want
something for myself and not for the good of the Union?”

Across the room from us we saw the dark form of Tamsin sit up in bed.
“To live for the Union is the greatest calling,” she said. The words sounded halting,

almost robotic coming out of her mouth. After a moment she shook her head as if she was trying
to clear it before she spoke again, “It isn’t a funny thing to wish you could do the thing you
love,” she whispered, moving to the end of the bed so she was closer to us. “In my village we

picked who we loved, who we married,” in her voice I heard hollow sadness, the words coming
from a nearly empty well, deep inside.

Maren scooted closer to me and reached out to hold my hand. Tamsin frightened her.
“It must seem strange here,” I said, “The Union must be really different from your

village.”

Tamsin nodded, “It’s more than different. It feels like someone’s asked me to start

walking on my hands instead of my feet. Maybe it’s the reconditioning. The inside of my head
feels foggy and I can’t remember which thoughts are mine anymore. The Union…something
feels wrong here,” She shook her head, unable to remember what she was going to say.

“Why did you come here then, if you don’t like it?” Maren asked.
“There’s nothing left for me back home,” Tamsin said, “If I stayed there I’d be taking

food out of the mouths of the people I love… the ones that are left. ”

“But it wasn’t our Union, was it?” I asked. “Were they the ones that attacked your

village?”

In the dark I saw Tamsin give a slight nod, but she didn’t speak.
“Why?” I asked
She rubbed her temples as if her head ached. “I…I don’t remember,” she mumbled.
The moonlight covered Maren and me, but it didn’t stretch up onto Tamsin’s bed. In the

dark I could just make out a necklace that hung around her neck. It tinkled softly as she stroked
it. I couldn’t tell what hung from the chain, but it sounded almost like little bells.

“Why would our Union attack a little village? How could they be a threat to us? We have

tens of thousands of citizens,” I asked

Maren clutched my hand fiercely, “We could get in trouble for talking like this.”
“I’m sorry. I… I didn’t come here for that. I wanted…” Tamsin faltered, her words

caught on some old memory. She held her hands up over her face as if to block out the rest of the
world. Finally she lifted her head and finished, “I wanted to start over. I don’t want to remember
any more.”

Maren and I climbed back into our own beds in silence, and faced each other in the dim

light. We stared at each other in the dark, the glint of our eyes connecting us like hands held over
the emptiness. The minutes passed. After a while, our own breath slowed to the same low, steady
pace of the girls around us.

Across the room, I hoped Tamsin had fallen into a dreamless sleep. It bothered me to

imagine her dreams.

Maren’s tiny voice inched its way across the dark to me, “I think her children died,” she

said.

“I do too.”
I wished I could scoot my bed closer to hers. Quietly I hummed the tune of a little song

about sparrows. The notes resonated in my throat, filling me up with sound. I wanted to sing the
words, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’d never sung out loud to anyone but Odessa.

Maren’s eyes fluttered closed. Opened. Closed.
“Maren?”
She opened her eyes.
“I have to work by myself tomorrow with the Carriers.”
Her voice was low and sleepy, “You’ll do great, Wynne. You’re really good at taking

care of people.”

I was silent for a long time. I thought about the doctors and the Carriers. I wasn’t sure if I

would be able to handle them without Etta at my side. Maybe I was scared of them. Maybe that
was what was bothering me.

“Maren,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure she was even still awake. “I can’t stop

thinking about the woman who carried me.” My voice was quiet, but I wanted to feel the words
leave my lips, “I wish I could meet her… my mother.”

Chapter Six

Maybe I should have been alerted that something wasn’t quite right with the Carrier by

the way she flinched when I took her blood pressure during her initial exam, but so many of the
Carriers were skittish to the touch that I didn’t think much of it. I was busy worrying about other
things: filling out forms, hooking up machines, administering the right doses of pain
medications. I didn’t want to get any of these things wrong on my first day and in all honesty, the
Carrier’s personality didn’t seem important enough to worry about.

She seemed like an average Carrier. I’d gotten used to their ruddy cheeks and swollen

bodies and this one appeared no different. She was young and beautiful and aloof. As I took her
temperature I tried to make eye contact, but she turned her head away from me, always more
interested in whatever she saw on the other side of the room.

From her chart I saw that she was delivering her second baby, and I was relieved that I

wouldn’t have to deliver a primer, a first-born. I’d seen a handful of primers and they were
always more difficult than the successive births. With a first-born we could be waiting for a
Carrier to give birth for hours and hours, sometimes even days. Etta and I had spent forty-seven
hours attending to a birth of a new Carrier the week before and by the time she’d finally
delivered the baby she was nearly comatose. But after that first one, the babies came faster.
Some of the eight and nine tier Carriers only labored a couple of hours.

Now I stood by the woman’s bedside recording her heart rate along with the baby’s onto

the yellow sheet inside her chart. When the doctor entered, I hardly glanced up. After weeks and
weeks of no response from any of them and no progress in my attempts to make them like me, I
finally stopped trying. I’d worked with this doctor before. I recognized her pocked face and the
way she cradled her left arm against her body as she walked.

“How far along?” the doctor snapped at me when she walked up to the bedside.
My hands shook a little as I flipped back through the charts. “She’s been laboring for

about four hours now. Her blood pressure is elevated, but her pains are still irregular.”

The doctor grunted a response and moved to pull back the thin blankets so that she could

inspect the woman’s stomach when suddenly the Carrier lashed out, scratching at the doctor’s
hand.

“No… no… don’t touch me,” she screeched.
“Settle down,” the doctor snapped, “I need to see how close you are to having this baby.”
The doctor’s words did nothing to calm the Carrier and she screamed again, flailing her

arms and legs and scooting back up the bed so that her back was pressed high up against the
headboard.

The doctor cradled her chin where the Carrier’s foot had cracked against her jaw. Her

eyes were small jewels of hatred.

“This Carrier is out of control,” the doctor snapped at me, “Why hasn’t she been

sedated?”

“I’m so sorry, Doctor,” I stammered, trying to flip back through the woman’s chart to see

if there was anything in it that would have indicated that she needed to be medicated. “It didn’t
say anything.”

“I don’t care what it says. Clearly, she’s episodic,” the doctor spat.
The doctor reached for the woman’s leg as if to pull her back down from the near

standing position that she was in, but the Carrier only screamed again, swatting away the
doctor’s hand.

“Help me hold her down,” the doctor screamed at me.
I lunged at the woman’s arms which whipped about her head and her palm struck me in

the cheek and then again, with a whack, against my ear. Finally my hand caught hold of her
elbow and I pulled her down, pressing her arms against the soft cushion of the bed.

“Just hold still,” I whispered in her ear, “We want to help you.”
The Carrier turned to face me, her eyes wide and full of terror and I wondered what had

happened during her primer birth to make her so afraid.

At the bottom of the bed the doctor had somehow managed to wrap her good arm around

the Carrier’s feet, holding them still, while with her other arm she fumbled in the pocket of her
lab coat drawing out a red-capped syringe filled with clear liquid. She pulled off the cap with her
teeth and jammed the needle into the woman’s thigh with one fluid sweep of her arm.

For a moment longer the Carrier’s body strained against us, the cords of her neck pulled

taut, and then her eyes fluttered over me, the lids drooping and her head fell back against the
pillow. With a sigh, her eyes closed and her body quieted.

The doctor threw the empty syringe into the wastebasket with a clatter and narrowed her

eyes. “What kind of stunt was that?”

“I’m sorry, Doctor. I really didn’t know that…”
“I’m only going to say this once. It is your job to deal with the Carriers. It is your job to

ascertain their mental state so that I can attend to the needs of delivering healthy infants.”

“I understand,” I said, hanging my head. “I won’t let it happen again.”
Quickly the doctor examined the Carrier and turned to leave without saying another word

to me.

I leaned against the side of the bed and the Carrier slowly opened her eyes, turning her

head to look at me.

“Oh…you’re awake. I thought that…”
“The baby…” she mumbled, interrupting me.
“It’s okay. The baby’s not coming for a little longer,” I told her.
The Carrier turned away from me and gazed up at the ceiling. Her face looked peaceful,

as if maybe she’d fallen asleep with her eyes open, but then she spoke. Her words came out
heavy, slow. “Did you ever watch the clouds when you were little?” she asked

The clouds? I shrugged. Hadn’t we all watched the clouds? On days when we were

bored, sick of knitting socks or reading from our handbooks, the way our keepers encouraged. I
thought back to the field in the ped units. I could almost smell the sweet, warm grass and feel the
perfect balance of the sun’s heat and the cool spring breeze brushing against my skin. Sometimes
Odessa and I found shapes in the clouds, but mostly we simply watched the way they moved
across the sky.

“Yeah,” I said, “if you watched them long enough it seemed like they were holding still

and you were the one that was moving.”

She stared up at the ceiling as if she could see the clouds there, puffy and white.
“As a little girl… all I wanted… was to be a Carrier,” she said.
I nodded. All of us did.
“This isn’t how I’d imagined it,” she whispered, gesturing ever so slightly at the room

around her.

She let her eyes close and placed her hand on her belly, silent for so long that I thought

surely she’d fallen asleep. I moved to go, worried that I was shirking my other duties. Etta was

expecting a lot from me. I hadn’t sterilized any equipment or restocked the linens and the rooms
wouldn’t be ready if any other Carriers came in today.

“I didn’t know the babies would move,” the Carrier said without opening her eyes.
“The baby’s going to be fine,” I said patting her arm.
“No,” she said, opening her eyes again, “That’s not what I mean,” her words came slowly

like each one had to be molded first inside her mouth, “When I was little… I didn’t know that the
babies moved. I thought the idea of carrying around the baby sounded…important, like I’d be
responsible for something fragile…breakable.” She paused, “But I never thought about it
moving. I never thought about how it would start to become someone that I knew, a person.”

I sat down on the edge of the bed. I’d never talked to a Carrier this way before. Maybe it

was the sedative, relaxing her, making her open up to me instead of closing off the way they
normally did.

“This one gets the hiccups,” she said.
I clasped my hands, rubbing them together uncomfortably. “Maybe it would be easier not

to think of those things.”

“Sometimes I wish I could go back to looking at those clouds. I wish I could go back to

not knowing. Things were easier then, don’t you think, when there was something to hope for,
something to look forward to?”

As I walked home that evening, I turned my face up to the sky. It was already getting

dark and the wisps of clouds were almost too thin to make out, barely reflecting the last pink
light of the sun. I wondered if the Carrier could see the sky from her window. I had left the
curtains open and I hoped that maybe she was finding a bit of comfort in these wispy clouds if
she was looking at them right now.

When I told her that the baby was a boy she hadn’t looked at me.
“Is it…healthy?” she asked, keeping her eyes turned away from me.
“He’s perfect,” I told her.
“Name him Skyler,” she said, not turning to face me.
Etta had taught me to say that the baby would carry the name well, and I opened my

mouth to tell her this, but the words didn’t come.

I scratched the name down in the file and turned to go.

There weren’t many other workers headed home so late. Up ahead I caught sight of

someone else walking in the direction of my barracks. Even from behind I recognized her: the
strange short build, the dark hair cut just above her shoulders.

“Tamsin, wait,” I called as I jogged to catch up with her.
She stopped, turning around to look in my direction, and I caught the surprise on her face.
“How was your first day?” I asked, slowing down next to her.
Tamsin rubbed her upper arms and grimaced. “I guess I’m not as strong as I thought I

was. I’m already sore.”

The soft drawl in her voice made me smile.
“Rough day?” I asked.
She nodded.
“Me too,” I said.
Tamsin cocked her head, but she didn’t press me for more and we walked on in silence

Finally she spoke. “The streets are so quiet here. If I hadn’t just washed and dried about a

million shirts I’d never guess so many people live here.”

“Why?” I asked. “Was your city very different?”
She laughed, “Very. At this time of night the streets would have been bustling; families

sitting in front of their houses after dinner, talking around the fires, music playing, people
dancing. It was a lovely sort of chaos.”

My gaze flicked around the room, trying to imagine a scene like the one that she was

describing, but I couldn’t picture it. Lovely chaos? That sounded like a contradiction.

Inside the barracks, dinner had already been cleaned up and Tamsin and I grabbed a

hardboiled egg and a slice of bread from the tray left out for us. In our room the other girls had
already started saying their nightly recitations.

Anika glanced up from the book she held open in her lap. “You’re late,” she said, “We

didn’t know how much longer you’d be, so we started without you.”

Tamsin sat down on her bed and nibbled on her bread and Anika turned back to the book.
“Okay, who wants to recite The Four Canons of Order?” she asked.
“I thought you were going to read from the List of Virtues,” Maren said, sitting up on her

bed.

“No, I changed my mind,” Anika said, “I think The Four Canons would be more

appropriate.” There was an odd timber to her voice, as if she was suppressing a grin. She
casually scanned the room until her eyes fell on Tamsin. “How about the new girl, Tamsin is it?”

Tamsin put down her bread and swallowed, “Oh, I…I don’t know if I feel comfortable

yet.”

“You do know it, don’t you?” Anika asked. “If you don’t know the Canons it’s hard to

imagine that they would have let you out of reconditioning. Isn’t it required?”

“She’s had a long day. Why don’t you just let her eat her dinner?” I said, “Someone else

can say it.”

“It’s okay…” Tamsin tried to interrupt.
Anika gingerly set the book down next to her on the bed and stood up, brushing the

wrinkles out of her uniform so that the red star stitched to her shirt lay perfectly flat against her
chest. “Okay Wynne, why don’t you repeat it for us,” she said.

I set down my bread and clasped my hands in my lap. I was tired and hungry and I didn’t

want to argue with her. “One,” I said, “The Union is bound together as one in likeness and
solidarity. Two. True order can only be achieved through obedience. Three. Unity is the work of
the collective. Selfishness is the work of the individual. Four. Diversity is…” I paused. Suddenly
I saw why Anika had asked Tamsin to repeat these Canons. My face burned and my mouth
stumbled across the words, as if I was saying them for the first time. “Diversity,” I said again, “is
the root of all evil.”

Obviously Anika had been hoping to hear Tamsin say this last Canon herself, but from

the look on her face it seemed like she was just as content hearing it come from my mouth.

I glanced over at Tamsin, but she was staring down at her hands. The mood in the room

had suddenly shifted. On her bed, Maren pulled her knees up to her chest and ran a finger along
the tip of her nose. I knew what she was thinking, that she was different too. Well, guess what, I
wanted to tell her, we all are.

The silence in the room was heavy and even Anika fidgeted uncomfortably. She sat back

down and flipped noisily through the handbook.

“Repeat after me,” Anika said, “Discipline is the cornerstone of unity…” the girls’ voices

rose together into a single droning chord. “…only when we submit ourselves entirely can we…”

“Stop,” I said. The sharp staccato of my statement startled everyone and their voices

stuttered to a halt.

“Excuse me,” Anika said, “what are you doing?”
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, embarrassed by my outburst, “but do you think that we could be

done for the night. I mean, it’s late. I guess I just had a long day.”

“We’ve all had a long day,” Anika snapped.
“She’s right, Anika,” Lindy said from her bed, “Can we be done? Please?”
Anika slowly glanced around the room at the other girls and quietly closed the book. “I

guess we can be done for the night,” she said, “but don’t get used to this. It’s my responsibility to
make sure that we stay morally fit. I’m the one who’ll be blamed…” her voice trailed off.

“Thank you,” I told her, but I wondered if she could tell that the words tasted bitter in my

mouth.

I don’t know if it was the sound of Tamsin’s footsteps or the click of the door that woke

me in the middle of the night. I lay still for a moment as my eyes adjusted to the dark. The other
girls appeared to be sleeping soundly as I slid out of bed and followed Tamsin out into the
hallway.

She was already halfway to the dining hall by the time I pulled the door closed behind me

and padded quickly down the hallway to catch up with her.

“Tamsin,” I whispered.
She froze midstride, whipping around to face me.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
In the dim light I couldn’t really make out her expression. “Oh, Wynne, it’s you. You

startled me,” she said, bringing her hand up to cover her heart.

“Is everything all right?” I asked, “I hope you don’t mind that I followed you.”
“Oh, no, I…I don’t mind,” she said, walking again down the hall. “I just had to get out of

the room. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and it’s like,” she searched for the
words, “like all of a sudden I’m going crazy, like I can’t breathe and I feel like I have to scream,
or run, or something.”

We stepped into the dining hall and the moonlight finally lit Tamsin’s face. Her eyes

were puffy and red.

“Would you rather I left you alone?” I asked.
“No,” she said, reaching out to place her small hand on my arm, “No. I’m tired of being

alone.”

We sat down on one of the benches and leaned our elbows against the cold wood.
“Will you tell me about your village?” I asked.
“I don’t know if I should.” I could hear the worry in her voice.
“Did they tell you not to talk about it…while you were in reconditioning?” I asked.
Tamsin gave a little nod of her head.
“I won’t tell,” I said, “I promise.”
“I know. It’s not that I don’t trust you,” Tamsin said, “I want to tell you. I do, but so

many of my memories have been taken away, wiped out of my mind so that now… There are
some memories that are clear, but others…” she shrugged. “You know when you wake up from a

dream and you remember that something happened in it. You remember that there was a place,
but then when you try to really remember, try to put it into words it drifts away?”

I nodded.
“It’s not all that way,” she said, “I have some snapshots, pictures in my mind that I can

see clearly, but that’s all they are. Images.”

“What about your children?” I asked, “Don’t you remember them?”
Maybe I shouldn’t have asked it. Tamsin’s face went white, a pale moon shining in the

dark room. “My children,” she said, “Yes. I remember them.”

She closed her eyes. Silent.
Last night Tamsin’s presence had made me nervous, but now something had shifted. I

couldn’t put my finger on it, but it felt like we shared a common bond.

“Are they just the pictures too?” I asked.
Tamsin shook her head. “Yes and no,” she said, “I have a few memories left. But I’m too

afraid to say them out loud, like if I do they’ll float away.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry”, I told her. “It’s just that I’ve spent so many years

imagining what a family would be like. It seems like something magical, a myth or a fairytale or
something.”

Tamsin smiled sadly in the dark. “I thought you were forbidden to talk about families

here.”

I nodded. “We are.”
“Then how?”
“There are still keepers that tell stories,” I said, “They get passed along on sleepless

nights. But they’re just stories.”

Tamsin closed her eyes and tilted her head skyward. She breathed deeply and the look on

her face changed, smoothing itself out. She looked almost peaceful sitting there like that.

We sat like this for what seemed like ages, simply sharing the same air. Finally I shifted

on the bench, ready to sneak back to our room, when Tamsin spoke.

She kept her eyes closed, her face still pointing upward. “It’s the quiet moments that I

miss the most,” she said, opening her eyes as she turned to look at me. “If I could go back and
relive one more day, you know what I’d wish for?”

I shook my head.
“It wouldn’t be anything momentous, just a quiet night together. That’s all. I just want to

look at their faces one more time across the dinner table. I want to brush my daughter’s hair after
her bath and see my son play his fiddle. I want to sing to them as they fall asleep, to feel my
husband’s arms around me when I wake up.”

She closed her eyes and started singing softly. Her voice was a little husky, but the notes

were pure and even though it wasn’t a tune I’d ever heard, it brought a smile to my lips. Maybe
we weren’t so different.

Tamsin intrigued me. At times, her sadness was almost palpable, but underneath it there

seemed to be a constant stream of cheerfulness. Even when she was resting, the corners of her
lips lifted naturally at the edges, as if she was always thinking some secret thought to make her
smile. It was so different from the stolid demeanor of most of the women in the Union. Maybe
that was why I felt drawn to Tamsin, like a moth searching out even the smallest light in the
darkness.

I tried to imagine what the inside of Tamsin’s house had been like when it was filled with

her son and daughter and husband. Their bodies would have moved around each other with ease

the way we had when we were younger, but behind those movements there would have been
something connecting them, a string that bound them together: a man, a woman, a boy and a girl.

Tamsin shook her head, bringing herself back to the present. “While you’re in the middle

of living them, those moments don’t seem like much,” she said, “You could miss them so easily
if you weren’t paying attention. That’s the amazing thing. The most important moments were so
ordinary, so simple.”

“I guess that’s the beauty,” I said.
I smiled softly, thinking of all the simple moments that Odessa and I had shared: holding

hands as we stood in line waiting for dinner, brushing the knots out of each other’s hair after our
showers. They weren’t exciting or memorable, but I would give anything to go back and relive
them.

Chapter Seven

At first I thought the screaming was coming from Etta’s Carrier.
Over the months, I’d become accustomed to the sound of pain, the wails that often

escaped the lips of Carriers as they strained to push a new baby into the world. But this was
different. It was frantic, desperate.

For the last two months I’d watched every Carrier carefully, worrying that one would

lash out at the doctors again. I wasn’t authorized to carry a syringe full of heavy sedatives the
way the doctors were, but every once in a while I found a way to slip an extra pill into the
Carrier’s water, just enough to make her drowsy.

I cocked my head, but the sound wasn’t coming from the end of the hall. It came from

downstairs.

Etta stepped out of one of the Carrier’s rooms, carefully closing the door behind her as

she glanced down the hall where I was kneeling, buffing the last layer of wax off the floor so that
the dark wood finally shone again, reflecting my tired face. Neither one of us spoke as our eyes
met and I hurried to my feet, scrambling to catch up with her as she headed toward the stairway.

We rounded the bottom of the stairs side-by-side, and stepped out into the foyer. Standing

at the front door, two officers grasped a young Carrier tightly under her arms. She was pale, her
skin almost as white as the polished marble floor beneath her, and even though she was limp in
the officers’ arms, the sound coming from her mouth filled the whole building.

“What’s this?” Etta demanded.
I hadn’t noticed the headmistress of the Carriers standing next to the officers, but as she

stepped forward, I recognized her immediately. She accompanied each Carrier to be checked in
as soon as they went into labor. Usually her face was calm and reserved, the epitome of beauty
herself. But today concern strained her face, pulling the sides of her lips down into a frown.

“We have a serious situation here,” Mistress Edian said, “One of our third tier Carriers

has gone into labor prematurely.”

I followed Etta’s eyes down the Carrier’s body and noticed for the first time the puddle of

blood pooling around the girl’s feet.

“Yes, we’ll see to her right away,” Etta said, “Has she already lost the baby?”
“I’m unable to say for sure,” Mistress Edian said. Her voice caught on the last word,

threatening to break.

“We can take her from here,” Etta told the officers.
We stepped forward to lift the girl from their arms but they stepped back, clutching her

more tightly around her arms. Etta turned to Mistress Edian for an explanation, but she shook her
head, her eyes dark.

“We won’t be turning this Carrier over freely. We’ve been ordered to stand guard,” one

of the officers said, “This Carrier has attempted to terminate her gestation.”

“What?” I asked, looking to Mistress Edian to explain.
“Witnesses say she tried to abort her pregnancy by throwing herself down the grand

staircase in the residence,” she said, “As it is, we have to assume that she’s broken her covenant
with the Union. Now our first duty is to the health of the unborn fetus. If the baby lives, the
Grand Council may decide to be merciful, but if it dies,” she shook her head, “I can’t bear
another Threshing. She’ll be lucky to get reassigned as an udder.”

“Well hurry and get her upstairs,” Etta said, “She’s already lost a lot of blood.”

An udder? I wanted to ask Etta what she’d meant but the officers were already dragging

the Carrier up the main staircase and I had to run to catch up.

After depositing her in the first available room, the officers took their place outside her

doorway, flanking either side of the entrance. It felt wrong to have them here, as if their presence
defiled the delivery unit. I’d never once seen a man inside these walls.

Etta pressed the doctor’s call button, summoning whoever was on duty, and paced around

the Carrier’s bed, hastily removing her soiled robes. I grabbed a clean rag and began wiping her
down, but I didn’t know what to do to help. I’d never seen a baby born before its time.

This woman didn’t look a thing like the Carriers we normally saw. Her belly was only a

small lump. I might not have even known she was pregnant if Mistress Edian hadn’t already told
us. Maybe it was her small belly, or the pallid color of her skin, but she appeared so different
from the others that it was hard to believe she was even one of them. She looked small,
inconsequential.

Etta’s face was also drained of color, “Where’s the doctor,” she cursed, “It’s not like she

can show up any time she wants to the way she normally does. If she doesn’t hurry up neither
one of them is going make it.”

“Do you mean…she might die too?” I asked.
The Carrier had settled down once the officers let go of her, and now she lay so still in

the middle of the large bed that I thought she might already be dead. Her eyes were closed and
her lips were tinged with the slightest hue of lavender.

“Run and get one of the doctors,” Etta said, feeling her pulse.
“But…I don’t know…”
“Now,” Etta yelled, “I don’t have time for an argument. This is an emergency.”
The doctor’s residence wasn’t as elegant as the Carrier residence or even the delivery

unit. It was an ugly appendage that stuck off of the back of the building, a squat gray structure.

I pounded on the metal door. With each moment that ticked by, the Carrier slipped closer

and closer to death. My mind spun back to what Mistress Edian had said: that the Carrier had
thrown herself down the stairs to try to lose the baby. In my mind I saw her bouncing down the
stone steps, her elegant body coming to rest at the bottom like something limp and broken. But I
couldn’t fathom why anyone would do that. Why would she want to kill the baby?

No sound came from inside the residence. I pounded against the door, but the thick metal

only gave off a dull thud.

“Help! We need a doctor,” I yelled, kicking at the door.
It only took a moment for me to realize that I couldn’t wait around, pounding until

someone heard me. I pushed the door open, stepping into a long corridor. On either side, closed
metal doors lined the hallway and I ran to the first one, beating with the sides of my fists.

There was no answer, but I kept pounding. Where was everyone? I moved on to the next

one and the next, hands aching.

Halfway down the hallway someone finally called out from inside.
“Come in.”
I pushed on the heavy door and it creaked open. I’d expected to see a room like the ones

that the girls and I shared in the barracks, but this room wasn’t lined with beds and dressers. The
walls were covered from floor to ceiling with shelves, filled with boxes and jars and flasks, all
containing an assortment of different colored liquids and powders. My eyes darted over them,
unable to concentrate on the things that floated inside.

In the center of the room, the doctor stood in front of a long metal table. A small

headlamp was clamped around her forehead and it shone down on spongy gray tissue. With her
scalpel she peeled back the outer layer of it and cut deftly at something delicate and white.
Finally she looked up at me

“What are you doing here,” she asked, startled.
“It’s an emergency,” I said.
“You’re not allowed in here. Did you buzz the doctor on duty?”
“Yes, but it was taking too long,” I said, “A Carrier is losing a baby.”
“Which Carrier?” the doctor asked, setting down her tools carefully before she washed

her hands in the little sink next to the wall. She seemed to be moving in slow motion.

“Some officers just brought her in,” I said, moving towards the door with the hopes that

she’d follow me and start moving faster.

“Officers?” the doctor paused, reaching for her white coat. The look in her eye worried

me. There was no compassion there, only cold detachment.

“Yes. They said she fell down the stairs…that she maybe did it on purpose.”
“Wait a second,” the doctor said, “Is this a normal delivery?”
“No it’s not normal,” I shouted, “She’s bleeding. You’ve got to hurry.”
The doctor stood still, slowly shaking her head. “No. An aborted pregnancy, this isn’t my

responsibility. That Carrier acted maliciously against the fetus, against the Union. She’s not my
problem.”

“What do you mean she’s not your problem?” I yelled, grabbing her by the arm. “They

might be dying. Both of them.”

“Get your hands off of me,” the doctor said, pulling away from me. “I’m writing you up

for this. This is a violation of protocol.”

“Wait. Please,” I begged. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…but you’ve got to come with me.

What are we supposed to do?”

“It’s none of my business what you do. If it’s a preterm labor the baby won’t make it. It’s

probably already dead. And as for the Carrier,” she snorted, “You expect me to feel pity for her?
She made her choices, now she must obey the consequences.”

I stood in the middle of the room, my arms hanging limply by my sides and watched as

the doctor picked up her scalpel and resumed her dissection. My stomach flipped at the sight.
That thing that she was cutting apart, was it part of a human?

I backed slowly towards the door. The cold metal knob bit into my lower back and I

turned away from the doctor, disgusted, and ran back down the hallway crashing through the
large door into the delivery unit.

Upstairs Etta was crouched over the bed. She had hooked an IV into the woman’s arm. A

bag of bright red blood dripped steadily into the Carrier’s arm, but her face was still a ghostly
shade of gray.

“Where’s the doctor?” Etta asked, looking up at me.
“She wouldn’t come.”
“What do you mean? She could miscarry this baby any second,” she yelled looking

around the room helplessly.

The Carrier opened her eyes and grimaced, letting out a long, low wail. She tried to push

herself up, but Etta leaned her back against the bed.

“Lie down,” Etta told her, “save your strength.”
“Not…one…more,” the Carrier moaned.

“Shhh,” Etta whispered, stroking her forehead, “Calm down. It’s going to be alright.” But

when she looked back up at me I could see the worry in her eyes.

“Where’s Mistress Edian?” I asked. “Maybe she’ll know what to do.”
“She couldn’t stay,” Etta said, “It’s just us.”
She walked over to the small cabinet containing all the doctor’s instruments and

medications, pulling out a syringe and a small clear bottle of amber colored liquid.

“I can’t believe this,” she whispered under her breath.
“What should we do?”
Etta lifted the Carrier’s arm, gently pressing the needle into her skin. “We’ll make her

comfortable. Stay by her side. I don’t know what else we can do.”

The Carrier’s head lolled back on the pillow and her eyes fluttered closed.
“What’s going to happen to her?” I asked, glancing back toward the doorway where the

officers stood silently on the other side.

When I turned back at Etta her face was blank, her eyes glazed and staring.
“Etta, what did Mistress Edian mean when she said that the Carrier would be lucky to be

reassigned as an udder?”

“Oh Wynne, not now,” Etta said, shaking her head as if she was returning from

someplace faraway.

She gazed down at the Carrier and stroked the hair back from her forehead. It was such a

familiar gesture that I wondered if after a few years she had started to recognize the Carriers as
they came back time and again to give birth to their babies.

From a small shelf I grabbed a bottle of grape seed oil and sat down on the edge of the

bed, placing the Carrier’s foot in my lap. For months I’d been summoned by the ringing of bells
to massage oil into swollen feet and legs. Now, for the first time I felt the power in my hands, the
comfort that they could give.

Etta sat on the opposite side of the bed and took the Carrier’s other foot in her hands.

“Mistress Edian shouldn’t have said that, about the udders.”

“Why?” I asked.
“It’s…I don’t know if it’s even true,” she said, rubbing the oil along the arch of the

Carrier’s foot. The girl shuddered under our fingers; her body tensing as another pain gripped
her. “I don’t think it’s going to be long now,” Etta said, looking at her. “She’s going to lose this
baby.”

“But if she loses it…they’ll punish her won’t they?”
Etta nodded.
“Why would Mistress Edian mention udders, if it’s not true?” I asked.
“Maybe she knows more than I do,” Etta said, “But that doesn’t mean that I want to

believe it.” She sighed. “The Union assures the Carriers a secure life, a life of comfort after
they’ve served their time having babies. It’s what they promise, but that doesn’t mean it’s true.”

I shook my head, not understanding.
“Maybe the Union does keep their promise,” Etta said, “But some people say that after

the Carriers are dismissed of their duties they get two choices: life as an udder or a life of labor.”

Etta nodded at me expecting me to understand, but the blank look on my face made her

go on.

“An udder is an old Carrier who gives milk for the babies,” she said, “After their last

delivery, the Union starts milking them. Haven’t you ever wondered how we feed all these

babies? Their bodies can’t digest the same sort of milk that we drink. And so the Carriers either
agree to it or get moved to something worse.”

“What could be worse than that?” I asked.
Etta shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t want to believe any of it. I want to believe

that the whole thing is just a lie.”

I nodded, wanting to believe that too.

The baby was only a tiny thing, not even the size of my palm. Etta cleaned it off and

handed it to me before she left to fill out the stack of paperwork that the Union would require
now that the baby had died.

I found a soft cotton washcloth and wrapped the baby inside it. It didn’t weigh much. As

I cradled it in my hands I could hardly even feel it there, like a feather, a wisp of something that
had barely even made it to earth.

I wrung out a warm rag and went back to attending to the Carrier. The baby hadn’t made

it, but the woman would survive. She was exhausted and weak, but already a bit of color was
coming back to her face.

Her eyes opened as I drew the clean cloth across her forehead. I’d expected to see some

madness in them, but they only looked tired and resigned. I’d never met someone who had
openly disobeyed the Union the way that this woman had, but surprisingly, she didn’t frighten
me. I wanted to open her up, to peer inside her and see what bits of us were the same on the
inside.

The woman licked her dry lips. “They’ll send me away… but I don’t care,” she paused,

catching her breath. “They would have done it eventually anyway.”

I stopped wiping her brow. I shouldn’t be talking to her. The officers had given explicit

instructions to ignore her.

“Why would they have sent you away?” I whispered.
“They send them all away,” she said.
I shifted, glancing towards the door, but it stayed empty. If the officers were still standing

guard outside the room, they hadn’t heard us.

“Who do they send away?” I asked.
She took a deep breath. “The mothers.”
The word sent a chill up my back, bringing bumps to my arms. “Where? Where do they

send them?”

She licked her lips again. They were so dry. I reached for the bowl of ice chips that rested

on the bedside table, spooning a bit into her mouth. For a moment she closed her eyes as her
tongue searched out the last few drops of liquid that lingered at the corners of her mouth.

Finally, she spoke again. “I don’t know.” She closed her eyes for a moment, resting.

“When they leave… we never see them again.”

“But they always said—”
“Why don’t you go back to your barracks and get some sleep,” Etta said, interrupting me

as she walked back into the room carrying a bowl of broth for the Carrier.

I jumped a little, turning away from the woman. If only I could have had just a few more

minutes with her.

“Okay,” I agreed, “I’ll go get some rest, but only if you promise to do the same when I

come back.”

Etta nodded and I turned to go, picking up the little bundle that still held the baby. I

wasn’t sure what the Union did with the infants that died. I’d never had a Carrier who had lost
one yet and even though I knew there was a depository in the Nursery for stillborn babies, I
didn’t know what would happen to it after it was put in there. Would they bury it, or throw it out
with the trash? Suddenly I felt protective of this little body, this brief life that didn’t make it, and
I worried about what the doctors might do if they got their hands on it. I thought back to the wall
of jars in the doctor’s room, trying to remember what had been floating inside of them.

I hesitated at the depository. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t put the baby in there. I’d just have

to tell them that I threw the remains out with the trash.

I cupped my hands around the little body and pressed it against my stomach as I walked

out into the dark. It was cold outside. My breath froze into clouds and instinctively I pulled the
little bundle closer to my body to protect it. The streets were empty. Even the barracks appeared
deserted this late at night, without a light in any of the windows. I thought of all those women,
sound asleep in their barracks. They would wake up in the morning, eat their breakfasts, and go
to their work assignments as normal, without ever knowing about the little soul that I carried past
them tonight, cupped in my palms.

And what about the all the mothers? Where were they right now? The thing Etta said,

about the udders… that couldn’t be true. But the Carrier seemed so sure that the Union sent them
away. I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping they were wrong, both of them. Maybe there was a city
out there where all the mothers lived, away from all of us. Maybe it was a beautiful place.

My barracks were just as quiet as the rest of them. I could keep walking past them, this

wasn’t my destination just yet, but there was something I needed from inside. I shut the front
door silently behind me, heading straight for the kitchen. It was dark without the overhead lights
on and I fumbled around with my free hand, trying to find a big metal spoon, sturdy enough to
dig in the frozen ground.

“Wynne?”
I jerked around. It was dark, but I recognized Tamsin’s soft voice and I was almost

relieved to see her small frame standing beside me.

“Oh, Tamsin, were you up again?” I asked.
“I was in the dining room,” she said, “I saw you come in the front door. What are you

doing?”

“I…there’s something I need to do,” my voice caught. “Would you like to come with

me?”

“If you want me to.”
I hadn’t realized it, but that was exactly what I wanted.
Tamsin was only wearing her thin cotton pajamas and a pair of slippers, but she didn’t

complain as we walked out into the night. We moved in silence. I hadn’t been back to the ped
units since I left for the selection, but even in the moonlight the field looked just as I
remembered it. The moonlight shone off of the frosted blades of grass like sun across water,
making it twinkle. How many nights had Odessa and I gazed out our windows onto this very
scene? The huge sycamore tree in the middle of the field looked like an old friend, and my eyes
filled with tears.

“There,” I said, pointing to the tree.
Tamsin followed me across the field and we stopped at the base of the sycamore. I fell to

my knees on the hard ground and Tamsin knelt next to me.

“Give me the spoon,” she said, “I’ll dig.”

The ground was cold, but it was only frozen down through the first inch or so. Tamsin

scratched and stabbed at the dirt until she’d hollowed out a little hole about six inches deep.

I unwrapped the cloth and the two of us bent over the little body in my hand. The baby

was small and pink, nothing more than a tiny apostrophe in the middle of the gray fabric. Maybe
it was the delicateness of its body or the slight translucence of its skin, but it reminded me of the
baby bird I’d once buried under this very tree.

I thought of that baby bird now, those small wings that looked so much like arms and I

folded the fabric back over this little baby before I placed it in the ground.

Tamsin gazed over at me in the dark. “Do you want me to say something?” she asked.
I nodded, unable to speak.
“In my village when someone dies we all gather together to say goodbye,” she whispered.

“We place our hand over the grave, like this.”

Gently she took my hand and rested it overtop the loose soil. Before she spoke again she

set her palm overtop of mine.

“We return you to the soil from which you came,” she said, “Flesh becomes earth and

from that earth we draw the breath of life. One eternal circle. What rises must someday set. What
lives must one day die.”

The words were beautiful. I’d never heard anyone speak anything like them before and

they filled me with both hope and sorrow. The Union didn’t allow ceremonies like this. They
didn’t make room inside any of us for mourning. When a person died they were gone. That was
it. No goodbyes.

In the cold, my tears felt hot against my cheek, but I didn’t brush them away.
Tamsin’s voice shook as she went on. “Now we each say one thing that we loved about

the person we lost and we promise to keep their memory alive by carrying their good traits with
us.” Her voice cracked.

The earth felt cold beneath my fingers.
“For my husband I promised to carry his strength. For my daughter, her kindness and for

my son, his humor. I didn’t know you little one,” she said, addressing the ground at our
fingertips, “but I promise not to forget this night.”

She raised her head and nodded, telling me it was my turn to speak.
My voice caught in my throat, only a ragged whisper. “I won’t forget either,” I said. “I

promise not to forget that you existed.”

Tamsin and I bowed our heads. Our breath clumped together into clouds that lifted up

into the air, dissipating into the clear dark night.

Chapter Eight

The Carriers came and went month after month, season after season and with them, the

babies, born in an unfailing progression as constant as the days. At some point they started to
blur together, forming in my mind a solid archetype so that after a while they didn’t even seem
like individuals anymore as much as a bigger organism. But even so, I never stopped keeping
track of the births that I witnessed. I counted each one and held onto that number 542, 543, 544,
as if these numbers would not let me forget that each one was separate, singular.

As the summer heat started to press down, I should have realized that a year had almost

circled back around on itself, a year as round and full as one of the Carrier’s bellies, but time had
lost its hold on me. It used to be that I thought of my age as a ladder, each year a rung that
brought me closer and closer to selection day, to the time when Odessa and I would move to the
Carrier residence together. But time had stopped on that day, throwing me forward into the foggy
wasteland of the rest of my life.

And then one morning I stepped into the northeast birthing room and there she was.

Odessa. Her body was swollen, her skin firm and blushing like all the other Carriers, but
underneath the mask of pregnancy she was still the same girl I’d always known. My Odessa.

Her hair was plaited elaborately around the top of her head so that the golden braid

seemed almost like a real crown, the kind I imagined had graced the princesses in Old World
fairytales. She wore a silken robe the color of spring grass that set off the pink in her cheeks,
making them look even more flushed than they really were. She was perfect. Lovely. The exact
vision of a Carrier I had always imagined she could be.

My breath caught in my throat as it tightened. That foggy stretch of time that I’d been

suspended in, like a false limbo, swirled away and all those days that had separated us, every
hour, every minute, became crystal clear. All of those seconds leading me to now. This moment.

She was looking down at her round belly, her eyes wide with pain and I could see that

she was concentrating on the cramping in her belly.

“Odessa,” I said, stepping into the room.
Her name felt brand new on my tongue.
She looked up and our eyes locked. Why hadn’t I imagined this moment before? For all

those long months, why hadn’t I dreamt about the day that I would see her again?

She didn’t speak, but I saw the shock in her eyes, and the fear, as if she was seeing a

ghost.

“Odessa,” I said again, wiping at the hot tears on my cheeks. I crossed the room to stand

next to her.

“Wynne,” she stuttered, “What are you doing here?”
“I work here,” I said, moving closer to her. “I never dreamt that I’d see you…” My words

trailed off and I raised my hand to her face, cradling her cheek in my palm.

Odessa flinched, jerking her face away from me. She drew her own hand up to her cheek

as if my touch had stung.

“Dess?” I said, stepping back slightly. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said, “I was only startled just now. They should have told me that you

were here, so that I might have prepared myself.” Her voice was tight, refined.

“I wish they’d told me too,” I said, trying to meet her eyes, but she stared down at her

stomach, her face stiffening as she fought another contraction.

“Oh, I’m so sorry Odessa,” I said, “You’re in so much pain.”

I shouldn’t have expected her to leap for joy at seeing me. She was hurting. She was

distracted.

“I am in pain,” she said a moment later. “They said that you people were supposed to

help with that.”

“Oh, of course I will.”
I picked up her chart, flipping through the pages to make sure that no one had

administered any medication before I got here, but she’d been checked in right before I arrived. I
skimmed over her information, her birth date, eye color, height. I knew it all by heart.

“Take this,” I said, handing Odessa a small white pain pill and a glass of water. “It’ll take

the edge off.”

She took the pill from me tentatively, looking at me out of the corner of her eye as she

swallowed it.

“Do you want me to get you some broth, or some ice chips?” I asked.
I wanted to ease her pain; to clear the peculiar look of suffering that distorted her face.
“No thank you,” she said.
“I can rub your feet, or get you a cool cloth for your forehead. Anything.”
What I really wanted was to sit down on the edge of the bed and take her hand in mine. I

wanted to curl up next to her the way we used to on our skinny cots in the ped units and close my
eyes, just feeling her next to me. I wanted to tell her everything that had happened over the last
eleven months.

“Or if you want I can get you…”
“Please,” she interrupted me, “What I really want is to be left alone.”
“Oh, of course,” I stammered, backing out of the room. “I’ll be waiting in the other room.

If you want anything you only need to ring the…”

“I know how to summon you,” she said as she rolled over, turning her back to me.

Etta was in the upstairs storage room folding towels when I walked in.
“Oh good, you’re here,” she said, “I need you to help me take down the draperies in all

the south facing rooms today.”

I hardly heard her.
“Wynne,” Etta said, “Is everything okay? You don’t look good.”
I shook my head trying to focus. “It’s probably nothing,” I said, “A misunderstanding.

She’s probably not feeling like herself because she’s in labor.”

“Did you get stuck with an ornery Carrier?” Etta asked. “Last week I got one that kept

demanding praline ice cream even though it made her sick. I fed it to her three times and each
time she threw it up.”

“It’s…no…it’s not that,” I said. I paused and took a deep breath, trying to find the

strength to speak again. “It’s Odessa.”

Etta pushed aside the stack of towels she was working on and came to stand in front of

me. Her brown eyes were warm, understanding.

“Your friend? The one you told me about?”
I nodded, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak.
“What happened?”
“Maybe it’s nothing,” I said, shaking my head. “I—I think maybe I’m overreacting. I’ve

been thinking about her for so many months and now that I finally saw her again something
feels… wrong.”

“Was she cruel to you?” Etta asked.
“No…no—not cruel,” I said, “Odessa could never be cruel. She’s my best friend.”
Etta pulled me into a hug and held me tight and even though I’d known her for almost a

year the intimacy of the gesture startled me. Etta was normally distant, reserved.

Etta straightened her arms and held me by the shoulders, staring straight into my eyes.
“Wynne, I don’t want to see you get hurt,” she said. “I know Odessa was your friend, but

you have to remember where she’s been for the past year. Things change.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head.
Etta sighed. “The Carrier residence would turn anyone into a different person. You’ve

seen these women, Wynne. They’re different from us. I told you that the first day you came
here.”

“Not Odessa,” I said. “She’s not like them.”
“Just because you shared a childhood doesn’t mean that you still know her.”
“We shared more than a childhood,” I said, looking away from her. “I don’t expect you to

understand.”

Etta let go of my shoulders. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt,” she said, turning away

from me.

I waited for two hours outside of Odessa’s door before she rang for me. I was afraid to go

inside, afraid to face her again in case Etta was right.

I opened the door slowly and peeked inside. The room looked unchanged. Odessa hadn’t

moved from her spot on the bed. Her back still faced the door as she stared out the tall windows
that lined the north wall. From where she lay in the bed, she would be able to see the Carrier
residence rising up above the other buildings and I wondered if that was what she was looking at
now.

“What can I get for you?” I asked, keeping the standard four feet between us.
Odessa rolled over. I thought I saw her face soften a bit as her eyes moved over me.
“I’m still in pain,” she said, “That medicine didn’t do anything.”
“I’m sorry, Odessa,” I said. “The medicine won’t take away the pain. Hopefully it’ll

make it a little more bearable.”

“Can I have some more,” she asked, a hint of desperation in her voice.
“You have to wait an hour before I can give you any more. But if it’ll help I can rub your

back.” I stepped a little closer, “if you roll onto your side I can sit here…” I lowered myself
carefully down onto the edge of her bed and helped her roll onto her side. She jumped slightly
when I put my hand on her lower back, but she didn’t pull away.

“It’s alright to be frightened the first time you deliver,” I said, “Most of the Carriers are.

But don’t worry. The doctors know what they’re doing. It’s their job to make sure that
everything turns out fine.”

Odessa was quiet.
“If you get too scared I can sing to you. The way I used to.”
Odessa shook her head, “That won’t be necessary.”
The words to one of my songs pushed at the back of my mouth, trying to escape. Almost

all of the songs I’d ever made up were about Odessa and me. It was the two of us. Together we
made up the whole world.

“I never got to say goodbye,” I said.

She didn’t turn to me when she spoke. “This is a higher calling. I’m not supposed to think

about how things used to be.”

“What do you mean, how things used to be?”
“From before…” she said, not making eye contact with me.
“But you can’t just forget that. That would be like forgetting about us.”
Odessa didn’t respond.
“Dess, you can’t just forget about us,” I said. The panic in my stomach made my words

came out high-pitched and loud. “We shared everything…our whole childhood. Every memory I
have is half yours.”

“Those memories are in the past. They aren’t part of who I am.”
“How can you say that? What about all our secrets? What about the stories we made up?

What about our secret language? Come on, Odessa. Every building we ever lived in has our
initials carved into the stairway. You can’t just erase that like it never happened.”

Odessa reeled back as if she’d been slapped. Her face was pale and she clenched her right

hand into a fist as she turned away from me.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I didn’t mean to hurt you. It’s just having you here was such a

surprise. I’ve missed you so much.” I rested my hand on her arm.

“Stop touching me that way,” she snapped, pulling away from me. “You can’t treat me

like we’re the same anymore.”

“But I’m not.”
“You have to stop talking to me like I’m your friend. We’re not the same. I got selected.

You didn’t. Don’t you understand that?”

My eyes stung, but I blinked back the tears.
“Odessa, please, you can’t mean that. Maybe things have been different for you…”
“Don’t pretend to know what my life has been like,” she snapped. “You could never

understand. Never. I’m special. I’m somebody. The Union is nothing without me, without my
body.”

I stood back up and stepped away from her.
What had they done to her? In her voice I heard the same cruelty and superiority that was

in every other Carrier.

“You don’t mean that, Dess,” I said shaking my head. “We took a vow, remember?”
I closed my fingers around the place on my palm that still bore a scar. I knew if I lifted up

Odessa’s right hand I’d see one there too, left over from the ceremony we had the year we turned
fifteen.

“Those were just the silly trappings of little girls,” Odessa said, “None of that was true.”
I shook my head, trying to rattle away the image of Odessa’s face in the candlelight as we

swore to be sisters for the rest of our lives. Sisters. The word whispered to me, pulling me in. I
could still hear Odessa’s voice as we slit our palms with the paring knife I’d stolen from the
kitchen.

“From this day on we’re one,” she whispered. “The same blood that flows through you

will flow through me too. Sisters. Forever.”

“Sisters. Forever,” I repeated.
We knelt in front of the small stub of a candle as she pressed our palms together, smiling.

The orange light bounced off of the walls of the storage closet, illuminating Odessa’s face, full of
passion and life, as she stared back at me.

Sisters.

“We were sisters,” I told her now, but the face looking back at me was empty.
“Please don’t use that sort of language around me,” Odessa said, “I can’t deal with you

trying to corrupt my mind any longer. I’m done with that.”

I closed my hand around my scar and swallowed the pain. “The doctor should be coming

soon,” I said, turning to leave. “It shouldn’t be too much longer now.”

Odessa’s labor only lasted ten hours, which was quick for a primer birth. The baby came

into the world pink and screaming with a swath of downy hair that stuck straight up on top of her
head.

It was a girl.
And she was perfect. I swaddled her in a soft blanket and ran my hand over the top of her

head, feeling the strong heart beat thumping through the soft spot on her skull where the bones
hadn’t fully closed. She was so delicate, so fragile. Most of the newborns I saw looked a little
funny, their faces smushed and puffy, but this little girl was beautiful, slight and refined. She was
flawless, each tiny feature perfectly miniature.

“It’s a girl,” I said, stepping over to the side of the bed.
I held the baby up so that Odessa could see her but she stared past me, past the baby and

out towards the Carrier residence, which glowed pink in the evening light.

“I need a name for her,” I said.
When Odessa spoke her voice sounded as hard and cold as the granite that she stared at.

“Name her Cara,” she said.

Please, look at her, I wanted to yell. Look at this child now while you have the chance.

But I didn’t speak and she didn’t move her eyes.

I wanted to ask where the name had come from, why she’d picked it for this baby, but

instead the words that Etta had taught me to say slipped from my lips.

“She’ll wear it well,” I said.
The baby had stopped crying by the time I got her downstairs to the Nursery and she was

sleeping peacefully in my arms, her little lips moving as if she was already sucking on a bottle.
They were sweet lips, so tiny, so delicate. I hated to wake her, but she needed to be fed before I
took her to be numbered. She had to be down to the identity marking division within the first
hour after her birth. And even though it seemed cruel to me, to mark a baby when it was getting
used to being alive, I didn’t want to be punished for disobeying the rules, even if it was Odessa’s
baby.

In the IM building Anika sat behind the front desk. She didn’t smile at me as I handed her

the baby’s papers and I turned my attention to Cara, hoping that Anika wouldn’t look too
carefully at the baby’s information.

For a moment I thought maybe she’d overlooked the baby’s origin but then she sucked in

a loud breath of air and stared back up at me.

“Why didn’t you tell me that Odessa carried this one?” she asked.
“I didn’t think it was any of your business.”
Anika looked down at the baby and back up at me. “I bet she’s like the rest of them, isn’t

she?” a grin formed at the corners of her mouth. “You thought she’d still be your friend.”

I snatched the papers out of her hand and walked past the desk. Down the hallway the

door to the marking room was already open and I walked in choking on the strong smell of
ammonia.

“You can put the baby down on the table,” the technician said, pointing to a tall padded

table near the wall.

During the past year I’d dropped hundreds of babies off to be numbered, but this felt

different. I set the sleeping Cara down on the table and backed away, feeling a lump rise inside
my throat as the technician unwrapped the baby’s arm from inside her blanket and strapped it
down to the table. Wetting a small strip of white transfer paper already printed with four digits,
the technician pressed the cool paper onto Cara’s forearm and held it there until the writing had
set. She slowly peeled it away, revealing the outline of the numbers that would soon be
permanently inked into the skin.

Cara stirred but didn’t wake. The tech flipped a switch, bringing the machine to life with

the dreadful buzz I detested. It was a droning whirr, the sound of a swarm of bees on a hot day
and I turned away.

Cara’s cries blended in with the buzzing of the machine and I ran my fingers along my

own IM number, remembering the hot pain of the needle injecting the ink. She’d be done soon, I
told myself. A baby doesn’t remember this.

It only took a few minutes and the technician switched the machine off and covered the

freshly inked number in salve and a bandage. Cara’s shrill cries slowed and she bleated out one
more quivering note before I scooped her up.

“I’m so sorry, little girl,” I whispered into the soft fold of her neck.
I turned my back so the technician wouldn’t see the tears falling down my cheeks and

onto Cara. They rolled across the soft skin of her cheek, settling in the folds of her neck.

Newborn babies don’t cry real tears. I hadn’t known that until I started working in

delivery, and until Cara was born, it hadn’t mattered. But now it seemed unfair that her tear ducts
were dry. She deserved to feel the sadness rising up inside and then falling away, released.

On the way back to the newborn unit I whispered Cara’s number over and over to myself.

F339… F339… F339. As soon as I handed her over to the worker in the nursery, I’d never see
her again. These babies were only in my care for a short time. I took them from their mother, had
them numbered and then they were delivered on to the nursery where they would be cared for
until they were old enough to move on. Maybe, if I was lucky, some day I would be assigned to
work in the same unit as her, and if I did, I was determined to remember her number. To be sure
that she was Odessa’s baby.

The pressure in my chest was painful. It made it hard to breathe and reminded me of the

way I felt when I thought about Odessa. Goodbyes were common. I should have been used to
them. Don’t get attached. Don’t depend so much on another person. I should have known that,
after all, the Union was about the whole, the collective, not the individual. It was never about one
person. I belong to the whole, I told myself. My life is for the good of the Union.

So why did it feel like a lie?

Chapter Nine

“Can’t we go to bed already,” Lindy moaned, lying back across her mattress with her

head hanging off the end. During recitations she fidgeted more than any of us.

Anika cast her an annoyed look, but she didn’t close the book. “Stop complaining,” she

said, “You’ve all gotten so lazy. Don’t you know that an idle mind is the tool of dissent?”

Anika had been relentless tonight. For the past two hours she’d led us in recitations from

the handbook, which was excessive even for her. The particular satisfaction she was getting from
tonight’s verses hadn’t gone unnoticed and after the first hour everyone had turned their attention
to me, as if they realized that Anika’s tyranny was directed my way.

With the exception of a select few, the verses had all been about the special role of

Carriers and most of us knew them by heart. They were the sort of sayings that we’d relished as
children, dreaming that the Union had been reserving these select honors for us. But now they
only reminded us of what we were not: not perfect, not chosen, not special. And tonight in
particular, I knew that Anika meant for them to remind me of what I’d lost: both my dream of
being a Carrier, and my best friend.

Tamsin and Maren sat on either side of me on my bed as if they’d positioned themselves

there not only to protect me, but to prop me up. No one had come out and asked me if Odessa
had come into delivery today, but I could tell from their pitying stares that most of them had
guessed.

“There is no body of higher importance than that of a Carrier,” Anika read. “Only the

most perfect, the ideal, can be entrusted to carry the lifeblood of the Union.”

Together we repeated the saying, but our voices dragged and I wondered if any of us still

believed wholeheartedly that this was true. If the Carriers were perfect, than what were we?
When our voices trailed off Tamsin spoke up.

“So are the Carriers different from the rest of us?” she asked.
Tamsin rarely spoke to the group of us, and she certainly never spoke to Anika, so her

question caught us all off guard. The other girls stared at her, startled, as if she’d blurted out
something profane.

Anika laughed, “What sort of stupid question is that? Haven’t you been listening to

anything I’ve said tonight? Of course the Carriers are different. They’re not anything like us.
They’re superior,” she drew out this last word, looking right at me as she said it.

Tamsin sat up a little straighter and stared Anika in the eye. “I’m wondering if you can

clarify a precept that’s a bit confusing to me,” she said.

“I’ll try,” Anika scoffed, “but I can’t make any promises.”
“Alright,” said Tamsin, “Does the Union ever make a mistake? I mean is everything it

says true?”

Anika snorted, “Of course it’s true.”
“Fine,” Tamsin went on, “So are the Carriers evil?”
I didn’t know what Tamsin was getting at, but the tone in her voice worried me.
“What?” Anika laughed, looking at Tamsin as if she’d gone mad. “Where would you get

that stupid idea?”

Tamsin turned to me for a split second, the hint of something fiery flashing in her eyes.
“I made it a point to memorize The Four Canons of Order,” she said, “after you said how

important they were, and I clearly remember that the Fourth Canon states that diversity is the
root of all evil.”

The room suddenly quieted.
“That’s not…I mean,” Anika stuttered, “Obviously you understood it wrong. What the

Union meant by diversity is not…” she closed her mouth, unable to finish her sentence.

If Tamsin had stopped right then, Anika would have settled down eventually. She was

embarrassed, but she would have let it go. She might have even talked herself into believing that
Tamsin really was curious about a precept that didn’t seem to make any sense.

But Tamsin didn’t stop.
“Everyone knows what you’re trying to do to Wynne with these verses,” she said, “It’s

cruel and I think it’s time you stopped.”

Anika’s mouth pinched shut as if someone had cinched the ends of a drawstring, pulling

it tightly closed. She didn’t speak as she slowly closed the handbook.

After a moment she stood and placed the book gently on her desk. Perhaps we should

have looked away from her, but we couldn’t draw our eyes away. Her struggle enthralled us. We
held our breath waiting for her to speak but she said nothing. Finally she turned and walked into
the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

The rest of us stared at each other, astonished, but we didn’t speak. One by one we got

up, put on our pajamas and crawled into our beds.

By the time Anika came out of the bathroom the lights were out and the room was silent.

I didn’t dare speak to Tamsin until I knew everyone was sound asleep. We’d gotten into

the habit of talking to each other in the middle of the night, sometimes walking out into the
dining room or the common room, but mostly we sat side by side in one of our beds whispering
late into the night. The closeness of her small body comforted me.

Sometimes she told me stories about her life before she came here. She didn’t remember

a lot, but slowly things were coming back. There were little snippets that she would share,
pictures in her mind that she could describe to me: the flower wreath she’d worn when she was
married, or the way her village strung paper lanterns across the streets on holidays.

But tonight I needed to talk about Odessa.
“I don’t understand,” I said, “it’s like it wasn’t even her, like her body was there, but the

rest of her was dead.”

After I’d spoken, I wished that I could take it back. I didn’t know how many of the

people that Tamsin had known had died, but I guessed that there must have been a lot. Her
husband. Her children. Her parents.

Tamsin took my hand in hers. “You can’t blame Odessa,” she said. “You don’t know

what she’s been through. Maybe they do something to the Carriers… like reconditioning. Maybe
they’ve tried to take all those pieces of her old self away.”

“Do you think she’s really gone?” I whispered.
“No, not gone,” Tamsin said, sensing how close I was to breaking, “They just buried

those parts of her.”

I thought of the faraway expression that Tamsin got on her face when she remembered

her children. I knew that they were still a part of her. Maybe what she said was true. Maybe the
old Odessa was still there, hiding under the part of her that was a Carrier now.

“Can you tell me about reconditioning?” I asked.
Tamsin rolled onto her side and looked at me, concerned. “It’s…it wasn’t pleasant.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I understand if you’d rather not. I didn’t mean for you to have to

relive it.”

“It’s not that.” She pulled the covers up under her chin “I thought that maybe you’d

rather not know. Sometimes it’s easier to not know it at all. Have you ever heard the expression
‘ignorance is bliss’?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head.
“Never mind,” she said, “It’s a stupid saying anyway. There’s no happiness in lies.”
Across the room someone moaned in their sleep and Tamsin and I froze. Slowly, I sat up

and glanced around the room to make sure that everyone was asleep. We couldn’t get in trouble
just for talking to one another, but I didn’t want people to know what we were talking about.
Especially not Anika.

After a few minutes Tamsin spoke again, “You know, it might not even be the same,”

she whispered, “What they do to the Carriers, if they do anything to the Carriers. It might not be
anything like what I went through.”

“I know.”
We sat in silence for a while, feeling the complete stillness of the barracks around us.
“I guess the worst part was knowing that they were trying to take my old memories away

from me,” Tamsin said. “Which is funny, because I came here trying to escape those memories. I
thought it was what I wanted… But when it came down to it, I guess I didn’t want to give them
up.”

I thought of Odessa; the way she snorted when she laughed too hard, the way she bit her

nails down to the quick except for the first month of every year when she swore she’d change the
habit. I thought of the way she used to burp so loud that the keepers threatened to lock her in the
closet and the way she crinkled her brow when she tried to concentrate, squinting her eyes so that
she looked like a little mouse. I would never give up those memories.

Were there memories of me that she cherished? I thought of all the drawing she’d done of

me: pencil sketches of me posing on chairs and stretched out on the lawn. They chronicled our
whole childhood. I had dozens of them, but she’d taken most of them with her. Maybe she
looked at those pictures when she missed me. I hoped so. I hoped that there was a reminder of
me that she’d tried to hold onto.

“How do they get rid of your memories?” I asked.
Tamsin shook her head, remembering. “There was a pill we had to take three times a

day…and there was the noise. That was the worst part…constant noise. For weeks. It was a
continuous buzzing and clacking that was piped into the reconditioning cell and it was
impossible to escape. They strapped us down to the tables so we couldn’t plug our ears.”

The thought of Tamsin and Odessa strapped down on cold steel tables sent a chill up my

spine.

“But how could that make you forget?”
“I don’t know,” she said, “Maybe it didn’t really make us forget. Maybe it just

reprogrammed how we remembered things. Somehow the pills made us remember things, and
after long enough our memories started to get mixed up in all that awful sound. It turned our
memories into something ugly. I felt it happening, memories from my childhood, memories of
my husband, my children. It polluted them.”

“But how?”
“It’s association,” she said. “I can’t think of those memories without making myself sick.

I get an awful headache and then I get really queasy, like I’ve been spinning in circles. So instead

of remembering, my body pressed those thoughts down. It got rid of them so that they couldn’t
hurt me.”

Tamsin curled up next to me and I stroked back her hair. Maybe she was lucky to still

have some pictures in her head, some memories of her family that hadn’t been ruined. If Tamsin
still remembered some things, then maybe Odessa did too.

“Wynne?” Tamsin said.
“Yeah?”
“What did Odessa name her baby?”
I closed my eyes and imagined the baby. She was out there right now, asleep in some

other room, not too far away, and Odessa too. How could it be that we were all so close to one
another, yet in completely different worlds?

“Cara,” I told her.
“Oh, that’s a beautiful name,” she said, “I wonder what it means?”
I reached under my pillow and squeezed my hand around my two white speckled stones. I

didn’t normally sleep with them there, but tonight I needed them close by and for some reason
they comforted me.

“Was it hard,” Tamsin paused, “to ask her for a name?”
“It’s funny,” I said, “the whole time Odessa was in labor I kept hoping that maybe she’d

name the baby after me. That would be her way of telling me that she still cared, that she hadn’t
forgotten me. But she didn’t. I’ve never even heard the name Cara before.”

Tamsin didn’t say anything, just turned her head towards the ceiling and stared up into

the dark.

After a few minutes I spoke again, “Do you think it’s wrong of the Union to ask Carriers

to name their babies?”

“Does my opinion really matter?” Tamsin asked.
“It matters to me.”
Tamsin sat up and tucked her legs underneath her so that she was staring down at me.

“The important question is, what do you think?”

I shook my head. “I always thought that it was a gift for the Carrier and for the baby, like

the Union was letting them have this bond. My whole life my name has seemed sacred because I
knew that she…” I swallowed. “That my mother…”

“And now?” Tamsin asked. “Is that still what you believe?”
“I don’t know what I believe anymore.”
On the other side of the room the mattress springs creaked on someone’s bed and Tamsin

and I froze. What if someone had heard what we’d said? I held my breath trying to listen, but
Maren’s soft snoring was the only sound I could hear.

“Tamsin?” I whispered.
She shook her head, telling me to keep quiet.
I leaned up on my elbow, squinting to see across the room in the dark. In the moonlight

that spilled through the window I saw Anika move in her bed and for a split second I thought
maybe I saw her eyes flutter opened and closed.

Chapter Ten

This Carrier had ignored me for most of her time in labor, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want

to be around them any more than they wanted to be around me. Before Odessa delivered her
baby, the Carrier’s large, important bodies only reminded me of what I’d missed out on, but now
when I saw them I could only think of her.

The Carrier shooed me away when I entered the room to check her temperature or to

offer her some medication to ease the pain of her contractions. She spent the early hours of her
labor staring out the window at the sycamore tree that stood by the banks of the river, a lone
sentry reflected in the steel gray waters. Like Odessa, she chose to keep the curtains wide open
so that the face of the residence looked down on us.

When I came in to bring her soup, she kept her gaze turned away from me, as if I didn’t

exist. It wasn’t until the last hour before the birth that she finally acknowledged me, allowing me
to feed her spoonful after spoonful of ice chips and run a cool cloth across her forehead.

Five hours after she arrived, the Carrier gave one final push and moments later the baby

introduced itself, crying the same hiccupping cry all babies give in their first few minutes of life.
After almost a year the sound still moved through my body, a new song that filled my chest with
a heavy sense of wonder.

It didn’t take long to get the baby cleaned and swaddled.
“What would you like to name her?” I asked, holding the infant up so the woman could

get a better look at its wrinkled pink face and swath of dark hair. The baby flailed its arms and
bleated a few hoarse cries, but the woman refused to turn her head to see it. She kept her eyes
cast toward the window, looking past me, past the tree’s upswept branches, towards the strip of
cloudy sky along the horizon. She kept her chin raised, and I saw, even after five hours of labor,
why she had been chosen to be a Carrier. She was the epitome of beauty, the sort of woman we
all must have envisioned as little girls when we heard stories of the Carriers.

“No,” she whispered, shaking her head and bringing a hand to her eyes.
The baby squirmed in my arms. I cleared my throat, unable to press her again for a name.

Why was she making this harder than it needed to be? I couldn’t wait forever. The doctor had
taken her time examining it and after cleaning and swaddling it I’d wasted another few minutes.
But with each moment that passed the Carrier’s defiance grew.

With shaking hands I swaddled the baby tighter and turned to the doctor for direction. I’d

never had a Carrier refuse to name a baby before, but the doctor only shrugged, wiping her hands
on her smock before writing something down on the chart in front of her.

“The baby’s a good size. Lungs seem healthy. Take it down to the nursery for its first

bottle as soon as possible.”

I nodded, unable to croak out the “yes, Doctor,” I was expected to reply with. The doctor

pursed her lips and I could tell she had become annoyed with the whole situation.

“No matter,” she mumbled, scribbling another note in her chart, “If she doesn’t want to

choose a name…” she shrugged unwilling to even bother finishing her sentence.

I nodded again and tried to stand a little straighter, the way Etta did.
The moments ticked by and the doctor grew more and more impatient, tapping her pen

loudly against the clipboard. Her eyes switched between me and the Carrier, perhaps deciding
which one of us she loathed more.

She tapped her pen one final time, “I don’t have time for this charade,” she said, handing

me the baby’s chart before she headed towards the door. “Don’t forget to take prints of the hands
and feet before you take it down to be numbered.”

The woman moaned in her bed, thrashing her head from side to side.
“Should we sedate her?” I asked the doctor, hoping that she would reach for the syringe

in her pocket. My little pills would do nothing to calm her now.

A guttural sound came from somewhere deep inside the woman’s body and I looked

pleadingly at the doctor for help.

“The baby’s healthy. She doesn’t pose a risk to it now. Just get the name and leave her

alone,” she said turning to go. It was obvious that she’d had enough of us.

I wished I could muster the same sort of cold indifference the doctor had, but I couldn’t

block out the sound. There was something wrong. I’d never seen a Carrier act this way.

My legs itched to run after the doctor, to beg her to come back to the room with me, but I

already knew the look she’d give me. She wouldn’t come back to help because she didn’t care
about me, just like she didn’t care about the Carriers.

A strange hissing sound came from the woman’s throat and I stiffened, afraid to be left

alone with her.

“I won’t do this again,” she moaned, shutting her eyes tight.
I cradled the newborn in one arm and tentatively reached out to lay my free hand on the

woman’s head. The skin was cool and damp with sweat, not hot, as I’d expected.

Before I could pull my hand away, her eyes shot open and she grabbed onto my wrist.

Her grasp was tight. Even after giving birth, she had the strength of a woman who for years had
been fed only the freshest foods, who was given extra meat and slept on down filled mattresses.

“That’s my baby,” she said, squeezing so tightly her nails bit little red half moons into the

thin skin of my inner arm.

I struggled to pull my arm away, but she held on tight.
“My baby…Not a number…”
“I know,” I squeaked, “But she needs a name. Don’t you want to give her one?”
“Why should I?” she squeezed my arm tighter and a drop of blood oozed out from

underneath her fingers.

I thought of Odessa and then my thoughts turned to my own mother. How did she feel

about my name? Did it haunt her? I wondered if she cringed when she thought of it. I’d always
dreamt that it brought her peace, but maybe I was wrong.

The Carrier looked at me with disgust. She must have mistaken the faraway look on my

face for careless stupidity.

“What do you know anyway?” she said, letting go of my arm and swatting me away.

“You’re just a baby yourself. How old are you sixteen? Seventeen? You know nothing. You are
nothing, only a stupid worker.”

I dropped my head.
“Leave me alone. Take her away from me.”
“But the name…” I stammered, even though I knew I should hold my tongue, “certainly

you picked one out? Don’t you at least want… it’s the one thing you can give her?”

“I said leave,” the woman yelled and as I stepped away from her the baby jerked in my

arms, startled by the noise. It began to cry in earnest, the little body shaking with each long,
quivering cry.

“Get out!” the woman yelled again, and I stumbled back, knocking over the doctor’s tray

of scissors and clamps. They clattered to the ground and fanned out across the polished floor, but
I didn’t stop to pick any of it up. I backed out of the room and shuffled quickly down the long
hallway towards the stairs leading to the nursery.

My face was burning. The heat of it rose up the length of my neck, high into my cheeks.

Shame bit at the backs of my eyes, but I blinked it back, hating that woman more with every
step. I wouldn’t go back there to deliver her some broth to sooth her hunger. I wouldn’t bring her
a fresh gown to change into either. Let her see how it felt to be forgotten.

There were no other Carriers delivering babies and the upper floor was dark and quiet. So

was the newborn holding room. I was grateful it wasn’t a crazy day like the one we had gotten
last week during the full moon when we had five babies born within a few hours of each other.

“Wynne!”
I jumped at the sound of my name.
“How long ago was this baby born?” Etta said. She came up beside me, carrying a carton

of sterilized bottles balanced on her hip. “You don’t look so good.”

I opened my mouth and the words stuck in my throat. I didn’t want to cry in front of her,

but the tears flooded my eyes, slipping over the rim of my lashes and down my cheek.

“Don’t cry Wynne,” Etta said, “I know the last few weeks have been difficult for you,

but you can handle this.”

I took a deep breath and steadied my voice, “I can’t finish the paperwork,” I told her,

“There’s a problem.”

Etta readjusted the container of bottles on her hip and raised her eyebrows. “What kind of

problem?”

“The Carrier…she’s upset,” I said, “She refused to give the baby a name. I tried twice,

but she’s angry. She cut my arm with her fingernails,” I tried to move my arm so that she could
see the cut, but the baby’s blanket was in the way. “There’s something not right about her, like
she’s snapped. I asked the doctor to sedate her, but she refused.”

“What?” Etta asked, setting the bottles down on a sterile table. “Let me see that

paperwork.” She snatched the file out of my hands. “This can’t be right. They gave you a
Bender? They know I’m the only one who’s supposed to get them. This is absurd. You didn’t
leave her alone, did you?”

I nodded, confused.
“She’s alone? Oh great. I don’t have time for this.”
Etta took off at a clip and I ran after her.
“Etta, what’s a Bender?” I asked, remembering the word from my selection scores.
“Bender…like ‘she’s gone around the bend’,” Etta said, “It’s what we call a Carrier that’s

gone mad.”

Why would they think that I’d become a Bender? The idea sent a shiver up my spine.
She stopped for a second, turning around to face me. “They never should have given you

this Carrier okay. We’ll have to talk about it all later, but right now we have to make sure she
hasn’t hurt herself.”

“Hurt herself? It said in her file that she’d successfully delivered eight other babies,” I

said, “How would she hurt herself?”

Etta shook her head, jogging down the hallway towards the Carrier’s room.

Back upstairs the hallway appeared even darker. Etta strode reassuringly ahead of me, but

I was pretty sure even her powerful stature was going to be no match for the woman who sat
alone inside the room at the end of the hall.

I slowed down as we got closer to the room. The baby was still asleep in my arms, but I

was worried about how the woman would react seeing it again.

“Etta,” I whispered in front of the closed door, “Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to bring the

baby back with us. Should I take it back downstairs?”

Etta glared at me, “There isn’t time Wynne. Pull yourself together. These women can

smell your fear.”

I swallowed hard and held the baby tight to my chest. The warmth of its little body

soothed my nerves.

Inside, the room was dim. The lights had been turned off and the sun had moved behind a

cloud outside. The table I’d knocked over on the way out was still upended and the instruments
lay scattered across the floor. At first my eyes lingered on this mess, but as soon as Etta switched
on the lights my attention was drawn forward. The woman had managed to slide the bed up close
to the wall of windows. She stood on top of the bed with her face pressed to the glass as if she
was trying to will herself out of the room. She stared out past the river, past the Union buildings
and the Carrier residence.

Her body must have been weak from the ordeal of delivering a baby less than an hour

earlier, but she stood erect. The back of her gown was soiled a deep brownish red with blood and
afterbirth that ran down the backs of her legs, but she didn’t seem to notice or care. For a
moment I felt almost guilty. She was in my care after all. It was my responsibility to see she was
cleaned up.

“What’s going on?” Etta blurted out, kicking past the upturned table and moving toward

the bed.

The woman turned to face us from her post on the bed. “Stay away from me,” she

ordered, raising her arm.

“Are you crazy?” Etta hissed. “You need to lie down.”
“I will not!” the woman yelled. Her face was full of rage, but I saw the exhaustion behind

her eyes. “You don’t own my body. Not you, not the doctors.”

Her eyes drifted to the baby in my arms and for a split second the expression on her face

changed. The hatred and fury dissipated and underneath was the most unfiltered pain I’d ever
seen, a raw sadness so pure it was almost beautiful.

“I’m not making you do anything,” Etta said, stepping back a bit to give the woman some

room.

She threw back her head and laughed, a deep and wild cackle, and the mean, hard look

returned to her eyes.

Etta flipped through the woman’s file, “Listen Dorionne,” she raised her head to meet the

woman’s eyes, making sure she had said her name correctly. “May I call you, Dorionne?”

The woman didn’t answer, but she didn’t shake her head no either.
“I can name the baby. I can pick out a name as easily as you can. I’ve done it before.”
I looked over at Etta to see if she was lying. Were we really allowed to give the baby a

name? Etta’s face was wide open and honest, but it was the look she always wore and I couldn’t
decipher whether or not she was telling the truth.

“I can give the baby a name,” she went on, “but I don’t want to.”
Dorionne grunted, “And neither do I.”

“I don’t think that’s really true,” I said, startled by the sound of my own voice breaking

into the stillness of the room.

“Don’t preach to me about truth,” Dorionne yelled.
Etta locked eyes with me and shook her head slightly, telling me to shut up and let her do

the talking.

“I don’t blame you,” Etta said, “I don’t blame you for not wanting to name this baby.”
Dorionne squinted her eyes and stared at Etta, waiting to hear what she would say next.
“I was assigned to the newborn unit when I was nineteen,” Etta went on, “ I’ve worked

here three times since, each for two years. In those six years I’ve probably seen close to four
thousand babies passed from the doctor’s arms directly into my own. I’ve asked for thousands of
names and every time I saw a little piece of the Carrier…” she took a deep breath before she
went on, “a piece of the mother, torn out each time she gave away that name.”

A gasp of air escaped my lips and I turned wide-eyed to look from Etta to Dorionne. I’d

never heard the word ‘mother’ spoken outside of hushed whispers. Etta knew she could be
severely punished for using it.

Dorionne raised her eyebrows. “So you agree,” she said. “It’s a cruel practice.”
Etta nodded, maybe afraid to voice her agreement out loud.
Dorionne went on, “Then you can’t possibly expect me to give her a name.”
“I know it’s too much to ask from you, from any of you,” Etta said, “but I am going ask

you to give us a name for the baby. I’m not asking you to do it for the Union, or for me. I’m not
even asking you do to it for yourself. I’m asking you to do it for your daughter.”

The baby squirmed in my arms and let out a soft bleating sound as if on cue. Daughter.

There was one of those forbidden words again. It’s a word I’ve held in my mouth for years, like
a sweet round candy.

The words are forbidden, but we’ve still learned them, whispered them ourselves. And

the promise of them can’t be extinguished from our minds. I wasn’t the only one who wondered
what our Union would be like if we only knew our mothers, was I?

Would it fall apart the way they said it would?
The Union taught us that the bond between a mother and child was volatile and illogical.

It was based on a love that was unconditional. But it was exactly those conditions that were the
basis to a strong Union. A society could only grow when bad traits were weeded out in a rational
and deliberate manner.

What would happen if a substandard child were born? Would a mother have the foresight

to discard of it, or would her base, animalistic instincts tell her to care for it, even though it
would pollute the gene pool?

No, the Union was adamant that there was no place for mothers in a civilized society.
I looked back up at Dorionne, surprised to see she was no longer standing on top of the

bed. She had stepped back down to our level and sat on the edge, her eyes resting on the baby.

The room was silent for a long time, except for the soft sounds the baby made as she

settled back into sleep.

Finally, Dorionne’s voice broke the silence.
When she spoke next her voice sounded softer, as if her real voice had been trapped

underneath something heavy. “Each morning I wake up to the sound of birds outside my
window. Their songs are beautiful, fleeting. They perch for a little while on my balcony and eat
the crumbs I leave for them and then they fly off again. I watch them while I can… before they
disappear over the fields beyond the barracks. They’re the only truly beautiful things I have. The

only real thing, not bought for me because of power or position. I like to imagine where they’ve
flown, what they’ve seen.” She paused. “Robin,” she said, “after the bird…that’s what I want to
name her,” she paused, staring at the sleeping baby.

Etta nodded and wrote the baby’s new name down in the file. When I looked back up at

Dorionne I half expected to see a ghost, an apparition, as if by giving the baby a name she’d
finally given away the last part of herself, but she was still solid, the same imposing figure.

“Are you going to take her away now?” Dorionne asked, her voice broken, barely a

whisper.

“Yes,” Etta said.
A tear dropped out of the corner of Dorionne’s eye and ran down her cheek, landing on

the front of her gown where it spread out, bleeding into the fabric.

“Oh heaven help me, this is probably a mistake,” Etta said, stepping forward and taking

the baby from my arms. She walked forward until she had placed the baby into the mother’s
arms.

A mighty mistake.

Chapter Eleven

Dorionne and her baby gazed into each other’s faces and I was suddenly reminded of a

game I used to play when I was a little girl, back before we’d even begun training for our exams.
We must have only been seven or eight years old, back when all of the little girls were still equal
and Odessa and I were inseparable. We played the game at night after we were all supposed to be
asleep. Odessa and I would round up a few other girls, the ones we trusted not to tattle on us in
the morning to the keepers. We would push together a few of the beds so that we had enough
space to sit in a small circle on the floor. Then we would all madly rub our hands against the stiff
fabric of our pajamas, filling our hands with heat and electricity. On the count of three we would
raise our hands until they almost touched and watched as tiny sparks jumped between our palms,
like little bolts of lightening.

Now, as my eyes moved from Dorionne to her baby, I could almost see that same spark

flying between the two of them. Electricity. In an instant, the life that had drained from Dorionne
was suddenly restored, with a fever and intensity that radiated out into the room. The pulse of it
strummed the air.

Etta must have felt it too. And she must have known, the way I did, that there was no

turning back.

It had been a horrible mistake to let her hold that baby.
Slowly Dorionne raised her eyes to meet ours and Etta and I stepped back

simultaneously.

“You both know I’m not giving up my daughter,” she said.
“What if we let you hold her a little longer,” Etta tried to reason, “We’re already late on

her paperwork.”

Dorionne threw her head back and laughed, “Her paperwork, yes, you’ll be late with her

paperwork. You think I’m going to let you take this child, the way I’ve let you take my others?
No, there will be no paperwork. There will be no numbering. You will not mutilate her.” She
squeezed the baby to her chest, her gaze flashing frantically around the room. She eyed the
windows behind her as if she was actually considering jumping through them.

“Don’t be crazy,” I said, “You can’t take her. They won’t let you.”
Etta spoke up, “She’s right. You know she is. The Union will never let you keep your

baby. It goes against the entire order of things.”

Dorionne paced the floor, like a caged animal, but Etta blocked the doorway.
“There is no order to things,” Dorionne yelled, “Do you think I enjoy my life: beautiful

clothing, elegant meals, soft beds to sleep in? You think I’m lucky. No! I won’t let my body be
used as a vessel anymore.”

“Please,” I begged, “please reconsider. We can tell you her number, after we take her to

be marked. I promise we will. Then maybe you can find her when she’s older. Maybe things will
change.”

Dorionne shook her head, “It won’t change.”
“If you try to take her they’ll kill you,” Etta said, stepping forward to take the baby from

her arms.

“They already have.”
Dorionne stepped forward and with one fluid sweep of her elbow, shoved Etta sharply

backward, pushing her against the overturned table. Etta stumbled and fell back on the floor with
a thud that shook the walls. A pair of small scissors dug into the palm of her right hand and a

puddle of bright red blood blossomed on the floor next to her. She let out a painful groan as
Dorionne rushed past us and out into the hallway.

“Stop her, Wynne,” Etta yelled.
My body felt heavy, immovable, the way it did in dreams.
“Now,” Etta yelled, and I jerked forward into the hallway, following the sound of the

crying baby as Dorionne fled down the stairs at the end of the hall.

At the bottom, instead of turning right into the nursery, Dorionne pushed through the

double doors leading out into the long paved courtyard that ran between the river and the
factories.

I raced after her into the empty yard. For a moment, things blurred in front of me and I

had to stop and take a deep breath. The courtyard was quiet except for the sound of my heartbeat
pounding in my ears, which drummed in tune with the slap of Dorionne’s bare feet against the
paving stones. I leaned forward, trying to work up the courage to run after her, but I felt stuck,
glued to the spot outside the doorway. Years of habit told me not to leave my station without
permission.

“Please,” I yelled, “Come back.”
But Dorionne only ran farther and farther away from me.
Where was she going? There was nothing to run to. With her trajectory, she would pass

the factories, and past that, she’d reach the edge of the river where the wall separated the men’s
and women’s compounds. She must have been imagining the fields that lay past the buildings in
the men’s compound, but the guards would never allow a crazy woman in a soiled gown to scale
the wall, carrying a baby in her arms.

I was about to yell again when the sirens mounted on top of the buildings began to blare

and even though I’d been expecting the sound of them I jumped, breaking into a run. I could still
get to Dorionne in time. If I ran fast enough. I could get to her first, make her turn back around.

Etta had waited to pull the siren. She could have pulled it the moment we hit the hallway

inside, but she’d given Dorionne some time, a head start I guess, even though we all knew she
couldn’t outrun the guards.

All around me the sirens wailed. Dorionne raised her head, looking at the rooftops of the

factories where the sound was coming from, as if she expected a shower of bullets to come
raining down on her. The length of two long buildings separated us, but my legs burned to catch
up. It amazed me that Dorionne could run so soon after giving birth, but there she was, charging
on ahead of me, her dirty gown billowing out behind her.

My heart hammered in my chest as I pumped my arms at my sides, trying to catch her. I

was so close. Across the bridge, two guards stood dumbly, rifles raised, waiting for some sort of
command. Dorionne had almost reached the end of the factories where the courtyard opened up
into a large cement field before it met the cinderblock walls.

For a moment I imagined her taking a grand leap and catching air the way a bird would as

it took flight. I could almost see her soaring across the wall and out of sight and the image
fluttered before my eyes as if it was real. I blinked back the vision, bringing the real Dorionne
into view.

As she broke past the factories, a line of guards emerged from behind the government

buildings, their guns readied and fanned out in front of the tall cinderblock wall. I stopped in my
tracks, frozen, and for a fleeting moment Dorionne turned her head to look at me, that long
elegant neck, curved back to give me one last longing stare.

“Freeze,” the guards shouted, “We will fire!”

Dorionne’s body didn’t halt for one moment. Maybe it was the momentum pulling her

forward, even though her mind urged her body to stop, the mere force of it running at such
speed. But I wondered if it was the opposite; her mind pulled her forward even though her body
ached to stop. To live.

There wasn’t a second warning. The shots fired out simultaneously as loud as thunder,

clapping through courtyard and ringing off the thick stone of the buildings. I’d never heard the
sound of a gun before and I’d always imagined the sound would be so much smaller, a pop
issued from far away, nothing like the roar that filled my ears. Dorionne’s body froze for a split
second before crumbling forward onto the ground.

The shrill sound of a scream echoed around me and for a moment I was too stunned to

realize it was coming from my mouth. I stumbled forward, falling down on my knees before the
body, which lay face down on the cobbled ground. Dorionne’s long, elegant legs stuck out from
underneath her dirty gown, cocked at an unnatural angle.

“Dorionne,” I choked, the name stuck in my throat. I pulled up on her shoulder, trying to

roll her onto her back. The edge of the baby’s blanket stuck out from underneath her left arm.
Her body had fallen overtop the infant as she’d gone down, as if returning it to her belly where it
had so recently come from.

The front of her gown was dark and sticky with blood, as was the baby’s blanket and I

struggled to pull it out from under her. A high-pitched hum had begun somewhere deep inside
my head, drowning out the sound of the guards’ feet as they ran forward towards me.

I yanked desperately at the baby’s blanket; finally pulling it loose and the bundle slid free

of the body with the high pitched howl of the infant. Alive. Robin’s face was red, her mouth
open as if she had run out of air, nothing left to continue the deep wail rising up inside her little
body. I pressed the bundle against my chest and rocked back and forth, shutting my eyes against
the scene in front of me.

I’d never seen a dead body before. The only time I’d actually seen someone die was

during the Threshings.

Sometimes if one was being held, a smattering of workers would be called to witness

and the grownups would always come back to the units pale and distracted. It took them weeks
to recover and we’d find them crying alone on the bathroom floor, or sitting up late at night
staring out the window.

But I’d never seen a Threshing in real life, never seen someone die in front of me. So

seeing Dorionne’s lifeless body filled me with a cold fear more terrible than I’d ever imagined.

I sensed the guards before I saw them. The thick line of their bodies moved in front of

me, blocking the thin ray of sun washing over us: Dorionne, the baby and me. The shadow they
cast was cold and the impending presence of their bodies, the largeness of them, was impossible
to ignore. I was used to being around intimidating figures, the Carriers and doctors, but I still
wasn’t used to being around men and the aura radiating off of them confused my thoughts. They
smelled like starch and sun, and wet, earthy soil.

I looked up towards the face of the officer who towered above me, but his features were

in shadow, silhouetted by the light from the sun.

“Please,” I begged, pulling Robin close to my heart, “don’t hurt the baby.”
The roaring still thrummed inside my head and at first I had trouble hearing his

commands. I stared up at him and watched his head bobbing slightly as he spoke. But slowly, my
eyes adjusted, his features sharpening and, as if the volume was gradually being turned back up,
the sound of his voice began to sync with the movement of his lips.

“…Your name and IM number. Can you hear me? Are you the worker on duty in the

delivery unit?”

I nodded my head and found my voice, “Yes… Yes,” I stammered, “I’m Wynne, IM

number G447-72-W99. I’m on duty…” my words trailed off for a moment as I got a better look
at the officer. He reminded me so much like the ones that had judged me during my exams that
my stomach knotted.

The officer pulled me to my feet and I cast my eyes down, away from his face.
“You need to get back,” he said. His voice was strong and direct, but surprisingly tame.

“The infant needs to be returned immediately. You will need to attend to your duties and fill out
the appropriate paperwork for the incident. If the paperwork is not filled out in its entirety there
will be a summons by the Grand Council.”

I stared dumbly ahead of me. The sun was beginning to set in the west and the clouds

along the horizon had taken on an eerie yellow glow that reflected in the water near the bridge,
as if the lines between sky and earth were blending together. When I looked back down to the
ground Dorionne’s body lay so still, too still.

“Do you understand?” he asked me.
Four of the guards sensed my gaze and moved in front of Dorionne’s body. I caught one

final glimpse of her face, slack and expressionless. She was gone.

Back inside the delivery unit, the building appeared lifeless. Nothing had physically

changed in the few minutes since Dorionne had charged out the doors and into the courtyard, but
nevertheless, things felt changed. I felt changed. All the elements around me were the same. The
windows let in the same light. The doors opened to the same rooms, but they felt twisted and
backward, my world flipped on its head.

Etta wasn’t in the newborn room and suddenly, I remembered the gash on her hand,

where she had fallen on top of the scissors. I thought about the bright pool of blood that had
sprung so quickly from her wound. Without that cut Etta would be in serious trouble. There’d be
an investigation and if the government found out she hadn’t pulled the alarm right away.

She was probably already filling out paperwork in the unit headquarters. Had anyone else

even realized what had happened? Maybe they’d heard the shots and had glanced up for a
moment from their jobs, but I doubted anyone had even gone to the window. I doubted anyone
else but me had seen the last few moments of Dorionne’s life.

After all that had passed I was still expected to get this baby over to the IMD to be

numbered. She should have been there already.

I changed her diaper and sat in the rocking chair to feed her. I wouldn’t take her with an

empty belly no matter what sort of hurry we were in. She sucked hungrily at the bottle and
opened and closed her tiny hands around my thumb and ran them up my arm, where her mother’s
nails had dug into my skin. My arm was marked with tiny red crescents that looked almost like
teeth marks and a few inches above that, on the soft skin directly in front of the inner bend of my
elbow was my IM number, tattooed into my skin in dark blue ink.

My time was up. I couldn’t put it off any longer.
I walked out a pair of swinging doors that separated one building from the next and

carried her up to the registrar’s desk, dreading the moment.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” I said, handing over the baby’s chart. “There was…” I searched for

the right words, “There was an accident with the Carrier.”

Anika glanced up from behind the desk and raised her eyebrows. I could only imagine

how I looked: my hair wild and out of place, the knees on my pants ripped, my face drained of
any color. I glanced down at myself, wondering if I had blood smeared across the front of me,
but the baby was covering the front of my blouse.

Anika studied the papers, “You were supposed to be here an hour ago,” she said, “I’m

sorry, but I have to write a citation.”

She scribbled a note in the chart and on a separate sheet of blue paper and handed them

both back to me without looking me in the eye. “You have 24 hours to write an account detailing
the reason for your citation. Then you need to turn it into the Clerk’s office.”

I nodded. I knew the procedure.
We all knew the procedure.

Chapter Twelve

It was early morning and I lay in bed staring out the window on the far side of the room.

Above the rooftops of the barracks the sky was transforming. The deep blue overhead was
blending into the golden light of sunrise. The color should have brought me promise for a better
day, but my insides felt emptied out, dried up.

I rolled painfully out of bed. Even though I hadn’t been the one to experience any

physical trauma yesterday, it felt as if I’d been the one who’d both given birth and been born; as
if it had been my body gunned down in the courtyard; my body marked by the IM’s needle.

As much as I didn’t want to go to work today, I also didn’t want to face Anika’s

righteous stare, so I got dressed quickly, thinking I could go down to the dining hall early.
Maybe the kitchen workers had already arrived and I could get a bowl of cold oats and milk.

The kitchen was dark and quiet as I pushed my way into the dining hall empty handed.

Across the room Tamsin sat alone at the head of one of the tables, gazing absently at the palms
of her hands. When I pulled up a chair next to her she glanced slowly up.

“Oh, hi Wynne.” She stared into my face for a long time. “Are you okay? I heard about

what happened.”

I shook my head and stared down at the table. “I keep reliving it.”
“I know,” she said, “That sort of thing leaves a mark.”
She reached up and touched the chain at her neck, delicately moving the little rings that

hung from it.

“You’ve never told me about that necklace,” I said, hoping to change the subject, “I see

you touch it sometimes.”

Tamsin unfastened the chain from around her neck, stretching it out along the table in

front of us. The chain was delicate silver. From the patina, it appeared to be very old. Suspended
from it were about a dozen rings of different colors and sizes. Most were gold, and a few had
tiny jewels inlaid in the metal.

She ran her finger over each of the rings, spreading them out along the chain. When she

got to the one in the middle she stopped and picked it up, holding it between her thumb and
forefinger. It was a simple gold ring, but I could tell it meant more to her than the others.

She looked around to make sure we were alone.
“They would have taken this away from me in reconditioning if they’d known what it

was,” she said, “This one was my wedding ring. I wore it every day for twelve years…” she
paused, swallowing. “I put it on the chain after he died because it didn’t feel right to wear it on
my finger anymore. But I couldn’t give it away. The rest I found… in the bottoms of old cars, in
riverbeds. They must have fallen off of people’s fingers after… I don’t know why I kept them.”

“What do they mean?” I asked.
“Eternity.” she said, running her finger along the gold edge.
I looked down at the row of rings again, trying to imagine the hands that had worn them.

“Do people have to get married in your village?”

Tamsin laughed, “No, they don’t have to. But when people fall in love they usually do.”
“Why?”
Her brow crinkled. “I’ve never really had to explain it before,” she said, thinking. “When

you fall in love, sometimes you just want a way to show that it will last forever. You can’t
imagine living without that person and you want to tell them that from that day forward your
lives will be united.”

“It’s hard to imagine feeling that way about a man,” I said.
“Not if it’s the right one.”
I closed my eyes, trying to imagine a man that wasn’t stern and overpowering, but all I

could picture were the guards in their stiff gray uniforms, their rifles raised and ready.

We sat in silence for a moment and I traced my finger in a circle along the tabletop.
“I don’t think what she did was wrong,” I finally said, knowing Tamsin would understand

that I was speaking about Dorionne. “Maybe I would have done it too. I don’t know. But I think
it took courage. That was her ninth baby.”

Tamsin sat quietly, digesting my words. She didn’t confirm or deny that what I said was

true.

Finally she spoke, “Have I ever told you my children’s names?” she asked.
I shook my head. “No.”
Of course she’d talked about them, although never as much as she’d talked about her

village or her childhood. I imagined she was holding tight to the few memories that she had left
of them. Whenever she spoke of them, she only referred to them as “my boy” or “my girl”.

“I had a daughter named Talus and a son named Broden,” she said, stroking the skin on

her palm as if their faces were etched there in the lines, “They used to love fresh eggs for
breakfast. That’s what I was thinking about, before…when you came in…how they used to get
up early each morning and fetch the eggs so they could have breakfast waiting for me when I
woke up. It was a real memory. Not just a picture,” her voice cracked.

“You loved them.”
She laughed, but it wasn’t mean or mocking. “I did. Yes, I did.”
“The Union says love like that causes chaos,” I said. That was their case against

families, and mothers and fathers and marriage and children. Love was a reckless thing,
untamed, uncontrollable. “A nation can’t have order with a distraction so large. I think about
how I feel sometimes, I think about Odessa, and I wonder if it’s true.”

Tamsin face cracked into a smile and she covered her mouth with her hand. “They’d like

for you to believe that, wouldn’t they? But I know you don’t buy into it. You understand love
more than they want you to believe. The truth is there’s no stronger glue, no tighter bond. Look
at me…without it I’m broken.”

A sob worked its way up through her chest and she covered her face in her hands. I

wrapped my arm around her tiny body and she softened under my touch, leaning her head
against me as she wept.

When she looked up at me her eyes were red.
“I don’t want to do it anymore,” I said. “But I don’t have any choice. It’s my duty. This

is my place.”

Tamsin patted my arm, “It’s lonely though,” she said.
I wasn’t sure what she meant, if she was talking about herself or if she was talking about

me, but the words felt familiar, like a dream I’d had and then forgotten.

I managed to avoid Anika during breakfast, but I wasn’t so lucky on the walk to work.

She trailed uncomfortably close to Maren and me.

“Well hopefully today goes better for you than yesterday, Wynne,” Anika said from

behind us. Her voice was oily and smooth.

I kept walking.

“So how did the Union respond to your mishap?” she pressed, “I’m sure they’ll be

lenient. I mean, it was just one Carrier. We’ve got thousands of them.”

I stared straight ahead and clenched my teeth. I wouldn’t flatter her with a response.
“Oh, and I am sorry about that citation yesterday,” she went on, “I wish I didn’t have to

give it to you, but I’m sure you understand. I couldn’t upset the Grand Council. It sounds like
they’re pretty unforgiving if they suspect you’ve done something wrong.”

I could tell by the tone in her voice that she wanted me to respond. She was dying to tell

me something.

Maren spoke up, “Leave her alone, Anika. It wasn’t her fault.”
“Oh, no, I didn’t say it was her fault. It’s not like she’s sympathetic to traitors. I’m sure

Wynne supports the Union one hundred percent.”

Anika’s words sent a chill down my spine. Had she heard me talking to Tamsin this

morning? Is that what this was all about? The hair on my arms suddenly stood on end.

Maren glanced sideways at me, giving me an apologetic smile and shake of the head.
At the wool mill, Maren leaned in and gave me a little hug. Her arms should have been

comforting but for some reason it felt wrong, as if she was bidding me farewell.

Anika had moved on in front of me, but as we neared our buildings her steps slowed so

that we were almost walking side by side.

“What is it,” I snapped at her, “There’s something you’re dying to say to me. So just say

it already.”

We turned the corner approaching the delivery building and Anika stopped, a smile

creeping over her lips. For a moment I thought she would speak, but she didn’t turn to look at
me. Her eyes stayed trained on the space in front of us.

I turned to see what she was staring at and my stomach dropped. Standing in front of the

two grand doors were a half dozen officers. Their faces were grim. On the edge of the group, one
of the men held his rifle in one hand and with the other clung securely to Etta’s broad upper arm.
Even from far away I saw the panic on her face.

“Looks like someone’s waiting for you,” Anika said before she ran off to the IM unit.
I stood frozen. In front of me the officers straightened, readjusting their weapons as they

saw me approaching. Slowly, I walked forward. The muscles in my legs wobbled, but I forced
myself to keep walking.

Two of them marched forward, flanking me on either side and grabbed my arms as if

they expected me to run.

“Are you number G447-72-W99,” the officer on my right asked.
“Yes,” I said, trying to keep my voice from quivering.
He nodded back to his superior and he took note, stepping forward to address me,

“Number G447-72-W99, you are hereby summoned to the Grand Council for an official
investigation into the death of Carrier number I624-89-C10.”

Etta hung her head, staring at the ground. I wanted to slap her, to yell at her to raise her

chin. Didn’t she know how guilty she looked?

They pushed us forward down the courtyard towards the bridge leading into the Union

center. Their grip was tight on my arm and by the time we reached the courthouse I’d lost the
feeling in my fingertips.

We followed them up a flight of stairs and through a pair of wide double doors that

opened into the courtroom. The grandness of it awed me and I stopped still in my tracks. In front

of me the Grand Council members sat behind three dark wooden desks raised on pedestals so the
men hovered high above me, like mythical gods, their faces stern.

“Keep going,” one of the guards said, pushing me along to a low table and chairs that sat

before the councilmen.

Behind me, on a few long wooden pews, a spattering of other workers sat waiting, I

presumed, to testify about Dorionne. Their stares nipped at my back, but I didn’t turn around.

From up on the bench, the Grand Councilman banged a gavel and we all sat up a little

straighter in our seats.

“The Grand Council summons worker number G447-72-W99 and worker number B12-

34-W10 in the case of the premature death of a ninth tier Carrier.”

I braced myself, ready to defend the accusations against me, but I wasn’t called on to

speak yet. The Councilman began by calling the coroner to the stand. He was quite a bit shorter
than the officers who escorted him to the stand. Much like the doctors, this man had been born
with some sort of birth defect. His face was peculiarly long, as if someone had grabbed hold of
his forehead and chin and pulled, stretching it out like a horse’s. But when asked to explain
Dorionne’s death, his voice sounded like any other man I’d ever heard.

“I examined the Carrier in question and determined that she was in superior health before

her death. All major organs appear to have been functioning well and certainly weren’t a
determinant in her death.”

Of course they weren’t, I wanted to scream out. The cause of her death was the bullets

from the guards’ guns.

“I also examined the uterus and have good reason to believe that although the Carrier had

already delivered nine infants, she would have been able to successfully carry and deliver at least
five or six more.”

Five or six more? What was this man talking about? I looked over at Etta. The coroner’s

statement had made her raise her head in question as well and we locked eyes for a moment.
Why would they be projecting whether or not Dorionne could deliver more babies? One more
and she would have been retired from her duty to the Union.

The councilmen seemed satisfied with the coroner’s testimony and called next a clerk

from the records office. The clerk was a wide woman. The years she’d spent sitting behind a
desk had taken their toll on her and she waddled to the stand, casting a harsh glance at Etta and
me on her way.

“I’ve been looking over the records of the deceased,” the clerk said, addressing the

Councilman, “and I must say, her death is quite a loss. Not only did she receive near perfect
marks during her selection, but in further research I’ve found that seven of her offspring have
tested off the charts during their eighteen-month evaluations.”

One of the Councilmen leaned forward, “And is it your opinion, from the records you’ve

seen, that this particular Carrier would have continued to produce superior offspring had the
Union decided to extend the term of her role as Carrier.”

“Yes,” the clerk said, nodding vehemently.
“And I’m curious if her records indicate how long of an extension was being

considered?”

The clerk wet her finger and flipped hastily through the records. She appeared flustered

as if she hadn’t anticipated this question. “Here we go. Here we go,” she said, “It appears that
she had already been evaluated and approved for a five year extension.”

Five more years! That meant five more babies she would have had to give away. I’d

never heard of such a thing. And from the look on Etta’s face it appeared she hadn’t either.

“This changes things,” the Grand Councilman said to the two other men on the bench

beside him, “Not only has the Union lost the tenth baby this Carrier was required to deliver, but
also the five that were already approved to follow.”

My hands clenched beneath the table. How could these men assign fate so flippantly?

They sat comfortably up high on their bench, deciding how many more lives these women would
carry inside their wombs; how many more bodies they would feel growing inside their own; how
many more times they would labor to bring that life into the world only to see it torn away from
them. How dare they!

The clerk waddled off the stand and Mistress Edian took her place. From where I sat, it

was like I was seeing her for the first time. Her hair was completely gray, but her skin was
remarkably smooth and youthful looking. She held herself proudly, with grace and elegance.

“Mistress Edian,” the Councilman said, addressing her as if they were already familiar

with one another, “We’ve called you here today to testify about the physical and mental well
being of one of your Carriers, number I624-89-C10.”

“Yes,” Mistress Edian nodded, “Dorionne, I knew her well.”
“And can you attest to this Carrier’s health?”
“I can,” she said, but I detected a bit of hesitation in her voice, “Dorionne was the

epitome of beauty and grace. She was the ideal all others strove to emulate. Her pregnancies
were without complication and she healed easily afterward, always regaining the perfect fitness
of her youth.”

The Councilmen nodded, “and mentally?”
Mistress Edian, paused, “Dorionne kept to herself. She was an avid reader and preferred

books to the company of others. That being the case, it was very difficult to evaluate her
psychological state.”

“I don’t know if these books are good for women’s minds.” the Grand Councilman

mumbled to the others on the bench, “They only lead to discontent. An unencumbered mind is a
mind at peace.”

Another Councilman nodded in agreement, “I’ve been saying for years that we need to

breed for strength alone. Intelligence can be cultivated later.”

I looked around me in disbelief. Certainly someone would speak up. But the room stayed

silent. Mistress Edian’s face was a mask of composure, but her eyes blazed.

As if the Councilmen had just remembered the rest of us in the room, they turned their

attention back to Mistress Edian, “Well, if you can’t attest to the Carrier’s mental state will you
at least confirm that her physical condition was such that her term as Carrier could have been
extended another five years?”

“I can confirm that I heard Dorionne’s term was to be extended, but I must say, in my

opinion such term extensions are not a good idea.”

“That may be your opinion mistress, but the Council believes otherwise,” the councilman

said.

“Whether or not it’s my opinion,” Mistress Edian went on, “the Council should

reconsider such extensions. There is only so much a Carrier can be expected to do for the
Union.”

I’d never heard anyone contradict a superior out loud before, but that’s exactly what

Mistress Edian was doing. My heart swelled for her, both proud and terrified. Wasn’t she afraid
of what they would do to her for disagreeing?

But the Grand Councilman simply shook his head, dismissing her. “Mistress, I can’t

expect you to understand the deeper complexities of the Union, but I assure you, if our military is
willing to die for the Union, it is not too much to ask our Carriers to deliver a few more babies,”
he paused, looking down on those of us in the courtroom. “Thank you for your testimony. You
may be excused.”

Mistress Edian climbed gracefully from the stand, catching my eye as she returned to her

seat. Her look was filled with such intensity that I had to turn my eyes away, confused by her
stare.

“Before calling the accused to the stand we will hear from one final witness. Would

worker number G237-30-W86 please take the stand?”

My eyes were still blurry from rage at the councilman’s comments and it took me a

moment to realize who they had called to the stand. She sat down at the small witness table in
front of the councilmen, her dark eyes staring back at me with self-righteous concern. Anika.

“It has been brought to the Council’s attention that you have some information pertaining

to worker number G447-72-W99 that might be pertinent to this case.”

Anika nodded, composing her face in a very serious expression, “After issuing Wynne a

citation yesterday for the late delivery of a baby to IM, I thought it was my responsibility to also
report some disturbing information I heard from her on some other occasions.”

“Please go on,” the Councilman urged.
“As a devout follower and a member of the Youth Guard, it upset me terribly to hear

Wynne’s unfaithfulness to the Union,” she looked up to the Councilman for approval, but he
waved her on impatiently and she rushed on with her story, “She’s befriended a wanderer, you
know. I’ve heard them talking in the middle of the night about unauthorized material and I’m
pretty sure that Wynne’s been completely corrupted by this woman. I heard them questioning the
practice of naming the babies, like it was a choice that they could make. And once I heard
Wynne say that she thought she should be able to choose whatever job she wanted, as if she was
better than everyone else.”

Anika scanned the faces of the councilmen, her own face earnest in her scorn.
“She said there was something important she was supposed to do, not for the Union, but

for herself.”

“I see. Is there anything else?”
“Yes,” Anika said, catching my eye, “I would recommend that the wanderer be sent back

to reconditioning. She’s dangerous.”

“Thank you for your testimony, and your concern for the moral standing of our

citizenry.” the Councilman said, dismissing her from the bench, “you may return to your work.”

Anika moved slowly from the stand, as if there was more she wanted to say, unwilling to

give up the spotlight so easily. As she walked past my table she lifted her hand to touch the red
star stitched onto her shirt and raised her chin a little higher before she moved on.

Etta was the first of us to take the stand. Her demeanor was foreign to me, the self-

assured and powerful woman I was used to replaced by one that was meek and cowering. She
hung her head and cradled her bandaged hand, which rested in her lap, refusing to make eye
contact with anyone, even me.

Etta kept her story short and precise. She told how I’d come to get her after Dorionne

refused to name the baby, how we found her once we entered the room, with the bed pushed up
against the windows, a crazy look in her eyes. She told how Dorionne finally gave in to naming
the baby and how afterward she had grabbed the baby from my arms and shoved Etta to the
ground, impaling her hand on the scissors. The story was simple. Only she and I knew the little
bits she’d withheld.

“And why did it take you so long to alert the guards?”
Etta glanced up from her lap, “I lost a lot of blood. I think I might have been in shock,”

she said, her face gravely serious.

“Very well,” the Councilman said, “you may be excused.”
As Etta left the bench she caught my eye for a split second. She blinked and gave her

head a little nod, seeming to tell me to do just as she’d done.

I climbed to the stand and sat facing the audience. I knew what Etta meant for me to do.

Keep calm. Don’t let them upset me. I took a deep breath, trying to compose myself.

“All right, we have a few questions for you,” the Councilman said, not even bothering to

hear the story from my point of view. “We’ve already read your account of the events and they
seem to correspond with what the previous worker told us, but I’m wondering if you could tell us
why you think the Carrier refused to give you a name for the baby in the first place. It is, as you
know, highly unusual.”

I looked to Etta for help, but she just shook her head slightly.
“I don’t know sir,” I said.
“That is not a satisfactory answer. The Union has lost a superior Carrier, not to mention

six unborn babies. I believe you can try a little harder than, ‘I don’t know’.”

I swallowed hard, trying to phrase my response without demeaning the Union.
“I think the Carrier was under a lot of stress,” I said, “she seemed like she’d gone a little

crazy. Maybe that was why.”

“A healthy individual doesn’t suddenly go crazy,” the councilman replied, “What

explanation do you give for her madness.”

“I don’t have an explanation, sir. It said in her chart that she was a Bender.”
“A Bender? I don’t know what you’re talking about. We’ve reviewed her records and

they were in perfect order. If you don’t have an explanation then maybe you need to reconsider
your assumption that she was crazy. Are you sure you didn’t do something that caused her to
refuse to name the infant?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. They were trying to blame this on me. “I didn’t do

anything. I just asked her for a name.”

The councilmen regarded each other as if they’d already agreed I was the crazy one.

“And normally when a name is asked for, the Carrier responds with a name. Why wasn’t a name
given?”

I couldn’t stop shaking my head. Why did they keep asking me the same question?
“I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary,” I tried again. “I waited until the baby was born

and then I asked her for a name. I don’t know why—”

The Grand Councilman rose from the bench, leaning down across the podium. His broad

face was red with rage. “Why wasn’t a name given?” he bellowed.

“I don’t know,” I yelled, “I don’t know! Maybe it hurt her too bad to give up another

baby. Maybe she didn’t want to do it anymore. Maybe she knew you would keep taking her
children from her and she refused to go through with it anymore!”

I closed my mouth, knowing I’d made a mistake.
“All right, that’s enough! You may leave the stand.” The councilmen nodded to one

another, “You may all be excused. We’ll call you back in after we come to our decision.”

Chapter Thirteen

“I messed up, didn’t I,” I asked Etta with a shaking voice.
We sat side by side on the floor of a little holding room next door. I waited for Etta’s

reply, expecting the worst, but her words were soft and resigned.

“You said what they wanted you to say. They would have forced it out of you somehow.”

She put her arm around me and pulled me close, letting me cry into her shoulder.

“I was so stupid. I should have kept my mouth shut. I wish I could go back in time and

change things,” I said, “I would have forced Dorionne to give me a name. Then you wouldn’t be
here right now and…she would still be alive.”

Etta let me cry, wiping away my tears. She didn’t try to reason with me. When I looked

up, she was staring blankly at the wall, a far-away look in her eye.

“I never told anyone this before,” she finally said, turning to face me. “When I was

sixteen I was chosen to be a Carrier.”

She put up her hand to stop me from speaking. Slowly, she rolled up the sleeve of her

blouse, tracing her finger along the deep blue numbers. Her hand hovered in front of the W.
Beneath it a ghostly white scar in the shape of a letter C was barely visible.

“Of course I was happy to be selected. Any girl is. After being told your whole life that

being a Carrier is the one thing you should aspire to, it’s like waking up inside a dream… and I
loved it…at first. I loved being pampered; loved feeling special. But part of my brain kept
questioning it. I kept asking myself if it was really me that was special or if it was just the luck of
the draw. Why was I better than any of the other girls I grew up with, just because my hips and
shoulders were broader and my legs were a little bit longer?”

I stared at Etta’s face while she talked, and for a moment I saw the girl she used to be so

many years ago.

“It was hard for me to get pregnant. It took almost six months longer than all the other

girls my age.”

She stopped talking and put both of her hands overtop of her stomach as if she was

concentrating, waiting to feel that faint stir of life inside.

“I wanted them to stop,” she went on, “to stop trying… but they kept coming. Every

night. When it finally worked, I treated my body like it was fragile. I was so careful. Most days I
just sat in bed with my eyes closed, concentrating on sending all my energy to that growing thing
inside me.”

I wanted to reach out and put my hand on top of hers, but I didn’t, afraid that if I moved

she might stop talking, this moment might pass, and she’d never feel like she could share this
secret with me again.

“It was the first snowfall of the year when I went into labor,” she said, “almost two

months before the baby was due. Right away I knew something was wrong. I sensed it, even
before I started feeling the contractions. When they escorted me from the residence to delivery I
left a trail of blood behind me in the fresh snow. I remember turning around and looking at the
path it made, like a long red rope, connecting one part of my life to the next.”

We both closed our eyes, imagining it.
“When I finally had the baby…” she paused for a long moment and I knew she was back

there, in the delivery unit all those years ago. “When I finally had the baby… it was dead.”

A few tears dropped down off of her cheeks and ran down her chin.

“The baby was blue, a little boy. I’d picked out a name for him and I was all ready to tell

the delivery assistant but she never asked, just covered him up with a blanket and took him
straight from the room. He was going to be Albon. I thought it sounded like a strong name.”

“It’s a nice name,” I said.
She nodded, “Anyway, I never got pregnant again. The doctors said my uterus was

shaped wrong and it didn’t take long for the Union to release me as a Carrier. I was assigned to
work in the cannery. I felt worthless, broken. If my body wasn’t worth anything then I wasn’t
either. When I was assigned to delivery a few years later I felt like I was being punished. I was
so jealous of the other Carriers. But it didn’t take long for me to see how wrong I was. Maybe I
was lucky my little boy died. I don’t know. I guess it isn’t fair to say that, but in a way he saved
me.”

“I’m so sorry, “ I said, wiping away her tears with the broad tip of my thumb. Her story

reminded me of the Carrier who had lost her baby. “Etta?” I asked. “You don’t really think they
take the Carriers away to be udders after they retire, do you?”

She turned to look at me anxiously. “You shouldn’t be asking these questions. Not now.”

She shook her head. “Wynne, you’ve got to be careful.”

“But you know where they go, don’t you?”
She stared down at her hands as if the answer was there.
“Please,” I begged. “Please, tell me.”
“But it won’t make a difference,” Etta said. “You’ll know, but why will it matter?”
“I just need to know.”
Etta sighed, thinking. After a minute she licked her lips and spoke. “Even if I tell you,

you’ll never find her.” She lifted her eyes to mine and I knew she was talking about my mother.
“That’s why you want to know, isn’t it?”

“Maybe.” I swallowed.
She rubbed a hand over her face. “They take them away. After they deliver their tenth

baby, the Carriers don’t go back to the residence. But that’s all I really know. The paperwork
usually says ‘LAC’, but I don’t know what that means. Maybe it’s a city. I’m not sure.”

“Have you ever—” I started to say, but my words hung in the air, unfinished as two

officers opened the door, interrupting us.

They pulled us hastily to our feet and marched us down the hall to the courtroom. But I

couldn’t forget Etta’s words. The building disappeared around me and in its place the images
from her story hung in front of me, that red line in the snow stretching forward into the unknown.

The councilmen sat casually behind the stand, chatting easily with each other, but as we

walked in they turned their attention to us, their faces hardening.

The Grand Councilman banged his gavel, motioning for us to stand, “We’ve reviewed all

the testimonies in this case and have come to a decision. Will worker number B12-34-W10
please come forward?”

Etta took a step closer to the stand.
“The Grand Council has taken into consideration your account of the incident as well as

the number of years that you have spent working for the delivery unit and we have come to the
conclusion that our Union would be worse off without your service. The Council rules that
worker number B12-34-W10 be exonerated of all charges and be returned to work immediately.”

He banged his gavel and Etta stifled a quiet thank you, bowing slightly, before the guards

led her away. She turned to look back over her shoulder at me, her eyes wet with tears.

The councilman banged his gavel again and this time I stepped forward.

“The Council has come to a decision. As you were the assistant on duty during the time

of the premature death of Carrier number I624-89-C10, the Council has decided that you must be
held accountable.”

My stomach dropped.
He went on, “Not only has the Union lost a valuable Carrier, but also the subsequent

babies that she would have delivered. Although this act is punishable by death the Council has
decided to have mercy on you. You will serve a three-day detention in prison; thereafter you will
be reassigned as a servant in the Carrier residence. You are never to return to the delivery unit. Is
that clear?”

He glared down at me severely, making sure I understood every word he was saying to

me.

“I must tell you that the Council was very disturbed by the testimony given, not only by

others, but by you yourself. I must warn you that your impertinent attitude is dangerous. I would
suggest that during your time in confinement you take time to strongly reconsider your place in
the world. You are now a servant. It is in your best interest to accept that your life is best lived
when benefitting the community. Remember that arrogance and pride have no place in the
Union.”

The gavel sounded one final strike against the wood. Then there was only silence.

I sat on the edge of my small cot staring at the gray cinderblock walls that confined me.

Four square walls, eight feet by eight feet. A bare bulb hung from the ceiling and the only other
light came from a row of thin transom windows that ran along the top of the far wall, casting a
bit of natural light into my tiny cave. Besides the cot, the only other thing in the room was a
metal toilet, which sat directly below the windows.

To put me in solitary confinement was the most awful form of redundancy. Had the

councilmen known how utterly alone I already felt, they might not have bothered with the short
jail sentence and sent me directly to work as a servant.

I lay back on the bed and closed my eyes, trying to sleep, but images kept forcing

themselves to the front of my mind. I saw Dorionne’s face as she turned to look at me one more
time as the bullets hit her. I saw Etta trailing a string of blood through the streets and Odessa as
the selection robe was draped across her shoulders. I pressed my hands against my eyes, trying to
force the images away, but they only clumped together more, a grotesque mosaic of faces and
forms.

The hours passed slowly and I finally drifted in and out of a dreamless sleep. When I

woke the sky outside my little windows was inky black. I got up to switch off my solitary bulb
and fumbled my way back to bed. The night was still, the room completely empty of light or
sound. Never in my life had I been surrounded by such emptiness. I lay on my back and listened
to the whirr of my heartbeat thrumming through my ears. Oddly, it comforted me. My heart
knew what it was doing. It didn’t care if I was a servant, a Carrier, a delivery assistant or a
laundry maid. It would pump the same regardless of who I was.

No matter how I tried, I couldn’t fall back to sleep. I blinked, staring up at the dark

ceiling. The Councilman’s words spun over and over in my mind in a loop with no beginning
and no end; just as my life in the Union would be an endless rotation of days flowing into
months flowing into years. My life would never amount to anything.

These thoughts buzzed incessantly through my mind, swarming across all the tender

opinions I’d tried so hard to cultivate. The opinions were dangerous. That’s what the Councilman
had said.

As the darkness closed in, blanketing me, I let the humming mass of the Union envelop

me. So many people, so many ideals, and I was just one body amid the multitude. Only one
mind. Only one soul. Wouldn’t it be so much easier if I just submitted to it?

I startled awake and sat up in bed, swatting at the air in front of my face. The room was

light. The sky through my window was a soft shade of gray. Outside, the shadow of a bird flitted
by and I suddenly I realized how badly I ached to see the world. Maybe staring at these four gray
walls would break the will of anyone.

The cell was on the highest floor of the courthouse, up so high that I couldn’t even see

the tops of the trees that grew nearby. Looking up at the small rectangles of glass, I could only
see sky and clouds.

The bed couldn’t be pushed up next to the window because it was bolted to the ground,

but the toilet was right next to the wall. I climbed up on it, trying to peer out. The courthouse was
tall, five stories high. Standing on my tiptoes I could see out across the city, a sweeping view of
the Union. I’d never seen so much. From where I stood, the dark slate roofs of the Grand Hall
and all the other important Union buildings seemed like the dark pupil of an eye, clustered in the
center of the city. Surrounding them, the silver band of the river separated the government
buildings from the workers units and barracks.

The women’s compound was surrounded on its perimeter by a high wall and beyond

that, the dry stretch of land used for military exercises. But the men’s was different. Beyond its
brown roofs lay a patchwork of fields: deep green and gold. The fields stretched on forever.

I could have stood there for hours, but my feet began to cramp after a few minutes and I

was forced to climb down and stare once again at the gray walls and the small slit of sky.

I’ve seen a few photographs of cities from the Old World, but they never felt real. Like

the stories of cars and airplanes, other remnants from a time that used to exist hundreds of years
ago, those colossal cities seemed almost impossible to imagine; a fairytale. But looking out my
window, the scale of the world suddenly seemed real. It was round and full and dimensional, not
just an old photograph in the pages of a book.

I’d always believed that the Union was everything. Inside our cities, our government had

created everything our people would ever need: progress, civility, safety. Outside, there was only
chaos and ignorance. But the vast line of the horizon made me reconsider. What else was out
there?

I was so distracted that I almost didn’t notice the door to my cell opening. The clang of

the metal startled me and I lay quickly back against the bed, trying to compose my face. I hadn’t
done anything wrong, but it felt like I was being caught in the act of trying to escape. My body
was still in the room, but my mind had burst free. Certainly the guard would be able to see it on
my face.

He set a tray of food down on the floor and turned to go, giving me a quick compulsory

glance as he’d been trained to do. But the look on my face must have stopped him because he
turned back around, stepping a little closer to me.

“Sit up,” he ordered.
I sat up.
“Why is your face all red?” he asked.

My hand fluttered up to my cheeks, but I didn’t answer.
“Answer me,” he demanded.
“I… I don’t know. I was just doing some exercise… to keep myself busy,” I stammered.
The guard grunted, satisfied, and turned to go, casting one more glance at me over his

shoulder before he swung the door shut behind him.

A little bit of panic swelled up inside me as the door closed me back in, trapped. I

scrambled back up on the toilet, forgetting the ache in my feet. The sight of the scenery brought a
small smile to my lips as I stared once again at the jeweled greens of the fields. It was still early
morning, but I already saw that there were men moving about the fields. Their bodies looked so
tiny from this distance. Further out, the tiny specks of livestock dotted the fields.

I fingered the long strands of hair hanging heavily against my back. What would it be like

to be free of all this? I wanted to walk through the high grass and feel the wind blowing against
my face. I hadn’t realized how much I missed the hours we’d spent running as we trained for
selection. I wanted to feel my legs propelling me forward, my arms pumping at my sides. How
could I go the rest of my life trapped inside, knowing that I’d never feel my heart hammering in
my chest or my lungs sucking in fresh air?

I climbed back down from my perch, resting my head against the cold porcelain as the

door banged open once more.

The guard glanced down at my breakfast tray, still untouched by the door, “You’re being

moved,” he said.

“Why?” I managed to squeak, struggling to my feet.
“Orders are that you’re done in solitary. We’ve got too many criminals and not enough

rooms.” He wrapped his large hand around my arm and steered me out the door and down the
hallway to the stairs. We passed more rooms with doors bolted closed and I wondered if there
had been other people so close and I hadn’t even suspected their presence.

“You’re going to be sorry you didn’t eat that breakfast,” the guard grumbled, “You won’t

see another stitch of food until tonight and it won’t do you any good to beg for more.”

He pulled me along down a flight of stairs to a cluster of cells. The walls were open,

separated only by metal bars. But even though the layout of the cells was identical to the one I’d
come from: a cot against one wall, the toilet pushed up against the outside wall below the
windows, it took me only a moment to realize there was no privacy. I wouldn’t be able to look
out the window anymore.

As if on cue, my stomach growled and the guard smirked, pleased to be proven right. He

opened the door to one of the empty cells. “Don’t complain to me when you get hungry,” he said
again.

“I’m fine.” I sat down on the edge of the cot and pulled my knees up to my chest, hoping

they would muffle my stomach.

The guard smiled to himself as he locked the door and sauntered off down the hallway.
“Here, you can have this,” the prisoner in the cell next to mine whispered, slipping a

piece of bread through the bars.

As I turned around a pair of warm eyes stopped me.
“Thank you,” I said, surprised not just to be spoken to, but to be reminded that people

were still kind.

Our hands brushed together, the bread passing from the stranger’s hand to mine and for a

moment, the tips of my fingers tingled as though I’d never really noticed what it felt like to be
inside my skin before.

I blinked and the world came back into focus.
It was a boy, or rather, a man, only a few years older than me, but he didn’t look like any

of the men I’d seen before. His face was kind, not hard-edged and stern like the councilmen and
officers. Where they had short-cropped hair, cut so close to their heads that the white of their
scalp showed through, he had wavy brown curls that fell softly around his face. His right eye was
swollen with a large gash above the brow and the skin surrounding it was covered with bruises
that were just starting to turn a dirty yellow, tinged with bits of purple.

I scooted back away from the bars to the edge of my bed and stared.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “I didn’t realize…” my voice trailed off as I tried to find the courage

to go on.

“I didn’t realize that it wasn’t segregated here… I’ve never…” My voice trailed off.
“I’m sure they’re not happy about it,” the man said. “I heard the guards complaining

about overcrowding.”

We sat in awkward silence.
“What happened to your face,” I finally asked, afraid I’d stared too long without

speaking.

The man touched his fingers lightly to his eye. “Is it still bad? I thought maybe it was

starting to heal,” he paused and moved closer to the bars so that when he spoke his voice didn’t
have to reach above a whisper. “I refused to go to a Threshing. It was the third one I’ve been
summoned to in the past year and I just couldn’t do it again.”

I was shocked by the ease of his confession.
“I’m Hollis,” he said, sticking his hand through the bars to shake mine.
My hand hovered at my side. I hesitated and clasped my hands tightly together in my lap

to fight off the feeling that moved through me, like hunger, urging me to touch him.

“I’m Wynne,” I said.
He pulled his hand back from between the bars and a sad smile flitted across his lips.

“What did you do to get in here?” he asked.

“I’d rather not say.”
I couldn’t look into his face any longer. I turned away and lay flat on the bed, staring up

at the ceiling.

“It’s actually not so bad in here,” he said after a minute. “The food isn’t any worse than

what we get in the field and the beds are a lot more comfortable. No wonder it’s so crowded. If I
didn’t miss my dog so much, I’d ask to have my stay extended.”

I risked another glance in his direction, surprised to find that he was still looking at me. A

smile pulled at the corner of his lips.

I swallowed, trying to find my voice. “You have a dog?” I finally asked.
“I do,” he nodded. “His name is Stubs.”
“Stubs?”
He laughed softly. “It would make more sense if you saw him.”
“And he’s a…” I searched for the word that I’d heard people use to describe animals that

kept people company, “a pet?”

“Well he’s not much of a worker,” Hollis said. “He’s a sheep dog, but he’s only got three

legs.”

“Then how did you end up with him,” I asked.
“I guess it was just good timing.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what happened to him

before I found him. The sheep pastures aren’t too close to the field I’m assigned to, so he

probably wound up there on his own.” He ran a hand through his hair. “He was just a little pup,
only eight or nine weeks old. My guess is that a fox or a coyote got him and dragged him
through the fields. Something must have scared it off though… maybe me. I found him by the
river with his leg pretty torn apart.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be sorry,” Hollis said, “I don’t think he is. He does just fine without it. Besides, if

he’d kept the leg, I wouldn’t have been able to keep him. The sheep herders didn’t want him
back and they probably would have killed him if I hadn’t talked them into letting me keep him,”
he smiled, remembering.

I wanted to ask him to tell me more, about his dog, about the fields, but I couldn’t find

the words and after a minute he turned away from me.

I passed most of the day in silence, staring at the floor below my feet, trying not to look

at Hollis. His presence frightened me. The metal bars separating us did nothing to ward off the
feeling of him beside me. The sunny smell of his skin. The warmth of his body.

What was this ache inside my chest? It wasn’t just the panic of being in prison. There was

something else inside me too, a yearning that I didn’t recognize.

Evening came and the light faded outside. As the cell grew dark, the words that I’d

wanted to speak during the day bubbled up inside of me. I tucked my legs up underneath me on
the cot and faced Hollis’s cell. His back was to me, leaning up against the bars.

I took a deep breath and opened my mouth.
“I worked at the delivery unit and one of the Carriers died.” I said quietly.
Hollis jumped ever so slightly, and turned around to face me. “And was it your fault?” he

asked softly.

“The Grand Council thinks so.” I went on, telling him about Dorionne and about the

baby. It felt surprisingly good to tell the story out loud in my own words. I paused and shifted on
the cot, letting my body move imperceptibly closer to him. For some reason I wanted to tell him
the whole story, everything, the look in Dorionne’s eyes when Etta handed her the baby, the way
the room had felt as if it had come alive when the two of them touched. Like I’d seen lightning.
A force of nature.

When I finished my story, Hollis’s eyes glistened, but his face stayed composed and I

could tell that he was used to keeping his feelings inside.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “It doesn’t seem fair.”
I nodded. It wasn’t fair. None of it was.
He leaned a little closer to the bars that divided us. “We weren’t meant to live this way,

were we?” he whispered, his face serious. “People, I mean. Doesn’t it seem like we should be
doing amazing things like making music and buildings? It isn’t all about strength and perfection
and winning wars.” He shook his head, closing his mouth tight.

“Is that why you refused to go to the Threshing?”
“No,” he said, “Not really. I just couldn’t stomach the cruelty. It seems so pointless to

me… to do that to another person.”

He rolled over to face me, his body pressed up so close to the bars that I could feel the

heat of his breath. His eyes were bright. Inside them the passion and longing were unmistakable.
“I don’t want to be one of those people,” he said, “I don’t want to look at things and only see
what I’m told to see.”

“What do you want to see?” I whispered.

For a long moment he stared at me, his eyes locked on mine. Finally he blinked, and

rolled back over on the cot resting his hands behind his head.

When he spoke the words were so soft I hardly heard them.
“Someone like you.”
I lay back on my cot too and closed my eyes, trying not to listen to the way my heart

pounded, as if speaking to me in a language of thumps and thuds I couldn’t quite understand.
Next to me Hollis’s body lay silent only a foot away. If I reached my hand out, I could touch
him. I pressed my eyes tighter together and tried to concentrate on something that would ground
me, something real, but all I saw were the far-off fields and the soft, warm glow of Hollis’s eyes.

Chapter Fourteen

Early the next morning I managed to sneak one more look out the window. I woke as the

room was beginning to lighten and I peered past the bars into each of the cells in our little
cluster. No one was awake yet. Most of the inmates had their blankets pulled up close to their
chins to cut out the early autumn chill that seeped through the cement floor and into our bones.

I climbed up onto the small rim of the toilet and gazed out the window. The view from

this floor wasn’t as spectacular as the one from the top of the building, but it still took my breath
away. In the morning light the river reflected the rosy pink color of the sky. I studied the city,
trying to memorize it.

My eyes followed the path the river took, running around the little island I was on now

and converging again into one large flow. The river ran past the tall walls of the units that
surrounded it on both sides. Before I had looked down from this high perch I had always
imagined that it ran out through the military patrolled no-man’s-land and out into the untamed
distance. I’d been wrong. From here it was easy to see that the river took a sharp turn, running
directly along the inside wall of the men’s compound until it gradually twisted, like the body of
snake and flowed out into the center of the fields before it swept out past the herds of cattle and
sheep, and finally disappeared into the foggy horizon.

“How’s the view?”
I turned around, startled. Hollis was propped up on one elbow, staring at me, “I don’t

think the window was put in to be enjoyed that way.”

I jumped down, embarrassed that he’d found me with my guard down, and climbed back

into my cot, pulling the blankets up over my legs to warm me.

“So where do you work?” I asked, trying to break the uncomfortable silence that had

settled over us.

“I harvest corn.”
“Oh, you’re lucky,” I said. “The fields are beautiful.” I glanced towards the window

remembering the view.

“They are,” he agreed, but his voice was dull.
“You don’t like it?”
Hollis got out of bed and climbed up onto the steel rim of the toilet so that he could peer

out his own window. I stared at his broad back, wondering if I’d said something to offend him.
After a few minutes he hopped down and turned to me, “Does it matter if I like it?”

“It matters to me.”
He smiled sadly. “I don’t mean to be ungrateful,” he said, “it’s not that I don’t see the

beauty out there, but it’s not where I want to be.”

“And where’s that?”
Hollis shook his head and lay back down on the bed. “Never mind.”
My hand trembled at my side, wishing that I could reach out and stroke the hair away

from his forehead.

“Listen,” I said, “can I ask you something?”
He turned his eyes from the ceiling and stared at me with a gaze so strong and

unadulterated that my arms and legs felt suddenly weak. I couldn’t think of a time that anyone
had ever looked at me with such concentration.

“I didn’t ask you, before,” I stuttered, “What sentence did the Grand Council give you…

for refusing to go to the Threshing?”

“A week in jail.” he said, rubbing a hand over his eyes. When he removed it his face had

darkened. “It’s not bad, as long as I don’t do it again.”

“What would happen then?” I asked.
“It’s death,” he said, the two words so stark, so final.
“Death? Just for missing a Threshing?”
He turned back to face me and I saw the fear in his eyes, “But it’s not just missing a

Threshing. That’s the thing. It’s disobeying the Union. I should have seen that. I should have
known how important obedience is,” He smiled softly, “I guess I’m lucky that they were lenient
this time.”

I couldn’t respond. My throat felt like a hand had grabbed hold of it and had begun to

squeeze.

Hollis read the panic on my face. “Don’t worry. I’ll be okay.”
I imagined him down among the green patchwork, one of the faraway bodies that I’d seen

moving through the fields.

“It’s not so bad,” he said, “There’s beauty all around. You just need to know where to

look for it.” His eyes lingered on my face, tracing their way across my cheeks, my nose, my lips.

Around us, the other inmates had begun to stir. I pressed my head in my hands, trying to

will the heat from my cheeks. To distract myself I pictured the city below me, memorizing it. In
my mind I traced the course of the river, solidifying the image there.

Even though there wasn’t an empty cell on the floor, it was oddly quiet. There were small

sounds, like the groan of the cots shifting underneath our weight and the occasional clang of a
cell door as the guards came and went. Most of the prisoners sat on their beds with their feet
tucked up underneath them, trying not to make eye contact with one another.

The others were easy to ignore, but Hollis was different. Even when we weren’t

speaking, I was always aware of his presence. When his back was turned to me, I couldn’t help
but stare at him, memorizing the slope of his shoulders and the way he moved his hand up to his
head to sweep the hair out of his eyes.

But I was never more aware of him then when he leaned back on his cot and watched me.

I pretended not to notice, but I could feel his eyes watching me, as if his stare had weight to it.
Almost as if he was touching me.

I was grateful when the guards delivered our lunch, not because the cold lentils and thin

slice of bread would satisfy the empty hole in my belly, but because it gave me a distraction.

I hopped off of my cot and scooped up the tray that had just been pushed beneath my

door.

Hollis cocked his head as I settled back down, balancing my meal on my lap. “Do all

women move like that?”

“Like what?” I asked, suddenly embarrassed that I’d been too eager to eat. I must have

seemed uncivilized.

His cheeks flushed a little. “Smooth like that…”
“Smooth?”
“It’s like everything about you is…” he searched for the word, “softer,” he finally said.
Instinctively I brought my hand to my cheek. Of course I’d noticed the differences

between us. How many times had I wanted to reach out and graze my finger along the stubble of
hair that grew along his jaw?

“I… I don’t know,” I stammered, pushing at the food in front of me.
He shook his head, turning away from me as he stood to get his own tray. “I’m sorry,” he

said. “That was a stupid question. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

“No, it’s not stupid,” I told him, choking down a dry bite of bread. I didn’t want him to

stop. I wanted him to tell me what he saw when he looked at me.

“It’s just that I’ve never really been around… one of you before,” he said, “You’d think I

would have gotten used to it after a few days in here, but I guess I haven’t.”

I wanted to tell him that I understood, but my mouth wouldn’t move. I licked my lips,

trying to loosen them, but the moment had passed.

My three-day sentence slipped by like water through my hands and before I knew it, the

guards arrived to retrieve me. As they carted me off down the hall I turned to look at Hollis one
last time. I glanced back over my shoulder and he brought his hand up, waving goodbye. On his
face he wore the same crooked smile. At the end of the hall I closed my eyes, trying to freeze the
image there.

The Carrier residence was located in the center of the city where the land rose to a slight

hill. I’d glanced up at its splendor every day since I could remember, but I’d always imagined
that the day I saw it up close would be a happier day, a day Odessa and I would walk there hand
and hand.

The thought of Odessa made me squeeze my eyes shut, unsure if I could handle seeing

her again.

The guards led me to the large front doors. I must not have been trusted to walk the

streets alone because they didn’t leave until I was placed directly in the custody of my new
mentor. She grumbled a thank you and dragged me through the large doors into the cool interior.

“Don’t get used to coming in this way,” she said, “This entrance is for the Carriers.

You’re to use the side door on the west side of the building from now on.”

I nodded, trying not to stare too long into her face. She was the most haggard person I’d

ever seen. Her cheeks were chapped and red, and the tip of her nose was so pink it was almost
raw. The skin around her eyes sagged, cut through with deep wrinkles.

She glanced at me suspiciously out of the corner of her eye. Had they told her my whole

story or did she only know that I’d come from the prison?

“You’ve already been assigned to a Carrier,” she said, leading the way past a grand foyer

where two giant staircases flanked either side of the entry before curving up into different wings
of the building. “Mistress Edian made the assignment.” She grumbled, casting me an accusing
look as she led me down a wide hallway. “She doesn’t usually make servant assignments.”

I hurried to keep up with her, but my eyes kept straying to the walls around me. It was

only a corridor, but it was one of the loveliest places I’d ever seen. The floors weren’t wood, but
a shiny, pale gray stone, polished to such sheen that they reflected the walls as if they sat
suspended on top of water. Odessa has floated down these halls, I thought.

Spaced along the walls on one side were gigantic wooden doors intricately carved with

shafts of wheat and tangles of vines that wound up across their rounded tops.

“You’ll be sharing a room with Cyrene,” the woman said, “She’s been serving two

Carriers for the past few months so she’ll be glad to show you what to do.”

“Oh, I thought you were my mentor,” I said, running to catch up as she turned up a

narrow staircase.

“I don’t live on the Carrier floors,” the woman said with a huff, as if I’d offended her.

“The councilmen only request young servants to be placed there.”

She stopped for a moment on a step a few paces up and looked back down at me, her eyes

narrowed with a look of disgust. “You young girls all want to surround yourselves with luxury.
You think it rubs off on you, makes you worth more. But I’d rather slave away in the laundry
than be one of you.”

I cast my eyes down towards my feet, away from her accusing eyes.
Upstairs, a girl was waiting for us halfway down the corridor. The woman stopped a few

paces from her and gestured for me to go. Then without another word she turned to leave. The
girl and I watched as she disappeared back down the stairway.

“I’m Cyrene,” she said, once it was clear that we were alone.
I smiled, heartened by the lovely pink glow in the girl’s cheeks. She was pretty. Her eyes

were wide and brown, and slanted slightly up at the corners. Even dressed in the plain gray
uniform she was beautiful and it made me wonder why she hadn’t been chosen to be a Carrier, or
even a worker for that matter. “I’ll show you our room,” she said, disappearing into a dark alcove
behind her.

In the dim light I could barely make out the shape of a small door, hidden in the side of

the wall. She cracked it open and slipped inside, holding it slightly ajar for me to follow.

Inside, the room was dark. On a short dresser a lamp gave off a small amount of light, but

not enough to illuminate the dark corners. The ceilings weren’t low, but the lack of light made it
feel like they were pressing down on our heads. On either side of the room there were two doors,
which I assumed led out into the Carriers’ rooms. Next to the doors, two low cots were pushed
up against the wall.

“It isn’t much,” Cyrene said, a bit embarrassed. “You’ll be there, on the left next to

Odessa’s room so that you can hear her when she rings.”

“Odessa?” I practically yelled. My throat tightened when I said her name and I had to

swallow, pushing away the pain it brought to the back of my mouth.

Cyrene jumped a bit at my reaction. “From what I hear, Mistress Edian requested the

match. Is it a problem? Do you know each other?”

“I…she…we used to,” I stuttered.
“You’ve worked with the Carriers before?” Cyrene asked, looking down at her hands

and I knew that she’d been told about Dorionne. Maybe they’d all been told. “That’s good,” she
said, looking back up at me, “It’ll make things easier. At least you’ll know how to act around
them. We’re in charge of their baths, delivering meals, making sure their laundry’s done, that
sort of thing. Sometimes they want more. Fidela has me plait her hair every day because she
doesn’t like the way the others do it. Odessa likes to have her hair brushed, but she usually wears
it down.”

I remembered Odessa’s beautiful, golden hair, the way it fell in soft waves over her

shoulders. It made me happy to think that she didn’t make Cyrene put it up in fancy braids each
day. Maybe this little bit of her had stayed the same.

From the other side of the wall a bell chimed faintly.
“I’ll come with you this time. Introduce you,” she said, opening the little door.
I followed her, squinting at the bright light that came from a wall of windows along one

side of the room.

The room was stately, two times larger than the rooms in the delivery unit. On the far

side, a four-poster bed was covered in the same rose-colored linens as the delivery beds. Nearer

to where we stood, a large fireplace decorated the middle of one wall. Next to it was a sitting
area with two large cushioned chairs covered in soft, pink fabric. I wanted to reach out and run
my hand along the arched back, but I held it still at my side.

Next to the chairs, in a chaise lounge as large as a bed, Odessa sat holding a silver bell

still raised as if she was about to ring it again. She was staring out the window. The pale skin of
her long neck arched back against the chair. She stared for a moment longer out the window
before she turned to look up at us. Her forehead crinkled and the corners of her lips turned down
when she saw me.

“What’s going on?” she demanded.
“Wynne’s going to be your new servant,” Cyrene said, keeping her eyes trained towards

the floor.

“Who authorized this? I don’t want a new servant. You can keep serving me,” Odessa

said staring defiantly at Cyrene. “And don’t tell me that you can’t serve both me and Fidela.
You’ve done it for months.”

Cyrene didn’t look up at Odessa when she spoke. “You’ll have to talk to Mistress Edian.

She’s the one who assigned her.”

“I said I don’t want her,” Odessa yelled again. “Send her back.”
“I don’t want to be here either,” I snapped, “You think I wanted to come serve you? That

I want you to treat me like we don’t even know each other?”

“Don’t you dare speak to me this way,” Odessa said. “You don’t know me anymore.”
“You’re right,” I yelled. “I don’t.”
Cyrene looked up, meeting Odessa’s eyes, “Please, Odessa. The Council sent her and

Mistress Edian. Can’t you try to make the best of it?”

Odessa pinched her lips and turned away from us. The look on her face reminded me of a

child, but there was something else there, a hint of fear hidden underneath the pristine façade.

“I’ll help do your moisturizing and bath, but after that it will just be Wynne. She’ll have

me nearby if she has any questions,” Cyrene said. “I’m sorry, but that will have to be good
enough.”

The calm strength in Cyrene’s voice reminded me of Etta.
Odessa gave in, standing up reluctantly and walking over to a long padded table where

she slipped out of her pale gown. The silk fell in a puddle around her feet and I noticed for the
first time how her body had changed. Her stomach still held a bit of the girth from her last
pregnancy and the bottom half of her abdomen was covered with pale, pink stretch marks.

“The councilmen require the Carriers to be moisturized and bathed once a day,” Cyrene

said, pulling a ceramic bottle from a shelf beside the table. “It’s important that we do a really
good job because the fertility ceremony is tomorrow.”

She poured a handful of amber colored oil into her palm and started massaging it into

Odessa’s feet.

“You can start on her hands,” Cyrene said. “Spend some time on her cuticles.”
I poured a bit of the oil into my hands and looked down at Odessa’s face. I expected her

to look relaxed, at peace, but her face was empty. She stared up at the ceiling as if she was
waiting, biding her time in this place until she could be somewhere else. I rubbed the oil between
my palms to warm it, hesitating to touch her skin. I’d seen her bare skin my whole life, brushed
up against her in the showers and as we’d gotten dressed in the mornings. I’d touched her
forehead when it was hot with fever and rubbed my hand along her back as she fell asleep, but
this felt different. It didn’t feel right for me to touch her anymore.

Gently, I picked up her hand and began massaging the oil into her palms, her fingers, the

tiny white moons of her cuticles. I knew these hands. But even before the oil soaked in, I could
feel the difference between her skin and my own. Hers was supple, as soft as the skin of the
infants I’d help deliver. The thought of this similarity brought tears to my eyes.

I glanced at Odessa again and caught her looking at me. Our eyes locked for a moment

before she turned her gaze back up to the ceiling.

Cyrene and I worked our way across Odessa’s body. As Cyrene moved up her calves and

thighs, I rubbed oil into her pale arms, across her chest and shoulders. The skin on her stomach
where the tiny marks ran like rivers of pink scars up from her hips looked painfully different
from my own. I rubbed extra oil into the skin, wishing that I could wipe away more than just
those scars.

“I’ll get the bath going,” Cyrene said, wiping her hands on a clean towel that hung beside

the table.

She disappeared behind a tall door next to the bed, leaving Odessa and me alone.
Without turning to look at me, Odessa spoke, “I don’t want you here.”
I pulled my hands back from her body and took a step back.
“You think I enjoy having you rub oil on my body? You think I enjoy being bathed like

I’m a child?”

“Isn’t this what you wanted?” I asked, “To be waited on? It’s all you’ve talked about

since we were little: what it would be like to be special, to do whatever you want, to draw all day
without anyone telling you that you can’t.”

“It’s not like that.”
“It’s not like what?”
“I was wrong, okay?” Odessa yelled, “I’m not allowed to draw anymore. It’s not

appropriate for a Carrier to spend her time consumed with art. It distracts my energy from more
important things.” Her face was drained of any color. “They burned all my drawings when I got
here.”

My hands shook. “All of them?”
Odessa shook her head. “Don’t,” she said, “Don’t feel sorry for me. I don’t want your

pity.” She turned her head to look around the room as if she was seeing it all for the first time.
“Look at this place. It’s made for royalty you know. That’s what I am now.”

I glanced around once more, taking in the thick crimson carpets, the delicate molding

around the ceilings and windows, the crystal lights that hung from the ceiling like raindrops.
Even in our dreams, we’d never been able to imagine anything so regal.

I grabbed a thin blanket off the bed and draped it across her body.
“I can take care of myself,” she said, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders. “I don’t

like the way you look at me, like I’m still that other girl.”

“Please… don’t push me away,” I said.
Odessa sighed loudly and closed her eyes. It was obvious that she wasn’t going to listen

to me, but I didn’t care.

“What are you so afraid of?” I asked.
From the other room we heard the water shut off.
When Odessa spoke her voice was hard, “I don’t know what you’re trying to get me to

say, but it’s not going to work. Don’t you realize that I can make your life miserable? You’re the
servant. Get it? I tell you what to think. It doesn’t go the other way.”

Cyrene opened the bathroom door and stopped short when she saw my expression. Her

eyes flicked from my face to Odessa’s, deciding which of us she needed to protect.

Odessa sat up and turned to face the two of us. “I want both of you to get out of here,”

she snapped, “I can see what you’re trying to do, ganging up on me.”

The heat rose in my face. “You can pretend you’re not afraid,” I said. “But I can see right

through you. You’re hiding something from me. Guess what, just because you were chosen to be
a Carrier doesn’t make you better than the rest of us. The Union chose you because you were
pliable. They chose you because they thought they could own your body and your mind.”

Odessa’s eyes flashed and I knew I’d said too much.
“You think you know what they want?” she laughed, “You don’t know anything about

the Union.”

“I know that they don’t want women who can think for themselves,” I said.
“Oh, and I suppose you’re one of the smart ones,” Odessa asked, pulling the sheet tight

around her body. “You’re as ignorant as any of us.” Odessa stood up and walked towards me, her
face still angry. “You think the Union hasn’t broken you, the way they have the rest of us?”

“Broken?” I asked.
“Subdued. Crushed our spirits,” Odessa said as if the information brought her pleasure.
Cyrene shook her head, “Odessa, you don’t mean that. You shouldn’t be saying these

things.” Her eyes traveled to Odessa as if there was more that she wanted to say, but knew she
couldn’t speak in front of a Carrier. “Come on,” she said, trying to change the subject, “Your
bathwater is getting cold.”

“I don’t want to take a bath,” Odessa said, walking back to the chaise lounge. She

dropped the blanket and draped her oiled body across the cushions. “I’m not going to take one.”

“But what if the General comes…” Cyrene stuttered.
“Leave me alone,” Odessa screamed, “Just leave me alone. I don’t care what the General

thinks. I’m not bathing.”

Odessa picked up a crystal vase that stood on a small table at her side and hurled it across

the room at us. It shattered as it hit the floor, sending tiny jewels of glass skidding across the
room.

Cyrene grabbed my arm and pulled me towards the small door.
“If you change your mind, just ring. I can run some new water,” she called behind her.
“Leave!” Odessa yelled.
The sound of her voice echoed through the large room, bouncing off the walls. Even as

we closed the door behind us, I could feel the sound of her scream vibrating against my skin,
reverberating inside of me.

Chapter Fifteen

Cyrene sat on the edge of her cot wringing her hands. We were both trying to ignore the

sounds coming from inside Odessa’s room, but the door was thin; thin enough for us to hear
every cough or groan.

I covered my ears and tried to think of another sound, the chatter of Blue Jays, the clatter

of dishes in the dining hall, the patter of rain against the roof, anything else to drown out by this
other noise. But even with my hands over top of my ears I could still hear Odessa crying.

The General had arrived an hour after I brought up the supper tray. Odessa still wasn’t

talking to me. For most of the day I’d waited on my cot listening for the bell that would summon
me, but the room stayed silent. Next-door Cyrene ran in and out of Fidela’s suite, plaiting her
hair, ironing her robes, and delivering cold water from the kitchen, while inside our dim chamber
I waited to be given an order. But Odessa didn’t ring.

At dinnertime when Cyrene went down to the kitchen to fix a tray for Fidela, I followed.

Odessa was too stubborn to ask for dinner, but I prepared a tray of figs and broiled chicken
anyway.

In her room I set the tray on the small wooden table beside the chaise lounge. Odessa

stared out the window, wrapping a strand of oily hair around her finger, ignoring me. Outside the
sun had set and the sky was dark. In the glass, her ghostly reflection floated against the backdrop
of the city.

After I returned to my room I listened for the sound of cutlery clinking against china, but

I didn’t hear anything. The room stayed silent.

I lay on my cot concentrating on the beat of my heart in my chest as I tried to push back

the image of Hollis’s face. It seemed impossible that someone I’d only known for a couple days
could wriggle his way into my thoughts this way, but if I didn’t distract myself with some busy
chore, there he’d be. My fingers twitched as I imagined what it would feel like to reach out and
stroke the skin above his eyebrow.

I didn’t pay attention to the click of Odessa’s door opening or the heavy footsteps on the

floor. It was until a deep, gravelly voice spoke from the other room that I sat up, startled, my
heart pounding.

Across the room Cyrene sat up too.
“Who’s that?” I whispered.
“Probably the General,” Cyrene said. “It’s been a few nights. I should have guessed that

he’d come.”

Her face contorted with worry.
“Why’s he here?”
Cyrene stood up and paced back and forth across the floor. She stopped at the door,

lifting her hand so that it lay flat against the wood. If she pushed, the door would swing open.

But she held still. When she lowered her hand and turned back to face me, her expression

had changed, the worry was covered over by a blank mask, unreadable.

“Why’s he here?” I asked again. “She hasn’t gone to the fertility ceremony yet. I thought

they only came…” my voice trailed off.

“No,” Cyrene said, her voice hollow. “It’s just a ceremony. Odessa is one of his favorites.

He comes even when she’s not fertile.”

From the other room we heard the deep bass of the voice, “What’s this? You didn’t

bathe?”

Odessa’s response was too quiet to hear.
I heard the scraping of furniture and the smack of something being hit. The General’s

voice was low, bestial. It sounded like the growl of a feral creature, something dangerous.

Cyrene puffed on her hands, rubbing them together to warm them as a distraction. She sat

back down on the bed and covered her face with her hands.

My body twitched. That was my Odessa, my best friend.
“What can we do?” I asked.
Cyrene shook her head. She didn’t answer.

At some point during the night Cyrene climbed into bed beside me. The narrow canvas

cot wasn’t big enough for the two of us, but I made room for her as best I could, curling my arm
around her stomach and resting my head against her hair.

We didn’t speak. What could we say, either one of us, to excuse the things we’d heard?
In the morning Cyrene shook me awake.
“Wynne, it’s time to get up.”
I rubbed my eyes and squinted at the room, confused.
“We wouldn’t normally have to get up so early, but we have to get the Carriers ready for

the ceremony.”

I nodded and rubbed the sleep from my eyes, trying to forget the sounds from last night.

“Cyrene,” I asked, “what is the fertility ceremony?”

She finished buttoning up her work shirt and turned to look at me. “It’s a special rite that

the Union holds for Carriers who are getting ready to conceive.”

“To conceive? But Odessa just had a baby.”
Cyrene shook her head, “It’s been two months. It’s time for her to carry her next. One a

year, that’s her duty. You know that,” she paused to slip on her shoes, “You’ll need to dress her
in her ceremonial robes and be sure to put her hair up. I’ll come help you with the braids since
you’re new at it, but you’ll have to figure out the rest by yourself. She’ll tell you what needs to
be done.”

She smoothed down her hair and walked into Fidela’s room, leaving me alone.
In Odessa’s room, the heavy mauve curtains were drawn tight against the morning sun. It

was probably my job to close the curtains the night before, but Odessa had never called me to do
it.

In the bed, the motionless lump of Odessa’s body was curled up beside a mound of

pillows. The bed was too huge for one small person. Amidst all of those pillows Odessa almost
disappeared.

I didn’t move to crack the blinds. Across the room, the dinner tray from last night sat

untouched.

“Don’t pretend you didn’t hear.”
Odessa’s voice startled me.
“I know you heard him. Don’t pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about,” she

said, brushing aside the blankets.

“I didn’t…I’m,” I wanted to tell her that I didn’t know what to do last night, that I wanted

to help, but that I felt stuck, pressed into silence. My face burned with shame.

“Go ahead and smile your smug little grin. I know you think I deserve it.”
“No,” I said, “Odessa, I never…”

“You don’t need to hide it from me,” Odessa interrupted me before I could go on. “I

know you hate me now. You think you could handle being a Carrier better than I can. I see it in
your face, admit it.”

I stood silent, struck dumb.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” she said. “It’s the price we pay.”
I shook my head. What did she mean? The price for being a Carrier? For the luxuries that

surrounded her? None of it is worth it, I wanted to shout.

“Did he hurt you?” I asked instead.
“You don’t have to pretend to care anymore,” Odessa said, lying back down and pulling

the covers up over her head. From under the blankets her words were muffled, like she was
buried under something thick and impenetrable. “I’ll ring when I want you.”

“I’m sorry, but we need to get you ready for the fertility ceremony,” I said, timidly

pulling back the covers.

Odessa let the covers fall off of her and she stared off into the distance with the same

blank look that I’d seen yesterday, as if she didn’t even inhabit her body any more.

“Come on,” I said, pulling her out of bed. “We’ve still got to give you a bath.”
She didn’t argue as I ran the water, and set her in the warm tub. While I soaked and

lathered her hair she closed her eyes and for a moment I could almost imagine that nothing had
changed between us, that we were the same people we used to be, but then I looked around at our
surroundings. It was impossible to ignore where we were.

“Are you going to be okay today,” I asked. “What’s the ceremony like?”
“Awful,” she said, without opening her eyes. “I don’t want to think about it.”
“Please, Odessa… tell me.”
She looked up at me from the water, “You don’t want to know what things are like here,

Wynne. I promise.”

“But I’m going to find out even if you don’t tell me.”
Odessa sat up in the tub and the water sloshed over the sides as she scooted closer to me,

looking into my eyes. “Why don’t you believe me when I tell you that you shouldn’t be here?
What can I do to get you to leave?”

“It’s not up to me.”
Her wet hair fell across her face as she buried her head in her hands.
“If it’s that bad just tell me. We’ll handle it together,” I said, “You used to tell me

everything.”

Odessa took a deep breath and wiped the wet hair out of her eyes. When she looked back

up at me her face had hardened back into the girl I didn’t know. “It can’t be that way anymore.”

I didn’t press her. Instead I lifted her out of the tub and toweled her dry, letting her sit

once again in her favorite chair by the window and look out the treetops while I got her robes
ready.

The fertility robes didn’t look a thing like I’d expected. They were a deep, blood red,

more vibrant than any fabric I’d ever seen before, and they were stitched with delicate rose
blossoms in all stages of bloom. Some were only tight buds, while others were practically
bursting open. But it wasn’t just the color and the embroidery that shocked me; the cut of it was
peculiar too. The front panel was decorated with intricate lacing that formed almost a perfect
circle around the belly.

Odessa slipped easily into the robe and stared down at the front of it, running her finger

along the lacing. The stitching accentuated her stomach, even though it was almost back to its

normal size, and I couldn’t help but thinking of baby Cara. The look on Odessa’s face made me
believe that she was thinking of her too.

By the time Cyrene arrived to help with Odessa’s hair I’d already managed to twist it up

in a loose bun with a small braid that wound down from the crown of her head and wrapped
delicately around the nape of her neck. A few more small braids coiled through the bun, like tiny
vines, twisting in and out of the loose curls.

“This is beautiful,” Cyrene said, admiring my handiwork.
She opened a large box that sat on top of the vanity and removed a dozen hair pins topped

with ruby colored jewels. “These will be perfect,” she said, placing the pins throughout Odessa’s
hair so that her whole head shimmered.

“It’s time,” Cyrene said, looking over Odessa one last time.
Odessa took a deep breath, steeling herself.
In the hall we met up with a group of Carriers and their servants. Only a handful of the

Carriers were dressed in fertility robes, and the group of them automatically gravitated away
from the rest. Odessa stood off to the side, her back stiff, her chin raised.

Downstairs we converged with a crowd of Carriers. We stopped at two stately doors

where Mistress Edian stood shepherding those who were not dressed in Fertility Robes through
the doors and into a large assembly hall. As the doors opened I got a glimpse of the grand room.
Rows of red velvet chairs lined the walls. It appeared that the front rows were reserved for
military officers. They all sat erect, and stern, staring intently towards the far end of the room,
but the door didn’t open wide enough for me to see what they were staring at. My stomach
clenched at the sight of them. How could Odessa be expected to be in the same room with these
men after what she’d been through last night?

“Line up according to your tiers. Highest to lowest.” Mistress Edian instructed the

Carriers. Her voice sounded clipped and formal. “The ceremony is scheduled to start soon.”

Odessa lined up behind another group of second tier Carriers and I stood next to her,

unsure of my role. Odessa stood soberly like the rest of them, but the dread in her eyes was
unmistakable.

Inside the room a drum began to beat a slow processional rhythm, and Mistress Edian

stood up straighter. “Okay, it’s time,” she said. “I’ll let you in one at a time. Proceed down the
aisle for your marking and then take your place on the altar.”

One by one she opened the door and allowed a Carrier and her servant to enter. The drum

continued beating and between each entrance a low murmuring filtered out into the hallway until
finally we stood at the front of the line.

Odessa turned to me. “Don’t stand too close to me in there,” she whispered, “Come with

me up the aisle and then follow me to the altar. You’ll kneel down at my feet.”

I nodded.
Odessa opened her mouth as if she wanted to say more, but she didn’t speak.
“What is it?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“Please, tell me.”
She leaned in close to me, her voice nothing more than a sigh, “I don’t want you to look

at me…” she began and then hesitated.

“Why not?” I asked, trying to understand exactly what it was she didn’t want me to see.
Mistress Edian stepped forward, interrupting us, and opened the door, ushering us inside

with a soft push.

The beat of the drum pounded the air, deep and pulsing. It was an inescapable sound that

pulled us forward. In front of me Odessa walked slowly down the long, red carpet. At her sides,
her hands clenched and unclenched, but her back stayed stiff and straight.

In front of us, at the end of the aisle, the Grand Councilman sat atop a hulking wooden

chair carved with ornate stalks of wheat. He smiled as Odessa made her way towards him and the
grin that spread across his face stopped my breath. It was evil, not the grin of a leader, but of
someone who wanted to possess, to dominate. I took a deep breath, willing myself not to rush
forward and claw the look right off of his face.

Odessa came to a stop in front of the Councilman and I stopped at her side, stepping

away from her the way she’d told me to. My legs trembled. Around us, the officers’ deep voices
chanted along with the beat of the drum and the Grand Councilman reached forward, pulling
Odessa closer to him. With a quick jerk, he pulled on the end of the lacing stitched around her
stomach and the circular center of her gown fell away, revealing the pale white skin of her belly.

Odessa stood stiffly as the Grand Councilman held her tightly with one hand and with the

other, reached into a deep ceramic basin that rested on a metal stand beside his chair. When he
removed his hand it was drenched in red. I stepped back, repulsed at the sight. The red liquid
spilled down his arm as he brought his hand forward, fingers spread, and pressed his palm
against Odessa’s stomach.

“May the stamp of the Union be upon you and within you,” he said. “May you fulfill

your duty in carrying the seed of our great nation in your womb.”

Odessa turned her head ever so slightly away from the Grand Councilman as he spoke.

When he removed his hand, a large, red imprint remained. At the base of the palm print a drop of
red ink dripped down her pale skin like a tear and rolled back into the dark folds of her gown.

The Councilman let go of Odessa’s arm and she stumbled to the right, up the steps behind

his chair that led to a platform with a long, granite altar that spanned the length of the room. The
Carriers who had proceeded before her were already lying on the huge slab of polished stone.
They were lined up side by side, the lengths of their bodies almost the exact width of the altar so
that the top of the stone seemed to disappear entirely, leaving only a row of bright red bodies
marked with the Grand Councilman’s gigantic handprint.

I kneeled at the foot of the altar in front of Odessa, turning to glance at the servant who

crouched next to me. Her head was pressed against the cool stone, but she turned to look at me
for just a moment, smiling weakly.

For what seemed like ages I leaned against the cold granite and listened to the chanting

rhythm as Carrier after Carrier was marked and came to lie down in the row along the altar. My
stomach burned, as if I could feel the heat of the Grand Councilman’s hand pressing into my own
skin.

Finally, the last Carrier took her place and the beating of the drums stopped. Behind me

the atmosphere in the room changed.

“The mark has been made upon these bodies,” the Grand Councilman said, his voice

booming through the now silent room. “Rise men. It is through you, the powerful, the faultless,
the great, that these genes will multiply through our Union and throughout the world.”

There was a great shuffling of bodies, and from behind me I felt the heat of the officers as

they left their seats and moved up the steps, one by one laying their enormous hands on top of
the Grand Councilman’s blood-red palm print on each of the Carrier’s bellies.

Behind me an officer’s legs pressed against my back as he leaned over and placed his

palm across Odessa’s bare skin. I pushed my body closer to the stone, trying to escape the touch

of the man’s thighs against my back. How could Odessa bear to feel the heat of his hand on her
body?

My eyes clouded with hot tears. Up above me on the altar the Carriers lay stiff, offering

up their bodies as a sacrifice. But for what? My mind raced, filling with all the words that the
Union handbook had ever taught me: honor, nation, perfection, power, strength, surrender.
Thousands and thousands of words, but they meant nothing. Nothing.

Finally, the last officer filed past, and the men turned and marched out of the room

without another word. Slowly the Carriers arose from the stone slab.

Odessa’s hands shook as she tried to lace up the front panel of her gown.
“Here, let me help you,” I offered.
“Leave me alone. I can do it myself,” Odessa said, slapping my hand away.
I stepped back. To the sides of us other servants were deftly tying up the loose laces

while their Carrier’s stared forward, eyes vacant.

“And stop staring at me,” Odessa said, “You’re only making things worse. I told you not

to watch.”

“I’m sorry,” I muttered turning away from her.
I hadn’t meant to look and now I wished that I’d listened to her. I wished that there was

some way to remove the memory of that red handprint from my mind, but even when I closed
my eyes I saw it there, a bright red stain against Odessa’s pale skin.

Chapter Sixteen

I wrung out another hot rag and scrubbed at the print on Odessa’s belly but the red had

seeped into her skin, staining it.

“I want it gone,” Odessa said, turning her eyes away from the mark.
I scrubbed harder.
She winced. “You’re obviously not trying hard enough.”
For the past hour she’d soaked in the bathtub, hoping that the mark would wash away, but

after scrubbing at it with almost a whole stick of soap it had hardly faded.

“How long did it stay on the last time?” I asked.
Odessa glared at me. “I don’t remember.”
“Maybe if we just leave some warm oil on it….”
“Oh never mind,” she said, wrapping a blanket around herself and sinking down at the

small table to pick at a plateful of berries. “You can get back to work.”

I nodded, throwing the wet towels in the hamper. “Cyrene’s going to show me where the

laundry is,” I told her.

Odessa shrugged.
I averted my eyes as I stripped the bed, not wanting to see the soiled spots. It felt wrong

to look, as if I was peaking at something private, something obscene.

Cyrene carried her own hamper of clothes as she led me downstairs to the laundry room.

The lower levels of the residence were nothing like the upper floors. The shiny stone and
polished wood that I’d gotten used to seeing were replaced with dark timber and old brick, in
even worse repair than the interiors of the barracks.

In the laundry room, Cyrene emptied her basket into a large drum and motioned for me to

do the same.

“They don’t wash anything here,” she said. “Workers from the laundry come to pick it all

up. It’s only gone for a day or two and then they bring it back. The same goes for our uniforms.
But if there’s a certain robe that your Carrier wants to wear you’ll have to plan ahead. You can’t
just expect it to be clean the same day that you drop it off.”

She started sorting the linens into smaller bins and I looked up, scanning the room. A few

workers from the laundry waited patiently near the door for us to finish.

One of the women caught my eye. She was smaller than the rest, covered in a fine layer

of lint that tinted her skin and her hair an even color of gray. Even so, she was impossible to
mistake. Her large green eyes were open wide in surprise.

“Wynne?”
“Tamsin!”
I stumbled over empty baskets to reach her at the other side of the room. “I didn’t realize

that you’d be here.” I couldn’t contain the smile that spread across my face.

Tamsin reached out to pat my hand. “Anika told us that the guards took you. I didn’t

think I’d see you again.”

I winced hearing Anika’s name, “I was sentenced to a couple of days in prison,” I said,

“and I’ve been moved here. I’m a servant now. The Grand Council forbade me from ever going
back to the delivery unit.”

“Then you won’t have to take away any more babies,” She said, smiling.
I nodded, but the relief was fleeting, one set of offenses replaced with another.
“Are you okay?” I asked, “I was so worried that you’d get sent back to reconditioning.”

Tamsin’s face darkened, “It was only for one week,” she said. “Believe it or not, I was

almost used to it. They couldn’t hurt me anymore.”

From across the room Cyrene called out to me. “Wynne, I need to hurry back before

lunch.”

I nodded before turning back to Tamsin. “Will I see you again?” I asked.
Tamsin smiled, obviously pleased by my attention. “I’m here every day,” she said.
Her smile was endearingly crooked and I couldn’t help but smile back. The thought that

I’d see her again lifted my spirits.

For days all I could see when I closed my eyes was the large, red handprint on Odessa’s

stomach. To distract myself I cleaned relentlessly. I polished the vases and candlesticks that
decorated the mantle above the fireplace. I cleaned the tear shaped crystal on all the lights and
ironed all the robes in Odessa’s closet even though I knew they’d be wrinkled again by the time
she wanted to wear them.

Still, my body was on edge. My hands shook as I spread the sheets out over her mattress.
“You don’t look so good,” Odessa said to me from across the room. She was clean from

the bath I’d given her earlier in the morning and her hair was still damp, draped across the back
of the chair.

“I’m okay,” I muttered.
Odessa leaned back against the cushions and nibbled on a sliced pear.
“You’re not fooling me,” Odessa said.
I shook my head and choked back the tears that threatened to give me away. Odessa

leaned forward in her chair and her hair fell down across the back of her pale yellow robe.
Suddenly her face grew serious. “Wynne, is it true that you’re the one who delivered Dorionne’s
baby?”

I nodded, surprised that Odessa had even known Dorionne.
Odessa put a hand on her stomach, gazing down at the spot where it rested above her

belly button. It was the first time I’d seen her treat her body so tenderly.

“They said she took the baby… that she wouldn’t let it go.”
“It’s true,” I said.
She nodded slowly.
“Did you try to stop her?”
My breath caught in my throat. I didn’t know how to answer. Yes, I tried to stop her. Yes

I ran after her.

“I didn’t want to,” I said.
Odessa sat still. Her face looked soft and it gave me the courage to speak to her the way I

would have before she was chosen.

“Odessa?” I asked, “Are all the men here like the General? Or are any of

them…different.”

My question seemed to catch her off guard. For a moment her hands trembled on top of

her belly and then, as if to distract herself, she grabbed the crystal candy dish off of the side table
and began popping mints into her mouth.

“Mostly they’re the same,” she said through a mouth full of sweets, “Before the General

picked me out there was one…an officer. Something was different about him. I can’t really
explain it, but he treated me like we were friends, or equals.” She smiled uncomfortably. “I know
that sounds silly.”

“It doesn’t sound silly.”
“Well, it’s not like it matters. The General’s the only one who comes anymore.”
I moved over to Odessa’s vanity, running a rag over the delicately carved jewelry boxes

as I tried to work up the courage to ask her the question that was eating at me. I lifted the lid to
one of the boxes and pretended to straighten out the jewelry inside. I wanted to ask if she
believed that it was possible to love a man.

I opened another box, and took a deep breath, ready to form the words, but something

caught my eye. Folded underneath a silver hair comb, was the top part of a drawing.

“What’s this?” I asked, unfolding the paper.
“Put that back,” Odessa said, jumping up from the chaise lounge.
But the look on my face stopped her. I’d already spread the picture out on top of the table

and was standing over it with tears in my eyes.

Odessa’s drawings had their own look. The delicate way her pencil changed from thick to

thin lines in one stroke, the way she defined a shadow along the cheekbone or eyebrow that made
the person in the drawing immediately recognizable: these things were like her handwriting, and
I recognized them the moment I looked down.

The picture was of me. Odessa’s favorite. She’d drawn it two years ago, during the first

few weeks of summer. We’d gotten up early to go sit by the fence near the dining hall so that we
could watch the purple morning glory as they opened. I was leaning up against the fence, staring
up at the sky when Odessa told me to hold still, something she was forever telling me when she
had a pencil in her hand.

It had still been dark enough outside that my face almost disappeared amidst the

background. The pencil marks along the edges of my cheeks were so faint that they were almost
lost, making my image float like some ethereal ghost among the vines.

“I thought you said that they made you burn them all?” I whispered, drawing my

forefinger across my profile.

Odessa loomed behind me, her arms folded tightly across her chest. “These are my

things,” she said, reaching down to snatch the drawing off of the table. “I’d appreciate it if you’d
respect my space.”

“Why did you save it?”
“Will you please be quiet,” Odessa hissed.
Just then, there were three sharp knocks on the door and Odessa and I turned to look at

each other.

“You can get it,” she said, folding the paper back up and burying it once again inside her

box.

I opened the door and stepped aside as Mistress Edian walked in, casting a sideways

glance at me as she took in the room, but her eyes didn’t rest on me for long. She stood in the
doorway and nodded courteously to Odessa. Even though she was the Mistress of the Carriers,
she was still considered one of their servants. It was her job to care for them, to guide them.

“You’ve been summoned to attend a Cleansing,” she said. Her voice was stern, yet

beneath the words I detected a trace of tenderness.

Odessa turned sharply, clinging onto the side of the vanity. “A Cleansing? But why?

What have I done?” the panic in her voice was palpable.

Mistress Edian held herself with poise that must have come from years of watching the

ones she loved suffer. “I’ve only been told to summon you immediately. You and your servant
have been asked to act as witnesses,” she said, turning to go. In the doorway she paused and

looked back at Odessa, her eyes full of pity, “We’ll be waiting for you in the red room on the
first floor.”

Mistress Edian closed the door behind her and I eased Odessa back down into her chair.

Her breath was coming in short, quick bursts and her face had lost all its color.

“I can’t go,” she stammered, “Please, don’t make me.”
I patted her arm and brushed the hair out of her eyes, “I don’t know what a Cleansing is,”

I said. “What happens if we don’t go?”

Her eyes were wide with fear. “We have to go. It’s a punishment…we have to go.”
“What’s a punishment?” I asked.
“The Cleansing,” Odessa snapped, glaring at me with eyes suddenly full of hatred.

“We’re being punished too. They wouldn’t make us be witnesses unless we’d done something
wrong.”

My hands trembled was it possible that someone had found her drawings of me? Or was

this about the night when Odessa hadn’t let me bathe her?

“Get my wrap,” Odessa ordered, taking a deep breath. “I’ll wear the blue one.”
I was amazed at the composure that settled over her as I draped the pale blue cloak across

her shoulders.

I followed behind her as she swept down the hallway, the fabric of her gowns billowing

behind her like a creature of the sea, fluid and gliding. I tried to copy the way she moved, but I
couldn’t find the strength.

Once downstairs, Odessa only hesitated for a moment. Outside the door to the red room

she paused and turned to me, her eyes fiery.

“They can make us witness, but that doesn’t make us like them,” she whispered to me

before she turned and pushed open the heavy double doors.

In front of us, a group of officers stood around a tall fireplace poking at the coals of a

dying fire as they talked in deep, hushed tones. Next to them, Mistress Edian stood holding the
hand of a Carrier. The girl’s eyes were red and puffy from crying and her hair, which once was
plaited in a lovely braid down her back, now was wild with strands that had come loose, bushing
out around her face like a mane.

“Ah, good, the witnesses have arrived,” one of the officers said, looking up from the

coals.

The Carrier had begun to cry again, huge stuttering sobs that shook her body and Mistress

Edian softly stroked her hand, trying to calm her. I stared at her. Her face appeared composed,
but her eyes were seething.

The officers ushered us into the room and stood us in front of a high backed wooden

chair that sat in front of the fire. My eyes scanned the room, trying to get a clue as to what was
about to happen here. Immediately I recognized the General and I turned my eyes away from
him, but not before I saw the look of satisfaction that crossed his face.

It wasn’t until one of the officers grabbed the Carrier, pushing her down into the chair in

front of us, that I noticed the thick leather straps attached to the arms. They were the same dark
brown as the wood, worn and supple from years of use. Two of the officers stepped forward,
strapping her arms down and pulling the leather tight against her skin.

A small moan escaped from my lips and I leaned against Odessa to keep from falling.
With a flourish, one of the officers pulled out a thick piece of parchment and addressed

the group, “Carrier number F224-33-C75 has been found culpable of betraying the trust of the
Union,” he said slowly, enunciating every word. “For sins of lust, debauchery and deception, this

Carrier has been sentenced to a formal cleansing by fire. May the purity of heat rid her of
temptation and make her once again a vessel worthy to carry the Union’s progeny.”

From the corner of my eye I saw the officer reach into the fire. Clasped between metal

tongs, he held a glowing piece of coal.

When he spoke the bitterness in his voice made me cringe, “The next time you have the

urge to disobey, remember that your body belongs to the Union,” he said.

The Carrier shook her head violently from side to side, but her strength was nothing

compared to the men. Prying her mouth open between their fingers they held it wide while the
piece of coal was placed upon her tongue.

I shut my eyes and tried to block out the agonizing wail that poured out of her body.
I reached down and grabbed Odessa’s hand.
“I can’t take this,” Odessa moaned, shaking her head. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
She pulled her hand away from mine and pushed her way out of the room. The slap of her

shoes echoed down the hallway, but I stood frozen, afraid that I would only draw more attention
if I chased after her.

The Cleansing only lasted another minute. The coal was removed from her mouth and the

officers untied the straps at her wrists. Her head lolled on her shoulders, her eyes rolling back in
her head as she slumped limply against the side of the chair.

“You may be excused.” Mistress Edian nodded to me as the officers began to file out of

the room. And then, lowering her voice, she leaned closer to my ear. “Keep her safe,” she said.
“If you care about her, make sure she behaves.”

I walked quickly towards the stairs. The corridors were empty. Silent. The light shone

through the tall windows, making the floor glow, but it didn’t look beautiful anymore.

From a side hall, the sound of footsteps made me freeze. The officer stopped when he

saw me, and the bland expression on his face changed, twisting ever so slightly. I recognized that
face, the angry, dark eyes. It was the officer from my selection exams, the man who’d advised
the committee against choosing me to become a Carrier.

I thought of what he’d written on my scores, “Free thinking, emotional. Very likely to

become a Bender.” My hands clenched at my sides.

“Ah,” the officer said, “Here’s one I remember. How did you end up here?”
I turned away from him, disgusted by the hint of pleasure in his voice.
“Don’t walk away from me when I’m talking to you,” he said, grabbing my arm and

twisting my body so that I was facing him.

“Let go of me,” I croaked.
The officer laughed and squeezed tighter. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? I did you a

favor.”

He towered over me, at least a foot taller than I was. His whole body was solid,

unbreakable, and for a moment my knees gave way, remembering the smack of the General’s
fists in Odessa’s room, the sound of the hot coal sizzling against the Carrier’s tongue.

“I asked you a question,” he said.
“You didn’t do me a favor,” I said, trying to twist free of his grasp.
He stepped forward, pinning me against the side of a window. The sharp edge of the

frame cut into my back.

“Oh, I did. Maybe you’re not smart enough to see it,” he said, “Did I overestimate you?”

I turned my head away from him. His face was right in front of mine, his breath hot

against my cheek. The moisture of it condensed on my skin.

“You didn’t want to be a little baby factory, did you?” He said, running his hands up the

side of my waist, across my stomach. “Or are you feeling sad because you’re missing out on all
the fun?”

“Get off me,” I yelled, striking him across the face.
The force of my swing surprised me. My fingernails scratched along the edge of his

cheek, leaving a trail of thin pink lines below his left eye.

The officer stepped back, startled, and raised a hand to his face, dabbing at the bits of

blood balling up along the scratch marks.

“You’re going to regret that,” he said, looking down at the blood dotting his fingertips.

Chapter Seventeen

I brushed the hair out of Odessa’s eyes and sang the song over again, even though I was

pretty sure she’d fallen asleep. It was the song about a mouse named Bonnie who made friends
with a sparrow and hitched a ride to the sea. When we were eleven I made it up for her when
she’d gotten a bad case of the chicken pox.

But even after she healed, she begged me to sing it to her over and over again. And for

years it was the song she wanted whenever she was feeling sick. Now, as the words left my lips,
I realized that this was what we both needed all along.

I stopped singing and lay my head down next to Odessa. I’d never rested on anything as

soft as her bed. The comforters folded around my body like an embrace, and I knew that if I were
a Carrier I would never leave this nest of blankets. This bed was exactly the way I’d imagine it
would be, as if it had been copied out of the dreams we’d had as children and had now been
pasted here, the one and only fantasy of mine that had actually been true. This thought left me
cold inside, aching for the little girls we used to be.

“Wynne?” Odessa said, her voice tiny, “You didn’t fall asleep did you?”
“No, I’m still here,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I told her, “This isn’t your fault.”
She shook her head and pressed her face into my sleeve. “I was so afraid to have you

here. So afraid that if they found out...” her voice cracked. “Do you think love is dangerous, that
it has to be cleansed?”

“No,” I said, my voice firm. I’d never been so sure of anything in my life.
Odessa took a deep shuddering breath and raised her head to face me. “Do you know how

hard it was for me to give you up?”

All the hope and fear and loneliness that I’d been holding inside for the past year swelled

up inside my chest, threatening to break me open. I’d played those words out in my mind a
million times.

“ They wanted to wipe you out of my mind,” she said, choking on the words.
“It’s okay now,” I said. “It’s okay.”
I patted her back and ran my fingers through her hair, brushing the strands away from her

wet cheeks.

Odessa’s voice sounded tired when she spoke again, “I don’t understand how you could

have taken those babies away.”

I wanted to reach out to place my hand on her stomach, to cover up the place where the

councilman had marked her and to reassure myself that I would never have to take another baby
away from her.

“Why did you do it?” she asked.
I rolled onto my back and stared up at the tall ceiling. How could I explain it?
“I didn’t know how not to do it,” I whispered.
She was silent next to me. Maybe she detested me. Maybe she could never forgive me for

what I’d done. I pictured all those babies, pink and crying from birth, all those mothers watching
silently as I swaddled their children and took them away. I pictured Cara.

“I don’t know how not to do it either,” she said, scooting closer so that her head was

tucked between my neck and my shoulder.

I stroked the top of her head and I closed my eyes. The memory of Hollis’s kind face

flickered there for just a moment.

“Odessa,” I whispered, “There are good men out there,” I brushed back a tear that slipped

down my cheek.

Out of the darkness, a vision of the Union’s hazy horizon glowed faintly in my memory.

The apparition stayed with me, growing fainter and fainter until finally I fell asleep.

When I woke, Odessa had rolled back over and was curled in a little ball in the middle of

the bed, snoring lightly. Underneath the curtains, a tiny sliver of morning light spilled onto the
floor. I couldn’t believe that I’d spent the whole night in this bed. It was almost how I’d
imagined life would be as a Carrier, if only I could block out all the horrors that I’d seen.

Slowly, I crawled out of bed, careful not to wake Odessa. Her head was turned to me and

I could see how peaceful her face looked in sleep.

Gathering up the dirty clothes and towels, I headed down to the laundry room, hoping

that Tamsin would be there this early. When I had woken up this morning there was a question
for her perched on my lips.

Downstairs the maids and cooks were already bustling around. It felt good to be around

these other bodies, buzzing busily between tasks.

In the laundry room, a dozen servants were sorting clothes into bins. On the other side of

the room some of the workers hung the clean robes on racks that ran the length of the wall, while
others stacked folded linens on shelves.

I spotted Tamsin almost immediately. She was turned away from me, but it was hard to

mistake her short, dark hair for anyone else.

She was buttoning cream-colored robes onto their hangers and I reached into the bin she

was standing over and grabbed one too, plucking a hanger off of the rack near my head. And
without a word she turned smile at me.

We worked for a minute in silence. The repetition comforted me: clasping the smooth,

bone colored buttons through their holes, my fingers gliding down the length of the garment as if
I was dressing some invisible woman.

Last night Tamsin had flitted in and out of my mind. There was something I needed from

her, but now that I was standing next to her I wasn’t sure if I could ask her for it.

“I need your help,” I finally said, pausing as I tried to detangle the words. I glanced

around to make sure that no one was listening to our conversation, but they were all wrapped in
their own tasks. “Do you remember those clothes that you were wearing the first night I met
you? The ones from your village?”

She nodded, of course she remembered.
“Do you still have them?”
“Yes,” she said, her expression perplexed.
“Do you think there are more like them, somewhere else in the Union?”
Tamsin’s brow wrinkled, “Wynne, what do you need the clothes for?”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “If I needed them and a few sets just like

them…would you be able to find those for me?”

Tamsin put down the robe she was holding and turned to face me.
“Please tell me,” she said, “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.”
“I don’t know,” I said.

Tamsin looked down at her hands, and the injury on her face was more than I could

stand.

“I can’t stay here any longer. None of us can,” I whispered. “I can’t be a servant for the

rest of my life. I can’t watch the life get slowly sucked out of Odessa. I can’t go to another
fertility ceremony or another cleansing.” My voice caught in my throat. I couldn’t even bring
myself to say the rest. What if they found out how much Odessa and I love each other? What if
they tried to cleanse one of us next?

She raised her eyebrows.
“I need those clothes,” I said, almost frantic now, “yours and two more sets like them.

It’s the only way I can sneak out without looking like a Union citizen.” I studied her face,
gauging whether or not to tell her more. “I think I can sneak us out through the river into the
men’s compound. The borders aren’t surrounded by high walls the way they are here. It’s all
green fields as far as the eye can see. No fences, just horizon. But I need your clothes. If we’re
caught… if someone spots us before we make it out, we need to look like wanderers that have
roamed into the Union.”

“I’m sorry, Wynne,” Tamsin said, putting her hand on my shoulder. “I don’t think that

will work.”

I shook my head, “No, I’ve thought it over. I’ve memorized the path the river takes.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Tamsin said, “I don’t think I can give you my clothes.”
Tamsin’s words stung. “I understand,” I said.
“No, it’s not that I wouldn’t give them to you,” she whispered, “I really don’t think

they’ll fit you. You’re as tall as some of the men in my village.”

It was true. Tamsin was almost a foot shorter than me.
“Don’t worry,” Tamsin said, reading the disappointment on my face. “We’ll find a way.”

When I arrived back to the room Odessa had worked herself into a frenzy. Cyrene was

buzzing around her, patting her back, bringing her candies, rubbing lotion into her feet, but all
the attention only made her crazier.

“Where were you?” Odessa demanded when I walked through the door.
Cyrene looked relieved to see me, but my presence did nothing to calm Odessa. In fact, it

only seemed to make her angrier.

“When I woke up you were gone,” she yelled. “I rang for five minutes straight. Finally

Cyrene came.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I thought I’d get some laundry done while you were still asleep. I

thought I’d be back before you woke. I didn’t want to disturb you.”

Odessa threw a small dish of butter mints onto the floor at her feet. The dish shattered

sending shards sailing across the smooth floor.

“You can’t leave and not tell me,” she yelled. “You can’t just leave. Don’t you get it?”
“I’m sorry,” I said gathering her in my arms.
“All we have is each other,” Odessa mumbled into my neck.
I stood back admiring both her and Cyrene; two women, so similar, so beautiful, so

strong.

“I don’t know how we keep doing this,” I said.
“What are you talking about,” Odessa said, crossing her arms over her chest defiantly. It

was obvious that she was still annoyed with me.

“It feels like they’re drowning us,” I said. “Doesn’t it?”
“You’re acting stupid, Wynne,” Odessa said. “You know I’ve never been in water deeper

than the bathtub.”

Cyrene walked to the window and pressed her forehead against the glass and Odessa’s

eyes darted between the two of us as if we were both crazy.

“I know what you mean,” Cyrene finally said, looking down over the rooftops of the

barracks.

I took a deep breath. “If I told you that I had a way out of the Union, would you come

with me?”

“Are you crazy?” Odessa said, stepping away from me. “Seriously, are you suicidal?

You’ve seen what they do when you disobey.”

“This isn’t the way things have to be,” I said. “We can have more than this. We can have

poetry. We can go swimming in lakes. We can raise chickens and wake up in the morning with
the whole world open to us. We can fall in love and get married and have families.”

Odessa stepped away from me. “What’s going on with you?” she asked. Her face was

white with fear. “It doesn’t matter if we want more. This is how things are.”

“You didn’t used to think that.”
Odessa turned away from me.
“We have to try,” I said, “How can we live with ourselves if we don’t try?”
“I don’t think I can,” Cyrene said.
Odessa whirled back around to face us. “It’s not a matter of can or can’t,” she yelled,

“There’s no way out of here, Wynne. This is our life. We were born into the Union to surrender
our bodies and our souls,” her voice cracked, “It’s only through sacrifice that one can find
peace.”

I’d never heard Odessa quote from the handbook and the sound of those words in her

mouth filled me with sorrow.

“Please,” I said, “Can’t you think about it? Just promise me you’ll think about it.”
Cyrene shook her head and turned to Odessa.
“I’m sorry Wynne,” Odessa said. “We can’t. Isn’t it enough that we have each other

now? I promise I won’t treat you poorly again. I promise. But you have to give up this idea. I
couldn’t bear to lose you again.”

And I can’t bear to see you hurt again, I thought.

The days passed by and I learned to live in an odd sort of equilibrium, balancing between

beauty and horror.

Odessa kept her promise, treating me like the old friend she’d always known and after a

while it almost felt like we’d never been apart. But as the weeks went by, I couldn’t deny the
changes I saw in her. She was tired all the time, napping for hours in the sun on the chaise
lounge. She got sick at the smell of lavender oil and threw up after her daily massages and even
though her appetite was still strong, she refused to eat any sort of fruit, saying that it made her
sick just to smell it. It was impossible to ignore the signs. She was expecting another baby.

I’d just finished soaking Odessa’s feet in a hot bath of Epson salts and peppermint before

bed when Cyrene stuck her head in from our room.

“Wynne,” she said softly, “there’s someone here to see you.”
My heart jumped into my throat and I looked uneasily at Odessa, but she nodded me

away, unconcerned.

“Hurry back,” she said, “I need you to rub my lower back or I’ll never be able to fall

asleep.”

Inside my room, Cyrene stood uncomfortably next to Tamsin.
“Oh good,” she sighed when I walked in, “This woman from laundry says she needs to

speak to you.”

I led Tamsin out into the small alcove outside our room. The space was dark and private,

barely visible from the hallway.

“I haven’t seen you in weeks,” I said, hugging her to me, “Are you all right.”
She nodded, smiling, “I have something for you.”
From an old cloth bag she pulled out a piece of blackened fabric.
“They burn all the old clothes that are beyond repair or too soiled to clean,” she said,

holding the cloth out to me as if it was a gift. “I recognized it right away when I saw it. Someone
had put a pile of them in a bag in the incinerator room, but I got to it before it was destroyed.”

The garment she held up was covered in black dust, which made it look as if it had

already been charred. She held the cloth out to me once more and I reached out for it. Up close I
saw it was a tunic.

She pulled something else out of the bag. A pair of pants.
“They look really similar to the clothes the men in my village wear. I figured another

wanderer must have turned them in.” She held them up to me, careful not to touch the dirty
fabric to my uniform. “It’s a pretty good match. They’re men’s clothes, but they’ll fit you.”

“Thank you,” I squeaked, pulling her to me in an embrace.
“There’s more,” Tamsin said, “Three sets all together, just like you asked.”
“I don’t think I can talk them into coming. They’re too scared,” I said, looking down at

the stack of clothes that she’d pulled out of the bag.

“Then you go by yourself,” she said.
I shook my head. “I don’t even know where to go. I don’t know why I thought I could do

this.”

“You can do it,” Tamsin said. “There are other villages out there. Other cities. I’ve even

heard that there might be some as big as this that don’t belong to the Union. If you follow the
river you’ll run into what’s left of my village. They’ll help point you in the right direction.”

“No, I could never leave Odessa,” I said, “Not again. My eyes clouded over with tears,

“Maybe if you came with us they’d change their minds.”

“No,” she said. “There isn’t anything for me out there. It’s funny, but I don’t mind

working here. I can wrap myself up in it; forget the things that used to matter to me. It’s only
when I see girls like you that I remember the world that I left behind.” She paused, “I want to
give you something…to take with you.”

She unclasped her necklace and spilled the rings into her palm, sorting through them.

Finally she pulled one out.

“This is for the day you meet a man who will cherish you. Maybe someday you can have

some babies of your own,” she said, putting the ring in my hand.

A hot blush blossomed across my cheeks as I thought of Hollis
“I hope that you’ll remember me,” she went on, “one day when you’re holding one of

your children. Remember all the things I told you.”

I nodded and took the smooth gold band, slipping it onto my middle finger.
From inside the room Cyrene let out a small cry.

I opened the door and poked my head in. She stood in the middle of the room, her eyes

wide, hands trembling in front of her mouth.

I knew that look, but I had no idea how the General could have entered Odessa’s room

without me hearing. Now that we were inside my little bedroom, Tamsin and I could hear the
thumps and whimpers coming from the room next door.

“Is she okay?” Tamsin asked, “Don’t we need to do something?”
There was an electric current that ran between the three of us as we drew our bodies

together, creating strength where separately there was none. A moment later a thud reverberated
through the room, followed by the sound of something heavy being dragged across the floor. For
a moment there was silence and we held our breath, waiting.

When Odessa cried out again Tamsin threw herself at the door. Her little body leapt

forward as if released from a spring. In an instant she was upon him, her little fists moved wildly
about his head, pounding and flailing.

“Get off me,” the General yelled, swatting at her like a gnat buzzing around his head.
Odessa lay on the floor next to the bed, her robes pushed up around her belly. Her eyes

were wide with terror. She scrambled away from the General, trying to put some distance
between them, but he grabbed her by the ankle, yanking her back towards him.

“You little wretch,” he yelled, grabbing Tamsin by the neck with his free hand and

tossing her across the room. She crashed into the table, toppling the chairs and knocking over a
pitcher of water left over from dinner. The water cascaded over the side of the table and puddled
on the floor next to her.

The General turned his attention back to Odessa.
Cyrene and I clutched each other and pressed our bodies tight against the wall, wishing

that we could disappear. Across the room Tamsin got to her feet. From a side table she grabbed a
large ceramic vase and charged at him again, bringing the urn down on his head.

The porcelain shattered, slicing into his scalp and a plume of blood sprouted from a long

gash above his right ear. He turned on Tamsin, brushing Odessa aside with a flick of his arm.

In a flash he was on his feet, his fists clenched like clubs at his sides. He stalked towards

Tamsin. The blood dripped down his neck, soaking into the back of his shirt but he didn’t even
appear to notice as he closed in on her. Tamsin searched frantically for something else to defend
herself. The fireplace irons wobbled in front of my eyes. I could reach them, but Tamsin was on
the other side of the room.

The General struck out, hitting her hard across the jaw and she fell into the wall,

crumbling to the ground. A scream worked its way up my throat and I shrieked as he leaned over
her, grabbing her tiny body by the neck.

Tamsin fought for air, her mouth gasping, opened and closed. Opened and closed. I

hardly even felt the weight of the fireplace iron as I grabbed it, raising it high as I ran across the
room. With all my strength I brought it down over the General’s head.

There was a loud crack and he fell, crushing Tamsin’s body as he went down.
The room was silent.
Right behind me Cyrene’s breath trembled in my ear and I turned to see her holding a

heavy candlestick, her arm raised, ready to strike if I had failed.

Odessa scrambled to her feet.
“Hurry, we have to get him off of her,” she said, tugging at the General’s sleeve.
Underneath his massive body, Tamsin was crumpled, her tiny face pressed awkwardly

against the stone, eyes open and lifeless.

I fell to the floor and cradled her heart-shaped face in my lap. Why? Why? Why? The

word beat itself against my chest, squeezing into my throat as if I might choke on it.

Cyrene and Odessa knelt down beside me, smoothing the strands of curly dark hair away

from her face. We closed our eyes and lowered our chins to our chests, whispering words that
fell gently from our lips, as light as feathers. They drifted down over our friend, landing on her
like snow before they melted away.

“Help me lift her onto the bed,” Odessa said, getting to her feet.
Cyrene pulled back the covers and we placed Tamsin’s petite body in the center of the

bed, pulling the covers up over her chest as if we were tucking in a young girl. I reached down
and kissed her cheek.

Goodbye, my friend.

Chapter Eighteen

“They’ll kill us,” Odessa said.
The three of us sat on the far side of the room staring at the General’s body, still face

down on the floor.

Cyrene closed her eyes. “I’ll say it was me. I’ll tell them I did it.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head, “we can leave. I’ve got clothes. We can disguise ourselves

as wanderers and sneak out through the river.”

“I don’t know,” Odessa said, “What if they catch us?”
“If we don’t leave, one of us is going to be sentenced to a Threshing,” I said. “If we go, at

least we’ll have a chance.”

Odessa’s face was pale, looking down at her stomach as if she could already see the baby

there. “I don’t know if I can. What if the baby gets hurt,” she said.

I took her hand in mine. “This is your chance to save it.”
Cyrene turned to me, “You have to get Odessa out of here,” she said.
“I will,” I answered. “Of course I will. But you have to come too.”
Cyrene shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but…I just can’t.” She paused as if she

was looking for the courage to go on, but she stayed silent.

“We can’t wait much longer,” I said. “If we’re going to go, we have to go now.”
“Now?” Odessa said, her eyes filling with tears.
“Wynne’s right,” Cyrene said, “How long can we keep this a secret?” She gestured

toward the General. “I’ll wait as long as I can, but then I’ll have to tell Mistress Edian.”

“Tell them we did it,” Odessa said, “They’ll believe you. If you say that you walked in

here to get us and found him, I know they’ll believe it.”

“We’ll need to take a few things,” I said to Odessa, “a pillowcase for our clothes, a pair

of scissors, maybe something to eat.”

Softly I kissed my fingers before tracing them across Tamsin’s forehead.

Outside the air smelled cold. The hint of a changing season infused the slight breeze that

blew through the alleyway. No one was out at this time of night. Even the Generals and
Councilmen had left hours ago and were asleep in their own beds.

Overhead the moon was bright. I grabbed Odessa’s hand. We needed to move quickly,

sticking to the shadows of the small side streets leading out of the center of the city, towards the
smoke stacks, the factories, the river.

In the pillowcase the scissors rattled against the tin of dates, an urgent drumming that

pressed us forward at a fast clip. How was it that we were the only people out tonight? I thought
of all those women sound asleep in the barracks. They would wake up in the morning, go to their
work assignments, suffering quietly through the only lives they’d been given.

The rush of water told me we were close. From behind the last row of buildings I stared

out across the courtyard towards the laundry unit. Two large pipes stuck out from the side,
emptying into the river. Next-door was the canning factory and just past that, the last of four
bridges leading into the barracks. Even though I couldn’t see the bridge from where I stood, I
knew the guards would be there, standing post.

Suddenly Odessa grabbed my arm, pulling me in close. “We have to go back,” she said,

her voice shaking with panic. “I forgot my drawing.”

It took me a moment to realize what drawing she was talking about. “It’s too late,” I

whispered, shaking my head. “We can’t go back for it now.”

She fell to her knees and covered her face in her hands.
“Come on, Dess,” I whispered, tugging on her arm, “It’s okay. It’s just one drawing.

You’ll have a whole lifetime to make up for it, but we have to go now.”

She wiped the back of her hand across her nose and gazed up at me. In her eyes I saw a

year’s worth of fear and regret. With a squeeze of her hand I pulled her to her feet and we
stepped out into the courtyard.

On the other side, the river waited.
“I think someone’s watching us,” Odessa whispered, hanging back in the shadows.
“It’s just your imagination,” I said, “Come on.”
I pulled her forward into the empty square. The windows in the surrounding buildings

were vacant black rectangles; no light, no movement. But still, my skin crawled. The large pipes
connecting to the river jutted out the side of the building and we ducked underneath them. The
tall cinderblock wall that skirted the river butted up so close to the side of the building that if I
reached my arms out to my sides they’d touch.

The sound of water rushed through the large pipes next to us and I had to raise my voice

so Odessa would hear me.

“We’ll change our clothes here before we go down to the river. The guards will be close

to the bridge, but they won’t see us here.”

Above us, the sky was still dark, but the darkness was shifting, the heavens pooling into a

deep, cobalt blue. I had no idea how much time we had before morning. The night stretched
behind us into infinity, a night so long and dark that it felt like my life had never existed before
it.

We slipped quickly out of our uniforms, stuffing them into a small nook in the wall. The

night air was cold. It brushed against my undressed body like invisible fingers as I hurried to pull
on my new clothes. They fit well along my arms and my legs, but the waist was loose.

“Let me look at you,” I whispered to Odessa, standing back to admire her disguise.
The stars were beginning to fade as I picked up the scissors and set in on my hair. I held a

fistful of it out to the side of my head, and opened the shears wide in my trembling hand.

“Couldn’t we just put it in a braid,” Odessa begged. “We could tuck it in our shirts. It

would look short that way.”

Our hair hung nearly to our waists, thick and shiny. The rich chestnut color of mine was

quite a bit darker, but I’d always been proud of it. To cut it off felt like another sort of death, like
this time we were killing a part of ourselves.

“We can’t show up looking like wanderers with hair like this,” I said. “They’ll know who

we are right away.”

“But maybe no one will see us?”
I took a deep breath and snipped. “I’m not taking any chances.”
Odessa sniffed and nodded.
My hair was too thick. Only a little clump fell away.
“Let me try,” Odessa said, squaring her shoulders as she reached for the shears.
She used the blades as a saw, opening and closing the scissors as she worked against my

braid. The chunks fell away and littered the ground at my knees. Soon my hair hung in a shaggy
mass around my head. Bits framed my face, falling almost to my eyes.

“Sorry,” Odessa whispered, “it was the best I could do.”

Her hair was easier, thinner and finer than mine and I snipped it quickly until it framed

her face. She looked different. Her face seemed wider, her cheekbones more pronounced.

We rushed to gather up the long chunks of hair that lay across the ground. The sky had

lightened enough for us to find most of it. The rest would be scattered by the breeze.

I shoved the tangle of hair in the hole with our clothes and cut off two pieces of fabric

from my pants. There was only one thing left to do before we were ready to go.

“We need to find a jagged chunk of concrete,” I said, dropping to my knees. “Help me

look.”

By the foundation, Cyrene found a piece that had broken free from the bottom of the

wall. “What do we need this for,” she asked, handing it over, as I readied the scrap of fabric
beside me.

I rolled up the sleeve of my tunic revealing the tender, white inner arm. I could use the

scissors, but I was afraid that they’d cut too deep.

“No,” Odessa said, when she realized what I had in mind. “You can’t.”
I closed my eyes, clenched my teeth, and scraped the ridged edge of the concrete across

my IM number. The flesh tore and I pulled the concrete back and forward again. Blood dribbled
down my arm and dripped off of my wrist, but I continued to rub until the tattoo was no longer
visible.

My arm throbbed with pain. I stared down at the blood and my head spun. Stars danced

in front of my eyes, and the world faded out. Then there was only blackness.

“Wynne? Wynne...”
When I came to, Odessa was patting my face. The throbbing in my arm was intense, a

bright, sharp pain. I bit down hard on my lip, concentrating on the simplest breath. In and out. In
and out. Finally my vision stabilized.

I glanced down at the place where my IM number had been. Odessa had already wrapped

the fabric around the wound.

“I can’t do it,” she said, holding out the cement. “You have to do it for me.”
I hesitated. It was one thing to hurt myself, but I didn’t know if I was strong enough to do

it to Odessa.

She must have seen the fear in my eyes. “It’s okay,” she nodded, “I’ll be strong. I

promise.”

I swallowed, reaching out for her arm. Her skin was soft, so much smoother than mine.

All those required baths and oiled massages each day had left her skin as supple and delicate as
silk.

I took a deep breath and Odessa’s eyes met mine. Her gaze stayed locked on me as I

pressed down on the jagged cement and pulled. A trickle of warm liquid dripped down onto my
hand where it cupped Odessa’s arm, but her gaze didn’t falter.

“Just a little more,” I said.
Odessa bit down on her lip, nodding. Her eyes filled with tears, but she didn’t pull away

and she didn’t faint.

The cool blue of the sky was beginning to warm with the blush of dawn as I bandaged

Odessa’s arm and crawled back past the pipes and peered out towards the bridge. The ten-foot
cinderblock wall lining the river only opened up for a few yards on either side of the bridge. I’d
been hoping the dark of night would hide us, but we’d have to hope that the light was still dim
enough.

Looking out towards the bridge I realized that there were more guards than I’d

anticipated. Three of them stood on our side of the bridge, their eyes scanning the courtyard in
front of them. For a moment one of the men’s eyes wandered over to the side of the building
where Odessa and I stood pressed against the wall. His stare lingered for an eternity and I
pressed myself tighter against the wall, waiting for him to call out to the others.

In the sky, a flock of geese glided by and the he tilted his head up, following the V of

their formation as they flew south.

The cut on my arm throbbed and I slid back into the shadows, resting my head in my

hands.

“What now?” Odessa whispered.
I shook my head, “There’s too many of them,” I said, “We’re stuck.”
“What do you mean stuck?” Odessa said. The whites of her wide eyes stood out, making

her look owl-like in the dusk.

“I don’t know what to do,” I whispered.
We couldn’t go forward and we couldn’t go back, even if we wanted to. Our clothes were

torn to rags, our hair was butchered, we’d intentionally defaced our IM numbers and there was a
dead man in our room.

I crawled back along the wall to our original hiding place next to the laundry building and

Odessa followed. She didn’t question me again and I was grateful for her silence. If I could just
lie down for a minute and think about it, maybe an answer would come to me.

A spattering of my blood was drying next to the little hole where we’d hidden our clothes

and I scooted back away from it and curled up on the cold ground, closing my eyes and willing
my mind to stay clear a little bit longer. Even though the stones were cold against my cheek the
ground felt good. Maybe I’d stay here. Forever. Maybe I could just turn to stone. A statue.

The loud rush of the water next to me drowned out all the rational thoughts in my mind.

The sound washed over me, thrumming along with the flow of the blood through my veins.

Suddenly I sat up.
“The pipes,” I said.
I struggled to my feet and pulled myself up on top of the pipe nearest to me, clamping my

legs tightly around the corrugated metal so I wouldn’t slip.

“There’s an opening up here,” I said. “Help me get this off.”
I grabbed hold of the rim of the grate and pulled up. From inside the rush of water called

from the blackness, beckoning.

The pain in my arm flared and I bit down on my lip, tugging again. The metal groaned,

giving ever so slightly. One more time, I told myself, once more and then you can rest.

I tasted blood and my fingers ached at the tips where the metal bit into the flesh on my

fingertips, but the metal was creaking, moving. Suddenly, like the top popping free of a bottle,
the grate sprung loose.

“I’ll go first,” I said.
Odessa nodded, her face worried, but she didn’t argue.
A metallic smell floated up from the cool current. I swung my legs over the edge of the

hole and my feet bounced in the icy flow. The water tugged at my ankles and I took a deep
breath. No turning back.

I dropped down into the blackness.
The cold stole the breath from my body and I gasped for air, trying to keep my head

above water. The slant was steep and before I knew it, my feet hit metal, slamming into the wall

of the pipe. The leg of my pants caught on a sharp piece of metal that protruded off the side,
trapping me in the elbow of the pipe.

The water slapped against my face, into my mouth and eyes, as I struggled to free my leg.

I reached back towards my calf where the metal bit into my skin, but I couldn’t get a grasp on it.
My fingers fumbled. It was so cold. So much colder than I could have imagined. The water
sucked my body forward. Tugging. Pulling me down towards the opening below.

I lifted my head up, gasping. “Odessa,” I called out. The sound echoed around me, as my

mouth filled. “I’m…stuck…” I sputtered, choking.

Relentlessly the water pressed against me, cold and dark.
“Wynne?” Odessa called in after me. The panic in her voice swept past me, and a

moment later she crashed into me. Her feet thudded into my side, knocking the wind out of me,
but still my pants stayed stuck. The water rushed past, pulling her forward towards the light.

I twisted my body sideways, trying to free myself.
This couldn’t be it. I wouldn’t die this way.
Taking a deep breath, I went under, pulling desperately at the tough fabric that held

securely to the metal. My fingers fumbled to get a good grip and I tugged. Harder. The water
splashed up into my nose, burning my lungs.

Finally my fingers got a firm hold of it and I pulled one last time. With a rip, the fabric

broke and the current caught me, sweeping me forward and down, out into the open.

I gasped for air, struggling in the deep water. Up ahead I could see the top of Odessa’s

head bobbing. It pulled us both briskly downstream and I fought to keep my head up, reaching
out to grab hold of something, anything. My fingers scraped along the edge of the steep bank,
breaking loose chunks of clay and gravel.

In front of me the roots of an old tree stuck out from the dirt. My fingertips strained to

brush the tangle of smooth wood and I caught hold, pulling my body in towards the bank.

With both hands trembling, I held tight to the roots and pressed my face into the muddy

embankment. My hair dripped water into my eyes and my mouth, full with the taste of dirt and
blood.

Fifteen feet away Odessa also clung to a branch. Slowly, I let go of the roots and inched

my way along the bank towards her. Morning was nearly upon us. In the growing light I could
see that her lips were blue and her teeth chattered from the cold. I pulled my body up a little
higher on the bank next to her and dug up fistfuls of mud, slathering as much as I could on my
face and neck to camouflage my pale skin.

“I can’t do this,” Odessa said, “I can’t do it, Wynne.”
“Yes you can,” I told her, spreading mud across her forehead. “Just think of that baby.

You can do anything.”

Our movements were slow and clumsy as we began inching our way along the bank.

Gradually, we lowered ourselves back into the water. Waves lapped at our ears, but the current
near the bank was gentle enough that it wouldn’t pull us back out into the middle of the river.

Odessa clung to the back of my shirt as we passed under the bridge. I stopped, hidden

underneath the cement buttresses, and lifted my head slowly from the water. I strained to listen,
for the guards. Past the edge of the bridge I waited to see the gray, uniformed legs descending the
bank. It wouldn’t be long now. Their guns would already be drawn, their fingers ready on the
triggers. The memory of Dorionne’s crumpled body falling to the ground surfaced in my mind
and I tried to shake it away, but the thought only morphed, turning from Dorionne to Odessa.

Finally, above us one of the guards sighed heavily, “Is our shift over yet?” he grumbled,

“My arms are freezing.”

I turned to Odessa and nodded, smiling as much as the frozen muscles in my face would

allow before I slid back under the water. We crept out slowly from under the bridge, Odessa’s
hand shaking uncontrollably against my back.

Rounding a slight bend the two of us headed down the last stretch of water before the

river made a sharp turn. Behind me Odessa’s face was a white mask of fear and cold.

“We’re almost there,” I squeaked.
Odessa nodded ever so slightly.
Please, let us be close, I thought. Please.
Finally we rounded the bend in the river and the water widened considerably as it opened

up. The current slowed to a gentle tug. Up ahead the right side of the wall began to taper
downward towards the barracks.

Hold on, Odessa. Hold on, I pleaded. The last of her energy was slipping away and I

feared what this cold could do to her baby if she stayed in the water much longer.

“Wynne,” Odessa said, tugging at my shirt. “I need to tell you something, in case we

don’t make it.”

“Don’t be silly,” I said, shivering. “We’re almost there. We just need to go a little

further.”

“No,” she said, “I need to tell you now. You need to know.”
I turned around to face her as best I could. She grabbed onto me, pulling me close with

stiff, frozen fingers and we both dipped down into the river, sputtering to get our heads back
above the water.

“It’s about Cara,” she said, struggling to keep her head up. “I never told you, but I named

her after you.”

“What do you mean,” I sputtered, “I’ve never even heard the name Cara before.”
“I know,” Odessa said. Her teeth were chattering so violently that she had trouble getting

the words out. “In the residence… they let us look at books… filled with names. Cara means
friend… just like your name does. It’s perfect, isn’t it?”

“It is,” I said, pulling her into a tight hug.
The water sloshed around us. Fish brushed against our legs shepherding us forward. From

down in the water I could only see the sky and the eaves of the buildings nearest to the river.
There was no way of knowing if people were moving about the city yet. Luckily the banks were
still steep. If we stayed pressed up to the edge I hoped we would remain undetected until we
reached the beginning of the farmland.

“Can’t we… stop…here?” Odessa shivered.
“Just a little further,” I said, coaxing her on. I grabbed on to the front of her shirt and

pulled her through the water behind me.

The river stretched forward towards the horizon. Above us, the sky had turned into the

robin’s egg blue of early morning, reflecting off of the water like an endless ribbon leading us
towards freedom.

Slowly we edged past the end of the barracks, and watched as the upper banks of the river

moved ever closer. The steep banks leveled out, gradually turning from cement, to gravel, to dirt,
to grass. Finally the long, golden stalks of wheat began to grow up around us, a gilded corridor.
The stems blew in the slight breeze, rustling against one another with a sound as soft and
contented as a sigh.

“Come on Dess. It’s safe to rest now,” I said, pulling her up the small bank where we

collapsed onto the dry dirt.

Around us the wheat swelled in waves, rolling with a soft breeze, and I looked up at the

sky, letting the heat from the sun soak into my cold skin, warming me. Across the field, a line of
men was making their way towards the deep green wall of corn in the distance. Maybe they were
the same men I’d watched from my perch in the jail so many weeks ago and now here I was,
among them, breathing the same fresh air, feeling the same soft whisper of wind brush across my
face.

At the end of the group, one man trailed behind the others, a black and white dog trotting

at his heels.

Deep inside me a feeling stirred, a tingling, that worked its way across my body,

lingering on my skin like a touch.

The dog yipped at the man’s feet, bounding out into the field and a flock of starlings took

to the sky, a hundred bright wishes flying into the blue.

I reached out to Odessa and placed my hand on her stomach, thinking about the baby

inside of her. It wasn’t big now, just the beginning of something, a fluttering, like the beating of
wings, but it would grow and together we’d give it a new life; one filled with words like mother
and family and love.

Beyond the fields, the horizon beckoned. My legs were tired, but I hardly cared. There

were other cities out there and we were going to find them, not an old world, but an entirely new
one.

In my heart a song was forming.
The notes worked their way up to my lips; the words perched like hope on my tongue.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to all my early readers and cheerleaders: Cathy Birch, Tyler and Tanya Jarvik,

Ellen Fagg Weist, Emily Scalley, Jill James, Amy Jameson, Dan Beecher, Mary Craig, and
Elaine Vickers.

Thank you to my wonder-agent, Kerry Sparks, for seeing the potential not just in this

book, but also in me.

To all the people at Bloomsbury Spark, thank you for making this book a reality. Thank

you especially to the talented and insightful Meredith Rich for her keen eye and brilliant mind.

Thank you to Jenny Lagerquist for teaching me from the age of four what it meant to

have a best friend.

Thank you to my mom, Elaine Jarvik, for reading me books about prescient rabbits and

intelligent mice, for teaching me to love words, and to believe that I can become anything.

And most of all, thank you to my family. Morgan, Noah, and Rebecca, thank you for

understanding that a busy mind often trumps a clean house. You’re the reason behind everything
I do. And to my sweet Bryan, thank you for loving me, for supporting me, and for sharing my
crazy life.

About the Author

Kate Jarvik Birch is a visual artist and writer living in Salt Lake City, Utah with her husband and
three kids. She wrote her first novel in fourth grade. The main character was suspiciously similar
to herself and the love interest bore quite a strong resemblance to the boy she had a crush on. As
an adult, her essays and short stories have been published in Isotope: A Journal of Literary
Nature and Science Writing, Saint Ann's Review, Scissors and Spackle and Indiana Review. Her
first play, (a man enters), co-written with Elaine Jarvik, was produced in 2011 by Salt Lake
Acting Co.

Kate’s debut novel, DELIVER ME, comes out April 15

from Bloomsbury

Spark. PERFECTED will be released July 1

from Entangled Teen.

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