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“That was an exceptional demonstration of sorting ability. ”
“Thank you, sir. ”
On their way out the door, he turns back to me one last time and says, “We have our eyes on you now, young lady. ” He shuts the metal door behind him. It makes a thick, solid sound, a sound of finality. As I listen to the nothing that fol ows I suddenly realize why Ky likes to blend in. It is a strange feeling, knowing for certain that the Officials watch me more closely. It is as though I stood in the way when that door swung shut and I find myself pinned now by the weight of their observation—a concrete thing, real and heavy.
The night of Em’s Match Banquet I go to bed early and fal asleep quickly. It is my night to wear the datatags and I hope the information they gather from my dreams shows the sleep patterns of a completely normal seventeen-year-old girl.
But in my dream I’m sorting for the Officials again. The screen comes up with Em’s picture and I’m supposed to sort her into a Matching pool. I freeze. My hands stop. My brain stops.
“Is there a problem?” the gray-haired Official asks.
“I can’t tel where I should sort her,” I say.
He looks at Em’s face on the screen and smiles. “Ah. That’s not a problem. She has your compact, doesn’t she?”
“Yes. ”
“She’l carry her tablets to the Banquet in it, as you did. Simply tel her to take the red one and everything wil be fine. ” Suddenly I’m at the Banquet, pushing through girls in dresses and boys in suits and parents in plainclothes. I turn them, shove them, do whatever I have to do to see their faces, because everyone here wears yel ow and it al blurs together, I can’t sort, I can’t see.
I spin another girl around.
Not Em.
I accidental y knock a tray ful of cake out of a waiter’s hand, trying to catch up to a girl with a graceful walk. The tray fal s on the floor and the cake breaks apart, like soil fal ing from roots.
Not Em.
The crowd thins, and a girl in a yel ow dress stands alone in front of a blank screen.
Em.
She’s about to cry.
“It’s al right!” I cal out to her, pushing my way through more people. “Take the tablet and everything wil be fine!” Em’s eyes brighten; she pul s out my compact. She lifts the green tablet and puts it in her mouth, fast.
“No!” I cry out, too late. “The—”
She puts the blue tablet in her mouth next.
“—red one!” I finish, pushing through one last cluster of people to stand in front of her.
“I don’t have one,” she says, turning around, her back toward the screen now. She shows me the open compact, empty. Her eyes are sad. “I don’t have a red tablet. ”
“You can have mine,” I say, eager to share with her, eager to help her this time. I won’t sit idly by. I pul out my container, twist the top, put the red tablet right into her hand.
“Oh, thank you, Cassia,” she says. She lifts it to her mouth. I see her swal ow.
Everyone in the room has stopped mil ing about. They al look at us now, eyes on Em. What wil the red tablet do? None of us knows, except me. I smile. I know it wil save her.
Behind Em the screen flashes on with her Match—right in time for him to see Em fal down, dead. Her body makes a heavy sound when it fal s, in contrast to the lightness of her eyes fluttering shut, of her dress fluttering in folds around her, of her hands fluttering open like the wings of something smal .
I wake up sweating and freezing at the same time, and it takes me a minute to calm myself down. Even though the Officials have laughed at the notion that the red tablet is a death tablet, the rumors stil persist. That explains why I dreamed about it kil ing Em.
Just because I dreamed it doesn’t mean it’s true.
The sleep tags feel sticky on my skin, and I wish I didn’t have to wear them tonight. At least the nightmare isn’t a recurring one, so I can’t be accused of obsessing over something. Besides, I don’t think they can tel exactly what I dreamed. Just that I did. And a teenage girl having an occasional nightmare can’t be uncommon. No one wil flag that particular piece of data when it loads to my file.
But the gray-haired Official said that they had their eyes on me.
I stare up into the dark with an ache in my chest that makes it hard to breathe. But not hard to think.
Ever since the day of Grandfather’s Final Banquet last month, I’ve gone back and forth between wishing he had never given me that paper and being glad that he did. Because at least I have the words to describe what I feel is happening inside of me: the dying of the light.
If I couldn’t name it, would I even know what it is? Would I even feel it at al ?
I pick up the microcard that the Official gave me in the greenspace and tiptoe toward the port. I need to see Xander’s face; I need reassurance that everything is in order.
I stop short. My mother stands at the portscreen talking to someone. Who would contact her so late at night?
