Matched

“Yes.” She flushes. “That wasn’t true. I was so worried that I wasn’t acting rational y. Of course it wasn’t a warning for me. It wasn’t a warning for anyone. The trees simply needed to come down.”

I hear in her voice how badly she wants to believe that what she says is true, how she almost does believe it. Wanting to hear more, but not wanting to push too hard, I ask, “What was so important about the report? What makes it different from other reports you’ve done?”

My mother sighs. She doesn’t answer me directly; instead, she says, “I don’t know how the workers at the medical center stand it when they’re working on people or delivering babies. It’s too hard to have other lives in your hands.”

My unspoken question hovers in the air: What do you mean? She pauses. She seems to be deciding whether or not to answer me, and I hold perfectly stil until she speaks again. Absentmindedly she picks up her dress fragment and begins polishing the glass.

“Someone out in Grandia, and then in another Province, reported that there were strange crops popping up. The one in Grandia was in the Arboretum, in an experimental field that had been fal ow for a long time. The other field was in the Farmlands of the second Province. The Government asked me and two others to travel to the fields and submit reports about the crops. They wanted to know two things: Were the crops viable as foodstuffs? And were the growers planning a rebel ion?”

I draw in my breath. It’s forbidden to grow food unless the Government has specifical y requested it. They control the food; they control us. Some people know how to grow food, some know how to harvest it, some know how to process it; others know how to cook it. But none of us know how to do al of it. We could never survive on our own.

“The three of us agreed that the crops were definitely usable as foodstuffs. The grower at the Arboretum had an entire field of Queen Anne’s lace.” My mother’s face changes suddenly, lights up. “Oh, Cassia, it was so beautiful. I’ve only seen a sprig here and there. This was a whole field, waving in the wind.”

“Wild carrot,” I say, remembering.

“Wild carrot,” she agrees, her voice sad. “The second grower had a crop I’d never seen before, of white flowers even more beautiful than the first.

Sego lilies, they cal ed them. One of the others with me knew what they were. You can eat the bulb. Both growers denied knowing you could use the plants for food; they both asserted that their interest was in the flower. They insisted the plants were new to them and that they cultivated them as research, for the blossoms.”

Her voice, which has been soft and sad since she mentioned the field of Queen Anne’s lace, grows stronger. “The three of us argued the whole way back after the second trip. One expert was convinced the growers were tel ing the truth. The other thought they were lying. They submitted conflicting reports. Everyone waited for mine. I asked for one last trip to be sure. After al , these growers wil be Relocated or Reclassified based on our reports. Mine would tip the balance one way or the other.”

She stops polishing the glass and looks down at the piece of blue cloth as though there is something written there for her to see. And I realize that for her, there is. That blue cloth represents the night she was Matched to my father. She reads her life, the life she loves, in that square of blue satin.

“I knew al along,” she whispers. “I knew when I saw the fear in their eyes when we first arrived. They knew what they were doing. And something the Queen Anne’s lace grower said on my second visit convinced me even more of the truth. He acted as though he’d never seen the plant outside of a portscreen before until he raised the crop, but he grew up in a town near mine, and I knew I’d seen the flower there growing wild.

“But I stil hesitated. And then when I came home again and saw al of you, I realized I had to report the truth. I had to fulfil my duty to the Society and guarantee our happiness. And keep us al safe.”

That last word, safe, is as soft and hushed as the swish of silk.

“I understand,” I tel her, and I do. And the hold she has over me is much greater than the Officials, because I love her and admire her.

Back in my room I find the silver box where it fel inside one of my winter boots. I open it up and take out the microcard with al of Xander’s information and the courtship guidelines. If there hadn’t been a mistake, if I’d just seen his face and everything had been normal, none of this would have happened. I wouldn’t have fal en in love with Ky and the choice wouldn’t have been so hard to make in the sort. Everything would have been fine.