Matched

My father doesn’t answer. He stares at my mother, whose face is ashen and pale as she stares at the portscreen. “Molly?” he says. You’re not supposed to interrupt a private message, but he takes a few steps closer. And then closer again.

Final y, when he puts his hand on her shoulder, she turns away from the screen. “This is my fault,” my mother says, and for the first time in my life, I see her look through my father, not at him, her gaze fixed on some distant point beyond. “We’ve been Relocated to the Farmlands, effective immediately.”

“What?” my father asks. He shakes his head, glances back behind her at the port. “That’s impossible. You submitted the report. You told the truth.”

“I suppose they don’t want those of us who saw the rogue crops to continue working in positions of authority,” my mother says. “We know too much. We might be tempted to do the same. They’l put us out in the Farmlands where we won’t be in charge. Where they can watch us and wear us out planting what they tel us to plant.”

“But at least,” I say, trying to comfort her, “we’l be closer to Grandmother and Grandfather.”

“Not the Farmlands in Oria,” my mother says. “The Farmlands in a different province. We leave tomorrow.” Then that blank, stunned gaze of hers shifts to my father and I see her begin to feel again. I watch realization and emotion come back into her face. As I see it happen to her, I feel a sense of urgency so strong I don’t know if I can bear it. I have to find out where they sent Ky. Before we leave.

“I’ve always wanted to live in the Farmlands,” my father says, and my mother leans her head on his shoulder, too tired to cry and too overcome to pretend that everything is al right.

“But I did what I was supposed to do,” she whispers. “I did exactly what they asked.”

“It will be all right,” he whispers to my mother and to me. Maybe if I had taken the red tablet I could believe him.

Down the street, there’s an Official air car in front of the Markhams’ house. Our Borough has had entirely too much attention from the Officials in the past few weeks.

Em bounces out the door of her treeless house. “Did you hear?” she asks, excited. “The Officials are gathering the Markhams’ things. Patrick has been transferred to work in the Central Government! It’s such an honor. And he’s from our Borough!” She frowns. “It’s too bad we didn’t get to say good-bye to Ky. I’l miss him.”

“I know,” I say, and my heart aches, and I stop again under my stone, pushing back against the weight of being the only one who knows what real y happened this morning. happened this morning.

Except for a few select Officials. And even they don’t know that I know. Only two people truly know what took place, that I didn’t take the red tablet.

Me. And my Official.

“I have to go,” I tel Em, and I start moving again, toward the air-train stop. I don’t look back at the Markhams’ house. Patrick and Aida, gone for good, too. Have they been assigned Aberration status or a quiet Retirement somewhere far from here? Have they taken the red tablet, too? Do they look around their new place with surprise, wondering what happened to their second son? I’l have to try to find them, too, for Ky, but right now I have to find Ky. There’s only one place I can think of to look for information about where they might have sent him.

On the ride to City Hal , I keep my head down. There are too many places I can’t look: at the seats where Ky used to sit; at the floor of the air-train car where he set his feet and kept his balance, always making it seem easy, natural. I can’t bring myself to look out the windows at al , knowing that I might catch a glimpse of the Hil where Ky and I stood yesterday. Together. When the train stops to let more people on and a breeze wafts in, I wonder if the strips of red cloth that Ky and I left there flutter in the wind. Signal flags of a new beginning, though not the kind we wanted.

Final y, I hear the announcer’s voice, cal ing my destination.

City Hall.

My idea won’t work. I know it the minute I stand on the steps of the Hal for only the second time in my life. This is not the place of open doors and twinkling lights that welcomed me, invited me to catch a glimpse of my future. In the daylight, this is a place with armed guards, a place of business, a place where past and present are locked safe inside. They won’t let me in, and even if they did, they wouldn’t tel me anything.

They might not know there was anything to tel . Even Officials carry red tablets.

I turn back and there across the street I see possibility and my heart flutters. Of course. Why didn’t I think of this first? The Museum.

The Museum is long, low, white, blind. Even its windows are made of frosted white opaque glass to keep the artifacts inside safe from the light.