Now, my eyes fixed on the crowd in front of me, I feel that same feeling of relief and release as I see a familiar face, someone who, until now, I had been desperately worried about. Someone I must have thought had drowned or slipped or been pul ed under and might never be seen again.
Ky Markham is here and he looks right at me.
Without thinking, I take a step toward him. That’s when I feel something burst beneath my foot. The lost tablet container has broken open, and everything it is supposed to protect has spil ed out on the floor and been crushed under my foot. Bluegreenred.
I stop in my tracks but the movement has been noted. Officials swarm toward me and the people near me draw breath and cal out, “Over here!
It’s broken!”
I have to turn away when an Official takes my elbow and asks me what happened. When I look back at where Ky stood, he has disappeared. Just like he did that day into the pool. Just like his face did earlier on the port at my house.
CHAPTER 6
There was a new boy at the pool today,” I told my parents that long-ago night, after the incident while Xander and I were swimming. I was careful to leave out any mention of Xander losing his tablet container. I didn’t want him to get in trouble. The omission felt like the tablet itself stuck in my throat. Every time I swal owed, I felt it catch there, threatening to choke me.
But stil , I didn’t tel .
My parents exchanged glances. “A new boy? Are you sure?” my father asked.
“I’m sure,” I said. “His name is Ky Markham. Xander and I swam with him.”
“He’s staying with the Markhams, then,” my father said.
“They’ve adopted him,” I told my parents. “He cal s Aida his mother and Patrick his father. I heard him.” My parents exchanged glances. Adoptions were and are virtual y unheard of in our Province of Oria.
We heard a knock on the door. “Stay here, Cassia,” my father said. “Let us see who it is.” I waited back in the kitchen, but I heard Xander’s father, Mr. Carrow, at the door, his deep loud voice booming through the foyer. We aren’t al owed to go into one another’s residences, but I could imagine him standing there on the steps, looking like an older version of Xander. Same blond hair. Same laughing blue eyes.
“I talked with Patrick and Aida Markham,” he said. “I thought you’d want to know. The boy is an orphan. He’s from the Outer Provinces.”
“He is?” My mother’s voice held a note of concern. The Outer Provinces are on the geographic fringe of the Society where life is harder and wilder. Sometimes people refer to them as the Lesser Provinces, or the Backward Provinces, because they have so little order and knowledge there. There’s a higher concentration of Aberrations there than in the general populace. And even Anomalies, some say. Though no one knows for certain where the Anomalies are. They used to be kept in safe houses, but many of those stand empty these days.
“He’s here with ful Society approval,” Mr. Carrow said. “Patrick showed me the paperwork himself. He told me to tel anyone else who might be concerned. I knew you’d be worried, Mol y, and you, too, Abran.”
“Wel , then,” my mother said, “it sounds al right.” I edged around the corner to look into the foyer, where my parents’ backs were to me and Xander’s father stood on the steps with the night behind him.
Then Xander’s father dropped his voice, and I had to listen closely to hear what he said over the low hum of the port in the foyer.
“Mol y, you should have seen Aida. And Patrick. They seemed alive again. The boy is Aida’s nephew. Her sister’s son.” My mother’s hand went up to her hair, a gesture she always made when she was uncomfortable. Because we al remembered vividly what had happened to the Markhams.
It was a rare case of government failure. A Class One Anomaly should never have been unidentified, let alone al owed to roam the streets, to sneak into the government offices where Patrick worked and where his son was visiting him that day. We al kept quiet about it, but we al knew.
Because the Markham boy was gone, murdered while he waited for his father to come back from a meeting elsewhere in the building. Because Patrick Markham himself had to spend time being healed, since the Anomaly waited in the office, quiet, and attacked Patrick, too.
“Her nephew,” my mother said, her voice fil ed with empathy. “Of course Aida would want to raise him.”
“And the government might feel like they owed it to Patrick to make an exception for him,” my father said.
“Abran,” my mother said reproachful y.
But Xander’s father agreed. “It’s logical. An exception as recompense for the accident. A son to replace the one that they shouldn’t have had to lose. That’s how the Officials see it.”
Later, my mother came to my room to tuck me in. With her voice soft like the blankets she settled around me, she asked, “Did you hear us talking?”
“Yes,” I said.
“The Markhams’ nephew—son—starts school tomorrow.”
“Ky,” I said. “That’s his name.”
“Yes,” she said. She bent down and her long blond hair swung over her shoulder and her freckles looked like stars scattered across her skin. She smiled at me. “You’l be nice to him, won’t you?” she asked. “And help him fit in? It might be hard to be new when everyone else belongs.”
“I wil ,” I promised.
As it turned out, her advice was unnecessary. The next day at Second School, Ky said hel o and introduced himself to everyone. Quiet and quick, he moved through the hal s; he told everyone who he was so that no one had to ask. When the bel rang, he disappeared into the groups of students. It was shocking how quickly he vanished. He was there one minute—separate and distinct and new—and then he became part of the crowd, as though he had done it al of his life. As if he had never lived anywhere but here.
And that is how it’s always been with Ky, I realize now, looking back. We have always seen him swimming along the surface. Only that first day did we see him dive deep.
“I have something to tel you,” I say to Grandfather as I pul up a chair next to him. The Officials didn’t keep me too long at the game center after I stepped on the tablets; I stil have enough time for a visit. I’m grateful, because this is the second-to-last time that I wil visit him. The thought makes me feel hol ow.