“Someone from work,” my mother says. Looking weary, she sits down next to my father and leans her head on his shoulder as he puts his arm around her. “I have to leave on a trip tomorrow.”
“Why?”
My mother yawns, her blue eyes opening wide. Her face is stil sun-kissed from al her work outdoors. She looks a little older than usual and for the first time I see a bit of gray interwoven in her thick blond hair, some shadows in the sunlight. “It’s late, Cassia. You should be asleep. I should be asleep. I’l tel you and Bram al about it in the morning.”
I don’t protest. I close my hand over the microcard and say, “Al right.” Before I leave for my room my mother leans over to give me a kiss good night.
Once I’m back in my room I listen through the wal s again. Something about my mother leaving right now alarms me. Why now? Where is she going? How long wil she be gone? She rarely goes on trips for work.
“So?” my father says in the other room. He’s trying to keep his voice quiet. “Is everything al right? I can’t think of the last time we’ve had a cal so late at night.”
“I can’t tel . Something seems to be going on, but I don’t know what it is. They’re pul ing a few of us from other Arboretums to come look at a crop at the Arboretum in Grandia Province.” Her voice has the singsong quality that it gets when it’s very late and she’s very tired. I remember it from the nights when she used to tel me those flower stories and I feel reassured. If she doesn’t think something is wrong, then everything must be fine. My mother is one of the smartest people I know.
“How long wil you be gone?” my father asks.
“A week at the most. Do you think Cassia and Bram wil be al right? It’s rather a long trip.”
“They’l understand.” There’s a pause. “Cassia stil seems upset. About the sample.”
“I know. I worry about that.” My mother sighs, a soft sound that somehow I stil hear through the wal . “It was an honest mistake. I hope she sees that soon.”
Mistake? It wasn’t a mistake, I think. And then I realize: She doesn’t know. He hasn’t told her. My father has a secret from my mother.
And I have a horrible thought.
So their Match isn’t perfect after all.
The moment I think it, I wish it back. If their Match isn’t perfect, then what are the chances that mine wil be?
The next morning, another thunderstorm tumbles the leaves on the maple trees and showers rain on the newroses. I’m eating my breakfast, oatmeal again, steaming in its foilware dish when I hear the port announce: Cassia Reyes, your leisure activity, hiking, has been canceled for the day due to inclement weather. Please report to Second School for extra study hours instead.
No hiking. Which means no Ky.
The walk to the air train is a wet one, and muggy. The rain adds to the water in the air; trapping the humidity. My coppery hair begins to tangle and curl, as it does sometimes in weather like this. I look up at the sky but only see the mass of clouds, no break anywhere.
No one else is on my air train, not Em, not Xander, not Ky. They probably caught other trains, or are stil getting ready, but I have a sense of something missed, something missing. Someone missing.
Maybe it is me.
Once I’m at school, I go upstairs to the research library, where there are several ports. I want to find out about Dylan Thomas and Alfred Lord Tennyson and if they have any poems that did make the selection. I don’t think they did, but I have to make sure.
My fingers hover over the screen on the port as I hesitate. The fastest way to find out would be to type in their names, but then there would be a record of someone searching for them and the search could be traced back to me. It’s much safer to go through the lists of poets in the Hundred Poems database instead. If I’m looking through poet after poet after poet, that wil seem more like an assignment for class and less like a search for something specific.
It takes a long time to go through each name, but I final y get to the Ts. I find one poem by Tennyson and I want to read it but I don’t have time.
There is no Thomas. There is a Thoreau. I touch that name; one poem of his, The Moon, has been saved. I wonder if he wrote anything else. If he did, it is gone now.
Why did Grandfather give me those poems? Did he want me to find some meaning in them? Does he not want me to go gentle? What does that even mean? Am I supposed to fight against authority? I might as wel ask if he wants me to commit suicide. Because that’s what it would be. I wouldn’t actual y die, but if I tried to break the rules they’d take away everything I value. A Match. A family of my own. A good vocation. I would have nothing. I don’t think Grandfather would want that for me.
I can’t figure it out. I’ve thought and thought about it and turned the words over in my head. I wish I could see the words again on paper and puzzle it out. For some reason, I feel like everything would be different if I could see them outside of myself, not only in my mind.
I’ve realized one thing, though. Even though I’ve done the right thing—burned the words and tried to forget them—it doesn’t work. These words won’t go away.
I’m relieved the minute I see Em sitting in the meal hal . She practical y glows, and when she sees me, she lifts her arm to wave. The Banquet went wel , then. She didn’t panic. She made it through. She isn’t dead.
I hurry through the line, sliding into the seat next to her. “So,” I ask, even though I already know the answer, “how was the Banquet?” Her radiance shines on everyone in the room. Everyone at our table smiles.
“It was perfect.”
“It’s not Lon, then?” I say, making a feeble joke. Lon was Matched a few months ago.
Em laughs. “No. His name is Dalen. He’s from Acadia Province.” Acadia is one of the more heavily forested provinces to the east, miles away from our rol ing hil s and rivered val eys here in Oria. They have stone in Acadia, and sea. Things we don’t have much of here.
“And ...” I lean forward. So do the rest of our friends gathered at the table, al of us eager for details about the boy Em wil marry.
“When he stood up, I thought, ‘He can’t be for me.’ He’s tal and he smiled at me right through the screen. He didn’t even look a little bit nervous.”
“So he’s handsome?”