Matched (16 page)

The crowd thins, and a girl in a yellow dress stands alone in front of a blank screen.

She’s about to cry.

“It’s all right!” I call out to her, pushing my way through more people. “Take the tablet and everything will be fine!”

Em’s eyes brighten; she pulls 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 pull 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 swallow.

Everyone in the room has stopped milling about. They all look at us now, eyes on Em. What will the red tablet do? None of us knows, except me. I smile. I know it will save her.

Behind Em the screen flashes on with her Match—right in time for him to see Em fall down, dead. Her body makes a heavy sound when it falls, 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 small.

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 still persist. That explains why I dreamed about it killing 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 tell exactly
what
I dreamed. Just that I did. And a teenage girl having an occasional nightmare can’t be uncommon. No one will 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 all?

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?

My father sees me from the front room, where he sits on the divan waiting for my mother to finish. He gestures for me to come in and sit next to him. When I do, he glances at the microcard in my hands and smiles and teases like any father would. “Seeing Xander at school isn’t enough? You want to catch another glimpse of him before you go to sleep?”

He puts his arm around me and gives me a hug. “I understand. I was the same way with your mother. That was back when they let us print out a picture from the ports right away instead of making us wait until after our first meeting.”

“What did your parents think of Mama being a Farmlander?”

My father pauses. “Well, they were both a little concerned, to be honest. They never thought I’d Match with someone who didn’t live in a City. But it didn’t take them long to decide they were happy about it.” He gets that smile on his face, the one he always gets when he talks about falling in love. “It only took that first meeting to change their minds. You should have seen your mother then.”

“Why did you meet in the City instead of in the Farmlands?” I ask. Usually, it’s customary for the first meeting to be held close to the girl’s home. There’s always an Official from the Match Department present to make sure things go smoothly.

“She insisted on coming here even though it was a long train ride. She wanted to see the City as soon as possible. My parents and the Official and I all went to the station to meet her.”

He pauses and I know he is picturing the meeting in his mind, imagining my mother stepping off that air train.

“And?” I know I sound impatient, but I have to remind him that he’s not back in the past. He’s here in the present and I need to know everything I can about the Match that made me.

“When she stepped off the train, your grandmother said to me, ‘She still has the sun on her face.’” My father pauses and smiles. “She did, too. I’d never seen anyone look so warm and alive. My parents never voiced a concern about her again. I think we all fell in love with her that day.”

Neither of us notice my mother standing in the doorway until she clears her throat. “And I with all of you.” She seems a little sad, and I wonder if she’s thinking of Grandfather or Grandmother or both. She and my father are now the last two people left who remember that day, except for maybe the Official who oversaw their meeting.

“Who called so late on the port?” I ask.

“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 still sun-kissed from all 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’ll tell you and Bram all about it in the morning.”

I don’t protest. I close my hand over the microcard and say, “All 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 walls again. Something about my mother leaving right now alarms me. Why now? Where is she going? How long will 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 all right? I can’t think of the last time we’ve had a call so late at night.”

“I can’t tell. Something seems to be going on, but I don’t know what it is. They’re pulling 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 tell 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 will you be gone?” my father asks.

“A week at the most. Do you think Cassia and Bram will be all right? It’s rather a long trip.”

“They’ll understand.” There’s a pause. “Cassia still seems upset. About the sample.”

“I know. I worry about that.” My mother sighs, a soft sound that somehow I still hear through the wall. “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.

The moment I think it, I wish it back. If their Match isn’t perfect, then what are the chances that mine will 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 still getting ready, but I have a sense of something missed, something missing. Some
one
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 will 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 finally 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 well ask if he wants me to commit suicide. Because that’s what it would be. I wouldn’t actually 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 hall. She practically glows, and when she sees me, she lifts her arm to wave. The Banquet went well, 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 rolling hills and rivered valleys 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, all of us eager for details about the boy Em will marry.

“When he stood up, I thought, ‘He can’t be for me.’ He’s tall and he smiled at me right through the screen. He didn’t even look a little bit nervous.”

“So he’s handsome?”

“Of course.” Em smiles. “And he didn’t seem too disappointed in me, either, thank goodness.”

“How could he be?” Em shines so radiantly today in her drab brown plainclothes that I imagine she was impossible to look away from last night in her yellow dress. “So, he’s handsome. But what exactly does he look like?” I’m embarrassed to hear a hint of jealousy in my voice, plain and clear. No one gathered around me to find out what Xander was like. There was no mystery because they already knew.

Em is kind enough to ignore it. “Actually, a little like Xander ...” she begins, and then she breaks off.

I follow her gaze to where Xander stands a few feet away from us, holding his foilware on a tray and looking stricken. Did he hear the jealousy in my voice when Em described her Match?

What is wrong with me?

I try to cover it up. “We’re talking about Em’s Match. He looks like you.”

Xander recovers quickly. “So he’s
unbelievably
handsome.” He sits down next to me but he doesn’t look in my direction. I’m embarrassed. He definitely heard me.

“Of course,” Em laughs. “I don’t know why I was so worried!” She blushes a little, probably remembering the night in the music hall, and looks at Xander. “It all turned out perfectly—the way you said it would.”

“I wish they still let you print out a picture right away,” I say. “I want to see what he looks like.”

Em describes her Match and tells us facts about Dalen that she learned from her microcard, but I’m too distracted to hear much. I worry that I’ve hurt Xander and I want him to look at me or take my hand, but he does neither of those things.

Em grabs my arm on our way out of the meal hall. “Thank you so much for letting me borrow the compact. I think it helped to have something to hold onto, you know?”

I nod, agreeing.

“Ky gave it back to you this morning, didn’t he?”

“No.”
My heart drops. Where is my compact? Why doesn’t Em have it?

“He didn’t?” Em’s face pales.