Concealed in the Shadows Read online

  “I have to tell you something important, okay sweetie?” says the woman with dark gray hair pulled into a long, low ponytail. She goes on when the little girl smiles and gives a modest nod. “It breaks my heart to make you grow up so fast, but it doesn’t seem I’ve been given any choice.” She crouches even lower and leans in to hold both tiny hands in hers. “Have you ever noticed how you don’t see very old people around, sweetheart?” she begins.

  The little girl with long, shiny locks twists her face and says, “I see old people, Grandma.” She tosses hair wavy, flowing hair that has just been brushed by a warm, loving hand over her shoulder. “Like you,” she adds brightly to the not-so-old woman.

  The grandmother allows a little laugh to arise from her heart but, just as suddenly, her cheer is erased. A perplexing tear strolls down the woman’s cheek. The little girl doesn’t ask what is wrong, but squeezes the woman’s hands and waits until she is ready to carry on. “Not too long ago, people lived a lot longer than they do today. Some people used to live to be a hundred years old, sometimes even older!” she exclaims. The little girl is interested in this subject, but doesn’t understand why teaching this new information pains her grandmother. “But then our president and the other people that help to make laws decided that as people get older, they begin to cost too much money.”

  “Why do they cost more money?” the little girl wonders.

  “Well, sometimes they get sick and it costs money to make the medicines that can make them better.”

  “Can’t they work at a job to get money?” the astute child asks.

  “Well, that’s just it, sweetie,” the woman smiles and taps the girl on the nose. She’s so proud of her little granddaughter. “When people get really old their mind and body slow down because of all the work they’ve had to do in their long life. When I was as young as you, the government helped people save money while they got older to help pay for their food, home, and medicines when they couldn’t work anymore. But now, our nation has decided it would be better if people didn’t live so long.”

  “So that they wouldn’t have to hurt?”

  “Something like that, sweetie.”

  “Well, what did they do, Grandma?” asks the concerned child, already predicting a worrisome answer.

  “Well sweetie, the people who make the laws worked together with doctors to find a way for the old people to leave the world very peacefully, before most of them are old enough to get very sick or have much hurt.”

  Suddenly, the little girl isn’t so brave. Tears overtake her small face as she buries herself in her grandmother’s lap. “You’re not going to let them take you away, are you, Grandma? You can’t leave us!” The desperate pleas of the helpless child prove to be too much for her grandmother. The tears escape her too, but she fights to hold in the anger and the revulsion in order to be strong for the sake of the child.

  “I wish I could stay forever, sweetheart. I wish I could see you and your sister grow into the strong, beautiful women that I know you will become. I wish I could see your mother get healthy again.” The tears try to choke off her words, but she forces them out. “But, you see, last night was my last Friday night sleepover with you and your sister, and sweetheart,” she places her hand on the shoulder of the little girl and smiles, “it was one of the best days of my life. I get to leave this world with warm memories of baking cookies and painting flowers with my two favorite people in the world.”

  “I don’t want you to go!” the child protests as her heart boils and her face floods. She pulls her grandma’s arms around her and buries her head into her chest as she begs, “Just tell them you don’t feel sick. Tell them you want to stay a little longer.” She closes her eyes tightly and wishes that it were a nightmare. But already the little girl knows better than hoping for happiness in her life. She knows there are no exceptions to the unchallengeable laws.

  “I know, sweetheart, I know.” The woman strokes and kisses the distraught and fragile girl’s hair as the child clings to her tightly. A few more tears slide from her weary eyes before she finds the strength to make a final request of her beloved grandchild.

  “Sydney?” She looks down to where I’m still clinging to her, not ready to come away and meet the eyes I love so much as she tells me that this is the last time I will see her. “Sydney,” she tries again, this time gently pulling my chin from her chest. “I need you to do me one last favor, okay?” My grandma can see that I can’t handle this. How can she ask me, a mere child, to let go of the one I love most, the unyielding presence in my life? Her next words seem sharper than the rest in the memory, and I never let them go.

  “Sydney Harter, I know it will be hard, but you have no choice other than to be the bravest girl there ever was. You have to be brave so that you and Evvie can grow up strong. Grandpa and I, your dad, and Grandma and Grandpa Harter, want to look down on you and smile because of how proud you’ve made us.” She waits. My wails have subsided to sobs, but the pain hasn’t lessened any. “You want to make all of us proud, right honey?”

  “Yes,” I reply shakily. It took so much to utter that single word because with it came the acknowledgement that I had only begun learning hardship.

  “Good, sweetheart. Good girl,” she soothes. “What I need you to do is try your very hardest to take care of your sister. Be good all the time and try to help your mom when she seems sick.” Grandma’s eyes enlarge and she squeezes my hand more tightly. “Never ever tell anyone about your mom’s sickness, even if it seems like they are trying to help. Can you be a big girl and do those things for me, sweetheart?” I nod that I can, although I don’t believe it, and empty my heart in her lap for the last time.

  I wake pained with the recollection and tears form at the corners of my eyes. I quietly dab them away. Against all odds, sleep finally came on the high-speed rail, or HSR, as I traveled the short ride toward the center of Miles.

  It feels incredibly cramped to me in the small rail car, but everyone else seems plenty comfortable. Most are dressed professionally, fitting the archetype, and appear on their routine commute to work. The majority of Miles’ population is accustomed to taking the HSR or walking everywhere, as each are only allowed to travel a total of five miles by personal electric car every even day for females and every odd day for males. If you drive or ride in a car on a day not assigned to you, or if you go over your daily limit, the car is stopped by remote satellite and you’re left stranded. Additionally, you’re unmistakably charged costly fines.

  I tried my hardest to make my grandmother proud, but my bad luck caught up with me four years after my grandma was mercilessly put to death. I was headed to a grocery store on the northeastern side of Miles. I knew better than to visit the same stores too frequently. There are certain things that people become suspicious of before machines detect the peculiarities, like a tiny child consistently buying groceries for the family.

  Somehow, when paying the fare to board the high-speed rail, my wrist wasn’t scanned, and therefore my transportation limits were not temporarily disabled. Whatever governmental body watches for these deviances shut the rail down dead in its tracks when the computer database showed that the implanted chip of a female was traveling at a speed over twenty miles per hour on an odd day.

  When the two investigators arrived on scene, they asked me a few questions. My lack of an answer to the very first question disclosed my secret. The lead investigator had asked me if I was alone on the rail, and where my guardian was. His partner seemed especially agitated, and was looking uneasily up and down the rows of passengers. I stared blankly at the man who had asked the question and apologized to my grandmother in my head.

  Finally, the agitated man returned to their squad car. Along with waste management construction, and distribution vehicles, squad cars are larger and follow a hybrid design so they can travel at great speeds.

  Thinly veiled complaints and eye rolling spread through the passengers. They were much more worried about getting to their
workplaces on time than they were about a lonely twelve-year-old girl with far too much responsibility on her shoulders. Reacting to their needs, the lead officer dictated for his tablet to send a message to transportation to enable HSR Five to run again. I was placed in the back of the squad car as the HSR car sped away.

  The drones crowding the railcar today remind me of the people who were riding the one that was stopped that day six years ago. I had searched their blank eyes for help, or any recognition that I was a person, and not just an annoyance delaying their morning commute.

  I wonder if any of this morning’s passengers are regulars that take this same railcar at this same time each day. You would never guess it if they are. None speak or even smile hello to one another. One older gentleman looks out the window, but the rest are focused on their tablets. They’re reading, texting, playing games, and many appear to be working already on their short ride in. Why not when they have the accessibility to do so? These people are unaware of how ignorant they are, and what a deep, impenetrable sleep they are in.

  When the railcar slows as it enters the exact center of Miles, I’m the first one on my feet and out of the car and railway station. The memory and its lasting impression were suffocating me.

  I know today to be another beautiful, late summer day from my outing early this morning, but I appreciate this in secret. I fall in stride among the masses of distant people in the heart of the city and feel the day around me from their perspective. The air is still heavy with moisture, but here it’s stuffed with the odors of business byproduct. The towering buildings, smashed unbelievably close together, heavily hinder the sunlight’s potential. If the unsociable group on the railway this morning is a small-scale version of society, I imagine workers may know the people behind the outer office windows of adjacent buildings as well as they know their own coworkers.

  I spot Merideth sitting next to the turquoise glass pane inside the coffee shop. My heart skips and then pounds a succession of quick, irregular beats when I notice Evvie is not with her.