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Chapter Text

There are moments— sometimes sporadic, but more frequent lately— when Evelyn needs to hold her breath. 

She’s come to expect a few of them. The few seconds it takes to pass her baby into the arms of the woman on childcare duty. Whenever she lifts her gray dress to take it off and it passes over her head, there is a span of time—however short—where she is in the dark, underneath the rough cloth. These moments are regular as bread, the trains, the walk to church. Every time, she stiffens in anticipation, the moment passes, all is well. 

These moments are ordinary, the demands of life, but there is nothing out of the ordinary even when Evelyn is taken by surprise. There is nothing wrong about the days where she feels like she has to breathe out of her sides; everything is still exactly as it should be. One of the greatest, deepest pleasures of this life, the life she chose, is that when she is decent, there is nothing she cannot see coming.

Evelyn is not always decent. Recently, she’s not been decent at all. This is why the moments keep happening. If she were not the kind of wife husbands were warned against, the kind of mother children should not have, she would not experience them. But she is, and so she does. 

The moments she does not expect are longer than the ones she does. She might be cutting vegetables, mending clothes, rocking the baby. Then it will come, and she will find herself sucking in air, like someone has shoved her under the lake. She will grip the counter or the needle or the crib. The baby, if he is there, will wail, and she will bounce him up and down. Sometimes it lasts for hours. Sometimes it feels like it lasts through whole nights, through whole services. Sometimes she feels like her whole life is one long held breath she lets out a little every now and then. 

Between four and six in the evening, she sits at the door and waits for her husband to come home from the council. She has such a good husband with such a fantastic position of service. Even after these years she goes still and quiet in awe when she hears his resonant voice, whose words can fill a meeting hall like water filling a cup. Being married to a man with that voice is the greatest blessing, even if the house is much smaller than a meeting hall, even if all the rhetoric and flourishes evaporate when it is a matter of dinner, or where he spends his nights when he’s not at home, or coming to bed with him. Her husband is good at what he does, and she is lucky to be his wife. 

So Evelyn washes dishes and changes the baby and sweeps the path leading to their apartment and she is very still and very quiet until she cannot be, even when those moments come upon her and she can’t speak and she has to wait out the agonizing hours while she is being punished for what she did. What she does do.

And sometimes the moments come, and they pass, and Evelyn hears another man’s voice in her mind. It is not the type of voice that fills meeting halls. It is the type of voice that whispers, whose exhales land on her earlobe and her neck.

You can stay, his voice says. You can stay right here with me.

Chapter Text

There are only a few good handholds in my church bathroom. When they removed the mirrors above the sink, a large chunk of plaster came with it, exposing a patch of brick wall about the size of my head. As a kid, I  figured out how to get to the window ledge above one of the toilets. All I had to do was wait for a free half hour; most likely when my mother was at a committee meeting that was running long. Then I would climb on top of the sink, grab one of the brick handholds, and swing my leg over the neighboring stall door. From there I could shimmy until I ended up on top of the old-fashioned toilet tank and pull myself onto the ledge.

Through that window you can see up the street to the squat white lab buildings at the border of the university. During the day, I used to see scientists walking in little groups to and from work, making broad gestures with their hands as they talked. On a good day, I might catch a big black truck pulling in with computer parts. I’d watch the workers as they would swarm over the delivery like ants to unload the crates one by one. In the evenings, those lab windows still glow with electric lights, and you can see the shapes of people moving around inside. As a kid, I could lose myself for hours looking at them before anyone would remember I was gone. 

Tonight, garlands of beads or tinsel string the windows of every university building. A blue banner has been hung like a flag from that lab building in particular. In big block letters, underneath a stylized eye, it reads: 

FOR THE LOST 

The banner, vague as it is, is different this year; maybe the blue is lighter, or the fabric shinier, or they got somebody different to paint the eye. I couldn’t get a good look at it on the walk to church, and I haven’t ever seen what happens. I do know that today they will mourn the globe’s lost body of knowledge with music recovered from before the War, music we don’t have the instruments to make anymore. 

 Today, when I press my cheek to the cold window it is with full knowledge that I am definitely not supposed to be here. My foot’s unsteady on the top of the toilet tank and the rough plaster of the wall prickles against my palm. But through the glass, smudged with dust and pigeon crap, I can just make out a long procession of figures carrying blue lights lining up in the distance. 

I crane my neck to see and my leg wobbles. This was so much easier when I was a kid and didn’t have a full-length skirt to contend with. The scientists and their lights remain tantalizingly out of reach.

  I hear the organ start wheezing in the distance as the congregation begins a hymn inside the chapel. It’s one of the oldest I know, brought to the city by the pre-Americans who came from a cold island across the sea. 

‘Tis the gift to be simple

‘Tis the gift to be free 

‘Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be 

And when we find our place in the world just right

‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

The procession snakes out of the lab and begins to trickle nearer to the border. The light shines on a few faces, making pale blue smudges in the dark. Here and there it playfully catches the edge of a white coat. Some of the scientists hold big metal boxes called speakers that can play sounds made by computers. In a little while, hopefully before the end of this awful hymn, they’ll turn them on, and I’ll finally know what pre-War electronic music sounds like. 

When true simplicity is gained,

To bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed. 

To turn, turn, will be our delight,

‘Til by turning, turning, we come round right.

I can hear my brother Caleb’s tenor cutting through the rest of the plodding chorus like a knife. “Simple Gifts” is slow and stale and hasn’t sounded good since I was ten. Caleb is the only one who can make it sound the way it’s supposed to. 

I ignore the familiar lump in my throat and manage to pull myself up another quarter inch, getting a nice glimpse of the next group coming out of the lab. One of the scientists looks only a little older than I am. She wears her hair in a long, dark braid and holds her small speaker with two hands, close to her heart. Someone calls to her, and she laughs as she recognizes them among the mass of bodies. The two turn and join the procession. 

Still no electrical music!

‘ Tis the gift to be gentle

‘Tis the gift to be fair 

‘Tis the gift to wake and breathe the morning air

And every day to walk in the path we choose 

‘Tis the gift that we pray we will not come to lose.

My palms are very sweaty by this point and I have to rotate my wrist slightly to check my watch. It’s been fifteen minutes since I came in here, and I have to get back before the end of the hymn to avoid sneaking in during the homily. At this point, the only acceptable excuse would be food poisoning, but I’m in for a horrible lecture from my family anyways. 

Please , I pray. Please, please, press the button on your speaker. Someone. Anyone. Please, God, sate my curiosity, before I have to leave. 

If God’s not listening, Beatrice, says a version of my father’s voice in my mind, you know why.  

Not now! I tell him. I wipe my palms one by one on my dress and grip the window's edge a bit more firmly.

‘ Tis the gift to be loving

‘Tis the gift, best of all 

The scientists cluster to one side to make room for a slight figure. I immediately recognize her from her shape, the cut of her pants and the lines of her profile. She is carrying a very large pole with a brilliant cobalt lantern suspended at one end. 

I have never seen light glow that blue, almost like the lake was lit from the inside—

Like a quiet rain that blesses where it falls 

And if we have this gift we will always believe 

The lantern at the end of the pole blinks six times. All the speakers switch on in a burst of sound so loud that I almost fall off the toilet tank. 

The song vibrates loud and strange and thick over the street. A bass line anchors it, bounces it off the walls of the buildings all the way down to the window where it shakes the glass. Then comes the melody, wailing high over the procession. The computerized notes are crystal clear in a way a real instrument could never be. The whine curdles the organ I can still hear from inside the church.

The bluest lantern, which belongs to Jeanine Matthews, seems to float on the end of its pole. The electronic rhythm pulses as she turns to the crowd, saying something I can’t quite make out. They start to make their way up the street to their destination, wherever that might be. 

And if we have this gift we will always believe 

‘Tis better to give than it is to receive.

I scramble down the way I came, knocking down and replacing some toilet paper in the process. We don’t have mirrors, so I can’t check my reflection to make sure I look presentable; instead I lick my palms, run them over my hair, and pray some more before I walk-run back to the chapel.

I gingerly open the heavy wooden door on the right and make my way along the rows of pews. The way back to my seat is clear: it is the only unoccupied spot in a sea of gray-robed bodies, as painfully obvious as a missing tooth. Caleb is to its right, in front of our parents, with our neighbors Robert and Susan Black. 

My father’s eyes slide down to his laminated hymnal knowingly. My mother only thumbs the page.  

I shuffle my way through the row, murmuring excuse me . Caleb stares forward at the pulpit. Though he is adopted, there is no one in the entire city who would not assume that he's not my dad's son. It’s something in his slight squint, in the smug set of that jaw that I’d really like to punch right now. 

Trying to be a good Abnegation daughter while Caleb’s around is like trying to win a race with a train.

The organist vamps a little bit, perhaps to buy me more time to settle. On “Simple Gifts", it's complete overkill, but I feel intensely grateful towards him and the rest of the congregation for playing along. Marcus Eaton silences the notes with a look as he steps up to the pulpit to deliver the homily.

The entire congregation shuffles a bit, sits up a little straighter, holds their breath. Marcus has short gray hair and another dignified, easily distinguishable profile; he was elected Abnegation Leader for a reason. There is something to the way he can tell the organist that enough is enough without a single word. 

“Let us pray,” he begins. 

So we do. 

The service passes more quickly than most. Marcus is not usually so spare. I guess he’s saving it for the Community Meeting on Wednesday, the one immediately post-Choosing. I probably won’t be at that one. The idea is almost too big and exciting and scary to think about.

As usual, the congregation disperses into one of the many meeting halls to socialize as a community. The room is large and high-ceilinged and filled with mingling people. Since we wear gray as a matter of course, all the color in the room comes from our skin and hair and the sound of our voices. I creep in, ducking my head. Most people ignore me, but a few older people shoot me glares. Just because it’s selfless to forgive and forget doesn’t mean we always do.

Someone has just finished starting a fire in the fireplace. The kids throng around it and the adults smile, chuckling indulgently. Little things like heat and cold shouldn’t bother us grown-ups at all. Instead, we are clustering together, pinched smiles on our faces, as we discuss the important news of the day. My father is holding court with a group of other Councilmen about something like the policing situation or the homily or the road-repair project. There is a Matthews-shaped hole in the conversation; I guess Erudite’s worst excesses are now so serious as to be a matter for Council sessions only. 

 My mother stands at the kitchenette in the corner with the other women her own age, making up large fragrant pots of herbal tea. Caleb is to my right, talking quietly with Robert and Susan Black about yesterday’s final exams. Marcus strides into the room and joins my father, gently tapping him on the shoulder so he will make room for him in the circle. A few elderly women sit in their corner, cooing over a toddler picked up from childcare. Some Middle Levels girls are comparing their knitting projects by the fire. The boys play a tentative game of tag, and just as quickly their parents break away from their groups to scold their children for running inside. 

I wander, moving from one group to the next, nodding whenever an important point seems to be made. I am contemplating going back to the bathroom when I spot a tall young woman coming through the crowd and begin to panic. 

She’s my new neighbor. At least I’m pretty sure she’s my new neighbor. Mom and I stopped by the other day to deliver housewarming baskets and a blanket for her newborn baby. I have completely forgotten her name— Amelia, maybe? Her husband’s name is Thomas, I know— is her name Adrianne? Agatha? Alice?

She’s coming my direction. She’s going to greet me by my name, I know it. As she is moving towards me I see my mother in my peripheral vision swooping in with two steaming mugs. 

“Beatrice,” she says. “I thought you might want some tea.” 

I take the cup gratefully and swallow as the other woman approaches, flushed with the smooth skin of a twenty-year old. She has been married for a year and a half to one of my father’s junior administrators. All around her is the nervous, exhausted energy of both a new mother and what we call an early-in-service . Just initiated, at seventeen or eighteen, just given her housing allotment, just assigned to some committee or other where she is learning how to take care of screaming things. 

“Natalie, Beatrice!” she calls. Are we the only people she knows here?

“Nice to see you, Abigail,” says my mother gaily. “I hope you felt at home during the service.” 

“It was excellent,” she says. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard such a powerful homily.” 

“Glad to hear you enjoyed it. Congratulations again to you and your husband on the successful birth of your daughter, by the way.” 

“Thank you both for your generosity."

I should say something, but I don’t know what to say, so I just bow my head and say I’ll always be praying for her and her family. True enough.

“And I for you,” she says.

Our obligations to one another are now complete. It’s just like preschool. Say hi to your friend, Beatrice! Say thank you to the teacher, Beatrice!

“Are you on the committee you started with, or were you re-assigned after Margaret’s birth?” asks my mother, who is in charge of one-third of the Abnegation Women’s Committees and still somehow managed to remember her baby’s name.

“I’ve been given lighter duties on the Kitchen Committee, where I started.” 

They’re off then, chatting and chatting, about what vegetables will soon be in season and the appropriate amount of rest time for a new mother, and which lullabies to sing to a daughter as opposed to a son and where she should go if she is thinking of giving her child an adoptive sibling like Caleb and how she came to be on the Kitchen Committee in the first place. Finally Abigail’s eyes settle on me again. 

“You’re just seventeen, yes?” she says. “Forgive me for my presumptuousness.” 

“Yes,” I say, “I am.” 

“Are you looking forward to the Choosing Ceremony? I know most young adults are eager to be assigned and married. I know I was.” 

“I am,” I say, “though I am a bit nervous.” 

“Nervousness is normal,” she says, “It’s God’s way of telling us what we are about to do is important.” 

“Beatrice is a strong girl,” says my mother. “She will be a credit to wherever she is called to go.” 

This is the standard line from Abnegation adults about the Choosing Ceremony. I’ve heard it maybe twenty times since I turned seventeen. But there is always something different when my mother says it, like she knows something I don’t. It’s a very disconcerting thought.

“What committee do you hope to be assigned to, Beatrice?” 

“Garments and Vestments Committee,” I say, because sewing has always been one of the only things I like that I’ve been allowed to do. 

"Is that so?" she asks with evident interest. My mother nods sagely.

"Margaret's blanket is Beatrice's work," she says. 

I grimace a little bit; Mom shouldn't have called attention to a contribution to a group gift like that. It’s very rude and very selfish. Abigail doesn't seem to notice, however.

"It's fine work," she says. "God willing, she'll do the same one day."

“Thank you,” I say. “Would you like some more tea?” 

My mother nods, seeming pleased, and Abigail places her hand to her heart as she smiles, holding out her empty cup, and I take their mugs and go.

In my family, dinner is normally taken late or not at all on Sunday evenings, but my father has told us to go home and prepare a little bit of food for ourselves. Even so, it’s already dark when Caleb, the Blacks, and I begin the one-block journey to the bus stop that will take us to our neighborhood. 

 Robert and Susan walk closely, saying nothing. Caleb carries a sheaf of papers under his left arm—an assignment from Eaton. This past year, he’s done his twenty weekly compulsory volunteer hours in the Leader’s office. Maybe that’s why he’s been such an impeccable exemplar of service and respect these days. I picture whacking him on the head with them until he turns back into his old self.

We only wait two minutes until the bus turns the corner and stops for us. It’s driven by some factionless woman with a bird’s nest of black hair and a sunken, wrinkled face. Caleb lets all of us on first and writes our names down on the list that keeps track of passengers for city planning. He gives up his seat to a Candor woman in shiny black dress shoes, and then again when an Amity man comes in with grocery bags. We follow him to stand at the back. 

“I hope Abigail and her new baby are doing alright, Beatrice.” says Robert. “It was good to see them at church for the first time.”

“She’s well, thank you,” I say. “She and my mother seem to get along.” We’re not supposed to gossip, but my father says it’s fine to speak well of others behind their backs. He calls it magnifying the God in them. 

“Everyone gets along with your mother, Beatrice,” says Robert softly. Case in point.

“Our father has nothing but good things to say about Abigail’s husband, Thomas,” says Susan. “He mentions his punctuality all the time. Says it’s an overlooked aspect of service.”

“Do you think we’ll be seeing her?” Robert asks. “After we Choose?” 

“Well,” says Caleb, “even if we don’t get assigned to their committees, if we’re in the same section of the city there’s no reason why we won’t see them around in the chapel and the meeting hall. God be gracious, little Margaret and her future sibling will only be a little bit older than our kids.” 

Robert and Susan exchange a look. 

“I don’t mean to speculate, but I’ve heard,” Susan says in a low voice, “that the Council’s new idea is to place us away from our parents, at least for the first few years. Since there are so many of us now, to make us all more connected.” 

Caleb wrinkles his nose like he’s going to laugh.

“That was more applicable to children with multiple siblings, who worship at bigger churches. Susan, you’re right that we shouldn’t speculate, but I don’t believe any of us will have to worry.” 

Our futures secured, Susan threads her arm around the bus pole. Caleb faces forward. We are passing through the largest stretch of uninhabited city. No one under the protection of a faction lives here, and so the bus doesn’t stop.

 The streetlights flicker on the half-thawed snow. The city is mostly quiet right now, but between the buildings there is some movement—factionless, or else Dauntless patrolling. It is cold enough these days that some of the inhabitants have stuffed multicolored rags in the windows where the city won’t let them light fires. The little bits of fabric wave and twist like streamers in the wind. I wonder if they’re going to be okay. The freeze has been rough this year.

The bus goes over a series of potholes that we know well. Robert is taller than the rest of us and stumbles a little bit. As I extend my hand to help steady him, I can see the way he glances at me, not letting his eyes linger for longer than is approved; at the same time, there is something there that might be expressed slowly, let out in short bursts in the saving of my seat, or going out of his way to open my doors, until it is finally let out all at once and forever when he chooses to marry me a year or two from now in the chapel. 

When I turn it over in my mind, the idea isn’t as horrific as, say, being locked in a closet without food, or jumping in the lake in the middle of winter. He’s not a bad-looking guy, I admit to myself. But when I look again at him, I realize the idea isn’t particularly palatable either. 

I wonder if Susan would like to marry Caleb after we Choose. From the way she is draping herself a little bit on the bus pole, shoulders turned towards him, the thought has definitely occurred to her. As for Caleb, I’ve caught him studying her shoes, her ear, her hands, when he thinks she isn’t looking. Sometimes, in class or during a Community Meeting, he will stare not at the speaker but at the back of her neck.

It probably doesn’t hurt that Susan is gorgeous, with the same smooth coppery skin and long eyelashes as her brother — a knockout , the other factions would say. Not as gangly as I am, not as bug-eyed. Her hair shines dark and lustrous even in an Abnegation bun. 

I picture attending their wedding. She and Caleb would be one of those annoyingly attractive married couples. Robert and I would be like two praying mantises as husband and wife. 

What a ridiculous, vain thought, says my father in my mind. 

Not now! I tell him. 

“Aptitude tests tomorrow,” says Robert, pretending to examine the scene outside the window. 

I know, I know, I know, I want to sing.

“Are you excited for yours, Beatrice?” asks Susan. 

I answer in the affirmative as noncommittally as I possibly can. 

“Let’s be clear,” says Caleb, “This is Matthews’ initiative. These so-called tests are not going to tell us anything we don’t already know. They’re a transparent ploy to capture more and better data so that she can target us.”

“Dad says that’s the Council’s opinion, too,” says Robert. “A full investigation is on the list, isn’t it?”

“Too many other things to take care of before they can get to it. So we still have to take them tomorrow,” Caleb says ruefully. 

“What men and women do, God can always undo,” says Susan. She has sat down behind me. I remind myself, not for the first time, that I can make other friends when I leave Abnegation. 

“Absolutely,” says Caleb. “Until three years ago it was expected, encouraged even, that we should make this choice without a test. We all grew up praying about this, knowing it was a sacred responsibility. There is absolutely no sense in subjecting young people to invasive questions about what should be a private decision between us and God. It’s disgusting.”

“It’s despicable,” says Robert.

“It’s immoral,” Susan chimes in.

“I’m sure there’s some use to them,” I say. 

Caleb turns towards me just as the bus is turning a sharp corner. His stance is so steady that he doesn’t wobble even a little bit.

“What do you mean by that, Beatrice?” he asks. His tone is dead serious. 

“Well,” I say, “I was informed that the purpose of implementing the tests was to ensure that there would be a lower rate of factionlessness pre-membership and post-Choosing. We’re teenagers. Our frontal lobes aren’t formed yet. I’m just saying that this is the type of thing a lot of people might need some guidance on, and the test—”

“Where did you read that?” Robert asks. 

“The school newsletter.”

“That’s completely untrue,” says Caleb. “One session with a counselor, in someone’s home faction or at school, could solve this problem. After a certain point there has to be some amount of personal responsibility. Our society can’t function without it.”

Robert nods. Susan looks concerned. The four of us sit in silence for the next two blocks as the bus goes over a series of speed bumps. Finally, it stops at the big dogwood tree— leafless now —that stands at the border of our neighborhood. 

The house isn’t lit up when we get back. Caleb turns the key in its lock, jiggling it hard until it clicks open.

“That was the most self-absorbed I’ve seen you be in a long time, Beatrice.” 

“What,” I mumble, “I’m not allowed to chat about what I’ve read in the school newsletter?”

“No, you’re not,” he says, stepping in and lighting the kerosene lamp on the kitchen counter. “You know why.” 

I want to say a million things. Instead he asks, “Why were you in the bathroom so long during the service tonight?” 

“My stomach really hurt,” I say. He doesn’t get it, so I go on. “It normally hurts a lot around this time of the month.” 

Referencing menstruation always gets him to shut up. It’s Caleb’s weak spot, and Dad’s too. If it didn’t work well I wouldn’t use it so often. But after a brief mortified glance away, he meets my eyes. 

“You can’t keep defending that woman.”

“I know.” 

“She’s a tyrant and a monster.”

“I’m aware.” 

“Are you?” he asks. “Because it seems to me like you don’t get it. She’s not just the product of a rotten ideology and a rotten faction. She causes rot. She is accelerating the rot of our entire city and if we’re not careful she’s going to rot it straight to the core.” 

“I’ve been there for a lot of the conversations you’ve been there for, yes.” 

“No, you haven’t.” He laughs mirthlessly before his face turns stern again. “The constant horrible press is one thing. Forced secularization is one thing. But Erudite doctors have started to deny our pregnant women beds in hospitals . They’ve started to cut off water to our churches. They’re breaking all their agreements left and right. That little memorial celebration of theirs used more electricity than the city can actually support. It’s not funny , Beatrice. It’s also not a reason to sneak out of the service.” 

He sits on our couch and sets his sheaf of papers down on the low table. I just stand there and continue to take it.

“Look,” he says, turning to look at me as I start to get some oatmeal out of the kitchen cupboard. “I tell you this not out of any anger towards you. I can’t say I haven’t been frustrated with  all of this myself. I know you’ve heard Dad and the other Councilmen go on and on about her and I know it gets exhausting. You’ve always been so willing to see the best in people who are being criticized, like they’re relatives. It’s very sweet. It’s what makes you my sister.” 

Is it? He is staring at me as I get the pot down, probably looking for signs of comprehension in my face.  

“Marcus says that Erudite needs new leadership, Beatrice. We have tried to meet Matthews’ demands in a practical way, and she will not listen . The Erudite have never known how to tell when enough is enough. It’s just not one of their cultural priorities. That’s why they need us. That’s why we all need each other.” 

He fills a cup of water from the purified tank in the kitchen and pours it into the pot. “When you and I Choose the day after tomorrow, I don’t want this to distract us from those prayers. I don’t want you to still be thinking about this when we’re assigned Committees and finding spouses. It shouldn’t be a source of stress for you.”

When we’re assigned Committees. When we find spouses. “I appreciate that, Caleb.” 

“No, it’s fine. I just worry about you,” he says. “This is a difficult moment for the city, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a difficult moment for us.”

“Yeah, of course.” 

I shake the oatmeal out into the pot, watching him out of the corner of my eye. Caleb is distinctive even at home, with curly black hair that looks nothing like the rest of my family, a strong nose, and thin, pinched lips that are right now spreading into one of his casual smiles. None of that is supposed to matter in Abnegation, but of course it does. He stands out. It’s why he’s volunteering in Marcus’ office, and not one of the other sons of Council fathers; it’s why he talks to me, to everyone, like his opinion actually means something. 

“I’ll grab a bowl once the food’s done,” he says. “See you tomorrow. Don’t worry about washing up; I’ll do it.” He grabs his sheaf of papers and starts to head to his room to pray before bed, or else reread the Scripture passage that we read today. He probably won’t end up washing up. I’ll get to it before he does anyway. 

Before he goes, he turns to me again and stands there looking at me, holding the papers to his chest. 

“The test doesn’t have to change our choices, Beatrice,” he says. “In fact, it probably shouldn’t.” 

With that, he leaves, and does not come back for a bowl. 

After the washing up, after I’ve braided my hair and brushed my teeth, I lie in my childhood bed for the second-to-last time and try to pray. I go through the prayers I know by rote and they feel as uselessly mechanical as they always have. Some nights I am able to imagine the God, large and far away as He might be, who selflessly gave of Himself so that our city on a rock might survive. Tonight, I reach into that corner of my mind and find nothing.

Instead I let myself think about all the little mannerisms Caleb has borrowed from Marcus Eaton. I think about my mom’s little brown wisps of hair, and the placid way she looked as we packed the baskets of food and blankets to take to Abigail’s house a few days ago, and the way she knew, just instinctively, to find me with the tea before I could embarrass myself again. I think about my dad, and his implacable back straight in the pew, and how good he has become at ignoring all the things he doesn’t want to see. I try on a life without them, a life without Abnegation, in my mind. It makes me dizzy as I lie there.

When I dream, it is of blue lanterns bobbing in an endless black lake.

Chapter Text

The first thing I hung up in my office after I was inaugurated was an antique flag. 

It looks like the modern city flag— a white field with two light blue bars, five red six-pointed stars atop it —except for the omission of the fifth star. I found it in the basement of the city library when I was twenty-two. I still remember pulling it out from between yellowing pages, shaking the dust off it, and doing a double take. There was a secret thrill about it back then — a kind of blasphemy in its cheap, unraveling stitches, the small cigarette burn in the corner of the polyester. Heroically uncivilized. And to find it in the library? It was almost crass.

I chuckle at myself then. There is nothing real to fear from impiety; my constituents crave it so much they decided to elect me. So I hung it up, alongside an abstract painting of mine. It presents a test to everyone who sees it. Some pretend not to notice it. Others do, and then visibly struggle to not mention it. The ones who do mention it struggle to do so tactfully. I know what they’re thinking: is it a misprint? A statement? Worst, scariest of all: is it both ? 

I usually wave these concerns off with a laugh and a citation of American history. The flag is anachronistic, not seditious, though according to Marcus Eaton anything older than living memory and remotely true is covert treason. Despite popular opinion, the five stars on Chicago’s flag do not represent the five factions and never have. They instead represent special events in the city’s history. The fifth star was added so long after the fourth, but so far before our independence, that it is easy to forget that we were ever part of the old States. It needs saying, however, that we were and we always have been.

Cara McIntyre, my secretary, is the only one who understands the flag for what it is. When she came for her interview, she had already passed a battery of tests— written, oral, timed, etcetera —on shorthand and typing and filing and memorization and scheduling. She was not head and shoulders above the rest, but she did well. 

She walked into my office, sat down in her chair, and nodded as I explained the job requirements to her. At the end of the interview she shook my hand and thanked me gravely for the opportunity. I was worried she hadn’t even registered the flag, then, surprised by my own worry, I dismissed it as irrelevant to finding someone who could handle my secretarial work. That’s not what the flag is for, I told myself. Watching people react is just a fringe benefit.

The next day I sat down at my desk to find a small card with Cara’s name on it. On top of it sat a dented keychain, a hunk of metal and enamel that looked like it had been fished out of the lake. I turned it over. Sure enough, there was the white field, the sky blue bars— a color we now know as Erudite blue, a few hundred years after Chicago’s founding—and four bright red six-pointed stars. On the back of the card was a message written in precise marker: c. 2010s.

The little ways Cara shows she understands— and there have easily been a hundred similar moments since —are part of why I don’t complain too much when she is two or three minutes late for work, as she is today. Today, I have decided, is going to be a good day for us whether everyone else wants it to be or not. Through my office window, I can see the edges of the lake melting, the waves gently lapping at the edges of the highway. Below me on the street, I see a crowd of city Amity lining up at a food stand, laughing and joking with the proprietor. There are even birds singing. My mood is bulletproof.

Cara walks in at 8:05. She is carrying a travel mug full of tea and a half-eaten breakfast roll, briefcase slung over her shoulder haphazardly. She sets them down to hang her coat— a fashionable sky-colored thing I’ve never seen before— on the rack near the door.

“That coat doesn’t look particularly warm,” I say by way of greeting. 

“I’m sorry I’m late, Dr. Matthews.” 

“Will?” She’s the sole caretaker of her younger brother.

“He’s seventeen today.” 

“Wish him a happy birthday from me.” 

“I will, ma’am. Thank you.” 

Cara moves to her desk in the corner of the room, unpacking the briefcase that contains the files for today’s meetings. Today there will be four: one with Johanna Reyes of Amity, one with the Science Education Subcommittee, one with the Candor Trade Commissioner, and one with the Special Committee I put together to refine the Aptitude Tests. The reports from the Aptitude Tests are on top; I have to attend their roundtable in forty minutes. They’re finalizing how the tests will be supervised, eliminating proctor error. 

“Coffee?” she asks. 

“Yes, please,” I say. “Make yourself a cup too.” 

“Really?” She raises her eyebrows.

“Strength for the day. An antidote to Eaton and his anti-scientific rhetoric.” 

She goes over to the little French press that I keep on my tea caddy and gently removes the plastic band from the bag of coffee. Each plant is grown in a state-of-the-art greenhouse within the city limits. My age is not an age of deprivation.

“How did Will’s Day of Remembrance go?” 

“He said it went well. Joined up with me at the parade, then went on to the exhibit with his school friends. They got to the electronic exhibit right before they shut it down for the night.”

“It’s good to hear the teenagers appreciate it.” 

“I hope it wasn’t his last parade,” she says while removing a paper filter from the package. “No way of knowing his choice yet.” 

“You haven’t discussed it?” 

“No.” 

“Why not?”

“He’s old-fashioned. Requested privacy to think about it.” She measures the coffee and shakes it out, then pours a noisy stream of water from the tea caddy’s carafe into my little electric kettle. “I wish we had talked about it last night.”

I don’t respond with the typical platitudes about teenagers preparing to Choose— He’ll do well no matter what , he’s prepared well, and so on and so forth —both because I don’t know Will well and because we’ve both been working days and nights to make sure the Choosing process is safer and more humane. Instead I say, “I know it’s bound to be hard on you when he leaves.” 

“I think he’s thinking about Candor. Dauntless, possibly.” 

“Good choices.” Common ones, too, for Erudite kids. “Is he physically ready for military life?” 

She pauses, considering. “He would do well enough for himself in the city guard or as an attorney or what have you. Whether or not he passes initiation is not what keeps me up at night.” 

“Is it the uncertainty of his Choice that bothers you, or the prospect of him being an adult without you?” 

“It’s the uncertainty of his Choice. The best parts of me know there’s no reason to fret over it, that he’ll find fellowship wherever he goes, but I worry.” 

“He’s your brother. It’s understandable.” 

“Knowing the extent of the work that needs to be done isn’t helpful.” 

“We fishermen profit from storms.”

The kettle is on its way to boiling. We settle into a companionable silence as she moves away from the caddy to her desk and starts sorting sheaves of paper. She furrows her brow.

“He’s so moral,” she says. “He’s so… correct. He knows things that can’t be easily taught, things I never taught him. When to give the answer and when to be silent. What his opinion is and how to follow it. He’s attentive without being scrupulous. A good kid.” 

“What’s provoked this sudden look at his character?” I ask her. 

“Nothing. He’s a puzzle I can’t figure out, half the time. I don’t know where any of his good traits come from. It’s maddening.” 

“Neither of us can protect him if he joins Abnegation, however remote the possibility,” I remind her solemnly. 

“He won’t, but he wouldn’t be my brother then.” 

“Faction before blood.” 

The kettle begins to boil. Cara walks over to pour the water over the coffee grounds. “Quite a few Councilmen’s kids are Choosing tomorrow too,” she mentions.

“The Blacks, the Priors, the Howells, I think.”

“The Priors?” 

“Yes.”  

“It really should make me feel something,” I laugh, “that my former classmates have children old enough to Choose.”

“You’re busy,” Cara says drily. “You have more important things to worry about than the normal passage of time.”

I do. To wit: “The elder Prior kid is Eaton’s protege.” 

She raises her eyebrows as she catches my meaning. “Caleb, right?” 

“Yes.” His sister’s name is Beatrice.

“A zealot?” 

“A kid.” 

Cara glances up from pressing down the plunger on the French press. “He could be a real foothold,” I admit. “I’m consulting with our sources.” 

“George Wu?”

A pause.

We both know my office isn’t bugged. I verify that personally every single week. Still, Wu’s name always fits strangely in her mouth when she says it. 

“Him and some others. The kid’s not a biological Prior. We’ll probably work that angle.” 

“The girl’s his biologically?” 

“Yes.” 

She hands me the cup of coffee, with two sugars like I like it, and takes her own back to her desk. “I talked to Wu the other day,” she says far too casually. “He seems to have leads on Evelyn. There might not be a need to involve the kid.”

“Caleb is one of many people we might involve,” I remind her. “Coulter and his network in Dauntless have also been in contact. Things are progressing well. If we get our information, we might be ready in a couple of months.” 

“For my own knowledge, how close might this kid get us to her whereabouts?” 

“He’s got Marcus’ ear. He has, from what I can tell, a great deal of access to Marcus’ personal effects.”  

“I see,” she says quietly, looking down at her own cup. “Well, if needs must, then needs must.”

“Let‘s not cross bridges before we come to them.” 

“If this is our chance—” 

“It might be,” I say. “But if it’s not, we can wait some more. If we do this right, we’ll only need to do it once. I’d rather wait another year than risk personnel, whether that be Wu or Coulter’s people or any of us. Or the Prior kid.” 

If I’m being honest, I don’t know if I believe myself. Sometimes, when I’m listening to Marcus Eaton during interfaction meetings, the only way I can manage to not excuse myself is to imagine how his bullet-riddled body will look after all is said and done. But it is so easy to remember patience in the comfort of my office, with my flag on the wall and a warm cup of coffee in my hand. 

I sip the coffee slowly. I feel a little bit more alive just smelling it. It tastes like Christmas morning and exam season and the anticipation before opening the newspaper. It’s so expensive, especially with all the sugar, but I love it so much. After Eaton is gone, I tell myself, I will let myself drink a cup a day while we rebuild. 

Suddenly, Cara breaks the silence.

“What did you mean when you said Caleb Prior is a kid ?”

“He’s still accessible to us.” 

“How do you know that?” 

I pause for a moment, pleased to have been asked the question. Another reason I hired her. “I don’t know for certain, but teenage interpersonal decision-making almost always comes down to a poorly weighted, unexamined set of priorities. He’s almost certainly not likely to think through the practical implications of something once it’s grabbed him. All that’s necessarily in his case is to find, or make, something that will grab him more than the fear of God or Eaton. That will come easily.”

“How do you propose to do that, if the adoption angle fails?” 

“It might fail. He might not look upon his adoption as something shameful, or feel like he’s missing anything, but there’s about a thousand different needs he might have that we could meet. Of course, everything does come down to which faction he ends up in, for practical reasons.” 

“Doesn’t it always?” she murmurs into her coffee.

“What?” 

“Come down to what faction a kid ends up in?” 

“It often does. There’s nothing wrong with that.” 

She smiles wanly. “I’m intrigued, from a sociological perspective, about the changes in the way we treat the Choice. I have some thoughts.” 

Cara was Initiated as a sociology trainee before she went through secretarial training. “And here I thought we were just enjoying some coffee.”

“You’re the one who’s written several political science books,” she says. 

“Let’s hear it,” I say. 

“All of our assumptions used to hinge on the idea that the Choice should be personal, private. That it is largely predetermined, revealed instead of made. I remember going through school and being told that the best way to come to a decision was to pray. Asking our friends about their Choices was about on par with asking them if they had lost their virginity. Now, my brother is the odd one out. It’d be nice to do a study on what this might mean for us all.”

“We used to take bets, as young librarians, on who would go where,” I tell her. “The old guard hated it, thought it was crass. Discouraged it as much as possible. Said we were making the kids’ personal decisions into spectacle for ourselves. What I wanted to say then is that those decisions are public spectacle. The founders designed it that way, and that is because which faction you Choose is an inherently consequential decision for the city as a whol.” 

“I’m not referring to the faction decision process as a matter of public policy.”

“Neither am I. Looking at anyone’s life trajectory, you can see that a Choice is more than a simple, utilitarian decision. It's also more than a way to tell what talent is going where. It’s an announcement, and a statement of priorities, in front of the entire community. If the Choices are private, why is it tradition to drag ourselves to the Hub every year and sit through the Ceremony? If the Choices mark the first real step towards adulthood, why do we simply gloss over the fact that adulthood means contributing to the collective? Not in a self-flagellatory Stiff way, mind you, but simply because the teenagers are shifting into their productive working years.” 

“I do worry,” she says, chewing on her lip. “It puts a lot of pressure on the teenagers. All this in the middle of such a delicate phase. I think the best futures are made moment to moment.”

“What do you mean from moment to moment?” 

“I’m not saying we should postpone them once things change with Marcus. I’m just saying we might need to soften the blow a little bit. How many perfectly decent minds are cleaning toilets right now because they made a bad teenage decision?”

“The capacity to make a reasoned decision about a major life shift is indicative of the kind of conscientiousness you need to be a successful faction member. That should be present by the age of seventeen. The Choices are our own coming-of-age, a vital cultural marker of psychosocial development. They are the type of thing that benefit from being taken too seriously and not seriously at all.” 

Cara turns her back and begins to straighten up the tea caddy, looking chastened. Maybe I should have softened the party line a bit and let in some more of my own thoughts. Oh well. I’m her superior, and she can deal with it. 

“You’re right,” she says. “I just… might not see the use of a public, permanent affirmation of individual values like you do.” 

“I think it’s indulgent, in a good way,” I say honestly. “I think it’s indicative of freedom within limits. There was a period, however short, when you could not move between factions. The skills and values you learned as a child were the ones you carried all your life. We had no margin for error if we all wanted to eat. Now we can drink coffee and sew flounces on our coats. Some kids even make Choices to spite their parents and end up doing alright for themselves.”

“Did you make your Choice to spite your parents?” she snorts.

“Of course not.” 

“Can I have an example, then?” 

I eye her warily. Only for Cara. “Andrew Prior was in my class,” I say. “We studied together, and we were friends. I was convinced, even then, that he would go into politics. I was certain the two of us would help to remake the faction. But at the time, he was dating Natalie Wright, of Dauntless. When he made his Choice for them both, he did not just Choose a place where his political ambitions could play out on the largest possible scale. He Chose a place where he and Natalie would be expected, enforced, to stay together for life and bear children. He Chose a place where they would both be expected, culturally at the very least, to attend worship services.” There is a lump in my throat for some reason. “There are countless stories like his. A transfer from Amity to Dauntless, for instance, is noteworthy for all the same reasons.” 

“I didn’t know that you and Andrew Prior were that close,” Cara murmurs.

“That’s irrelevant,” I try to say evenly. “He didn’t leave because of Natalie. He left in order to repudiate the values we were taught, and to enrich himself personally. In high school he’d eat half from the school garden and half from my lunchbox. I imagine he was drawn in by the promise of daily hot meals and an obedient wife.”

“You’re very… clear-eyed about this,” she says.

“Blunt,” I correct her. “I’m blunt. I could bemoan his intellectual dishonesty. I could call him a fair-weather friend. This stays between us, but when I was a new member I tried to sneak into the Stiff compound to get the last word. However, it’s the height of idiocy to dwell on a broken relationship from high school when the man in question has proven about ten thousand times over that he’ll revoke our rights when he gets the chance.” 

Cara returns to sorting papers in silence. I slurp my coffee. Suddenly I feel an intense pang of something— protectiveness, I don’t know —towards her. I let the feeling sit, roll it over in my mind to decide if I should act on it. We’ve got five minutes before Reyes.

“Cara?” I ask. 

“Yes, ma’am?” 

“I’d like to give you some advice regarding your brother.” 

She leans forward, eyes wide. “Yes, ma’am?” 

“You and I, Coulter, and Wu, and a few others— we all have some information the rest of the city does not have. We don’t know how long it will take to replace Eaton, but we do know it will happen. It would not be… unethical, strictly speaking, to use this information to help others.” 

She looks confused. I’ve got to clarify. “Let your brother go where he will be needed. When this happens, as it must, we don’t know where this year’s crop of seventeen-year-olds will be. But you know where your brother should be. You know where others should be, unusual cases that might be best positioned to help us. Your brother’s choice is his own, of course. But as his sister, you have more potential to influence it than you might think.” 

I watch as the words register in her eyes. Everywhere but here, we speak in code, breezy comments and dinner party double-talk. Out of necessity, I have become one of those annoying politicians who insinuates. But I have to say something. 

“If it’s in your power to make sure he’s okay, to make sure the kids are okay… you should do so.” 

“Of course,” she says.

“I trust you’ll use discretion when you’re proctoring.” 

“Of course.”

“We’re not going to be sparing any Stiffs,” I tell her. “Not unless we need them. We can’t afford to. One Stiff could get to Amity, and then we’ll all be ruined for sure. The Stiffs won’t just come for the adults who make these decisions with their eyes open. They’ll come for our kids. Our elderly. Our ill. If we fight back, and we lose, we will not be given half rations or made factionless en masse. If we lose, the Abnegation will erase us from the face of the city.” 

Her face sobers considerably. For a while she is quiet. This might be the first time this has occurred to her.

“Four minutes to Reyes,” I say. “I think I’ll use the restroom.” 

“Yes,” she says softly. “Yes, of course.” 

I take a last sip of coffee. As I leave, I reach into my jacket pocket to run my fingers over the enamel flag.

Chapter Text

The Meeting Hall bells wake me up too early. I blink open my eyes, crack my neck muscles, and let the room come into focus. A sunbeam streams blithely across my bedside rug. Outside the window, some bird is twittering its little head off. 

 Too much to look forward to. Yesterday was my last church service; today is my last day of school. I’ll pick up my graduation certificate, my finals scores, and, best of all, the results of the Aptitude Test. They will almost certainly be Erudite, and I will almost certainly leave.

I glance guiltily at the stack of books on my desk. Wedged in between Statistics and Faction History is a slim pamphlet I hand-copied in Middle Levels from the encyclopedia: a step-by-step description of the Erudite Initiation process. It is dog-eared and underlined and annotated with stories I’ve overheard. The steps are clear. The way is straight. 

I throw off my quilt and put my feet on the floor. What will it be like with no one talking over me? How does it feel when people answer your questions out of the pure desire for you to know?

The bells mean that Dad’s up, gone to an early council Meeting. Caleb might not be stirring yet. I can already hear Mom, the perpetual insomniac, moving around. There is the distant slapping sound of kneading coming from the kitchen. When we were toddlers and Dad wasn’t a full council member yet, we lived in an apartment complex with a communal oven. She baked then, too, for everyone. 

If I went into the kitchen, Mom would probably chide me for not sleeping enough and chase me out with floury hands until Dad got back from the Meeting. Instead, I get dressed slowly. Undergarments. Shift. Outer dress. Socks. Shoes. Watch strapped around my wrist, comfort in the tick-tick-tick of it, the soft ash-colored leather of the only ornamentation we are allowed.

 By the bells, it’s around seven o’clock. I take my time brushing and braiding my hair into its bun. I pack my bag and drape a shawl over my shoulders. The smell of baking begins to creep under the door. When I come down the hallway thirty minutes later, Mom is taking a fat loaf with dark speckles out of the oven. Tears come to the corner of my eyes. She made nut bread. 

“Good morning, Beatrice,” she says. 

“Thank you very much,” I say, “for the bread.” I force myself not to lean in to smell it better. The raisins on top make a little Chicago star.

She smiles with all her teeth. “Help me wipe down the counter.” 

Dad is so late coming back that I think Mom will have to lead the breakfast reading. When he finally gets in, his face is flushed and his glasses are slipping down his nose. He spots the nut bread while he’s dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief, which he sets down on the table to squeeze my mother’s hand. 

“God is good through you today, Natalie,” he says. 

“Where’s Caleb?” I start to ask.

“He’s coming,” says my father. He’s just crossed the room to hang up his coat when Caleb hurries through the door, laden with a brown paper bag, a thick copy of the Abnegation Scriptures, and what looks like two dossiers of legal documents.

“Since when do you go to early-morning Council Meetings?” I say. 

“Good morning to you too, Beatrice,” he scolds me, setting down his stuff. “Marcus asked for me.” 

“Really?” says my mother. She opens the bag and takes out a huge pear. 

“The fruit’s from him.” 

“How nice,” says my mother. “I didn’t know they could grow these out of season.”

“He thanks you for seeing his perspective in the meeting today,” Caleb says.

My father chuckles. Pears are his favorite. “God is good through Marcus today as well.”  

“Is he doing well?” asks my mother. 

“He’s… fine,” says Caleb. “He’s been spending most of his time working on his Choosing Ceremony speech.” 

Mom motions with her head to the clock on the wall. 

“Thank you, Natalie,” says Dad. “Hand me that, please.” 

He takes the book of Scripture and slowly thumbs to the section in the back. We settle into our seats and bow our heads.

“These are the words so written,” he begins reverently, “by the Founder for the education of the Savior’s Holy Church of Self-Abnegation, which shall govern the people.”

“Through Your Word we face ever outwards,” we reply. Steam has stopped rising from the bread basket. I hope it’ll still be warm by the time we’re done.

“‘Our God who has delivered us from the danger of atomization, who has carried us over the rising flood and turned our faces from the thick air which is toxic and corrosive to mankind, speaks through time to His people: 

For your city shall be as one body with many parts. The eye, hands, feet, and tongue are all part of the body. No one says to a foot, ‘You are not a part of the body,’ because it cannot taste, and no one says to a tongue, ‘You are not a part of the body,’ because it cannot walk. For if the whole body were a hand, how could we look for our salvation? And if the whole body were an eye, how could we repair the walls that are the glory of God? God has made the tongue to speak and the hand to grasp, and so I say to you: cut not one part away, and turn not away from your God. It is God’s will that you should serve in those parts best appointed to you. So you shall be useful beyond yourself, as the feet that walk are useful to the eyes that see.’” 

He shuts the book slowly. “May the Word become service.”

“Thanks be to God,” we drone. 

I begin to get up from the table.

“Not yet, Beatrice,” Dad says. “Let’s sit for a minute and meditate on that.”

After breakfast, Dad sits with a leftover pear and a fresh newspaper from the doorstep. Mom and I clear away the dishes while Caleb hunches over his files, squinting at them like they’re a hard math problem.

“Take care you’re not late for your volunteer hours, Beatrice,” says my father. “It’s getting to eight-thirty.”

Caleb cuts in before I can. “We’re excused today.”

“Right,” Dad says. “Well, that’s a clear violation of the right to intrafaction education of dependents, and we’ll be hearing about it in three months.”

“That’s what I was saying,” says Caleb.

Every year about three months from now, Erudite revises one part of the curriculum or another and sends it to the council for final approval. This always results in my father frowning extra deeply and sighing extra hard behind his morning newspaper for as long as it takes for them to resolve the issue. Last year there was a huge protest outside the Meeting Hall during a hearing on the inclusion of world history in place of faction history. Marcus called it “vain and shortsighted.” Jeanine called it “an investment in human capital.” 

“I baked another loaf,” says my mother, “to take to Constance across the street. We were out of nuts, unfortunately. But I might see if they have anything that needs mending.”

Constance is a pasty-faced woman in her late twenties who used to teach Caleb piano lessons. “Has something happened?” 

“She and her husband,” Dad says, flipping a newspaper page, “have finally been blessed with new adoptive children. Twins. They’ll be presented to the faction at the service after next.” 

“I heard that,” Mom says. “Wasn’t there some unfortunate business with that?” 

“Unfortunate how?” asks Caleb. 

“Well, the factionless woman who gave birth to them refused to give them up,” says Dad dispassionately. “The police became involved. She was tried and brought to justice. She’s serving a life sentence on the pollution removal corps.” 

Caleb has fixed his eyes on the wall, wiping his hands on his pants. He looks a million miles away.

“Best be on your way,” says Dad. 

“Do you know anything about how the test will be structured?” I ask him. 

“Why do you want to know?” he says. 

“So she can get it over with,” says Caleb. “If it’s quick, you might even be able to make the tail end of your volunteer hours. That could make up for the service you missed yesterday.”

“Don’t you have something of Marcus’ to underline?” I say. 

“Children ,” warns my father. 

 One more day.

The last question on the faction history final was the easiest. 

In the Charter, it’s written that members of all factions must collectively participate in three areas of civic life. Name all three.

AREA ONE, I wrote. PRODUCTION/DISTRIBUTION OF ESSENTIAL RESOURCES (FOOD WATER MEDICINE SHELTER ETC) TO ALL FACTION MEMBERS. This was the material reason the faction system was formed post-War, to unify different cults and tribes.

AREA TWO: THE JUSTICE SYSTEM. This is the mess of inter- and intrafaction laws, statutes, guidelines, whispered suggestions, and “common law” grandfathered in from Old America by which, as Caleb says, Candor justifies its own existence.

AREA THREE: EDUCATION FROM AGES SEVEN TO SEVENTEEN. In theory, thirty hours a week of class from Lower Levels to Upper Levels is supposed to teach every student enough math, basic science, and assorted history and art to be able to transfer to any other faction. In practice, Erudite and Candor children tend to dominate the classroom— when they’re not being outcompeted by the subsection of Abnegation who can eavesdrop on political conversations, that is.

The Upper Levels building itself stands out from blocks away. Its three stories are covered in bright green paint that chips more with every passing year. Since green is claimed by no one, it should look like it belongs to everyone. I always thought of it as belonging to another faction altogether: its students, dependents, the teenagers not yet old enough to Choose. 

The bus lets us off two blocks away. As we approach the building, I spot an Amity girl sitting on a milk crate under a tree, tuning a guitar. Her friends, decked out in ribbons, begin to stamp their feet as she strums. The gathering crowd is a sparse mixture of swaying Amity and smirking older kids. Still, the girls shake their tambourines in time to something, if not the meter of the song.

 “To everything, turn, turn, turn, there is a season, turn, turn, turn, ” one of them shouts into my ear as we enter, “and a time to every purpose under heaven.”

I snort. Caleb scowls. 

Inside is beautiful chaos. Teenagers in all colors are scrambling to clean out their lockers, pick up their certificates, find their teachers to negotiate a better grade. Several are crowded around the big bulletin board in the hallway, where the finals scores are always posted. I plan to look at it on the way out, to triple-check my chances in Erudite. Caleb’s eyes flicker towards it before he pulls himself back. Abnegation Initiation won’t care. 

“Are you ready?” I ask him. 

“Are you ?” he says. After this morning, I half-expect a lecture about avoiding temptation and how the righteous path is not always the easy path. When he hesitates, I wait for him to start in on Jeanine. Instead he just stands there, hands in pockets, watching the last-day scene unfolding in the hallway for a little while. 

“Caleb!” I hear someone call. Then, belatedly, “Beatrice!” 

A group in gray is coming towards us. It’s the Blacks, Rebecca Howell, Leah Alden, and some other Councilmen’s children, Caleb’s friends. Leah and I are often on the same volunteering schedule. If Caleb doesn’t go for Susan Black, I bet he’ll go for her.

“Good morning,” I say. No one replies. 

“How’re you doing, Caleb?” Robert asks. We begin walking across the hall to the landing of the stairway.

“I’m well,” he says. “On with the farce, I suppose.”

“Susan told me you were at the Meeting Hall this morning,” Leah says. 

“I was, actually,” he says. “Just some errands for Marcus.” 

“Are you allowed to tell us what kind?” Susan asks. 

As he begins to elaborate, a Candor girl with black bangs trips over her shoelace and bounces down half a flight of stairs. Her bag splits open, spraying books and papers everywhere. With reflexes honed from a lifetime of performative helpfulness, Susan scrambles to gather them.

The Candor girl turns away without making eye contact, dusts herself off, and snatches up her broken bag.

“Fuckin’ Stiff,” she mutters. “Don’t touch me, bitch.”

I swallow hard. Susan jerks back her hand like she’s been bitten and returns to the middle of the group. Robert and Caleb come to either end and the girls close in, forming the shield we always do around one of our own. 

We get to the bottom floor without further trouble.

The basement was probably the school’s cafeteria pre-War, but getting the ancient kitchen equipment to work is a lost cause. Instead, we use it for special events, overflow testing, and after-school activities. The linoleum floor is a hideous brown-red color, like puke, with little triangles in the pattern that remind me of carrots. Today it has been covered with a wrinkled black carpet that leads to one of several rickety registration desks, mismatched tables obviously repurposed from classrooms. The names of the factions have been roughly scrawled on lined paper and stuck to the front of each one, though I notice the people manning the desks do not match the factions they were assigned to. There are maybe four people in line to get tested. Behind the desks, there’s a dusty black curtain through which harried-looking Erudite members hurry back and forth. It is drooping noticeably on one side.

I turn to Caleb to make a joke, but he is stone-faced, running the hem of his shirt between his thumb and forefinger. When we were little, he used to do the same thing during visits to the doctor. 

“Are you alright?” I whisper to him. 

“I’m fine.”

“You’re breathing fast,” I point out.

He grits his teeth. “Get in the line, Beatrice.”

Soon, more people begin to trickle into the room. I watch Caleb as our friends give their names and get escorted, one by one, behind the curtain. His breathing slows, but he never stops fingering the hem of his shirt. 

By the time it’s my turn to get to the front, I’m becoming worried as well. The Candor line beside me has become less a line and more a blob, and I feel like I might have to scream to be heard over the noise of their laughter. Whoever decided to hold this in a basement was an idiot.

“Name?” asks the Dauntless man at the registration table. 

“Beatrice Prior.”

“Stand by the left edge of the curtain. Someone will come get you in roughly six minutes.” He drums his tattooed fingers on the top of the desk. This must be a far cry from the excitement of police work. 

“Of course.”

I stand, waiting, until I hear the click of high-heeled shoes on linoleum. A pale Erudite woman with straw-colored hair parts the curtain and makes eye contact with me. She is wearing a magnificent cobalt blouse. 

“Ms. Prior?” she says.

“That’s me.”

“This way.” 

I obey, ignoring a giddy rush of excitement. The Abnegation don't really use last names; it’s considered inconsiderate and impolite. This woman is so important that she probably deals with us infrequently. 

This is the person to impress.

I watch her hair swinging as we walk. Her expression is pleasantly neutral. She’s too young to be a full professor, but she could be a graduate student in some critical subject. Maybe she’s one of the curriculum writers for Upper Levels. 

We walk down the hallway into what another lined piece of paper proclaims is TESTING ROOM 6. It’s only a little bigger than a nurse’s cubicle, with a desk, an exam form, and a scantron. In the corner, there’s a university-style desk for the proctor, the type with the chair and tabletop connected by one piece of metal. A half-finished pad of paper and a portable computer sit on top. 

“Make yourself comfortable, Ms. Prior,” she says, “and someone will be in to explain the testing procedure shortly.” She turns on her heel towards the door.

“What’s your name, ma’am?” I blurt out.

She hesitates for a few seconds, one leg wedged between the door and doorframe. Whether she didn’t expect to be asked this question by an Abnegation kid or whether I’ve overstepped my bounds generally is unclear. 

 “I’m Cara McIntyre,” she says coolly. “It’s nice to meet you, Beatrice.” 

With that she closes the door, leaving me to stare, red-faced, at the front page of the exam sheet. 

 The exam takes about forty-five minutes. It’s mostly multiple choice, but there are also three short answer questions at the back. The Candor man who comes in to proctor me doesn’t seem too concerned that I might cheat, but he does a good job at looking attentive anyway. When I finish, I walk to the front of the room and hand it to him. All in all, the setup was just like another final. 

“Thank you, Beatrice,” he says. “There’s an interview portion after this that’ll take about half an hour. I’ll go run your test down and be right back.” 

He slides the test into a beige folder labeled with my name and leaves. 

An interview? Maybe Marcus is right about the data collection. I just answered about sixty questions about my daily habits, my hobbies, how many sides a rhombus has. Some of them were downright bizarre. How many times have you been admitted to the hospital since Lower Levels? What is the distance in feet from the surface of the lake to its lowest point? How attached do you normally become to pets, plants, and other living things in your care? 

The Candor man pops his head back in. “The interviewer might be a minute.”

“Do you only have one interviewer for each faction?” I ask. 

“No. Funky scheduling, I’d guess.” He flashes me a winning smile. “Try to entertain yourself till then.”

Someone knocks three times on the door.

“As I was saying.”

The hinges squeak as Cara steps in. She frowns slightly as she sets the folder with my name on it on the desk.

“Fantastic timing!” he says.

“Thank you, George,” she says. “If you’d give us the room, please.”

She gives him a long look. He waggles his eyebrows and closes the door. 

“Hello, Ms. Prior,” she says, getting comfortable in her seat. “I’ll be interviewing you today.”

“Hello, ma’am,” I say. I straighten my spine and cross my legs to mimic her. Her frown deepens.

“How has your day been so far?” she says, schooling her face back into its neutral expression. 

“Fine.”

“That’s good to hear. I’d like to ask you some questions, Beatrice, about your test answers.” She tucks her hair behind her ears and I get a glimpse of a silver earring with a blue stone dangling from her left earlobe. 

“Of course.”

She reads off the piece of paper on the desk. “Everything you say here is confidential and will be anonymized for research purposes. Your answers to these questions will be compared to your eventual Choice in order for us to collect data on the rationale behind them. This will enable us to provide better, more useful extracurricular activities and career training for future dependents.” 

“I understand.”

She continues. “When taken together, the written test and interview will help us match you to the faction that, if Chosen, will give you the greatest probability of thriving. This is part of a city-wide effort to reduce CFB and give young adults the best chance of a smooth transition from dependent status into a viable career. You are under no obligation to share the results. The test–-”

“What’s CFB?” 

 “That’s a research acronym for Contrafactional Behavior. Behavior that’s misaligned with an individual faction’s membership requirements or stated goals. It’s usually used to describe the kind of thing that gets a member written up, or an Initiate removed and made factionless.” She flips to a new page on her steno pad. “Are you ready to begin?” 

“Yes, thank you.”

“You live with your mother, father, and adoptive brother Caleb, correct?” 

“Yes. No pets.” 

She scribbles something and shifts back in her seat. “Will he be Choosing with you?”

“Yes. We’re eight months apart.”

“Are you two very close?” 

“We’ve never been close to the point where it would affect my Choice.”

This gives her pause. “Would you be comfortable elaborating on that?” 

“We have different… values, I guess,” I say. “He’s preparing for his career. We’ve just been growing apart.” 

“I can see how that might happen between siblings,” she says. “What about your other close relationships? Are there friendships that might affect your Choice?” 

“I don’t have anyone my age I would consider an exceptionally close friend.” 

That’s true, but it sounds pretty pathetic when I say it out loud. 

She pauses, her brow knitted in concern. “Well, according to your transcripts, you’ve done well in several advanced courses. This is in addition to the other obligations Abnegation tends to impose on its dependents—” 

“Volunteering and attending services.” 

“That's not typical of most young women in your situation. Would you mind telling me why you decided to take these classes?” 

“I wanted to cultivate… a diverse knowledge base.” This is getting away from me. “Just to be… well-rounded, and to learn lots of different stuff—” 

She cuts in before I can embarrass myself further. “Tell me a little bit more about the type of work you do as a volunteer.”

“Well, it varies. Depending on what’s needed. It’s mostly sewing. Mending. That kind of thing.” 

“Besides the physical skill of making and mending clothes, what do you think you’ve learned from this?” 

I breathe and try to give the question some thought.

“Attention to detail, for the most part. The value of solitude.” 

She arches an eyebrow. 

“Do you enjoy it?” 

“Most of the time.” 

“What parts do you enjoy that you’d hope to bring into future work?” 

“Problem-solving,” I say. “Making things right. It’s satisfying to see something you’ve built have a use.” 

“You seem to enjoy self-directed work.” 

“I do, yeah. It’s a pretty key factor for me most of the time.” 

“What else are you looking out for in a career?”

“I guess I want my work to matter,” I say awkwardly.

“Matter how?” 

“I guess I want it to have a real impact. I want it to be within my control. And I want it to do well for what it does.”

“You want to be recognized.” 

“Yes,” I say. “More than that I want to be able to actually contribute. But I do want to be recognized. By someone other than my mom.”

She smiles. “There’s nothing wrong with that, Beatrice. The fact that you know your goals makes this process much easier.” 

She takes out a sheet of dark paper from my folder.

“Well, let’s talk about some of the things that stood out to me on your test. You’re extremely open to experience and far more analytical than average. You have excellent all-around intelligence and you particularly excelled at the visual-spatial questions.”

“Thank you.” 

“Of course. Before I share your results,” she says, “I have to ask this question. As of now, what faction do you plan to Choose?” 

“Erudite,” I say. 

It’s like all the air has suddenly been sucked out of the room. 

“Erudite?” 

“Yes.”

She goes completely still. 

“May I ask why?” 

Panic rises in my throat. “I can’t live in Abnegation any more.” 

“Why?”

“I’m not… I don’t believe—”

“How long have you planned to Choose Erudite?” she says, enunciating every syllable. 

“Five years now.” 

She looks away and draws a sharp breath, wringing her hands. Suddenly, she stands up and locks the door.

“Wha–” 

“Everything that happens beyond this point needs to be kept in strictest confidence. Can you agree to that?”

“What?” 

“Do you promise to keep this to yourself, Beatrice? Yes or no?” 

“Yes,” I say. 

She takes off her suit jacket and climbs onto the top of the desk directly beneath a ceiling grate. It pops off in a shower of plaster dust, revealing a hidden camera. It takes a couple of button presses before its little red light goes off. She replaces the grate and climbs down. 

“Ms. McIntyre?” 

She opens the computer on her desk and types something that I can’t see. It takes a few tries, but eventually I hear a small beep. She sighs in relief.

“We’ve got ten minutes,” she says. “First of all, let me tell you: I’ve got about ninety percent confidence from your results that your best fit is in Erudite.”

“So what’s—”

“We developed this test to use as a tool of intervention if a dependent is set on something that simply won’t pragmatically work out. It’s no use telling a physically disabled person they can have a full expectation of success in Dauntless, for instance, even if their values are completely aligned.” She shakes the dust off her hands. “This is... a special situation. I am grossly breaking the rules right now, so please listen to me.” 

She looks me in the eye.

“You can’t go to Erudite, Beatrice.” 

“Why not?”

“You would be killed.” 

She says this with such complete conviction that my stomach drops. 

“How do you know?” 

“I need you to trust me,” she says. “I don’t know what is said within the walls of Abnegation homes, but I can tell you that behind closed doors the Erudite wish you dead. You are the daughter of Councilman Andrew Prior. If you passed the entrance exams— in any other year, you might do well —you would find yourself in a hyper-competitive and extremely insular academic environment. It was difficult for me, and I spent my life preparing for it. But there are much bigger issues at play. Whatever your politics , whatever you think of the decisions made by your father and especially by Eaton, anti-Abnegation sentiment right now is at an all-time high.” 

I feel like throwing up. “What do you mean?” 

“Even if you were to change your name, which would be wise to do wherever you go, even if you were to somehow outcompete your more connected peers, they would not let you into the faction. They would fabricate your test results, or stage an accident, or say that you provoked them and hurt you in ‘self-defense’. And I can tell you the entirety of the faction would lie in court and argue for your factionlessness in front of the entire city before they would admit an Abnegation, and the daughter of someone on the council.” 

“Wouldn’t Jeanine do something?” 

“Dr. Matthews pursues her own ends,” she says. “Should you choose Erudite, it is unlikely that helping you would line up with her agenda.”

The whole world is very tiny and Cara is very far away.

“I see,” I say. 

My face is hot and my hands are shaking. Cara moves towards me to console me. I manage not to cry. 

“You have options, Beatrice. While Erudite would ordinarily have been the best option, it is not the only option. I would advise against Abnegation as well, but there are still three other factions to choose from, and two where you could be a possible fit.” 

“Not Candor?” I think of the girl who fell down the stairs.

“Not Candor. But you knew that, didn’t you? It takes a very specific kind of madness to succeed in Candor.” 

“Amity or Dauntless.” 

“Yes. Amity or Dauntless. Your openness to experience and your perceptiveness would be assets to the Amity. Contrary to popular belief, the Amity do not spend most of their time picking flowers and singing songs. Farming is hard, essential work, and most farmers work closely with our geneticists and agricultural scientists. There would be some aspects of the culture, at least during Initiation, that might take you by surprise, but once a member of Amity, you would have the freedom to live your life the way you choose under the protection of the largest and most diverse faction.” 

“Freedom” is a euphemism here. Many Amity women don’t get married, I think, and some never have children— not because they can’t, but because they don’t want to. I picture the bright, beatific smiles of the Amity I’ve known, their gentleness and clarity of thinking. Their lives are fixed to the earth, bound to the seasons. I see a field of wheat, a tree, a group discussing crop yields. A beautiful succession of hearths and dinner tables. 

More hearths. More dinner tables. 

“What about Dauntless?” 

“I do not believe your probability of success in Dauntless is as straightforward as in Amity. There is very, very little margin for error in Dauntless. If Amity sounds tolerable, I would highly advise going there instead.” 

“I’m trying to examine all my options,” I say. “Why might it be a good fit?” 

“Hypothetically,” she says haltingly, “your temperament is a better match for Dauntless than it is for Amity. However—”

“In what way?” 

“You’re less extroverted and much less agreeable than is optimal for a member of Amity. You’re also fairly impulsive, which might pose problems if you were to pick certain careers.”

“Pretend I pass Dauntless Initiation. What do you believe the outcome might be?” 

A strange cast comes over her face. “Everything would depend on your rank within the organization. There are a few commonalities: you would lead an extremely physical lifestyle. Your opportunities for stability would be more limited. The skillset you would be required to practice would be more diverse.” 

 “Do you think I could do it? Physically, I mean?” 

She looks me up and down. It’s hard to tell much of my strength in the shapeless gray dress. “I don’t think so,” she says, “and not because of your physical strength. There are cultural differences between Amity and Abnegation, yes, but the gap between Dauntless and Abnegation is a chasm. Everything you have been socialized into, every impulse, every reflex, would need to be permanently reshaped if you were to have even a small chance of surviving there. There would be constant danger and brutality. You would be called upon to commit acts of violence in self-defense, acts that the Abnegation Scriptures would call atrocities. Choosing Dauntless would be more than refusing Amity, Beatrice. It would be transporting yourself into a war zone for most of the days of your life.” 

“I don’t know if I can do that,” I say. 

“I don’t think you can either, Beatrice,” she says. “I also think you’re more than old enough to know the difference between what you can do and what you should do. I haven’t known you long, but I can tell from your results that you are too smart to put yourself in danger unless you have no other choice.” 

“You’re smart,” I say. “Why are you putting yourself in danger for me?”

As soon as the words leave my mouth, her stare turns cold. She gets out of her chair and turns away from me to get her suit jacket. 

The tears threaten to reappear. I feel sick to my stomach. I’ve been incredibly rude to a woman who’s done nothing but stick her neck out for me.

“I do not believe,” she says slowly, “that children should be held responsible for the actions of their parents.” 

With that, she packs up the rest of her things and escorts me out the door with businesslike finality.

“Choose wisely, Ms. Prior,” she says. 

It slams shut.

Chapter Text

There’s no point looking at my finals scores. I abandon Caleb at school and begin the sixteen-block walk home.

To add insult to injury, it’s a lovely not-quite-winter day. The air is already starting to warm up, and a few gentle dandelions have begun to poke up from beneath the ruined portions of the sidewalks. The vines and trees that reclaimed a few buildings after the War are on the cusp of greening over, choking the crumbling walls under another year of their growth. The city is on the precipice.

This was not the plan. 

This was absolutely not the plan. 

This was the opposite of the plan. 

Well, Beatrice, says my father’s voice, what have we learned this time? 

Shut up, I tell him. 

What are my options now? Abnegation, where I’ll keep on dying a little more every day? Amity, where I’ll suffocate on sunshine? Or Dauntless, where I might be shot? 

I could still go to Erudite. Cara might have been bluffing. That whole thing with the camera could have been a very clever bit of theater. I am a politician’s daughter, as she felt the need to point out. Someone whose existence I might not even be aware of could have a vested interest in influencing my Choice. 

I crunch a branch under my heel. She’s not bluffing. She’d have to be a psychopath to lie like that.

Then again, maybe psychopaths are the sorts of people Jeanine likes to employ. 

Shut up!

The steady rattle of the L dissipates into the wind. I glance behind me at the Upper Levels building. Among the blacks and grays and reds I can spot a few specks of blue. My classmates, or their little sisters, brothers, cousins. My teachers. They can’t all want me dead. That’s ridiculous. 

I feel a little bit lighter. 

Maybe I could go to Erudite. I could change my name; I never really liked it anyway. I could resign myself to having no friends at all. I could keep my head down, take my classes, sit in the back of the exam room. I could cut my hair, wear cobalt, drink alcohol. I could turn away from my father when I see him in the street. I could ignore Caleb.

I’ve almost convinced myself when Cara’s face, frozen in the moment of my confession, flashes behind my eyes. My survival in Erudite doesn’t hinge on whether every member would personally choose to murder me. It hinges on how they would treat my murderer. 

The smartest people, Dad often says, have the greatest mental resources to devote to justifying their sins. Human reason can excuse any evil. That’s why it’s so important we don’t rely on it.  

There was hate in the Candor girl's eyes -- pure, overwhelming hate, like Susan was a diseased thing. Cara is right. Given the right circumstances, someone would kill me. And given the right reasons, the Erudite would excuse it.

So what? That might be true anywhere I transfer. The Dauntless would cut my throat in the night, or whatever it is they do. The Amity would pump me full of pharmaceuticals. If I didn’t get kicked out of Candor by lying out of habit, they could easily make it look like I fell off the top of the Merciless Mart. There are plenty of brave, kind, and honest people willing to break an oath if it suits them politically. The only difference are the odds. 

Like a good scientist, I review the information that I have:

1. Everyone I know adores Marcus Eaton. 
2. Erudite have, by an overwhelming margin, elected a Leader who’s built her political career in staunch opposition to everything he stands for.
3. Most of Candor’s leadership despises him.
4. He is on unknown terms with the Dauntless. 
5. The Amity, at least publicly, remain tenaciously neutral.

Any sane person would go for the best chance of winding up fed, clothed, and in one piece. 

When I get home, Caleb is already sitting at the kitchen table, picking at the remnants of a slice of nut bread. Always a step ahead, even when there's nowhere to go.

"Taking the bus is faster than walking, you know," he says sullenly. His curls are matted, plastered to his forehead with sweat. The dossiers from this morning are spread out before him in disarray. 

“Where’s Mom?” 

“Out.” 

“Dad too?” 

“Transportation Committee.” 

The kitchen is eerie, ruin-quiet. The late afternoon light casts long shadows across the table and slants across Caleb's defeated face. The heavy dark circles that appeared when Marcus first got his claws into him are as big as I’ve ever seen them. 

I drop my bag onto the chair and lean against the counter.

"Well?" 

"Yes?" he mumbles.

“How’d your test go?” 

“I don’t know, Beatrice,” he says. “It went great. It went awful. I don’t know.”

Without warning, he slams the dossiers closed, stacks them neatly, and shoves them with surprising force to the other side of the table. They make a whooshing sound as they slide, wobbling but not falling over. 

"Are you alright?"

He won't meet my eyes. “How’d yours go?” 

“You were right,” I say. “It was incredibly invasive and ultimately unhelpful.” 

Caleb lets out one of his short, humorless laughs. “So, no new insights on how to avoid Contrafactional Behavior?"

“Not really.”

“Of course not."

He takes the towel Mom was swaddling the bread in, sets it in front of him on the table, and buries his head in it as if cotton has developed some latent despair-absorbing property. A moment passes, and then another. I wait for him to explain what's going on. 

“I think I’m going to go to my room,” he mutters, words muffled by the cloth.

He doesn’t move. 

“Caleb?” I venture. “Can I ask you a question?” 

“Is it about the test?” 

“No.”

He picks his head up out of the towel and pulls out a kitchen chair for me. A smear of flour sticks to the sweat between his eyebrows. I motion to it, and he wipes it off with a rough swipe of the back of his hand. 

“What was the deal today with that girl from Candor?” 

He shrugs. “She’s from Candor,” he says, as if that answers the question.

“Do they hate Abnegation?” I ask. “Or do they just hate Marcus?” 

“Does it matter?” he replies sharply. “The council is an extension of Abnegation. Without the council, we couldn’t enforce the faction system itself. And, currently, without Marcus, we wouldn’t have a council.” 

“We would absolutely have a council,” I say. “If Marcus died tomorrow, the council would elect someone else. That's how government works, Caleb.”  

For a moment, his face contorts into a snarl, but he holds back the anger with a sharp intake of breath. He closes his eyes, probably to count to ten. When he snaps them open, he wears his usual holier-than-thou smirk.

“You misunderstand me,” he says. “But it’s probably unkind of me to expect you to understand in the first place.” 

He glares at the stack of dossiers. Their edges are crumpled from rough handling, and they've begun to peel apart at the corners as well.

This entire situation is deeply weird.

“Are you okay? Do you need some water, some..."

“No, Beatrice,” he says, as if speaking to a very dumb child. “I’m not okay. I had no clue there was going to be any kind of interview portion." 

"You know what?" I say. "I can go. Just let me go."

"Where’d they tell you to go? Dauntless? Candor?” 

“Amity,” I say. 

He sighs deeply in relief. “Well it’s a good thing you’re not going to Amity, then.” 

“Why don’t you think I’d go to Amity?”

“Are you kidding?” he snorts. “You’d be miserable. Someone would ask you to finger paint your feelings and you would run screaming for the fence.” 

Well, that’s one way to rule it out. 

I open my mouth to speak, intent on telling him the whole truth about today, but decide against it when I see his fingers rubbing the hem of his sleeve like he’s scared someone will cut it off. “Where’d they tell you to go?” I ask him instead.

He glances away. “Did you know Mom and Dad were transfers?” 

“Wait, what?!”  

“Yup,” he says, grinning wickedly. 

“Where from?” 

“No clue.”

“You’re not serious.” 

Most transfers retain some quirk of their home faction. The Amity, who transfer here more than any other faction, typically speak with a light accent. Mom and Dad are the most self-ignorant of Abnegation, exemplary servants of God and the city: the picture of the Councilman and his wife. I comb through my childhood memories for possible clues and find none — not how they raised us, not how they spend their time, not how they speak, walk, eat, anything.

“Marcus told me. They met at his wedding.” 

“Marcus’ wedding?” 

“Yeah.” He picks up a chunk of bread with walnut in it and rolls it between his fingers. “He got married to a woman in their Initiate cohort.” 

This is definitely forbidden gossip. There’s no way the news that Marcus’ dead wife was at least nine years younger than he is is a celebration of his good qualities.

 “Do you know what happened to their son?” I say. “The one who transferred seven or eight years ago?” 

“Who knows,” he says. He looks pensively at swirls in the wood of the kitchen table. “He went to Dauntless or Amity or something. More likely than not failed Initiation. Probably living factionless. Or the life of a transfer. Never quite fitting in. Never quite belonging anywhere.” 

There are obviously transfers who ‘belong.’ Our parents are two of them. But he beats me to the punch with an intensity I did not expect. “Do y’know what Marcus said about Mom and Dad?” 

“Caleb,” I say. I don’t want him to regret this later. But he runs his fingers through his hair and continues. 

“He said that Mom and Dad are proof that the Abnegation are called.” 

“Why? Because they’re indistinguishable from the Abnegation-born? Because they, what, assimilated?” 

“I mean, he couldn’t tell the difference, even back when Mom and Dad were early-in-service. He thought they had gone to different churches growing up. He kept joking about just missing them in Upper Levels.” 

Marcus Eaton, Head Councilman, firebrand, orator, scourge of Erudite, the man on whom my Choice has come to hinge whether I like it or not. Making dumb jokes about my parents. Marrying someone Mom’s age. Caleb’s work must be a lot worse than I gave it credit for.

What’s in those dossiers? 

“You’ve seen the new members,” he says, “at the post-Initiation service. We’ve both been to our fair share of weddings. I don’t know what it’s like in other factions, but here you can always tell. There’s something that gives them away. Sure, it fades with time, but it’s there . And yet you can’t tell with Mom or Dad.”  

“It’s in the hands,” I say reflexively. “Transfers never know where to put them during the services. Those awkward bits during the homily.” 

He stands up, puts the dossiers in his bag, and takes his plate to the sink. I’m halfway to the hallway when he smiles at me, his eyes full of exhaustion and longing for something I can’t name. 

“How lucky it is,” he says, “that we know where to put ours.”

For a second, I start to reciprocate. I want to give him some sign of assent, to tell him I love you, I’ll see you soon, I’m praying for you. I can’t wait for us both to start our new lives here. When I get married, my children will have an uncle, and there will be no better uncle than you. 

But I can’t. 

That tells me more about my Choice than I want to know.

He doesn’t note my silence with a word, but I know he feels it. He brushes past me and shuts the door to his room.

The day comes. 

Everything is offensively normal when I open my eyes. It feels impossible that such a massive thing can be shrunk down into such a little bit of time. 

I put my feet on the floor. My heart is in my throat. A few particles of dust swirl in the morning sunbeams. Now that I know I will never see it again, every plain inch of my room seems like it would ring if I struck it with my fingernail, like a bell.

I get dressed, and my outfit is identical to the day before, as it was identical to the day before and the day before that. I tie my hair up in its bun. I leave my bag. I almost leave my watch behind, too, but think better of it. Who knows what I’ll need where I’m going.

I’m the last one to the kitchen. Breakfast is pears and eggs on toast, washed down with a swallow of cold water. I am so nauseated that I have to take tiny bites. It is so obvious that this is the last meal I will ever eat with my family that I have to push the thought down every time I swallow. 

Dad and Caleb finish quickly, scraping their plates. Marcus has called for volunteers to help set up the auditorium, and most of the people on our street are already mobilizing. It wouldn’t do to just be sitting here. The faster they move, the louder they clatter. Our neighbors can probably hear them halfway across the city.

My mother sits at the table, sipping mint tea and watching me wash up the breakfast dishes. She looks placid: resigned, perhaps, or wistful. But when we get up to go, she grabs my arm and pulls me with surprising strength into a tight hug. 

“My beautiful daughter,” she says. My eyes well with tears. She smells like cinnamon and flour and wet wool. “I’m so proud of you.” 

She knows I’m not staying. I can feel it in the way she clings to me. After I leave she will cease to be Mom as she once ceased to be Mama, and become Natalie Prior again. It hits me that I don’t really know her at all: the way she’s been, or the way she will be.

Maybe she was born in Amity.

She brushes a little hair behind my ear. “You were made in the image of God. Any decision you make out of love is a good one.” 

I take one last look at the kitchen table. In an instant, I see the hundreds of childhood craft projects, the thousands of dinner plates, the book of Scripture flipped open again and again and again. I fight another wave of nausea.

“Beatrice?” says Dad. “Come on now, we’re going.” 

Mom and I follow him out into the street, where we slip into the stream of gray bodies as easily as salt into soup. 

By the time we set foot on the Hub floor I’m almost certain I am going to throw up.

Everyone I have ever known is here. The entire faction, hundreds if not thousands strong, is inside this single building. Women are bouncing babies at their hip, making sure little kids don’t get too underfoot as they move chairs into formation. Men are setting huge ladders along the side of the stage to hang banners the size of small cars. People are cleaning, shouting, chatting, groaning. Dad charges towards Marcus, who is in the center of a knot of at least twenty Councilmen and Committee members. He mutters something that makes them laugh. 

All of these people are going to witness my Choice. I want to evaporate.

I lose Mom in the crowd quickly. Caleb is miles away. I spin around and bump into an older man who I recognize with a lump in my throat as a Chair of the Housing Committee. 

“Oh!” he says. “You’re Beatrice, aren’t you? Andrew’s daughter?” 

I nod. 

“Blessings upon your Choice.” 

“Thank you,” I say. “Do you have any idea where I could—“

He points to something in my peripheral vision. The kids my age seem to be congregating to the side of the stage. This being Abnegation, we’re expected to do something. Apparently that something is sterilizing and polishing the Choosing knives. 

“Thank you.” 

“Give my regards to your father.”

I won’t. “I will.”

I approach the group. Caleb has somehow found his way here already. The knives — about forty-five of them — are set out on a table. They’re a mix: newer ones and pre-War ones with handles made out of the type of plastic we’re not allowed to manufacture anymore. The table holds a few items: sharpening blocks, a bucket of rubbing alcohol, some lemons and salt.

“Beatrice,” says Caleb. He sounds like he is trying and failing to conceal an imminent nervous breakdown. The rest of the group nod to me or make little conciliatory gestures. To my irritation, not all of them look as terrified as I feel. Robert Black seems positively radiant.

“Men are washing,” says Susan. “We’re drying.” 

I bunch myself with the rest of the girls — women now, I guess — and begin drying. Other people join us, but I don’t register their names or faces. The knives come out smelling pungently of lemon and alcohol and I only just barely keep the bile down my throat. No one speaks too much. 

“What happens when they run out of knives?” I whisper to Leah.

She stares at me like I should already know. “Sanitizing station backstage. Run by the Women’s Committee.” 

“Of course. Thank you.” I bet that’s where my mom ends up.

We work quickly and are soon almost finished. In a little less than forty minutes, I’m going to make the biggest decision of my life — and I don’t even know what it is yet.

No, that’s ridiculous. It’s Amity. It’s got to be Amity. I don’t have another choice. Candor I’d hate, Dauntless is factionlessness, Erudite is certain death. I can’t stay here. 

Could I stay here?

Something horrible is bubbling in my gut and for a second it feels like the antiseptic has made its way into my tear ducts. What have I been sneaking books into my bedroom for? What have I questioned my faith for? What have I been desperately working towards, when I could have used my resources to fit in better in a home no one was making me leave in the first place? 

Everyone here believes and belongs. They’re safe. They’ll be happy. They do their tasks, the ones assigned to them, without complaining, and they get married and they have kids and they watch them grow up and then they die. They have no need for extra classes, for climbing up windows to see pretty blue lights, because they take nothing for granted. How could they? How could someone like Caleb, whose genetic family is dead or worse, even bear to dream of something else? 

 Why can’t I be like —-?

“Beatrice,” someone says, and “—knife safety,” but the words are muffled because I’m about to vomit all over these perfectly clean knives. I look down and a fat drop of blood is already pooling in my palm, staining the cloth I was using.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” I say, setting the knife down. 

Behind me I can hear Caleb muttering apologetically about my nerves — the last time he makes excuses for me in public, I bet — but I take off towards the exit, weaving through the teeming mass of people, trying to look inconspicuous even though my hand is dripping crimson. It’s not even the hand I’m supposed to cut during my Choice. 

My father catches my eye as I’m maneuvering towards the side door, trying to pass the group of Councilmen. I see Marcus Eaton register my presence with a raised eyebrow and seriously consider spitting in his face.

“Beatrice!” Dad says. But I am gone.

I slam open the door to the bathroom, and — screw it — look at myself in the mirror. I look haggard and waspish and green and selfish. The blood, too much of it, splashes red-pink all around the sink basin. I press a disposable towel to my wound. I still need to throw up. 

I barely am able to lock the door before I sink to my knees and start to dry heave, but nothing comes out but tears and saliva and snot. I cry until my throat is raw from sobbing, until the blood in my palm has coagulated and compacted into an angry red half-moon and the cracks in the tile are starting to look like faces in profile. Then I cry some more, less loudly this time.

There is a woman in the stall next to me. I can just see the edge of her boot under the stall. It is a rich deep black with patterns cut into the leather. The stitching holding the shoe to the sole is bright yellow and I want to scream. 

The woman has heard me. Her boots leave the stall. Door creaks. She knocks one-two-three : “You alright in there?” 

She has a nice voice with the City accent. She’s probably older. I’m not alright in there, but if I am very quiet she might leave. 

“I’m a certified medic, you need help?” 

She must have noticed the blood in the sink. 

“I can hear you breathing. Open up, it’s gonna be alright.” 

There’s something in her voice that makes me climb up off the floor and unlock the door. The woman stands before me, looking young for middle age in the same way my mother does. Her collarbone, exposed by her black tank top, is entirely covered in tattoos. 

“Tori Wu. Do you need to sit down?” 

“Yeah,” I say. 

She leads me to the table where women used to do their makeup. There is one seat on the end where the mirror has been taken out; she sits me down there, perhaps according to some lesson on interfaction cultural competency. She kneels to pull a first-aid kit out of her bag. Her fingers and hands are tattooed with wildflowers. 

“What’s your name?” she asks. 

“Beatrice Prior.”

“Cut yourself?” 

“Yes." 

“On purpose?” 

“No,” I say. “I was…drying…helping my…” 

In spite of myself, I begin to tremble, and then double over with another sob. My inhales are jerky and my shoulders are heaving. 

I must look pathetic. Little Stiff girl, wailing and blubbering. I look up at her, expecting disgust. Instead, her expression is perfectly open, except for her knitted brows. I cry harder.

 “What’s wrong with me?” I ask her, tears streaming down my face. “What’s going on?” 

“Beatrice. Listen to me. This is perfectly normal. I’m going to get you some water. This is perfectly normal and you’re going to be fine.” 

She takes a canteen out of her bag, unscrews it, and pours water into the top. I take it, hands still shaking, and gulp down the water inside. It runs down my chin. Greedy, disgusting . 

“Breathe with me, Beatrice. You think you can breathe with me?” 

I can’t speak so I nod yes. The feeling comes in waves. She breathes in a particular way, in-hold-exhale, tapping out seconds on the linoleum counter. Time passes like this, with our chests rising together, until I am still shaking but no longer crying. 

My heart has stopped pounding so loud. I don’t have to gasp for air. I feel weak.

“Have some more water, Beatrice.”

I do. I can see the bathroom more clearly now, and pause for a minute to take her in. Her pants, tucked into her boots, have large pockets on the sides. Her face is lightly lined, but her arms are strong and wiry. Her graying hair is in a thick braid over her shoulder. The tattoo on her collarbone is of a hawk with its wings outstretched, so realistic I almost feel like it’s looking at me. 

“Are you okay?” 

“I think so.” 

She gives me a handkerchief from her pocket. “Today’s your day, isn’t it?” 

I nod again, if only because I don’t want to insult her intelligence. I’ve never met a Dauntless woman who looks or sounds like her.

“Take it easy for a minute. Keep breathing. I’ve got some dried blueberries.” She fishes in her bag and pops open a little container. The nausea is leaving but it feels deeply wrong to eat before she does. She seems to realize this and takes one first. 

“Do you know where you’re going?” 

I shake my head as I let the flavor of the blueberries fill my mouth. Tart, but chewy dried. 

“The vast majority of Abnegation stay in their home faction,” she says matter-of-factly. “Are you planning on leaving?” 

“I don’t know. Maybe.” 

“What’s stopping you from choosing? Do you have a sweetheart you’re hoping to follow?” 

I bark a laugh. “No, nothing like that— not at all.” 

“What is it then?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“Could you tell me?” 

I look into her eyes. She genuinely wants to know.

“I would be leaving my family. There’s not a guarantee my faction of choice would accept me, and I don’t want to settle for anywhere else.” 

She makes a little hmm noise of acknowledgement. “Rough choice.” 

I want to tell her more. My hair has come a little loose from its bun, stray strands sticking to my face with sweat. I have to avoid picking at the cut on my hand. Instead I eat a few more blueberries in silence while I study her other tattoos: a sprig of lavender, a double-sided battleaxe, a fire meeting a flood.

“What if I can’t get through it?” I ask. 

“Your Choice shouldn’t be about what pain you’re best suited to get through,” she says. “It should be about what good you’re best suited to carry out. Good is what we have control over. Pain is inevitable. Hell, if you’re not feeling pain, something has gone seriously medically wrong.” 

I laugh weakly.

She holds up a strip of bandages. “Can I see your hand?” 

“Sure,” I say.

She catches me looking at her.  A moment passes. “I did some of these myself.” 

“Really?” 

“Yes. I’m one of three full-time tattoo artists for the Dauntless. When I was an apprentice, I did some and let others do some.” 

“Did you do the hawk?” I ask.

She’s smiling. I don’t think she’s patronizing me, though. 

“No,” she says. “It’s a long story. In Dauntless, we go through extensive training. We learn how to defend ourselves in all sorts of different ways, in all sorts of different places. I did alright through most of it. Except for night training.” 

“Night training?” 

“I was afraid of the dark.” She slathers the cut in ointment, her motions smooth and practiced.

“Was?” 

“Yes.” Her voice is certain. “We normally earn our first tattoos halfway through training. Everyone got a wolf or a snake or a tiger my year, something to help them fight. But I didn’t want something with big teeth. I was good at fighting, but it wasn’t why I came. I needed something else. So I asked the artist — my mentor, but I didn’t know it yet — if I could do something else. He said sure, get what you need.” 

She begins to wrap up my hand.

“My granddad used to tell my brother and I these fantastic stories. He told us about an ancient civilization in a desert where they buried their kings with gold and jewels. Its people said the sun was a hawk who flew across the sky to give light to the world. I thought maybe if I had the sun on me, I wouldn’t fear the dark as much. So I got a hawk.” 

“Did it help?” 

“Yes. Not right away, though. Drink water.” 

I sip it slowly, holding it with my unbandaged hand. The hawk stares at me proudly. There is a twinkle in its eye that looks like a sunbeam. 

“Feeling better?” 

“A lot,” I say. “Thank you.”

“Let’s just sit here,” she says. “Get your breath back.” 

“I appreciate it,” I say.

She looks at me for a long second, as if trying to decide to say anything or not. Finally she speaks.

“Can I give you advice?” she asks. “I was a teenager. I know how unhelpful unsolicited advice can be.” 

“Yes,” I say. “Please.”

She smiles at me. “I’ve seen so many of these,” she says. “Friends and kids and friends’ kids and people I barely know. Some thrive. Some don’t. Most wind up somewhere in between. You wonder how much of it was what they picked and how much of it was other things, things they don’t have control over. But insofar as you do have control, there are only two important criteria to make this Choice by.” 

“What are they?” I ask. 

“Number one: who you are . ” 

“I thought that’s what the test was for,” I say. 

She leans in towards me. “There's normally a big difference between who you are, who you actually  are, and who your parents or teachers or friends think you are or want you to be. There is also an often substantial difference between who you are and who you believe you should be. Most of us aren’t introspective enough to realize that at age seventeen, test or no."

Sit up. Don’t talk back. Stay longer. Know better. Give more. Pull your stitches out and do it again. Don’t tap your foot when he’s speaking, don’t run like that it’s not ladylike, don’t ask that don’t ask that don’t ask that…

No one says to a foot, “you are not a part of the body” because it cannot taste…

“What about the second one?” 

“Who you want to become.” 

She says become like it's the name of God.

I look at her, skin covered in art and hair streaked with gray. I try to picture her at my age, with smooth, unmarked limbs. I can’t. 

“I believe,” she says, “that if we are lucky, we can earn our own best parts.” 

She gingerly takes my bandaged hand in hers. Her eyes are pools, pools of deep water. 

“I can’t tell you where to go, Beatrice. But you’re not beholden to anyone else. When you Choose, remember that.”

When I finish, she screws the cap on her canteen and puts it in her bag with the first aid kit and the empty container of blueberries. 

"All good now?" she asks. 

"Yeah," I say. My voice is steadier.

"Knock 'em dead," she says, winking at me.

I have never heard anyone use that expression before.