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"This is your story," the Rising officer said to me before they sent me on into Central "This is what you say when people ask where you’ve been"

He handed me a sheet of paper I looked down at the printed words:

The Officers found me in the forest in Tana, nearand night there All I know is that I ended up in the woods somehow

I looked back up "We have an Officer who is prepared to corroborate your story and claim she found you in the woods," he said

"And the idea is that I’d been given a red tablet," I said "To forget that I saw theirls away on the air ships"

He nodded "Apparently one of the girls caused a disturbance They had to give red tablets to several others oke up and saw her"

Indie, I thought She’s the one who ran and screa to us

"So we’ll say that you wentafter that," he said "They lost track of you for aeffect Then they found you days later"

"How did I survive?" I asked

He tapped the paper in front of me

I was lucky My mother had told ed In Noveround that can be used for food

In a way, that part of the story was true My mother’s words did co, not in the forest

"Your mother worked in an Arboretum," he said "And you’ve been in the woods before"

"Yes," I said It was the forest on the Hill, not the one in Tana; but hopefully it would be close enough

"Then it all adds up," he said

"Unless the Society questions me too closely," I said

"They won’t," he said "Here’s a silver box and a tablet container to replace the ones you lost"

I took them froreen And one red, to replace the one I’d supposedly taken at an Official’s coirls who really did take the tablet; most wouldn’t remember Indie, how she cried out She’d have disappeared Likeyourself alone in the forest and the tiotten everything that really happened in the twelve hours before you went on the air ship"

"What do you want me to do once I’m in Central?" I asked hi froif I really could do whatever it is that he wanted "Central is where the Society planned to send you for your final work position," he said I nodded "You’re a sorter A good one, according to the Society’s data Now that they think you’ve been rehabilitated in the work ca can make use of that" And then he told me what kind of sort to look for, and what I should do when it happened "You’ll need to be patient," he said "It may take some time"

Which was a wise piece of advice, it see out of the ordinary yet Not that I re to tell ht the Society

Whenever I can, I write letters I’ve rass; an X with two sticks crossed over each other, their wet bark black against a silvery reenspace nearof stones in the shape of an O, like an open ht o, I look to see if there are new letters So far, no one else is writing, or if they are, I haven’t seen it But it will happen Maybe even now there’s so to write the name of someone they love

I know that I’ sainst the current and shadowsup when so dark passed before the sun And I have been the shadow itself, slipping along the place where earth and water meet the sky

Day after day, I push the rock that the Society has given ain Inside hts, the s They tu, soh, some that cut

Satisfied that the poems don’t shoalk down the hallway of my tiny apartment and into the foyer I’m about to open the door when a knock sounds on the other side of it, and I start a little Why would anyone be here now? Like ne Contract, I live alone And, just like in the Boroughs, we aren’t encouraged to visit one another’s residences

An Official stands at the door, se Officials alroups of three "Cassia Reyes?" she asks

"Yes," I say

"I’ll need you to co center for extra work hours"

But I’s were, at last, aligning for us--he was finally assigned to co me where we could meet arrived just in time Soo through, but this one came quickly Impatience floods over me as I look at the Official, with her white unifornia Don’t bother with us anymore, I think Use the coainst one of the Society’s key tenets, one that they tell to us froy can fail us as it did the societies before ours

And then I realize that the Official’s requesthas asked? Her face remains smooth and calm It’s impossible to tell what she knows or for whom she really works "Others will meet us at the air-train stop," she says