are candy, nibbling at the ends and rolling them around her mouth before sucking the entire pods down.
“We should have invited that boy to dinner,” she says, a snap pea dangling from her mouth. “We’ve got so much food.”
Mom’s hand stills on the serving spoon. “What boy?” she pries.
“Just one of my classmates.” I feel my cheeks growing red and then remind myself that I have no reason to be embarrassed. I don’t like Logan anymore. I help myself to more dark meat. “We ran into him at the park. It was no big deal.”
“Why were you even there in the first place?”
The chicken suddenly feels dry in my mouth. I messed up. I know that. But I couldn’t bear to be stuck inside today. I needed to feel the sun’s warmth on my face, to look at the leaves and imagine my future.
“We only talked to him for a minute, Mom. Jessa was calling out the color of the leaves before they fell, and I wanted to make sure he didn’t hear—”
“Wait a minute. She was doing what?”
Uh oh. Wrong answer. “It’s no big deal—”
“How many times?”
“About twenty,” I admit.
My mother pulls the necklace from under her shirt, where it normally resides, and rubs the cross between her fingers. We’re not supposed to wear religious symbols in public. It’s not that religion is illegal. Just…unnecessary. The traditions of the pre-Boom era gave their believers comfort, hope, and reassurance—in short, everything that future memory provides us now. The only difference is we actually have proof that the future exists. When we do pray, it’s not to any god, but to Fate herself and the predetermined course she’s set.
But my mom can be excused for clinging to one of the old faiths. She never got her glimpse of the future, after all.
“Calla Ann Stone.” She grips the cross. “I depend on you to keep your sister safe. That means you do not allow her to speak to strangers. You do not stop in a park on your way home from school. And you do not display her abilities for anyone to see.”
I look at my hands. “I’m sorry, Mom. It was just this once. Jessa is safe, I promise. Logan’s own brother was taken by ComA. He would never tell on her.”
At least, I don’t think he would. Why did he talk to me today? For all I know, he was spying on Jessa. Maybe he’s working for ComA now. Maybe his report will be the one that sends my sister away.
Or maybe it has nothing to do with Jessa. Maybe the falling leaves reminded him of another time, when we used to be friends. My mind drifts to an old book of poems Mom gave me for my twelfth birthday. Pressed in between the pages, next to a poem by Emily Brontë, is a crumbling red leaf. The first leaf Logan ever gave me. A small piece of my heart, one I didn’t even know still existed, knocks against my chest.
“You were lucky.” My mother strides to the counter and snaps up the cake stand. “Next time might not work out so well.”
She plunks the stand on the eating table and lifts the dome. The chocolate cake is higher on one side than the other, the frosting glopped on and messy. Each mark of the handmade-ness reproaches me. See how hard your mother worked? This is how you repay her?
“There’s not going to be a next time,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me. Think how you would feel if you never saw your sister again.”
The chocolate cake swims before my eyes. This is so unfair. I would never let them take Jessa away from us. My mother knows this. I just wanted to see the sun. The world is not over.
“That’s not going to happen,” I say.
“You don’t know that.”
“I will! You’ll see. I’ll get my memory tomorrow, and in it we’ll be happy and safe and together forever. Then you won’t be able to yell at me anymore!” I leap to my feet, and my arm knocks the stand. It tips onto the floor, breaking the cake into a hundred different pieces.
Jessa cries out and runs from the room. I’d forgotten she was still here.
My mom sighs and moves around the table to put her hand on my shoulder. The tension melts away, leaving behind our shared guilt for arguing in front of Jessa.
“Which do you want? Clean up this mess, or talk to your sister?”