Beneath the Shadowlanders

Chapter Four: Orion

I am in so much trouble, I think as I step out of the tunnel. I can already see patrollers out on the streets. I've broken curfew again. If I get caught, mom will never forgive me.

I slide into a thin alley between two houses as a patrol bike glides past me down the street. I hear him turn back to take a second look, but I've already slipped out the other side of the alley and into another side street. I duck between houses, managing to avoid the patrols long enough to make it back to my own modest dwelling. I glance one last time up and down the street before making a run for the door, bursting through it before I realize my mom and sisters are already at the table. Oops. I start to mutter some excuse about a math test that I'm sure she knows I don't have, but give up halfway through as I realize the jig is probably up anyway.

"Orion! So glad you could join us!" my mother chastises, practically leaping out of her chair, as I shrug off my jacket. I start to move toward the table, but she stops me. "Just what do you think you're doing?"

"Eating?" Crap. This is not good.

"Are you, now? And, tell me, what do you plan to eat?" She's angry. Really angry.

"Uh, macaroni and salad?" I hazard, knowing there's no hope. I'm doomed.

"Really? Because I'm pretty sure that's what we had for dinner. A dinner which you have missed. Again." She emphasizes this point by pulling the dishes out of my reach.

I silently chastise myself, as she does so out loud, and before long, I've been sent to my room. As I head upstairs I grab my favorite book off the living room table. It's a worn paperback copy of Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. I barely managed to snag it before we came under. It's one of the few non-essential possessions I was able to bring with me. I close my door behind me and settle down to read.

Before long, I hear one of my sisters come up the stairs. She pauses a moment before heading into her own room. Lis, probably, I think. Moments later, Bee follows suit.

I press into my pillows, willing the pain in my stomach to dull. It's my own damn fault. I knew I shouldn't have stayed out so long... I focus on the words in an effort to drown out the hunger. It works so well I nearly jump out of my skin when my mother knocks on the door an hour or so later.

"Come in?"

"Hey." She's carrying a plate. "I brought you dinner. Don't tell your sisters."

"Thanks."

She sighs and perches uncertainly on the edge of the bed. "Where were you?" She looks at me and I know she knows. I just can't bring myself to say it. I mutter a repetition of my math test excuse and she looks hurt, the faint glimmer of a tear at the corner of her eye. "No. Ri, where were you?" she says, more emphatically this time, but still weak. Still so, so tired.

I can't bring myself to lie to her a third time. I know she deserves to know. I cave. "The Shadowlands."

She looks away, hands resting limply on the once-white apron in her lap. I know she's crying. She doesn't want me to see.

"Mom, come on..." I touch her shoulder reassuringly. "I'm careful, you know that."

"It's still dangerous. I don't want you up there. Too much can go wrong." She brushes a tear out of her eye, turning it into a hair tuck at the last second to disguise her actions.

"I know what I'm doing. Someone has to check out the surface."

She turns back and looks me dead in the eyes. Her own are full of fire. "That's what the scouts are for. Not teenage boys." She squeezes my hand, and I can feel her pain – the pain of her loss when our father went missing. The pain of losing everything we had in the migration, including our extended families. We're all she has left. I pull my hand back, trying to rationalize what I know are selfish actions.

"Oh, come on," I plead, feeling the fire rise up in my belly again. "It's not like they ever tell us anything about the surface anymore. For all you know, it could be a peaceful field of daisies and sunshine!"

"Is it?" she asks angrily. She knows the answer.

"Of course not! But how could we know that if no one ever checks?" I shift off of the bed and stretch as I look out the window on the far side of my room. "There's more out there than they want to admit, and I'm not going to sit here and wait for them to decide we should know about it. Something is going on up there." I rest my hand on the windowsill. "I can't just sit around down here and rot."

She sighs and picks up the untouched plate of food, handing it to me as she moves to stand next to me. "Eat," she nudges gently, brushing a stray strand of hair out of my eye.

As she turns to go, I mutter, "He is coming back someday, you know."

She stops, shaken. She doesn't turn when she replies, "I know," and I know she's crying again. She bolts out of the room before I can say anything else, pulling the door closed behind her.