What you don't know can kill you...
It's just a pretty pendant. A harmless necklace. Everyone wears them, like a talisman.
At least that's what sixteen year old Shai Eli has always believed. But why does her community enforce a law that keeps people...
"Hang my locket around your neck, wear my ring on your finger. Love is invincible facing danger and death. Passion laughs at the terrors of hell. The fire of love stops at nothing - it sweeps everything before it."
Song of Solomon 8:6
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Shai sat on a hard wooden bench in the chapel staring at the back of the young man in front of her. She crossed her ankles and swung them as she noted how his hair had begun to curl up around his ears and along his neck. Her chest warmed, the way it always did when she thought of him. She smiled as he ran a hand through his thick, dark hair, making it stand on end.
A sharp poke in her ribs snapped her out of her daydream.
"Listen, Shai!" Her friend Sileas narrowed her eyes and jabbed a thumb in the direction of the speaker's platform at the front of the room. Shai rolled her eyes and faced front.
"There are twenty-one more days until the next Watcher Recruitment round. That's enough time to prepare yourselves." A thin, middle-aged woman with mousy-brown hair that she wore in a severe bun, had begun the speech that Shai and the other teens in the community of Lael heard every three weeks. It was always the same thing: be diligent in the duties assigned to you, manage the younger children in your House, attend Chapel regularly, and try not to stand out... blah, blah, blah.
She had been eligible for recruitment two years ago when she had turned fourteen, but had no interest in becoming a Watcher. They wore black clothing, walked with their heads down, and never spoke. They were the security of Lael and the most sought-after position. They protected the residents and reported which children might be eligible for the next recruitment to the leader of the community. No one knew the Watchers' identities. They gathered in secret at night, along Lael's boundary fence-line while everyone else slept, and watched Lael in shifts by day.
Shai leaned forward a little to steal a look at the other children sitting in her row. Who would be the next one chosen for recruitment? The air seemed to crackle with nervous energy. Even Sileas fidgeted.
One by one the children returned her stare, their grey eyes round with anticipation. A small smile tugged at the corners of Shai's mouth. One of them will be chosen before me or even Aliah. We stand out too much. She leaned back against the bench and glanced at his rigid back as he sat next to his friend Ellersly, listening intently to the speeches as though they mattered to him. They were the only two in the community who had colored eyes. Hers mirrored the color of the sky when the clouds parted, and Aliah's were bright green.
The Mother's eyes darted around the room, waiting for quiet before she continued. Her long grey skirt swished as she walked to a small table on the right side of the room. The table served one purpose: to display a thick, brown book known simply as the Book.
The Mother placed one hand palm-down on the front cover of the Book and scanned the room again.
Shai twisted her pendant on its silver chain until it pinched her skin, then released it, watching the pale moonstone embedded on the front, twirl. Even if she could avoid being recruited, she couldn't escape the Reading of the Book. She ticked off a mental list. Did she break any Laws or Rules during the past three days?
