Sunshine Yellow

Chapter 2

“Please, Cass? Please?”

            I shake my head and say, for about the hundredth time in this hour alone, “No, Alice. I know Asher doesn’t have a problem with it, but I’m not going to risk getting us in trouble.”  

            “You’re just saying that ‘cause you don’t know how to find one,” she says.  “’Cause Asher knows the pipes better than you.”

            I plant my elbows on my thighs and rest my head in my hands. “It’s not that,” I say, not liking coming up short to Asher. “Even if I memorized the tunnels, it would be impossible to find a necklace like Twyla’s. He just got lucky.”

            “But if we just tried looking—“

            “The answer is still no, Alice. Just think what Mother would say if she saw you wearing a pretty-stone.”

            Sighing theatrically, Alice plops her head in her hands, copying my pose. “Grammy would like it,” she mutters.

            There it is: the perfect opportunity. Gathering up the nerve, I open my mouth to say it, to finally explain to her that Grammy is gone for good. But just then the clock sounds, and my chance is gone.

            Even before the loud, distinct blips of sound from the clock reach her ears, Alice flies up from the step we had been sitting on and stumbles down the stairs at a frantic pace. Laughing a little, I make my way down behind her and help her open the door.

            And then there they are, those blue eyes that shine like pretty-stones, looking at me once again.

            “Mother!” Alice cries, and wraps her arms around Mother’s waist as the clock sounds for the eighteenth and final time.

            Mother smiles wanly and hugs Alice in return, but her eyes are still trained on me over Alice’s shoulder. She mouths a single phrase, one that I understand as easily as I would have if she’d said it aloud:

            Thank you.

            She says this every day when she comes back to the residence—she has for as long as I can remember. I still haven’t figured out why she’s thanking me. Maybe for taking care of Alice or for not complaining that she’s gone more than she’s here. But these things aren’t worthy of a thank-you. It’s my duty as the older child to watch over the younger. As for her being away from the residence all day, that’s just part of the job. She has a strict schedule to follow, and we all understand what will happen if she doesn’t show up to work.

            “How was your day, Mother?” I ask as we head upstairs.

            “Fine,” is all she says, and I don’t question her further because I didn’t really care in the first place. “Is my water ready?”

            “Of course,” Alice says with a giggle. This is a sort of tradition for my sister and me, to request a glass of water from the Cylinder for Mother before she comes back to the residence.

            Mother heads to the couch, Alice and I following close behind. We regard her carefully as she sits down and picks up the glass on the table before her, slowing swallowing the water down in tiny gulps.

             “Perfect,” she says. As if our water, filtered and tested and enhanced by Those Who Protect, could be anything but.

            Water makes me laugh sometimes. It’s evidence of how far we’ve come from the Ancient Days, when people couldn’t survive without food and things. Pathetic, really.