Grandma's Heart

The heart is scratched.

I stare at the forbidden jewelry nestled within my salty palm. Scooped from the ocean. Rescued, even. Moonlight glints off the golden heart-shaped locket in tiny shards that hold my gaze captive, even as the waves rush the beach, the rhythmic crashing urging me to hurry. Hurry.

My stomach grumbles. My heartbeat is a frantic drum in my chest. Ripping my sights away from the treasure in my hand, I scan the coastline for any sign of human life. This isn't the first time I've snuck through the hole in the fence in search of food. Though crabs are tasty, it's hard to find enough to fill our bellies.

Something is better than nothing, I suppose. I wet my lips, saltwater a dangerous tang that only reinforces my current predicament. My fishing pole, dislodged from its prone position near my feet, shifts with a coming wave and bounces across my toes. The tide is rising. I swallow hard, my throat suddenly dry and thick.

Gold.

I have not seen gold since before The Rage. Over thirty years now, though the collection of metals started during my grandmother's time.

"Saligna."

The harsh whisper behind me startles me so badly I almost drop the locket. Clutching it to my chest, I pivot and see Lanie bounding down a dune. Her shorn hair and ratty clothes flap in the ocean breeze. The moon tonight is so bright that I see her clearly.

She reaches me, excitement bedazzling her face, brightening the wan circles beneath her eyes, tugging the corners of her lips upward. "Warren is here. He told me to fetch you. There's a place, across the border, where you can own your land. Food is aplenty." She wheezes a little, her asthma worsened by running. "You have to come."

I bend down to pick up my fishing pole. Dread is a terrible clutch in my chest, a snag in my stomach. Nausea creeps up my throat. Warren is supposed to serve five more years.

"You should not have come out here," I rasp, my voice rusty. I haven't spoken in hours. My sack of crabs is laying near the fence hole. I had gotten distracted by the sheen of the locket laying on the sand.

"But we are leaving tonight."

"That's too dangerous." Again, I look down the beach. There's a Patrol soon. After The Rage, all metal was outlawed. Dangerous, the government said. Used to create all manners of weapons. I hardly remember The Great Recall. Only that it happened, and is still happening.

So how did this piece of gold, this heart-shaped locket, come to be laying on a beach?

"Saligna." My sister reaches out and grasps my shoulder. "This is our chance."

"If we're caught, we'll be sent to a Retraining Camp. Or worse." My fingers tighten around the locket. I can sell it. I've heard there are dark markets where goods are swapped in secret.

Lanie’s smile fades. “Warren said the camps are not so bad. There’s food, at least. Please, we have to go.”

I nod. “I’m following you.”

We rush across the beach, tiny pellets of sand bulleting the backs of my calves as we run. When we reach the fence, she points to my bag of crabs. “Release them.”

I nod, but as I bend down, I slip the locket into the pocket of my skirt. It thumps against my leg as I open the burlap sack and dump my dinner out. They scurry away. I tamp down my disappointment as I follow Lanie home.

The nice thing about the full moon is that it creates shadows. We sneak through those, dodging past the windows of empty houses. Most of the people who lived in our neighborhood left a long time ago. Either through will or through force.

But there are still some who live here, and I have no doubt they’d happily inform the Patrol that we’ve broken curfew. Food is a powerful motivator.

My bare feet pad across the grass. Almost home. The Patrol hasn’t been on our streets in days. They will be soon, with their heavy nonmetallic armor, their tromping boots, their metal detectors screaming as they pick up rusted nails and bits of wire missed the last go-round. Over thirty years, and the world is still not clean.

The locket bumps against my thigh as I run, reinforcing the thought.

We reach our house and slip in through the back door.

“Warren?” whispers Lanie, but I move into the living room and set my fishing pole in a corner. I squish down into my bean bag chair.

My stomach rumbles. The locket presses against me, snug between my leg and my seat.

A whisper of sound and then Warren appears in the doorway leading to the hall. He is taller. Though our house lights are off, though there is only moonlight for clarity, it seems to me that his jaw has become more squared. Harder.

And he is skinny. Far too skinny.

A jagged lump crowds my throat. This is not my brother.

He comes into the room, Lanie following. “Are you packed?” he asks.

Lanie passes him and comes to me. “I packed for Saligna.”

“We have to go.” His voice is harsher than I remember, frayed, like the skin on my fingertips when I’ve swam in the sea for too long.

“I’m ready.” Lanie sounds resolute. “Saligna?”

I swallow, my stomach roiling.

Warren kneels in front of me. “Over the border, they say there’s food. It’s a different Sphere. More freedom. Less Patrols. I’ve got a pod. We can be there within hours.”

“How do you know its different?” I look between the two of them. “We have a home here.”

“Saligna.” Warren’s eyes close for a moment, then open. “I escaped the Retraining Camp. They’ll come for me soon. We have to go.”

“But punishment for unlicensed travel is death.” My voice quivers. I sneak my hand into my pocket to caress the locket.

“You won’t tell on us, will you?” Lanie’s lips are pale, crinkled with fear.

“Why would she do that?” Warren’s brows pull together. I can’t look at this man who no longer resembles my brother. My gaze falls to my lap, to the thin cotton dress covering my knees.

“Her Intended Partner is a Patrol.” Disapproval coats Lanie’s words.

“Has he turned you then?” asks Warren.

I wet my lips, my mouth suddenly as dry as the beach during low tide. I have not turned, but I am not like my siblings, either. They hate the Order, but the truth is that the government saved the world. Before The Rage, people constantly murdered each other. Countries warred with countries, their weapons made of metals. After the West was demolished, becoming a nuclear wasteland, the nations gathered and created The Order of Spheres. The Order established Patrols in each sphere. And the Patrols calmed the chaos. Over time, all metals were collected from the peoples. Replaced by hybrid plastics and nanotech provided by the Order.

Peace was restored.

Our family lived in a poor Sphere, but we had jobs provided by the government. I might be hungry, but I was not stupid. If the Order had not stepped in, the world would have been destroyed.

My fingers curl around the locket. The gold has warmed from contact with my skin.

Finally, I lift my eyes to meet Warren’s concerned gaze. “I will not tell.” My heart ticks heavily in my chest. The metal in my pocket screeches my hypocrisy. My lack of allegiance.

The blare of sirens flares suddenly into our neighborhood, piercing my ears. It’s what the Patrol uses when they’re hunting criminals. Warren shoots to a standing position. Lanie follows. They look at me.

My breath is razor-hot in my windpipe. How dearly I love them, these two who raised me after Grandma was Taken.

But the locket. I palm it, then pull it from my dress pocket and unfurl my fingers.

Moonshine bounces off the metallic surface. A strange mix of horror and awe cross my siblings’ faces.

“Where did you get this?” Warren’s voice sounds strangled and raw.

“On the beach. We can sell it. We’ll be wealthy, able to do almost anything we want.”

The sirens are getting louder. Goosebumps prickle across my skin as I close my hand and return the heart-shaped locket to its previous place.

“We have to go.” Lanie grabs my arm. “Are you coming?”

“But the locket.”

“You’ll be dead if anyone knows you have that. They’re probably tracking the resonance right now.”

My throat spasms. They could be.

“Remember Grandma’s heart.” Warren reaches out and touches my cheek. His fingers are as warm as the brown in his eyes. He is my brother again.

They turn to leave.

“Wait.” I stand. “I’m coming.”

As we flee, as we flounder through the woods, branches scraping my face, I know I’ve made the right choice.

The Patrol took Grandma when I was six. Lanie said that in Grandma’s youth, metal was everywhere. People even put it on their fingers in the form of rings when they married. Though Grandpa had been murdered by an enraged gunman during The Rage, Grandma never forgot him.

And so when the Order instituted new laws prohibiting ownership of anything metallic, she hid her wedding ring. It took years, but one day the Patrol came to inspect our house, and they found it.

She refused to pay the fine or to surrender the ring, and so she was Taken.

Her heart had been with that ring.

But mine is with my family. Even as my stomach twists with hunger, my heart beats with Lanie and Warren. The locket bounces in my pocket, heavy.

“They’re tracking us,” Lanie yells. She’s ahead of me, following Warren.

“We’re almost there.” His voice whips behind him, barely reaching me.

My muscles burn. My ribs heave. With the right equipment, the Patrol can detect metal up to ten miles away.

This heart-shaped locket is not my salvation. It is my doomsday.

I see the Pod ahead, its wings whirring. Undetectable by heat sensors and metallic resonance readers.

Clutching my side, I suck in air as I pull out the locket. I stare at it one more time. I may never see gold again. I will never know what lays within this locket’s heart.

But I know what lays within mine.

I heave the forbidden jewelry as far as I can into the trees, and then I join my siblings.