What Contains Us

Rain is starting to fall as I open the old metal box. Being back in this barn again, sitting on the hay, surrounded by lingering scents from animals long gone is somehow comforting and I’m tempted to just lay back and daydream. But I’m not sure how well the roof will keep the water out so I know I don’t have long.

I turn my attention back to the box that had been hidden away here, perhaps since my parents disappeared from Arcadia. Inside I find files of papers and photos and start searching through the file on top. It appears to be full of medical reports from an infirmary - the papers are emblazoned with the Arcadian seal but there’s no name or address listed. I don’t recognize the patients’ names either but the reports detail appalling injuries - broken bones, burns, contusions - as well as deaths by heart attack, seizures, traumatic injury and the like. Reading through these is making me nauseous but there must be a reason they’re in this box. Mrs. Shelley and Glen both wanted me to come back to this barn to find something, so I keep going.

Brian Stewart...age 32, April 26th - brought in with lacerations, two broken ribs, broken nose.

It’s about my father, the day after I saw the security forces drag him and my mother away ten years ago. Several more pages have my dad’s name on them...the last one dated just six months ago. He’s alive, or at least was recently, and in Arcadia. I quickly search the rest of the file for signs of my mother, but it appears to be full of only men’s reports. I start to dig through the rest of the box when a loud rumble of thunder shakes the windows and rain starts pouring down even harder, leaking through the dilapidated roof of the old barn.

I throw the files back in the metal box, knowing I cannot possibly be caught with it or the files it contains back at the Home. I stumble out of the stall, stunned by what I have learned, and look around for a new hiding place for the box in case someone gets suspicious of me being sent out here by two different people over the last few weeks. I consider the hay loft but there’s no longer a ladder and who knows if it would be safe enough to hold my weight. I may have grown in courage recently but I don’t need to be careless. I finally settle on a spot back in the corner under some old equipment and try to bury the box as best I can. As the rain is starting to soak through my clothes and backpack, I decide to hide the small box Glen had wanted me to find in the school garden shed too. Even though I haven’t been able to get it open yet, I don’t trust it contains something the Caretakers or the Arcadian Council would want me to have.

I’m about to start sprinting back to the Home when I remember I was sent here by Mrs. Shelley to gather some wild mint and rosemary. Showing up without those would only fuel the Caretakers’ apparent growing suspicion of me, so I grab what I can in the swelling downpour.

When I get back to the Home and make my way to the kitchen, the head Caretaker Mrs. Lambeth is there going over menus with Mrs. Shelley.

“Wow, Anya, you certainly got drenched,” exclaims Mrs. Shelley, handing me a tea towel.

I hand her the plants I gathered and take the towel to dry off a little. “Yeah, it’s really raining hard out there.” I’m surprised at my facade of normalcy, given the earth-shattering information I just saw about my father.

“Did you find everything you needed?” asked Mrs. Lambeth. Behind her, Mrs. Shelley stares at me, her face twitching briefly.

It takes all of my self-control to calmly answer, “Mostly...I think I should go back out later and look again. I think I saw some other herbs we could use here. Perhaps after the storm finishes?”

“No - it’ll keep ‘til another day. You’re needed here to help with the work, especially since we only have a few more days until you must report to the Necessary Support office.” Mrs. Lambeth looked at me and smirked. “But don’t think getting a job will excuse you from continuing to help in the kitchen.”

Of course not. I’ll probably be cleaning somewhere else ten hours a day since I’m no longer able to be in school, so why shouldn’t I have to work here too?

Mrs. Shelley sends me back to my room and asks me to report to the kitchen to help with dinner in an hour. I change out of my wet clothes and sink back on my bed, numb physically and emotionally. The chocolate birthday cake Mrs. Shelley snuck into my room last night is sitting on my bedside table, so I grab a piece and mindlessly eat it. I’m not ready to sift through my thoughts and memories just yet.

I grab another piece, the one with the big frosted 17 on it. Seventeen years old and all of the dreams I had of doing something meaningful are over. I’m not allowed to continue my education or apply for better work, lest I take a more desirable position away from someone from a Chosen family...or learn to rebel, like my parents and those of the other children at the Home.

My bitterness usurps the numbness and I start to pace around my room. It’s not fair! I’ve done everything they’ve wanted since coming here ten years ago...including believing that my parents had abandoned me because I ran away that night, that they had killed members of the Chosen and then fled Arcadia without me. Ten years of lies to keep me doubting myself.

My thoughts are interrupted by a knock. It’s Emily, probably just coming back from the school musical rehearsal. I’ve barely spoken to her in weeks, not knowing what to say about all I’ve learned about my past.

“Hi Anya. I just thought…” Emily wavers, looking uncomfortable. “I just thought I would see how you’re doing. We haven’t talked much lately.”

“I know. I’m sorry I haven’t hung out - it’s just I’ve been so busy with the extra work in the kitchen and everything, and it kind of freaked me out when Glen got arrested. I don’t know...I think it reminded me of what happened to my parents.”

“What do you mean? Your parents didn’t get arrested - they ran off. And wait, who’s Glen? Is he that janitor guy at school? What’s going on?”

I desperately want to confide in Emily, my only friend these last several years, but I know I shouldn’t take the risk. Someone is attempting to divulge something very big to me, something that is probably dangerous for the Arcadian council and for me.

“I don’t know - my memories have been getting all jumbled up. I think...I think I’m just upset about having to leave school and knowing that we don’t get to do anything good with our lives. Look, I need to get back Mrs. Shelley before Lambeth assigns me more kitchen duty punishment. Let’s talk later, okay?”

“Wait...Anya!”

I brush past Emily trying, but failing, to give her a reassuring smile. I can’t do this alone. I’m not strong enough.

Thankfully Mrs. Shelley is the only one in the kitchen now. I just need to know what those infirmary reports mean and what’s happening now with my parents.

“I saw the infirmary reports about all of those men and my dad. What is that place? Did you know about it? Is that why you sent me there? Is my dad still alive? What about my mom?”

“Whoa - one thing at a time, Anya. The infirmary is at a secret prison facility the Council uses for those caught in the Uprising. I don’t know if your parents are still alive but they were taken there ten years ago.”

“But you told me that their lives may depend on me finding out what was in Glen’s box and that they were wrong about me being ready to help them. I don’t understand - haven’t you been talking to them? Aren’t you helping somehow?”

“Don’t fool yourself, Anya. My moral compass points towards me alone. I don’t proselytize the downfall of our system in favor of helping the poor, wretched downtrodden and displaced like your parents did. I pass on information and secret keys and birthday cakes because your parents’ friends pay me to. After what happened to Glen, none of them can get close enough to you or those files to do it themselves. And they know where my loyalties lie,” Mrs. Shelley hissed, crushing my hopes of getting support from her.

After dinner, I return to my room, thoughts swirling, threatening to drown me in fear and self-doubt. I know I need to return to the barn and find out more about those infirmary files and see what else is in that box, to try to determine if my mother was being kept at that prison too. There’s got to be a reason someone wants me to see those, otherwise why not just tell me my parents were imprisoned? And why would the Council tell us all traitors from the Uprising were killed by the security forces and brave citizen soldiers of Arcadia? If I could just find out more about the secret prison…

Oh, just stop it Anya!

Who do I think I am? My anger at my parents has faded but how do they expect me to help? I’m just a kid and I’m alone and I haven’t done anything brave ever. I’ve been kept in this place, never venturing far from here or school, always doing what I was asked to do. Living in the confines of my belief that I don’t matter, that my actions drove my parents to leave me, that I’m not good enough to do anything of meaning. This fear and doubt the Caretakers have instilled keeps me small, contains me until there’s nothing left.

I roll over on the bed and notice something next to the birthday cake I left sitting on the table. It’s a box wrapped in plain brown paper with my name on the top. It’s probably a present from Emily since she didn’t get to see me yesterday. I know it’s not from Mrs. Shelley since I was with her the entire time since I left here this afternoon and besides, she wouldn’t get me a present anyway...unless it’s from my parents’ friends like the cake.

Inside the package I find photos of a man and woman. There’s a few of them at different locations around downtown Arcadia, places we’ve been on school trips and that I’ve seen in our daily Council news reports. I get to a closeup shot of the couple and stop breathing. Her eyes, my mother’s eyes, and his smile...I can’t be sure after all this time, but I think it’s my father. Why did someone leave me pictures of my parents? I dig through the package to see if there's a note or anything else, but it’s just the handful of pictures. I flip over the closeup to see someone has written something.

Brian and Melissa Stewart … and the date.

The photos fall from my hands. Not only are my parents alive and out of their secret prison, but they were walking around Arcadia three months ago.

So then why am I still here, in the place for those left behind?