The Invasion of the Tearling

“Forgive me my skepticism.”


“The doctor said she shouldn’t be moved!” Lily insisted, alarmed, for the man had risen from his armchair, and she saw that he meant to pick Dorian up and carry her out. Lily sprang from her own armchair, then hissed in pain as all of her separate wounds woke up at once.

“Seen some rough handling, haven’t we, Mrs. Mayhew? Who’s done that to your face?”

“None of your business.”

He nodded, his eyes bright, and Lily saw that he already knew … maybe not everything, but more than she wanted him to.

“Don’t take her away, please.”

“Why not?”

Lily cast around for more of the doctor’s words. “There might be roadblocks.”

“There are three roadblocks around New Canaan, Mrs. Mayhew. They’re no impediment to me.”

“Please.” Lily was appalled to find herself near tears. The entire day seemed to have crashed down on her all at once: the horrible surgery, Greg, Maddy … and now this man, who wanted to take Dorian away before Lily could atone for anything. “Please let her stay.”

“What’s your interest here, Mrs. Mayhew? Might as well tell me; I’ll know if you’re lying. Are you looking to collect a reward?”

“No!”

He bent toward Dorian again. Lily fumbled for words, for any excuse, but she came up with nothing. Only the truth.

“I turned my sister in.”

He looked up sharply. “What?”

Lily tried to stop, but the words came tumbling out. “My sister. I turned her in to Security, eight years ago. I didn’t mean to, but I did. Dorian looks just like her.”

He studied her closely for a moment, his eyes narrowed. “What’s your maiden name, Mrs. Mayhew?”

“Freeman.”

“Good name for a separatist. What did your sister do?”

“Nothing.” Lily closed her eyes, feeling tears threatening to swamp her again. “She had a pamphlet in her room. I didn’t know what it was at the time.”

“You showed it to someone?”

Lily nodded, and the tears began to slide down her cheeks. “My friends. One of them had a father who worked for Security, but I never thought about that. I just wanted to know what Maddy was doing.”

“How old were you?”

“Seventeen. Maddy was fifteen.”

“Did they come for her?”

Lily nodded again, unable to speak. She had no way to explain that morning, the way it never changed in her memory no matter how badly she wished it to: Lily, standing by her locker, surrounded by her own friends, all of them glued to their phones; Maddy, coming out of a classroom thirty feet away; and just around the corner, not yet seen, the four Security officers, closing in. Sometimes Lily had dreams, hopeless nightmares in which she reached for Maddy, grabbed her arm at the last minute and helped her duck into a classroom, behind a door, out the window. But even her dreaming self knew it was futile, that any moment the four men in black uniforms would come around the corner, that two of them would grab each of Maddy’s arms and escort her down the hallway, that Lily’s last glimpse of her sister would be a flash of blonde pigtails before the doors closed.

At dinner the three of them, Mom and Dad and Lily, had waited for Maddy to turn up. They had waited through the night as well, and into the next morning. Dad got on the phone with every important person he knew, and Mom cried almost nonstop, but Lily was silent, some deep and awful part of her already beginning to put two and two together, to understand what she had done. Dad was only an engineer; his clout was nowhere near strong enough to get a prisoner released, especially not one with suspected separatist ties. They had waited for days, and then weeks, but Maddy had never come home; she had vanished into the vast, dark mechanism of Security. The doctors said that Dad had died of cancer, but Lily knew the truth. Dad had been dying for a long time, dying slowly and horribly of Maddy’s disappearance years before. Mom didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t even want to think about it. She told friends that Maddy had run away, and when Lily tried to talk about it, Mom would simply ignore her, turning the conversation into a different path. Mom’s attitude was maddening, but Dad’s grief had been terminal.

I killed him too, Lily often thought to herself, in those defenseless moments right before sleep. I didn’t mean to, but I killed my father.

She looked up at the man in front of her, expecting judgment. But his face was neutral.

“It’s been eating you up, I see.”

Lily nodded.

“And you’re using Dorian as … what? Self-punishment?”

“Fuck you!” Lily hissed. “I’m not the one who sent her to blow up a jet field.”

“She volunteered,” he replied mildly.

“Please. Your group recruits people with nowhere else to go.”

“True, most of them have nowhere else. But that’s not why they volunteer.”