Solstice by Jane Redd Page B

heard about Lake Towns in other parts of the world that relied on boats to house people because they weren’t advanced enough to find alternate survival solutions like we had.
    Rueben watched me, amusement in his eyes. He held up an arm. “Do you want to touch me, see if I’m real?”
    “I—I know you’re real, it’s just that—”
    “You didn’t expect someone from a Lake Town to actually walk upright and speak?”
    My face burned. “Something like that.”
    “Look, Jezebel, I’m not sure why I’m telling you all of this. One of the rules that Lake Town recruits are given before we relocate is that we aren’t supposed to talk about where we came from.” He hesitated, watching me closely. “But I feel like we’re in this together—and maybe the more information we can share with each other, the better.”
    “I don’t have any information to share , ” I said, too quickly. I’d promised never to reveal the secret of the Carrier key. And I wasn’t ready to tell anyone about my grandmother or why she’d been executed.
    Rueben nodded slowly, and I could tell he didn’t exactly believe me.
    I looked around the silent room. “And even if I did have any information to tell you, wouldn’t we get into more trouble?”
    He scoffed. “We’re already in prison.”
    I let out a sigh. We were indeed in prison, but there was still hope—there had to be. I had to make it back to the University and become a part of the Science Commission. But I also had so many questions about the Lake Town, why Rueben came to the city, and how he knew so much. But mostly I couldn’t stop staring at him, waiting for the barbarian to come out. Finally I said, “So how were you recruited?”
    His face flushed, and he glanced away from me, as if he were uncomfortable. I still wasn’t used to his display of emotion.
    “In this city,” Rueben began in a slow voice, “more people are Taken, due to life cycle or crimes, than are born each year. The population is dwindling.”
    “Dwindling?” I hadn’t expected that.
    “Yeah, so a certain number of people are allowed to earn citizenship each year,” he said. “At the age of eight, Lake people become eligible to join the recruitment program. Usually the head officer of the town selects a handful of youth to recommend. The year I was recommended, I was the only one accepted for citizenship from the whole town.”
    Before I tested into the A Level, there were kids who lived at the Children’s Center who didn’t have caretakers. We were always told that their caretakers had been Taken. Now I wondered if some of them were from the Lake Towns.
    Out there, in the vast waters, were other pockets of civilization. Living and breathing totally different lives than ours here in the city. “What was it like living in a Lake Town?” I asked. It was hard to reconcile my preconceived notions with the living, breathing boy who now sat across from me.
    One side of his mouth lifted. “That would take weeks to tell you. But information is harder to get out there—we don’t have the WorldNet. We rely on stories handed down from generation to generation, and life is much harder in a physical sense. My family spent most of their time scouting for wood and metal pieces to add onto our floating barge.”
    I tried to imagine Rueben fishing for scraps of wood, his long arms snagging pieces out of the water. I blinked the image away. “So you must have been grateful to become a citizen in the city.”
    The flush was back, and he shoved his hands in his pockets. “There were some big trade-offs.”
    I waited until he met my eyes again. “What kind of trade-offs?”
    He exhaled, looking past me. “I haven’t seen my family for eight years.”
    “You mean your caretakers?”
    “Yes.” His eyes flickered to me, then away again. “And my two sisters.”
    “Sis-ters?”
    His gaze slid back to mine. His eyes were no longer warm, but dark and cold like wet earth. “Siblings—my mother and