The tail moved when she squirmed. Crunch, crunch, crinkle, crinkle.
“Cecilia, sit still.”
Cecilia sighed.
I moved the bowl of fun size out of the way when Mama spread the map out onto the table. It was our neighborhood and the one behind it, with all the families’ names written right on their houses in blue architect pencil. Mama’s Rs ended in an extra little curly squiggle.
“Straight down Hemlock—all the houses. Walk up together, and if no one is at the door, push the buzzer. Wait, and if you still don’t get an answer, you can knock firmly. Then take a step back and stand together.”
“We know this already,” Cecilia rolled her eyes and crinkled some more.
“How many knocks?” I wanted to get this right.
“Three,” Mama answered while glaring at Cecilia. “Then onto Byron Street. The Erikssons’ are Jehovah’s Witnesses, so don’t even bother. Walk right by their house and the next one—I don’t want you talking to those Benson kids.”
Cecilia protested. Mama continued to point at every house on the map and indicated if we were to buzz, knock, or pass it by. Then Dunne Street, the dead end offshoot of the main map, with its last house pressed against the dark woods.
“Never, ever go there.”
Cecilia stopped squirming.
“Ms. Goulet,” I said so she would know we were paying attention.
“Why not?”
“She won’t give you candy.” Mama tried to swing back to saying thank you and not eating anything until we got back home.
Cecilia wouldn’t let her.
“What do you mean, she won’t? How do you know?”
I looked at Mama’s face to see if she’d let that sass go, but she wasn’t listening. There was a panicked look in her eye.
“Crazy stories. Ever since they left her here. Full of her theory and she’ll tell anyone who will listen. Always trying to convince us we’re about to be invaded, ‘they’re coming’ on and on. Not safe to have her here, and we tried to protest, but we were overruled.” Whenever Mama was nervous, she’d dip into the fun size when she thought we weren’t looking. She was twisting a Tootsie Roll wrapper in her fingers now.
Mr. Gorman was the one who protested, but he might have been speaking for all the parents. Mama was talking as though we weren’t standing right next to her when they showed up.
“So wait, she does give out candy, but then has a story, too? We don’t mind, we just want more candy than Melissa.” Melissa lived next door and her parents always started her pillow case off with a whole bag of Almond Joys before she even left home. Cecilia had murder in her eyes every time we compared our hauls and all those Almond Joys would stack up like the Himalayas around Melissa’s Snickers and O Henrys.
“You are not going to that house.” Mama’s voice had dropped low, not her usual fighting stance with Cecilia. She was serious and angry, and I realized from the way she clenched and unclenched her fists, terrified.
I was getting antsy — these two were going to fight and yell until tears and then it would be too late to go anywhere.
“OK, we won’t. I promise.” Cecilia was so serious and quiet that even I bought it.
“Don’t. I’ll know.” They stared at each other, eyeball to eyeball, unwavering, stubborn.
“So can we go now?” I was reaching for my coat.
The entire month had been warm enough to play outside. The sun set a little earlier each day and fading light was caught in the trees until the leaves glowed red and orange and yellow. We put finishing touches on our costumes. Cecilia was a caticorn: black cat ears, rainbow headband unicorn horn, whiskers painted onto her face, rainbow leotard from last spring’s dance recital, black mini skirt, purple sparkle tights, Mary Jane shiny black shoes. And a tail, of course. I was going as an astronaut. I had spray painted my bike helmet Old NASA orange, had orange Toughskin pants, a cool vintage NASA t-shirt, and black sneakers. Mama wouldn’t let me paint them orange, which would have been cool and more authentic.
I paraded up and down the living room, imagining I was on the flight deck, about to board the transport and fly up to the upper atmosphere. I would be a special guest at the diplomat dinners. The first astronaut to meet a real alien. They, of course, would be astounded by my bravery and invite me back to their ship. We would take a quick drive around the inner solar system, see Dad at Phobos Moon Base 3. I would return in the transport with more fun sizes—none of them Almond Joys—than Melissa ever dreamed of. Everything was on target: costumes set and sturdy pillow cases in solid colors (stripes were for losers when it came to collecting candy. Too babyish) folded by the front door.
Then the cold came. On the 29th, we woke up to white. White on the lawn, white on the cars, white on the driveways. The first frost of the season. Cecilia tried to delay breakfast so that it would melt before Mama saw, but no such luck.
“You’re going to need your winter coats for Thursday.”
“But Mama, caticorns don’t need coats!”
Mama said they did if they wanted candy.
Now I was reaching for that huge, dorky camo hand-me-down hunting coat from Donny to put over my regulation spacesuit. Cecilia just needed to put her un-feline fleece on even if it did make her tail stick out from the bottom like an afterthought. Then we could finally go.
“Yes. Go.” Mama said. “I’m trusting you two. You’re old enough to do this on your own.” Mama trailed us with the fun size bowl, ready to take up her station with the front door cracked. We jiggled into our coats, fisted the empty pillow cases and crowded out onto the front step.
“Here,” Mama called after us. She dropped an old-fashioned Twix into each of our bags. “Let’s start you off right. OK now, have some fun.” She had that nostalgic, if-only-your-father-were-here-to-see-you look on her face, and if we didn’t get a move on, she’d start tearing up.
“Oooh, that’s good luck, thanks, Mama,” Cecilia said. She usually wasn’t so nice. Cecilia questioned everything Mama did, why and how she was doing whatever, a cauldron of resentment and discontent brewing underneath every look and gesture. Mama for her part was combat-ready, checking for any chinks in her armor and aware of the pointiness of Cecilia’s weapons at any given moment. I was a little suspicious.
“We will!” I called out, raising my hand above my head and waving without looking back.
Cecilia was strangely quiet, leading us up to the first five houses on our street, demurely ringing the bell, making chit chat with our neighbors, pointing out her little brother’s costume in a big sisterly way. We yes ma’am-ed and yes sir-ed and thank you-ed our way all the way around the corner. Still no sign of the Cecilia I knew. I peeked back to see how Mama was doing. A group of kids ran down our stairs toward the street.
“Right,” she finally said in a normal tone, “we’re hitting Melissa’s house last. I want to see the look on her face when we show up with our pillow cases bulging.” Cecilia grabbed a Snickers from her bag and ripped off the wrapper.
“Mama said-”
“Don’t you start too,” Cecilia shot back around a mouth full of chocolate.
I hefted my bag while I waited for her to finish. The bottom was full for sure.
“Right,” she said, smacking her lips and using a finger to root a peanut out from a molar, “cut down on the astronaut talk and suit description. Everyone can see it’s NASA orange, you don’t have to tell them. We gotta get through this side as fast as we can so we have time to get up to Ms. Goulet’s house.
“But you told-”
“You aren’t going to tell her a thing!” She used her I-will-rip-the-covers-off-your-comic-books voice. She stopped walking and looked down at me. I froze, then nodded without saying anything back. There was no use trying to argue with her when she was like this.
We rang more bells. I didn’t talk about my suit. Not because she said not to, but because I couldn’t get my mind off Ms. Goulet’s house and how dark the dead end got after sunset. Donny and his friends had BB-gunned the streetlight on the first day of summer vacation. I don’t know if Ms. Goulet called anyone to complain. Ever since the day they dropped her off, people avoided her.
It used to be Mr. Carr’s house. His hands were gnarled and twisted and they shook when he gave out candy. His voice shook too, always saying the same thing, “Oh, you kids get bigger every time I see you.” Then one year his daughter handed out the candy while telling Mama that he was in a home. I didn’t know what she meant, since we were at his home. Then it was for sale, then it was sold, but nobody new moved in for a long time.
One day, a big military truck rolled into the neighborhood and everyone went out to watch. It drove down our street, around the corner, and all the way down the dead end. Men and women in uniform jumped out and took up positions with their black rifles. A women emerged accompanied by a man in a navy suit. She looked like a normal mom, not military. She didn’t look around or meet anyone’s eye.
Mr. Gorman, Donny’s father, yelled out, “Hey, we don’t want Plants here!” None of the people in uniform even flinched, they just stood there, impassive. Silent as the Sentinels we saw on TV. The man in the suit walked right up to Mr. Gorman.
“The U.R.U. doesn’t care what you Rejectionists have to say.” He spoke quietly, but somehow we all heard him. “Ms. Goulet’s been assigned to live here, and she better be here when we come back to get her.”
“Oh, so she’s not staying,” Mr. Gorman said it as though he had made a point, had pushed back on the military men.
“This is where she lives now.” He was right up in Mr. Gorman’s face, staring him down.
Mrs. Gorman grabbed her husband arm and pulled him back to stand with the rest of us. No one else said a thing. The man lead Ms. Goulet into the house then came right back out and shut the door behind him. He looked out with his arms crossed, glaring at us until we began to drift back to our houses.
Melissa’s Mom baked one of her raisin-riddled soda breads and brought it up as a welcome. Cecilia and I cracked our bedroom door so we could listen when she came over to report her findings.
“You’re not even going to believe what I have to tell you, Barbara. She seemed normal enough when she answered the door and invited me in. Brewed some tea and served a few slices of the soda bread, all friendly and regular behaving.”
“Did she get that zombie look they all get when they’re using their implants?”
“Nothing like that. Asked me about my family, kept the small talk going until I could tell she wasn’t going to tell me a thing if I didn’t just ask her directly.”
“No! What did you say … I wouldn’t even know where to begin, Dottie, I really wouldn’t.”
“I just said, well, do you have these implants like those military bullies or what?”
Mama scoffed, but I could tell she was impressed. “What did she say?”
“She didn’t say anything. Well, not right away. Just turned in her chair and lifted up her hair so I could see the butterfly tattoo on the back of her neck.”
“How could that be? A real one? I thought only Harvest draftees got those. They don’t come back to Earth.”
“Barbara, you might as well have been there—that’s exactly what I said. ‘Yes,’ she said, turning back around and looking me dead in the eye, “It’s real alright. Harvest Draft is not what you’ve all been lead to believe.’”
“What does that mean?”
“She says its slave labor and most of the draftees don’t make it.”
“Why would she say something like that? We’ve all seen the messages from Effluvia. Timmy was out in the field when he recorded his—we could see the transport ship in orbit above him.”
“Barbara, I told her all that. She insists its a lie. Said she made it back and was assigned a job in the upper atmosphere kitchen. Said she didn’t have a choice.”
“Wait, that must mean she’s seen an actual Effluvian!”
Mama sounded impressed.
“You know I wanted to ask her everything, but I was so disturbed by what she was telling me and what that might mean for our kids who get to go up there. I mean, that can’t be right. I started to think that ok, maybe she did work Harvest, but probably there’s something wrong with her and she wasn’t allowed to live in the outer solar system.”
“Mmm, that could be,” Mama answered. I heard the suspicion in both their voices.
“So anyway, just wait til I tell you what she told me next. And I almost bought the story up to that point. She says she and another woman actually had to cook up one of those Blue Hydrangea’s to serve at a state dinner. Then the Effluvian’s came and hypnotized everyone and ate the diplomats’ brains! But then somehow they all got up at the end of the meal and the diplomats returned to Earth. I mean without their brains? Really?”
Mama laughed, one of her full bellied really laughing laughs.
“I tell Cecilia to get in the habit of wearing sunscreen now. Once she gets up in a Harvest transport, flares and all that extra sunlight will wreck havoc on her skin if she’s not protected.”
“Flare damages don’t end at the skin, apparently.”
They both laughed and the conversation turned to the lawn mower Mr. Gorman ran on cooking oil. After Melissa’s mom left, we heard Mama lift the beacon messenger from the kitchen wall and dial.
“Yes, this is Barbara Francis, I’m trying to reach my husband.”
The floorboard creaked under her shifting weight.
“Well, no. No, it’s not an emergency, just a question.”
Dishes clinked together as she stacked them in the sink.
“Alright, I’ll wait until the next scheduled tube drop, thank you.”
I couldn’t fall asleep that night. All us kids snuck TV watching in when the adults weren’t around. We knew the story of first contact, of how Effluvians couldn’t come to the surface of the Earth because of gravity. They had special suits and used them to meet diplomats in the upper atmosphere. The United Republic Union President even wanted to go up, but the Effluvians said they would send representatives down to the surface. That’s when the Sentinels arrived.
They landed all over Earth and took up positions in government buildings. They never said anything to anyone, just stood in one place without moving. The diplomats said those weren’t actual Effluvians—real ones were smaller and knew how to talk human.
We Rejectionists don’t have chips or the old implants, so we couldn’t talk to them even if we wanted to. Mr. Gorman and Mama and all the parents in the Stead try to keep us away from the news and what’s really going on. We find stuff out, though.
I lay in the dark with my eyes open, thinking about Dad. He was a Rejectionist too, but he had gotten a job on Phobos Moon Base 3. He was supposed to come back last summer, but Mama said there was a transport delay and he’d have to stay for another cycle. He might not make it back before Cecilia takes a chance at becoming a Harvest draftee.
Then it will just be me and Mama, sending messages up in the beacon tube. And waiting.
But what if Ms Goulet was telling the truth?
There was a bare bulb lit over her front door, and the whole rest of the dead end was dark as pitch. Creaking and scurrying noises came out from the woods behind her house. A stool propped open the storm door, but the front door was closed tight.
A sign taped to the door read HAPPY HALLOWEEN, ONE PER COSTUME over a bowl full of fun size and a brown desiccated leaf that had blown on top.
“What do we do?” I whispered. I look at the bowl a little closer, with a discerning candy eye. There were boxes of Good-n-Plenty, Bit-O-Honey, Sweet Tarts, and Baby Ruths. It was going to be a hard choice.
For the first time in my life, I saw doubt in Cecilia’s eyes. She didn’t answer me at all, just walked up the stairs and knocked loudly on the door. We stood side-by-side and waited respectfully. There was no sound from the other side of the door.
Cecilia knocked again and rang the bell too, even though that wasn’t in Mama’s protocol. She just stayed up by the door, ready to knock again. Finally, she stomped back down the stairs.
“C’mon. Perimeter check.” She cut across the front lawn and skirted ’round to the side of the house, boldly peering into the first floor windows. All the lights were off. It looked like Ms. Goulet was not at home.
“What are you doing?” I whisper hissed, panic in my voice. If Mama found out, she’d confiscate both our pillow cases.
“We’re going to find her,” Cecilia answered in a regular voice, not trying to hide our trespassing.
We circled to the other side where Cecilia crouched down and looked in the basement. It was dark. She pulled on the window, testing the lock, and it slid up.
“Hold this.” She thrust her pillow case at me.
“What are you doing?” I was still whispering. “You can’t go in there!”
“I need to talk to Ms. Goulet. Stay here and keep look out. I’ll be right back.”
Every horror movie we had sneak-watched after Mama went to bed flashed before me. Every scary story, every haunted house. Vampires and werewolves and aliens. I thought about waiting alone in the dark yard and never seeing Cecilia again.
“I’m coming with you.”
She had been waiting for that. She grabbed my pillow case, rolled the top closed, and put it on the ground next to hers. “We’ll get them after. I’ll lower you down first.”
We squeezed in, one after the other. The floor was rough cement and our feet kicked up a cloud of dust. I had to hold my nose for a second so I wouldn’t sneeze. We crept forward a few steps, silent like ninjas until I knocked into a metal bucket. It rang out like a cathedral bell in the empty basement. A lamp clicked on in the corner. Ms. Goulet sat in a rocking chair facing us. She had watched the whole thing.
“Most kids just take the candy.” Her voice was a little raspy, like she hadn’t used it in a while.
“I knocked, but you didn’t answer.”
“What else do you want?” Ms. Goulet was dressed like all the moms—jeans and a sweatshirt. She was so calm. I thought she’d be angry and yell at us, threaten to call the police or something. It was almost like she expected someone to break in, though.
“I have a chance at Harvest next year. All the parents say it’s the best way for a kid to get ahead. I want to know what it’s really like.”
Ms. Goulet held Cecilia’s gaze, neither one of them said anything for a long time. Then she nodded slowly. “Upstairs.”
Cecilia didn’t hesitate, just followed in Ms. Goulet’s footsteps across the basement to the wooden stairs. My legs trembled behind them.
The kitchen light snapped on. The white formica table was empty. There were curtains on the windows that still had price tags dangling from the ends. Ms. Goulet pointed to the chairs, and Cecilia sat without hesitation. I followed her like a ghost, fear coursing through my veins.
Ms Goulet sat down, nodded at Cecilia and started right in. “Draftees get H-face. First a tattoo on your neck like this,” she turned and held her hair up so we could see the butterfly, “where they insert it to adhere to your spine.”
Cecilia’s eyes got wide. “Does it hurt?”
Ms Goulet measured her for a moment. “Yes. Like an insect squirming and kicking to get out from under your skin. It burns every time it moves. For about a month. Then one day it feels like it was always there. You’re connected to all the other draftees and to the Sentinels. They run the reaping missions.”
“I didn’t know they could speak,” Cecilia whispered. We knew nothing about Sentinels. We just heard how being a Draftee was a great honor. We’d get a special tattoo — no mention of implants—to show that we had served, and then right to the outer solar system. Live a life of luxury when we were done. All the parents used those words.
“They don’t. H-face lets you understand them. You’ll wish you couldn’t, though. 500 of us were dropped in the middle of the fields and had to harvest our way to the perimeter where the transport waited. Only six of us made it.”
The refrigerator snapped off and we sat in utter silence for a moment.
“What happened to the others?” Cecilia’s breathing was shallow.
“They were left where they fell. Left for the Blue Hydrangeas. We were harvesting them, but if we weren’t fast enough, they would ingest us. Open up their blossoms like mouths and fold us in.”
Cecilia gulped.
“When I got back to the transport, I thought we were going to be taken to one of the outer solar system hospitals.”
We heard a rustling outside the front door and then Donny’s voice.
“Implant freak! Let’s TP her house.” His watch jingled against the side of the metal bowl as he rifled through the candy. His friends whooped and hollered around him.
Cecilia and I watched Ms. Goulet’s face to see how she would react. She sat as impassively as a Sentinel while Donny and the other older kids trampled across her yard and pelted her house.
“Do you want to call the police?” Cecilia asked shyly.
Ms. Goulet shook her head and continued. “We didn’t go to the outer solar system. No one does. We were hidden away in menial jobs.”
I stared at the table. It sounded like a hurricane outside.
“They’ll stop in a minute,” Ms. Goulet said.
“What am I going to do?” Cecilia’s eyes were very far away. I thought she was talking about leaving here and walking back to our house.
“You have to decide what to believe. Go up there and see for yourself, or don’t go. Get one of these,” she held up her hair again so we could see the butterfly, “or stay independent.”
“We’re not allowed to get implants. It’s against our beliefs.” Cecilia had lost the defiant tone she used with Mama and instead sounded like she was reciting from an instruction manual.
“No one up there is going to ask permission. Not going to ask if you mind having your spine attached to an alien hive.”
It was quiet. The boys had moved on, I could hear Donny scaring a bunch of kids further down Dunne. The clock on the wall had a low electric hum.
Cecilia inhaled. “We’d better go.” she stood up.
Ms Goulet stood too, nodding in agreement.
Our pillow cases were trampled down with muddy footprints. Most of the candy was smushed, wrappers torn, with stray chocolate flakes and peanuts ground into the bottom.
Cecilia walked away without looking back. She led us mechanically through the neighborhood, tossing fresh candy right on top of the chocolate ruin without trying to fix anything.
She walked right past Melissa’s house.
The trick-or-treating was done and all the kids were back inside when we got home. Mama had left the light on and was still on her stool inside the door, waiting.
She looked us up-and-down, and I knew that she knew everything. Cecilia dumped the contents of her pillow case directly into the fun size bowl. I gripped mine a little tighter.
Mama pursed her lips and looked like she was going to launch into a tirade, but Cecilia spoke first.
“Donny and his friends trampled our bags.”
“I see.”
“Do you?” Cecilia said it like the words had been burning inside of her, trying to get out.
Mama didn’t answer and Cecilia didn’t say anything else. They stood looking at each other.
“If your father was here, I’d send him over to talk to Donny’s father,” Mama said, churning her hand through the fun size bowl. “That boy needs some discipline.”
“He can do it when he gets home.” Cecilia sounded like she was reading from a script that neither one of them believed anymore.