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  DARK PARTIES

  SARA GRANT

  LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY

  New York Boston

  To my parents for teaching me the sky’s the limit and to my husband Paul for giving me wings.

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  I’m standing in the dark, not the gentle gray of dusk or the soft black of a moonlit night but pitch-black. My heart batters my ribs like a bird beating its wings against a glass cage. I wave my hand in front of my face. I can’t see it. I never knew it could be so dark. My edges are merging with the inky blackness around me. My dad would finally be proud of me. I’ve blended in.

  Someone touches my elbow. I jump.

  “I’m right here, Neva.” It’s Ethan. By my side, like always. He’s here but not here. I grope his arm, his shoulder, his neck, and touch his face. He guides my fingers to his lips and kisses them. “Follow me.” I feel his words on my thumb, his warm breath, the nudge of his lips as he forms sounds. He pulls me to the floor. Every cell in my body ignites with the thrill of possibilities. In this nothingness, anything can happen. Maybe I can find what I’ve lost with Ethan. Tangle my body with his and only feel, not think, not see.

  But we all agreed: No sex. Not just tonight. No sex until we’re sure we won’t create another generation like us.

  I take a deep breath and exhale slowly. I clear my mind as we crawl toward the nest of pillows we piled in one of the corners earlier this afternoon. I try not to form pictures in my head. That would defeat the whole purpose. We are supposed to be escaping in the dark, but I am a hostage to my fear. Any time the lights go out panic grabs me by the throat. My skin sweats and stings like blisters forming after a burn. I’m tired of being scared all the time.

  I can do this.

  I can.

  I grit my teeth and try to ignore the rush of blood in my ears.

  Just move.

  I bump into a pair of feet. Pointy-toed boots. Braydon Bartlett. I see the red leather in my mind’s eye. That’s how I think of other people. I distill them into the defining features they have created for themselves. Braydon always wears those shoes, shiny with no creases or scuffs. All most of us have ever owned are hand-me-downs with other people’s footprints. We shouldn’t have invited him. Even though he’s got the right last name with a direct genetic line to one of our founding fathers, there’s something about him that I don’t trust. But my best friend begged me, the girl with the jagged scar, a rosy S still healing on her cheek. She told her guardians that it was an accident. But I watched her sketch the letter before she carved it permanently with the knife. She shouldn’t have done that. Anyone with an identity mark gets hassled more by the police. But that’s Sanna.

  I move forward and stumble over her bare feet. She rebels against any constraints, including shoes.

  “Sorry,” I say. She steps around me and whispers something to Braydon. Then I hear soft squeaks as their lips meet. I’m glad it’s dark and I don’t have to watch.

  I sweep my hand back and forth across the floor. “This way,” I say to Ethan, whose hand is touching my ankle. We move together. The darkness gives us the illusion of solitude, but we’re the opposite of alone; my friends have gathered for a little experiment before we go our separate ways.

  We’ve been planning this for weeks, a Dark Party. One final rebellion before we take our place as respected members of society. It was another of Sanna’s brilliant ideas. We want to discover who we are without the burden of sight. It’s easy to believe we are the same inside because we look so similar. Sanna says only in the dark can we know the truth, but I’m not sure. Darkness conceals.

  Sanna wanted me to host the party. A Dark Party at the Minister of Ancient History’s house. That’s how she talked everyone into it. The greater the risk, the greater the thrill. I’ve known most of these people all my life, but they’re Sanna’s friends. They don’t trust me, never have. I’m the Minister of Ancient History’s daughter—guilt by association.

  Sanna convinced everyone to pitch in. Nicoline brought black plastic bags. Ethan found towels to tuck under the doors. Sanna’s brother gave her three rolls of duct tape. We never ask how he gets the things we need.

  It took us an hour to make my living room lightproof. We taped black bags to the windows. We switched off the lights. After a few seconds, our eyes adjusted, but we could see each other in shades of gray. Not good enough. We attacked every point of light and doubled the bags on the windows.

  We could still see outlines, silhouettes of ourselves. The small red light on the backup generator seemed to illuminate the entire room. We unplugged everything. When I switched off the light again, there was only pure, dark, silence.

  Now I hear the hum of hushed voices and the rough-and-smooth sounds that bodies make when coaxed together. Maybe we’ve made a mistake. We hoped we would find ourselves in the dark, but instead we are tempting our celibacy.

  Ethan and I finally find our pillows. We lie side by side, our elbows and ankles touching, yet he feels miles away. Darkness dips its icy fingers under my skin, but I refuse to give in.

  I try to erase all thoughts and images. Don’t think of the color of the pillowcases or the holes in their lace ruffles. One image—no matter how small—leads to an avalanche of pictures. First I see the living room with its worn leather couch, the fireplace and its fake flames, the bookshelves crammed with dusty volumes of our approved history. But now, as if lifted by balloon, my vision expands to include my square brick house, which blends with the dozens of similar houses in my neighborhood. As I float upward, I see the green and concrete squares of the City, which is multiplied a thousand times to create a haze of gray that is Homeland. I let the image blur and fade to black.

  I shiver.

  “It’s okay,” Ethan says, and slips his arms around me, which makes me colder somehow.

  My eyes ache for shape and color, but the blackness surrounding me seems to have substance. I roll up on one elbow to face him. Don’t think of his name. His name conjures up the images I’m trying to escape. His skin the same color as the milky tea we drink. His ears are the same shape as my father’s. His short brown hair a confusion of waves like everyone else’s. I see myself around every corner—every minute—like living in a maze of mirrors.

  My grandma told me once about a time when we were different, a long, long time ago. Stories handed down through the generations in whispers about life outside the Protectosphere. A time when we could leave and were allowed to return. I still see her every day, even though she’s long gone.

  “Once upon a time, my little snowflake,” she’d say, “people were the most beautiful colors. Everyone was unique.” That word made me giggle. “But it was too hard to be different and equal.” She told me fantastic tales of wars caused by differences—different religions, different cultures, different skin colors. “We shut ourselves off. Now each generation grows more alike.” Grandma was breaking one of the government’s many unwritten rules. There’s officially nothing before The Terror and the sealing of the Protectosphere and nothing outside it. She made me promise not to repeat her stories.

  “What can it hurt, telling me?” I’d snuggled in closer. She’d stroked my hair.

  “You’re different.” Her words tickled my ear; she always spoke them so close, as if they were a secret prophecy.

  I’m the only one who remembers her. One day she was tucking me in and the next day every trace of her was gone. Not even her son, my dad, will speak her name.

  “Neva,” Ethan whispers, and brings me back to the present. I lie my head on his chest and I hear the steady thump thump of his heart—a rhythm I know well. Sanna and I have begged him to create an identity mark, but he says he can’t. My mark is still healing, red and raw from hundreds of pinpri
cks. Sanna helped me etch it into the valley between my stomach and hip. A small snowflake falling toward my pubic hair.

  He gently rolls me on my back and lies on top of me. We kiss as if choreographed. I realize I am tensing the muscles in my arms and drawing him closer and closer. I urge my body to respond like it used to. We linger here in this timeless place. Ethan’s hands race over my body. His breath comes in short, sharp pants. He fumbles and I pretend I still love him. In this void, I feel even more alone.

  Someone clears their throat. It’s Sanna. I know it is. A new panic flashes through me. She’s really going through with it. We talked about it for weeks. This secret scheming is what’s kept us sane, but it’s not like skipping school or dying our beige graduation robes pink. The government could erase us—like her dad and my grandma—for unpatriotic acts. I’ve got to stop her. I sit up, knocking heads with Ethan.

  “Ouch,” he says, and then lowers his voice. “What’s going on?”

  “Sorry, Ethan.” I need to find Sanna. We were wrong about finding ourselves in the dark. Maybe we are wrong to believe we can change anything. “I’ll be right back.” I stand and shuffle forward. I am lost. The darkness provides no orientation. Up could be down, left could be right. My chest tightens. The dark closes in. I struggle to breathe.

  “Can I have your attention?” It’s Sanna. I’m too late. My body pulses with the pounding of my heart. “Sorry to interrupt whatever I’m interrupting.” Her voice is soft and apologetic as if she’s trying to disguise it. “I’ve got something to say.” We agreed she would be the one to talk. It’s hard enough for me to be in the dark, and I am taking a big enough risk hosting the party. My dad would freak if he knew. He disapproves of anything that even hints that Homeland isn’t perfect. Mom promised to keep Dad out late tonight. She thinks my party is for celebrating our graduation. I haven’t told her about our plans. I haven’t told anyone.

  “We’re sixteen.” Sanna pauses and everyone cheers. The weight of what we are doing overwhelms me. “They tell us, we are adults now.” I concentrate on Sanna and try to calm down. I notice a slight tremor in her voice. “It’s time we make a stand.” We expected cheers at this point, but the room is deathly quiet. “Okay then,” she seems to say to herself. There’s a long silence.

  “The Protectosphere is killing us,” Sanna blurts.

  Someone gasps. No one says things like that out loud. Her words hang in the air like crystals searching for sunshine. “We all know it. The government is squashing our future. Fewer choices. Fewer resources. They keep us trapped with their lies about what’s outside. We have to do something.”

  My heart swells, I’m so proud of her. If only I was as brave.

  Sanna continues, “Stay, if you want to join us and demand they open the Protectosphere. We deserve to know what’s outside. We deserve a future.”

  My grandma believed there was still life outside the Protectosphere. Knowing there’s something beyond our electrified dome is like my faith in life after death. I want desperately to believe it.

  “If you don’t want to join us, you should leave now.” We hoped the anonymity of the dark would be enough, but now I feel exposed. “Even if you don’t want to join us—and it’s totally legit if you can’t or won’ t—I’m trusting that you’ll keep your traps shut.”

  I hear someone moving. I wait for them to pass, but they don’t. I wave my arms in front of me like a blind man without a cane. Our outstretched fingertips touch, and the person walks right into my arms. I think it might be Ethan, until fingers gently trace the line of my necklace and pause at the snowflake pendent that rests between my breasts. A hand cups my neck and tilts my head ever so slightly. I am being kissed, not soft and sweet like Ethan’s kisses. This kiss is insistent and passionate. He slips strong arms around me. Our bodies mold together. My body aches in a way I’ve never felt before. I try to pull away, but his kisses don’t relent. He holds me tighter. I wrap my arms around this stranger. I kiss him until I’m breathless. I have never felt so alive. I should stop, but I kiss him again and again.

  Bodies are bumping into us. People are leaving, but I don’t care. For the first time in a long time, I feel as if my life could be different; I could be different. I hesitate before I release him. My knees are weak. I melt to the floor.

  As he passes, his foot brushes my hand. I feel the unmistakable smooth leather and shape of Braydon’s boots.

  I touch my lips. Braydon?

  The alarm clock buzzes to signal the end of our party. Sanna turns on the lights as planned. I am blinded momentarily. The room is nearly empty; less than a dozen people squint nervously at one another.

  Braydon is hugging Sanna. He glances at me. I look away. Why was he kissing a stranger in the dark? Does he know it was me?

  I look for Ethan, but he is gone. I hoped he would stay. But it was too much to ask of this Ethan. The old Ethan would have stood by me. But this Ethan’s given up, given in to our government-sanctioned future.

  Sanna tells our ragtag group of revolutionaries where and when to meet tomorrow.

  I feel as if the light has stripped me bare and everyone is staring at the betrayal etched on my skin. I’ve betrayed my dad, my best friend, and Ethan.

  “You better go before my parents get home,” I say, and look anywhere but at Braydon.

  A darkness is growing inside me now.

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  A crystal snowflake nightlight glows in the corner of my bedroom. It casts triangles of light on the ceiling. I can’t sleep. Every thought circles back to earlier—the announcement and the kiss.

  It’s as if I’ve lit a fuse and I’m waiting for the explosion.

  I remove the journal from under my pillow. The cover is faded shades of pink. Two long cracks, like jagged scars, expose the brown cardboard below. The plastic coating curls away from the cover and flakes like scaly, dry skin. Its spine crackles when I open it. I run my finger over my name printed on the inside cover. Grandma wrote it there, the last in a column of scribbled-out names. Several pages have been ripped unevenly from the front of the journal. Other people’s secrets so easily erased. The paper is rough and its edges raw. She gave this to me the night before she disappeared.

  “Thanks,” I’d said without understanding what it was. I was six and had never seen a book of blank pages before. I hugged Grandma and felt the scratchy knit of her polyester suit. “I love it.”

  “You’re welcome, my little snowflake,” she whispered, even though we were alone in my bedroom. She kissed me on my forehead. “Best to keep it hidden,” she said, and slipped the journal under my pillow.

  I smiled. I liked secrets. I didn’t have many of them back then. As I nodded in agreement, a lock of hair fell across my face. She tucked it behind my ear, tracing the curl over and over with her finger.

  “I love you, Neva,” she said. “Remember that. No matter what.”

  She smelled like rose petals. She hugged me and wouldn’t let go until I wriggled free when the warmth and the scent became suffocating.

  The first journal page is still blank. Even at six I understood the importance of camouflage. If someone ever found my hiding place, they might think the book was empty. Every night I tuck it among the globs of matted cotton in my mattress. The hole was already there, as if I wasn’t the first to use it. I’m never the first.

  I flip to the next page, a page I read every night. There’s my grandma’s name and the date of the last time I saw her. I didn’t write it down until months later, when I was sure she wasn’t coming back. I wrote it down so I wouldn’t forget. No one else seems to remember she was here. But she was real. I know it. My six-year-old self drew a picture—a circle with curlicues of hair, big round eyes and a broad smile. That’s still her somehow.

  I have listed things that I remember about her. She comes back to me in small fragments—a sound or smell will trigger something and I’ll rush to capture it in my journal. I saw a gray-haired lady in a turquoise suit and
recalled the way Grandma dressed. She loved bold colors—colors were brighter back when we could buy new clothes, instead of recycling the life out of everything. She wore blue, purple, orange, and red suits with matching glittery brooches and big earrings that covered each lobe.

  I read the list again. I added the last item a few weeks ago. I was applying some of Sanna’s homemade lip gloss. I rubbed my lips together and made a smacking sound. That’s when I remembered. Grandma used to make that sound when she’d apply her peach sparkle lipstick, sucking air through the corners of her pursed lips. I couldn’t replicate it exactly, but I’d forgotten the sound and the way the lipstick collected in the wrinkles around her lips.

  I’ve left the next few pages blank, hoping to fill in pieces of her and complete an ever-fading picture. I turn to my List of The Missing. The words are written in the erratic print of a child: Maud Riker, the lunch lady with the chipped tooth, Tommy Donovan, Lukas Freely, the man in the brown suit who used to visit my dad every weekend, Jemma Johnson. The list goes on for pages. My handwriting is cramped. I include the date I noticed each person went missing, even if I didn’t know their name.

  When I asked about Maud Riker, my dad said she died. She was sixty years old, but I’ve searched the church’s graveyard, and I’ve never found her tombstone. Jemma Johnson was my age. I sat next to her in Mrs. Powell’s class. She never came back after summer vacation. My mom expected me to believe that her family moved up North.

  Sometimes I’m mistaken. A few weeks ago, I wrote: The man at church who smells like cheese and always offers me peppermints. I found out that he was visiting his daughter. So I draw a long straight line and write FOUND in big bold letters, tracing the letters multiple times without tearing the paper.

  I reread the last page: Megan, Abbey, Tamryn, Jill, Madeline, Vanessa, Kelley, Morgan, Victoria, Molly. All girls about my age. Megan and Victoria graduated a few years ahead of me. Sanna told me about Madeline and Kelley, although she said that they both moved across town. Tamryn used to work at the coffee shop around the corner. Molly was the daughter of one of my mom’s friends. I haven’t seen her around in a while. I used to add someone once every few months, but now it’s almost once a week. I press my palm on the page as if I could stop the trickle of names from becoming a flood.