XXI

Our class left homeroom white-faced and silent. When I stepped into the bathroom afterwards, Aletheia and Katie were conversing in the little waiting parlor. Aletheia was fixing her hair. Katie seemed distraught. Neither of them paid me attention as I passed by.

“I can’t do it anymore, Allie,” Katie said.

I wasn’t planning to eavesdrop, but the bathroom was pretty quiet. “That’s ridiculous,” said Aletheia. “You chose to stay here. Now you have to finish it out.”

“But I can’t. It’s too hard. I tried my best and I got a 38.”

“You can get better. You’ll go to tutoring.”

“I don’t wanna go to tutoring. I don’t wanna practice law at all.”

“Well, what are you gonna do? Be factionless?”

“Maybe!”

Aletheia went silent. After a while she asked, “Excuse me?”

Katie hesitated. “Well—you know how we were talking to the ladies who do our nails—I wanted to know what it’s like, just doing nails every day. I kind of want to do it too, Allie.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Maybe I wanna.”

“Do you know how they live? You’ll have nothing—”

“I have nothing here! My dad’s a jerk. My mom’s never around. My sisters think I’m a bimbo-headed slut, and they’re right. I’m never gonna pass those exams. I got the lowest score ever. Might as well quit.”

“Katarina Santiago, don’t be stupid! You are not throwing your life away like that!”

“You’re not my mom. You don’t tell me what to do. Nobody tells me what to do.”

I heard the clack of high heels. Katie had left. Aletheia swore. When I finished my business and washed my hands, I saw her leaning against the countertop in the waiting area, staring at the mirror.

“What are you looking at?” she snapped. I didn’t respond, just hurried out.

In Legal Procedure, everyone was solemn and fidgety. While Judge Touma was lecturing, everyone’s laptops were open to the email that Morris had just sent out. Our individual exam scores. I didn’t really want to look. My score had been low enough that I could have easily gotten a zero on one of the exams. What if it was Arguments or Investigations? Procedure and Reasoning were important, yes, but those were things you could study for. But arguing, perceiving, those were talents.

Midway through the lecture I decided to message Ravi.

P. Prior: Hey.

R. Balakrishnan: hey

P. Prior: Are you doing okay?

R. Balakrishnan: yea why

P. Prior: Your score.

R. Balakrishnan: i just didnt finish in time. dyslexia. had it since i was little

P. Prior: Okay. If you need a study buddy, you know I’m here.

R. Balakrishnan: what did u get on them

P. Prior: 67. I haven’t checked the individual scores.

R. Balakrishnan: ok

P. Prior: What did you get?

R. Balakrishnan: 30 prosedure, 23 reasoning, 62 aurgments, 81 investigaitions

I stopped to read his reply again. High scores in all of the talent areas. He had sent another reply while I was thinking.

R. Balakrishnan: touma added a note asking to meet her aftar class maybe she can help

P. Prior: I hope so! Maybe we should do what Oona does and actually go to office hours.

R. Balakrishnan: yea lmao

Now my curiosity was piqued, breaking through denial. Taking a deep breath, I opened the most recent email in my inbox.

Phoebe Prior

Rounded Average: 67

Legal Procedure: 46

Logical and Analytical Reasoning: 73

Argumentative Technique: 69

Investigative Technique: 78

Notes: See me in office hours to discuss your score. —Judge Madullah Touma, Legal Procedure

I sent my scores to Ravi. He replied just like I thought he might:

R. Balakrishnan: haaaaaaa you got 69

+ + +

I was in a long line of people to see Judge Touma after class. The line had a lot of initiates, but also a few older law students. Touma must have taught upper-level courses, too. I had never really given up my Abnegation habit of subtly idling behind so that people could pass in front of me, so I was dead last.

By the time the second-to-last student came out, it was lunchtime. I had been too anxious to eat breakfast. My stomach ached for food. But I steeled myself and knocked on the doorframe anyway.

“Your Honor?” I said quietly.

“Come in,” she said. “Close the door.”

I stepped inside. Her office was clean and spartan in design, as unsentimental as her level voice. There weren’t even pictures. I knew that devout Muslims avoided photography, drawings, and other depictions of God’s creation, deeming them to be blasphemous. Naturally, such a way of life attracted some to Abnegation. But I had the impression that Muslims in other factions were not as legalistic about the rule. Judge Touma must have been an exception.

“You wanted to see me about my midterm?” I said, sitting across from her desk.

She nodded. “Yes...Prior, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.” I didn’t often speak in class. I wasn’t surprised that she was unsure of my name.

Touma opened a cabinet in her desk and pulled out a paper test. My own. “I gave you a 46,” she said slowly, flipping through the pages. “You earned 46 out of 60 points in the multiple choice.”

“Oh,” I said. “That’s...not good—”

“Actually, that’s average,” said Touma. “Your real problem was in the short answer and long essay questions. I was unable to grade them.”

“What do you mean?”

She opened the test to the essay pages and turned them around. I thought they looked just fine. I wasn’t sure what was wrong with it and looked at Judge Touma, confused.

“Has anyone ever told you that you write backwards?” she asked sharply.

My eyes widened. I looked at the paper.

My parents had tried to train me to write with my right hand, but I never caught on. So I wrote with my left hand, right to left on the page so I didn’t smudge the ink. That was how I had always taken handwritten notes, how I was writing in my journal now. I knew most people didn’t do that. And I knew how to write the regular way; I had done it for school.

But this was not the regular way. I had done my entire test backwards.

“I’m so sorry,” I stammered. “I must’ve been—really tired, or I was nervous—”

“Do you know what this looks like?” asked Touma, her dark eyes narrowing.

“Well, I’m left-handed, I think I just forgot to switch back—”

“This looks like cheating, that’s what it looks like. Are you aware that the ceilings in the Exam Room are mirrored to catch people who do something exactly like this?”

“I didn’t cheat, I swear!” I protested. “Ask Irene, I took the truth serum!”

“How do you know the director of Academic Integrity by name?”

I wasn’t prepared to answer that question. “I—it’s a long, long story—but I swear. I didn’t cheat. You can hold it up to a mirror to read it, the words are all mine.”

Touma was silent. I didn’t know if it was because she already knew the last part or because she didn’t. But when I met her eyes, I saw a bitterness that extended beyond just the backwards exam.

I saw something that I had seen in my father’s eyes as he watched me walk out of the Choosing Ceremony on my own. I saw myself, Abnegation’s daughter, choose Candor. And I saw Sajida, Judge Touma’s daughter, choose Abnegation. An equivalent exchange. An eye for an eye.

“Your Honor,” I whispered, “with all due respect, was this really about the midterm?”

Touma averted her gaze. The answer was not as plain as yes or no.

“Initially, yes,” she said softly. “Even with the help of the mirror...your handwriting is terrible. Please don’t make me read anything like that again.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Thank you.” She inhaled. “Something—happened, with Sajida.”

“Is it alright if I ask?”

“If I can ask something first.”

“Okay.”

“Why did you leave Abnegation?”

I hesitated. I had not expected that question. I had been afraid my friends would ask me before, during the conversation about initiations, and I wouldn’t know how to answer. But somehow, I looked at Touma and now I knew.

“I knew there was more to me than what Abnegation allowed me to show,” I said. “I wanted to find out what I truly was.”

She frowned. “Did you not find that clarity in your aptitude test?”

Again, I paused. I could not lie to a Candor.

“Sometimes the test can make the choice harder,” I said truthfully.

She looked down again. I could see she understood part of what I meant.

“Sajida received Candor on the test,” said Touma. Her voice was so quiet now that I almost had to strain to hear it. “I knew I wasn’t supposed to ask. But she’s my only child. I couldn’t sleep, I had to know. I woke her up and she told me. She wasn’t lying.”

Touma ducked her head further away and pulled out a handkerchief. She sniffled. When she looked back, her eyes were beginning to red and a small tear remained on her cheek, missed by the handkerchief.

“And then she hugged us that morning and said goodbye. I didn’t know what she meant.” She blinked hard. “She chose Abnegation. She never said why.”

“Did you see her on Visiting Day?” I asked.

It was her turn now to hesitate.

“No,” she said weakly. “But I went. They said she—failed initiation.”

I drew a sharp breath. Failed initiation? “That’s not right,” I said. “Nobody fails out of Abnegation.”

She nodded, wiping her eyes again. “I know. It didn’t sound right. But I was so upset, I couldn’t tell if he was lying.”

“He?” I echoed. “Who?”

“Her host parent,” said Touma. “Marcus Eaton.”

+ + +

I left Judge Touma’s office, my head spinning.

I didn’t tell her that my chest immediately flared in panic at the name. I wasn’t sure why at first and couldn’t explain it. But she seemed to notice. I knew she understood. Our faction leader taking a transfer into his house and failing her out in under three weeks—something was not right and we both knew it.

Sajida transferred to answer a question, just like I did. But something must have gone wrong.

I had asked Touma if it was alright for me to poke around in the case. She said yes, as long as I didn’t jeopardize my initiation. I asked if Sajida had left behind any computers, journals, or writings that might have suggested what she was in Abnegation to do. Touma just shook her head. After Sajida transferred, her father had tried to clean out her room. Her computer was clean of everything except schoolwork and some music.

Inside the stuffing of her pillow, however, they found a miniature safety lighter. Sajida had asthma and did not smoke. Her mother suspected that if Sajida was hiding something, she must have written it on paper and burned it. That was a common loophole in Candor families. If a child wanted to get away with something, they had to be so good at hiding it that they would never need to lie.

From there, I drew the conclusion: if she was writing her thoughts on paper to hide record of them being written, she must have done something to hide record of her research.

There weren’t many ways to do that in Candor. Our computers didn’t let us delete search history. Everything was open access.

So what wasn’t looked at as frequently?

I grabbed a quick lunch of fizzy soda and chips from a vending machine, then beelined it to the library. It was the largest law library in Candor. Many non-students came here every day; I imagined that a Candor-born girl would be pretty familiar with it.

A bored young man who I’d never seen before was working behind the front desk. I stopped just before he could see me walk in. I thought back to how Ace had gotten past the security in the Merciless Mart. A casual confidence. I held it in my mind, breathed deeply, and stepped up.

“Can I help you?” the librarian asked.

I smiled. “Hi...this might sound like a weird request. But my friend mentioned some items that I might want to check out, and I can’t remember the titles. Can I look up her checkout history?”

“Of course,” said librarian, turning to the computer. “What’s her name?”

Five minutes later I walked out of the library with one book, photocopies of two trial transcripts, and a case file.

Maybe Irene was on to something. In a faction characterized by honesty, few suspected their peers of lying.

I returned to my room with the sheaf of paper, closing my door and spreading them out on the floor in front of me. I had read the titles and abstracts. There was a pattern.

On the left, I placed the trial transcripts. These two had both been checked out by Sajida on the same day, about three months ago. The first was Morrick v. Erudite, a twenty-year-old lawsuit brought by a factionless man who claimed that the literacy tests were discrimination. Morrick lost. Then, weeks later, he disappeared. The second transcript was People v. Ophelia, a forty-year-old criminal case. A woman who went by the name of “Ophelia” had stabbed an Abnegation man. Investigators found that the man had been physically abusing Ophelia’s autistic wife. Ophelia was sentenced to death and her wife was given life without parole. She died two months into her sentence.

I thought of Lady Rose. Of the angel girls. Perhaps Ophelia and her wife were with them, watching the world that was taken from them.

On the right, I placed the book. This had been checked out by Sajida a week after the transcripts. It was a collection of anonymous publications, entitled Criticisms of the Selfless Governance. I had not read much of it yet, but it was a very old book, a physical copy that seemed to have been hand printed and bound. The publication date marked it as having been released years before the Great Peace. On the inside cover was inscribed the words, “What good are your donations of clothing and food—when you are the reason we are naked and hungry?”

And in the center of my display lay a single case file. It was the last thing checked out, two days before the Choosing Ceremony. The copy was in a black folder, denoting a cold case. The label read in long-dried typewriter ink:

“Abigail Eaton, Age 13, Abnegation. Missing.”