The Letting
Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
“What if the Devil doesn’t
know
he’s the Devil?” I ask.
Phoenix shakes his head, confused. “What?”
“Why? Why does the bad I’ve done have to define me?”
“Because you’re a murdering sadist,” he snaps back at me.
“No, I am not.” I clench my teeth, standing my ground. I am tired of these labels I am suddenly wearing. “I never, I mean never knew what happened to those girls I led to the Lettings. I am so very sorry I played any role in this vile enterprise in which we exist, but I was clueless. Maybe I’m ignorant, or downright stupid, but I would rather have been dead than be responsible for hurting anyone. And before you go throwing malicious names around, maybe it’s time you consider maybe you’re wrong...? What if you kidnapped and tortured me in the name of a revolution that is wrong?”
“It’s not,” he argues.
“But I didn’t think I was wrong, either.” I am exasperated. “Don’t you get it?” He takes a step back away from me, but I go on. “We are completely turned around. The only information we’re fed is from a corrupt enterprise. What makes you think your information is any more accurate than mine?”
For the first time ever, he looks terrified. I let a moment go by before I gesture for Raven to come over, and she hurries to my side.
“This is Raven,” I say, slowly, talking to Phoenix. “She’s your sister.”
Praise for
THE LETTING
“Cathrine Goldstein’s
THE LETTING
offers a chilling vision of the not-too-distant future. Idealistic and patriotic Veronica Billings discovers to her horror she’s been the New World’s most successful executioner. In Goldstein’s pulse-pounding thriller, the fearless seventeen-year-old races to save humanity, and those she cares for, before Veronica becomes her own next victim of The Letting.”
~Michael Murphy, NY mystery author
“
THE LETTING
is
The Handmaid's Tale
meets
The Hunger Games
, a tense ride that slowly squeezes you between its fingers until you cry mercy, and beg to find out how it will all end.”
~Kristen Rutherford, head writer of
The Nerdist Show
on BBC America, host of #parent on Geek & Sundry
The Letting
by
Cathrine Goldstein
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
The Letting
COPYRIGHT © 2014 by Cathrine Goldstein
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: [email protected]
Cover Art by
Angela Anderson
The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
PO Box 708
Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708
Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com
Publishing History
First Climbing Rose Edition, 2014
Print ISBN 978-1-62830-662-0
Digital ISBN 978-1-62830-663-7
Published in the United States of America
Dedication
For Jay, Penelope, and Pickle.
Thank you.
Chapter One
The hot summer night is so oppressive the heat clings to my body like a dead weight I’m unable to shake. Mosquitoes buzz by me, dive-bombing my head, circling my ponytail, hovering at my ear. I lift a heavy hand to swat them away, but to me they are little more than a noisy nuisance. For some reason, they never bother to bite me. I wonder if I’ve grown immune to them, spending so many long summer evenings here in the deep woods where the mosquitoes thrive. But no, when I think about it, I can’t recall ever having one single mosquito bite. Ever. I guess they just don’t like me.
Trudging across campus, I will myself to think about what it’s like to do these bed checks in the middle of winter, when the snow is past my calf, and I’m certain I’ll pull my foot clear from my boot as I lift it, slogging my way from cabin to cabin. On those nights, the cold is biting, and it whips my cheeks until they are raw. Tonight, as the perspiration dots my forehead, I realize my imagery isn’t working. It’s still hot as hell. I have to laugh when I think of how, on those bitter nights, I do my best to imagine nights just like tonight, nights when the sun has mercifully gone down, but the temperature still hovers over ninety degrees. Come to think of it, imagining didn’t work then, either. Frankly, it never works, but imagining another time and place comes naturally to me. To all of us. It’s what we’ve been taught since birth.
As I stomp across the grounds, I make little dust clouds with my boots. Thankfully, this summer has been blissfully dry. But because of it, our landscape is little more than large patches of brown dirt. I reach the cabin and slowly, arduously, raise my hand to knock. There’s no real reason. The girls love it when I visit. They look forward to it, and it is my jurisdiction. But I do it anyway, out of courtesy and politeness. After all, when these girls “blossom” and leave me, they are moving on to the New World, and who knows what manners they will be expected to know. The least I can do is help prepare them.
The thought of them leaving me makes me sad, and I take a long, labored breath. I watch my hand rap on the rickety cabin door as if I am watching it move through water. The amount of effort it takes to do even this small action astounds me. I feel a drop of sweat trickle down my spine. The cabin door rattles in response, but even it seems too tired to shake and wobble as it usually does. I hear small squeals of delight from inside, and I peer through the ripped screen on the cabin door. Almost all of the girls in cabin O are already in bed, but they’re waiting for me to tuck them in, tell them a story, and kiss them good-night. All the things their mothers would be doing if they were still at home. No matter how difficult home was, it’s still devastating to leave your mother behind.
Cabin O has always had a soft spot in my heart, perhaps because I am an O as well, or maybe it’s because these girls are just so young. “Ronnie,” one of the girls squeals. “Come in. Come in.”
I let myself glide through the door, and it slams shut behind me. No matter how often I have complained to management and asked them to come fix it, no matter how hard I tug on it, it never closes completely. Because of this, there is no feasible way to keep the mosquitoes out, so I have devised a way to tuck all of my campers in at night, covering them with sheets of mosquito netting I found in one of the old, unused buildings at the far edge of camp. It was one of the buildings in use when we were busy, but no one has stepped in there in years. I have all of my campers sleep in sleeping bags in rows, on the floor, and I pitch “peaks” with tent poles. Then I drape the netting across the poles and it falls gracefully over the top of the sleeping girls. I do this in every one of my cabins, cabin A, cabin B, cabin AB and this, cabin O. I have already been to the other cabins, and they are set for the night. I wipe the sweat that’s dripped onto my brow and enter into the darkness of cabin O.
“Ronnie?” the tiny voice repeats itself.
“Lulu?” I ask. Of course, I know it’s Lulu calling my name. The eldest of this little group, she has made herself my honorary sidekick. Although I love all my girls, there is a special place in my heart for her.
Through the darkness, I smile at her. This is the smallest group of girls I’ve ever had in cabin O, but I’m not surprised. Once prevalent, O is now almost extinct. These girls are also the youngest I’ve had at my camp, ever, and they attached to me immediately. I was ten when I came, but that was because I was so tall they thought I was older. They used to wait to bring the girls to camp until they were eleven, but now they come as young as eight or nine. Just babies. But as sad as it makes me that they’re here at such a young age, I’m also glad I’ll be able to spend more time with them before they blossom and are sent on to the New World. Every time a group of my campers leaves me, it breaks my heart. I know when these girls go, it very nearly will kill me.
“What story tonight?” I sit cross-legged on the floor, at the foot of their sleeping bags and yank on my sticky tank top, pulling it away from my body.
“Tell us about the New World.” Lulu doesn’t miss a beat.
“The New World?” I tease. “Aren’t you tired of that story?”
“Nooooo.” Four tiny little voices speak in unison.
“Shh…” I say quieting them, good-naturedly. It’s not that I’m doing anything wrong, but it is past curfew, and Margaret, my superior, looks for any reason she can to reprimand me. I smile at my girls. I know I’m safe here, no one will check up on me. Sometimes Margaret will do the midday inspections, but she tries never to come into the cabins at night. She acts as if it’s beneath her, but I know the truth is that she’s afraid of the dark. The other Leader, my best friend Gretchen, does the morning inspections, and so I handle the night all on my own. I like it that way.
“Quiet voices,” I tell my girls. Although I know no one is going to double-check my work, I don’t want to be too loud and risk getting any of us into trouble. The Letting is in two days, and the girls are all supposed to be rested and well fed. And for these girls in cabin O, this is their first Letting. Each day that draws closer to the eventful day, their adrenaline increases. Tomorrow night, it will be nearly impossible for any of them to sleep. I’m sure I’ll spend the night in their cabin consoling them, but I don’t mind, especially since I may not see them for days after the Letting.
“Okay, lie down and close your eyes.” The girls try, though the heat seems to make even this impossible. Slowly, I feel calm make its way into the cabin. It lingers, hovering above the girls, but patiently pushes past the oppressive heat and falls quietly on top of us all. Sitting there next to four little girls, all missing their dolls and their mothers, my heart aches for them. The least I can do is keep their minds occupied. Besides, I like talking about the New World. It’s where my own mother is, and it makes me feel closer to her.
“Once upon a time,” I begin, “the world was a different place. It was a world where people were not obligated to help one another and so they didn’t. Where words like ‘charity’ and ‘altruism’ were used only by a minority group, the ‘Good People,’ or the ‘Givers’ as we call them. They were the only ones who bothered to help.”
I hear a small yawn from the tiniest of the girls, Lilly, who has been enjoying her past few months at camp, thinking she was still too small to be called to the Letting, and much too young to be sent to the New World. For her, this had all been pure entertainment, until now. But this time around, they have summoned even her. I stare at her thoughtfully and think, maybe she was on to something. Maybe at least some part of childhood should consist of simple pleasure.
“Sorry.” Lilly assumes I stopped telling the story because she yawned.
“It’s fine.” I try to reassure her. “It’s bedtime. It’s okay to yawn.”
I look around, and through the darkness, I see tiny shapes moving underneath the mosquito netting. Some flip onto their sides or tummies. I go on.
“Those people, the Givers, were the forefathers of our world.” I know this because back before I was sent to camp, when I was still in school, my history teacher had told us this in class.
I look around the room of cabin O and am gripped with the simultaneous, paradoxical feelings of immense gratitude and deep melancholy, when I realize that once these girls move on to the New World, they will receive educations I can only dream about. My enthusiasm for their educations is what makes me so confident about bringing these young girls to the Lettings. No matter what shape they are in when they come back to me, I know fairly soon, once they have paid their debt to society, they will be reunited with their mothers and given stellar educations.