Page 20 of The Sixth Fraction

Determining who will make the traditional Abnegation breakfast of plain oatmeal with powdered protein in it is a game of pantomime. Somehow I end up counting the initiates, doing some quick calculations, and rummaging in one of the drawers for a measuring cup.

I’m tipping the rolled oats into the huge pot—managed by Eustace, who’s tall enough to see into it—when I think about preparing breakfast for my family every other morning since I was capable of doing it myself. And I think, Everything’s the same as it’s always been, and it’s not the comforting thought I expect it to be.

Because really, shouldn’t life change?

After breakfast we get our assignments, and I’m hoping for something interesting, for somewhere I’ve never been before. Every initiate will either go to Amity to help with planting, to the hospital to help with scrubbing, to the donation center to help the factionless, or to Candor to help with recordkeeping. All the tasks sound tedious, but at least most of them will take us out of the Abnegation sector.

Which is why, when I get assigned to the factionless donation center, where I’ve been volunteering for the past year . . . I want to scream.

I turn to Mary, who has the same assignment. She and Eustace are playing a finger-lacing game usually reserved for children. Eustace is sitting a little closer to Mary than he needs to, his shoulder pressing into hers as he leans forward to point at a finger for her to wiggle.

I watch the shrinking and growing space between them and realize I’m watching a kind of Abnegation courtship ritual. One I can’t imagine myself participating in.

I think of the other initiates, boys and girls alike. Statistically speaking, I’ll probably end up marrying one of them. Either it’ll be a love match, like Eustace and Mary are no doubt hoping for, or I’ll apply for a compatibility assessment in a few years and the faction will assign me a suitable spouse. I could also register as a single, meaning I’m committed to a life without a partner. I’m not sure what I’d prefer.

I’ve noticed people before, in that way we’re not supposed to—look at people as people, Beatrice, not as objects to be admired, my Abnegation teacher said, once, when she caught me staring at an Erudite boy—but they were never in Abnegation. Abnegation boys all feel like family.

I wave at Mary to get her attention, and we set out for the donation center together. It’s only a few blocks away.

There’s one comfort: My mother is already there when we arrive, and she has a wide smile just for me. I try to smile back, but I’m sure it’s not convincing.

She tasks me with handling the clothing donations. It’s a simple job with a lot of different steps: Clothes have to be sorted into “doesn’t need mending,” “needs mending,” “recycling,” and “scrap fabric.” Then I have to take each load of clothes to the laundry to wash and fold them. The intact clothes are then bundled for the factionless; the worn ones I either mend or outsource to more skilled needleworkers; the recycling I arrange to be delivered to the Erudite processing center; scrap I have to bring to the craft center for others to sort through.

I’m familiar with the process, and it’s simple enough for me to handle even with Mary, who’s well-meaning but slow-moving and in need of constant monitoring, lest she put a threadbare Dauntless T-shirt in the “doesn’t need mending” pile or leave an Amity red sock in with the Candor whites in the wash.

If I had to guess, I’d say my mother gave me the job because she thought I might like it, but it’s just a reminder: Nothing has changed.

That night, back at the dormitory, I don’t join the game of blind man’s bluff that’s happening in the courtyard. Speech is against the rules, but laughter isn’t, and I can hear everyone laughing at the game as I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling.

A few beds away, Susan is knitting. Constance is sticking a calendar to the wall with tape and crossing off the first day. I coast into sleep.

The next day is the same as the first. And the next.

Meditation, silent breakfast, walking to the donation center. Sorting clothes until my fingers hurt. Picking at my dinner. Watching as my fellow initiates go to devotional meetings, mending circles, woodworking.

I spent sixteen years in Abnegation rotating through the acceptable list of hobbies, looking for one I found tolerable, and I never did. Now I’m watching that rotation pass me by like I’m at the center of a wheel and everything is turning around me.

My initiate companions are cheerful and even funny, sometimes, their expressive faces making up for their silence. But they can’t distract me all the time. Every night I wake up a few hours after I drift off, hot and restless, and walk through Abnegation headquarters.

I never see another soul, and the walking is soothing. I discover places I didn’t know about before. A nursery. A chapel that, judging by the layer of dust on every pew, is never used. If I could live my life like an alley cat, nocturnal and prowling, I would.

On the third night, I find a reading room I’ve never seen before. It’s small and alley-facing, so the only light comes from a sliver of streetlight, orange yellow and flickering. Still, it’s enough to look through the books on the shelf.

They’re histories, for the most part. An old edition of a Faction History textbook, with our manifestos printed on the first few pages, “I will be my undoing if I become my obsession,” words I already have memorized. But the one on the bottom shelf is bigger than the others, leather-bound. I carry it over to the window and realize it’s full of pictures.

For the most part, we don’t take photographs in Abnegation, since they encourage nostalgia and reminiscence, which are self-indulgent. But we make an exception for council members and their families, for the sake of the official record. I had to sit for a family picture once. I flip through the pages until I find it: Caleb and me sitting on a bench in front of our parents, each of us with perfect posture in our Abnegation grays, none of us smiling.

I remember my mother making a joke that day, that we must not allow future generations to think we loved each other. We all laughed and had to school our expressions moments later for the camera. I can see it in our eyes.

Curiosity tugs at me, and I flip the page to find the photograph of Marcus Eaton and his family. His son, no more than ten years old, stands in front of him in the image. He has dark hair and serious eyes. Marcus’s hand is on his shoulder.

Beside them both is Evelyn Eaton.

Over the past few days, I started to think that I dreamed her, the Amity woman with the gun who reminded me of the council leader’s late wife. But looking at her face now, I know I couldn’t have. Strong brow, hooked nose, wry mouth—she’s too striking for me to mistake her for someone else. She could only ever be Evelyn Eaton.

Which means I really saw her. Which means Evelyn Eaton must really be alive.

So whose ashes were in the urn? Whose ashes did Marcus and his son make into her memorial stone?