David Farland - Nightingale

He'd loved that kitten, had slept with it every night, but after a week, it still hadn't managed to get trained to go in its litter box. So on New Year's morning, Mr. Golper had taken Bron to "get rid" of the kitten. He'd tied it into a burlap bag and carried it to a bridge that overlooked the Provo River. Then he'd told Bron to throw it in.

The kitten meowed plaintively in its bag, and the gray swirling waters roared and thundered over the rocks. Snow and ice crept down to the bottom of the gorge, and Bron's timid breaths came out in little wisps of fog.

"No one wants a kitten like this," Mr. Golper explained, scratching his balding head, "one that's too stupid to poop in the right place. So we have to get rid of it. We can't just pawn our problems off on someone else. Since it's your kitten, it's your job to do it."

Bron had cried and refused to throw his kitten off the bridge, promising to work harder to teach it, and Mr. Golper had spanked him and told him to "cowboy up." After twenty minutes of beatings, when Bron refused again and again, Mr. Golper had finally let out a string of profanity and tossed the bag into the river.

The kitten's meowing was frantic for a few aching seconds, and then the floating bag had tumbled over a rock and gotten swallowed by the dark flow.

Bron had stood in disbelief, watching the kitten disappear, and he seemed to have an epiphany.

I'll be smart, he told himself. I'll study harder than anyone in school, so that no one throws me away.

So he'd learned to read that year, better than anyone in kindergarten, and he came up with the coolest art projects, and began to learn how to add and subtract.

It didn't matter. The Golpers, so loving when they took him in, junked him at the end of the school year.

Now Olivia was buying him a new wardrobe.

Bron smiled weakly and told himself, Enjoy it while it lasts. She'll junk you soon enough.

How do you tell someone that they're not human? Olivia wondered.

There was no easy way to reveal that kind of information. Ancient laws among the Ael governed what she could tell him and how she could tell.

She let Bron drive through Ivins, passing picturesque housing developments where rock walls encircled sandstone-colored homes with tile roofs. The landscaping was often natural-with cactuses, Joshua trees, palms, and desert bushes that featured tiny leaves and huge yellow blossoms. While each development conserved water by avoiding lawns, they all had ponds with waterfalls and streams and water springing up out of the ground, as if to demonstrate their wealth by how much water they could waste.

At Highway 89, they turned south into Saint George. Olivia seldom traveled into town. It was too dangerous. Two million tourists passed through each year, off to see the wonders at Zion Canyon, or Bryce, or Moab. Some of them would be masaak. Most of those masaak would be Draghouls.

She directed Bron to an outlet store where he selected a backpack that happened to have a little pocket for his iPod.

Olivia asked, "What kind of iPod do you have?" Most kids at Tuacahn had a shuffle at least.

He shrugged as if it didn't matter.

Olivia studied him. He didn't have one. The Stillmans had been so damned cheap. She brushed back a few strands of blonde hair. "You'll need a Touch if you're going to be cool, along with a cell phone, and a laptop."

She hadn't considered all of the accouterments that a teenager required. This was going to cost. Her bank account wasn't bottomless. Three years ago she'd had nearly fifty thousand in savings. The recession had eaten through all but ten of it.

Olivia set her teeth, remembering something another masaak had taught her, an old man called "The Preacher." He'd said, "In order to give something away, one must first possess it. The virtue of largesse becomes strained in poverty."

A lot of virtues become strained when one is in want, Olivia thought.

Because of his battered clothing, Bron had probably never been considered "cool." He had been an orphan, a wanderer, rejected by those who were supposed to love him, damaged by the system that was supposed to protect him and provide for his needs.

Damn it, Olivia thought. Every kid deserves better than that.

She studied his face, hope warring with skepticism. Yeah, here was a kid who was used to getting nothing. "Okay, we'll go to the electronics store, but clothes come first."

The dress code at school didn't allow for much of a selection, but Olivia bought him some underwear, and then looked for a couple of outfits for the weekends.

As they shopped, Bron couldn't help but notice several women, their faces completely plain and free of makeup, their hair all braided and tucked back in an identical style. They wore modest dresses in solid shades of blue or green.

"It's not polite to stare," Olivia said. "Those are polygamists. You'll see a lot of them here in Saint George. They live in little towns nearby—Colorado City, Orderville, and such. They come to shop or go to the doctors."

"Are there any at our school?"

"They have their own schools," Olivia said. "They keep to themselves."

Bron picked out an outfit to wear home, some new running shoes, a shirt.

"Of all the pants you can wear at school," Olivia said, "the Dickies are the most expensive." She grabbed him five pair. "You are now officially as cool as your clothes can make you. But there's more to your appearance than clothes. For example, we could do something about your hair...."

"My hair?"

"Yeah," she squinted, trying to envision him with a new look. His hair was dark brown, almost black—an odd color among humans. But among the masaak—both the Ael and the Draghouls—it was the norm. Olivia lightened her own hair every two weeks, in an effort to camouflage herself. He'd need to do it, too. "You game?"

"I don't know," he said. He looked miserable.

"Tell you what, we'll ask the stylist to make you look as hot as Zak Efron. If you don't like it, you can change it back."

He nodded, but hung his head as if he was about to get whipped.

So the next stop was a styling salon where she had his hair cut, bleached to a pale blonde, and then streaked with black. When she finished, she talked Bron into getting his left ear pierced, and let him pick out an earring—a $90 black quartz stud—to complete the disguise.

He looked like a rock star. She gave him a fist bump. Between clothes, accessories and hair, she was up to $800 for the day so far. That didn't seem too bad.

Saint George was small enough that it didn't have a huge selection of electronics stores. Best Buy was going to have to do. She had him drive.

As he did, she asked, "So have you given any thought to which clubs youll join?" He shot her a vacant stare. "You asked how people will know whether you're hot at school? The answer is, by the clubs you join. You don't have to audition to get into Tuacahn, but you do for most of the clubs. So if you want to sing, you audition for the Madrigals. If you want to play guitar, you join the Small Band Club. The most talented students make it into three or more clubs. Auditions start Tuesday."

She left the rest unsaid. Bron peered forward with a certain dread. Olivia knew that it wasn't just that this was a strange school, it was a strange school. Everyone in it was some kind of band nerd or theater geek. It put a lot of pressure on new kids, but the pressure drove them to excel.