Katharine McGee - The Dazzling Heights

So here Rylin was, wearing the least offensive merchandise she could find in the store—a tank top and her own black jeans, not an arrow in sight—trying halfheartedly to sell clothes to midTower kids. No wonder she sucked at it.

“I’m sorry. I’ll do better next time,” she promised.

“I hope so. You’ve been here almost a month and yet you’ve barely hit the sales minimum for a single week. I keep making excuses for you, saying it’s a learning curve, but if things don’t change soon …”

Rylin bit back a sigh. She couldn’t afford to be fired, not again. “Got it.”

Aliah’s eyes flicked as she glanced at the time in the corner of her vision. Rylin had been surprised that most girls who worked here could afford to wear contacts, even if it was just the cheaper versions. Then again, this was an after-school job for most of them; they didn’t have younger sisters to support, or a never-ending stack of bills to pay.

“Why don’t you head home, get some rest,” Aliah suggested gently. “I’ll close up. That way you can start fresh tomorrow. ’kay?”

Rylin was too exhausted to argue. “That would be amazing,” she said simply.

“And, Ry, why don’t you take one of those”—Aliah gestured toward a display near the entrance, of printed T-shirts in a bright lemon yellow, covered in purple arrows—“to wear to work tomorrow? It might help you feel a little more … enthusiastic.”

“Those are for ten-year-olds,” Rylin couldn’t help pointing out, eyeing the shirts with trepidation.

“Good thing you’re super skinny,” Aliah replied.

Rylin held her breath as she grabbed the shirt at the top of the stack. “Thanks,” she said, flashing the biggest smile she could manage, but the older girl was already on a ping, her hand to her ear as she whispered something and laughed.

When Rylin waved her ID ring over the touch pad in the door and stepped inside, the comforting smells of batter and warm chocolate rose up to meet her. She felt an immediate stab of regret that Chrissa had beat her home yet again. Ever since Rylin had started working evenings, rather than the crack-of-dawn shift she’d had at the monorail, Chrissa had been handling more of the cooking and grocery shopping. Rylin felt guilty; those had always been her jobs. She wanted to be the one taking care of her fourteen-year-old sister, not the other way around.

“How was work?” Chrissa asked cheerfully. Her eyes drifted to Rylin’s new T-shirt and she pursed her lips, suppressing a smile.

“Don’t you dare say anything, or your birthday present this year will be nothing but a huge bag of arrow-printed underwear.”

Chrissa tilted her head as if considering it. “How many arrows per pair are we talking, exactly?”

Rylin let out a laugh, then fell silent. “Honestly, at this rate, I’ll be fired long before your birthday. Turns out I’m not the best salesperson.” She came to where Chrissa stood at the cooktop, making the banana pancakes they both loved so much. “Breakfast for dinner? What’s the occasion?” she asked, and reached into the bag of chocolate flakes to grab a handful.

Chrissa batted good-naturedly at Rylin’s hand, then tossed the rest of the chocolate flakes into the mix and let the infra-powered spoon stir the batter. She looked up at her sister with evident excitement, jerking her chin toward an envelope on the table. “You got some news.”

“What is that?” No one sent real paper envelopes anymore. The last one Rylin had gotten was a medical bill; and even that was in addition to her weekly reminder pop-ups with sound, and only because the payment was a year past due.

“Why don’t you open it and see,” Chrissa said mysteriously.

Rylin’s first thought was that the envelope was heavy, which signified something momentous, though she wasn’t sure whether to be excited or afraid. There was a familiar blue crest embossed on the back. THE BERKELEY SCHOOL, SINCE 2031, it read in gilded letters along the top. That was Cord’s school, Rylin remembered, up in the 900s somewhere. Why would they be sending anything to her ?

She slid a fingernail beneath the crisp edge of the envelope and pulled out its contents, dimly aware that Chrissa had come to stand next to her, but she was too focused on reading the strange and surprising letter to say anything.

Dear Miss Myers,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been selected as the inaugural recipient of the Eris Miranda Dodd-Radson Memorial Award to Berkeley Academy. The scholarship was established in memory of Eris, to reward unrecognized individual potential in underprivileged students. The value of your scholarship is detailed on the next page. Full tuition is covered, as well as a stipend for academic materials and other cost-of-living expenses …

Rylin blinked up at Chrissa. “What on earth is this?” she asked slowly.

Chrissa squealed and threw her arms around Rylin in a breathless hug. “I was hoping this was a ‘yes’ envelope, but I wasn’t sure! And I didn’t want to open it without you! Rylin! ” She took a step back and looked at her sister, her entire being suffused with a happy glow. “You got a scholarship to Berkeley . That’s the best private high school in New York—maybe even in the country.”

“But I didn’t apply,” Rylin pointed out, to which Chrissa laughed.

“I applied on your behalf, of course. You aren’t mad, are you?” she added, as if the thought had just now occurred to her.

“But—” A million questions rippled through Rylin’s mind. She seized on one, randomly. “How did you even find out about this scholarship?”

Rylin had known about it, of course; she’d seen it mentioned on Eris’s obituary video, which she’d watched dozens of times since that fateful night. The night her whole life turned upside down—when she went to an upTower party, way up on the thousandth floor, only to find the boy she loved with another girl. Then that girl had died in front of Rylin’s eyes, pushed off the side of the Tower by one of her drugged-out friends, who proceeded to blackmail Rylin, forcing her to keep quiet about what had really happened.

“I saw the obit video pulled up on your tablet. You watched it a lot of times,” Chrissa said, and now her voice was quiet and her eyes were searching Rylin’s. “You met Eris when you were with Cord, right? Was she a friend of yours?”

“Something like that,” Rylin said, because she didn’t know how to tell Chrissa the truth—that Eris was someone she’d scarcely known, except that Rylin had seen her die.

“I’m sorry, about what happened to her.” The timer beeped, and Chrissa scooped the pancakes into two fat stacks, handing the plates to Rylin.

“But—” Rylin still didn’t understand. “Why didn’t you apply to the scholarship for yourself?” Of the two of them, Chrissa was the one with real promise: she made straight As in her honors classes, and would probably play volleyball at the college level. She was the one who deserved a fancy upper-school scholarship. Not Rylin, who hadn’t even been in school the last few years.

“Because I don’t need it like you do,” Chrissa said intently. Rylin followed her to the table, carrying the plates of stacked pancakes. One of the legs of their table was broken clean off, causing it to wobble as she set the plates down.

“Between my grades and volleyball, I’m on track to get a college scholarship anyway. You, on the other hand, need this,” Chrissa insisted. “Don’t you see? Now you don’t have to be the girl who dropped out of school to work a dead-end job, for my sake.”

Rylin fell silent at the flicker of guilt in her sister’s explanation. She’d never really considered what Chrissa had thought, when Rylin had dropped out of school to work full-time after their mom died. She’d never imagined that Chrissa might blame herself for Rylin’s choice.