Page 6 of Sparktopia
The eye-roll wasn’t meant for Clara Birch, but it’s aimed in her direction on the stairwell above me when it comes out.
She flashes me a disapproving look and then turns and continues her way up into the tower. As she is number nine, she has a long climb.
As a newly minted Little Sister, I will be housed in the dorm with the other seventy-four girls who just made it past the FirstChoosing. And even though I understand that I am here to do a job, I can hardly contain my excitement.
Technically, this is the second Choosing, but the first one happens internally, done by the Matrons and not by the Extraction Master, so it’s not officially a Choosing, merely a whittling down.
Every Extraction year comes with hundreds of Pledges, little girls who all made an initial vow to the god when they were twelve. This is the official beginning of service. Then, each year thereafter, the Pledges make that same vow again.
Lots of girls drop out before they ever reach the age of Extraction. But still, there were three hundred and twenty-seven of age Pledges during this initial whittling down.
One hundred of us got through to the next level. And even though we weren’t yet in the dorms, all one hundred of us were presented to the Extraction Master—Aldo Scott—three days ago and this morning seventy-five names were called out on the Tower stage.
That’s us. The official Little Sisters for the one-hundred-and-twenty-first Extraction.
Three weeks from now there will be another Choosing and twenty-five girls will move out of the dorm and then there will be fifty left.
These fifty will spend the next three weeks getting ready for the next Choosing that will leave a lean twenty-five.
The final Choosing is the one everyone shows up for. The whole city shuts down for three days and there is a carnival, and feasts, and galas, and finally, standing on the tower stage, the top ten are announced and number one is sent through the doors and the nine left over are awarded gigantic, luxurious Maiden Tower apartments, and a yearly stipend that no Maiden in the history of the Extraction has ever managed to spend. There is an endless supply of expertly crafted handmade gowns and dresses,the best perfumes and lingerie, and more eligible men to go out on the town with than anyone could ever hope to choose from.
Most Maidens find their future husbands during this time. Clara Birch was an exception, since she was already in love with Finn Scott. But even if she didn’t officially date the men she spent her evenings with, she still went out with them. It’s required.
But Clara never got close to the men. And everyone in the city talks about how Finn Scott is waiting for his one true love to be released from the god’s service, oohing and ahing over them like their love is so special. As if they’ve been celibate. Come on. We all know Clara and Finn have the occasional tryst and from the mussed-up, just-fucked look of Clara Birch’s hair it’s pretty clear where she just came from.
“Jasina!”
My head snaps to attention. “Yes!”
Matron Bell, my auntie, claps her hands as she yells. “Keep up!”
The group started to move on while I was daydreaming, so they are all a couple dozen steps ahead of me now.
I nod, bowing my head a little—“Yes, Matron”—then scurry to catch up with the group.
The Little Sister dorm is a hotly-guarded secret. It’s here on the ground level on the Maiden Tower, but it has its own four-story wing that is locked and empty at all times, except for the three months out of every decade when it is filled with Little Sisters for the Choosing. All growing up, us hopefuls have dreamed of the day when we move into the tower.
All Little Sisters and Maidens alike start their journey into the god’s service in the same way, cloistered together with your competitors. No one, absolutely no one but Matrons and Little Sisters is allowed inside. And even though every decade there are sixty-five girls who leave the tower behind, Unchosen, noneof them ever broke the vow of secrecy about what it all looks like or how it’s laid out.
It feels unnecessarily… clandestine. I mean, who cares? It’s a dorm. I don’t get it. But rules are rules. My Little Sister class got the same sermon this morning as every other entering Little Sister class. “If you say anything about the dorm in public, you will immediately forfeit your right to be here and be escorted out.”
We’re only midway through the tour of the Maiden Tower at present, but from what I’ve seen so far, it’s beenwayundersold. The common rooms are open and airy, the roof above us so far away details must be left to the imagination, but I hear there’s a dining room up there at the very tippy top. Closed now, because with only three Maidens left, it was pointless to throw parties anymore.
But now that the Little Sisters are moving in, I bet they will open that dining room back up. We live in the dorm, but we can go into any of the common areas without invitation. Back when nine women used to call this tower home it might be seen as rude to venture upstairs where they live. But now? Who cares? I’m sure all of us have the same plans—stay away from Haryet’s, Clara’s, and Gemna’s floors, but exploreeveryother nook and cranny of the place.
After all, some of us will only be here a few short weeks. Everyone wants to make the most of it.
Just as these words are forming in my head, we come around a corner and the whole group—all seventy-five of us—gasp in unison. There is a silence immediately after this gasp, and then… excitement. Squealing, and chatter, and giggling, and dancing, and jumping, and wide eyes with open mouths.
Because we have finally gotten our first look at the Little Sister dorm and it is spectacular.
I pictured a large room with many beds. Perhaps a little nightstand to put things on and a dresser of drawers. All those things are here in this real-life version of the dorm, but to say my imagination came up lacking is an understatement.
I don’t know what to look at first. The curved, rounded walls that make the entire massive room look like the inside of a sandstone cave? The mature trees growing out of cracks in the plaster? Or the thick, woody roots spanning the walls—which are four stories tall and dotted with more balconies than I can count?
All that is amazing, but my gaze floats down to the floor where a canal made out of polished blue stone cuts the long, colossal room in half. Just like the real one outside cuts the city down the middle like a bright, blue line.
I’m smiling, and stunned, and shivers erupt, causing my body to have a slight spark display that presents as a tingle across my face where my freckles are. I’m here. And it feels like a dream, something meant for princesses in storybooks from long ago, not a down-city girl who grew up with no spark at all in her humble childhood home.
