The Dazzling Heights

Rylin glanced around the store, which was a dizzying kaleidoscope of sound and color. Jarring pop music played on high volume through the speakers. The entire space smelled overwhelmingly of ArrowKid’s sickly sweet self-cleaning cloth diapers. And crammed on every display were children’s clothes, from pastel-colored baby onesies to dresses in a girls’ size fourteen—all of it covered in arrows. Arrow-stitched baby jeans, arrow-printed T-shirts, even little blankets covered in tiny flashing arrows. It made Rylin’s eyes hurt just to look at it.

“Hey, Ry, can you help out the customer in fitting room twelve? I’ll man checkout for a while.” Rylin’s manager, a twentysomething named Aliah, sauntered over and flipped her close-cut dark hair. There was a bright purple arrow on her shirt, spinning slowly like the hands of a clock. Rylin had to look away to keep from feeling dizzy.

“Of course,” Rylin said, trying not to be irritated that Aliah had started calling her by the nickname she reserved for close friends. She knew her manager just wanted to duck under the counter and ping her new girlfriend when she thought the employees couldn’t see.

She knocked on the door of fitting room twelve. “Just wanted to see how things were going in there,” she said loudly. “Any sizes I can grab for you?”

The door swung open to reveal a tired-looking mom perched on a stool, her eyes glazed over as she probably checked something on her contacts. A pink-cheeked girl with a smattering of freckles stood before the mirror, turning back and forth as she studied her reflection with critical intensity. She was wearing a white dress that read BE DAZZLING and was covered in tiny crystal arrows. Her feet were encased in a pair of arrow-printed boots. They already belonged to the girl; if she’d picked them up today, Rylin would have seen a subtle holographic circle marking them as a new purchase, reminding her to ring them up. She thought of the times she and her best friend, Lux, used to shoplift on the lower floors—nothing big, just a couple of tubes of perfume and paintstick, or once a box of chocolate puffs. You couldn’t get away with that up here.

“What do you think of this?” the girl asked, turning to let Rylin inspect her.

Rylin gave a watery smile. Her eyes darted to the mom—after all, she was the one who would pay—but the older woman seemed content to stay out of her daughter’s shopping habits. “It looks great,” Rylin said weakly.

“Would you wear it?” the little girl asked, her nose wrinkling adorably.

For some reason all Rylin could think of were the clothes she and Chrissa used to wear, some of which had been given by the Andertons, the upper-floor family she’d worked for as a maid. Rylin’s favorite outfit at age six had been a swashbuckling pirate costume, complete with a feathered cap and a gold-hilted sword. She realized with a start that it had probably once belonged to Cord. Or Brice. The knowledge should have made her embarrassed, yet all she felt was a strange sense of loss. She hadn’t spoken to Cord in a month—probably wouldn’t even see him ever again.

It’s for the best, she told herself, the way she always did when she thought of Cord. But it never seemed to work.

“Clearly not,” the girl huffed, pulling the dress back up over her head. “You can go,” she added pointedly, to Rylin.

Rylin realized belatedly that she’d made an error. She tried desperately to backtrack. “I’m sorry, I just lost track of my thoughts for a moment—”

“Forget it,” the girl said in a single breath, slamming the door in Rylin’s face. Moments later she and her mom were walking out of the store, leaving a pile of discarded clothes in the fitting room behind them.

“Ry.” Aliah made a disappointed clucking noise as she walked over. “That girl was an easy sale. What happened?”

Don’t Ry me, Rylin thought with a sudden burst of anger, but she knew better than to say anything; the whole reason she had this job was because of Aliah. She’d been applying for a waitress job at the café next door when she’d seen the shooting arrow display that spelled out HELP WANTED in the holographic window, and stepped inside on a whim. Aliah hadn’t even cared that she had no experience in retail. She’d taken one look at Rylin and let out an excited squeal. “You can totally fit into our junior sizes. Your hips are, like, really narrow. And your feet are even small enough for some of the sandals!”

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?