(1-1-2019)

Happy New Year! I really didn't think it was going to take me this long to get this story ready for publication! The first ten chapters are written and the first six are edited. (Thank you Bahrfamily!) The plan is until the book is finished I'm going to publish one chapter every other Friday. Once I have finished writing the book, I will speed up the publishing schedule.

This story is actually begins before Dauntless Gray. (If you haven't read Dauntless Gray, it is my story of Hana Pedrad, Zeke and Uriah's mother.) The last part of the story will actually overlap with Dauntless Gray.

Kindling the Flames is canon to both my Dauntless Gray world and to Veronica Roth's Divergent world. (To the best of my ability.) Because this story is Pre-Divergent there are a lot of original characters in it. There was a request when I wrote Dauntless Gray list the name and a brief summary of the original characters at the start of each chapter. There are even more original characters in this story (although a few of them will actually come from the Dauntless Gray world!)

I have two ideas on how to handle this. One is to put the characters at the beginning of each chapter. The other is to create a character reference on my profile page. It would list the characters by the first chapter that they appear in. If you have a preference, please leave a review to this chapter letting me know which one you would like better.

Chapter One

"Ready or not! Here I come!" Ned's voice is louder than the rain on the roof when he finishes counting in the kitchen. I pull back under my oldest brother Alec's bed, like a turtle hiding it its shell. I just discovered I don't want to be under here, and at this same instant, it is too late to move.

I feel trapped under here. I've hidden in much smaller places than this during hide-and-seek, but somehow, under Alec's bed is where I feel cornered. I fight against the rising panic by squeezing my eyes shut so I can't see the red and yellow striped bed spread that made me think this would be a good hiding place that no one could see.

There is no reason to panic, I tell myself. No reason at all.

"Norton, listen carefully to me." I look up at Father. He is kneeling down so his brown eyes look straight into my mine. "Your uncle Bud came to get your mother and me about something. He and Aunt Alice need us."

I stand up quickly. I like going to Amity to see Aunt Alice and Uncle Bud.

"No, you aren't coming with us." Father sounds regretful as he places a hand on my shoulder. "Mother and I need you to stay here and be a big boy."

"By myself?" I hear my voice tremble. I hope Father doesn't.

"Only for a little while. Aunt Phyllis will come soon. I know even though you don't wear black and you aren't in Dauntless, that you can be brave and do this for me, can't you?" Father sounds confident in me.

He's right. I'm not in Dauntless, the group that is fearless, but I can be brave enough not to let him down. "I can."

"That's my boy." Father ruffles my hair. "What don't you stay in your lab under your bed, until Aunt Phyllis gets here? You can pretend that you are inventing something."

I smile and climb under my bed. The blue bedspread hides me.

Blue bedspread? My eyes fly open at the thought. I see the red and yellow stripes and my heart speeds up again. My vision doesn't make any sense. Papa's eyes are green like mine, not brown, and the bedspread was blue. I have no idea where I would get the idea to picture a blue bedspread. I'm not Erudite, the group that wears blue. I'm not a member of the group that is smart.

I wish I was. I know I'm smart. I know that for an Amity child, I am very smart, but I'm not in Erudite. I don't get to wear blue or glasses that make you smart enough that the teacher calls on you for the toughest questions.

"There you are!" Ned, my brother who is six and a year older than me, yells, but I can't see him in my red and yellow prison. He's trying to get me to show myself like I did the last time we played hide and seek. That time he yelled that, and I crawled out from my hiding place in the dirty sheets that were getting ready to be sent to the main laundry, but this time, I don't move.

He is quiet and so am I. Finally, I hear his footsteps leaving the room.

I'm smart. I learn from the past.

"Good night, Norton." Mama kisses my forehead as she tucks me in.

"I want my rabbit," I tell Mama. She's decided that, now that I'm at the lower-level school where all of the factions go, I'm too old for my stuffed animal, but I'm not ready to let go of it yet.

"Norton…" Mama starts.

I look at her pleadingly. "Please."

Her eyes, brown like Alec's and Ned's, study me and then the rabbit. Smiling ruefully, she shakes her head at me and takes the rabbit from the top of the dresser. "You will quit sleeping with it before you turn sixteen, right?"

Sixteen. That magic age so far away from now when we get to pick our faction and become a member. It's going to be forever before I'm that old. "I promise."

She hands me the rabbit.

I wrap my arms around it, holding it close while I prepare to go to sleep.

"Good night, Norton." Mama kisses my forehead again.

"Why does he sleep with his rabbit?" Ned asks from his bunk on top of mine in our shared room. He never slept with anything that I can remember.

Ignoring him, Mama climbs the first couple steps of the ladder, leans over, and kisses his forehead, too. "Good night, Ned."

We lie in a circle with our heads together and our bodies coming from a hub like the spokes in a wheel. Papa starts our circle, with Mama next to him and us three boys moving in age order, Alec, Ned and then me, next to Papa.

We look upward at the stars, each of us deep in our own thoughts.

"What do you see, Alec?" Mama asks, breaking the silence.

"I see a bird flying." Alec points up to the stars and points out two stars that create the line for the body and a curve of five lines that form the wings.

"Ned?" Mama asks next.

"I see a pot." He points out four stars that make a box and the three that make a bent handle. "Is there anything left to eat?"

We laugh at him. Mama says Ned is getting ready to grow. He's always hungry these days. "I think there is. We'll go in and check in a little bit. Norton, what about you?"

I take a deep breath. I wasn't looking for animals or cooking utensils. "I didn't find anything. I was just looking at them and wondering."

"What do you wonder?" Papa asks gently.

"I wonder how many stars are there? What are they made of? How far away are they?" I was about to add my next thought when Alec pipes up.

"What are you, some kind of misplaced Erudite?" he asks, wrinkling his nose at me.

Mama sits up. "Ned, Alec, let's see if we have strawberries left for dessert."

My brothers pop up and start running back to the house. I sit up to go with them, but Papa puts a hand on my shoulder, keeping me with him. We sit facing each other quietly, until they are too far away to hear us. "Norton, those are some awfully deep thoughts. Where did they come from?"

I look at the sky, away from Papa, not wanting to meet his eyes. "I don't know. It was just… as I looked at them I tried counting them, and then my mind just started wondering…"

Papa waits, but when he realizes that I don't have any more to say, he responds. "You have to watch your wondering, Norton. Sometimes you don't need to know, you just have to accept that you don't know. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

But I want to know. I want know and understand everything. I'm not happy with not knowing, but I understand both what Alec said and what Papa is trying to tell me. I have to be a good Amity, and a good Amity doesn't ask a bunch of questions. I tip my head back and look at the stars that show me that maybe I don't belong in Amity. "I see a house."

Papa smiles at me. "That's my boy."

"I'm sorry, Norton. There's been an emergency at the hatchery," Papa tells me calmly. "I have to take you home so I can go by and see what is going on."

I try not to pout. It isn't kind to make Papa feel bad about having to take me home early. It is a big deal to me that there is one Saturday each month that I get a day with Papa without either of my older brothers around. This is my day, MY day to have Papa to myself- no Alec and no Ned. Not even Mama joins us. I'm disappointed, because even though the day is almost over, Papa and I are supposed to catch fireflies together. By the next time it is my turn to spend the day with him, the fireflies will be gone.

Papa's green eyes study me intently. "The fireflies will be gone next time, won't they?"

I nod, trying not to show the tears I can feel trying to gather in my eyes. I'm seven now. I shouldn't be crying.

"Come on." He puts an arm around my shoulder. "Hopefully it's not too bad, and we'll still be able to catch some fireflies, before I promised Mama to have you home in time for bed."

I brighten up and throw my arms around Papa the way I watch Alec and Ned do. Physical affection comes more easily to my older brothers than it does to me. Papa's arms encircle me in return, Holding me tight.

"So, what kind of an emergency do you think it is?" I ask as we climb into the truck that Papa will use to drive us out to the hatchery.

"I'm not really sure." He starts the truck and puts it in gear. "I know we were having problems with one of the incubators on Friday before the end of the day. I hope that's not what it is."

"Why not?" I'm naturally curious. Even though it's not encouraged in Amity, I've learned that as long as I ask questions relating to something the faction does, and not just whatever comes to my mind, Mama and Papa don't mind too much.

"Well," Papa starts, "the incubator is supposed to keep the eggs at the right temperature for them to hatch. If there is a problem with the incubator, it is possible that we would lose the chicks."

"What problems can an incubator have?" I feel my forehead wrinkle as I try to think about what it could be.

Papa knows my thinking face, and oddly, he encourages it. "What do you think could go wrong?"

The rest of the trip to the hatchery goes by fast as we discuss what could have happened, and what Papa will be able to do to fix the problem. Papa puts the truck in park and, reaching over and pulls me into a tight but quick hug. "You remind me of someone."

"Who?" I'm so different from than everyone else in Amity, that I would love to know who I am like.

"I don't know." Papa's voice is sad. "I know that you remind me some of someone, but I just can't remember who she was."

"I remind you of a girl?" I wrinkle my nose, no longer happy with the association.

Papa ruffles my hair. His voice becomes softer with each word until I'm all but sure I imagine the last few. "I don't know. I have the impression it was a girl, but I don't really remember. I just know whoever it was, I miss them very much, and I'm going to miss you."

I wait to see if he has any more to say. "Papa?"

His head jerks to me. His mind has been somewhere else. "Guess we better go see what happened."

We both climb out of the cab and head towards the hatchery. The door opens into a scene of chaos. There are few people in red and yellow and there are several people in matching forest green outfits. I have never seen anything quite like their outfits. They are one piece and zip up the front. One man looks Erudite in his deep navy clothes, but it confuses me since his clothes match the style of the green outfits. "I wasn't expecting this." Papa sounds a little nervous. "I wouldn't have brought you if I had known they would be here."

"Who are they?" I ask curiously. My mind runs through the groups and colors, trying to figure out who is green. Amity, my peaceful faction, the ones who raise everyone's food, is identified by our red and yellow. Erudite, the smartest, our scientists, wear blue. Dauntless, the brave, protectors of the factionless, wear black. Candor, the honest, the law, wear black and white. Abnegation, the selfless, the leaders, wear gray. There is no one who wears green.

"You shouldn't be here. Forget them. Forget I brought you here." Papa looks around wildly until he finds a small cabinet. He opens this door. "Hide in here. Don't come out until I come and get you."

I look through the crack that Papa left me after he closes the doors, hoping that no one sees me, that no one will come close enough to know I am here. Pieces of the conversation float into the small space. I startle at a male voice I haven't heard before, and yet… I have. I know his voice. The same sudden fear that I felt years ago when I was hiding under Alec's bed comes back. I want to burst out and run as far and as fast as I can, but I can't move. Papa told me to stay, and even if he hadn't, I'm frozen in place, unable to move.

I close my eyes tightly, hoping that will keep me from trembling.

I press my face against the cold glass, watching the people, small as mice from my vantage point. There is something very wrong with the way they face each other. People wear every color. A man in blue hits a man in black. A small group of people in gray and red, along with others in black and white- there maybe four or five- takes turns striking a light post with sledge hammers. When the post starts to move, they all start to push against it until there is an awful groan of twisting and breaking metal. They jump away, and I watch it gather momentum and fall. People try to scatter away from it, but at least one person is trapped beneath it.

A shot rings out. I watch someone fall down. There is another crack of a weapon. Another person falls. I scamper over to my bed and grab the stuffed yellow rabbit that Aunt Alice and Uncle Bud gave me for my birthday. Hugging it tight, I find myself hoping that either Aunt Phyllis or Father and Mother come home soon.

I hear the heavy stomping of boots coming closer. Father told me to stay under my bed until Aunt Phyllis gets here.

I quietly scamper to my bed and crawl underneath it, curling myself up in my robe that I use as my lab coat when I am playing.

"Phyllis!" a woman calls out. There is no response. "Phyllis!"

I hear two sets of footsteps searching our apartment. "She isn't here," a man's voice I have never heard before announces.

"What happened to her? She said she was on her way! They left the child in his bedroom." A familiar woman's voice filters through. It's not Aunt Phyllis, but I know her.

The bedspread and sheets move above me. "He's not here," the unknown man says.

"He has to be here!" The woman sounds frantic. She sounds a little like Mama when Ned was hiding in the apple orchard and she couldn't find him. "I was here when he told him to wait here for Phyllis! My sister-in-law was dying. My brother-in-law is dead. I promised her! He has to be here!"

"Could Phyllis have picked him up and taken him to her place?" the man checks.

"I don't know, maybe."

I'm supposed to wait here for Aunt Phyllis to come. I shift so I can cover my head with my lab coat; that way they can't see me.

I shouldn't have moved. She must have seen the movement or something, because she bends over and sees me under there. Her brown eyes close and I hear her exhale loudly. "He's down here. He's safe." Her eyes open and she looks at me. "Norton."

"Norton!" I start at the sound of Papa's low urgent voice. I must have fallen asleep and dreamed the man's voice I heard today, into it.

I try to open the door, but he is kneeling next to it, and has it wedged closed with his body. "I'm sorry, son. The incubator failed. We have to dispose of all the eggs that will never hatch. It won't be too much longer, but you have to stay in here."

"Ok." I whisper back, afraid to say much more.

Papa finishes tying his shoe, picks up a basket, and stands. "We can put the eggs in here."

"Be very careful where you hide the evidence that the incubator went out. With over a hundred eggs in it, we couldn't let you lose that much food, but no one outside of this room can know about us." The man's voice makes me shiver. He really does sound just like the man in my dream.

"I know. We'll be careful with what we do with them," Papa assures him.

"Good. You know what must happen to anyone who would find out." The man's tone is cold, and I draw back further into my cupboard hiding place.

Papa's voice is weary. "Of course, I know. We won't let anyone find out who shouldn't know."

"Firefly!" I can't help but exclaim when I see the first one flashing brightly against the dimming night sky.

Papa starts; his mind has been somewhere else ever since we left the hatchery. He looks around, and then pulls over the truck, "Your fireflies are out, and this is as good a spot as any. Let's see how many we can catch."

We exit the truck, and I run towards the closest blinking light, hoping to reach it before it stops blinking. I don't make it, but the sun isn't down too far. I can see its dark body silhouetted against a navy sky. I move closer, ready to cup my hands around it to capture it. It flies away before I do, but it doesn't matter. The first lightening bug is joined by a second and a third. I know that soon there will be even more joining them. One flashes by my shoulder. I spin and catch it. Proud of myself, I feel the tickle of its feet walking across my hand as I take it to show Papa.

Papa leans against the truck. Normally he would join me in catching them, but tonight he just watches me. "What do you have?"

I open my hands to show Papa, but as soon as the cooling breeze touches the firefly, he must realize that he is free. He winks good-bye to me and flies back off to join his friends. "I had a firefly."

Smiling, Papa puts a hand on my shoulder; then he squats so he is my height and his green eyes are level with mine. "Norton, we need to talk about what happened."

"Okay." I bite the inside of my cheek to make sure Papa doesn't realize how scared I was.

He takes a deep breath before he speaks. "Son, there are many secrets that Amity keeps. What you saw tonight was part of one of them. It's a pretty big one, too. You can't tell anyone, not Alec or Ned, not even Mama, what you saw tonight."

I swallow hard, "Why not?"

"Because no one outside of those of us who were there tonight will ever know that the incubator completely gave out today and that all the chicks died days before they were supposed to hatch. Those people who helped us replace them, they aren't from our city. They help us, but they shouldn't have been here. You shouldn't know they were here. Do you understand?" Papa look earnestly at me.

I don't understand, not completely. How can anyone survive outside of our city, let alone help us? But I nod, because I know that's what Papa wants me to do. Then I ask the one question that has been bothering me, even if I'm not sure I want to know the answer. "Papa, what would he have done to me if he had seen me?"

Papa rubs his hand across his jawline a couple of times before he finally speaks. "It doesn't matter. It was my fault that you were there. I would have protected you. I wouldn't have let him do it. Don't worry about it. Now let's go see who can be the first to collect three fireflies."

Papa takes off with long strides towards one that is flashing just a little ways away, but I don't try to beat him to it, or to find one on my own. I'm too busy wondering if the man would have done.

It scares me that Papa won't tell me.

"What are you working on?"

I jump, closing my math book at the sound of the voice of a girl in my grade. I look up and see one of the Erudite girls from a different class standing in front of me. She has the blackest hair I've even seen, braided in pigtails. Her eyes are dark brown and have a curious slope to the edges. I quickly tell her, "I didn't finish my math questions, so Mrs. Markham told me that I had to finish them before I can play."

She looks older than our nine years when she puts her fists on her hips and tilts her head to one side. "Either your teacher gave you a different assignment than any of the other teachers gave, or you're lying."

"Funny, I thought you were wearing blue, not black and white." I throw out the Erudite faction color that she wears and the Candor colors, that she doesn't wear.

I'm pretty sure if she was from Amity, she would playfully stick her tongue out at me right now, but she's Erudite, so she can't do that. "The teachers always give the same assignment, and you aren't working on the questions assigned to the class. You're working on the assigned bonus questions. Erudite are the only ones who do those questions."

"You must have seen it wrong," I lie. My work was finished before we left class yesterday, but since I would rather do the bonus questions than play with the other Amity at recess, I hid the paper in the back of my book, and told my teacher I wasn't finished. I'll turn it into Mrs. Markham when we get back inside, minus the bonus questions that I'm really working on. The girl is right, no one else from Amity will do those questions, so as far as they all know, I didn't do them either.

"Suit yourself, but problem twenty-seven, which is a bonus question, is wrong. You forgot to reduce your fraction." She turns on her heel and leaves me alone again.

I check to make sure no one else is around before I reopen my math book. I let out an angry puff of breath, mad at both her and myself.

She's right, two fourths is the same as one half. I correct the fraction as the teachers call us back inside. I find my hiding point in the back of the book and trade out yesterday's assignment with the bonus work. I pause only long enough to erase one of the fractions and change it back to a fraction that could be reduced. That will give me a wrong answer, and that will help me hide from the teacher the fact that I'm pretty sure I have a hundred percent.

Amity don't get one hundred on math homework.

Summer and Autumn, the twelve-year-old twins from Amity in my class, are playing a hand game in the library. Their hands move faster and faster, clapping and slapping in a complicated series of moves that only the two of them can completely follow.

"I have a theory," Delilah says in an exaggerated whisper. "Erudite has developed robots that can pass as human."

I laugh out loud. It's not something I do often. I try to make sure I laugh and smile like everyone else does, but truthfully, most of what everyone finds funny, I find silly and childish. But I don't want to stand out, so I hide the way I normally feel and fake a laugh. The laugh right now is genuine, as I picture Erudite scientist creating Amity twins. If we were home in Amity, it would be no big deal, but we are in the library, and if there is one thing that Mrs. Dorn, the Erudite librarian, won't allow in her library is unnecessary- to her thinking- laughter.

"Norton!" She has the amazing ability to sound both sharp and loud while still whispering.

Delilah winks at me. Mrs. Dorn has red hair with touches of silver highlights that are probably gray hairs, and she looks over her small rectangular glasses to see children, but through them to read books, a sign they are real. She has been an upper level librarian long enough not to get too mad at Amity children for making noise. It happens everywhere, and not even Mrs. Barton, the school principal, can stop it.

"What is your study hour?" Mrs. Dorn demands in stern tones.

"Next hour," I answer quickly.

"Good." Her tone softens. She pulls out her pad. "Who is your teacher?"

"Mr. Staggs."

"Very well." She hands me the completed note. "You will give this to him and then report to me."

I glance at the note and look up at her in shock. "A week?"

"Yes, you will spend the next week with me, Norton, learning the proper behavior for a library. I doubt you will find that very funny."

"These are topics that I have been asked to gather research material on." Mrs. Dorn hands me a paper with a list of subjects on it. "I want you to see what you can find for each of them."

"All of them?" I ask. The list has ten different topics on it. That will be two a day.

"Work on it for the next five days. We'll see how far you get," Mrs. Dorn says primly.

I try to keep from groaning. This is going to be a lot of work.

The first topic on the list is setting up hydroponics. I head straight to 635. I know the number by heart since hydroponics is one of the few topics I can read about without anyone wondering why.

Mrs. Dorn closes the last book I gathered for the astronomy unit. She pulls her glasses off and lets them fall by their chain. "You did an excellent job." She moves a few books off the top of the astronomy books until she finds the one she is looking for. "Why did you include this one?"

I look over the title of the book. It's a book on mythology. I shift awkwardly. I wasn't sure if I should include that one. "Many of the constellations were named after mythological characters. I didn't know if they would be covering that or not, so I included it."

"I'm glad you included it." The smile on Mrs. Dorn's face is very self-satisfied. She looks me over, like she is trying to decide something, before she continues talking. "You like learning, don't you, Norton?"

I open up my mouth to deny it. I'm Amity. I don't like learning.

"Never mind, don't answer that. I know some books that are… appropriate for an Amity to be reading and are also very informative." She stands and motions for me to follow her. She doesn't stop until she gets to the rack of books to be shelved. She looks over the titles, then pulls one out and puts it on the empty bottom shelf at the very end. "You'll always be able to find at least one of them here."

"You are going be a teenager tomorrow." Mama smiles reminiscently at me. "Ned moved into Alec's room last year when Alec became a member and moved out. He was thirteen, and we got rid of his things from when he was younger. I think it's time that we went through your things, too."

I think of the things that I have hidden away in my room: the interesting rocks stashed in some old shoes; my insect collection under my bed. "But…" I start, not sure how to explain that she can't just spring this on me without me having a chance to hide my treasures better.

Mama looks pointedly at the yellow rabbit that sleeps on my nightstand, watching over me. "Norton, there isn't much, but there are just a few things that I think you have out grown."

I feel relief that she doesn't know about all the hidden things that would tell her I'm not the perfectly happy Amity boy that she thinks I am. She isn't looking for things that are hidden, she's looking for the remnants my childhood that are in plain sight.

"The day after tomorrow, we're going through this room," she says with determination.

I hold on tight to the yellow rabbit from my bed. I sit on Papa's lap, surrounded by the whole family. We are in the large green house that was designed to demonstrate hydroponics. The large tree in the front of the room spreads out its limbs, covering all of us with its protection. The room is crowded, like it is Visiting Day. Everyone but me wears bright reds and yellows. I wear a sky-blue button down top and blue jeans. Everyone is more subdued than normal. The adults talk in hushed tones. The kids don't run around playing games, but cling to their parents. People cry. Mama cries. Papa fights tears. "I shouldn't have gone to tell them," he mutters over and over again. "I shouldn't have gone to tell them."

Mama puts one arm around him. "They wanted to know."

"But if I hadn't told them…" Papa doesn't finish his sentence.

"Do you really think it would have changed any of this? They might not have been with us, but when they realized what was going on, they still would have joined. You know that, and we wouldn't have known what happened. I wouldn't have found…" Mama leans in and kisses my head but doesn't finish her sentence.

Papa holds me so tightly that I have problems breathing, and I feel moisture from his cheek. Papa is crying? "You're right."

"Bud, Alice, Alec and Ned Bush. And Norton." We all stand up. Mama takes Alec and Ned by the hand, but even though I'm only a year younger than Ned, Papa carries me and my stuffed rabbit that I clutch tightly.

We are led into a smaller room, with chairs for all of us, but Papa doesn't put me down in my chair. He continues to hold me.

A woman in a navy outfit that zips up the front comes in with another woman who wears a matching outfit in forest green. The lady in green carries a tray with five vials of liquid. "We have a lot of ground to cover today. Let's get started. This is a vaccine against an airborne illness that everyone was exposed to today," the lady in navy says in a clipped tone as she passes out the vials to each of us.

Papa takes two of the vials and hands one to me.

There is a commotion in the other room. The lady in navy turns to the lady in green. "Check on that."

"Everyone needs to drink so that they don't get sick," the lady in navy continues.

"They are here to cut down the tree!" I hear the voice of the lady in green yelling from the other room.

The lady in navy hurries out to see what is happening.

They didn't give us a vaccine for my rabbit. I had better share. I hold my vaccine up to my rabbit's mouth and tip it, not enough to really give the rabbit any, just enough to pretend. Except Alec bumps into me and most of my vaccine spills on my rabbit. I wrap my hand around the vial hoping that no one notices that any of it is missing.

The lady in green comes back. "Go on ahead and drink all of it."

Guiltily, I drink mine instead of telling them that I spilled it. As long as I don't get sick, no one is ever going to know that I didn't drink it all.

I sit up straight in bed. My heart is pounding. What was that about?I look at my yellow rabbit staring at me from my nightstand. He is visible in a shaft of moonlight. It must have something to do with the fact that my rabbit is going away tomorrow. I'm pretty sure Mama isn't going to let me keep it when we clean my room.

I look at my worn-out rabbit for a minute, suddenly desperate to figure out a way to keep him, but if he disappears, Mama will ask about him. I reach out for him. At first, I just stare into his eyes, then I cuddle him close. I know I'm thirteen, and I haven't slept with it in years, but after that dream… I need him close.

"What are you reading now?" Alec asks me while we wait for our meeting to start.

I show him the front of my book on bees. It's the most recent one that Mrs. Dorn left me. "It's about bees."

Alec gives me a hard look. This is his first meeting since Initiation and I suddenly wonder why he's still sitting with the family instead of with his friends. "You read way too much."

I give him a noncommittal one-shoulder shrug. "I'm not sure what I want to do when I'm a member."

Alec pulls the book out of my hand and looks over it. "Wouldn't it be better to actually get out there and try things, rather than just read about them?"

"How much time do you think I have? I read books, find things that look interesting, volunteer to help there during my free time in the summer to learn more about them. I don't have time to try out everything." I take my book back.

Herman, the current spokesperson for Amity, stands near the sapling in the center for the room. The tree is about ten feet tall. The roots are being trained with rods so the right amount of the root is in the water. At some point in time the tree will be big enough to cover this room, and people will be able to stand on those roots, but that will be generations from now.

Mrs. Dorn, the school librarian walks up to where I am looking at the gardening books. Her dark strawberry blonde is in low bun at the nape of her neck. Her blue eyes smile at me. She isn't wearing her reading glasses, but they hang around her neck on their chain. "I have some old books that are being removed from circulation. Anyone who wants them will be able to pick out two to keep."

I try hard to look disinterested. Amity don't care if there are books available to take home. Erudite children do. I try so hard to hide the fact that I am smart. Maybe even as smart as an Erudite child. It works most of the time. No one except a very few people, like Mrs. Dorn, notice that I am.

"They are on the counter. I will let the rest of the class know ten minutes before class time is over." She walks away from the counter leaving me alone with the thing I actually love the most.

Books.

I look at the clock. I have almost five minutes to pour over the titles and grab a couple that look interesting. Hopefully, no one is watching me. I take a book on Astronomy and another one on geometry. I'm about to leave the rest of them there when I see one that I have longed to check out, but I could never find the courage to. A book on anatomy. My hand caresses the cover as I decide which book I am going to trade out for it.

Mrs. Dorn is suddenly there. She takes the anatomy and places it inside a drawer. She winks at me with one of her blue eyes, "You can only take two a day."

It takes everything that I have not to grin. The anatomy book will be mine as well, as soon as it is safe to bring it home. I smile at her and walk away, keeping the two books that I currently have, hidden in my book bag, while anticipating the third that she is keeping for me.

At home, I put the astronomy book in with my underwear and the geometry book under my mattress. I fervently hope that no one finds them.

It would be hard to explain what an Amity boy is doing with such Erudite books.

When I'm sure everyone is asleep, I crawl out of my bed, and sneak out of the room. I creep through the house and out the kitchen door. Two weeks ago, Mrs. Sharp, the science teacher for the fifteen-year-olds, pulled the Erudite kids to the front of the room, which happens to be where I sit. She gave them an extra assignment. For the next month, they are supposed to draw a picture of what the moon looks like and where it is in the sky at the same time every night.

I longed to know what they are learning and decided at that time to find out. Every night since then, I have gotten up and snuck out of the house to check the moon. Our house is too near the trees, so I found a spot at the edge of the trees with a mostly unobstructed view on the night sky. I lean over to pull out my note book from the rock I hide it under each night, when suddenly it sounds like Ned caught me sneaking out, and he woke up our parents to come find me.

Worried, I pull back into the woods and wait anxiously to see who is coming.

When I peek out, I am surprised by what I see. There are four people in Dauntless Black escorting two Abnegations in their identical gray outfits. "We will take you to the line between Amity and the outside world, but you will have to continue on from there by yourself," one of the men in black, the one with the purple and blue hair, tells them.

"Of course." The taller of the Abnegation responds with a head bob. The moon comes out from behind a cloud, and I realize it is one of the council members talking. "You will be waiting at the line for us since this is a quick meeting to exchange information with the representatives. We won't be gone more than an hour."

"We have been told to wait, right where you leave us, until you return so we can walk you back," another man in black responds. A shaft of moonlight glints off the silver rings lining his ear.

They walk past, out of my view. I hide until they are long gone before I go out and make my observations for the night.

As I head home, I replay their conversation in my head. Abnegation are going into the outside world, the world that is beyond the borders of Amity. What will they find there? Who will they find there? Do they meet with the people in the strange navy and forest green matching outfits?

I wish I knew the answers, but the answer to this, and so many of my questions can only lie in one place… Erudite.

"Bud, what are you doing here?" Mama's voice is gentle and low enough that it shouldn't wake me, but I hear it, so maybe I wasn't asleep.

"Saying good-bye." Papa's voice matches hers.

There is a rustle of clothing. I picture Mama moving closer to Papa. "I know tomorrow is his choosing day, but you didn't do this with Alec or Ned, did you?"

"You're right, I didn't." Papa sounds wistful. "Alice, does Norton ever make you think of someone? Do you ever find yourself thinking he reminds you of someone we used to know, but you can't find any exact memory of the person? I don't even know their name."

Mama pauses before answering, "Once in a while."

"Whoever it was, they left, and I feel like tomorrow, he will, too. It almost feels like we've been hiding him his whole life and it's time for him to emerge from here. Like a butterfly coming out of its cocoon, our boy is about to fly away."