The schools in Luin are separated by sex.
It isn't fair. He's from a mining town on the other side of the continent, and there was only one school there. All the boys and girls went to school together, and so did the Trietian family that lived nearby. He shouldn't say that it's because everybody was equal; rather, it was because there simply wasn't enough money to ever build another one-room schoolhouse and it seemed ridiculous to anyone and everyone to bar any one child from going to school. Back home, the women worked just as hard as the men. No one had nannies or nurses to take care of the kids. There weren't any cooks or maids. It was a woman's job to manage the household, a man's job to manage the mines and as a son, it was his job to get an education.
But it's different in Luin, and that upsets him for two reasons. He and his sisters have always been in the same classes and now the two of them are going off to a different school and leaving him in an itchy uniform with a bunch of adolescent boys that he doesn't know. They're triplets; they should be allowed to stay together. At least the girls have each other. He doesn't know anyone.
That's a lie though, and it's also the second reason. He does know someone. He made a friend on his first day in town and they played together all summer. But she's going back to the girls' school and he's starting at the boys' school. At St. John's Academy for Boys, they learn about sciences and mathematics and they run laps during free period. He wonders what they do at Sister Becca's.
Anna though, she's the first one who really gets him and now they're not going to see each other everyday. She promises they'll play together on the weekends, but his foster father tells him that he has to finish all of his homework before he can play with his friends. Friend, actually. His sisters barely even talk to him anymore.
And so it goes on. They all start school; he falls behind in maths (he's crap at maths), but he discovers a hidden knack for biology and now he's after school everyday sitting in a lab dissecting rats and frogs. His sisters learn how to sew, how to cook. They stay up late at night whispering about the cute boys they've seen in town; he can hear them from the thin walls of their adoptive home.
He doesn't see Anna for weeks, but he hears stories. She's quite the upstart, that Irving girl, someone says in the marketplace. She doesn't know how to cook, she gets blood all over her embroidery and she has two left feet; she can't do so much as a waltz without falling over and scraping her knee. The other girls laugh at her. They get embarrassed when she comes up to them in town and they pretend not to recognize her. He knows if he was her, he'd lock himself in a cupboard and cry himself to sleep. Anna doesn't. Anna spits in their faces, steps on their feet and she makes it all look like an accident. He finds that very admirable.
And then one day, halfway through the spring semester, Anna is late. They meet once every week by the maple tree in front of the bakery, and Anna's never late. It's the only thing she can do on time.
He waits. He waits for ten minutes, then thirty and then an hour. He waits by that tree for what seems like eternity. He sits down, finishes his chemistry homework, gets up, does some stretches, sits down again, gazes at the clouds and gets up again. Anna's never late.
His foster parents find him and force him to come home for supper. He eats quickly but they refuse to let him go out again. They don't say why, but he knows that they aren't telling him something. His foster mother cleans up the dishes, ignores the questions he throws at her, spanks him when he throws a fit and sends him off to bed. He can hear his sisters laughing from downstairs, playing some stupid game they learned at their stupid school. Anna always hated that school. She always said she would have much rather gone to his school. He falls asleep and dreams of his hometown, his parents and Anna.
The next morning he finds out.
No one told him, but all the signs were there. He doesn't know how he ever missed it. It must have happened while he was in school, and if any of the professors knew, none of them said anything.
The Desians came to town yesterday. Midday, a small group marched into the square, demanded to know the location of Anna Irving and were given directions to Sister Becca's by a frightened villager. No one knows who caved in and told them. No one has come forward to take the blame.
They haven't yet reached a census regarding why the Desians came for her specifically. There had been an incident earlier in the week- Anna tripped, stumbled and accidentally hit one of the Desian soldiers on the arm, but the Desian in question hadn't caused a fuss about it and neither had his partner. No one knows and yet, no one wants to find out.
That's when he stops eating. Anna was his only link to light in a world of darkness. Between his foster parents, his annoying sisters and the boys at school who are all so much bigger than him, he needed Anna to keep him sane. And now she's gone. She was such a good person and she's been taken away.
It's a strange sort of guilt he feels. He doesn't ever want to be taken to the Ranch. He would rather kill himself. But at the same time, he knows that Anna was a much brighter spirit than he will ever be. She was boastful where he was bashful; she was pretty where he was plain. She could have done so much good in the world. She would have been a loving wife and the best mother. He will only ever grow up to be another man. Anna would have been an outstanding force for women in a world run by the opposite sex. She was not afraid of anything. He doesn't want to die, but he wishes they had taken him instead.
And it isn't fair. He's from a mining town on the other side of the continent where there was a one room schoolhouse, a church and a goods store. He will never do anything great. Anna was the child of a city, a star when others were clouds. She would have been the best.
And it isn't fair. It just isn't fair