Molly
The whole room went silent at that moment. Did he just say what I think he said? Ms. Ellison might know how to get out of this place? We could go home? “I’m sorry, what did you just say?” I asked softly, my eyes wide in surprise and my mouth slightly open.
“She was researching the origins of the zipper,” he told me, which didn’t help me all that much.
“But, I thought that the information about the zipper was long gone, if there even was any,” my brother pointed out, chewing on his lip a bit as he looked at him. That was exactly it. Any information anyone had tried to find about the zipper was just gone.
“Well, she had an in with the people who kept the records, you know, about the history of the town, in the restricted area for government officials only, so she was able to check out the things we couldn’t. Apparently they have information linked to that in there as well, which is interesting. I wish I could have read some of that stuff,” Mitchell admitted and sighed a bit himself.
“Why didn’t you tell us this when you came down here? Actually, wait, why didn’t she tell us when she came down here in the first place?” Neil asked, taking charge of the situation.
“I don’t know. I’ve been down here for only a few days at most, remember? At first I wasn’t even sure if she was alive. I met her in the mess hall only this morning when I got breakfast,” he said and shrugged. “I’m sorry. How about you just send someone to find Celia and then we can go? I feel like I’m being interrogated or something, and I don’t like it.” He got up and looked at all of us.
Neil sighed. “Okay fine. Come on, let’s get going,” he said and left the room quickly.
We stood and got ready to go, but before I left, I went to make sure my sister was still fast asleep. She still was, so I pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Sleep well, Elsie,” I whispered.
She slightly stirred, but she stayed asleep. I smiled a bit and then left the room. As I glanced down the hall, I saw Celia walk towards me, flanked by Neil and Ethan. He gave me a wave, and I returned it.
“Hey, guys,” Ethan greeted. “So, you’re gonna talk to Quinn?” he asked us curiously.
“Yeah, Ms. Ellison might know some information on how we can get out of this place,” I told him. “Celia, you can take care of Elsie again while we go to talk to her, right?” I ask her.
Celia nodded with a bright smile. “Absolutely. I’ll take care of her. Now go ahead and go talk to her,” she said and then walked through the blanket to see my sister.
I turned to Ethan. “Hey, so are you coming with us? Or are you helping out Celia with Elsie patrol?” I asked him.
“I was hoping I could come with. When I was up there, and so was she, she was my babysitter when my parents were at work, or on date nights, you know, stuff like that. So maybe if she sees me, since she knows me so well, it would help her feel more comfortable with being there and talked to,” Ethan explained. It made sense, and I agreed. She probably did know Ethan better than the rest of us, so having him around may be more beneficial to our cause than not having him around.
“Sure. Come with us,” Thomas said from behind me. “Do you know which room Ms. Ellison is in?” he asked.
“Yeah, just follow me,” Ethan said and turned to head the way he had come. “By the way,” he said, before he took a step, “you don’t need to call her Ms. Ellison. She doesn’t really like being called that. Just call her Quinn and you’ll be just fine.” Then, he started walking back down the hall towards where he had come.
I followed close behind, along with my brother, Shailene, Neil, and Mitchell. We walked in silence, the sound of our footsteps the only thing we heard as we walked. I guess at this point, according to the other people down here in the zipper, it was bedtime. I really hoped we weren’t going to wake Ms. Ellison up.
We found ourselves walking back through the landing area, where we had all arrived there when we jumped or fell (unless you were the Greens). As I walked through one of the doorways, I noticed something I hadn’t realized before. “So, how is this place laid out, anyway?” I asked. This hallway looked almost exactly like the one we had come through on the other side.
“It’s kind of like a spider web. The landing is at the center. We’ve got the mess hall, doctor, trading post, and stuff like that in the first ring and part of the second ring. The outer rings are the houses. How haven’t you realized that?” Neil asked from behind me.
“I wasn’t thinking about it until I realized this looks exactly like the other side. Now that I think about it, it makes perfect sense how this is all laid out,” I replied and looked around with them.
“Well, what do you think about it down here, out of curiosity?” Shailene asked me. She sped up her walking pace just a bit so she could walk beside me and hear my responses better.
“I actually like it, which is a bit surprising. When I came down here, I was expecting nothing. I was expecting my sister, if she was still alive, to be lying against a wall with dead bodies and starving. But this is a mini city, one that makes do with what it has, and I find that really impressive. Even though I wish that this didn’t have to exist, I’m glad that this does, and that all of you are living so well,” I said as we walked.
“I’m glad you like it down here. We try to make it accommodating,” I heard Neil say from behind me. You know how someone’s voice changes in a way when they smile? Where it gets a bit higher, and you can sense that they’re a bit happier just by that? Neil’s voice had that interesting change, and I didn’t have to turn around to see it.
After a while of walking, we finally reached the place. It looked like all the other rooms in the zipper, with the blanket covering the door. This one was one of those tie blankets where they tie each little piece together to make sure it stays together. I remember making one with my mom when I was little. It was really time consuming, but I was really proud of how it had turned out. I wasn’t able to find it when it got colder a few years ago, which was disappointing. It was really nice, with butterflies on one side and purple fabric on the other…
This one had butterflies and purple fabric on the other side. I could see it where they were tied. “Good to see my hard work paid off somewhere,” I said softly with a frown.
“What are you talking about?” Mitchell asked me, tilting his head in confusion.
“I made this with my mom when I was younger, and it disappeared. How do you get things like that?” I asked them in response.
“Well, our contacts on the surface will go to the homeless shelter,” Shailene began, but was cut off by Mitchell.
“You know, the homeless shelter that nobody goes to because the government will send you down here if you don’t find a house in six months?” Mitchell said.
“To decrease the surplus population,” Thomas finalized with a sigh. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
Shailene nodded. “Yeah. Anyway, they’ll get the food for us from there, and get clothes and other things from the dump or from those “Free, please take” signs on people’s lawns,” she explained.
“And how exactly do you know this all happens?” Thomas asked, asking a question I had as well. How did they know that this happened, if they hadn’t been up there to see it?
“We get messages with the deliveries every once in a while, telling us any news from up there. Most of it doesn’t mean anything, but they do let us know when someone who committed a true crime, you know, like murder, was committed so we can be prepared for when they show up,” Neil said. Then, there was a rustle behind the blanket curtain.
We immediately stopped talking as soon as we saw the blanket move. Then, it was pushed out of the way to reveal a woman. She was in her thirties or forties now, with only a tinge of gray in her hair. She was about the same height as me, which was an average height for women up on the surface. She was smaller though, with thin arms and legs. Then again, nobody down here was overweight or anything. There simply wasn’t enough food to overindulge like that.
“I should have seen it coming, that someone wanted to come talk to me. But I was just heading to bed, so couldn’t this wait?” The woman requested.
“Quinn?” Ethan asked, looking at her from where he stood. He gave her a small smile. “I’m sorry, I’m not sure this can wait. I know you like your rest, but this is incredibly important,” he said.
Ms. Ellison looked between all of us. She hesitated for a second, and then motioned for us to come in. “Come on in. Take a seat anywhere you want.” She stepped back into her room and pushed the blanket aside for the door to be wide open. She then walked back towards her bed and took a seat on it. “I’m sorry I don’t have many seats, otherwise this would be a whole lot easier for all of you,” she said sweetly and a bit apologetically.
What a nice lady.
I sat down on the other bed, joined by Neil and Shailene. Ethan sat near Ms. Ellison, as well as Thomas. “Well, it’s great to meet you, ma’am. My name’s Molly, and that’s my brother, Thomas,” I said and pointed to him. “We jumped down here after my sister fell in by accident. We understand you might know some things about why the government is sending people down here for reasons they won’t admit,” I told her. I had to make sure that I sounded like I knew what I was talking about, otherwise she might not help us out. We couldn’t risk that.
Ms. Ellison nodded in understanding. “Yes, I know exactly what you’re talking about. What do you want to know? What I did specifically?” she asked us in response.
“Yes, please. That would be a great place to start,” Thomas told her. He sat up a bit, knowing what she would say would be interesting and important.
Ms. Ellison nodded. She paused for a second before she spoke. “Okay, well it started a few years ago. I think it was actually related to the story of your parents, Neil and Shailene,” she began and looked between the two of them. “I knew your parents when they were up on the surface. I’ve been able to reconnect with them down here, but that’s not the point,” she said. “Anyway, I heard about how they were sent down here when your mother was pregnant, which surprised me. I would have thought that they’d have waited until your mother gave birth before sending her down. But they didn’t wait.
“So, I chose to investigate. I went to the police and started investigating the records of what they had done. But all of them came up with the same result.”
“Crimes against the government of Restless Isle,” I finished.
“How did you know?” she asked.
“Mitchell’s file said the exact same thing,” I told her with a small sigh.
She nodded. “That’s what mine probably says too. So I did some more work. I investigated more and more about what I could find relating to what that sentence could mean. I came to the conclusion that it had to be something like treason. It made sense, but at the same time it didn’t. Treason was something more similar to doing something bad at a national government. We weren’t a national government. I started questioning people nonstop, to see if anyone knew anything about what they had done to be sent down here. That was within a year of my conviction.
“They figured out it was me and then I was arrested when I least expected it. I had nothing, and I didn’t realize it was coming. Without a trial, or anything, they sentenced me. I had my last words prepared. I was going to say to the large crowd something about the fact that they all needed to think about who had been sent down here, and they needed to think about whether they were people who really were bad people.”
I nodded in understanding. “So they sent you down without letting you say anything because they knew you’d do something like that,” I said.
She nodded. “But, they didn’t know that I had been reading books in the back section of the library. I’ve been waiting down here for the perfect opportunity to find exactly what was described,” she said with a smile.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I know the way out of here. I know exactly what to do to open up a passage to get us out of here,” she said with a smile. “All you need are a few shovels and a group of strong people, and you could be out of here within days.”