The Dark Water by Seth Fishman

see red plastic cups filled with beer or Frisbees lofting through the air. The Keepers all look our way, casting furtive glances, though there’s a younger-looking Keeper, with a shock of blue hair, sitting in a circle and full-on staring. The Keeper to her left covers her eyes with his hands, blocking her view of us. As if our looks could kill.
    I want to ask Straoc about her but a couple of men, both in blue billowy shirts and mustard-yellow jackets over blue jean–like pants, approach carrying bowls of water. They’re smiling, something we haven’t really seen much of down here. They’re the opposite of the Keepers we saw at the Exchange. “Welcome and drink,” they say in unison. One has black hair in a bowl cut with narrow eyes, and the other has blond curls with wide cheekbones.
    Straoc nods, and we drink. The water gives me a buzz of energy and a pulse of warmth that goes right through my head.
    â€œWow,” Rob says, apparently feeling the same thing. “Like a bump of caffeine.”
    One of the Keepers—the one with dark hair—reaches out tentatively and touches Jo’s blond hair. Jo manages not only to not cringe, but even to smile. The perfect diplomat.
    â€œYou have very small eyes,” the hair toucher says.
    â€œBreacha,” Straoc warns.
    â€œIs it true that for half of every cycle you must hide?” the other asks, looking at me for answers. He’s got an earring—a thin chain that snakes in and out of the lobe.
    â€œHide from what?” I ask.
    â€œFrom the burning.”
    â€œThe sun?” Rob asks.
    â€œThat is not the way of it,” Straoc admonishes, and the two cower back, as if in trouble. “Keeper Randt speaks better than that. You take your moments to speak to Topsiders and you ply them with questions of superstition?” Straoc had untied us while we drank, and now he hooks my arm and pulls us along. “Enough, you two. Go tell your friends of your speaking with Topsiders and leave us.”
    We keep walking through the grass, no other Keeper brave enough to approach.
    â€œSo each building has its own clan?” Jo asks after a while, stroking her hair absentmindedly.
    â€œYes, that is correct,” Straoc says. “Come now,” he continues. “I am sure you are exhausted. Let us go to your chambers, where you can rest.”
    I catch Rob’s and Jo’s eyes. Taking a nap is the last thing I can imagine doing right now.
    Straoc guides us down a lovely path toward a gazebo-like structure and invites us to sit. There’s a Keeper standing in the corner, a reedy man who refuses to meet my eyes, but peeks at our feet. “These are our chambers?” Rob asks. Straoc doesn’t respond, and so, reluctantly, we take a seat. As soon as we do, the gazebo shoots into the air, surprising me but terrifying Rob, who was never the best with heights. He yelps. I fear the dark; Rob fears heights; Jo stepping immediately to look over the edge, fears nothing.
    The reedy Keeper pushes a few buttons, kind of like an elevator operator. Maybe exactly like that.
    â€œMia,” Jo says, practically dangling from the side.
Oh, it’s great to be a high diver.
“Come see!”
    Battling my own beating heart, I stick my head out and take it all in. I can’t see the actual mechanism of the elevator, so there must be a cable or something pulling us up. We ride smoothly, quickly, passing balcony after balcony catching glimpses of Keepers through open windows going about their daily business, whatever that means here. Jo points to one woman who is hanging glowflowers upside down from a line, as if to dry them. They shiver and sparkle and remind me of Christmas.
    I look down, and shouldn’t have. We’re
high
up. Thirty, fifty stories, I don’t know. I grab Jo’s hand.
    â€œAww,” she says, making a funny face. “You should go sit with Rob and be scared.”
    â€œWatch