Pure of Heart?

“Promise me.”

Annie cupped my dirty face in her cracked hands, and she bent down so that we were at eye level. “You will remember the coordinates, and memorize the map. When you reach thirty clicks of the timewheel, you will come find me. Before you leave, find another and train them as I have trained you. Do not take the medicine. Become Pure of Heart. Promise me.”

“I promise,” I said, trying not to cry.

Standing up, she reached behind her neck, and unclasped the tarnished, bent, heart-shaped locket she’d worn since her mama gave it to her all those years ago. Her mama had gotten it from Annie’s grandmother, something we don’t have anymore. Annie didn’t have a daughter to give the locket and her knowledge to, so she chose me.

“This is yours now,” she said, clasping it around my neck, and tucking it gently under my shirt so that the Junkyard Dogs wouldn’t see it. “Give it to the one you choose before you leave.”

She gave me a little half-smile and nodded her head and handed me the map, folded and wrapped carefully in tattered plastic. I tucked it into my pants, under my jacket and stood up straight and nodded back.

Then she turned and left, never looking back, ducking out of the yellow halogen light to sneak beyond the wall. She’d turned thirty clicks last week, so no one would have stopped her from leaving. She was expected to. But people who leave to go out West don’t pack anything to carry with them, because people going out West were leaving to die. No one in Afterworld lives much past thirty clicks. We all have the sickness now, those of us who never knew the Beforeworld.

Annie, though, had supplies, enough food to last the ten days, and the map etched into her memory, including where to find water. Annie was Pure of Heart, and she was off to find the Grail. If she could find the Grail, she could heal the Afterworld. When I turned thirty clicks, I was to go on a Grail quest of my own.

I scurried back to my cot in tent #33. Greta stirred as I got back into bed, but she was my friend, and believed me when I whispered that I’d just gotten up to go pee. I pulled my blankets over my head and spent the night wide awake, fumbling with the locket in the darkness. What would it be like to grow old? I promised the locket that I would be worthy, that I would remain Pure of Heart and not take the medicine.

When Annie chose me, she showed me the locket to me, pulling it carefully out into the light from where she hid it under her clothes. Opening it, she revealed a faded photograph of a woman I could only assume was old. She had hair like a few people close to their time to go out West, and her skin had creases that didn’t come from dirt.

Annie carefully removed the photo of her great grandmother, revealing the inscription, “Pure of Heart?” It was a question for the bearer, an invitation to a quest. On the other side, in tiny, tiny script were the coordinates. Even tarnished and bent, the locket served as a promise to the wearer. If you were Pure of Heart, the sickness would not get you. If you completed your quest, you could heal the Afterworld.

I had absolutely no idea how any of this worked. No one had ever come back from their quest, not Annie's mama, not her grandmother, and not her great-grandmother. But I believed in Annie and her heart, and I believed in the locket. I believed that I could find the Grail and heal the Afterworld. I believed that I would grow old.

I turned twelve clicks the next day, the day that I was supposed to start taking the medicine. My Grail quest began when I hid the pills dispensed with my breakfast, the way Annie showed me. I felt her hands on my face, and the locket, warm next to my Pure Heart.