A
note from Kiera: Aspen’s family was almost untouched by the original caste
implementation. Ava and Logan Gillespi lived a quiet life as Threes. They were
both writers, and were devoutly patriotic. One of their neighbors was caught
harboring rebels, and Gregory Illéa sentenced that family to Eights and made
everyone on their block drop a caste, as he assumed someone must have known
about the illegal activities and didn’t tell.
The Gillespies, new to being Fours,
made friends with the Mercers, a family who owned a restaurant. Seeing that as
a viable option, they pooled their resources into opening a restaurant of their
own, and their daughter, Orin, eventually married the Mercers’ son, Noah. Orin
and Noah had four daughters while, unbeknownst to them, Orin’s parents saved so
that the oldest daughter, Lena, could buy her way back to the Three status the
family should have, and help the rest of her siblings.
Lena took the money . . . but spent
most of it to pay for the fine so she could marry a server in their restaurant,
a young man with brilliant green eyes named Elec Leger. They quietly endured
the waiting period, married in secret, and returned to tell Lena’s parents.
Lena was unceremoniously kicked out
of her family, left with no one but Elec. They were homeless for five months
before they both could save enough to get a small apartment, and that tiny home
was soon full of children—very loved children.
Aspen watched his father die from a
sickness he couldn’t even name because they were too broke to visit a doctor
for a diagnosis. Within a month of falling ill, Elec was dead.
Lena mourned the loss of her husband
deeply. But even though she was now parenting seven children alone with very
little income, she never regretted her choice to marry Elec. There are no
pictures of Aspen’s father, but his things are around the house, and Aspen will
often find his mother cleaning of a knickknack of his and lovingly setting it
back in its place.
But Aspen also watches as she works
herself to the bone. And that is the main reason he second-guesses his life
with America. He loves her with a singular devotion, but in his eyes there’s a
huge difference between being born into his lifestyle and descending into it.
Prior to the caste system, the Leger
family name was Huntington.
