The Diviners

“Look over there! You can see the inn if you try,” Evie said, extricating her hand to point. It was impolite to point, but it was even more impolite to hold the hand of the boy your best friend was goofy for, even if he was only being gentlemanly.

“Where?” Jericho leaned over her slightly to see, and Evie’s body thrummed again.

“Oh. I… I don’t believe you can see it anymore.” She settled back against the seat with her hands firmly on the bar.

Exiting the Ferris wheel, they found that it had turned chillier. Wispy clouds drifted in the hazy sky above the red-gold hills.

“Cold?” Jericho asked.

“A little,” Evie said. Her teeth chattered. She nodded to a clapboard pavilion off to the side. “That looks warm.”

A sign above the door proclaimed FITTER FAMILIES FOR FUTURE FIRESIDES. A fair-haired boy barreled out of the door and down the steps, proudly showing off a bronze medal on a ribbon. “I won!”

“Attaboy! What did you win?” Evie asked, and he let her see the medal’s inscription. “ ‘Yea, I have a goodly heritage,’ ” Evie read. “Well. Good for you, then, I suppose.”

Inside, the building had been set up with long tables and curtained-off areas labeled EXAMINATION. Families sat in chairs, waiting their turn, while nurses in starched aprons and stiff white hats moved about, writing down information and escorting them one at a time behind the examination curtains. Fathers filled out surveys and answered questions while mothers bounced fussy babies on their knees and encouraged their children to sit up straight, all in the hope of coming away with one of those bronze medals the boy outside had been so proud of. There was hot cocoa, and Jericho went to get them some while Evie waited.

At a nearby table, a tall, thin, gray-haired man asked a young couple questions. “Has anyone in your family ever had heart trouble? Infantile paralysis? Scoliosis? Rickets?” They shook their heads, and the gray-haired man smiled. “Fine, fine. How about a history of nervous trouble? Have you or any of your family members ever demonstrated any unusual abilities? For instance, if I were to hold a card in my hand, might you have a… well, let’s call it a sense of what that card was? Would you like to be tested for such an ability?”

Evie was only half listening. She was drawn to the far wall, where a large board was suspended. The board, which sported small, flashing lightbulbs, had been divided down the middle. The left side, where an arrow pointed to a fast-flashing light, read EVERY FORTY-EIGHT SECONDS, A PERSON IS BORN IN THE UNITED STATES WHO WILL BE A BURDEN ON SOCIETY. AMERICA NEEDS LESS OF THESE, AND MORE OF THESE….

An arrow on the right side pointed to a lightbulb that rarely flashed. The text read EVERY SEVEN AND A HALF MINUTES, A HIGH-GRADE PERSON IS BORN IN THE UNITED STATES, WHO WILL HAVE THE ABILITY TO WORK AND BE FIT FOR LEADERSHIP. ONLY FOUR PERCENT OF ALL AMERICANS FALL WITHIN THIS CLASS. LEARN ABOUT HEREDITY. YOU CAN HELP TO CORRECT THESE CONDITIONS.—THE HUMAN BETTERMENT FOUNDATION: MAKING AMERICA STRONG THROUGH THE SCIENCE OF EUGENICS.

Jericho returned with their cocoa. He frowned at the board. A smiling nurse holding a clipboard approached them. “Did you want to be tested?”

“For what?” Evie asked.

“We don’t need a medal,” Jericho said curtly.

“Do you know about eugenics?” the nurse asked, as if she hadn’t heard him. “It’s a wonderful scientific movement designed to help America achieve her full potential. It is the self-direction of human evolution.

“Why, every farmer knows that the key to having the best possible livestock is in the breeding,” the nurse explained, as if she were imparting a Sunday-school lesson to children. “If you breed inferior animals, you’ll have inferior stock. You must maintain the superiority of the bloodlines to have truly superior stock. It’s the same with people. How costly is it for America when defective people are born? There are the unfortunates. The degenerates. The unfit, insane, crippled, and feeble-minded. The repeat criminals found in the lower classes. The defects particular to certain of the races. Many of the agitators causing such unrest in our society are an example of the inferior element who are leading to a mongrelization of our American culture. Purity is the cornerstone of our great civilization. Eugenics proposes corrections for what is sick in our society.”

“Let’s go,” Jericho urged in Evie’s ear, but the nurse was still talking.

“Imagine an America in which both our physical and social ills have been bred out of us. There would be no disease. No war. No poverty or crime. There would be peace, as people of superior, like minds could reason out their differences. A true democracy! All men are not created equal, but they could be. Mankind was meant to reach ever forward, ever upward, ever onward! Corrections,” the smiling nurse said again. “Are you certain you wouldn’t like to be tested? It won’t take but a few moments of your time, and we have some lovely cookies.”