Starglass (21 page)

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. You’re one of us now.”

I felt a sudden flood of warmth from within. I found myself pulled across the field, my hand firmly in Koen’s. We finally reached Van’s little family. And I found myself smiling, too, despite my reservations. Van’s wife, Nina, grinned up at me.

“Hello, Terra,” she said. She was tugging a knit cap over her baby’s red hair. They shared the same round cheeks, but little else.
Her black hair cascaded down her shoulders. “Joyous Orbit Day.”

“Joyous Orbit Day,” I returned. For a moment I hovered uncertainly over their little gathering. Koen put the heater down beside theirs and fiddled with the dials.

“Have a seat,” Van said, gesturing with a pointed finger to the frozen ground. I bit the inside of my cheek, but then I pushed my worries away. I was a rebel now—one of them. I sat down beside Koen and let the heater’s glowing coils blow hot breath over me. I showed a shy smile to Nina and Van. They squinted back at me as if my presence among their family was nothing of note.

“You found us,” Van said, turning to Koen, who let out a laugh as he settled in beside me.

“Of course I did.” He reached out his arms and gathered Van’s son in them. It was clear they knew each other well. Koen began to sing “Tsen Brider,” folding down the baby’s fat fingers. The toddler did his best to sing along. He managed to pick up the rhythm of the song, even if his words came out in little more than an incomprehensible babble.

“We should be able to see Eps Eridani F at any minute now,” Van said. Though he seemed to be speaking to all of us, it was Koen he was looking at, watching as the
talmid
cuddled the baby boy. But soon he glanced up. The dome lights began to flicker off. Overhead, through the honeycomb girders, we could see the sparkling expanse
of space. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Koen pass the baby back to Nina. But my gaze was firmly fixed to the glass above. I’d never seen a
planet
among all those stars before. I couldn’t help but feel a small thrill at the thought of it.

“Hey,” Nina said. A tremble underscored her voice, just fearful enough to pull me out of my excitement. “Look who it is.”

She’d gestured to the other end of the field. A flock of dark-coated guards marched in a scattered line, stopping now and then around the huddled families. At first I couldn’t imagine what was going on. Then Van’s son lifted a pudgy finger and let out a little squeal.

“Capun! Capun!”

Sure enough, there was Captain Wolff, her long hair braided into a silver rope down her back. I watched as she stooped over to shake the hand of every citizen. She chatted easily with them. Still, an ominous silence descended on our strange, cobbled-together little family.

“Here she comes,” Van muttered. We all watched as she drew near, flanked on either side by a guard.

“
Talmid
Fineberg.” She spoke my name in a tone so sweet it was almost sickening. “The young botanist. Joyous Orbit Day.” She took my hand and shook it much too hard for my liking.

“Joyous Orbit Day,” I replied, shocked by her firm grip. I tried to avoid looking at her scar—focusing on her hairline, her chin, anywhere
else. But before I could find a place to rest my eyes, she moved on to Koen.

“And
Talmid
Maxwell. How goes the clock keeping?”

“Uh,” he stammered. “Fine.”

Captain Wolff bent down to pinch little Corban’s cheeks and to shake Nina’s hand. My gaze strayed, catching a flash of white. It was Silvan Rafferty. He stood at the edge of her party, Aleksandra Wolff beside him. The guard tracked him as one might an animal with an inclination to bolt. But he hardly seemed to notice. In fact, he looked bored. Yet when he saw me staring at him, something behind his gaze warmed. He watched me for a long moment, his eyebrows nearly meeting, turning some new idea over in his mind.

My cheeks burned. I looked away. I felt no affection for him—not after what he’d done to Rachel.

“Good riddance,” Nina said, exhaling hard as the captain’s entourage finally moved on. At the edge of my vision, I saw Aleksandra nudge Silvan with the hilt of her blade. He waited just a moment longer before he turned and trudged away too. “I’m glad that’s over.”

“She didn’t say hello to you,” Koen noted. Van’s lip curled in response.

“Good,” he said, and then he added: “The murderous cow.”

Nina rolled her eyes. Then she leaned back, resting her shoulders against Van’s body. He drew her close. I watched as Corban snuggled
into his mother’s arms. They looked like the perfect family. Koen watched them too, frown lines deepening the edges of his mouth. Something clouded up beneath the surface of his expression, stormy and dark. He turned to me.

“Come here,” he said, and when I only stared at him, he scooted forward along the frozen ground until he was right beside me. The outside of his lanky leg graced my thigh. I felt heat rise up across my face, and it sure wasn’t from Koen’s creaky old heater this time. He said it again—“Come
here
!”—and let out a rickety laugh as he pulled me against him.

My shoulders sank back against his chest. He was so skinny—I could feel his ribs beneath his sweater and coat. His body smelled like cedar and musk and dirt. I could feel Van and Nina watching us. I did my best not to look at them, focusing instead on the orange glow of our heater, looking at my own knees, and then up, at the dark dome and the freckling of stars above.

Koen leaned his chin into the place where my neck met my shoulder.
This is what you wanted
, I said to myself. My mind reached back to my dreams, where settling into someone’s arms felt just as easy as settling into my bed at night. I ignored the little incongruities—the stuttered, frantic beat of my heart; the way that Koen’s body felt, all knees and elbows, against mine. Here, in his arms, I should have been happier than I’d ever been before. So I closed my eyes and willed it to be true.

I felt his lips brush my earlobe. The little hairs on my arms all stood up.

“I’m so glad you’re here with us,” he said. I licked my lips, getting ready to echo his words back.

“I’m glad to be here t—”

But Nina cut me off. Her voice rose up over the rattle of the heaters.

“Oh!” she said, pointing. “There it is!”

We looked up. There, at the dome’s edge, what looked like a new star crawled into view. It was different from the other stars—a bigger pinprick through the darkness of space, shining brightly. Unlike the others, it was green, the color of oxidized copper. Eps Eridani F. Our new neighbor. Applause spread slowly across the field. I should have clapped too. I was a part of something now. A part of Koen’s life. A part of the Children of Abel. But for some reason my mind was stormy. I didn’t clap; I only drew in a shuddered breath.

•  •  •

Later that night I came home to a dark house. I went from room to room turning on the lights, but it hardly did anything to beat back the darkness. I wanted to be out in the dome, under the sparkle of starlight and that new green speck of light. Of course, it wasn’t Zehava—it was a gaseous body, no ground or breathable atmosphere. Still, it was the closest I’d ever been to a planet. Part of me wanted to
lay myself down on the frozen ground beneath its light, to wait for my dreams to overtake and comfort me. But it was a crazy thought.

Almost as crazy as stealing plants for the rebellion. I stood frozen over the counter, thinking about it. I was one of them now, a Child of Abel. I needed to act, and soon. But I’d invented a million different reasons for Mara to take me down to the herbarium, and none seemed right when I was under the harsh lab lights. Mara would catch me. She would surely know. What if she turned me in to the Council? What if the guards came for me, just as they’d come for Mar Jacobi?

I remembered his strangled cry. My hands went cold at the memory. When the sound of a fist came, frantic, at the door, I nearly jumped straight out of my skin.

“Coming,” I said, rushing over, throwing it open. It was Ronen. He held Alyana against him, cradling her tightly.

“Ronen, what are you doing here?”

My brother barreled past me. “I’m here to talk about Abba,” he declared, and sat himself right down at our galley table.

“You don’t live here anymore, you know,” I said. I could see my brother’s jaw flex.

“I know. That’s why I knocked.”

I sighed and fell into the chair at the far end of the table.

“So go ahead,” I said. “Talk about Abba.”

“Something happened today in the dome. It wasn’t normal.”

When was our father ever normal? I stared at Ronen. Jiggling his baby in his arms, he went on.

“The minute the planet came into view, he got up and started to storm off. He wouldn’t stop when I called him, but Hannah chased him down. He lost it. Started screaming at her. I was worried he might hit her, the way he used to hit us.”

Used to.
I grimaced. It was all a distant memory for Ronen. But not for me. “So what’d he say?”

Ronen stopped jiggling. His eyes dropped to the table, tracing the knots in the wood. “He said that he doesn’t want to go to Zehava without Mom. Hannah almost couldn’t convince him to sit down with us.”

I didn’t answer at first. I couldn’t think about Abba now. Not with the rebellion weighing so heavily on my mind. In the silence Alyana let out a ripple of tears. That was all I needed. I snapped.

“What do you want me to do, Ronen? Bring her back from the dead?”

My brother didn’t respond right away. He was too busy hushing his daughter, his lips touching the baby hairs that curled like feathers from her head. When he spoke, it was in a whisper, as if he expected me to whisper too. “I’m concerned. I thought we should talk about it. That’s what families do.”

I let out a snort and rose from the table. My chair squeaked against
the metal floor. “Don’t you dare tell me about families. You couldn’t wait to get out of here. First chance you got.”

“I was sixteen,” he said. “Hannah—”

I slammed my hand against the counter. It felt satisfying, echoing through our galley and reverberating all up and down my arm. “Hannah was nothing but a ticket out for you, and you know it. You’re concerned now? He’s been like this for years. And it’s never bothered you before. No, no, not until he makes a scene in the dome. In front of everyone.
Embarrassing
you.”

“That’s not it.”

“I’ve been living with this
alone
for four years now! And it’s only now, when I’m about to
finally
get out of it, that you care? Thanks. Thanks for nothing.”

Little Alyana cried and cried. But I turned away from them. Ronen didn’t answer me, though I heard him suck in a breath. Like he was trying to hold his anger in. Maybe he really was one of us—an angry person, like my father.

But when Ronen finally spoke, he didn’t sound angry at all. He only sounded sad. “Sorry, Terra,” he said.

Then I heard his footsteps, and the front door close behind him, and I was alone again—all alone—in the empty silence of our quarters.

R
onen was right. Over the next several days Abba’s mood grew even darker. He came home stinking of wine, grumbling his words. Sometimes he passed out in bed while twilight still rosied the dome ceiling. One night, after he’d skipped the supper I’d made to sleep alone upstairs, he barked my name from his bedroom. I stiffened, sure that he’d finally discovered that the paper-wrapped package had disappeared from Momma’s jewelry box. But when I went to the door, I saw that his closet remained
shut. He sat on the edge of the bed, his shoulders slumped.

“Terra,” he said. I could hear the phlegm in his voice. His words seemed to burble up from it, sticky and hopeless. “Marry Koen. He’s a good boy. A clock keeper. Just like your old man.”

“I know,” I said doubtfully, hanging back. “I’ve already given him my consent.”

“Did you?” He swung his heavy head up toward me. His eyes were filmy, hazy, without understanding.

“Yes, Abba,” I said, my words coming out in a whisper. “You were
there
.”

“Huh,” Abba said, chuckling to himself. “So I was.”

He turned away from me and stared at the wall. I waited only a moment more before I rushed down the hall toward my room. After I closed the door behind me, shutting away the memory of my father’s stiff posture, his gray face, I pulled out my sketchbook. I fumbled with my pencils, scribbling purple flowers across a rolling field. Each green stalk was meant to sag with violet bells. They were foxglove plants, or were supposed to be, at least. I’d looked them up in one of Mara’s field guides. There hadn’t been much information. Only a diagram. Long stalks. Lozenge leaves. Purple bells, spotted white inside. And the ancient name for them:
Digitalis purpurea.

Soon I’d shaded nearly the entire page over with purple pigment. I looked down at the frenzy of color, at my hand, red where I’d
clutched the pencil too tight. Then I thrust the pencil against the wall and buried my face in my pillow.

•  •  •

Koen kept me distracted.

Now when we walked through the dome after work, we spoke in hushed tones about the rebellion. Koen told me what he thought of liberty—how, when we reached the surface of our new home, he hoped to find the sort of happiness his parents never had. We no longer held hands. Koen’s were too busy flitting through the air as he jabbered. And I didn’t even try to kiss him. He was always too red-faced, breathless, and antsy for that.

“On the surface,” he told me one night as we walked across the frost-blue pastures, “I’d like to have lots of kids. A whole gaggle of them. Because with the Council out of the way, we can have them make more than two down in the hatchery for us, right?”

“Right,” I agreed. “But why?”

“Because it’s too much pressure to have just one boy and one girl. I mean, look at your dad. He was so worried about whether you would be a specialist or not.”

I blushed, stuffing my hands into my pockets. I’d told Koen almost everything about my father—and what I hadn’t, Abba had covered for me.