First Light

by Rebecca Stead

  “Some twenty years ago, a group of our young engineers began to study the possibility of enlarging our world. They were not interested, at first, in the planet's surface. They considered it nothing more than an inhospitable space. Rather, they hoped to explore the far side of the lake, where, they believed, an almost limitless expanse of ice was available for underground habitation. A daughter of the first line used her influence to secure council approval for the initial exploration. Her name was Mai.”

  Thea's body reacted to the sound of her mother's name. It was as if a school of tiny fish swam inside of her, everywhere at once. She squeezed her hands into fists and then flexed her fingers, wishing she had thought to bring her ambergris.

  “Mai lead three voyages by boat far across the great lake.”

  Thea braced herself. This would be where her mother died. Mai had drowned during the last charting voyage.

  “In several years, the voyagers charted almost the entire perimeter of the lake, but they never came across any place where it was possible to disembark. They met sheer wall all around. The blowers are too heavy to be used from boats afloat on the water, and there was great concern about the possibility of polluting the lake, which is, of course, vital to our survival.

  “Mai decided that the new land would have to be reached from the planet's surface, just as the original settlement had been accomplished many years before. Once the new settlement had been established, a connection to Gracehope could be forged. It was a lifetime of work they proposed, but before any of it could begin, they required the council's permission to find a way to the surface.”

  Thea had to speak.

  “Lucian—” She didn't give him time to berate her, but plunged forward, stammering. “That's … how can that be? Mai, my mother, died on the last voyage across the lake.”

  He looked ashen. “It was insensitive of me not to warn you: Your mother did not drown. I am here—I asked to be here—to tell you the truth about how she died.”

  Thea nodded, her mind reeling.

  “There was a good deal of support for the expansion. But there were also many who opposed the notion of surfacing. Grace and the Settlers made a peaceable lifepossible for us, they said, and to surface, even temporarily, was to jeopardize that life.

  “All of this led to a tumultuous political time. The expansion debates, as they were known, were managed well by the Chief of Council, Agis, who was wise enough to move slowly. He called for public debates and a vote, and vowed to act in accord with the judgment of the people.

  “Then Agis fell victim to rapid-aging disease. He was dead within months. His niece, Mai's mother, Rowen, presented herself as a successor and was confirmed largely out of blind allegiance to her uncle's memory.

  “Rowen was vehemently opposed to the expansion. The public debates soon took on a very different spirit. There was a lot of unpleasantness, always with Mai on one side of the argument and her own mother, Rowen, on the other.

  “A full public vote was scheduled according to Agis's original plan. As the date neared, however, fights began to erupt in homes and at workposts. The sides broke down largely along generational lines, and there were several apprentice strikes. There was some fear about what might happen after the vote.

  “Then, just before the vote was to take place, Mai walked into the council chamber and, without explanation, withdrew her motion to begin expansion efforts. There would be no vote. There was an outcry from manyof her supporters, but without her leadership, the group scattered, unhappy but willing to take up life as it was before.

  “What Mai failed to disclose that morning was that she had found—” Lucian faltered—“she had discovered that the Settlers' original migration tunnel had been secretly preserved. The tunnel remained unknown to all but those closest to her.”

  A group that obviously included Lucian, Thea thought.

  “Mai and her Chikchu began making regular trips to the surface.”

  Gru, Thea realized with a start. Gru had been to the surface with her mother. No wonder the dog had been so unsettled—she was looking for Mai.

  “Your mother met someone on the surface, Thea. And befriended him. He was a man of the wider world, a researcher, and the two learned a great deal from each other. Their friendship changed Mai—she came to believe that our people might safely rejoin the wider world.

  “But then she fell ill. The nature of her sickness was unknown in Gracehope, and it appeared likely that it was a result of her contact with the surface. She decided to reveal everything to Rowen. But Rowen was more fearful than Mai knew. She used her position as Chief of Council to decree in secret that Mai leave Gracehope until she recovered, claiming that her presence posed a risk to the health of the citizenry.

  “Those of us who knew of Rowen's decision were bitterly opposed to it, arguing that there could be no meaningful care for Mai on the cold surface. Rowen was sentencing her own child to death. The conflict nearly erupted into violence”—Lucian colored here, but his voice remained even—“but Mai herself averted that threat and agreed to go.”

  After a moment he added awkwardly, “She had every hope of returning to Gracehope, and to you, Thea.”

  Thea kept walking. Each of Lucian's words was a fresh bit of pain, yet she needed him to keep going until the end.

  He continued. “Mai was too weak to ascend the tunnel herself. Mai's sister, her closest friend and ally, went with her into the wider world to nurse her, but Mai died only a fortnight later. Rowen announced that she had drowned on a new charting voyage across the lake. Since that time, the tunnel has remained known only to those in whom Mai originally confided. And to Rowen, of course.”

  Her mother had been exiled to her death. By Rowen. The facts lay inside her, frozen. Thea's mind was a knot. Her only thought was, “Why am I standing here with Lucian, a man who won't even look me in the eye? Why isn't Lana telling me this? Or Sela?” She felt a rush of hatred roll out of her.

  She wanted to get away, but the long lake path wasbordered by the water on her left and a sheer wall of ice to the right. There was no way off it. She thought about her mother, sick, being sent away instead of cared for. She thought of the people who had let it happen. Her hands clenched into fists.

  There was a sickening spinning in her head, and the trees jumped and waved in front of her. She leaned heavily on the wall next to her, her back flat against it, then turned her cheek to the ice and pressed herself into the cold. She closed her eyes.

  She must look ridiculous. She waited for Lucian's scornful remark, and hated him for wanting to be here at all.

  But what she felt was warmth. His two hands covering hers. She opened her eyes and found him looking right at her through the hair that fell into his eyes. Tears rolled down his face and dropped to the ground. The sight of him started her own tears.

  Neither of them spoke. Lucian kept his hands on hers, and when his tears slowed, he didn't release her to wipe them from his face. After a minute, she stopped crying, too, and could breathe again.

  “It is good to allow yourself to feel this pain,” Lucian said, still holding her eyes with his. “I wasted a good deal of time trying to deny it. It poisons, after a time. Dexna made me see that, though it took her years.”

  Thea shook her head and felt a few tears fly off herface. “But why? Why are you here? Why did you want to be the one to tell me?”

  “You mean, what do I have to do with any of this?” Lu-cian laughed quickly, and then let go of Thea's hands to wipe his cheeks. “You must think me mad.”

  When Thea was silent, he laughed again. “Fair enough, girl. That's fair enough.”

  Thea smiled, surprising herself.

  Lucian stopped laughing. “I suppose I have left out part of the story. There are two reasons I needed to be here. The first is that I loved your mother, Thea. And she loved me. We … we considered ourselves a family, the three of us.”

  Three: Mai and Lucian, and her. “But you never told me.”

  Lucian
flushed. “After your mother died, I was unwell for a long time. Raving mad, actually.”

  “And later, when you were better?”

  He looked at the ground. “I didn't think you would—”

  She cut him off. “What's the second reason? You said there were two.”

  Lucian seemed to force himself to look at her. “The second reason is that none of it would have happened without me. I told Mai about the tunnel.”

  “But how did you know of it? Who told you?”

  “I guessed. It's right there on the map. But people stopped seeing it.”

  “So it was you who left me the map.”

  “No.” Lucian shook his head. “I was opposed, in truth. It was Dexna who left it. That map has been passed down among the daughters of the first line since the time of Settlement. But somewhere along the way they forgot why.”

  “Grace's Hope,” Thea said.

  Lucian nodded. “It seems that Grace had many hopes. One was that this world could exist. And another was that our people would one day abandon it. The tunnel was preserved in secret—there are no records of it. Grace's granddaughter Sarah drew a map that was deliberately vague, and then its meaning was lost.”

  “Until you discovered it,” Thea said.

  Lucian nodded. “When your mother turned sixteen she told me that Dexna had given her a copy of one of the settlement maps. It was to be passed to a daughter of each generation, but she didn't know why. And I wondered, what is the use of a tradition without meaning? So I looked for a meaning, and Mai died as a result.”

  “You didn't know what would happen,” Thea said. She wasn't sure if she was reassuring Lucian or trying to convince herself.

  Lucian scraped one foot on the ground. “No, I couldn't know. But I have found that to be little comfort. You look cold. Shall we walk again?”

  Thea walked, her mind struggling with everything Lucian had told her, until one thought worked itself free of the others.

  “I have a question.” A hundred questions.

  “Yes?”

  “You said my mother's sister went with her into exile, to nurse her.”

  He said the word more slowly this time. “Yes.”

  “But Lana is my mother's sister. She told me just yesterday that she has never been to the wider world. She wouldn't lie to me.” But she had, Thea realized. Lana had lied about everything.

  Lucian met Thea's eyes. “Lana is one of your mother's sisters. There was another.”

  “Another sister? How? Even Rowen wouldn't have been permitted a third birth.”

  “Mai had a birth-sister,” Lucian said gently. “They were born together. One birth.”

  Thea's hand went slowly to the locket at her throat. She opened it and looked at the tiny rendering of the three girls that she had studied so many times before: Lana, Mai, and the other girl, who Thea had always believed was Sela. How had she failed to see it?

  “What's her name?” Thea asked, her finger tracing the form of the girl.

  “Her name was Aurora.”

  Was. “Why does no one speak of her? Did she … did she die, too?”

  “We don't know. She never returned to us. Rowenannounced that she took her own life after your mother died.”

  “She never returned?” Thea asked. “Then how do you know that … are you sure my mother is dead? Who came to tell you of it?”

  “There was a letter from Aurora, sent down the tunnel with their Chikchu. Gru, of course, and Aurora's companion, Norma.”

  Norma. Norma, who cried at night, who wouldn't let Dolan out of her sight. For some reason, this was the revelation that started Thea's tears again. She felt Lucian take her hand.

  They continued walking in silence until they reached the end of the path, the place where the narrow shore melted into the wall and disappeared altogether. Thea hugged the last tree and looked across the lake.

  “Your mother was fascinated by this spot,” Lucian said after a while. “She called it the end of the world.”

  There was a roaring now, somewhere close and coming closer. Peter's mind roused itself a little, but the pain and tumult were too much to bear. He fell back into peaceful oblivion before he could realize that he had been lifted from the snow and was being carried.

  Thea wanted desperately to be alone for a time, to sit under the trees at the lake, look at the still water, and think about everything Lucian had told her. But she was due at the breeding grounds, and she didn't want to disappoint Dolan again.

  Her mother's life, her mother's death: She had been lied to by the people closest to her, people who now expected her to understand. Worse, she had been taught to respect the woman who had exiled her mother to her death. She had been made to bow politely to her, to serveher the tea that Lana saved so carefully. Her loathing for Rowen churned inside her.

  She skated furiously down the Mainway and arrived at the breeding grounds, her mind ablaze with angry questions.

  Dolan wasn't in the main house, where she threw her skates down and grabbed up some clean straw for the pups. She could feel how keenly she had missed them.

  The pups were asleep, the runt in his usual spot under Cassie's chin. Their faces were so peaceful, their confidence in their mother and their world so pure, that Thea was overwhelmed with sadness. She threw her arms around Cassie and buried her face in the big Chikchu's fur.

  Cassie nuzzled her, trying to settle Thea the way she did her pups. Before long Thea's breathing slowed, her head rising and falling with Cassie's broad back.

  “Feeling better today?”

  Thea lifted her head with a jerk. “I'm sorry I lied to you, Dolan,” she blurted. “From now on I'm going to speak only the truth! And I don't care how inconvenient the truth is.”

  Dolan sat next to her in the sand. “I've always had a fondness for the truth myself,” he said gently. He put one hand on her shoulder and squeezed it quickly.

  They sat saying nothing more until the children arrivedat the main house to meet Cassie's litter. Dolan stood and crossed the sands to admit them.

  Thea looked carefully at each pup as the group struggled to wake. Io was the steadiest, her eyes clear and her balance much improved. The others were coming along, tripping over one another a bit more, but ready to meet their companions. At first Thea thought that the runt was slow to rouse, but then she realized with a small shock that the pup had not yet opened his eyes. He stood steadily enough, but leaned his body against his mother's flank.

  Thea lifted him gently, gathered his legs into her cupped hands to make him feel secure, and then checked him over. He looked perfect, but his eyes stayed closed.

  Dolan stopped a short distance from where Thea sat with the tiny pup still in her hands, and told the children to wait. She counted quickly: there were only seven of them. He crossed to her.

  “I'll take the runt for now,” he said in a low voice. “If his eyes open within a sevennight, you can make the introduction then.”

  “And if they don't?” She passed the pup into his hands.

  But Dolan just shook his head.

  After the assembly, she skated home slowly, letting her muscles warm and stretch. It hadn't occurred to Thea that her aunt would be back from the gardens, as it wasstill well before suppertime. But when she walked into the greatroom, Lana looked up from her worktable.

  “I'll warm some water for us,” she said quickly.

  Thea felt cold. She just wanted to be alone. “I'd rather sleep first, I think.”

  “You've had plenty of sleep,” Lana said. “What we need is some sweet ricewater.”

  “I've had enough of your ricewater, thanks.”

  But Lana was already filling a small pot from the pump. “It won't be that sort, I promise. You and I need to talk.” She gestured Thea to a seat at the long table.

  Thea didn't move. “What do you want me to say?”

  “I can see that you are angry.”

  “Shouldn't I be?”

  Lana looked startled. “Yes. You sho
uld.”

  Thea was disgusted with everyone except Mattias and Dolan. And she was especially angry with Lana. “Really, I'd much rather …”

  “Thea. Please have one cup with me. Then I'll let you go.”

  Thea realized with a shock that her aunt looked about to cry. She couldn't remember Lana ever crying. She sat down.

  “I know you are upset with me, and I know why.” Lana sat next to Thea. “But say it anyway, so we'll have a place to start.”

  Thea looked away. “I knew her, in a way,” she said. “In my way. And now she's a stranger again. You've kept her a stranger to me all along.”

  “Everything I've ever told you about your mother is true to her spirit.”

  “But you've hardly told me anything! Did you know that I used to talk to her, by the lake? Because I thought she was there, somewhere, but I was only talking to water, and fish, and ice. And you let me. You let me.”

  That started Thea's tears again. Lana took both of her hands.

  “I'm sorrier than you'll ever know.”

  “But why? Why did you allow all of those lies, the ones about the tunnel, and about my mother? And Aurora? How could you let one of your sisters be forgotten?”

  Lana was silent for a while. And then she said, “There's something I want to show you.” Lana crossed to her worktable, opened a wide drawer and, reaching all the way to the back of it, withdrew a scrap of paper.

  She held it out. Thea took it and read:

  Here under and aboute the pole is beste habitation for man, and that they ever have continuall daye, and know not what night or darkness meaneth.

  Thea looked up, wiping her eyes. “What does this have to do with anything?”

  Lana sat down at the long table again. “It's a line froma letter, written by an early explorer of the cold world. He was here long before our people came to this part of the world. His ship arrived during the summer, when the sun shines both day and night. Not yet understanding the sun's cycle, he believed that he had discovered a land of perpetual daylight. A world without darkness.”

  Thea looked blankly at her aunt.