Sky Without Stars

by Jessica Brody

  The rich traded goods and extravagances.

  While the poor traded dreams and ideas.

  From The Chronicles of the Sisterhood, Volume 12, Chapter 1

  - CHAPTER 23 -

  MARCELLUS

  MARCELLUS GRIPPED THE HANDLES OF his moto as it skimmed and weaved through the trees. The single high-density headlight cut through the early-morning mist rising from the forest floor. There was no rain today, just a sticky dew that seemed to cling to everything. Traveling through the woods without guidance was difficult. But he didn’t dare connect his TéléCom until he was back within Vallonay city limits. He couldn’t risk being tracked.

  The Forest Verdure stretched for thousands of kilomètres south of Vallonay, all the way to the bottom of Laterre. Few people ever braved the darkness of the dense woods; the huge trees were endless and tightly packed. Cruiseurs didn’t stand a chance here. Only someone nimble on a moto could get through.

  It took Marcellus longer than usual, but he finally found the clearing and pulled his bike to a halt. The old Défecteur camp was just as he remembered it from last time. The circle of huts—crudely made from sticks, mud, and old vines—sat huddled in a circle. Completely deserted. Eerily quiet.

  Years ago, groups of people had tried to escape the laws of the Regime by setting up camps in remote places around Laterre, like the Forest Verdure. But the camps didn’t last long. General Bonnefaçon had launched the initiative to have all the Défecteurs captured, Skinned, and logged into the Ministère Communiqué. Most were sent back to work in the fabriques and exploits, while the rest, the more rebellious ones, went straight to Bastille.

  His grandfather would certainly not approve of Marcellus sneaking out of the Palais before dawn to come here. The general hated the Défecteurs nearly as much as he hated the Vangarde. “They’re foolish and misguided,” his grandfather often said. “Obsessed with the old ways of the First World. They don’t appreciate the beauty and order of our Regime.”

  Marcellus had found this particular camp earlier this year, in the fourth month, on one of the long moto rides that he sometimes took through the forest. There was nothing better for clearing his head than the splatter of mist against his helmet’s visor and the brush of vines and fallen branches on the underbelly of his moto. Despite the fact that he shared his grandfather’s disapproval of the Défecteurs, he could understand why someone might want to live out here, at least for a while, enveloped in trees and fog—unwatched and unchained and unknown.

  This was a place to be truly alone. A place to think. It was a place where, for once, Marcellus couldn’t be seen or questioned or expected.

  And it was the only place he could bring his father’s shirt.

  As the Sols rose behind the clouds, turning the sky from a murky black to soupy gray, Marcellus paced around the perimeter of camp, picking up the driest sticks he could find and tucking them under his arm. Five minutes later, he sat down in the center of the camp by the fire pit and arranged the sticks into a pile.

  No one built fires on Laterre, except the Défecteurs. But, by his second visit here, Marcellus had taught himself how. He’d figured out the purpose of the shallow hole, filled with the remains of charred wood, in the center of the camp, and eventually he’d discovered a box of handmade matches in one of the huts.

  Today his fire ignited with only one match, and within a few minutes, he was watching the roaring flames. He loved how they danced, weaved, and kicked at one another and how the small sparks spat and sizzled into the wet air. He could watch the fire and its twirling, twisting, battling flames for hours.

  Except, today something bigger was on his mind.

  He pulled his father’s shirt out from inside his uniform, where he’d tucked it again this morning. Then, in the warmth and glow of the fire, he fidgeted and fussed with the shirt in his hands. He’d come here to destroy it. He had to destroy it. He had to prove to himself, once and for all, that he was not his father’s son. He was a loyal grandson and a proud member of the Second Estate. He would soon become a competent and faithful commandeur of the Ministère. He had nothing to do with the Vangarde. Nor would he ever.

  “The Vangarde promise freedom, yet all they offer is destruction and bloodshed and chaos.”

  That’s what his grandfather had said at last night’s briefing. And he was right. What kind of cruel and senseless group of people would blow up exploits and kill innocent workers in the name of freedom? What kind of people would subject a two-year-old girl to the most painful and horrible death? No wonder Marcellus’s grandfather was so single-minded about rooting out the Vangarde. They’d been nearly invisible for seventeen years. Phantoms living among them. But now they were clearly regrouping, rising up, and most definitely getting ready to strike again. If killing Marie Paresse was their first act, what would they do next?

  Marcellus shook out the shirt in his hands so it unfurled in front of him. The glow from the fire lit up the crude lettering stitched into the fabric.

  The message.

  The Forgotten Word.

  Mabelle is in Montfer. Go to her.

  He roughly balled up the shirt again. He didn’t want to see it anymore. Mabelle was dead to him. She had been for seven years. There was no reason to talk to her. No reason to see her. And definitely no reason to go to her.

  He must burn his father’s words. Render them as meaningless as smoke disappearing into nothingness.

  Marcellus shook out the shirt one more time and then, slowly, held it over the fire. A stiff cuff alighted first, and next a shabby sleeve. In a few more seconds, almost half the fabric was ablaze, and Marcellus dropped the shirt into the fire so his fingers wouldn’t burn.

  He watched the flames, transfixed. They leapt and coiled around one another, the smoke rising above them like a gray, spiraling ghost. It was as if the fire were eating everything. The sight of his father’s dead body in the morgue. The message. The memory of his governess being dragged from the Palais, screaming for his help. For a few moments, Marcellus felt like a great, heavy weight had been lifted off his shoulders. For the first time since he’d pulled the shirt from his dead father’s body, he felt like he could breathe again.

  “Adieu,” he muttered, not sure if he was talking to the shirt or to his father.

  The flames continued to lick and devour the fabric, until almost the entire shirt was black.

  Except for a single letter.

  M.

  There it was. The gray thread forming the twin peaks and the dipping valley in the center.

  “M is for Marcellus. . . .”

  And then something snapped inside him. He lunged forward and tried to pull the remains of the shirt from the fire with his bare hands. But the flames were too hot and it was already too late.

  The message was gone.

  The shirt was gone. As forgotten as the words that were stitched into it. The only thing his father would ever say to him was now just a pile of ashes.

  Marcellus shook his head and stared at the trees above. They seemed taller, thicker, more dense. Only moments ago, he’d wanted the trees to hide him, shield him from the probing eyes of his grandfather and the Ministère. But now it felt like the trees were closing in. Suffocating him. Making everything more unclear.

  - CHAPTER 24 -

  ALOUETTE

  AFTER BREAKFAST, ALOUETTE HURRIED TO the library so she would be early for her lesson with Sister Jacqui. She needed only a few minutes. Just enough time to look at Volume 10 of the Chronicles. Principale Francine locked the Refuge’s library every evening to protect the books, so Alouette hadn’t been able to return after dinner last night.

  The volume was exactly where she’d left it yesterday. Alouette grabbed it from the shelf and sat down at the table. She’d barely cracked open the clothbound cover when she heard footsteps approaching from the hallway. With a sharp breath, she shut the book and scooped it off the table, into her lap.

  “Little Lark!” Sister Jacqui called out as she swept arou
nd a nearby bookcase. “Early again, I see. Just like the lark.” She grinned down at Alouette. “Always my best and favorite student.”

  Alouette tried to smile back, but it was a struggle. She worried her guilty face would give her away.

  Jacqui paced the library’s small alcove, a book clutched under her arm while her fingers fiddled with the metal name tag on the devotion beads that hung loosely around her neck. Her bright red, nonregulation canvas shoes—which Principale Francine always complained about—gently slapped the stone tiles under her feet. Alouette couldn’t remember a single time when her favorite sister had conducted one of her lessons from a chair.

  Sister Jacqui was always moving.

  Always thinking.

  “Oh happy Sols!” the sister exclaimed, letting out an accompanying whoop and setting her book down on the table. In a matter of seconds, her expression changed from deep thought to delight. “The time has finally come. In today’s lesson we get to dive into the question of knowledge! This is one of the most exciting questions in all of philosophy. And, as you know, a subject dear to our hearts here in the Refuge.” The sister ran in place, pedaling her fists in the air to emphasize her excitement.

  She paused, looked at Alouette, and waited for a response.

  But all Alouette could muster was a half smile. “Great.”

  “Great?!” Jacqui threw up her hands. “Come on, Little Lark. This is a big moment.”

  Alouette tried to smile again. But her thoughts were too chaotic. Too cluttered. She’d barely slept a wink last night. She lay in bed for hours, thinking about her father’s tattoo.

  His prisoner tattoo.

  2.4.6.0.1.

  Her fingertips brushed the cover of the book in her lap. She should have come to the library even earlier and given herself more time. But breakfast had dragged on forever, and Principale Francine had given Alouette two stern looks for rushing through her food.

  “Think about it, Little Lark,” Sister Jacqui was now saying. “We get to explore the question of where our knowledge comes from! Do we acquire knowledge from simply experiencing the world? Do we find out what we know from touching and seeing and smelling things?” Sister Jacqui started to pat the table, her books, her own legs, then she comically sniffed under her arms to demonstrate her point. “Or are we born with knowledge already stored in here?” Jacqui tapped her forehead and then reached over and tapped Alouette’s head too.

  But Alouette was so deep in thought, she barely felt the sister’s touch.

  It still made no sense. What could her father have possibly done? What crime had he committed? A crime so bad he’d been sent away to the cold, terrible prison on the moon?

  “But how can we really physically experience something like space or time?” Sister Jacqui turned toward the chalkboard that hung amid a gap in the bookshelves on the opposite wall. She began scribbling notes in her big, messy handwriting.

  Alouette immediately saw her chance.

  Her fingers crept inside the book on her lap and pushed back the cover.

  “You can’t just learn these more abstract concepts from the real world,” Jacqui went on, still scribbling. “It’s not like we can feel or touch or see these abstract things like we would with, say, a table or a human or a piece of paper. . . .”

  Quietly, very quietly, Alouette began to flick through the pages.

  “Maybe what we think is reality is actually shaped by our own minds,” Sister Jacqui continued, her chalk tapping and squeaking on the board.

  Alouette’s fingers kept working their way speedily through the book, while her gaze flitted up and down the pages.

  “Think about it this way,” Jacqui went on, “perhaps our minds form and create our reality.”

  The Bastille Prison.

  Yes! This was it!

  This was the chapter she was looking for.

  After checking to make sure Sister Jacqui’s back was still turned, Alouette skimmed the first pages quickly. Yes, she’d definitely read this before. She’d read about the droids that stood guard over the prison thirty hours a day. She’d read about the Minstère and how they’d chosen to move the prison to Laterre’s moon after it was discovered that zyttrium—a mineral vital to the fabrication of TéléSkins—was plentiful there.

  But she couldn’t—for the life of her—remember reading anything about prisoners being marked with silver bumps. Maybe she’d missed something. Perhaps there was a description of the Bastille tattoo in a footnote.

  Her eyes moved frantically over the pages, over the tiny footnotes, searching for any mention of tattoos, metallic bumps, or prisoner numbers.

  But there was nothing.

  “And this raises an interesting question,” Sister Jacqui chattered on, still scrawling on the chalkboard. “Back on the First World . . .”

  Alouette flicked back and forth through the pages, but still she couldn’t find a single reference to the tattoos. Or the prisoner numbers.

  She let out an involuntarily huff of frustration and, a moment later, heard the scratching of chalk come to a halt.

  “Little Lark?”

  Sister Jacqui began to turn around and Alouette quickly shut the book, keeping her finger wedged into the page to mark her spot.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes . . . I . . . ,” Alouette stammered, while her cheeks flamed with heat. She cleared her throat. “Just a tickle.”

  The sister cocked her head and stared at Alouette. As though she knew something. Or was trying to figure something out.

  Alouette forced a smile, digging her finger anxiously into the soft, hand-sewn spine of the book.

  And that’s when she felt it.

  Something rough and prickly against her fingertip. Like a piece of paper. A ripped piece of paper.

  Has someone torn a page out of the Chronicles?

  But that’s forbidden!

  “You’re not coming down with anything, are you?” Jacqui asked, still studying her. “Because if you’re not feeling well, you should head straight to the plant propagation room after lessons and ask Sister Laurel for some of her elderberry lozenges.”

  Alouette shook her head. “No. I’m fine. It was just dust, I think.”

  She held her breath, counting the seconds until Sister Jacqui finally turned back toward the chalkboard. “So who forms knowledge? This area of philosophy is called epistemology. E-P-I-S . . .”

  As soon as the sister’s back was turned, Alouette flung open the book again and bent down a little to get a better look at the rough edge in the seam.

  There definitely used to be another page here.

  Her mind whirled with questions.

  Who would have torn a page from the Chronicles? And why?

  Suddenly, Alouette’s tunic felt tight at her neck, and the ceiling seemed to loom lower than usual.

  Principale Francine? she wondered. Sister Jacqui?

  But they’d always shared everything with Alouette. They’d taught her all there was to know about the above-world.

  At least, she’d thought they had.

  “The central questions are: How do we know what we know?” Sister Jacqui was now saying and writing, “What does it mean to know . . .”

  Alouette’s breath snagged in her chest as another thought occurred to her.

  If this page was torn out, are there others?

  Other secrets, other stories, other facts about her father, or even about herself, that she didn’t know? That someone didn’t want her to know?

  “Why are we here?” The question shot out of Alouette almost by itself.

  Sister Jacqui stopped scribbling and turned around. “Oh, right, well, that is a good question too and one of the biggest questions in philosophy. But we will get into that later when we look at metaphysical philos—”

  “No, I mean, why am I here? Why is Papa here?”

  “Again, that would be a question we will cover—”

  “No, no!” Alouette let out a huff of air. “I mean, why do Papa a
nd I live here? In the Refuge? With all of you?”

  Jacqui was silent for a few moments, as if she was pondering the right way to proceed. “Little Lark, you know why,” she said finally. “Your mother died when you were very young, and Hugo couldn’t take care of you alone. He brought you to the Refuge, where you would be safe and cared for, free from hunger and disease and poverty. . . .”

  Alouette almost sighed aloud as she heard the words recited to her. It was as if Jacqui were reading from a script.

  Jacqui gave a small laugh. “And, of course, to receive a deep, philosophical education so you will be a wise and thoughtful sister one day. Speaking of which, let’s get back to—”

  “But what else? Is there more? Where did we live before? Before the Refuge? Where was Papa from?” Alouette felt breathless and frustrated, the questions streaming out faster than she herself could even make sense of them.

  Sister Jacqui sat down in the chair across from Alouette, and Alouette gripped tighter around the edges of the book hidden in her lap. “Little Lark. These are not my questions to answer.” She smiled an inscrutable smile. “We should get back to the lesson—”

  “NO!” Alouette shouted, and then quickly recoiled, surprised by her own outburst. She’d never raised her voice to any of the sisters before, especially not to Sister Jacqui. But nothing felt the same now. Everything had seemingly changed since she saw that man in the Frets. That convict with the silver bumps. “You’re the one who told me to ask questions.”

  “I know,” Jacqui replied, her golden eyes dark and troubled. “I know I say that. And it’s true. You should ask questions. It’s just that . . .” Her voice drifted off as she lowered her gaze, clearly struggling with her next words. “Think about today’s lesson, Alouette. Think about—”

  “But—” Alouette tried to interject.

  Jacqui held up a hand. “Think about how we acquire knowledge. Perhaps knowledge is in us from the very start, but it’s also out there to be found.”

  Then, as if nothing had happened, Jacqui smiled, stood up, and in her usual upbeat tone, said, “Let’s finish there for today. We’ll continue with this topic in the next lesson. Take some time for yourself before Tranquil Forme.”