“I don’t know why they keep saying they’re sorry,” I said to him at last, eager to plug up the silence that had begun to fill our home. “It’s not like it’s their fault Momma died.”
The librarian lifted the corners of his mouth, quietly amused. But Abba didn’t find it funny.
“Terra,” he said. “It’s time for you to go up to bed.”
“Ronen gets to stay up!”
My brother had slipped out with Hannah, his arm draped over her shoulders. But Abba wasn’t hearing any of it. He only shook his head. “Your brother is sixteen, a man. He can stay up as late as he wants. You’re still a child.”
Mar Jacobi’s eyebrows were knitted up, but he didn’t argue with Abba. I pushed my chair away from the table, huffing.
“Momma would let me . . .,” I started. Hearing my father’s silence answer me, I winced.
“Sorry,” I muttered. My father’s hard gaze softened. Still, he urged me toward the stairwell with a tilt of his chin.
“Bed, Terra,” he said.
I pulled myself up the stairs. When I reached the dark second story, I stopped, my hand curled around the banister. It felt like I had broken some sort of sacred rule, reminding Abba that Momma was gone.
Gone, I said to myself. Gone. And then I began to wonder whether she felt anything now that she was dead. Maybe she just stared into the empty darkness of the atrium, a darkness not so different from the one that waited for me in my windowless bedroom.
I shuddered at the thought of it—an endless black so dark that sometimes you couldn’t even tell if your eyes were open or closed. Meanwhile the warm light of our galley flooded the metal wall along the stairwell. I couldn’t bring myself to face the darkness. I sat down at the top of the stairs, holding my head in my hands. Pepper crept out of the bathroom to curl up at my side. I tucked my hand against his soft belly, listening to the men talk.
“She’s a good girl,” Mar Jacobi said. I sat forward at the words, desperate to hear what they were saying about me. “There’s much of her mother in her.”
My dad let out a snort of disagreement. “Alyana wasn’t so good.”
“No?”
“No, not good. Kind. But you knew that.” Another pause. When my father’s voice came again, it was garbled. He wasn’t crying. But he was closer than I’d ever heard him. “She was mine.”
“I’m so sorry, Arran.”
My father kept talking as if the librarian hadn’t said a word. “All these years of mitzvot, all these years of working up in that clock tower alone, doing my duty. I’m a good man, Benjamin. But what has it brought me?”
“You’ll reach Zehava. Only four more years. Then we’ll be rid of this ship.”
“I’ll be alone.” My father’s tone wasn’t wistful or sad. He said it like it was a simple fact, like there would be no arguing with him. I knew that tone all too well, even at twelve. “Alone, Benjamin. Alone.”
“You have your children. Your daughter. Your son.”
Another snort. “Ronen’s all but ready to declare his intentions to the cartographer girl. He won’t be living with me for more than a season. If it weren’t for Terra, I’d . . .”
“Arran.” There was a warning in Mar Jacobi’s voice. “You’ll take care of your daughter until she’s grown. You’ll do your duty so that she can join you on Zehava. It’s what our forefathers wanted. What Alyana wanted. It’s why you’re here.”
Chair legs squealed against the scuffed metal floor. I tensed, afraid that my father was coming close. But his voice went to the far end of the galley instead.
“A burden,” my father said. “That’s what she is. Trouble. Like her mother.”
My stomach lurched. I bent forward, pressing my face to my knees, and squeezed my eyes shut. I could see stars against my eyelids, but they didn’t distract me from the pain that I felt.
I heard the slosh of liquid then as my father spilled wine into a cup. There was a long pause, then a crash as he slammed his tumbler back down on the countertop. He filled it again.
When he spoke at last, his voice had hardened. “Leave me, librarian,” he said. “Leave me to my grief.”
I didn’t wait to hear Mar Jacobi’s reply. I knew that my father would soon come stomping up the stairs. He was going to slam his bedroom door, blocking out the world. And I didn’t intend to get in his way. I knew what would happen if he found me here, still awake. There would be yelling, and lots of it.
So I picked up Pepper, clutched him to my chest, and retreated to my room. When I stepped inside, I pressed the door closed behind me. I stood there for a moment, still as stone, waiting to hear my heart beat out its rhythm in the dark, a reminder, however small, that on the night my mother died, I still lived.
EARLY SPRING, 6 MONTHS TILL LANDING
2
I leaned my weight against a maple bough and watched as the ceiling panels overhead went dark.
I was on the second deck. Up on the main deck, beneath the dome’s glass ceiling, I would have been able to see the stars as the artificial lights dimmed. But here, between the forests and the grain storage, there were no stars. The squares of sky were turning purple and would soon go utterly black. I’d have to stumble blindly through the forests to make my way to the lift and then home. That was all right with me, though. I’d never been afraid of the dark.
I sat with one leg on either side of a knotty branch, balancing my sketchbook between my knees. I had to make quick work with my pencils to capture what stretched out before me, the shape of the branches that crowded the second-deck walkways and the vines that shadowed the path. Below, people hurried along on their way home from the labs. They wore white coats that glowed in the twilight. They were scientists—specialists like my father, wearing blue cords on their shoulders and grim expressions. I knew I had little time to spare.
Momma had given me the pencils years ago. I hadn’t cared much for them at first, but lately they’d become a comfort. On nights that were too dark and too awful, I’d draw, letting my mind go blank and my hands do the thinking for me. Usually it soothed me. But not on this night.
I penciled in another tree, crosshatching the shadows that now grew short in the twilight. As I cocked my head to the side, considering the way the branches bent in the wind, I tried not to think about what was waiting for me in the morning. My job assignment. My real life. The end of school and free time to spend whittling down my evenings in the forest. I was nearly sixteen, and it was time to be serious, as my father always reminded me. At the thought of his deep voice, I clutched my pencil harder, overlaying violet in dark strokes across the top of the page.
Perhaps I’d gripped the pencil a little too hard. It snapped in two in my fist, and I watched as the pointed end fell through the branches. With a sigh I tucked the other half behind my ear and then began the long climb down. I gripped the boughs in my hand, swinging my weight. It felt awkward, but then I always felt awkward lately, all knees and elbows since I’d had my last growth spurt. Abba hadn’t been happy about that. Such a waste of gelt to buy me clothes I’d surely outgrow again.
The pencil was nestled in a crook in a lower branch. I crouched low, steadying my back against the trunk. That’s when something in the gnarled bark caught my eye.
Words. Words carved in deep and then healed over. That alone wasn’t unusual—what tree in the atrium didn’t bear the initials of some young couple who had declared their love hundreds of years before? But these words were different. There wasn’t any heart looping around them. No arrow sliced through either. They were a little hard to make out in the fading daylight, but I ran my fingers over the rough bark, reading them with my fingertips.
Liberty on Earth. Liberty on Zehava.
I frowned. We were only months away from reaching the winter planet. The Council had been preparing us in their usual, regimented way. This year they’d said there would be more specialists among the graduating class. More biologists to wake burden beasts from cold storage. More cartograph
ers, like my sister-in-law, Hannah, who would draw maps and find us a suitable place to live. More shuttle pilots too, to rouse the rusty vehicles that waited in the shuttle bay. The other girls whispered that it didn’t matter what the results were on our aptitude exams. It didn’t matter if we studied, or flirted with the counselors. The Council would make good use of us in preparation for landing, whether we liked it or not.
Liberty.
I heard loping footsteps on the path below. At the sound—heavy, uneven—I stiffened. I knew those footsteps. I’d grown up with them echoing on our stairwell and thundering in the bedroom down the hall. I scrambled for an overhead branch and then settled into the shadows cast by the budding leaves. Maybe if I sat back, with my sketchbook clutched to my chest and my breath shallow, he wouldn’t notice me.
I watched as my father’s bald head passed below my feet. He’d stopped just under my tree, one thick hand resting against the bark.
Walk on. Walk on, I thought. The pubs were still open in the commerce district. He had every reason to continue on his journey home, every reason to head for the lift. Just keep going.
I squeezed my eyes shut, unable to look. That’s when I felt his hand close around the heel of my boot.
I was tall—the tallest girl in my class. But my father was still taller than me, bigger and stronger. His arms were lean and strong from years of ringing bells. He moved up through the branches like it was nothing, gripping my calf and pulling it hard. I knew that I should have just climbed down, keeping my chin against my chest and my gaze contritely away. But anger rushed through my body. It overwhelmed my good sense, like it always did.
“Terra, get down!”
“Leave me alone!”
He balanced on the branch now, his eyes level with mine. They were clear and brown, sober. And they fixed on my sketchbook.
“This again?” he asked, tearing it from my arms. “I told you not to waste your time with this.”
He cast it at the forest floor below. It drifted down like a handful of autumn leaves. The colors scattered in the twilight.
This was why I never drew at home.
I scrambled down after it, plucking it out of the mud. The pages were rumpled. One or two drawings of flowers had gone soggy in the rainwater. But it wasn’t too bad. Still, my father gazed at me, a victorious smile smoothing his lips. He was so self-satisfied. It made me want to scream at him. My temper was a white-hot ball, sticky in my chest.
“Is everything all right here?”
We turned. A guard had stopped on the path, all dressed up in her woolen uniform blacks. The red rank cord stood out on her shoulder, twisted with Council gold. Her hand rested on the hilt of her blade as if to warn us.
My father came to stand beside me. He put his hand on my shoulder, giving it a clean thump. It was meant to be a friendly gesture. He was telling the guard that everything was normal, that we were normal. But I stayed frozen, my gaze blank. I couldn’t even make myself force a smile.
“Everything is fine,” my father said. “My daughter, Terra, receives her vocation tomorrow. She was worried about her assignment. Weren’t you?”
“Worried” wasn’t the right word. When it came to my assignment, I was resigned to whatever fate the Council doled out. But I spat the word out anyway. “Yes,” I said.
The guard’s eyes, small and close set, narrowed on me. “Every job is useful if we’re to achieve tikkun olam.”
“That’s what I told her,” my father lied. I cast my gaze down. My cheeks burned with anger. I could feel how happy this conversation made my father—how noble he was feeling, how righteous. He loved any opportunity to spout Council rhetoric. He thought it made him a good citizen, no matter how many nights he lost to the bottle.
“You’d better move along,” the guard finally said. “I’m sure your girl needs her rest for tomorrow.”
“Of course,” my father agreed. He gave me a little shove forward. I took small, shuffling steps. Not because I was afraid, but because I knew it would bother my father. And he wouldn’t be able to say a word under the guard’s watchful eye.
“Terra?” she called, her voice slicing through the cooling evening. I looked up over my shoulder. Her hands were balled into fists at her sides inside her leather gloves.
“Mazel tov,” she said. I didn’t answer at first. But then my father flicked his finger against my ear.
“Say ‘thank you,’ ” he growled. I rubbed at my earlobe, trying to smother the pain.
“Thanks,” I said at last.
• • •
That night, as Pepper hungrily looped around my ankles, I sat at the galley table and watched my father pace.
“If only I could get you to do something useful with yourself,” he chided, his hands clamped tight behind his back. The harsh overhead lights reflected against his bald head. My father had lost his hair early, one of the few genetic flaws the doctors didn’t bother to breed out of us before we were conceived. It made him look much older than he was. Or maybe he had just gotten old lately, what with the hours he worked, and the wine he drank, and the number of nights he stayed up yelling at me. “They’re always looking for volunteers at the granaries.”
I scowled. I had no desire to spend my nights shucking corn just so that the Council could be impressed by what a good citizen I was. Abba leaned his hands against the table, staring down at the splayed-open pages of my sketchbook.
“Have you told anyone about this rubbish?” he demanded, paging through it. His movements were brusque. I watched the pages bend beneath the force of his fingers, nearly tearing from the spine. I wanted to dart my own hands out, to grab my book and hold it to my chest. But I knew that it would only cause me more problems.
“No,” I said, and hoped he didn’t sense my lie. In truth, it had been only a month before that I’d sat with a trio of counselors in a windowless schoolroom. They’d stared me down as I’d stammered through my rehearsed monologue. I had repeated all the things that my father said were important to people like them. About how I’d do my duty, work hard at any job, find a good husband, be a wonderful mother. I went on and on. The only sign they gave that they were even listening was the way that one woman’s mouth twitched when I finally mumbled myself into silence.
She leaned forward. “Now, Terra,” she said. “That’s all very nice. But please tell us what you’d really like to do.”
My heart thundered in my throat. I glanced down at the schoolbag that sat open by my feet. Then I bent over and pulled out my sketchbook. I held my breath as I passed it to her.
They all leaned in, their expressions blank as they leafed through the pages.
Hardly anyone knew about my drawings. My father always told me it was a waste of time. Art was a luxury. It did nothing for our lives on the ship. It wouldn’t help us once we reached Zehava. I was doing nothing for tikkun olam. And sure enough, my first efforts were terrible, the pencil all smeared, then erased, then heavily layered in again. But over time I’d gotten better. The lines were looser now, more expressive. I’d learned to block in broad shapes first before squeezing in the details. Now when I sketched out the crocuses that poked their heads up through the snowy ground, or the vines that twined through the oak trees beneath the dome, the final outcome actually looked close to what I’d intended. But the counselors didn’t seem to notice my improvement. They stared straight down at my drawings, their mouths tight.
“Thank you,” the woman had said at last, and handed the book back to me.
“No,” I said again to my father now as he stared me down. “No, I haven’t shown anyone.”
“Good,” he said, and shoved the book at me. “Keep it that way. I won’t have anyone thinking that my own daughter doesn’t know how to be a good Asherati.”
For what felt like the longest moment, I didn’t move. Part of me wanted to argue with my father. After all, art wasn’t totally useless. There was even a portrait gallery in the ship’s fore, where oil paintings of all the high-ranki
ng families sat beneath dusty velvet curtains. But I knew it was no use. He’d already gone to the cupboard to uncork an old, cloudy bottle of wine. I grabbed my sketchbook, tucked it under my arm, and rose from the table.
At the bottom of the stairs, I stopped, turning toward him. “Will you be coming to the ceremony tomorrow?” I asked, not even sure what I wanted the answer to be. My father squared his shoulders.
“Of course,” he said. “It’s my duty.”
I trudged up the stairs.
• • •
Lately all of my dreams embarrassed me. They’d start out normal enough. I’d be in school, or walking through the atrium, or killing time while Rachel shopped in the commerce district. All of a sudden Silvan Rafferty would appear, speaking in low tones. His breath, hot and wet, fogged the cool spring air. He’d press my body to the nearest wall, slipping his tongue into my mouth. I drew him to me—the very thing my father had told me never to do. Then I woke up, my heart beating wildly. In the endless dark of my room, I was terrified that someone would somehow know what I’d been dreaming about.
Years ago, before Momma was even sick, I could count on her to wake me up in the morning. Her knock was only a little rattle of sound, knuckles on the wooden door. It was just enough to get me out of bed. Of course, I couldn’t count on my father like that. I would have bought an alarm clock, but when I asked Abba for the gelt, he scoffed.
“What, and have the shop owners think I can’t be bothered to get my own daughter to school in the morning?”
He couldn’t be bothered, but I wasn’t going to argue with him. Still, I’d hoped that the day I received my vocation would be different. Maybe he would wake me early. Maybe we would eat breakfast at the galley table and then walk to the ceremony together like a normal family might. I’d made the mistake of getting my hopes up, and so when I woke in the darkness, breathing hard as Pepper walked back and forth across my chest, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed.
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