Disappointment twisted my father’s face. He nodded wordlessly and made his way up the stairs.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, pulling out one of our dining chairs. She sat, teetering on the edge.
My father returned then, and he handed her one of Momma’s cloth hankies. Despite the way they’d conspired together on my Birthing Day gift, Abba had never really gotten along with Rachel. Thanks to everything I told her, she was afraid of him. She eyed my father. For once, he seemed to understand. He went and hovered over the bubbling stew, chattering at Pepper, doing his best to give us some illusion of privacy. Satisfied, Rachel finally dabbed at her eyes and began her story.
“I went to the Raffertys’ quarters today after work.”
Silvan. My stomach sank into my gut.
“I . . . I brought flowers. His favorite kind. White lilies. They cost me a fortune. The Raffertys were all sitting there at the supper table—his mother, his father. And Captain Wolff, of all people. I can’t believe I humiliated myself in front of her. I should have . . . I shouldn’t have done it!” I saw Rachel’s lower lip curl, revealing her teeth. Before she could start bawling again, I reached out and grabbed her hand in mine. Her fingers were hot.
“I got down on one knee and I told Silvan that I would be honored to be his wife. That if he’d consent, then I was declaring my intent to marry. You know. All of that. They all just . . . just stared at me!”
I squeezed her fingers, which felt as clammy as dead flesh. She didn’t squeeze back.
“Did Silvan say anything?” I asked. Rachel didn’t answer, not right away.
“What did he say?” I prodded.
“He looked at his family. Like he didn’t want them to hear. Then he took me outside. And he told me that . . . that I’m beneath him. Because of my job. Because of his! He said that once it might have been okay for him to court a merchant girl like me. But that now that he’s to be captain, we have to be serious. I was serious, Terra!”
With that, my friend broke down again.
“Oh, Rachel,” I said. Stormy emotions flooded my rib cage. Mostly guilt. I’d failed her. I should have seen the whole thing coming. I should have been there to protect her. But I’d been distracted.
I pulled my chair close to hers, drawing her in for a hug. Bowing her head against my neck, she collapsed into my arms. I didn’t speak, didn’t offer advice or even apologies. I just held her, the way I’d want to be held if I were in her position.
When we finally drew away from the embrace, I saw that my father had set a trio of glasses down on the table. They were filled with cloudy, bloodred liquid.
“Wine,” Rachel said, giving one final sniffle. “Mar Fineberg, you shouldn’t . . .”
My father held up one hand as he took his glass in the other. “You girls are sixteen now. Old enough to drown your sorrows in a bottle or a cask, assuming you have the gelt or the rations. And we do. I’ve been saving this for tonight. I thought we’d have some after supper to celebrate, but it seems you need it now.” He lifted the glass. We hadn’t even taken ours from the table yet, but my father gave a grim smile and toasted the air.
“To adulthood,” my father said. But the words sounded darker than he’d intended, especially after Rachel let out a wheezing breath. Still, he added the traditional toast: “To life, and to Zehava. L’chaim!”
“L’chaim,” Rachel parroted. I heard myself echo the words too, and we both lifted our glasses from the table, touched their edges, and drank.
The wine was old. That was just like my father, to share the stuff that had gone to vinegar. As I forced it down, wincing, another knock sounded at our door. This time it was a quick succession of knuckles against metal.
My father’s head snapped up.
“I think you should get it, Terra,” he said. No one else made a move. Even Pepper seemed to watch me closely, crouching low against the counter. I put down my glass, rose. My new boots suddenly felt like they were made of lead. Dragging the heavy soles, I went to the door and opened it.
It was Koen. Under the shadow of his unruly hair, his face was scrunched up against the cold. Pink mottled his cheeks and ears, though whether from embarrassment or the harsh wind, I couldn’t be sure. His lips lifted, showing the crooked edge of his teeth.
“Can I come in?” he asked. His breath fogged the air. Behind me, Rachel was staring down at her hands, examining her fingernails like they were the most fascinating thing in the world.
That’s when I realized what was happening. That’s when I felt my blood drain from my head, when I heard the first labored thud of my heart in my ears.
“Um,” I murmured, “sure.” He stepped inside, flashing his gaze to my father and to Rachel, appraising the situation. Then he turned to me.
“Terra, if you’ll have me . . .”
I knew those words. Tradition dictated that you couldn’t hear or speak them until you turned sixteen. But I hadn’t let myself think about it, not since I’d been a little girl. I was too gawky, too weird. This was something that happened to other girls. To Rachel. Not to me.
But Koen’s eyes were open wide. In the galley light they picked up flecks of amber. “If you’ll have me, then I would be honored if you’d consent to marry me.”
I opened my mouth, drawing in a deep breath. Wasn’t this what I’d wanted, what I’d told Silvan I wanted? I heard myself give my consent, but it was like someone else was speaking.
Behind Koen, in the shadows, I saw my father’s head move up and down. He approved. Of course he did. He looked happy. So why did my own smile falter?
But then Koen stepped close, and my fears began to drain away. I could smell the cold night air rise off his body, fresh and sharp. He bent down and pressed his lips to mine. They were cool, chapped, and as dry as winter. I leaned in a little, entirely too aware of how we were being watched.
Maybe that’s why Koen’s lips didn’t open to mine. Maybe he felt awkward too. His hands stayed frozen at his sides. My stomach twisted. This is wrong, I heard my body say. This is all wrong.
As if in response Koen pulled away. A small, tight smile played over his mouth. Then he stumbled out the open door and was gone.
I lifted the back of my hand to my lips. They throbbed like a bruise. Slowly I turned to face the galley table and the people sitting there. Rachel forced down a second mouthful of wine, tears welling up again. And my father grinned at me as if today, my Birthing Day, were the greatest day he’d ever known.
Autumn, 466 YTL
Daughter,
On my application forms they asked me to describe myself. Age, ethnicity, country of national origin . . . religion. At the intake interview a smartly dressed woman tapped her finger against the words I’d scrawled.
“So you call yourself Jewish,” she said.
I shrugged. “My mother was. But I’m not observant. Will that be a problem?”
“The Asherah is owned by the Post-terrestrial Jewish Preservation Society.”
“A religious group?” I asked, surprised. I’d heard that the orthodox of most religions had hunkered down to wait for their messiahs to come. The woman gave her head a shake.
“No. Secular Jews. Mostly American. A few Israelis. A few European Jews. Committed to the continuation of Jewish culture even after Earth—” She hesitated, unable to say it. But she didn’t have to. I knew what she meant. She added, “There are other groups. Humanist ships. Nationalist groups. But they have waiting lists. We can’t guarantee that you’ll be given a spot. The Asherah is looking for passengers like you. They have a quota to reach before liftoff. Seventy percent of their passenger list must be of Jewish descent.”
“The Asherah sounds fine,” I said quickly, recalling the dimming light of Annie’s eyes, the way she’d grabbed my hands, suddenly alive again, when she’d told me I had to live on. “Would have made my grandmother proud, I suppose. She could hardly ever get me to go to synagogue with her.”
The woman was not amused.
�
�The contract specifies that the governing council is committed to two missions: the first, to ensure the survival and unity of the passengers of the Asherah at all costs. The second, the survival of Jewish traditions and culture even in the diaspora of space.”
At all costs. I hadn’t thought it through, what those words meant. I clutched my hands between my knees, sat straight, looked resolute.
“Where do I sign up?” I said.
But I soon learned.
Tradition dictated that only men and women be married. Survival meant that all of us would. They matched me with your father. They checked our bloodlines, had us sign the marriage contract. The Council told us that our compatibility made us soul mates. He was my bashert, my destiny.
Hogwash.
Please don’t be mistaken—I’ve come to have some affection for your father, an old man with soft laughter and kind, gray eyes. But at first our home was a silent one. Perhaps we were both grieving for what we left behind the day we boarded. Our families, our homes . . . our planet. We were strangers, and we had nothing to say to each other. I had never even loved a man before. But soon friendship blossomed between us like a timid flower, poking its head up through the soil. I called him the Professor, which had been his title back on Earth. He called me Mary Ann, a reference to an ancient TV show I’d never seen. It wasn’t love, but it was fondness and friendship, and in those first long, dark nights in space, that was enough.
When the ship was five years out, we were told to procreate. On Earth I had known about the artificial wombs that were popular with younger, wealthier women, women who feared they would otherwise lose their figures. But then I felt certain that I would never use one, would never be a mother.
The Council made sure I knew how life on board was tenuously balanced, precarious. Every woman who chose not to be a mother and every man who turned his back on fatherhood would represent a job that would one day go undone and a precious bloodline that would one day die. You were our duty and more, our purpose. We would be parents because it would be so very wrong to be everything but. I did what they said. I became a good Asherati. After all, I’d agreed to it—signed on the dotted line not once but twice, at boarding and on the day that I was wed.
We made your brother first. I picked his name, one that fit with the growing tradition of the ship—the strong, masculine ending—but one that honored what I had lost, too. Anson. Because I wouldn’t have known him if it hadn’t been for Annie. Because he was, in a way, her son as well. Because no matter what the Council said, I knew that I’d met my bashert years ago—and lost her.
Four years later, before you were even born, your father named you. He pressed his gloved hand to your egg, saw the mass of cells, the flutter of a heartbeat moving within, and said one word: “Terra.”
That’s when I knew the truth about your father, how the seeds of discontent grew within him as they did me. He, too, was always looking back—over his shoulder to everything we had left behind, even when we both should have been looking forward.
PART TWO
ORBIT
WINTER, 4 MONTHS TILL LANDING
11
Koen and I took to walking together. It was his idea—he said that it was how all the other couples spent their evenings. So we strolled through the districts, past the shops and by the grain and salt silos. We’d see our classmates, many of them paired now like we were. Koen would nod to the boys. I’d blush and look away; the other girls would do the same. That’s how I knew that I was doing the right thing—the ordinary thing. Because I saw everyone else going for walks, red cheeked, exhilarated and a little embarrassed by the sudden onset of adulthood too.
So far we’d kissed only that once. Sometimes Koen would press his fingers into my palm and I’d feel their icy pressure and wait for the thrill of something, for that rush of lust that I was sure had been promised to me in my dreams. But it never happened. It was as if we were standing on the edge of a steep cliff ready to go tumbling over if only someone would give us a push. But neither of us was pushing. In fact, neither of us had budged.
One night I knocked on his door and straightened my shoulders, trying not to be unsettled at the sound of his dog’s high-pitched yelps. By the time Koen’s little sister, Stella, let me in, I managed to force a smile to my face. Standing in the doorway, I watched as he grabbed his knit hat and scarf. His parents’ screams tumbled down from the second story.
It was so weird to stand in his quarters. His home looked just like ours, with the narrow entryway and the long metal table and the rickety electric stove in the galley. But it felt so different. Our house was blue gaps of silence punctured by the white light of the arguments my father and I had, while Koen’s house was more like Rachel’s, a constant busy jumble of color and life and sound.
He buttoned his coat, looking at me with a hint of a grim smile. “Come on,” he said as he brushed by me. I followed him out. Then I heard him mutter something under his breath.
“Sorry about that.”
“Why are you always apologizing for them?” As we started down the street, the knuckles of his fingers almost brushed mine. I wondered if it was intentional, but then he stuffed his fists into his pockets. Sighing, I did the same. “It’s not as if my family is perfect.”
“Yeah,” said Koen, “but no matter how crazy your father is, I respect him.”
I let out a snort at that. “I don’t see why.”
“Because he’s good at his job. Because he truly believes in the ship’s purpose, in tikkun olam. He’s probably the best Asherati I’ve ever met.”
I bit the insides of my cheeks. How could I respond to that? My father was a noble Asherati when it suited him, sure. But only then. In private he could be cutting and cruel, obsessed with rank and with keeping up appearances. Koen knew all of that, but he went on anyway. “Besides, you don’t even know my parents.”
“It’s not like that makes a difference,” I said. I couldn’t bear to look at him as I spoke, timid, hesitant words. “They’re going to be my family soon either way.”
I stole a glance at him. But Koen seemed to be making a point not to look at me, instead gazing off into the distance. There the street narrowed into a cobbled path that ran between the cornfields. He didn’t speak, just blew the warm air of his breath into his bare hands.
As we walked down the path, through the dead, towering cornstalks that bent like dusty bones toward us, I chewed my lip, peeling away the dry skin, tasting blood. If I were Rachel, I’d know what to say. I’d know how to prove myself, to prove that I was worthy of the things he’d asked of me—marriage, a partnership, his trust. Love. But what did I know about love? Only the strange moans of my parents down the hall when I was little, and the dreams I had at night, wrong dreams, embarrassing dreams, dreams where I lay down in the warm dirt and was naked except for the vines that crawled over me and the purple flowers that blossomed over my skin.
And so I did the only thing I could. I let my gloved hand dart out of my pocket and up and grab Koen’s hat from his head. Then I took off running.
“Hey!” he called, and broke out in rough laughter. “Hey!”
I grinned, speeding forward down the brick path. Part of me kind of hated what I was doing—clutching his hat in my fist, blushing as Koen’s footsteps pounded behind me. It seemed cute, sort of coy. Like something Rachel might do. But it was easy to run, much easier than it was to stand by Koen’s side and take tiny, measured steps and feel like I might screw up at any moment. This felt different. Brave. I stepped into a gap in the rows of corn, kicking up loose soil with my boots as I did.
“Terra, where are you going?”
More of Koen’s laughter came tumbling toward me, but I just pressed forward through the scratchy, bone-white leaves. Reaching the far end of the field, I spilled out onto another cracked-stone pathway. Soon I came to an overpass, a rusted metal bridge that seemed to rise up out of the soggy ground on iron girders. I went to the edge, touching the cold rail with my free h
and. Below, the brambles seemed to form a tangled net. I looked over my shoulder—Koen had just reached the far end of the field, his hair a ruddy smudge amid all that yellow and gray—drew a breath, and launched myself over the side.
It was dramatic even for me. My boots hit the hard soil, and I pitched forward, just barely able to catch myself before I fell face-first in the dirt. The force of impact made my ears ring. But as I gazed up, I knew it was worth it. Koen stared at me over the rail, those brown eyes deep pools of surprise.
“Are you okay?” he called. I flashed my teeth at him to show that I was. Then I watched him do a quick calculation in his head. Between where he stood and the ground below, there was a gap of at least three meters. A look of fear crossed over his brow, so quick that I almost missed it.
“You shouldn’t have looked!” I called, laughing.
“I’ll come around,” he said.
I waited there in the shadowed clearing. At first I stayed where I’d landed, crouched against the ground. But then a minute or two passed without any sign of Koen, and I started to get anxious again. I walked over to one of the girders that held up the overpass, pressing my spine against it. The metal was so cold that I could feel the bite of it straight through my coat. But I stood with my shoulders square against it anyway, resting my hand first on my hip, then in my pocket, shifting, suddenly hyperaware of what I looked like and trying desperately to look effortless anyway.
“Hey!”
I jumped, dropping Koen’s hat on the ground.
“Shoot.” I stooped over to pick it up. I tried to brush it clean, but the dirt seemed determined to cling to the nubby fibers. Koen came over and took it from me, pulling it down over his ears.
“Thanks,” he said dryly.
He was standing close—so close that I could feel the warmth of his chest through my lifted gloves. His eyelids were down, showing only the smallest sliver of brown beneath his trembling lashes. I could see the slight line of fuzz along his jawline, could smell the sharp odor of his body, a familiar cedar scent that I couldn’t quite place.
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