Then the clock tower bells rang out, deep and hollow, and I remembered: the floorboards beneath the bells. It was my father’s smell, or another version of it. For a moment I was sure this was it—he was going to bend close and kiss me again, finally.
But instead he drew away, stuffing his hands into his pockets. He was blushing again, his skin so pink that it was almost purple. But he wouldn’t look at me. “We should go,” he said as he turned his shoulder to me, starting down the shadowed path. “It’s late.”
I let out a gasp of breath, one I hadn’t even realized I was holding, and followed Koen through the darkening forest.
• • •
“What do you mean, he’s hiding something from you?”
Rachel stood in the window of her store, holding a pair of straight pins between her lips and speaking out of one side of her mouth. As we talked, she pinned the pleats of a dress around the hips of an old wooden mannequin. She frowned as she spoke, though I think it was mostly because of the way the silky material kept sliding out of her grasp.
“I mean he’s hiding something from me,” I said, sitting down on the ledge beside her. “There’s always this silence between us, this weird kind of . . . gap. Like we’re never on the same page.”
The corner of Rachel’s mouth lifted. “And what page are you supposed to be on?”
I felt my cheeks heat. “Well, you know. We’re intended. It wouldn’t kill him to kiss me. Stop smiling like that! It’s not like you weren’t making out with Silvan Rafferty in the cornfields all last year.”
My words were a misstep. Something twisted beneath the surface of Rachel’s expression and nearly broke.
“Sorry.”
She took a pin from her mouth and stabbed it into the fabric. “It’s okay,” she said, but I didn’t believe her. “You’re right. It’s okay to want to kiss him.”
“Not if he doesn’t want to kiss me.”
She smoothed the material straight with her palm. “I don’t understand why he wouldn’t want to. He asked for your hand, didn’t he? I mean, I saw him kiss you that night.”
“It wasn’t a real kiss,” I said, scrunching up my nose. “It was so fast. Like a kiss your brother might give you.”
Rachel turned to me, frowning. I went on.
“Maybe he asked for my hand because of my job. Because I’ll be making a lot of gelt. Even better once we get to the planet and Mara retires. Two specialists will earn a decent wage.” I was speaking without thinking, and my words were beginning to tumble over themselves. If I’d stopped to consider it, I would have known how ridiculous my words were. What care did Koen, a specialist himself, have about gelt? But I just rambled on. “That would make sense. He’s marrying me for my money. And he doesn’t want to kiss me because I’m ugly, of course. But I really can’t blame him.”
Rachel stared at me.
“What?”
“Terra,” she said; her voice was a little soft, and for a moment I worried she was still offended by what I’d said about Silvan. But then she said something that surprised me. “You’re not ugly.”
I let out a laugh. “It’s okay. You don’t have to be nice about it. I’m used to it. It’s how things have always been. You’re the pretty one that the boys like to kiss. I’m the . . . well, the other one. The smart one. Or whatever.”
“Terra!”
“What?”
Rachel let out an exasperated sound. She hopped down from the window, then reached out and took both my hands in hers. She led me to the dressing rooms. Between the two half-open doors hung a mirror, gleaming in the dim track lighting. The last time I’d been here, I’d avoided looking at it. But now she shoved me in front of it.
“Look!” she said, laughing, though her laughter had an edge of disbelief that I didn’t quite like. I glanced at my reflection. My usual self stared back. I shrugged at Rachel.
For a moment she looked me up and down. Then she gathered the fine strands of my hair in her fist and piled them up near the crown of my head.
“You always hide behind your hair,” she said. “But this should help you see a bit.” Lifting an eyebrow, I turned to the mirror.
My first thought was: Momma. But of course that was ridiculous. My mother’s eyes had been a mossy green—mine were merely hazel. Still, the shadow of her was there. Over the past few months my face had changed. My neck was longer, my jaw just a hint less square. My cheeks had filled out, and my lips, too. I’d grown into my nose. And there were other changes: beneath my holey cardigan and stained shirt and the fabric of my lab coat, I could see the slight swelling of my breasts, which I’d done my best to ignore these past few months, and how my hips had widened. I’d probably never be curvy, not like Rachel was—instead I was lean and brawny, strong. But I no longer had the stick-straight figure of a boy. I had, apparently, grown up.
“Oh,” was all I said. And then I watched the woman in the mirror smile at herself. “When did that happen?”
“Don’t ask me,” Rachel said, dropping my hair down against my shoulders. Her mouth was twisted into a cockeyed smile. “You just showed up one day in my shop looking all womanly and stuff.”
I angled my chin up, doing my best to look proud and, I don’t know, regal. Like someone who knew she was pretty. But I couldn’t hold up the illusion for long. I exhaled hard, my posture deflating.
“If I’m so good-looking,” I said, turning to Rachel, “then why won’t he kiss me?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he’s never been kissed before. Maybe he’s shy. Maybe he’s waiting for you to make your move.” She grinned at me. “Maybe it’s time you asked him.”
• • •
It’s not like we didn’t have time enough to talk. Abba had been nudging us together for several weeks now. One night after supper my father pushed himself away from the table with both hands, giving a wink to Koen.
“I’d better get the dishes done,” he said, and then added, entirely too loudly, “Why don’t you go up to Terra’s room? And don’t mind me. I promise I’ll give you kids your privacy.”
Koen and I looked at each other, our complexions blazing bright red, both. It was weird, what my father was suggesting. Crass. I didn’t know anyone who rutted around under their parents’ roof. But what was I supposed to do, fight with him about it? I rose and made my way up the stairwell. I felt my father’s satisfied gaze follow us up the stairs.
“I can’t believe him. I’m so, so sorry,” I said as I sat in my chair and cradled my head in my hands. I heard Koen’s soft chuckle as he closed the door behind me.
“It’s okay.”
Of course it was. For Koen it seemed like everything was always okay, as long as I didn’t look at him for too long or too intently. I dropped my hands, watching as he settled in on the thin throw rug. He held out his hand for Pepper, who was crouched inside the shadows of my desk. The cat sniffed at the air, then came trotting out.
“Attaboy,” he said. “Good boy.”
I watched as Koen’s long fingers scratched the space between my cat’s shoulder blades. I could almost feel the words on my tongue, pooling there, taking shape. But it was difficult to make my vocal cords move. When I finally did speak, I was surprised to find that my question had nothing to do with kissing—nothing to do with Rachel’s suggestions to be direct.
“Did you always want to be a clock keeper, Koen?” I asked, then winced. Small talk—I was making small talk. With my intended.
“Actually, yeah.” He gave a breathy laugh. “I was curious about that kind of stuff as a kid. Not the clock tower. I didn’t care about that. But the seasons. And our sleep cycles. I thought that stuff was pretty interesting.”
“Really?” I watched as Pepper climbed up into his lap, kneading his paws against Koen’s trousers.
“Yeah. Do you remember our seventh year of school, when I always used to fall asleep in class?”
I cocked my head to the side. My memories of Koen were hazy. I sat near the middle, passing notes back
and forth to Rachel. He must have been somewhere with his friends in the rows behind us. I knew he wasn’t one of the mean boys, who’d thrown stuff at us and called us names. But other than that I couldn’t remember him at all.
“Sure, I remember,” I lied. Koen lifted an eyebrow but went on anyway.
“I decided to stop taking my pills. I just wanted to see what would happen, really. It was weird. No matter what the light looked like in the dome, it was like the day inside me was getting shorter and shorter. Eventually, I was conking out around nineteen o’clock every day, right in the middle of supper. My parents got freaked out. They thought something was wrong with me. They dragged me to the doctors, even though I kept trying to tell them that I’d just been palming my pills.”
“So, like, the clock keeper’s job was a lifelong dream. Or snooze.”
Koen grinned. “You could say that. So what about you?”
I pulled idly at my sock. “Me?”
“Yeah. Why botany?”
“Mmm.”
I rose, feeling Koen watch me as I walked by him. My sketchbook was waiting for me on my bed. I hadn’t given up drawing, not entirely. But now every night before bed I pored over the pages, sketching plants, jotting notes. I did my best to capture everything that Mara taught me. Now every page was covered in names, labels, words in ancient languages. I passed it to Koen. He leafed through, laughing as Pepper rubbed his face against the spine. Meanwhile I braced myself, my hands gone cold. Would he belittle me like Abba always did?
But a smile just lit up his lips. “These are good,” he said, paging through them slowly. “Yeah, really good. You’re talented.”
I felt the corners of my own mouth gently rise. “You really think so?”
“Yeah. I love your use of color here. It really looks like twilight in the dome.” He swept his index finger over the blue I’d drawn against the treetops, and the faint line of gold that traced every skinny pine. I looked at him and felt a swell of pride. Koen was seeing what I’d seen. Koen understood.
“Thanks,” I said, my cheeks warming. “Before we got our assignments, I thought I might have been an artist. But the Council had other ideas.”
Koen scowled. “You know, it’s such dreck.”
It was like he had abruptly drained all the air out of the room. The atmosphere tasted different, somehow prickly. Koen cavalierly tossed the sketchbook down on top of my unmade bed. The pages splayed out like an open hand.
“What’s dreck?” I asked cautiously.
“That they make you be a botanist when you wanted to be an artist. I mean, I would have chosen my vocation either way. But it’s dreck that they chose it for you.”
“It’s not so bad,” I said, my eyebrows knitting up. A few months ago I would have been right there with Koen, complaining about the injustice of it all. But since Mara had taken me on our walk through the dome, we’d fallen into a sort of tentative peace. I’d begun to look forward to my days in the lab. Sure, botany wasn’t as much fun as drawing, but it wasn’t all bad.
Koen sat straighter. There was something sharp about his expression, challenging. “You didn’t choose it. They took away your choice.”
“But I like my job. It’s not perfect, but I’m learning a lot, and—”
“It’s still not right. That they picked for you. Like they think you’re some sort of child.” Koen’s face was all scrunched up.
“You’re mad at me,” I said, speaking the words very slowly.
“No.” Koen’s response came quickly, but I didn’t believe it.
“You are. It’s something I’ve done. Does this . . . does this have something to do with Mar Jacobi?” Is this why you won’t kiss me? is what I wanted to ask. But I still couldn’t find the words.
Across my dark bedroom, the cat still purring on his lap, Koen pinched the bridge of his nose. He didn’t speak. I could hear my heart thundering in my chest.
“Come on,” I said—not angrily but with worry. I stepped closer to him, holding out my hand. I don’t know why. He wasn’t Rachel. He wasn’t there to link pinkies or reassure me. But maybe somewhere, in the back of my mind, I still hoped he would. “We’re going to be married. You can tell me what I’ve done wrong.”
“Nothing,” he whispered. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”
I dropped my hand against my thigh. I should have just accepted it—believed him, believed that it would all be okay. But I couldn’t. I’d spent my whole childhood trying to tiptoe around my father, afraid to even breathe wrong. I didn’t want to spend my marriage like that too.
“Liberty on Earth,” I whispered, as if the words were an oath—as if they could somehow miraculously make Koen forgive me. I didn’t expect him to answer, but then the strangest thing happened. I heard his voice come whispering back.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing,” I said quickly. “I didn’t say anything.”
But his big brown eyes pressed into mine. We both knew the truth. He wrung his broad hands nervously, cracking the knuckles.
“Say it again,” he pressed.
I licked my lips. When I spoke, the words were even softer than before. “Liberty on Earth.”
“Liberty on Zehava,” he said.
For a moment, an interminable moment, Koen didn’t move. There was an animal sharpness about his gaze—his eyes were eager and alert.
“Tomorrow,” he said at last. “Meet me outside the starboard bakery. The one between the delicatessen and the china shop.”
“I know where you mean.” Momma had worked there. I’d spent my baby years sitting in my high chair in the back, watching as she worked her hands into the dough.
The corner of Koen’s mouth ticked up.
“Good,” he said. With that, he stood, dislodging Pepper from his lap. The cat gave a meow of protest, but Koen ignored him. Instead he stepped close to the bed. He bent over and pressed a kiss into the part of my hair. I breathed in the cedar-struck perfume of him.
“Don’t tell anyone,” he murmured.
And then, before I could even open my eyes again, he was gone, leaving only a gap of cold in his absence.
12
The commerce district bustled after a long day’s work. Children spilled over the cobblestones, hefting books in their arms. Across the street a gaggle of laughing women tumbled out from one of the pubs. The air that drifted from the shops was heavy with smells: the salt-preserved odor of fish, the sweet scent of overripe fruit, and the all-too-familiar perfume of freshly baked bread. My stomach gave a rumble. I ran the flat of my hand over my gut, hoping to quiet it. I wasn’t here for food—couldn’t let myself be lulled into thinking this was just another ordinary evening. After all, there was no telling when a member of the captain’s guard might come swaggering down the street.
The shops didn’t have names. But each one had its own insignia. Momma’s bakery bore a blue star above it. Half of the paint had flaked off, revealing the concrete below. But I would have recognized those seven points anywhere.
Koen stood below it, waving his arms at me.
“Terra!” he called. His wide, giddy smile surprised me. So did the way he reached out, grabbing my hand in his.
“Hello, Koen,” I said. I glanced down the street, hoping no one heard the way his voice rose above the crowd. But it was lost among the conversation and laughter. We looked like any other young couple, tending to their errands after a long day’s work.
Without another word Koen turned toward the bakery. He shouldered the door open and dragged me in past the threshold. I’d avoided the flour-scattered place since Momma had passed. I preferred the port bakery. Even if their bread was never as soft, the store held fewer tender memories.
But Koen didn’t give me time to absorb the familiar sight of the workers knotting bread into ropes. He dodged the crowd at the counter, ignoring how they shouted their orders to the counter girl. Instead he ducked inside a doorway at the rear of the shop. As I followed him I felt my hands tremble.
<
br /> The corridor was dark, lit by a single flickering bulb.
“Where are we going?” I asked, my voice nothing more than a whisper. I’d put off my thoughts about Mar Jacobi for too long—I wanted to finally discover the secrets behind the words Liberty on Earth. But Koen didn’t seem to notice my excitement. He just held my fingers limply in his calloused hand and pulled me forward.
“You’ll see.”
Our footsteps echoed across the tile ground. Then Koen shoved his weight against one final door, and we were out in the open air again. At long last he let my fingers go. I dropped my head back, gazing upward.
We were in a back alleyway. Brick surrounded us on all sides. At the intrusion a flock of birds had flown upward, dashing from one painted window to the next. I could see the ceiling panels over us, hanging only a few meters above the tops of the shop buildings. The only exit was up, then, or back the way we’d come—and the door had just slammed shut behind me.
At the back of the alley stood Van Hofstadter. He was slumped against the brick. He didn’t even stand straight at the sight of us.
“Well, would you look at the lovebirds,” he said dryly. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Koen wince.
“You said I could bring her,” he said.
“What was I supposed to say? She’s an adult now, a full citizen. I can’t stop you.”
Koen leaned over, whispering to me. “You can become one of us only after you turn sixteen. Children aren’t supposed to know about us.”
“Us?” I said faintly, glancing between the boys.
“The Children of Abel,” Koen said. And then he added, all in a rush: “Van told me that it’s from a story. A very old story. Somewhere on Earth there was a garden. The first men were cast out of it, two brothers among them. One was a shepherd. Abel. The other worked the land. That was his brother, Cain. Abel did his duty, just as we’ve followed the rule of the Council. But Cain was greedy. He wanted the flocks for himself, so he murdered his brother. Struck him down in the fields.”
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