Starglass

by North, Phoebe

  It was suppertime, but you could hardly tell. Their galley was clean, dim, and empty. I stood by the door with my hands in my pockets and watched as Silvan’s mother went to the stairwell. As she called for her son, I became intensely aware of my tongue. It felt much too big for my mouth. I wondered if this was how Koen had felt the day he’d come to declare his intentions to me.

  “Silvan?” his mother called. She looked at me sidelong, arching her plucked eyebrows at me. “Sil? There’s a girl here to see you! That Fineberg girl!”

  She waited, her head inclined. I waited too, for the pound of adolescent feet against the stairs. But no footsteps came. She let out a small sigh, lifting her hand from the banister.

  “Go on up,” she said. I hesitated, peering up the stairs. Part of me couldn’t quite believe that I was going to do this—was going to ask a boy for his hand. And Silvan, no less. I glanced at his mother, but she’d already walked away, leaving me alone there gripping the rail. So I made my way up the narrow steps.

  Strains of music whispered through the gap beneath Silvan’s bedroom door. I knocked once, twice. That’s when I saw the panel next to the door, the same kind we had in the labs. I pressed my palm against it. The door was unlocked, and it shivered open.

  Silvan’s room was massive, almost as big as the entire lower floor of my childhood home. Most houses had metal furniture built right into the walls. But Silvan’s room was full of dark, sturdy wood—a four-poster bed, a polished desk, and a dresser. Embroidered hangings of flowering gardens shadowed the walls.

  He sat in the middle of all of it, nested within his bed, clutching a small guitar against his chest. Broad fingers ran aimlessly over the metal strings. Every note sang out as if he had plucked it from the air just for me.

  At my arrival he lifted his chin. His fingers froze on the strings as the notes rang out, then faded. Then his smile grew.

  “Terra!”

  I couldn’t help it. I grinned at the sound of my name. Then, remembering myself, I gave my head a solemn nod.

  “Silvan,” I replied. I watched as he set his guitar down on his bed. Finally, in one single, graceful motion, he jumped off it. As he sauntered over, I felt myself flush. I could smell him again, feel the sharp heat of his body. It made me want to lean into him, to touch my lips to his neck.

  I fought to remember that Silvan’s father had killed my mother. This was no time to wax poetic about the way he smelled.

  “You cut your hair.”

  He reached out. I saw the hazy shape of his hand in the corner of my vision. His fingers were broad and strong. And they moved as if the world belonged to them.

  “I did,” I said, leaning back even more. My hair fell out of his grasp, but a smile lit his lips nevertheless. I saw how straight his teeth were, and how very white.

  “I like it,” he concluded. Then he turned, sauntering toward his bed. He perched on the end of it. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit? Come to complain about the probe? You should get in line for that one.”

  Silvan sat with his shoulders squared, his heels striking the footboard. Glossy curls cascaded down his shoulders. Normally, I would have drawn a steadying breath, trying to calm myself. But looking at him, at the way he smirked at me, it didn’t feel necessary. Standing there in Rachel’s coat, my hair tucked behind my ears, I felt for the first time as if my whole life had been headed for this moment. Like something made sense.

  I would marry Silvan. And then I would poison him.

  “No. I don’t care about the probe,” I said, lying like it was nothing. “I’m here to declare my intentions. Silvan, if you’d have me, then I would be honored if you’d consent to marry me.”

  Part of me expected that he’d be shocked—or that maybe he’d recoil, disgusted by the thought. But Silvan’s eyebrows only lifted.

  “When did you decide you wanted me? Was it our vocational ceremony? When Wolff made me the next captain? Or was it today, outside the labs?”

  My voice was flat, but I was surprised to find myself telling the truth. “I always wanted you. But I missed my chance, and then you belonged to Rachel.”

  A grimace crossed Silvan’s features. “Oh, that rubbish. Poor girl. It’s not her fault I could never marry some shopgirl.”

  I made myself nod, as if I agreed—as if I even understood. But how could I? I’d never been the son of a Council member.

  “And what about Maxwell?” Silvan asked. “The clock keeper. Aren’t you promised to him?”

  “No. Almost. But then I told him how I felt about you, and we broke it off.”

  Silvan pushed himself off his bed again. He swaggered close, standing so near that I could practically taste him. When he spoke, his voice was husky.

  “And how do you feel about me?”

  I couldn’t lie. Not with him this close, so close that I could see the dark stubble shadowing his cheeks and the way his black eyelashes trembled. I told him the only truth that would do any good now, the only one that would help me.

  “That you’re beautiful.” It was the truth. Oy gevalt, it was the truth—but only a tiny part of the truth, the smallest sliver. My words didn’t alight on the Children of Abel, or the poison, or Momma. They didn’t touch upon the boy I dreamed about or anything that had happened with Koen. But before I could think of those things, before my lies showed in my face, Silvan crushed me in a kiss.

  It’s all part of the act, I told myself as his soft, full lips pressed to mine. But the truth was, I was starved for this—his hands, warm through layers of wool and cotton, firm against my lower back. I’d waited so long to be kissed and had been touched only in dreams, and it was never enough, at least not compared to this, his hot, panting mouth on mine.

  He finally pulled away.

  “You could have said something sooner, you know,” he said as I pressed my hand to my mouth.

  “Could I?”

  “Yes. I’ve been watching you. You’ve grown quite lovely. And a botanist. That’s a specialist position. A worthy match for a captain.”

  “Unlike Rachel.” An ugly accusation rang in my words. But I kept my gaze hard, afraid that if I let it soften, then the rest of it—the whole truth about my purpose there—would become clear. Silvan’s mouth twitched.

  “Unlike Rachel,” he agreed. But what he said next surprised me. “Rachel’s a good person. I cared for her once. But we were children then. We’re not now.”

  Guilt clenched my stomach. I thought of the bottle that waited for me in Artemis’s room.

  “No,” I agreed. “We’re not.”

  Silvan watched me for a moment, his expression surly. Then he gave his curls a shake. “I have an idea,” he said, cracking a bright smile. “Why don’t we wed the day we enter orbit? We can be married in the captain’s stateroom, Zehava dawning above.”

  I saw it in my mind. Silvan would look handsome in his uniform, his long hair tied back. But it was still hard for me to see myself dressed in harvest gold standing beside him. Still, I knew which answer was the right one. I gave my swift reply. “That sounds perfect.”

  Silvan took my hands in his. For some reason I expected them to feel cool, like Koen’s always did. But they weren’t. His skin was warm, as soft as a baby’s. He had the hands of someone who had never worked. He pulled me to him and kissed me again, no less deeply than before.

  “Good,” he said, panting. “Good.”

  • • •

  The next day after work I sat on Mara’s front stoop. The light was better out there than in Artemis’s room, even as the artificial sunlight faded from the overhead panels. I could hardly feel the cold of the day—I was too busy for that. My sketchbook sat on my knees, my pencils spread out around me on the step. I picked up a dark red pencil and layered it over the crosshatched blue I’d already set down. I was drawing a new variety of foxglove. If Mara could build high-protein wheat, I saw no reason why I couldn’t reimagine a version of the pretty flower, its heavy bells laden with pollen, that wouldn’t
be quite so dangerous to grow. As I shaded in the delicate blue that lined the inside of the petals, I heard footsteps on the path.

  “Hello, Terra.”

  There stood Koen, wool scarf knotted at his throat. The smile he gave me was grim—but hopeful, too. I felt a wave of emotion crest inside me, but I stuffed it down. I did not speak.

  “What’s that you’re drawing?” he asked.

  I slammed my sketchbook shut, holding it in front of my body like a shield. “Nothing,” I said. “What do you want?”

  Blushing, Koen lifted a hand and touched his tangled hair. “Marry me?” he asked, his voice lifting weakly at the end.

  “You don’t want to marry me, Koen. You don’t. I know you don’t.”

  “But I do!” he protested. He held his hands out to me. “If we were married, then you wouldn’t . . . you wouldn’t have to marry Silvan. And, you know, do what the Children of Abel asked. Van would stop them from doing anything to you. He’d protect you, if you married me.”

  I sighed.

  “And then you can pretend like you’re a normal person. A normal boy. But you’re not, are you?”

  The heat over his face was bright and high. His mouth formed a small, wavering line. “Maybe I’ll never be normal. But you wouldn’t be normal either. It would be okay, though. We could be friends. I miss—I miss being friends.”

  Sometimes I missed it all too. Not only Koen but those meetings in the musty library, touching my hands to my heart and pretending like I was fighting for something pure and just. But the wounds were still there, raw and festering underneath my hard skin.

  “I want to be friends too,” I murmured. “But I don’t think I can, not yet. And I know I can’t marry you.”

  Koen stared down at the paving stones that lined Mara’s front walk.

  “Okay,” he said, and shrugged. “I tried.”

  “You did,” I agreed. He lifted his lips in a tiny, feeble smile.

  “You don’t have to do it,” he said. “You don’t have to k—”

  I shook my head. “No, I do. You said it once: These aren’t people you want to cross. There’s no telling what they might do. Besides, I want to. Silvan’s dad killed my mother. I need to set things right.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I am.”

  Koen nodded finally, apparently satisfied. Without another word he started down the road toward his parents’ quarters, leaving the way he’d come. I watched him go. Then I opened up my sketchpad, scribbling hard across the page. I hoped to distract myself from the queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach, the feeling that just wouldn’t abate.

  Because the truth was, I wasn’t sure if I could kill Silvan Rafferty. I really wasn’t sure at all.

  • • •

  Silvan wasn’t like Koen. He had no patience for evening strolls through the dome or holding hands. He demanded that I meet him in his room every night after supper so that we could talk about our wedding. But we hardly ever talked at all.

  Instead we rolled around on his wide bed, getting all tangled up in the sheets, mashing our bodies together. I laced my hands through his hair, and his fingers, hot and clammy, worked their way over my belly. With his body heavy on mine, I didn’t think about my father. I didn’t think about Momma. I didn’t even think about Benjamin Jacobi or all the people who were counting on me. It was just heat, mouths, skin, lips meeting lips until mine were raw and peeling. Those nights in his bed brought me closer to my dreams than I’d ever been. Sometimes, when we rolled away from each other, I’d touch his soft hands and think about how they must be the hands I’d been promised.

  Silvan, I thought, ignoring the ridges over his fingers, the long life lines on his palms, my bashert.

  Did his parents know what we were doing up in his room at all hours of the night? They must have. I’d sometimes see them as I passed through their galley on the way to the stairs, and I blushed as I followed Silvan to his room. But they didn’t say anything. They didn’t even say hello.

  I knew why. Plenty of kids messed around before marriage. But there were unspoken rules. Couples went for walks when they needed to be alone. They hid in the tall rows of corn or out in the alleyways between the shops. They didn’t burn off young lust under their parents’ roof.

  The only thing that saved me from feeling terrible about the whole thing—feeling anything, really, other than the white-hot burn of lust—was the way that Silvan always pulled away at the last moment, before we went all the way. He’d squirm away from my hands or arc his body away from mine. At first I worried that he might be like Koen. But he wasn’t—he wanted me, I could tell. So when he’d lie in his bed, breathing heavily and smiling at me, when he said, “You really should get going. It’s getting late,” I thought that maybe he was just trying to be good. To wait until landing. To wait until we had our own home.

  Exhausted after our trysts, I headed to Mara’s quarters under the gray light of dawn. The early morning was dim and cold; my hot breath fogged the air. For a moment, just a moment, the ship seemed to have taken on a new clarity. I could see every crack in the old metal pathways. I could hear the birds calling to one another. It was so cold. It seemed like there shouldn’t have been any birds. But there were, and I thought that maybe, for the first time ever, they were calling to me.

  Then one morning I stepped inside and saw Mara sitting at her galley table, a deep frown wrinkling her face.

  “You’re still up,” I said, pulling my boots off, ready to duck up to Artemis’s room to sneak in a few precious hours of sleep. Mara didn’t smile at me. She didn’t laugh.

  “You were gone so long,” she said, pushing up from the table, “that I thought you might have forgotten your work.”

  She took something from her pocket. A bottle made of amber glass, filled with white powder. Then she set it on the table.

  “I thought you were going to give that to the rebels,” she said.

  I took the bottle from her, staring down at its red-gold glass. My mouth groped for words, but Mara didn’t wait to hear them. She only rose wordlessly from the table.

  “You need to be more careful,” she said at last, clutching the banister beneath her hand. “There are children in this house. If one of them got into that—” Her voice gurgled strangely, a strained sound. It was the only sign I’d ever seen her give that she cared about her children.

  “I’ll be more careful,” I promised, clutching the glass bottle in my fist. Mara nodded once, twice. Then she disappeared up the stairs and was gone, and I was alone beneath the buzzing galley lights.

  • • •

  Before we set a date for our marriage, we needed to schedule a time to get our bloodlines checked. I mentioned it to Silvan in bed one night as his hand skimmed over my bare hip. We’d already tumbled away from each other. My body was spent, tired—but still responded to his touch like it always did. Goose bumps lifted over my arms.

  “We need to make sure we’re not related, don’t we?” I asked. He smirked at me.

  “I’m sure we’re not. I know your family has risen up in the ranks only recently.”

  “So?” I said, feeling his fingers trace gentle circles on my thigh. “How do you know my great-grandma didn’t wear a gold cord? Maybe we’re distant cousins.”

  “Terra, I would know if that were the case.”

  “How?” I demanded.

  Silvan gave his muscular body a twist, springing on me, grabbing my hands in his. He pressed my body to the mattress. His lips formed a toothy grin.

  “I can tell,” he said. “It’s the way you walk, swinging your hips like a common girl.” He pressed his stubbly chin against my neck, leaving a trail of rough kisses on my throat.

  “Besides,” he said, barely lifting his mouth from my skin, “it’s not as if it matters.”

  I squirmed away from his kisses. “What do you mean?”

  “The bloodlines are a farce,” he said. “You must know that already. We make our children in
a lab. If they have any genetic flaws, we select out for them anyway. What would it matter if cousins married cousins?”

  I struggled to sit up. “But then why read the bloodlines at all?”

  “Because it lets us ensure that only the right families marry into one another. If the Council decides it’s not meant to be, then we falsify the results. If you ask me, it’s a bit unfair. People should marry whoever they want—within reason, of course. I might even change things once I become captain. But Abba says that it’s the best way to ensure that commoners stay in their place. Of course . . .”

  He hesitated. I finally sat up, gawking at him. “Of course what?” I demanded.

  Silvan looked thoughtful for a moment. Then he gave his head a shake. “Nothing.” He scooted close, kissing the corner of my lips. “Come on, Terra,” he prodded. “Surely you realized all this?”

  I hadn’t. I should have, but I hadn’t. I swallowed hard, forced a smile. “No,” I said smoothly. “But it makes sense.”

  Silvan eased my body down into the bed again. I turned my head away from him, to the pile of clothes on his bedroom floor. The bottle of poison was buried in one of the pockets. Waiting for Silvan. Waiting for me.

  • • •

  In the genetic archives neat volumes lined the shelves on the walls. I couldn’t help but wonder now if all the books on the shelves were just for show—or if, perhaps, the words inside were nothing but lies cooked up by the Council. Still, the woman who sat behind the curved desk didn’t look much like a Council stooge. She was short haired, plump with middle age. She smiled up at me.

  “Good evening,” she said. I set my hands awkwardly on the desk.

  “Hi,” I said. There was a long cricket of silence. Her smile grew just a little—thin lips belied her amusement.

  “Can I help you?” she offered. I let out a coarse laugh.

  “I need to make an appointment for me and my intended to have our bloodlines checked.”