Sing Down the Stars (The Celestine Series Book 1)

by L. J. Hatton

  I’d faced two wardens and lived, but one awkward boy was well on his way to putting me in a coma. I should have stayed in the palm tree.

  “How did you dig your way off the top of a tree?”

  I blinked awake to find a shadow at my door.

  A few facts leached into my mind. I smelled grass because I was lying on it. I was lying on it because I was in my hutch. Hiding in the greenhouse. Hiding from the warden.

  The shadow stooped forward to grab my arm.

  Warden Nye.

  “Get back!” I screeched.

  A sharp blast of wind blew the shadow out of my hutch in a burst of shredded grass. He landed on the metal walk.

  “Penelope isn’t an early riser—duly noted,” Birch groaned.

  My plan to be angry with him evaporated.

  “Are you hurt?” I asked.

  “I think I broke my omelet.” He was covered in the eggs that were likely intended to be my breakfast. “I should have smuggled toast.”

  He sat up, picking bits of white and green from his clothes.

  “I thought you were the warden,” I said.

  “No, but he’s the reason I couldn’t come back yesterday. He had me decorating guest rooms. He wants to make sure a certain someone develops hives. But seriously—how did you dig out of a tree? Your hands are dirty.”

  Yesterday? How long was I unconscious?

  “I didn’t dig. I dropped.”

  Birch glanced at the palm tree, then at the rail, as if to ask if I’d fallen all the way, but he shook his head. No one could survive that.

  “I suppose I have you to thank for mixing up my planters?” he asked.

  “Thank yourself. You stranded me.”

  “I didn’t have a choice.”

  “Yes, you did! And you made the wrong one! You’re no better than the Commission drones who run this place.”

  “I am nothing like them!” Birch shouted, jumping to his feet. “I’m . . . I’m . . . I’m sorry, but you wouldn’t listen. It’s dangerous down here.”

  “Danger doesn’t follow a floor plan, Birch,” I said. “It follows me. You can’t fix that, but I wouldn’t mind having you fix my ribs again. The bandages came loose in the drop.”

  “Come on,” he said, and we both tried to leave it at that.

  We returned to the area with the vines he’d used for wrappings.

  “Arms up,” he instructed, and an unexpected pang hit me.

  I wanted to call it hunger from missing a day of meals, but it was a pang of familiarity. For a moment it was as if I were getting ready for The Show. I lifted my arms and hoped Birch would believe me if I said my eyes were watering from the pain.

  “Potatoes won’t grow in pebbles, you know,” he said, filling in the silence I couldn’t break myself.

  “What?”

  “You put my potatoes in pebbles. They won’t grow that way. I’ll have to replant them. And a few other everythings.”

  He grinned; I didn’t.

  “Collateral damage,” I said.

  “Plants are easier to fix than people.”

  “And you think I’ll need to be fixed if I leave your greenhouse?”

  “I think you want your old life back so badly that you’re willing to get yourself killed for the idea of it, but around here, killed isn’t as bad as it gets.”

  “I’m careful.”

  “You’ve been lucky, and the more people who fill this place, the less likely lucky is going to be. What if Warden Nye had been the one to see you? What do you think he’ll do if the man you lied to gives your friend’s name in his daily report? How common is Jermay or Baán that it will be overlooked, especially to a man who knows your circus inside and out?”

  They weren’t common names at all, and if the warden had seen me, busted ribs would be the least of my problems.

  “The Commission isn’t sending people up here for tea, Penelope. They’re going to be looking for anything out of place, and if they find you, they’ll put you somewhere that won’t be nearly as easy to escape as that tree. You can put your arms down now.”

  Breathing wasn’t easy, but I felt better. The wrappings weren’t only holding my sides, they were holding me together.

  “Why won’t you just tell me why you’re so afraid of Arcineaux and the others?”

  “Doesn’t everyone fear the devil?” Birch turned away. “I can’t get you any more breakfast. You’ll have to make do with tree fruit until lunch. There’s no point in my telling you to stay here until then.” He walked off without bidding the wrapping vines to return to the ceiling, and left the greenhouse.

  I made up my mind to prove him wrong.

  The vines he’d left behind seemed sturdy, so I sat on the widest. It swayed back and forth and side to side like a child’s swing. I spun the vines into a spiral, and let them uncoil. Motion had always helped me to think; sitting still never did.

  A stray breeze caught my swing, throwing the rhythm off and introducing the scent of machines and coolant. I was near a vent that had kicked on to churn fresh air through the room. Birch had overgrown the vent, covering it with vines and trellises like everything else, but it wasn’t hard to trace the current.

  The grate spanned from the floor to above my head. Openings this size allowed for quick access to the air circulators, but they were a pain to keep clear. The technicians had only turned the bolts enough to make sure the grate wouldn’t fall, and Birch’s ivy had done what ivy does best, forcing itself into every crack and crevice. It had pried up a corner, leaving the bolt loose enough to remove, so I could crawl inside.

  Surely it was safe to venture out if I couldn’t be seen.

  A three-rung ladder bolted to the inside wall led to the crawl space between this floor and the one above. At the top, there was room enough to walk at a stoop. Crawling was easier. Thankfully, Birch’s pain-killer plant still had plenty of bark on it.

  Every few feet came a grate that opened through the ceiling of the main hall, allowing light to shine in. Several creeper lights milled in the corridors below, assisting technicians with their work; ceiling-mounted climbers bent up toward me, curious at my passing.

  “Go back to work,” I snapped, afraid they’d alert someone to my presence.

  Birch was right about the crowd. The halls were overflowing as people jostled around and through other groups that were painting the walls and installing the final touches before the dedication. A man and woman wearing protective gear carried a huge bucket between them on a pole. They lifted it to a man at the top of a ladder who was wearing the same suit, and helped tip the contents into one of the tanks. It looked like sand. Plain, boring, and pink, but not dangerous sand.

  I crawled farther and hit a dead end, forcing me to turn back, but when I did, I found I wasn’t alone. A small spindly creeper light had ventured into the crawl space. It raised one of its legs and waved.

  “Go away!”

  It put its leg down and sat like a defiant puppy.

  “Fine, stay there, but don’t shine. You’ll get me caught!”

  It shuttered its lamp while I leaned near the closest vent to see if I could learn any names or faces that might come in handy later. Hardly anyone slowed down long enough for me to assess their features—until, finally, a singular individual appeared.

  People in the hall reacted to her presence before I saw her, stiffening and hushing their voices. They were no more comfortable around the false Iva Roma than I was. She speared through the throng at a quick clip. I followed, struggling to keep up without clanging against the sides of the shaft, while the creeper rolled along behind me.

  We went back the way I’d come, passed the greenhouse, and continued on; I moved just fast enough to keep her in sight. Iva turned once. There was a bit of an incline, and I was no longer in a section of airway over the main hall. I w
as above an office with its own view of the outside, but in this part of the Center, that view was blocked by one of the gyro-rings. Most of the window was taken up by a riveted plate the size of my head.

  Iva glanced around, but didn’t find what she wanted. She turned without entering the office completely and left.

  I stayed put. This wasn’t the office I’d escaped from, and there weren’t any high-tech holographic projectors, but there was something potentially better. A computer sat on the desk, shiny and new, and unlike the warden’s, this one had been hooked up.

  I slid out of the grate and onto a shelf, then down to the desk. The routine wouldn’t have me flying with the Jeseks, but Bruno and Birdie would have approved. The creeper light poked its face into the hole, but had no way to climb down.

  “Shh,” I warned it. “I’ll be right back.”

  Like the warden’s tablet, the computer had a password, but it wasn’t Celestine. It wasn’t any of the words I’d tried before. This wasn’t a personal computer; it had to have a password with a broader meaning, but what? The room didn’t even look like it was occupied yet. Everything was generic, from the equipment to the framed posters with that same “Bring the Rain” slogan I’d seen elsewhere here.

  No, not elsewhere—everywhere.

  I clicked the password box and typed it in; retrying without the spaces actually worked. It led to a basic start screen, with no icons for security feeds that might show me the prison level or its residents. There was no ankh here to let me pick up where I’d left off in Nagendra’s file. I tried the Medusae jellyfish, but that only went to more biological studies. Lots of DNA references, but no answers for me.

  I was about to log off and return to the greenhouse when a single word caught my attention: Gemini. Above it was an icon in the shape of the astrological sign for “the twins.” Twins like me and Birch and all those footnotes in the warden’s notebook.

  Maybe this wasn’t a bust after all. Maybe I could find out what happened to Birch’s family and start to make up for the trouble I’d caused him. He’d have to agree that was worth taking a few risks.

  The Gemini file contained subfolders, each of which held another two—one boy and one girl—so these were all fraternal twins, but I didn’t know Birch’s name. Birch didn’t even know Birch’s name. I opened the main project document and skimmed through it, hoping for a photograph or two that would narrow my search. I never expected it to widen my world.

  The Commission called us Level-Fives.

  There’d never been a fifth girl born to a touched family without a male counterpart, and the males were all marked as “outliers.” The mention of chromosomal tripling I’d seen in the warden’s notebook meant boys like this, like Birch. They had the requisite double-X that allowed them to be gifted, but they had a Y chromosome that made them male, and that difference was enough that their gifts couldn’t be anticipated or regulated. Male levels of testosterone were some kind of wild card.

  The strange thing was that in all the records of these fifth-birth pairs, and there were hundreds, there wasn’t a single mention of a gifted girl. The female twins almost always died, and the handful that didn’t were completely human.

  So what had happened to me?

  I heard voices in the hall, and knew I had to get out of there. I logged off and climbed back onto the shelf as fast as I could, then slipped back into the vent with the curious creeper light.

  Iva came into the room, this time accompanied by Warden Nye. He was toting Xerxes under his arm, and set him on the edge of the desk. Xerxes was wearing a ridiculous pink ribbon for a collar.

  “Arcineaux’s men aren’t careful how they speak,” Iva said.

  “And?” Warden Nye asked.

  “They have the impression that the girl’s lack of recent appearance is proof that she was operating under your orders.”

  “If Penelope had been there on my order, she would have flattened him before the building, or at least taken the one with the other. Whatever happened at his facility was unplanned. The girl was terrified.”

  Iva nodded, but not in the usual manner. Her head tipped forward like it might roll off, then snapped back.

  “He’s accepted your invitation, as have several others, but I doubt they have plans to celebrate.”

  “They’re coming for the Roma girls, and Arcineaux will be searching out his test subject. Make sure she’s hard to find.” Nye made another failed attempt to pet Xerxes. He knocked against the gryphon’s wing with his gloved knuckle, giving off a metal clang.

  I had only until the wardens arrived to find my sisters and get them out of the Center. What did that give me? A week? Less?

  Iva touched a glowing button on her ear that resembled the communication system we used in the Caravan.

  “Another ship’s arrived,” she said.

  “Tell them our sardine can is already full of dead fish.” Nye sighed.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “No, don’t—Never mind, just listen for chatter about our wayward Celestine.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, and left the room.

  “I know you sent her my way because she was defective,” Nye said to Xerxes, “but you could have made her a tad less literal.”

  Xerxes turned his back on the warden and lay down with his head on his front paws, refusing to humor him with further conversation.

  “And now I see where Penelope learned her social skills.”

  Xerxes flicked his tail. Nye went to the window.

  “Where are you, pet?” he whispered, leaning an arm against the glass.

  I scrambled back to the greenhouse at double time, and took the creeper with me so it couldn’t cause any mischief that might necessitate maintenance in the shaft. I dropped the ivy back in place against the vent. Birch was standing outside my hutch.

  “They’re here,” I said, running in his direction as well as I was able; the creeper light skittered, trying to keep up. “My sisters are here. I heard the warden myself!”

  Birch looked stunned, and a bit guilty.

  “Don’t worry, I was careful. He said—”

  “Penelope?”

  My body shut down on the spot, hearing Greyor’s voice inside my hutch. He emerged holding my father’s red coat, which I hadn’t gotten around to burying deeper than the underside of my mat.

  “I can explain,” Birch said.

  “Traitor!”

  My temper rose too quickly. All I could see was red, everywhere. The coat, and spilled blood, the embarrassment on Evie’s face when Greyor cornered her before our last performance. Even the light suddenly beaming from the creeper’s face seemed to be tinted scarlet. I ran at Greyor, unsure how I wanted to strike out. As long as it hurt him, I didn’t care.

  “Penelope, listen,” he said, but listening to liars was a waste of time.

  “My name is Penn!”

  I set my sights on the coat. The broken circuits spit sparks, as the electric fence had at the gargoyle’s facility, and like the unfortunates who had flung themselves into the current there, Greyor found himself with fingers that would not let go. The shock paralyzed him.

  All I needed was water. It could electrocute him completely.

  “Penn, stop!”

  My rage was so singularly pointed at Greyor that I’d lost track of Birch. Warden Nye could have walked into the room and I wouldn’t have noticed.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” Birch said.

  “I do want to hurt him,” I snarled, and raised my head toward the sprinklers.

  “I’m sorry for this.”

  Birch tackled me. He took advantage of the weakness he knew I had, and used my broken ribs to put me down. I crashed to the floor, still watching Greyor as the coat died in his hands—he flung it away, on his knees and breathing heavy.

  “Let me go!” I ordered, kicking out a
gainst the pain.

  Somewhere between breaths, the tears from the searing in my bones turned to tears for having my vengeance snatched away by someone I thought had as much reason to hate the Commission as I did.

  “He’s not your enemy, Penn.” Birch was still leaning on me, so I couldn’t garner enough control to strike again.

  “He was there!” I cried. “My sister—”

  “Wouldn’t listen to me,” Greyor gasped. “I thought you were smarter.”

  “He’s my friend,” Birch insisted, easing up enough that I could shove him off, but I still couldn’t get up.

  “Not mine,” I said. “And neither are you!”

  The coat jumped and popped from another electric burst, though no one was close enough to feel it.

  “The night you interrupted Nieva and me, I was trying to warn her about the raid,” Greyor said. “That’s why I was there.”

  “You can trust him,” Birch said.

  “Based on what?” I demanded. “The fact that he knew and did nothing to stop the raid?”

  “I told her as soon as I knew it was coming. That’s all I could do without jeopardizing the trust I’ve built with Warden Nye. He had over a hundred of us there that night—I couldn’t have stopped it if I tried.”

  “I guess we’ll never know, will we?”

  “You can trust him based on the fact that I do,” Birch said.

  “I don’t trust you, either.”

  Birch had done nothing but blindside me since he put me up that tree, and I was done with him.

  “He can go places we can’t,” Birch said.

  “Then maybe he should,” I said. “And he can take you with him.”

  “Penn—”

  “GO AWAY!” A small gust knocked him back once, then again.

  “Penn, please . . .”

  The coat crackled again. A line of current jumped from it to my hand, leaving my fingers shining blue with flaming peaks. I hadn’t even tried that time.