by Rebecca Rode
Bianca gave Ember an apologetic smile. “I’ll try to slip away again soon. Be careful.”
Ember nodded, knowing her friend referred to the officer. She still had several hours to decide what to do. In the meantime, it was time to check on Dai.
When her friend was out of sight, Ember pushed the makeshift door open and entered. She passed through the living area with its assortment of mismatched chairs all arranged neatly at the table in the way her mother preferred. She missed sitting there for meals. It had been so long.
She knocked gently on her father’s doorframe and swept the divider cloth aside.
He lay just as she’d left him, but his eyes were open now, his expression clouded with pain. Dai still only took up half the bed, as if subconsciously leaving an empty space for a wife who would never return. He blinked at the sight of Ember, like she’d roused him from a daydream. “You’re back early. How was business?”
“Good,” she said, hoping he wouldn’t press the matter. “How is the pain today?”
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
Ember knew that was a lie. Sometimes the pain in his chest grew so intense he trembled and wept like a babe. Even now his eyes pulled tight like he was trying to hide his usual grimace.
Tonight, she promised herself. She’d wait until the Empire ship was gone, then sneak down to the hollow behind Talpa’s home to meet the smuggler. If Ambrose still wasn’t there, she’d start asking around for another source. There had to be someone else in the sector with the pills she needed.
Ember forced a smile. “We’ll have meat tonight. What do you think of that?”
“I think it sounds fantastic. Anything unusual today?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary,” she lied, retrieving a fig from her bag. Half the village could be dying of a plague, and she would tell him the exact same thing. As cautious as her people were about the Empire soldiers, Dai was the most extreme in his hatred. He refused to allow Ember anywhere near them. If he knew she’d spoken with an officer today, it would kill him. She was smarter than that.
She handed him the fig. “Eat this until dinner is ready. It won’t be long.” She stood and headed for the doorway.
“Ember, I heard you talking to your friend.”
She hesitated in the doorway, mentally kicking herself. She’d forgotten about the broken windows. Had she mentioned anything about the officer? She reviewed Bianca’s words in her mind, pretending nonchalance. “I’m sorry we woke you. I’ll get your food going—”
“I agree with Bianca.”
Now he had her attention. “About what?”
“I think you should ask Coste’s forgiveness. Maybe he’ll take you back.”
This conversation had taken a strange turn. “You want me to marry Coste? But—but you’re the one who told me about love and waiting for the right man.”
He paused. “I did, but—I’m not sure it’s wise to wait any longer.”
She returned to her chair and sat, her head swimming with confusion. “What are you saying?”
He leaned back against the pillow again, as if gathering his strength. “My little Ember, I want you to be happy. I do. But if you turn down opportunities for happiness so you can care for your sick father, soon there will be no more opportunities left.” He coughed and grimaced again.
Ember stood. “I’ll get you some water.”
“No. Sit.”
He wasn’t usually this insistent. She lowered herself into her chair again, wincing at the deepness of his cough. It was definitely getting worse. “I’m not pushing away my own happiness. This is what I want, to care for you.”
When he could breathe again, he watched her with tired eyes. “You’re wasting your life waiting for me to recover. I can see it. You wait for me, but I also wait for you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Death comes for me soon, my Ember.”
Ember’s heart skipped a beat, and she gripped her chair. “No, Dai. That’s not true. As soon as the medicine arrives, you’ll start to feel better again.”
“The medicine just postpones what is coming. There have been times I felt death creeping along my bones and shooed it away, telling it my daughter is not ready yet. I want to attend your wedding, to see you happy and settled and cared for the way I can’t care for you. But I can’t fight it much longer.”
The lump in Ember’s throat lodged there so tightly she couldn’t speak. She shook her head and forced her voice to work. “You don’t know that.”
“I do, my Ember. Use your gift. It will tell you the truth.”
Odd. He’d never been willing to discuss her gift before, much less insisted what she saw was the truth. But it wasn’t the truth, not after what she’d seen today with that man Stefan. Her visions had to be possibilities. Nothing more.
“You don’t know,” she said again. “Nobody does. The stars give me wisps of hope and magic and beautiful things, not death. The medicine will work. I’ll increase the dosage when the new bottle comes, and everything will be fine. You just need to trust me.”
He studied her face so intensely she shifted in her chair.
“What is it?” she finally asked.
He shook his head as if dismissing a thought. “You’ve grown strong and determined, as I always hoped. But sometimes your strength blinds you to the reality of our life here. Perhaps it’s time for me to arrange a match for you.”
“An arranged marriage?” she asked, getting angry. First Bianca had turned against her, and now her father. “I will marry eventually. I swear it. But it will be to a man I choose.”
He accepted her words with a long sigh. “I can’t bear the thought of you being alone.”
“I’m always alone.”
Most women were raised with large families and married into even larger families. Noise and chatter were a regular part of Roma life. But for Ember, even a day at the market had its solitude. If her status as Dai’s daughter hadn’t cast a shadow on her already, her refusal of perfectly good marriages had. And the incident with the chief’s son on that terrible night—well, that had clinched it.
He coughed again. “You know what I mean. I hear the children curse you in the streets. I know what their parents are saying. An unattached Roma woman will always be looked upon with suspicion. Without me here as protection, they will find a way to be rid of you. You’ll be too vulnerable.”
“To what? If you mean Chief Talpa will give me up for homage, he can’t. That practice is illegal now.”
“It happened to Harman a few years ago.”
“They took the man because he was wanted for a crime.”
“No,” he said firmly. “That’s why we allowed it.”
She gritted her teeth, barely hiding her frustration. He acted as if she were a ten-year-old child. She’d cared for him for months, and now he wanted to repay her by forcing her into a marriage she’d made it clear she didn’t want.
Ember stood and strode toward the doorway. “Let’s not talk about this anymore. Nothing will happen to you. Just rest so you can recover and go back to work. I promise we’ll have this discussion again then. All right?”
“The stars are never wrong, my light.” His voice had gone quiet, and she knew he’d be asleep again soon. “It’s time to stop dwelling on what was and prepare for what lies ahead.”
4
Four hours later, Ember draped the last damp shirt over the line and pinned it into place. She took a small step backward and accidentally clipped a hen, who began squawking in indignation.
She glowered at the bird. “Well, if you’d give me some space to walk, you’d be fine.”
Sala the hen eyed her, fluffing its feathers in reply.
“Be careful. I’m hungry, you know.”
Sala continued to stare for a moment, then lost interest and walked away.
Their enclosed outdoor living space was larger than most. At forty square yards, the courtyard had plenty of room to complete her chores. But sometimes she r
esented the open air for the tantalizing scents it carried. Tonight it was her neighbor’s Russian tea. She breathed in deeply. It had been so long. Too much had changed in the past few months. Earlier mornings, later nights, more pressure, more chores. Less time to think.
The laundry load had been reduced by half with her father bedridden, but that gave her no comfort. He’d once worn a constant, white-toothed smile that brightened just for her. Now he’d been reduced to a twisted, pained old man. She missed seeing her father’s jacket slung across the chair when he came home from the woodshop covered in a light film of sawdust. His excitement at having finished a new piece of furniture, his childlike begging for her to come see. The way he knelt beneath it, bending and pointing to a tiny detail that nobody would ever notice. He believed each piece of furniture better than the last—more intricate, more finely made.
Ember never saw his work the way he did, but his pride made her smile all the same. His last piece was the table in their main room. Her mother had refused to let him sell it, and when she died . . .
Ember cut the thought short and went to empty the water tubs. One for her washing, one for his. She and her father had a cautiously comfortable relationship now, three years after her mother’s death. But at first it had been strained. Almost like he blamed her.
He was right to. There was nobody else to blame.
A distant voice floated through the air from the road. She couldn’t make out the words for a long while. Finally she recognized the voice as the neighbor’s twelve-year-old son’s. Was school over for the day already?
“The shuttle is still here,” he belted out to his companion. “I saw it, big flag and everything.”
Another voice responded, although she couldn’t distinguish the words. Their footsteps in the dirt street were loud now.
Her stomach did a little flip, but she ignored the nervousness. Ember had made her decision. Meeting the officer was too much of a risk. She’d sneak out to meet Ambrose for Dai’s medicine and then hurry back. Even if the officer made good on his threat to come find her, she’d say she forgot and apologize profusely from the safety of her home.
“Look, there’s the old maid’s house,” the neighbor boy said.
“Should we throw rocks at it?” His younger sister’s voice. Jaelle, if Ember remembered correctly. She was about six.
A pause. “Nah. She’s probably not there anyway. Market day, remember? The big shuttle? I’m telling you, your ears are stuffed with mud. You never listen to a thing I say.”
“Maybe if you’d stop talking once in a while, I’d start listening.”
The voices died off, and Ember breathed a sigh of relief. Kids often threw rocks at her house, but whenever she confronted them, they pretended it was an accident. She’d even reported it to their chief, Talpa, who did exactly what he always did. Nothing.
Dai was right about the village hating her, and Bianca was right about the gossip. But it wasn’t enough to persuade her. Coste was nice enough, but he’d barely spoken two words to her in his life when he’d proposed. He was nearly twenty years older and a widower. And Babik had only proposed after discovering how much Ember made future-telling on a particularly good day.
Her village was the last kumpania on Earth. The others had been integrated into gadje society and now lived across the galaxy. Only the traditional Roma had been left behind—which meant her prospects were limited.
She didn’t want to marry to please her neighbors or Bianca or even Dai. She wanted so much more than an arrangement with someone suitable. She wanted—well, what she’d seen in the vision with Stefan. Just not with him, of course.
Ember gave the hanging laundry one last look. It would take longer to dry in the evening, and there was a chance of her clothes being stolen. She’d check on it again after dark.
She emptied the tubs, then went inside and scooped up the plate with Dai’s dinner on it—two slices of cooling bread with Bianca’s fig jam and the ewe, still perfectly seasoned. She paused near her father’s doorway. Should she wake him? Their conversation had taken much out of him, and he spent the day sleeping. Perhaps it was better to let him rest peacefully a bit longer.
The walls took on an orange hue, which meant it was sunset. The officer would be waiting for her now. Was he pacing her market stall, looking at the hill where her village sat? How long would he wait before leaving—or deciding to come find her?
Let him come. I’m not leaving my father alone so long tonight.
Her stomach rumbled at the smell of the food beneath her nose. She set the tray down on the table and grabbed a tomato for her own dinner from the box on the counter. She’d give Dai a few more minutes to sleep. In the meantime, she’d take this opportunity to get some long-neglected chores done. It had been far too long since she cleaned, and it would take her mind off that terrible officer.
The shelf caught her eye. A thin layer of dust had settled upon its contents, making each object look a uniform, ashen gray. Her mother’s things. Three years later, everything remained just as she’d left it. Dai and Ember had never discussed leaving them out. They just had.
They weren’t valuable objects. They’d sold anything of value long ago. No, these objects held memories more than price. Her mother’s bridal photo. Ember’s first skirt. An old, worn set of tarot cards, the top one askew—her mother’s first set of cards, a cheap deck from an old store. A hand mirror. A stained-glass frame with a photograph of their family inside, taken when Ember was fourteen.
Ember carefully picked up the frame and wiped the dust off with a rag, cradling the smooth object in her hands with all the care she could muster. The image had faded slightly in past years, but it was still clear enough to see her parents standing on either side of a younger Ember. Even at fourteen Ember’s head had towered over her mother’s, though she still wasn’t as tall as her father. The women looked somber, not daring to show their teeth, and her father—well, he grinned as if it were the happiest day of his life. It may have been. The traveling photographer was an old friend of Dai’s, one he hadn’t seen since the military. He’d invited the man to stay with them that night. They’d talked for hours over stew, and the next day the man had presented them with this image before hurrying back to his shuttle.
Ember’s hand tightened on the glass. She didn’t deserve to handle her mother’s beautiful things. Not when it was Ember who had taken her away from all this. The stars knew she hadn’t mean to do it, and she still didn’t know how she had. She just knew what was.
Her finger caught something sticking out the back. Frowning, she turned it around. A piece of white was caught in the small hatch. She pulled it open and caught the object as it came fluttering out and landed in her lap. Another photograph?
Ember secured the hatch again and gently set the frame on the shelf. Then she picked up the paper with trembling hands and examined it. It was an article. The paper was thin and brittle against her fingertips, as if printed from a machine, like in the old days. A much younger version of Dai smiled faintly from the photograph. He was perhaps her age, maybe younger, and wore a dark uniform with several pins dotting the collar, although the uniform was slightly different than the one the officer had worn today. It looked more like a jacket. He held a large rectangular piece of glass with tiny words etched into it. A string of thick black words was printed across the top, just above his head: “Lucinello Wins Intergalactic Service Award.”
Under the image was a bit of text in Common. Ember strained to read the strange words.
* * *
Mario Nicholas Lucinello, a product of the Empire’s successful flicker breeding program, was awarded the Intergalactic Military Service Award Friday night for exceptional performance in last week’s battle at Germini Minefield. In a rare speech after the award was presented, the emperor himself praised Lucinello, calling him “a priceless trophy for all those who doubt the Empire’s pledge of protection for systems within the Empire.” Lucinello declined to speak upon receiving the awar
d, indicating that he was overcome with gratitude at the cabinet’s generosity. General Kane also spoke but would not elaborate on the military hero’s next assignment. “We’re taking him all the way to the top,” Kane told reporters before the event concluded. While the meaning of the statement is unclear, many experts agree Empyrean is a strong possibility. If true, at age nineteen, Lucinello will be the youngest flicker in history to be allowed access to Empyrean. Some strategists speculate that Lucinello’s next assignments will include combat in the Archaean System—
* * *
The text ended there, torn off midsentence. Ember read the paper several times and then let it drop to the floor. Mario Nicholas Lucinello. The village knew him as Nicholae, and that was what her mother had called him. Nobody had ever questioned it. Who’d saved this clipping, and why? Perhaps Dai was proud of his accomplishments and wanted to remember his glory days in secret.
But that felt wrong. He had never acted proud of his time in the military. Maybe something had happened between the article’s publication and his arrival on Earth.
She had so many questions now. What was a flicker? What did it mean that he was the product of a breeding program? And where was Empyrean? She’d never heard of that planet before.
Ember sat there for a long time, absorbing the words. But the questions overwhelmed her, and it soon grew dark as the sun disappeared for the night. Surely the officer knew she wasn’t coming by now. Hopefully he was already gone.
She picked up her father’s food and entered his room, determined to wake him and demand answers. But he looked so peaceful and still, his breathing finally regular. She couldn’t do it.
She set his plate on the chair next to his bed where he would see it upon awakening. Then she flipped on the lantern in the corner to its lowest setting. As she left, she gave him one last look.
“The medicine will work,” she whispered. “You will get better, and we’ll move on together because I refuse to lose you, too.”