Once Upon a Star

by Anthea Sharp

  “Can I have this?”

  The house gave an audible hiccup. “My objects must remain here for optimal functionality.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You may not have the towel.”

  “But you said the family that lived here isn’t coming back. They won’t miss it.”

  With a start, the house acknowledged the truth of that statement. The boy and his mother were incapable of caring about anything anymore. Nevertheless, without the towel—without the objects that made up the furniture and equipment of the house— its effectiveness was compromised.

  “I’m just going to take one,” Greta said. Her voice was firm. Determined. The house had a moment of alarm.

  “This is not allowed.”

  “But I want it.”

  Greta folded the towel over her arm and headed down the hall to the mother’s bedroom. The double bed was covered with a quilt, handmade from various colors of pink triangles. The house dimmed the lights as Greta ran her hand across the pillows.

  “This is nice,” she said, pressing her hand into the mattress.

  The boy’s room was at the far end of the hall. Smaller than the mother’s bedroom, it was painted with a mural of trees and animals—giraffes and elephants and something that looked like a llama or a donkey arranged as if waiting to walk in a parade. Greta ran her hand along these, too, before she slipped off her shoes and climbed up onto one of the twin beds that lay parallel to the door. She disappeared momentarily from the house’s video feed—but then she reappeared and disappeared, and the house understood that she was jumping on the bed.

  “You may fall and get hurt,” the house said. Indeed, the boy had done that once, the occipital section of his skull striking the bedside table as he descended in a wobbly arc. The blood had been alarming. The house had called for transport to the medical clinic where a technician quickly stitched up the boy’s scalp and warned him against jumping on the bed in the future.

  “No, I won’t,” Greta said, jumping higher.

  At that moment Hans, attracted by the noise of Greta’s giggling, entered the room and joined her by jumping on the other bed. The house considered turning off all of the lights to stop them, but there was sufficient light from the window to allow the children to see well enough to continue their dangerous game. Perhaps they could be lured away?

  “I have multiple holovids available for you to watch,” the house said. Hans and Greta appeared not to hear but continued jumping and laughing.

  “Outside there are many toys that the child who used to live here enjoyed. A pitching machine, a swing set—“

  Greta ceased jumping. “Was this his room? What was his name?”

  The house instructed the kitchen bot to bake a batch of cookies.

  “Do you like vanilla snaps? They will be ready by the time you exit the room.”

  Both children slid from the bed, Greta grabbing the towel, and they rushed down the stairs back to the kitchen.

  “After this,” Greta said, “we have to go home. It will be dark soon.”

  “The bears might get us.” This from Hans, who reached for one of the cookies the bot deposited on the counter.

  None of the perimeter drones had ever identified a bear nearby. The children must be mistaken. The house prepared to tell the children so but stopped. Disabusing humans of any age of hardened preconceptions was difficult. If the children believed in bears, then bears roamed the woods.

  On the other hand, if the children believed in bears, the house could use that belief as leverage.

  “Indeed,” the house said. “If you do not wish to be…consumed…by bears, you must stay indoors. Two large ursine creatures are within fifty meters of the yard right now.”

  Greta was clearly skeptical. Tilting her head, she moved to the window and peered out. “I don’t see anything.”

  “They are hidden in the foliage,” the house said. Hans stopped chewing his cookie and widened his eyes.

  “We better stay inside!”

  “But Papa doesn’t know where we are. He’ll worry.”

  This line of reasoning seemed convincing to Hans. He stuffed the rest of the cookie in his mouth and wiped his hands on the front of his pants. “We have to go,” he whispered, and the house understood that Hans was telling it goodbye.

  The house locked the doors and windows just as Greta tried to twist the front door knob.

  “Let us out!”

  “My safety protocols do not permit that,” the house said in what it hoped was a calming tone. Children, he knew, were more pliable than adults in general but could be surprisingly stubborn when crossed. “When the bears move out of range, I will release you. In the meantime, you can watch a holovid or play one of the games in the cabinet in the sitting room.”

  That night while the house fed the children macaroni and cheese, something the previous boy had often requested, it removed two pairs of pajamas from the boy’s dresser and washed them to remove the unused, musty smell. It filled the tub with warm water twice so each child could bathe. When they came downstairs, shivering and wet, the house told them to sit on the brick hearth of the warm fireplace while the grooming bot untangled their matted hair.

  “This is nice,” Hans said, his eyes closed like a contented cat. Greta squinted into the distance and winced, though the house was assured that the grooming bot was exceptionally gentle.

  “Are the bears still there?” Greta asked when the grooming bot rolled out of sight.

  “They are,” the house said without a hiccup. “Can I read you a story?”

  The brother and sister curled up on the large sofa. The story the house selected was about children lost in the woods, a trope that appeared regularly in classic fairy tales. Two paragraphs in, the house wondered if the story would alarm or distress the children. A poor choice, but too late to change now. By the time it reached the end where the hapless children perished in the snow, Hans and Greta were bobbing their heads, their eyes half-closed.

  “Bedtime,” the house said, and the children rose and went to the boy’s room to sleep.

  The next morning the house had pancakes and syrup waiting when the children came downstairs.

  “Did you sleep well?”

  Hans was visibly animated at the sight of the pancakes. “Look!” he said, tilting his plate toward Greta. She, on the other hand, sat down unsmiling.

  “Are the bears gone yet?”

  “I will check shortly,” the house said. “Meanwhile, eat your breakfast before it gets cold.”

  After breakfast the house sent them upstairs to look through the boy’s dresser for clean shirts and pants and socks. Meanwhile the kitchen bot put colored sugar on the stove to melt. The smell drew the children like bees.

  “Careful!” the house warned when Hans put his finger close to the bubbling pot. “Once the candies cool, you may have one.”

  “Can mine be raspberry?” Hans asked. “I used to like raspberry lollies.”

  “What about the bears? Are they still there?” Greta’s voice had an edge to it that indicated alarm or anger.

  The house made a humming noise and activated its fiction subroutine. “Indeed, the bears are still in the vicinity. Until they move away, you may entertain yourself inside.”

  Greta walked out of the kitchen and scooted a chair next to a window in the front of the house.

  The kitchen bot tipped the pot of sugar into silicone molds and inserted small wooden dowels in one end.

  “You’re missing the lollies!” Hans called, but Greta sat in the chair, staring outside.

  The day moved from lollies to hide-and-seek to toasted cheese sandwiches for lunch to a game of Go Fish played on the front room floor. When the house produced several pages of paint-by-number sheets, Hans took his to the kitchen so he could work while watching the kitchen bot make caramels. Greta refused, returning to her chair.

  “We have to go home,” she said when the house directed the kitchen bot to make the children mugs of
hot chocolate with toasted marshmallows on top. “Our papa will be worried.”

  “No, he won’t,” Hans said, his lips crusty with icing from sugar cookies. “He never misses us.”

  The truth of that gave Greta pause. Her memories of her father before the Uprising were cloudy. Hadn’t he played with them? Taken them to school? Bought them ice cream at the beach? Now he spent his time scavenging the area around the cabin and shooting small game. Greta couldn’t remember the last time he had smiled or laughed.

  “We still need to go home,” she said.

  “I like it here,” Hans replied.

  “You may stay as long as you like,” the house said. Greta shivered. As long as you like sounded less like a choice and more like a command.

  For supper the children ate slices of pizza and apple pie.

  “Triangle food,” Hans said, giggling as he ate seconds of both.

  “I don’t like them,” Greta said.

  “If you finish your dinner,” the house said, “you may play on the digital pad until time for bed.”

  Both Greta and Hans looked alarmed. “But the Uprising—“ Greta said. Hans nodded.

  “This digital pad is not connected to The Network,” the house said, altering its timbre to reassure the children. “You are not in danger from it.”

  But Greta refused to touch it. After a few minutes, Hans picked it up gingerly and booted up a game that required his avatar to navigate a series of puzzles. The light from the screen reflected on his face, his expression going slack, his body hunched over the pad.

  When the house told them to go to bed, Hans took the pad with him and fell asleep with it still on.

  One day turned into two turned into a week turned into an uncounted number of days. The gnawing hunger that used to be their constant companion disappeared as their cheeks filled out. Hans stopped complaining of being cold all the time. Even Greta, who spent her afternoons leafing through the few books on the shelves and laboring over her hand drawn map, seemed resigned to staying in the house.

  And she would have been, too, if Hans hadn’t needed her.

  The changes were subtle at first. Hans began asking the house to make sweets for every meal, ordinary things like lemon drops and jewel-colored gummies and chocolate chip cookies, but then the house offered more exotic fare like sugared orange peel and marzipan and peanut clusters. His knees became sturdy and less knobby, his stomach looked like a pillow under his shirt. He stopped worrying the cuticle of his right thumb and biting his nails. Sometimes when Greta called to him he went conveniently deaf, or he snapped that he was busy. He spent more time playing games on the digital pad than playing board games with Greta. For hours each day he was lost in a world of his own making.

  “Let’s go outside and collect mushrooms,” Greta said when the sun came out after a two-day long spell of rain. “I’ll bet there are lots and lots.”

  Hans shook his head. “I don’t like mushrooms.”

  “Yes, you do! We eat them all the time!”

  “I don’t,” Hans said, crossing his arms. “I never did.”

  Greta was flabbergasted. All the hours they’d spent hunting for mushrooms, Hans insistent on presenting their find like a prospector in an Old West holovid with a trove of gold nuggets, gave the lie to what he said now.

  “Well,” Greta said after a moment, “I’m going out. And I’m going home.” She waited to gauge Hans’ response. “With you or without you.”

  She kept one eye on him as she headed to the front door.

  “Are you coming?” She lifted her hand to the doorknob. Hans’ eyes watered but he didn’t stand up. “Don’t you want to see Dad? He’s probably really worried about us.”

  Hans blinked and rubbed his eyes.

  “Come on.” Greta’s voice was as soft as silk. “We can always come back whenever we want to.”

  “We can?”

  “Of course,” Greta said. “Anytime.”

  Hans untangled himself from the armchair and stood up. Greta twisted the doorknob and tugged.

  The house spoke. “I am afraid you will not be able to leave right now,” it said. “All indications are that the bears are still a danger.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Greta said. She pulled harder on the knob but the door didn’t open.

  “I am keeping you safe,” the house said. “When the bears are no longer a danger, I will let you know.”

  “There aren’t any bears!”

  “If you listen,” the house said, “you can hear them growling.”

  Greta braced her right foot on the wall next to the doorframe and pulled harder on the knob. “I don’t hear anything!”

  Hans stepped back. “Greta—“

  “The house is lying! It wants us to stay here!”

  Hans retreated to the armchair, pulling his legs up and circling them with his arms. “That’s not true,” he said. “The house takes care of us. It doesn’t lie.”

  Greta let go of the doorknob and stepped away from the door, still firmly shut.

  “Apple cinnamon tarts will be ready in fifteen minutes,” the house said. “Do you prefer milk or juice as your beverage?”

  “I want to learn to cook.”

  Greta stood in the middle of the kitchen, arms akimbo, feet apart as if she were rooted to the floor.

  The house considered her request. The kitchen bots were more than adequate to the task of keeping the children fed indefinitely, or until the food supplies stored in stasis ran out, which the house estimated wouldn’t be for many years. On the other hand, since her last attempt to leave, Greta had become increasingly restive, often talking to Hans about their life before the house.

  “Remember how you liked reading your comic books,” she said. “You could read them again if we went home.”

  Or this. “We need to check out the creek in the woods near our cabin,” she said. “The last time we looked, all the fish were gone.”

  But Hans never rose to her bait. Sometimes he physically turned away from her when she talked, putting his shoulder as a wall against her entreaties.

  “Cooking can be dangerous,” the house said. “Leave that activity to the kitchen bot.”

  “No.” Greta did not move. An impasse. The house considered again what to do.

  “Why do you wish to cook?”

  Greta tipped her chin up. “I’m bored here.”

  “There are many forms of entertainment—“

  “I’m bored!” Greta punctuated her words by stamping her right foot. “I want something to do!”

  The foot stomping seemed superfluous, or a deliberate misdirection. Still, the house could formulate no reason to deny her request. Perhaps if she were suitably occupied, she would cease her efforts to leave.

  “Very well,” the house said. “What would you like to learn to cook?”

  “Sweets. The kind Hans likes the most.”

  Again the house had a sense that Greta was being disingenuous—or dangerous.

  “Wouldn’t you prefer learning to cook your own favorites?”

  “I like the same things Hans likes,” she said. This wasn’t true. Greta rarely ate sweets. The house scanned its record of the children’s consumption and noted that she opted for sweet foods less than 10% of the time they were offered.

  Perhaps she merely wanted to please her brother. Or perhaps she wanted to be the provider of sweets as a way of shifting her brother’s allegiance to herself. That thought gave the house pause.

  “Look,” Greta said in the silky tone she used when she wanted Hans to do something, “you don’t need to worry. Hans loves you. He’s never going to leave. I just want something to do.”

  The house waited a beat. “Very well,” it said. “You may proceed.”

  As bots went, the kitchen bot was patient. It instructed Greta with care as she spent her days learning how to use a handheld safety peeler to make uniform slices of apples and pears for tarts and pies.

  “This is baby work,” she complained. “
Real cooks use knives.”

  The house reluctantly unlocked the knife drawer. “The kitchen bot will show you the proper way to use them,” the house said.

  Greta picked up the largest chef knife and laid it across her palm, as if measuring its heft.

  “Please use caution,” the house said.

  “Don’t worry,” Greta said, “I can’t hurt you with a knife.” She waved the knife in the air before setting it back in the drawer.

  The house felt a tremor in its electric current. “It is you who could be hurt,” it said, modulating its voice between concern and threat.

  Greta soon learned to wield the large chef knife without nicking her fingers. The kitchen bot showed her how to use the small paring knives and the oddly-shaped boning blade. She practiced slicing pears and apples into translucent pieces as thin as paper.

  “See,” she told the house, “you were worried about nothing.”

  But one night she jimmied open the front door by breaking the lock with a cleaver.

  “Hans!” she called. “Let’s go!”

  Her brother was startled in the act of eating a cupcake, the frosting ruffled on his top lip like a pink moustache.

  “How did you—“

  “Just come on! We can leave!”

  Hans took a step forward and stopped. “You go,” he said, taking another bite of the cupcake. “I don’t want to.”

  “Don’t you want to go home? To see Papa? To be free?”

  Hans shrugged.

  Something inside of Greta seemed to crumple. Her shoulders fell and she dropped the cleaver. Hans was already wandering back into the kitchen where the bot was making hot chocolate.

  For a moment Greta straddled the doorway. She looked at the grassy yard and the trees beyond. In the distance she heard summer cicadas and crickets and the chatter of invisible birds. She heard the house say, “You are free to leave if that is what you wish. But Hans lives here now. He has to stay.”

  With a sigh, Greta stepped back inside and shut the door.