Phoebe North: Starglass

So I picked up Pepper, clutched him to my chest, and retreated to my room. When I stepped inside, I pressed the door closed behind me. I stood there for a moment, still as stone, waiting to hear my heart beat out its rhythm in the dark, a reminder, however small, that on the night my mother died, I still lived.

I leaned my weight against a maple bough and watched as the ceiling panels overhead went dark.

I was on the second deck. Up on the main deck, beneath the dome’s glass ceiling, I would have been able to see the stars as the artificial lights dimmed. But here, between the forests and the grain storage, there were no stars. The squares of sky were turning purple and would soon go utterly black. I’d have to stumble blindly through the forests to make my way to the lift and then home. That was all right with me, though. I’d never been afraid of the dark.

I sat with one leg on either side of a knotty branch, balancing my sketchbook between my knees. I had to make quick work with my pencils to capture what stretched out before me, the shape of the branches that crowded the second-deck walkways and the vines that shadowed the path. Below, people hurried along on their way home from the labs. They wore white coats that glowed in the twilight. They were scientists—specialists like my father, wearing blue cords on their shoulders and grim expressions. I knew I had little time to spare.

Momma had given me the pencils years ago. I hadn’t cared much for them at first, but lately they’d become a comfort. On nights that were too dark and too awful, I’d draw, letting my mind go blank and my hands do the thinking for me. Usually it soothed me. But not on this night.

I penciled in another tree, crosshatching the shadows that now grew short in the twilight. As I cocked my head to the side, considering the way the branches bent in the wind, I tried not to think about what was waiting for me in the morning. My job assignment. My real life. The end of school and free time to spend whittling down my evenings in the forest. I was nearly sixteen, and it was time to be serious, as my father always reminded me. At the thought of his deep voice, I clutched my pencil harder, overlaying violet in dark strokes across the top of the page.

Perhaps I’d gripped the pencil a little too hard. It snapped in two in my fist, and I watched as the pointed end fell through the branches. With a sigh I tucked the other half behind my ear and then began the long climb down. I gripped the boughs in my hand, swinging my weight. It felt awkward, but then I always felt awkward lately, all knees and elbows since I’d had my last growth spurt. Abba hadn’t been happy about that. Such a waste of gelt to buy me clothes I’d surely outgrow again .

The pencil was nestled in a crook in a lower branch. I crouched low, steadying my back against the trunk. That’s when something in the gnarled bark caught my eye.

Words. Words carved in deep and then healed over. That alone wasn’t unusual—what tree in the atrium didn’t bear the initials of some young couple who had declared their love hundreds of years before? But these words were different. There wasn’t any heart looping around them. No arrow sliced through either. They were a little hard to make out in the fading daylight, but I ran my fingers over the rough bark, reading them with my fingertips.

Liberty on Earth. Liberty on Zehava.

I frowned. We were only months away from reaching the winter planet. The Council had been preparing us in their usual, regimented way. This year they’d said there would be more specialists among the graduating class. More biologists to wake burden beasts from cold storage. More cartographers, like my sister-in-law, Hannah, who would draw maps and find us a suitable place to live. More shuttle pilots too, to rouse the rusty vehicles that waited in the shuttle bay. The other girls whispered that it didn’t matter what the results were on our aptitude exams. It didn’t matter if we studied, or flirted with the counselors. The Council would make good use of us in preparation for landing, whether we liked it or not.

Liberty.

I heard loping footsteps on the path below. At the sound—heavy, uneven—I stiffened. I knew those footsteps. I’d grown up with them echoing on our stairwell and thundering in the bedroom down the hall. I scrambled for an overhead branch and then settled into the shadows cast by the budding leaves. Maybe if I sat back, with my sketchbook clutched to my chest and my breath shallow, he wouldn’t notice me.

I watched as my father’s bald head passed below my feet. He’d stopped just under my tree, one thick hand resting against the bark.

Walk on. Walk on , I thought. The pubs were still open in the commerce district. He had every reason to continue on his journey home, every reason to head for the lift. Just keep going.

I squeezed my eyes shut, unable to look. That’s when I felt his hand close around the heel of my boot.

I was tall—the tallest girl in my class. But my father was still taller than me, bigger and stronger. His arms were lean and strong from years of ringing bells. He moved up through the branches like it was nothing, gripping my calf and pulling it hard. I knew that I should have just climbed down, keeping my chin against my chest and my gaze contritely away. But anger rushed through my body. It overwhelmed my good sense, like it always did.

“Terra, get down!”

“Leave me alone!”

He balanced on the branch now, his eyes level with mine. They were clear and brown, sober. And they fixed on my sketchbook.

“This again?” he asked, tearing it from my arms. “I told you not to waste your time with this.”

He cast it at the forest floor below. It drifted down like a handful of autumn leaves. The colors scattered in the twilight.

This was why I never drew at home.

I scrambled down after it, plucking it out of the mud. The pages were rumpled. One or two drawings of flowers had gone soggy in the rainwater. But it wasn’t too bad. Still, my father gazed at me, a victorious smile smoothing his lips. He was so self-satisfied. It made me want to scream at him. My temper was a white-hot ball, sticky in my chest.

“Is everything all right here?”

We turned. A guard had stopped on the path, all dressed up in her woolen uniform blacks. The red rank cord stood out on her shoulder, twisted with Council gold. Her hand rested on the hilt of her blade as if to warn us.

My father came to stand beside me. He put his hand on my shoulder, giving it a clean thump. It was meant to be a friendly gesture. He was telling the guard that everything was normal, that we were normal. But I stayed frozen, my gaze blank. I couldn’t even make myself force a smile.

“Everything is fine,” my father said. “My daughter, Terra, receives her vocation tomorrow. She was worried about her assignment. Weren’t you?”

“Worried” wasn’t the right word. When it came to my assignment, I was resigned to whatever fate the Council doled out. But I spat the word out anyway. “Yes,” I said.

The guard’s eyes, small and close set, narrowed on me. “Every job is useful if we’re to achieve tikkun olam .”

“That’s what I told her,” my father lied. I cast my gaze down. My cheeks burned with anger. I could feel how happy this conversation made my father—how noble he was feeling, how righteous. He loved any opportunity to spout Council rhetoric. He thought it made him a good citizen, no matter how many nights he lost to the bottle.

“You’d better move along,” the guard finally said. “I’m sure your girl needs her rest for tomorrow.”