Catherine Knutsson - Shadows Cast by Stars

And for my brother?

For Paul, I would buy peace of mind and freedom from the dead, except that’s not for sale in the Corridor. That’s not for sale anywhere.

But we don’t live in the Corridor. We live here, on this farm, with its aging roof, its slumping porch, its sorry, sorry garden that I go outside to tend. Paul and my father have no talent for coaxing food from the depleted soil, so the task is left to me. I weed, I till, I plant, I nurture, and if I am lucky, the earth rewards me with a meager bounty in the fall: some squash. Apples, if the spring was warm enough for bees. Turnips, cabbage-there’s always enough of those. But not like the old days, when this land was among the richest on earth. The rivers ran so thick with fish a man could walk from one shore to the other without ever getting his feet wet, they say. Bears gorged themselves on berries until they were food-drunk. Sweet rain fell like manna from heaven.

Now our squash vines are stained with white mildew. Tomatoes won’t grow. Potatoes do, sometimes, if blight doesn’t get them first. But still, we stay. This is our land. This is home.

Our father refuses to supplement our diet with nourishment gels. Only whole food, real food for us, he says. The UA-distributed stuff will rot our guts, rot our souls.

I agree with him on that, at least.

Our father returns home after dark. The table is set, dinner made, the fire stoked even though it’s the beginning of June. The chill stays later and later each year as the earth dies her slow death.

Paul gobbles down his dinner while our father washes the ash and dirt from the plastics refinery off his body. This is a clever ploy on Paul’s part, because if he’s not here, my father can’t ask him about the swollen eye that Paul still won’t talk about.

I spoon stew onto my father’s plate and then my own, sitting down at the table, ignoring Paul’s empty spot. The stew was Paul’s idea. I wanted to make soup, which isn’t as filling but stretches the food remaining from last year’s harvest further. We argued about this earlier, and in the end, Paul won out. As my father sops up the thick, heavy stew with a piece of biscuit, I can’t help feeling that Paul was right and I was wrong. My need to be thrifty, to dole out our lives in careful measures, would have prevented my father from enjoying tonight’s dinner, and goodness knows my father can use every little bit of enjoyment he gets.

“I have good news,” my father says as he chews. “I might be up for a raise.”

“That’s great, Dad,” I whisper. I refuse to look at him. He is an unabashed romantic, my father, always holding on to hope, whistling that song about the bright side of life despite the fact that sunlight is a murderer and poison rain her accomplice.

A hand reaches out to take mine, and I resist the temptation to flinch. It’s covered with sores and burns. It couldn’t possibly belong to my father. “Maybe there’ll be enough money to take a vacation,” he says. “Just you and Paul and me. Somewhere nice. What do you think?”

“Maybe.” That’s the best response I summon up, because it’s only a matter of time until my father’s position at the plastics refinery is rendered obsolete. They don’t know he’s an Other. I’m not sure how he’s concealed it, but he has. Sooner or later someone will catch on, and my father will be entered into the UA inventory too. Either that or a machine will replace him.

It could be worse, I suppose. It could always be worse.

Later, long after my father has fallen asleep, I creep through the dark, searching for Paul. Our house was built back in the days when fertility rates were still high. It has four bedrooms. Mine is at the back, overlooking the garden. My father sleeps on the old, threadbare sofa downstairs, and Paul? Well, Paul has always been a wanderer. I never know where I’ll find him.

His voice drifts out from what was once my parents’ bedroom. “I’m in here. Put out the candle and come look at the stars.”

I take a seat beside him on the windowsill and stare at the sky, stained gray by the Corridor lights. “There isn’t much to see. Too much smoke.”

“No, look. There’s Orion’s Belt.” He points. “Mintaka, Alnilam, Alnitak.”

“Sure, I see them.” But I don’t-not really.

But then the clouds shift and a few stars appear, along with the half-full moon. Her thin light illuminates Paul’s face. Our faces share the same sharp planes, Paul and me. Both of us have hair the color of dark honey. Our teeth are white and straight, a reminder of what our father has sacrificed for us. Our father’s teeth are brown around the edges now, and sometimes I see him spitting blood.

“Dad’s talking about a raise again,” I say.

“About time.”

“You know he won’t get it.”

Paul turns. His eyes are dark and I see a raven’s wing drift through them. “You would have to say something like that.”

“Someone’s got to be the voice of reason in this family.”

“Naysayer, you mean.”

“Truthsayer.” I toy with the hem of my nightgown and shiver, suddenly cold. “But no one ever listens.” I don’t want to leave my brother here alone, but unlike him, I’m no good without sleep. So I rise and creep to the door, but when I turn to say good night, Paul’s already forgotten about me. His eyes are fixed on the night sky. His head is tipped to one side, as if he’s listening to something only he can hear, and I wonder-not for the first time-if the stars talk to Paul. He’s never mentioned it. I’ve never asked, but what I do know is that when my brother’s like this, deep in communion with something I’ll never hear or see, I worry for him-even more than when I see his raven, because when Paul enters that world, he does so alone.

And one day I fear he might not come back.

M orning is my least favorite time of day. Even in June, the air outside my bed is cold and damp. I rush to dress, rush to wash, rush downstairs to make breakfast for Paul and me.

This morning my brother is nowhere to be seen.

“Paul! We’re going to be late!” I call up the stairs as I scramble about, stuffing leathery apples into lunch bags-paper, not plastic. My father doesn’t allow plastic in the house.

Eventually Paul wanders down the stairs. His hair is a mess and his eyes remind me of thunderclouds. He’s still in his pajamas. “We’re not going,” he says.

Paul never wants to go to school. He’s always made excuses, ever since he was a little boy-the school smells, it’s too hot, he has a stomachache, he doesn’t learn anything anyhow. Over and over again, and I’m the one who ends up having to tell my father. “Do we have to do this again? Really? Do we?”

“So don’t, then.” He slumps in his chair and stabs his spoon into his porridge.

It’s a flippant answer, one that would normally set off an argument between us, but today it doesn’t. Today it twists my stomach into a knot. There’s a reason Paul doesn’t want to go, a reason that extends beyond his black eye or the bullying from the other kids or just plain not liking school. “Tell me why,” I say. “What is it?”

“Your hair is falling out of your braid.”

“Don’t change the subject.” I touch the back of my head anyhow and sure enough, a strand of hair drifts free.

“Told you.”

“You’re still changing the subject.” I rip the hair band from my braid and start to retwist it, but Paul takes it from my hands.

His long fingers weave themselves into my hair, dividing it into three new strands. “I had a vision,” he says.

I bite my lip. He’s done this deliberately, trapping me like this so I can’t whirl around and glare at him. We both get visions, Paul and I, but Paul’s are different than mine. Mine are like dreams, surreal, strange. Sometimes, when they come while I’m awake, they show me the stories of people’s lives, whether I want to watch or not. But Paul’s? They’re like prophecies, terrible and violent and brutal. They leave him broken in their aftermath. “When? Of what?”