First Light

by Rebecca Stead

  Lana continued. “I'm sure Lucian has the letter somewhere among his heaps—I saw it once, years ago, during my primary studies. I copied this line down and have kept it all this time. Something about it touched me, this man's childlike belief that he had found something magical—a land of continual day.”

  “But there's no such thing,” said Thea.

  Lana smiled. “You're right. There isn't. What I think, Thea, is that I was determined to create a kind of continual day, for you. A false light.” She shook her head slowly. “All of us tried to do that, I think, in our own ways. Except Dexna, of course.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Thea.

  “Dexna's silence is a protest, one that's lasted almost fourteen years now. It's her way of remembering your mother. And her way of reminding others.”

  Lana reached out and wrapped one hand around Thea's forearm. “What happened was almost too much for me to bear. I told myself that you would be happier without the knowledge of such a bitter past, such …darkness. But I see now that I was doing it for myself. It made my life so much easier, you see, to act as if none of it had happened. It made life possible for me.”

  Thea nodded, her throat closed up painfully. Seeing tears in Lana's eyes, she could feel her own starting again.

  “I told myself I was protecting you,” Lana said, “but I was teaching you lies, and doing it to comfort myself. I can't tell you how sorry I am, because you bear such a burden, you had to grow up without a mother, and you deserved to be raised in truth.”

  Thea began crying hard then, but found her voice somehow. “I didn't, Lana. I didn't grow up without a mother!”

  Then they were both weeping, Lana with her arms wrapped around Thea, who was still clutching the worn scrap in her hand. Neither of them moved when the pot began to boil on the fire.

  Lana had persuaded Thea to rest awhile before supper. She had stripped to her tunic and leggings and was rearranging her bedclothes when she heard the dock-door bell. It must be Dolan arriving with Peg! Thea ran into the greatroom just as Lana swung the door open.

  Then Thea heard something she had never heard before: Lana screamed.

  Her aunt fell to her knees, and Thea saw a woman in the doorway.

  Though his eyes were closed, Peter was slowly becoming aware of a light. He didn't move at first, but tried to feel around his brain to see if he could figure out where he was or what had happened. He remembered seeing the ice wall in the distance, and lying down in the snow.

  “He's waking,” a voice said.

  Peter knew the voice. From where? Where was he? He wanted to open his eyes, but was strangely unsure how to go about it. Why couldn't he think?

  His brain seized on a sound: a low thrumming.

  The sound of Thea's place.

  The next thing that came to him: someone was holding his hand.

  He started to turn his head, to open his eyes.

  “Not yet.” The voice was sharp. “Let me adjust the light.”

  It was the woman who had met him and Thea at the bottom of the tunnel. The woman with the bracelets.

  “All right, try to open your eyes. Slowly.”

  Peter's eyelids felt heavy, as if a hand were pressing down on them. He raised them carefully. He could make out very little—two lights burning fuzzily near the foot of the bed, a couple of figures standing behind them.

  Someone was squeezing his hand. He turned his head. Thea?

  But the person next to him, her face streaming with tears, was his mother.

  “You had me scared, Peter,” she said. “As scared as I've ever been.”

  There was a snort from behind her. “You were scared? Imagine what you put the boy through, Aurora—no warning whatsoever, no guidance …”

  Peter found his voice. “How did we get here? How do you know about this place?”

  His mother raised Peter's hand to her face and kissed it.

  “I was born here, Peter. Gracehope was my home.”

  Some things never change, Thea thought, and for once she was grateful.

  Life was new in ways beyond imagining: Aurora had reappeared as if summoned by Thea's knowledge of her. Peter was Aurora's son, Thea's own cousin.

  Dexna had hidden them both at the archive and warned that no one could know they were here. Dexna said “no one” in a way that was frightening.

  But the Chikchu still whelped in the middle of the night. Dolan had summoned Thea by messenger just a few hours after Aurora appeared at Lana's dock door. Thenext morning, she was still at the breeding grounds. She rubbed her stiff neck. She hadn't even seen Mattias yet.

  Thea had been ready to go home when Dexna appeared at the breeding grounds with Peg, Ham, and Sasha, and announced that Peter's dog would have to be hidden somewhere. Then she took Dolan away with her, leaving Thea to clean up the mess from the whelping. When she was done with that, Thea realized that Cassie needed clean bedding as well. And then the dogs in the main house were hungry again. Finally, she had dozed off in a clean pile of straw. She sighed. No wonder Dolan slept here so often. He probably didn't have the energy to get himself home.

  Thea carefully lifted each pup from Cassie's whelping box, checking it over before replacing it next to its mother. They had become a playful bunch, rolling around and nipping at one another until Cassie had had enough and gotten up to take a walk. She examined the runt last, cupping the wriggling thing in one hand while he groped blindly for his mother. She told herself it wasn't time to worry yet. A sevennight, Dolan had said. They had six more days to hope.

  She sat with Peg for a few minutes and looked at Ham and Sasha, who were stretched out next to each other at her feet. Peg put her face in Thea's lap and closed her eyes. The thought of joining her in a nap was tempting.

  But she had to see Mattias. And Peter, and Aurora. She forced herself up and started home.

  Thea opened her door to find Lana's greatroom table covered with dishes of food. Sela and Lana were at the counter mixing a pitcher of tea. Thea stooped to flip up her skate blades. If Rowen is here, she told herself, I'm leaving.

  Mattias! He sat on a bench near Lana's worktable with his back against the wall, looking tired and holding a red drink. Thea ran to embrace him, nearly knocking the cup from his hand.

  “Careful!” Lana called. “There are more rushberries in that drink than I had rations for.” She held an identical cup out to Thea.

  Thea took the drink carefully. It was delicious, tart and sweet. Mattias was grinning up at her now, and patting the bench beside him. “This is my second one,” he said quietly. “I should nearly freeze to death more often.”

  “Don't,#x201D; Thea said, leaning hard against him.

  A moment later, the dock door opened and Dexna stepped through it. “It is time for us to make some decisions,” she announced.

  Thea looked at Mattias next to her. “No ‘good morning’?” she whispered.

  “She takes getting used to.”

  Sela waved Thea and Mattias to the long table. “Losh,Mother,” Sela said, piling riceflats onto their plates, “so much has happened. What sort of decisions did you have in mind?”

  Dexna gave Sela a steely look. “Different decisions. With hope, better ones.”

  Lana walked around the table filling glasses from a water pitcher. She gave Thea's shoulder a squeeze as she passed.

  “My mother's first mistake was trusting Rowen,” Thea said. She waited for someone to tell her she shouldn't be talking this way. But everyone was silent. “And her second mistake was keeping the tunnel a secret. People have a right to know.”

  “Many won't like the idea of it,” Sela said. “A way out is the same as a way in. It will make some feel vulnerable.”

  Mattias nodded. “Exposed.”

  Dexna leaned forward. “That's why we must tell everyone about the passage before Rowen can make them fear it. They must see it as a sign of hope, of a future.”

  Thea spoke before thinking: “The legend pup!”

  Sel
a squealed and grabbed Thea's arm. “The legend pup. Brilliant. I have chills! The legend pup along with the discovery of the passage is as good as Grace herself explaining what she meant all along.”

  Thea wished she hadn't spoken so quickly. She heard Dolan's warning voice in her head: A sevennight. Whatwould people make of a blind legend pup? She wasn't sure she liked the omen herself.

  “Should we call a citizens' meeting?” Thea asked.

  “Absolutely not!” Dexna shook her head. “Rowen will immediately guess why, destroy the passage, and make herself a hero for doing so. She must suspect nothing.”

  “There's a council meeting in a fortnight,” Thea said.

  “Too long to wait,” said Dexna.

  Lana spoke for the first time. “Are you all forgetting that tomorrow is Launch?”

  No one said anything.

  “Everyone will be there,” Lana said. “Is there any other choice?”

  “We are decided,” said Dexna.

  Sela cleared the table. “Dolan knows about all of this, doesn't he?” Thea asked her. “He doesn't talk about it.”

  Sela was on her way to the basin with a stack of dirty plates. “He knows, sweet. But Dolan just wants to be where the dogs are. You know that.”

  “And on the subject of dogs,” Dexna said to Thea in a low voice when they were alone at the table. “Let's see what you can do about that runt of yours who won't open his eyes. And if there is nothing you can do, it would be better not to speak of him again.”

  Peter woke. His right hand flexed, but his mother wasn't there holding on to him as she had been for the last … how many hours? He had no idea.

  His headache was nothing more than a quiet droning now, a fire engine that had shrieked its way down Sixth Avenue, almost gone. His head felt light on the pillow.

  But it wasn't a pillow, exactly. He probed the thing under his head with one hand. It was more like a cloth bag full of plants. And it smelled like plants—something like the tea his mother had to have every morning before she could put three words together. Where was she, anyway?

  Warm, he kicked off the thick blanket. He was wearing clothes that didn't belong to him. They were pale blue, thin and clingy, something like long johns. Pajamas? He ran one hand through his hair.

  The room was dim, but he could make out stacks of books and papers on the floor. The chair next to his bed held the sketch his mom had shown him the night before: her twin sister, the one who died before he was born. Thea's mother.

  Orange light spilled in through an open archway, but Peter heard nothing from the other side of it. Was he alone? He got up, frowning at his thick socks—also baby blue—and picked his way through the piles toward the light. He looked into a room full of books, benches, and tables.

  Dexna glanced up from a book. “Better now?”

  “Yes, I think so.” There was a long counter against one wall. A covered pot sat on the counter next to a basket of bread. He was hungry. Very.

  “About time,” Dexna said, following his gaze. “I was beginning to wonder whether your mother would spend another evening spooning broth into you.”

  Peter blushed.

  “Help yourself. I've set out a bowl for you.”

  On the counter he found a bowl and a spoon, along with a cloth napkin.

  The bowl was heavier than he expected. He held it upto the lamp that hung from a peg on the wall. A lightglobe, Thea had called it in the tunnel. He turned the bowl with one hand. It was translucent.

  “It's ice,” Dexna said from her bench.

  “Ice?” Peter lowered the bowl to the counter. “But it's—”

  “Not cold?” She looked at him. “That's because it's sealed ice—ice made permanent, almost like rock.”

  It did feel like ice, Peter thought, if ice could be imagined dry and warm. He looked at the spoon on the counter. Same stuff. “I'd like to see that sometime,” he said, peering into the pot. Some sort of soup. It smelled fishy.

  Dexna grunted. “It's not very interesting—much like watching someone paint a fence. Sealant is an acid; it burns. And it's smelly.”

  “Who discovered it?” Peter served himself from the pot.

  “Our founder, Grace, did. She was a particular sort of genius.”

  “Did she invent the lights, too?” Peter gestured to the lightglobe.

  Dexna nodded. “For the light you can thank Grace and the fireflies that taught her.”

  So that's why the light was green, Peter thought.

  “Do you guys have telephones?” He sat down and began to eat.

  Dexna smiled. “No. What do telephones do?”

  “They're machines that let people talk to each other, from far away.”

  Dexna looked interested. “Is that so? Well, here we have messengers.” She smiled. “Do you skate?”

  Peter nodded. “My mom and I go all the time, in the winter.” He stopped. His mother was an amazing skater. A lot of things like that were beginning to fall into place.

  He took a piece of bread from the counter. It was nearly a rock.

  “Yesterday's bake,” Dexna said unapologetically. “Try dipping it into your soup.”

  He pushed the bread into his soup. Much better. He began to eat. It was pretty good, like French onion soup, with fish.

  “Do you think I could borrow some skates?”

  Dexna looked surprised. “I'll find a pair of skates for you. But you won't be able to use them just yet.”

  “Why not? I feel fine.” His headache had disappeared.

  “That is not the issue. It cannot be known that you are here. Not yet.”

  So he still wasn't supposed to be here. “Do you know where my mother is?”

  “Yes,” Dexna said. “And I promised that I would take you to her.”

  “Can we go now?”

  Dexna tossed him a fur. She took one from a peg for herself, and Peter watched closely as her fingers flew over a series of ties. He did his best to copy her, but had trouble with the strings on his coat. It was different from the one Thea had lent him. He looked more closely. It almost seemed like—

  “Yes, the fur is Chikchu,” Dexna said gruffly. “We haven't any choice. But each of them lives a long life, and dies naturally. And we wear the fur with respect.”

  Peter tried not to think about it. There were also worn brown boots to put on. Now that he was dressed, the heat of the little room was stifling.

  Dexna pointed to the bench by the door. “Sit while I get the dogs harnessed.”

  “I can help—”

  “No. Stay out of sight. I'll be back soon.”

  Peter sat on the bench, sweating, until Dexna came back and waved him through another room—more benches and tables, still hot—to a beat-up wooden door set neatly into a blue wall of ice. The door looked ancient-he ran one hand over it.

  “Wood,” Dexna said, looking proud. “From the whaling ship that brought our people here from England.”

  “Did they land here by accident?” Peter asked. His father had told him that sometimes people were stranded in Greenland when their boats broke up on the ice.

  “Of course not. They planned to come here. They were running for their lives!” Dexna shook her head. “I apologize. It isn't your fault you know nothing of it.”

  Whose fault was it, Peter wondered as she swung the door open. He looked to see how it worked—hinges. No mystery there.

  Just as he was about to get his first gulp of cool air, Dexna reached out and pulled his hood over his head. She looked up and down the icy path and pointed to the floor of the sleigh in front of them. It was wood, too, even more worn than the door.

  “Lie down, please.”

  Peter was facedown in the sleigh with Dexna's feet on either side of his shoulders, a woven blanket draped over him. Through the slats of the sleigh he watched the grainy ice speeding by beneath them. He tried to push himself up on his elbows but felt Dexna's foot between his shoulder blades.

  “My apologies,” she said quietly.
“We are nearly to the Mainway crossing.”

  He put his head down again and felt Dexna rearrange the blanket. A few moments later they stopped, and then lurched forward again.

  When they had ridden for a while, Dexna began to speak.

  “Our people were English,” she said quietly, “alwaysclose to the land and its ways. They knew how to grow things, and how to raise healthy animals. And some of them had … gifts. For this they were hunted by ignorant folk who accused them of witchcraft. They were nearly extinguished. Those who survived came here, where they might live in peace.”

  “Are you—I mean we …” He couldn't quite bring himself to finish the question. It was ridiculous enough trying to talk from underneath a blanket.

  “Witches?” Dexna laughed as if she liked the sound of that. “Of course not. But our gifts were noticed—the ability to hear beyond the normal range is most common, and there are other things, uncommon intelligence, like Grace's. Or exceptional sight, like yours.”

  So she knew. “How did you—”

  “I knew the minute I saw the blacks of your eyes, shrunk to almost nothing. That, and the fact that you fainted. Fainting is said to be typical.”

  The sleigh stopped, and Dexna lifted the blanket from Peter's head. It was a relief. He raised his head cautiously and saw that they had stopped at a dead end—the path ended in two wide wooden doors.

  “The records say that eye adepts had the hardest time during emergence,” Dexna said, “and males especially so. But I think the worst of yours is over now.”

  “Eye adepts.” He tried the name on.

  “Yes, that's what they were called.”

  “Were called?”

  Dexna hesitated. “There hasn't been an eye adept among us for a very long time.”

  “But … why not?” Great. He was a freak among freaks.

  She shrugged. “We can't be sure. I'd like to work with you, to help you learn how to use your sight. I've started to do some research. I found a few old journal entries. It's better than nothing.”

  Peter was washed with relief. Yes! Someone was going to help him. He'd been feeling his way through this thing for too long.