The Stars We Steal

by Alexa Donne

  “What was that, El?” Klara emerged from her dressing room in a sophisticated cream-colored suit with a plunging neckline. Not a bikini, as I’d expected. “Oh, you’re definitely getting those,” she said, pointing at Elliot’s shorts. Then her assessing eye turned to me. “Leo, you look amazing. Definitely get that one.”

  The weirdest thing was that I think she actually meant it.

  At my cousin’s insistence, we wore our suits out of the boutique, making the far trek from the New York Ward to California. Apparently, California had been the land of swimming pools and beaches, and each of the state-themed wards on the Lady Liberty was meticulously on-brand. The ship also specialized in excess, so we discovered both a pool and a beach from which to choose. Well, it was one long and large pool of water, but with two access points—one a white-sand beach at which the shallow, crystal-blue water gently lapped; the other, shallow descending stone stairs.

  Ignoring either entrance, I found a quiet deck chair on which to plant myself. I made it only halfway before Evgenia appeared.

  “Oh, no, you don’t! You don’t have to swim, but at least dangle your legs in the water, since you’re in your adorable bathing suit. I want you close to all of us.” She inclined her head in Elliot’s direction. I’d have to tell her later that the wing-womaning was off. For now, I didn’t argue. I could sit on the edge of a pool. It was the deeper parts that stressed me out, though logic told me that if there was a freak gravity failure in here, as there had been the night my mom died, it wouldn’t matter which part of the pool I was in.

  Pool accessories had appeared from somewhere. My sister drifted by on a floatie, her head tilted back and eyes closed, as if she were sunning herself. It was probably to show off the lines of her body in her blue bikini.

  Klara and Elliot drifted to the deeper middle of the pool, each clutching a pool noodle and softly kicking. Evgenia stood between them and me, bridging the gap.

  “So what did you think of my mother’s political luncheon? I hear you crashed it,” Klara asked Elliot, her voice reverberating so it was like we were all in on the conversation.

  “I’m not one to pass up free food.” Elliot shrugged.

  “What did she talk about? Tell me everything.”

  “She had a lot to say about the usefulness measure, promising she was already at work on a solution. And then she went on and on about the liars in Freiheit.”

  “Why did she call them liars?” Klara asked at the same time I jumped in with “What did she say she was doing about the usefulness measure?”

  I wondered what my aunt was going to do after turning down my water-filtration idea. The Scandinavian served no real purpose other than providing luxury-vacation accommodations.

  Elliot looked between us both, then locked on me. He paddled closer as he spoke. “She was vague in the way only politicians can be. Just said she was having tough conversations with key people and that she’d have a solution by the vote.” Then he answered Klara, who’d followed him like an obedient puppy. “And she claims Freiheit faked all those images. That they’re lying about starvation and death in the fleet.”

  “Wow, your mom is ice-cold,” Evgenia said. “It’s definitely real. Elliot and I have seen it. Allowing the rich to continue their delusion isn’t helping anyone.”

  It was the most political thing I had ever heard Evgenia utter. She and Elliot exchanged a loaded glance. Carina had sat up on her floatie and was now watching the rest of us, feigning interest.

  “I wouldn’t call her ice-cold.” Klara jumped to her mother’s defense. “She’s trying to prevent panic.”

  “This is why I don’t trust politicians,” Evgenia said with a sniff, wading away from them and over toward me.

  “If she were smart, she’d acknowledge Freiheit, what they showed us, and offer to help. Put the Scandinavian on rations. Allow open immigration,” I said. “We should be ashamed of the way we live while others suffer.” My voice rang out, echoed against silence. Elliot’s eyes bored into me like lasers; he assessed me, studied me for bullshit. He found none. I meant it, every single word.

  “Maybe you should run.” Evgenia joined me on the side of the pool, nudging me in the shoulder as she sat down.

  “Leo’s not political.” My sister puffed up her chest proudly that she finally could contribute.

  “Not usually,” Elliot said quietly. I squirmed under his heady gaze.

  “Those ideas are well and good, but not at all practical,” Klara snapped, breaking the spell. “This is why my side of the family is in charge. You and yours are hopeless dreamers. My mother and I understand reality.”

  “Really? Then why hasn’t she come to me about my water-filtration system since the usefulness measure was announced? I could save you all, but she’s too snobby and stubborn to even consider it.”

  “No one wants your pee device, Leo. And she doesn’t need it. Mother has other plans.” Perhaps subconsciously, Klara’s eyes flitted over to Elliot, just for a second. Of course. Klara was gunning for Elliot, to marry him for his whiskey ship. If the Scandinavian produced alcohol, we’d be useful.

  For an awkward moment, no one spoke. There was just the sound of water lapping gently at the pool’s edges. Then came the loud splash of Carina sliding off her floatie.

  “I’m bored. Let’s play Marco Polo!”

  If only my sister could have seen the death glare I threw at her back.

  “Ooh, yes! I call ‘it’ first!” Klara trilled, already swimming to the middle of the pool to take position.

  Evgenia jumped in, signaling her participation, while Elliot shrugged tacit approval. Fine, I would play—I waded in slowly and clung close to the wall while Klara closed her eyes and counted to twenty. Everyone else made a mad splash-and-dash for other parts of the pool. I stayed put.

  Klara shouted a musical “Marco!” to which everyone else responded with “Polo!” With her eyes squinched firmly shut, my cousin tilted her head in my direction.

  “Leo, you have to play! I didn’t hear you. Marco!”

  With a groan, I joined in on the chorus of “Polos.” My cousin waded in my direction. I moved along the wall, closer to Evgenia. Elliot and Carina were in the deep end, playing smart. It took only a few more calls and responses before Klara caught me with a laugh.

  “You’re so easy because you never leave the shallow end! You’re it.”

  I gritted my teeth and threw a false smile before walking with baby steps closer to the middle of the pool. I wouldn’t give my cousin the satisfaction of my flouncing out of the pool, swearing off the stupid game. I wrenched my eyes closed and started a loud countdown, splashing roaring in my ears.

  The first “Polo” rang in my ears, the musical cacophony bouncing off tile and glass. I called out again, parsing the sound to pinpoint the higher register coming from the right, the lower from my left. The girls in the deep end, and Elliot in the shallows. There was no point bothering with the girls. No way was I swimming into the deep end with my eyes closed. Elliot had to be my quarry.

  I called out again, warm reassurance spreading through me when his voice position did not change. Was he staying put for me? I moved toward the sound of his voice, swallowing past the lump that had suddenly formed in my throat.

  A few more “Marco Polos” and I had to be within feet of him. I zombie-walked with my arms floating in front of me, fingers feeling for his arm. I held my breath in anticipation of the catch, reminded that games like this could be fun. I could have fun.

  It had gone quiet, too quiet. All I could pick out was the low burble of water and Elliot’s breathing somewhere near.

  “Marco?” I called out feebly.

  “Polo.” His voice was low, husky. And right in front of me. I didn’t move, so he must have. My fingers grazed skin, Elliot’s heartbeat thumping against my fingertips.

  “You’re it,” I said softly. I didn’t dare open my eyes, break the spell. I flattened my palm against his chest. My breath caught in my throat as I fe
lt his fingers whisper against my hip under the water. I opened my eyes to drown in his.

  “Elliot’s turn!” Klara shouted, followed by a splash and the sound of strenuous swimming. Elliot flinched away, and then it was over.

  Elliot counted from the middle of the pool while everyone swam into position. I noted that the others chose to congregate in the shallow end this turn. I retreated over to the stairs, needing very much to sit for a while. To my surprise, Evgenia joined me, keeping her voice nice and low between calls and responses.

  “Are you afraid of the deep end or something?”

  I nodded. Evgenia cursed under her breath.

  “Klara told us all to go into the deep end, make it hard for you. I didn’t know . . . I’m sorry, Leo.”

  Well, that explained a lot. Elliot had deliberately saved me from embarrassment. A gesture of friendship, surely. Not that that explained the hand on the hip. It was probably a mistake.

  Evgenia swam away on the next “Polo,” though by then it was pretty much guaranteed Elliot would be catching Carina. My sister played without subtlety, moving in whatever direction Elliot did on each turn, putting herself closer and closer to him. I watched Klara watching Carina, my cousin’s frustration mounting until her nostrils flared and eyes blazed with rage.

  At last, Elliot had no choice but to catch my sister, who giggled loudly and threw her arms around his shoulders. “You got me!”

  Elliot squirmed, wriggling his shoulder to try to dislodge her embrace. And then he leaned in close to her ear, said something in hushed tones.

  “What?” my sister responded, her eyes going wide.

  Oh, no, was he doing what I thought he was doing?

  He said something else I couldn’t hear, and then my sister went limp, finally releasing him and falling backwards into the water up to her chin. The chin started to wobble. But my sister did not cry. Carina stood up, walked over to the stairs, and got out of the pool.

  “I’m sick of playing,” she said. Now the wobble was in her voice. And then she ran out of the room.

  I threw Elliot a look that could have boiled the pool in two seconds. Then I got out, grabbed two towels and our bag of clothes, and rushed after my sister.

  Seventeen

  I followed the wet slapping of Carina’s feet until I caught up with her at the lift bank. Her red-rimmed eyes told me there had been tears, though it seemed they were brief. Now she was just hiccupping sporadically. Without words, I handed her a towel, then her shoes, and we made our way back to the Sofi.

  To add insult to my sister’s injury, we were staying in Elliot’s old room. There was no escaping him. She threw herself down on one of the beds, coincidentally the one where he and I used to sleep.

  “I feel so stupid,” she groaned into the pillow.

  “You shouldn’t,” I said. “Elliot led you on. And when I told him to let you down gently, I did not mean in public—”

  Carina whipped around. “Wait, you told him to do that to me?”

  “No! Well, yes. Kind of. It’s really complicated.”

  My sister sat up and leveled me with a stare. “Explain.”

  I sat down on the bottom bunk opposite her, buying myself time to work up my courage. I wanted to tell her everything, but I was used to telling her nothing, so it was hard. Unnatural.

  “Elliot and I used to have a thing, as you know.”

  “You told me it was over,” she said.

  “I know. It is. But things were a bit more . . . serious between us than you knew. And it ended dramatically.”

  “What does that mean? Leo, just tell me.”

  I took a deep breath and let it tumble out. “We were engaged, back when. But then we weren’t. I’m sorry I never told you. Anyway, Elliot was kind of bitter about it, so when he came back here, he was trying to make me miserable, and one of the ways he did that was by saying yes to you at speed dating. I scolded him soundly for it, for toying with your feelings, and told him to let you down gently—”

  “Whoa, whoa, Leo.” Carina held out her arms, as if to brace herself against the onslaught of information. “You were engaged to Elliot?”

  “Uh, yeah. Surprise?”

  Carina furrowed her brow. “Did you lie to me? When you said you were over Elliot? You let me throw myself at him, with speed dating and everything else?”

  “That was before I knew Elliot’s agenda, though. I know I should have told you about the engagement, been honest, but I want you to be happy and—”

  Next thing I knew, I was engulfed in a tight hug, Carina having thrown herself practically on top of me.

  “You’re such a good sister,” she said into my hair. “But you’re also a huge idiot.” She pulled back with a disapproving look. “You should have told me. I would never hurt you, not on purpose. Unlike some people.” She frowned. “Our cousin is such a witch. She knew, right? And she’s been throwing herself at him too.”

  I nodded. “Witch, though?”

  “Well, she is family,” Carina reasoned. “Now you’re going to tell me the full story of you and Elliot. I need to know exactly what I was stepping in the middle of.”

  So I filled my little sister in on all the sordid details, watching as her brow inched farther and farther up, until it fully disappeared into her fringe.

  “Dad, Aunt Freja, and Klara staged an intervention? Wow.” She looked down at her hands in her lap, then laced one of them through mine. “You know I never would have been into him, gone after him, if I had known, right? You’re my sister.”

  “I know.” I drew her into a hug, this one of mutual comfort. This felt far more natural, being her big sister, offering myself.

  “He’s gorgeous, of course, and definitely kind of flirty?” She looked to me for affirmation, which I had to give. Elliot wasn’t innocent in all this. “But if I’m honest, he and I have basically nothing in common.”

  Laughter shot through me. Never had there been a truer statement to tumble from my baby sister’s lips.

  “We’ll find you someone perfectly suited to you,” I promised. “You’re wonderful, and I’m really happy that you’re my sister.”

  “Ugh.” She smacked me playfully on the shoulder, poorly suppressing a smile. “So sappy. And what about you? Do you still love him?”

  My face must have said it all.

  “Leo! You should tell him! He either hates you or loves you back, with the way he’s been acting. I noticed him flirting, but like I said, he flirts with everyone, and I thought you weren’t interested.”

  “We’re just friends. We buried the hatchet,” I said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It’s true!”

  “I’ll ask you again tomorrow, after you’ve spent the night in his bed.” She pointed across the way. “So you two, like . . . you know. In that bed?”

  “Conversation’s over. Let’s go to bed.” I left her giggling after me as I went to shower. Carina would be just fine.

  * * *

  I rose to find the ship eerily quiet. It seemed I was on a new sleeping schedule, and waking before everyone else was my new normal. I crept into the hall and listened up the stairs, but I heard no sign of another early-morning coffee tryst between Elliot and Nora. My pleasure at the realization was far too acute. I didn’t want to run into him, anyway. I’d be too tempted to give him a piece of my mind about how atrociously he’d handled the Carina situation.

  I took the opportunity to do some housekeeping and retrieve my mother’s dresses. We’d sealed them up years ago after Father complained they were taking up too much space in his closet. I hadn’t wanted them in mine. The daily reminder that she was gone would have been too much.

  I padded in bare feet out of the servants’ wing to the mid-deck storage unit. It was dark inside and musty, only one of which was helped by my turning on the lights. The room was full to the brim with old furniture, dusty boxes, and a graveyard of fashion. Too many of my ancestors had been too proud to recycle fraying and faded clothing, so they end
ed up here, crammed into a series of wire racks someone had fashioned from scrap. I’d started upcycling pieces as best I could, which went for the furniture, too, but so many of the pieces were too fine to cut up. My mother’s dresses especially, which I kept carefully wrapped and stored so that one day Carina and I could actually wear them. That day was coming soon. The Valg Ball was too close for my liking.

  I maneuvered around stacks of boxes and decaying furniture to my mother’s trunk, kneeling on the floor and prising open the lid. I blinked hard, deliberately, as if to clear my vision. Then I did it again. Nothing changed—the trunk was half empty. My mother’s dresses were gone. Tightness seized my chest.

  There had to be a logical explanation. Carina or Father must have moved the dresses when the Valg Season started, to air them out. Yes, that was it, surely. First I searched all the racks behind me, but I didn’t find them.

  I left the storage room, drawing deep breaths to calm myself. Panicking was silly. I’d let my father’s paranoia get to me, as if someone would have stolen them. There was nowhere for them to go, so they must be on board. My money was on Carina to have messed with them and forgotten to tell me. The door to the cargo bay appeared on my periphery. Yes, very likely she would have taken them down there. There was more room, better air.

  I pressed fingers to the cargo-room bio-lock, anticipating the click-whoosh of the doors. Instead I ended up checking the door with my shoulder as I charged forward. Ow. I rubbed the sore spot with one hand and tried the bio-lock again. No click-whoosh. I was locked out.

  Instinctively, my fingers flew to my wrist tab, but then I remembered. I could access security protocols only from the tab unit in the maintenance hold. I’d have to go up there, see who changed the security permissions on the cargo hold. Then I could figure out why.

  I ignored the cold that slithered up my back as I made my way upstairs and flew through the kitchen, past the family rooms, and toward the aft end. Nothing looked out of place in the maintenance hold, least of all the tab unit, screen black from sleep. I touched the screen, bringing her awake, and chewed my lower lip nervously as my fingers dangled over the keyboard to input my administrator password. With a deep inhale of breath, I quickly keyed in the code and hit enter. I held my breath until the home screen winked open in front of me. A laugh escaped as I rapidly exhaled.