For Darkness Shows the Stars

by Diana Peterfreund

  Felicia nodded gravely, and an uneasy silence hovered in the room. Once, much had been done for stroke victims, but the Reduction had changed all that. The mind of man was not meant to be rebuilt, even if broken.

  “Oh, that would be lovely if you could find a way to help the old man,” said Tatiana. “Provided you remain within the protocols, of course.”

  “Of course,” said Felicia, exchanging a small glance with Andromeda, who merely sipped her tea.

  Brazen, these Posts, with their flippant little glances. Elliot had never seen anything like it, even in the North Posts’ most unguarded moments. The protocols had defined the Luddite way of life since the Reduction. It was simple: genetic enhancements had destroyed humanity. Advanced technology in the ensuing wars had nearly destroyed the world. The Luddites restricted both, and rebuilt. Elliot had long wondered if the Luddites’ strict rules had managed to atone for humanity’s sins all these years later. Was the rise of the Posts the result of their adherence to the protocols?

  And if so, what had she done by experimenting with the wheat?

  Tatiana’s words had been a test, and Felicia’s response neither as emphatic nor as automatic as Tatiana was used to seeing. It must come of the fact that these people owed nothing to the Luddite lords and therefore had nothing to fear from them, either. This behavior from one of their own servants would have sent Tatiana through the roof several minutes ago. But no, her sister seemed preoccupied with the weave of the tassels on Felicia’s shoulder epaulets.

  “Ah, here he is,” said the admiral, bounding from his chair to the window. Two figures in free Post dress were coming up the steps of the porch. “Miss Elliot, I’m excited to introduce you to the pilot of the ship we’ll be building here, to the captain of the Argos—”

  But Elliot saw him clearly through the window. She needed no introduction.

  No midnight blue jacket, no new, longer haircut, no strange, noble bearing—nothing would serve to disguise him to her eyes. She had only a moment to compose herself and then he walked into the room. Into her house, for the first time in years.

  “Miss Elliot,” said the admiral, as she staggered to her feet. Out shot her hand, reluctantly, mechanically, obeying a courtesy so ingrained as to be unconscious. He was taller now. Taller than her. And though he turned in her direction, his hand did not rise to meet hers, and his eyes remained fixed on the mantel beyond her head. “May I present Captain Malakai Wentforth.”

  “Hello.” His voice was the same. It rang through Elliot’s body like a thunderclap announcing a storm.

  “Hello,” said Elliot, for parroting him was all she could trust herself to say, there in her old, worn clothes, with her braids all mussed; there, in the same room with the same furniture and the same fire and her hand floating in the air between them, curling out into space like a misguided vine, yearning desperately for him to reach across the distance and touch her again.

  Hello, Kai.

  FOUR YEARS AGO

  Dear Kai,

  The sun is probably streaming in through the big barn windows now, which means you’re awake. And if you’re awake, it means you’re wondering where I went.

  I haven’t run away from you, I promise. But I knew that today of all days, they’d need me in the house. Tatiana may be the head of our household now, but she’s not the one the staff will look to in my mother’s absence. And there is so much to do to prepare for the funeral. Also, I have to go tell my grandfather what has happened to his daughter. I don’t want him to hear of her death from anyone but me.

  Thank you for last night. I wish I could say I don’t know why you are the one I ran to—you, Kai, not Tatiana or my father or even my grandfather. But I know why. And I have a confession to make.

  After you let me cry, after you let me sob and shout and choke on all that pain—after you did all that, and didn’t say a word—I didn’t fall asleep like you thought. Not right away. I lay there, wadded up into a ball, and you curved your body behind mine. You were barely touching me—your thigh against the edge of my hip, your arm draped lightly across my waist, your fingers entwined with mine. How many times have our hands touched, when we were passing each other tools or helping each other in and out of machines? Hundreds of times. Thousands. But last night, it felt different. You cradled my hand in yours, palms up, our fingers curled in like a pair of fallen leaves. Fallen, maybe, but not dead. My hand never felt so alive. Every place you touched me sparked with energy. I couldn’t sleep. Not like that.

  And so I bent my head, just the slightest bit, until my mouth reached our hands. I smelled the oil you never quite get off your fingers. I breathed in the scent of your skin. And then, as if that was all I was doing, just breathing, I let my bottom lip brush against your knuckle.

  Time stopped. I was sure you’d see through my ruse and pull away. I was sure you’d know that I was not asleep, that I was not just breathing. But you didn’t move, so I did it again. And again. And on the third time, I let my top lip join my bottom.

  I kissed your hand, Kai. I didn’t do it to thank you for letting me cry. For letting me sleep in your arms. I thought you should know.

  Yours,

  Elliot

  Dear Elliot,

  I know. When will I see you again?

  Yours,

  Kai

  Five

  IT WAS OVER IN minutes.

  Kai told the admiral about a problem with one of the sun-carts, recruited Donovan to assist him, and took his leave. He hadn’t spoken more than those two syllables to Elliot, and she, for her part, allowed the admiral to do all the talking. As soon as he was gone, she looked at Tatiana, but could detect no sense of smugness or glee in her sister. It was as if Tatiana hadn’t even recognized him.

  Grubby little boy from the barn, why should she?

  Especially since he wasn’t that boy any longer. He wasn’t even the skinny, half-grown adolescent she’d last seen. Four years had turned her old friend into something different entirely. He was taller, and with broader shoulders and longer hair and a jawline that belonged more to a man than a child.

  But Tatiana might have seen all that and still failed to identify him, for the real change was that Kai no longer looked like a servant. He stood tall and proud with a haughtiness, a distance, that almost gave even Elliot pause.

  Perhaps that explained her sister’s strange behavior. Elliot had never seen her so respectful to Posts before, but then, the way these Posts acted, it was difficult to remember that that’s indeed what they were. These weren’t the obsequious or even quietly resentful bonded servants that her sister was used to. This was what Kai had run away to be a part of. And it seemed he’d succeeded beyond her wildest fantasies.

  The shock wore off and Elliot attended halfheartedly to the Innovations’ questions about the shipyard and the house. But all she wanted to do was chase after Kai. At last she knew what had become of him. He wasn’t in danger, being exploited in some lawless Post enclave, or starving and wandering among the estates looking for work. He wasn’t even employed as a simple mechanic. He was, in fact, one of the richest and most celebrated people on the islands.

  And he was still angry with her.

  Elliot longed for a moment alone to collect herself, but it was impossible. She had to settle her grandfather and direct the Reduced to take the Cloud Fleet’s belongings to the Boatwright house. She had to answer questions for the admiral and his team that Tatiana, despite her status as head of the household, did not understand. She had to make excuses for her father’s absence and assure them that everyone was quite pleased about the rental arrangements and the money and the horses, and that her father’s last-minute trip had nothing whatsoever to do with the Posts’ arrival—and she had to sound more convincing about it than Tatiana. The process took the better part of the afternoon, and through all of it, she didn’t catch another glimpse of Kai.

  Where had he gone? Was he off visiting his old stomping grounds? Had he looked in on Ro? Had he, perhaps, gon
e to see his former living quarters in the barn? The Posts had seemed surprised that he’d show any interest in the horses, and now Elliot understood their shock. Kai had never cared much for livestock. He far preferred machines to animals, or even plants. But they were being kept in the barn . . .

  Elliot stiffened in her seat as momentary panic gripped her. The door was padlocked. She had nothing to fear. She could afford to sit here quietly and occasionally volunteer answers on the many occasions that Tatiana—the acknowledged hostess—floundered when it came to knowledge of the Boatwright holdings.

  Fortunately, Felicia Innovation’s topics of conversation were far less taxing than her companions’, and they were ones that Tatiana could elaborate on ad nauseum.

  “I have heard tales,” Felicia said to Elliot’s sister, “that the Norths’ star-cavern sanctuary is the most stunning natural formation on this whole island.”

  “Did you?” Tatiana asked, her tone coy. “I was not aware that any Posts had seen it.”

  “My report comes from Baroness Channel,” Felicia replied without missing a beat. “Who visited, I believe, for your mother’s funeral. She is an old friend of mine. The Channel sanctuary is quite lovely,” she went on. “I wonder how they compare.”

  Tatiana blinked. Andromeda smirked. Elliot marveled. She had spent the last four years trying to learn how to properly cajole her father and sister, and here this Post was playing Tatiana like an instrument after only a few minutes’ acquaintance. She doubted her sister would be able to resist this challenge, and indeed, Tatiana could not.

  “Perhaps I should take you on a tour,” she suggested.

  Elliot wondered if Tatiana would inform their father of the plans, and if so, what he’d think of lowly Posts tromping through his ancestral sanctuary.

  “That’s most kind,” Felicia said. “I’m sure we’d love to see it.”

  You’d have to know Tatiana pretty well, Elliot thought, to recognize the look that flashed across her face at the word “we.” It was too quick for the uninitiated to recognize. Still, Andromeda’s eyebrows rose.

  “The acoustics are legendary,” Andromeda said. “Donovan would adore it.”

  “Your brother is a musician as well as an explorer?”

  “My brother would prefer to be a musician, yes.”

  “How unusual for a Post.”

  “Certainly unusual in this area.” It was a pointed statement, given what had happened on the North estate during the bad time. Elliot looked away, into the hearth, remembering the bonfires piled high with illicit pipes and string-boxes—some of those instruments engineered by her own hand.

  And some by Kai’s.

  He must have heard of what had gone on here, Elliot realized. He must have been appalled.

  She took a breath. The fire was dying, and the light outside was fading. She should add more wood. She rose to tend the embers as the conversation went on around her. She couldn’t take this anymore. These subtle jabs, this sharp little dance of insults and put-downs. She couldn’t even place the blame squarely on Tatiana. Her sister was trying. Perhaps there was no common ground between a Luddite and a free Post.

  No wonder Kai wouldn’t even look at her.

  “Let me know when you wish to tour the star cavern, then,” Tatiana was saying. “I’ll invite our friends, the Groves, whose estate is southwest of here. Olivia Grove has a splendid voice. Very fine, and impeccably trained.”

  Even the window wasn’t far enough away. Elliot made a beeline for the door.

  The admiral followed, stopping her in the hall. “Miss Elliot.”

  She turned. “Excuse me, sir, I should really look in on my grandfather—”

  “I wanted a chance to speak with you,” he said, coming close and dropping his voice.

  Elliot bobbed her head. Perhaps he had something to say about Kai . . .

  “I know to whom I am really indebted to for this opportunity,” he said instead. “Your father’s was the signature on the bottom of the letter, but I’m not ignorant of the way things work on the North estate.”

  “Sir, I—” How did he know? If it was Kai who told him, then she was safe. But if rumors had spread beyond the boundary of the estate, if her father caught wind of them . . .

  “Your father isn’t even here to greet us. But you are.”

  “My father was called away . . .” But the lie faltered on her lips.

  “I appreciate your advocacy,” the admiral said quickly, as if he hadn’t noticed. “Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to make sure things run as smoothly as possible.”

  Now Elliot met his eyes—blue and watery, with the start of cataracts from staring too long into the glittering sea. The admiral smiled at her.

  “When I meet a Luddite like you, I have hope for our world.”

  Elliot blinked as his words stung someplace deep inside. A Luddite like her? Her father would argue she wasn’t one at all.

  Six

  AT LAST SHE WAS alone, and of course she returned to the barn. The sky had turned the color of Post overcoats as the sun set, and now stars winked at the edge of the jagged black horizon. The barn was dark, and the familiar sound of lowing cattle had been replaced with the soft shuffling and snorts of the new horses. Elliot leaned her head against the door and sighed. The darkness was another relief. He hadn’t come here.

  Elliot lit a lantern. As always, her eyes went first to the knot of wood near the floor by the entrance. It was a habit she’d been unable to break in four years. And, just like every other time in the past four years, the knothole remained empty.

  The dairy equipment had been stacked neatly in a corner to make room for the newcomers, and Dee and the dairymaids had been instructed on the new routines. With luck, there’d be no break in the milk production, despite the reduced working space. They couldn’t afford that, even with the influx of money from the admiral’s rental. Everything else in the barn remained the same. The giant shadows of their few remaining pieces of machinery loomed from every corner. Perhaps she could use some of the money to buy replacement parts for the pieces that were broken beyond Elliot’s ability to repair them. After all, they’d been without a mechanic on the estate for four years.

  There was a sound from above—the creaking of boards, an unmistakable footfall. Elliot lifted her lantern, but could see nothing on the stairs. She heard a small meow, but that step was far too heavy to have been made by Nero. Steeling herself, she ascended the stairs.

  The passage above was similarly black, but as she shone the lantern down the hall, she saw him. He stood before the door to his old room, his back toward her, the old yellow barn cat Nero twining in figure eights round his feet.

  “Hello,” she said again.

  “The door is locked,” was his only reply. He didn’t turn around. Nero was rubbing his whiskers against Kai’s trouser leg. That cat hated every maid in the dairy. It was a wonder he’d lived as long as he had, that he hadn’t drowned years ago in a pail of milk. But he’d been Kai’s, and so he’d stayed.

  Everything of his had stayed—his old pallet and blankets—though they hadn’t smelled like him for years—a sweater she supposed was too holey for him to take, and, of course, her letters to him. He’d left them all behind, though she didn’t know if it was because he’d been angry or because he had intended to leave them.

  Thinking he’d have the real thing with him instead.

  Elliot drew closer, then hesitated. Wouldn’t he even face her? “Yes. I have . . . equipment in there.”

  “Unlock it,” said the back of Kai’s head.

  “No.”

  Now he turned, but just as before in the drawing room, he wouldn’t meet her eyes. “This is my old room.” As if she didn’t know. “I want to see it.”

  He wanted to see the room even more than he wanted to see her?

  “I don’t have the key with me.” Elliot was glad now that he wouldn’t look her in the face, or she was sure he’d see her lie. “It’s just . . . st
orage.”

  That, at least, was the truth. It was where she stored things she didn’t want anyone else to know about.

  He cast one more glance at the padlock, then shoved away from the door. “Fine.”

  “Kai,” she said, and he stopped. Enough of this silly, stilted conversation. They were alone now. Again, she stretched out her hand. “I can’t believe it’s you.”

  The corners of his mouth turned up, but no emotion supported the smile. Elliot realized her hand still hung there in space and snatched it back. She gripped the handle of the lantern until her fingernails bit into her palm.

  “I look so different?” he asked.

  Yes. “That’s not what I mean. I didn’t know you were Captain Wentforth. That all the things I’ve read, all the things he’s done—I thought he was older.”

  “I guess my leaving didn’t turn out to be the disaster you’d thought.” Still he stared past her, at the wall.

  “No, Kai—”

  “Don’t call me that. That isn’t my name any longer.”

  Elliot nodded and shifted a bit to the left, trying to see his face, which only made him avert his gaze even more. “I like your new name,” she said softly. “Your father would have been so proud of you.” When he failed to respond, she forged ahead. “What should I call you now? Wentforth, as the others do? Malakai?” She took a step toward him.

  He faced her full on now, and she stopped dead. In the flickering lamplight, his black eyes seemed lit with stars, as cold and inhuman as the expression on his face. “I don’t foresee that you’ll have much reason to call me anything at all.”

  He brushed past her, his touch nothing more than a rasp of fabric against fabric, and disappeared down the stairs. Elliot heard the barn door open and close. He was gone. Just like that. She leaned hard against the wall, her heart pounding, her lungs screaming to cry out his forbidden name.