“Three years,” Andromeda said, shrugging. “When the Fleet was formed. She was the embodiment of everything we all wanted. She was the future. We all knew it. We all loved her.”
“I can imagine that,” Elliot said.
But Andromeda did not, for once, rise to the bait. “If you want to know why Felicia is always so motherly, now you do. She can’t turn it off for anyone—not even—”
“Not even me?” Elliot finished, unable to keep her tone from turning snide. She could no longer bear the older girl’s casual cruelty. Though her primary objective when visiting the Boatwright estate was avoiding Kai, she was going to have to start steering clear of Andromeda as well.
“Not even you,” Andromeda said. “Motherless you, poor little rich girl you, the Luddite who gets her hands dirty in the mud, who plays at farming while she allows her family to let the farm burn—”
“Miss Phoenix,” said Elliot, “I think you are done assuming you understand anything about my life, no matter what you may have been told.” If she was done putting up with abuse from Kai, there was no way she’d accept it from Andromeda. “In return, I will not assume that I can guess what it is you have against me.”
“You know one at least.”
“That I’m a Luddite?”
“No. That you betrayed him when he needed you most.”
Elliot lifted her chin. No one, least of all this girl, would know what it had cost her. “Yes, I did. It was either him, or everyone else I knew.”
Andromeda opened her mouth, then shut it again and stared very intently at Elliot. Even in the gloom of twilight, her eyes seemed more intense, as if she could see through Elliot’s skin and divine the inner workings of her brain.
But Elliot had had enough. “If you can’t be civil to me, Miss Phoenix, I wish you’d leave me in peace. I have never done anything to you, and if you seek to punish me for past misdeeds, there is nothing you can devise that I haven’t already suffered.” Four years of worrying about Kai, followed by all these weeks of having him back here, but hating her. Was that not punishment enough?
“You baffle me, Miss Elliot,” Andromeda replied in the same high-wrought tone. “I can’t reconcile the young woman I see before me with the reports I have had.”
What lies had Kai been spreading abroad? “I’m sorry to hear that, but it’s none of my concern. I am the same person I’ve always been.” She turned her face away from Andromeda, away from the crowd and from Kai. “Maybe you should ask yourself why, if I am the person you’ve been led to believe, someone would put their faith in me at all?”
“People are foolish when it comes to love.”
Elliot hadn’t been. She’d been rational, logical, reasonable, prudent. She’d been cold and cruel and disloyal and distant.
She hadn’t been foolish.
She’d been the most foolish girl on the island.
Olivia’s song ended and behind her, on the porch, Donovan reemerged, carrying his fiddle. He started playing a familiar song, and the other musicians took up the tune on their pipes and string-boxes. Olivia kept singing, but Donovan easily outshone her voice, and everyone else’s playing, too. Elliot had never heard music like that. The finesse and precision she’d witnessed in these Cloud Fleet explorers came across in his musical abilities. His rhythms were complex but perfectly controlled, and he somehow managed to weave in any misstep of the other players. It was a good thing Tatiana wasn’t here to listen or she’d be green as grass.
“He’s amazing,” Elliot said, mostly to herself.
“Yes.” Andromeda shrugged. “He’s got a special talent. And he’s been funneling everything into his music, lately. It’s the only thing left that gives him any peace.”
“Was Sophia sick for a long time?”
“Always,” Andromeda replied. “She was born blind, and she had a weak heart. Had she not been born a free Post, she probably would not have survived at all. The Innovations were able to properly provide for her. Whatever medical attention she needed, Felicia would find it. If it didn’t exist, Felicia would create it.”
“Create it?” Elliot asked. That wasn’t a word she heard often.
For a split second, Andromeda appeared discomposed. “Does that word frighten you, Luddite?”
Elliot bristled. “Create” might not frighten her, but the way these Fleet Posts used “Luddite” as an epithet was beginning to. If only Andromeda knew what a bad Luddite Elliot was. “No.”
“But you believe in the protocols.”
“Of course I do.” Spoken like any good Luddite who didn’t have notes in the barn detailing the steps she’d taken to create some rather troubling wheat. She’d say nothing else—and certainly not to Andromeda Phoenix. Instead, she recited the lines given by every teacher she’d ever had. “They are there for our protection. Without them, humans would risk trying to become gods.”
“And what if breaking them would have saved Sophia’s life? What if they’d save your grandfather’s?”
At that moment, Elliot hated Andromeda. She hated being forced to play devil’s advocate for, of all things, the Luddite protocols! “Is there an answer here that wouldn’t bolster what you’ve already decided about me?”
“Which is?” asked Andromeda with an evil glint in her odd eyes.
Elliot wasn’t going to spell it out.
Olivia’s song ended, but Donovan merely turned his music into something wilder, a more obvious dancing tune. A cheer went up from the assembled crowd. Several couples even rose from their picnic blankets to dance beneath the glowing lanterns. Kai gave his hand to Olivia to help her down from the porch steps. She tugged him toward the dancers, and after a moment, he joined her. Elliot stared down at her lap.
“Aren’t they a lovely couple?” Andromeda said.
“Please go away.”
“As you pointed out, Miss Elliot, we rent these lands. We may do as we please.”
Yet Elliot was not forced to remain, and she highly doubted that Felicia had invited her to the party that evening merely to receive sarcastic remarks from Andromeda. The older Post might imagine they could be friends, but Elliot knew better. She’d had a lifetime of experience learning how few people she could count on to be her friend.
She rose and went over to the blankets occupied by Ro and the North Posts. Judging by the number of empty plates and mugs strewn about, they were enjoying the party immensely.
Here, at least, were some true friends. “May I join you?”
“Certainly!” Dee was sitting cross-legged, cradling her belly in her lap and keeping her eye on Jef, who was twirling with a few of the young Grove Posts several yards away. She lowered her voice and leaned in to Elliot. “I caught a few words of your talk with that Fleet girl. She’s not very fond of you, is she?”
“Not that I can tell.”
Dee chuckled. “Do I need to have words with her?”
“She’d probably think I beat you into it.”
Dee put a hand to her heart in mock shock. “You beat your CORs, Elliot North?”
“Haven’t you heard?” Beside them, Ro clapped along to the music, watching the dancers with delight. Elliot wondered if she should have brought the girl a string-box from the stash she still kept safely stowed away in the barn. But then, Ro’s clumsy plucking might mess with the music, and Ro didn’t seem to mind.
“Well, someone ought to enlighten her, and that’s a fact.”
“I don’t care what Andromeda Phoenix thinks of me, Dee.”
“And what of Captain Wentforth?”
Elliot hesitated. “What he thinks isn’t likely to be changed, is it?”
“You did the right thing, Elliot. We all think so, and I’ve no qualms telling him as much, either.”
“Please, Dee,” Elliot begged. “Don’t. We’re long past all that now.”
“Not if he’s badmouthing you to the Fleet Posts.”
“I don’t need to be friends with Andromeda Phoenix.” Elliot threw her hands in the air. “I do
n’t need to be friends with Kai. I don’t even need to be friends with the Innovations.”
“But you want to be,” said Dee.
“No, I don’t,” Elliot insisted. Whatever it took to keep her people fed, that’s what she wanted. And for that, it wasn’t necessary to make friends with these people. In fact, it was preferable not to socialize with them. Less danger, then, that she’d miss them when they were gone. “I want to take their money and let them build their ship and get them off my land. That’s all I want.”
“Good to know,” said a voice above her head.
Elliot and Dee looked up, and there, shadowed against the light from the swinging sun-lamps, stood Kai.
FOUR YEARS AGO
Dear Elliot,
Last night I went with some other Posts to the Grove estate to hear a traveling musician. It was fantastic. I’d always thought that music was something that you or your mother or Tatiana played on your instruments, but at the Grove estate, several of the Posts have string-boxes or pipes, and they all play together.
I wish you could have been there. The Grove Posts talk a lot about the free Post settlements. Apparently they’re allowed to visit family and such that have left for there. They don’t make it sound half so scary as the beggars who’ve come to the North estate do.
They say other things I believe even less. They say Baroness North used to visit the Grove estate quite often. I thought none of the Norths spoke to the Groves.
Your friend,
Kai
Dear Kai,
I’m so jealous! Were the Luddites there, too? I have never met the Grove children. I believe there are two—a boy several years older than us, and a little girl.
I don’t know the precise nature of my father’s argument with Mr. Grove but I think it’s gone on longer than Tatiana and I have been alive. I think it must have something to do with a land dispute of some sort. It is too bad, really. If they were on speaking terms, it’s likely Tatiana and I would have had the children as playmates. As it is, she hasn’t had a true friend since Benedict left the estate.
But I don’t need to travel to another estate to find a friend. I have our gliders, I have our barn-wall knot. I have you.
Did anyone show you how to make a string-box? I think we should make one and play it for Ro.
Your friend,
Elliot
Dear Elliot,
I’ve included the list of Posts who have ordered string-boxes. I can’t believe how many people want one now. I’m not sure we’ll have to paint them all the way we did for Ro. It will slow the process a lot, and besides, people might want to paint them themselves.
Your friend,
Kai
Dear Kai,
I managed to make three over the weekend and put them in the usual place. But I’m out of the silk fiber we were using for the strings. I stole it from the hem of one of my mother’s old shirts. I don’t know what else we can use.
Your friend,
Elliot
Dear Elliot,
I believe these wires will work well. It changes the tone of the instrument, but not in a bad way. Thank you for doing this. I hope your mother doesn’t miss her hems. I know how hard you’ve been working to make sure the boxes are properly tuned . . . so I know you won’t resent it when you see this newest list of requests?
Come on. For me?
Yours,
Kai
Dear Kai,
Your wish is my command. I mended my mother’s shirt with hemp thread and she didn’t even notice. By the way, the wire works beautifully. The new sound is very different, but you’re right, it will just add to the richness of our little orchestra. I can’t wait to hear them!
Yours,
Elliot
Dear Elliot,
I’ve never been tempted to show our letters to anyone until now. But “your wish is my command”? Those are some dangerous words for a Luddite to write to a Post.
Yours,
Kai
Dear Kai,
Are you planning on telling on me?
Yours,
Elliot
P.S. Made five more.
Dear Elliot,
It depends. Will you make boxes for this new list?
Yours,
Kai
Seventeen
“YOU LOOK RADIANT, DEE,” Kai said. “I’m so glad you could make it tonight.”
He looked radiant, too. Smack in his element, decked out in an oxblood jacket that soaked up the light from the lanterns and set off the darkness of his black hair. In these colors, he stood out from all the other partygoers, but then again, Elliot might have thought he stood out anyway. She drew her knees up to her chest. She wore her old black dress with a lavender sweater over it. It didn’t hold a candle to the Post clothes, but it was the brightest color she owned. Now, she didn’t know what she’d been thinking. Trying to emulate the Post style of dress did nothing to make her fit in. It only served to highlight her shortcomings.
“I’m happy to see you, too, Malakai,” said Dee, stressing the last syllable. “I have heard some disturbing things. Perhaps you wish to clarify for us—”
“I’d be happy to, later,” said Kai. “Right now, I need to dance with Ro. She’ll think I’m snubbing her.” Ro looked up at the sound of her name. “Dance with me, Ro?”
The girl hopped up and right into his arms. Kai laughed and spun her away. Elliot tugged at the fraying cuffs of her sweater and tried to forget how well she knew that laugh.
“Try as I might,” Dee said, “I can’t hate him completely, Elliot. He hasn’t forgotten where he came from.”
“I wouldn’t want you to, Dee. You’d be no better than Andromeda if you did.” The jig went on and on, and Donovan’s music became more frantic and frenetic by the moment. As mournful as his last piece had been, it was utterly eclipsed by the melodies reeling off his fiddle now, as if he could exorcise his pain if only he could find the proper chord progression. The music was overwhelming in its intensity. Donovan must be some sort of prodigy—even Luddites with a lifetime of training didn’t possess such talent.
Dee still watched Kai. “But his behavior now is inexcusable.”
“He doesn’t want to be my friend. It’s his choice.”
“What choice did he give the Fleet girl, or did he simply poison her mind against you?”
“Drop it, Dee. This is the way it is. Like so many other things.” Elliot took a breath. “The way it is.”
Dee shook her head. “I refuse to believe that. Look at us, here. Together, listening to music on a Luddite estate. It’s like the old days, Elliot. And look at Kai, who went away and made something of himself. I want that for Jef. I want it for this baby, whoever he or she is. They have been born into a thrilling time. It’s even like that song Donovan sang—the world isn’t a certain way. We reinvent it, every day, something new. It’s changing around us, as fast as a weed taking root.”
And yet, Thom was still in exile. And her father had plowed under her wheat. And her grandfather lay dying in his room back at the house because treatments that could help him were illegal under the Luddite laws. This winter they had money and food, thanks to the Cloud Fleet. But what would become of the people on the North estate in the years to come? What else could they rent? How could they make do?
If things were changing, it wasn’t nearly fast enough to suit Elliot.
She watched Kai and Ro dance. Long after the song ended and another began, they remained out there. Kai danced with Olivia again, and Ro with anyone—Grove Posts, Jef, all by herself beneath the swinging lanterns. Part of Elliot wished to join her, but then she caught sight of Kai whirling very close, Olivia Grove held tightly in his arms, and her legs remained glued to the blanket. She could not dance on the same ground as him.
She shouldn’t have come tonight. She’d thought she could enjoy the company of friendly faces and ignore the ones who weren’t, but she couldn’t. Not until she could teach herself to stop looking for Kai at ev
ery chance.
The dancers whirled on inside their island of light. Above the bobbing lanterns, Elliot could see a few stars flickering in the sky—the Cross; the pointers; Scorpius, its tail slashed across the sky; and Antares glimmering like the red heart of one of Ro’s flowers. Most of the smaller stars weren’t visible in the glow of the sun-lamps. Elliot wondered if this is what the skies had looked like once upon a time, when there was so much light in the air that no one could see the stars.
“Are you here to keep the pregnant woman company?” Dee asked.
“I’m tired myself,” Elliot said, and hoped she sounded convincing. “It’s been a long week, and I still haven’t figured out what’s wrong with the tractor.”
“Don’t beat yourself up too hard, Miss,” said Gill, looking up from his third mug of cider. “We won’t need it again for another few months.”
“We could always have a visiting mechanic take a look,” Dee suggested, a mischievous smile on her face.
“Don’t you dare,” Elliot said. If it were spring, she’d consider swallowing her pride enough to ask Kai for help. But she had a few more months yet. The crops weren’t in any danger. She still had time to fix it without risking Kai illustrating her incompetence.
By now, many of the Posts not dancing had taken out their instruments and were adding to the din. There was still an undercurrent of melody, if you listened hard enough, but with dozens of string-boxes and pipes, with the drums and the fiddle and the voices and the hand clapping, it was difficult to identify exactly what the song was.
It was also growing harder and harder to hear the flow of conversation. Over here, a bunch of Grove Posts were talking about the likelihood of getting jobs and leaving with the Fleet. Over there, a knot of North Posts was discussing a drainage problem on the new racetrack.
Ro came rushing up to her and broke her from her reverie. The girl was breathing hard, her face flushed, her scarf askew. She held tight to Kai’s hand, but he was a few steps behind her, their arms outstretched to their limits. Dee regarded him coldly, and Elliot did her best to keep her eyes averted.
For Darkness Shows the Stars Page 11
