For Darkness Shows the Stars

by Diana Peterfreund

  “I just gave you half a dozen reasons.” Dee sighed again. “Fine. I’m willing to compromise. If this doesn’t blow over by the time I have this baby, you are free to break me out of the birthing house. I’ll leave, and I’ll take my family, and you won’t have to worry about us anymore.”

  That wasn’t true. She’d worried about Kai for four years. And with more Posts leaving the estate, she’d worry about the fate of the farm as well. But it was all she would get from Dee.

  “Enough of this,” Dee said. “Shift change is coming. Let’s go see if Gill and the young captain have made any progress on that tractor. I want to be there when he apologizes to you.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” Elliot replied. “It’s not good for the baby.”

  KAI AND GILL WERE finished by the time Dee and Elliot arrived, and judging from their moods, they’d completely forgotten their argument the previous evening. Gill was laughing and slapping Kai on the back as the tractor hummed and sputtered away. Kai wore his sleeves pulled up and a grin Elliot hadn’t seen in four years. It stopped her in her tracks. She feared coming closer, dreaded being the reason for the smile to vanish from his face.

  Despite the previous night’s frost, the morning had turned unseasonably warm for winter, helped along somewhat by the bright sun and the deep blue of the cloudless sky. Much of the barnyard had turned to mud as the heat softened the frost, but Kai looked as if he’d escaped the worst of it, even if he had been on the ground beneath the machine.

  “Ladies!” Gill called. “The mechanic’s triumphant return!” He affected a flourished bow worthy of any Luddite lord, and Dee laughed and clapped. Kai still grinned, though once again he was not looking at Elliot.

  “Thank you,” she said to him nevertheless. “I’m afraid I never had the skill you did with this old hunk of junk.”

  He turned to grab his velvet jacket off a hook. “Yes, well. It was the least I could do.”

  “After . . . ?” Dee prompted, as Elliot wondered anew why there was no convenient sinkhole in the barnyard she could vanish into.

  “After my rudeness last night,” said Kai, doing up the buttons on his jacket. His hair covered his eyes as he spoke. “I never should have interrupted the festivities in that way.”

  “Really?” Dee crossed her arms. “That’s all you’re sorry about?”

  “Dee—” Elliot murmured.

  “Not all.” Kai lifted his head and looked at Elliot at last.

  Twenty-one

  HIS EYES SEEMED TO bore right through her again, and Elliot had to ball her hands into fists to keep them from trembling. Had she been wrong last night, at the party? Had they always been like this? In her myriad memories of Kai, why could she not recall the strangeness in his clear black eyes? Was it the stark comparison between the handsome captain he was now and the grimy mechanic she’d once loved? Or was it that now she feared meeting his eyes and seeing his hatred and disdain of her reflected in their depths?

  “I’m sorry I implied that Elliot doesn’t care about the Posts on her property.”

  As apologies went, his was pretty pale, yet her name on his tongue warmed her more than the morning sun. Where everything had changed, this at least was the same. Three syllables, and three thousand memories.

  But Kai wasn’t done. “It was wrong of me to say that, and it’s untrue. I think she cares about them very much.”

  For a moment, she thought he’d say more and braced herself for the inevitable put-down. But it never came, as he turned toward the sound of sun-carts approaching. A moment later, Andromeda and Donovan crested the hill with Olivia and Horatio in the passenger seats.

  “We’re going to the dunes,” Olivia announced when they arrived. “I’d like to take advantage of the weather before it gets cold again.”

  “You mean you’d like to take advantage of the Fleet’s sun-carts on the dunes,” Horatio corrected.

  Olivia blushed, very prettily, but recovered herself quickly. “Malakai, you must come along. And Elliot, too.”

  “I have work,” Elliot said automatically. She could happily live out the rest of her days without serving as witness to Olivia and Kai’s courtship.

  “We all have work,” said Horatio. “Except for my sister, lady of leisure that she is. She’s a bad influence.”

  Olivia laughed, and Elliot reminded herself again that the girl was not to blame for the pain in her heart.

  “Come have a picnic with us,” Horatio said. “You left our party so quickly yesterday that I didn’t even get the chance to dance with you.”

  “You expect to dance on the dunes?”

  Horatio chuckled. “I’m going instead of tending to my farm. If you don’t come, you’ll make me look bad.”

  His farm was not in such desperate shape. He had no broken tractors, and he had plenty of Posts to fill in when he wanted a day off. But Elliot would never say that aloud. She was still a North, and had too much pride for that.

  “Go,” said Dee. “The dairy is running smoothly, and I can’t think of anything else that needs your hand this afternoon.”

  Elliot narrowed her eyes. “You’re trying to get rid of me so I can’t protest your move.” She had half a mind to appeal to Kai on the issue—she knew he hated the birthing house as much as she did. But when she turned to him, he’d already draped his hands on the overhead rails of the sun-cart that carried Olivia and leaned down to listen to her. His attention was not on Elliot or Dee, or the concerns of the North estate. She couldn’t expect him as her ally.

  “Should we invite Tatiana?” Olivia asked.

  “Tatiana’s busy this morning,” Elliot said. “She’s entertaining my cousin, who came to the estate with my father last night.”

  Kai stiffened. “Benedict North has returned to the estate?”

  “Do you know him?” asked Horatio. “We’ve never met, but I hear he’s been living in a Post enclave.”

  Kai’s forehead furrowed, and his glance in Elliot’s direction was so quick she almost missed it. “I haven’t seen him in years.”

  “We don’t have enough room in the carts,” Andromeda said firmly. “Come on, let’s go.”

  Perhaps Andromeda wasn’t so bad, Elliot thought. She was saving her from having to spend the day with her sister.

  In a few minutes it was all decided, and they set off for the dunes. Donovan was letting Horatio drive his cart, and Elliot joined their party, while Andromeda climbed in the back of her cart to let Kai take the driver’s seat next to Olivia. It was only once they were on the road that Elliot realized there were two extra seats. No doubt Andromeda didn’t want to be outnumbered by Luddites.

  The dunes lay to the north even of the Boatwright estate, where the island grew thin and pointed like an arrow into the vast expanse of the sea. There was nothing but beach out here—no houses, no fields, no sign of civilization at all. In ancient times, this beach had been preserved as a religious artifact. The original settlers of the island had deemed it a home for the spirits, but no one believed that anymore. Indeed, wild places were the only ones truly free of spirits. All the real ghosts lived farther south, in the shells of the burned-out cities that had once belonged to the Lost. The Boatwright house and the shipyard was the closest anyone had gotten to building out here. The Boatwright family kept the cliffs mostly pristine in reverence of an ancestry that stretched back long before the Reduction.

  “What beautiful country,” Donovan said. “It reminds me very much of some of the wild islands we discovered on our explorations.”

  “That makes sense,” said Elliot. “Once upon a time, these lands were home to herds of wild horses. Was this what it looked like on the island where you found the Innovation horses?”

  Donovan looked at his hands. “I was not on that particular voyage. It was from . . . before I joined the Fleet.”

  “Still, you must have seen many spectacular sights. Things no one else has witnessed in hundreds of years.”

  “Yes,” Donovan replied, his ton
e stiff, and too late, Elliot remembered his song from the concert. He had seen them, and he now regretted every moment he’d spent away from Sophia.

  “That was a very beautiful song you gave us last night,” she said. “I am told that . . . I am very sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you,” said Donovan. “There are days that go by now where I’m fine. Where I believe that everything is better, and I can go through my day without thinking of her every second. But it’s almost worse after that. For then, when the memories do return, they bring with them remorse for having ever forgotten her.”

  “You haven’t forgotten her,” Elliot said, “just because a few minutes or days or eventually weeks go by without having your grief in the forefront of your thoughts. She wouldn’t like it if you dwelled only on your sadness.”

  “You say this from experience in loss?” Donovan replied.

  “Yes. I lost my mother four years ago.” And she’d also lost Kai. Neither person had been far from her thoughts in the ensuing years. But Kai had lingered more, because she knew he was out there somewhere. Her mother only lived in her heart. “And I try to honor her memory by doing what I know she would have done had she survived. But if I ever forget her, momentarily, I don’t berate myself when I am reminded. She can’t be the only thing I ever think of, or I’d be catatonic, as unable to cope as I was the day I lost her.”

  “Ah, there you have it. I am unable to cope. I am not a credit to the Cloud Fleet at present. I write sad songs, but I haven’t been working much on our ship.”

  “You will move past this,” she said.

  He gave her a pitiful smile. “I don’t think so. Your mother, I am sure, was taken before her time, but she was a grown woman. She had made a life, she had grown children in you and your sister. Sophia died so young—all of her potential was wasted.”

  “And would she be happy to see you wasting yours?” Elliot asked. “I didn’t know her, but I have heard she was a great fan of the future. She wouldn’t like you to think only of the past.”

  Donovan laughed mirthlessly. “Elliot, you sound nothing at all like a Luddite when you say things like that.”

  “Perhaps I do not have a very Luddite outlook,” she said. “But I am serious. You must continue to live your life, and remember her with fondness, not with guilt. You were not meant to think always and only of the person you have lost. That is not the way the human mind was meant to operate.”

  Donovan looked up at the flawless expanse of sky above their heads. “Perhaps I do not have a very human mind.”

  SEVEN YEARS AGO

  Dear Elliot,

  By the time you read this, I’ll be gone. I don’t want to stay here anymore. I’ve been here for my whole life—all eleven years—and I’ve had it. I don’t want to live and die on this farm like I’m one of the Reduced. I don’t want to work on your father’s stupid tractors. I want to read more books. I want to see more places. I am going away and I’m going to see the world. I heard there are places where there are Posts like me—Posts that don’t live on Estates and work for Luddites. I want to be one of those.

  I know I will miss my da, and I know I will miss you. Don’t miss me too much. Take care of Ro. Maybe someday I’ll come back and visit, and we can go see the stars like you said.

  Your friend,

  Kai

  Dear Kai,

  Please don’t be mad. I had to tell someone. It’s not safe for you to wander off the Estate. Ever since Benedict left, all I hear are horrible stories about the things that happen in those Post enclaves. Bad things. I can’t imagine them happening to you. And I can’t bear the thought of you leaving, either. I can’t be without you, and neither can Ro.

  Your father promised me he wouldn’t punish you. I only told him, you know. It’s not like I told mine! Please don’t be mad at me. Pretty please. I couldn’t bear it.

  Your friend (I hope!),

  Elliot

  Dear Elliot,

  It doesn’t matter anyway. Apparently I’m too stupid to even realize which way is north and which is south. The problem is you can’t see the stars in the daytime. I accidentally went north, and the land ran out. There’s nothing but cliffs up there and towers of rock sticking out of the sea. It looks like there used to be bridges that connected the towers to the mainland, but they’re all gone now.

  Do you know anything about them? Since I’m not running away anymore, do you want to go see them with me? I’ll think about forgiving you if you do.

  Your friend (maybe),

  Kai

  Dear Kai,

  Sure I’ll go with you. I know the towers you mean. They were formed when the sea ate away at the cliffs. It apparently happened long ago, before even the Reduction. But the towers have been getting longer ever since, as the sea eats more and more of the land.

  My mother says the bridges fell when she was still a young girl, and my grandfather decided it was too dangerous to try to rebuild them. I don’t know who built them the first time. Perhaps it was a Luddite who was desperate to catch a glimpse of the rest of the world.

  Your friend,

  Elliot

  Dear Elliot,

  Maybe it wasn’t a Luddite. Maybe it was a Post who built the bridges so he could escape to the North, to his own piece of land, untouched by the Luddite lords.

  Your friend,

  Kai

  Dear Kai,

  I have hidden your last letter. Be careful what you write to me!

  Your friend,

  Elliot

  Twenty-two

  THE SUN-CARTS CHUGGED ALONG now as they ascended the promontory at the northernmost tip of the island. The beaches on either side dwindled into nothingness against the sides of rocky cliffs. Ahead of them lay the point and the end of Elliot’s whole world—the end of the world entirely, as far as anyone knew.

  And yet, one day soon, Kai would be sailing off into that nothingness. Elliot shivered suddenly. She’d worried about him for four years. How much more worry was in store for her now that she knew how far he planned to go? On the other hand, she reminded herself, what difference did it make? He’d been beyond the reach of her influence and ability to help him from the moment he’d left the North estate. He was gone for good either way.

  They parked the carts near the very edge and spilled out onto the remaining tufts of dry winter grass. The sun was even stronger now, and Elliot unwound her scarf as the boys doffed their jackets and Olivia shed her heavy coat and began setting up the picnic. She’d brought a lot of leftovers from the party, Elliot noticed—fruit pies and meat pies and jars filled with hot apple cider.

  “Let me help you,” Elliot said, and knelt next to her on the blanket. Olivia was unpacking with one eye on the boys, who were peering over the edge of the cliff face and pointing at the waves that crashed against the rocks and sent spray hurtling a hundred meters in the air.

  Beyond the edge stood spindly spires of rock, a line of towers the wind and sea had left behind after carving out the more porous earth that had once formed a jagged spear out into the sea. In her grandfather’s time, there had been a bridge—a man-made one that stretched from tower to tower and formed a path out into the beyond. But it had long ago rotted away. Connections still existed between some of the spires, and others had tumbled into the sea. There was nothing at all that connected the mainland to the first stone tower, which stood about seven meters out in the abyss.

  When she was younger, she and Kai had played a game, standing at the edge of the cliff and throwing their arms out to the breeze, letting it lift and buffet them until they grew timid and backed away. Elliot always lost. Even then, Kai had been fearless and she had been cautious—Luddite to the core.

  A blast of salt-tinged wind shot up the cliff face and blew the boys backward. Horatio tripped and took a knee. Andromeda laughed.

  “They should be careful,” said Elliot.

  “They’re amazing!” Olivia exclaimed. “Not like anyone I’ve ever known. The whole Fleet—it seem
s somehow as if their lives are bigger, their spirits greater.”

  Elliot chuckled in spite of herself. She supposed the Fleet could come across as superior, but wasn’t it warranted? A group of estate-born Posts with fortunes that made every Luddite she knew drool with envy? They were important. It was a refreshing change to get that impression from a Post, rather than her sister.

  “And what they’re doing,” Olivia went on. “To go out as they do—to risk their lives to see if there’s anything at all left beyond these shores. That is the most worthy goal, isn’t it?”

  “More worthy than feeding people?”

  Olivia blushed. “No. Perhaps not. I know what our duty is. But I wish I wasn’t a Luddite, Elliot. I wish I could be an explorer, like them.”

  Elliot refused to be mean to the younger girl. It wasn’t Olivia’s fault that she was in love with Kai. It wasn’t her fault that she was fourteen, and carefree, and still fantasized about a world where she could run away from her estate and go exploring with the bravest boy she’d ever met. Once, Elliot had done the same. Once, she’d believed she could, that one day she and Kai would sail away and find the world that everyone else had lost.

  So now, she couldn’t resist asking Olivia, “What is stopping you?”

  “My brother, I suppose.” She shrugged. “I don’t think Horatio would let me go live in a Post enclave, at least not for another few years.”

  “Then do it in a few years,” Elliot replied, her tone growing short. She would not be cruel to Olivia. The girl was not to blame for Elliot’s situation, for her choices, for her heartbreak. Kai would hate Elliot even if Olivia Grove had never been born. “You’re free. Why shouldn’t you follow your heart’s desire?” Even if that desire included Kai.

  “A few years,” Olivia mused. “That seems too long to wait for—” She stopped herself, then looked at Elliot. “You must think I’m very foolish. A little girl with a crush.”