Moon (Glimpsing Stars, 1.5)

by S. K. Falls

  MOON

  A Glimpsing Stars Novella

  By S.K. Falls

  Copyright © 2013 by S.K. Falls

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Art by RBA Designs

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Moon (Glimpsing Stars, 1.5)

  About the Author

  Also by S.K. Falls

  City of Ursa, New Amana

  November 2078

  The moon is our planet’s only natural satellite. It is why my mother chose the name for me.

  By the time of my birth, she was hoping for some sort of miracle. My older sister, Neptune, was already disappointing at five years old. She was born what Mother called a “pre-War thinker.” Neptune didn’t understand the concept of following orders—she was always questioning things, the way people did before the 2013 War of the Nations. Her questions, defiant, inappropriate, and ceaseless, set Mother on edge. Or so I am told.

  When I was born, Mother wanted something different. She wanted a child who’d be born obedient as she had been, a child who shared her love for New Amana and everything for which it stood.

  Mother believes that women named after manufactured satellites are inferior. It might sound ludicrous, but she does have a point. After all, these satellites were put in the air by men when the world was in their charge, and look how that turned out. She’s always said she doesn’t understand why mothers would name their daughters after celestial objects created by the very people we now dominate—for their own wellbeing, and ours. According to her, they were just asking for their daughters to turn bad. A self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts.

  Perhaps she thought naming me after Earth’s only natural satellite would make it so I’d never be tempted by the dissidents amongst us—the Radicals—to turn on my country. Or perhaps she hoped I’d be the one to fulfill what she’d once thought was her destiny—working for the Bureau of Transregional Affairs. Clearly, Neptune, even as a toddler, was not going to be what my mother had wanted. When I was born, my path through life was already carved out. All I had to do was fit myself into the groove and let go.

  City of Ursa, New Amana

  August 2072

  My mother sips her tea, her small, shrewd eyes never leaving my sister’s form. Neptune sits at the table with us and yet she’s apart somehow, not quite on the same plane. Her gaze is distracted, her tea forgotten. She doesn’t notice Mother’s attention. It seems to me her thoughts are turned inward, as if she is already planning her escape. She has only been here thirty minutes.

  “And what are you doing today, Neptune?” Mother asks, her spoon clinking dully against the sides of her tin tea cup.

  “Work.” My sister’s voice is steady, but she doesn’t meet my mother’s eye or mine. Her fingers flutter on the tabletop as she plays a silent melody.

  This is how Neptune always is around our mother; fidgety, restless, unaware that I am there, too. But it doesn’t bother me much to be ignored this way. I’m used to my mother’s burning glare as she observes my every move, waiting to see if I will follow in Neptune’s subversive footsteps.

  I am thirteen years old. I have five more years of this before I can move to my own government-assigned apartment, like Neptune did last year.

  To be honest, I prefer not to be seen at all these days. The moments when Neptune visits, when Mother’s focus is on her and not on me, feel like a reprieve. It is as if a tight binding around my chest has been loosened, allowing me to finally breathe. Sometimes it makes me guilty, that I am thankful for Neptune’s suffering. But then I remind myself that she doesn’t live here any longer. She doesn’t have to endure the scrutiny as I do.

  “Hmm.” Mother stops stirring, finally, and sets down her spoon. Picks up her cup. Takes a sip. The slurping thunders against my eardrums.

  Neptune has never been able to please my mother—not that she’s ever made it a priority. As far back in my memory as I can remember they’ve been this way, always repelling each other, magnets with like poles. And while they’ve tossed barbs at each other, my mother trying to inch forward through Neptune’s defenses, I’ve stood outside, just beyond their awareness, watching and learning.

  Neptune smiles at me, a tight-lipped thing that barely moves her mouth. “We just received uniforms at the factory that must be dyed purple. We mix the blue and red to do it. It’s fascinating to watch the colors merge to create the right shade.”

  Mother makes a noise halfway between a snort and a sigh. “Dyeing uniforms—a ridiculous occupation. If you’d been smart enough to apply for a job at BoTA, like I told you, you’d actually be doing something useful with your life now.”

  For unknown reasons, Neptune rejected the idea of working at the Bureau of Transregional Affairs—commonly called BoTA—outright when Mother suggested it last year. Mother never did forgive her. She says Neptune’s job at the factory is demeaning, a job for people with little to no intelligence.

  I myself cannot understand why Neptune would choose to work in a place with no windows, where the din of machines must make it impossible to speak to another living person.

  Neptune darts a look at her. Her voice dripping venom, she says, “Perhaps there is more to a person than what they do for a job. Have you ever considered that?”

  Mother glares, her hands clutching her tin cup tight. I wonder if she will leave fingerprints in the metal. “Is there more to you, then, Neptune? Do you do things our government doesn’t know about?”

  They stare at each other across the table. I know what Mother is thinking. She believes Neptune is likely a dissident, that she purposely chose a job where the government would have no reason to keep close account of her activities. Mother’s become more and more convinced of this in the last year, after Neptune moved into her own apartment. I do not agree with her speculations. I think Neptune is simply tired—very tired—of following rules. But you never know. That’s the most important thing I’ve learned in school. People often aren’t who you think they are. Everyone wears masks.

  Once, not too long after she began work at the factory, Neptune came over to keep me company when Mother was working a night shift. We sat on the sofa, speaking of nothing much, until she turned to me with a suppressed shine in her dark eyes.

  “Can I ask you a question?” she’d asked, her hands folded tightly together.

  That shine and her energy made me nervous. Neptune’s questions were always difficult to answer and even harder to consider, verging as they almost always did on Rad territory. But I was curious, so I nodded.

  “Do you believe the regime really is feminist? That they really do work for the good of every female in New Amana?”

  In spite of expecting something outrageous, I was startled to even be asked such a question—I couldn’t formulate a response. I opened my mouth and closed it again. I was afraid someone would walk past the apartment and hear us; I was afraid the Escorts would come bursting in, sensing the disobedient thoughts hovering over our building. They’d drag us off to the gas chamber, snuff our terrorist lives out without a thought. Or perhaps just as bad, what if Mother came home and overheard?

  Finally, I said, “Of course. Of course I do.”

  Neptune leaned back and lit a cigarette, a relic from years long past. She got them from le marché noir, the black market, and smoked whenever Mother wasn’t home. It was another thing Mother would point to as evidence of Neptune’s Radical leanings. “I’ve been hearing things from the other workers at the factory. Some of the women there say the
re was a time when true feminism was about asking questions, about challenging the people in power when they undermined women’s freedoms.” She blew out blue smoke, obscuring her face for a moment. “There was a time when a woman’s worth wasn’t dependent on the children she produced.”

  I shook my head slowly. “But...but the rules are made for our benefit. The regime would never ask us to follow an order that might hamper New Amana’s progress. Healthy children are how we’ll repopulate our nation.”

  “And have you never considered that being gassed might be too harsh a punishment for being unable to produce one? Or perhaps that each woman should be allowed to decide for herself whether or not she wants to be a mother at all?” Neptune’s face was hard, her eyes glittering with something I’d never seen in her before.

  I couldn’t quite grasp what she was saying or why she was saying it. It was as though she’d forgotten everything we’d been taught from when we were old enough to understand: that all good citizens strive to do what’s best for the collective, not for the individual. Had she learned nothing from the mistakes of the men who came before us? “You can’t...be serious.” I managed the words falteringly, unable to think of what else to say.

  Neptune reached forward and grasped my hand. “You could come with me one day, meet some of the women I work with. There are other ideas out there, Moon. Other ways of living. We don’t have to believe everything they’ve told us.”

  I pulled my hand out of hers, feeling sick and feverish. I didn’t know what had come over my sister or why she was saying things that could get us both killed. But before I could respond, we heard Mother’s key in the door, and Neptune rushed to put out and hide her cigarette. We never did finish our discussion; Neptune never mentioned it to me again. To be honest, I was quite thankful. The thought of meeting other women who share Neptune’s wild ideas scared me.

  Now, at the table, the tension between Mother and Neptune is so thick I feel it pressing down on my shoulders. Finally, Neptune smirks and looks away. She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t defend herself against Mother’s insinuation.

  She pushes back her chair. “I need to use the washroom before I go. Excuse me.”

  Mother’s hard gaze follows her as she walks out.

  When my sister has disappeared from view, Mother turns to me, her small brown eyes fevered and bright. Her thin hand clamps down on mine with surprising force.

  “She’s a Radical. I feel it in my bones.” A glob of saliva flies from her mouth and lands on my arm, warm and wet, and I cannot hide my shudder of revulsion. She does not notice. “We must find out for sure so we can report her. For the good of our country, Moon. For New Amana.”

  I know why Neptune doesn’t visit us very often. She is only here today because it is my mother’s birthday, and I asked her to come. My mother’s fever, her hunger to uncover Neptune’s supposed lies is like a thick cloud that makes breathing difficult. It suffocates even me; I cannot imagine how it is for Neptune.

  Many years ago, Mother was denied entry into her choice of career with BoTA because they said she lacked initiative and the required passion for her country’s future success. So, instead, she was assigned to be a Maintenance custodian.

  She loathes her job, spending time looking after a group of brutish Maintenance men. She’s told me before that she’d much rather be in a quiet office, typing up reports on machines amongst other women. Mother says she lacked the requisite number of reports of suspected Radicals that BoTA employees are supposed to have under their belts before they are granted employment. I imagine she is making up for lost time now, reporting all those she should’ve reported when it would’ve made a difference. And the one person she is burning to report most of all is her eldest daughter.

  It was as though something inside Mother, some last thread of patience, began to wear thin when Neptune refused to even consider joining BoTA. With every passing day that my sister goes to her factory job and my mother goes to her joyless one, that thread wears thinner and thinner. It’s as if Mother thinks Neptune intentionally disrespected her by choosing not to apply for the position she’d wanted so badly all those years ago. Mother sees Neptune’s disobedience as an attack on her. And she hungers to retaliate.

  My mother’s hand clamps harder and an electric bolt of pain sears my nerves. I realize she is still waiting for an answer, so I nod, though I have forgotten her question. It doesn’t matter; when Neptune is here, the only thing we discuss is unearthing her treachery. Right now, I need Mother to stop touching me, to stop burning me with her gaze.

  “I’ll check on Neptune.” I push my chair back and hurry into the back of the apartment.

  My sister is at the washbasin, staring into her own eyes in the mirror. Neptune and I could not have looked more unalike if we’d been birthed by two different mothers. It is funny to me that though everyone in New Amana is some shade of brown with dark hair and eyes, we can all look so different.

  Neptune clearly carries more North American genes in her than I do. She is tall and thin, her skin pale, her eyes wide and dark. Her hair, more brown than black, falls to her waist in a thick braid. I, on the other hand, am small and sturdy, my ink black hair cut short to just under my ears. My eyes are small, like Mother’s, closed off and clouded. My mother says I’d be a good secret-keeper; the perfect person to work in BoTA with all of its classified information.

  Neptune sees me in the mirror and turns around, a small smile on her face. “Did she send you to check on me? See if I was sneaking out the window to a Rad meeting?”

  My heart pounds at the expression on her face. It is angry and shuttered. “M-mother just wants...” I trail off, unsure how to continue. Because I know exactly what my mother wants, and it seems Neptune does, too. What would be the point of lying?

  Neptune steps closer to me; so close her perpetual scent of fabric dye burns my nose. It has seeped into her skin over the past year; if we cut her, she will bleed all the colors of New Amana. “Mother wants to be sure her womb didn’t produce a Radical. She’s obsessed with proving those who refused her entry into BoTA wrong. She wants nothing more than to show she’s New Amana’s finest patriot, and she doesn’t care if she has to sell her own daughter down the river to do it.”

  I shake my head, but I don’t argue. We can both see the truth clearly. Mother thinks Neptune is the enemy. I can’t blame her, not completely. Neptune does have ideas that go completely against what we’ve been taught, and she doesn’t do much to hide them or her disdain for Mother. “Why don’t you just make more of an effort?” I say quietly so Mother won’t hear me. “Show her she’s wrong about you.”

  Neptune stares at me for a long moment and then she laughs. “I think we’re well beyond that, don’t you? There’s nothing I can say now to convince her otherwise.” She glances toward the doorway, and then, leaning toward me, she says in a whisper, “I’m leaving New Amana.”

  I feel myself tremble deep inside, in the fibers of my muscle and the marrow of my bone, though I don’t show it outwardly. I’m not sure what to say to this. If Neptune leaves, I won’t see her ever again. And perhaps worse than that, it will prove to people—beyond a shadow of a doubt—that she is a dissident. Why else would one choose to leave?

  But if she stays, Mother will never stop prodding her, she will never stop examining her behavior for signs of terrorism. With the two of them, it is as if I’m constantly straddling a fault line, just waiting for the earthquake that will change the terrain of my world forever.

  I care for my mother, though I know she has a kernel of something fiery and bitter inside of her, something that tells her that she, personally, solely, is responsible for weeding out terrorism in our midst. But I also care for my sister, because I have never known life without her. She has always been Neptune the grown-up, the one with the exciting life and outrageous ideas. I’ve always marveled at her—off on her own to school and then to work at the garment factory, with her important job of dyeing uniforms for everyone to
wear. I imagine her standing over a big vat of every color the eye can see: Violets and crimsons and indigos mixing together, pouring out, painting the world vivid as she stands watch.

  “What...what do you mean? Where will you go?” I swallow, hard. Thirteen is much too old to cry.

  But she shakes her head, a small smile hovering over her lips. “Knowledge is dangerous. Isn’t that what they say?”

  We hear Mother moving in the kitchen and Neptune stiffens. “I must go.”

  “Already?” I ask, my heart still pounding from the news she’s given me. Neptune’s leaving...for good. When will she go? How will she get there? Doesn’t she care that she’ll never see me or Mother again? Doesn’t she care that she’ll be disobeying the regime, that she’ll be gassed if they catch her? But of course, I can’t risk asking her any of those questions right now. Not with Mother in the house. So I push those thoughts aside. They will have to wait.

  I stare at my sister. I haven’t seen her in weeks, haven’t had anything to distract me after I come home from school. Mother and I sit in silence or listen to the radio broadcast until the lights come on, and then we eat supper. After that we clean up and go to bed. I lie sleepless for hours until dreams claim me. Then I wake and we start over.

  When Neptune visits on the nights my mother works, she tells me stories of the work she does, of the new people in her life. Now that she’s made this trip, she won’t be back for days. She says this place feels like a prison. The time stretches out before me like a deep, dark tunnel—no end in sight.

  “I’m in desperate need of a cigarette and I know I can’t tell her that.” She points her chin toward the wall, on the other side of which is the kitchen.

  “When will you return?”

  “I can’t be sure, Moon.” She sighs, and then, a bit awkwardly, smoothes a strand of hair off my forehead. “It won’t be too long. All right?”

  “All right.” I try to smile and then step out of the washroom, making my way back to the kitchen.