by Karen Bao
She’s acting as if she knows nothing about the recent Lunar-Pacifian alliance. Maybe she doesn’t; the Committee’s kept it from the Lunar public, and Pacifia’s leadership may not have informed its allies yet either. Most Earthbound probably think that the Lunars wouldn’t touch their planet with a 400,000-kilometer-long pole.
After Battery Bay led Pacifia in a failed attempt to democratize the warmongering Moon thirty years ago, the Lunars supposedly retreated into isolation. Without a common enemy, the Batterers and Pacifians have turned on each other. Each expanded its individual alliances in case war broke out. Pacifia pursued the less developed nations most degraded by centuries of free-market global trade, appealing to their ingrained bitterness. The capitalist and democratic Battery Bay labeled Pacifia a bully and set out to protect economic and political openness worldwide. Or so they claimed.
Most people don’t know that without telling the Lunar populace, the Committee began using the Moon’s Militia to attack nonaligned Earth cities and seize their resources—cities like Saint Oda. Now Everett is using fear of Lunar brutality to persuade them.
“The Lunars have grown even more barbaric of late.” Everett turns to one of the soldiers behind her, who holds a small black cube. “Play the video. They should know what happens to those who are captured.”
The cube spins and clicks in the soldier’s hand and then projects a high-resolution image on the stone wall at the rear of the Overhang. At the activation of an electronic device, several Odans tsk their tongues in disapproval. But they all turn to watch the video.
The boy is alone.
I recognize my little brother one feature at a time. The blank eyes are the same shape. The mouth, if those cuts were erased, might resemble his. But the sunken cheeks, covered in bruises that bloom like violets . . .
Cygnus is exhausted, bald, and horribly thin.
Then the electric chair comes to life, and he’s in that white cylinder of a cell with a monster.
My brother’s eyes scrunch shut. Beneath the electricity streaking across his bruised face, he’s screaming.
“T two A one G—”
The binoculars slip from my hands; the observatory floor rises to meet my knees.
“Stop, please,” I murmur to myself.
But Cygnus keeps hollering nonsense. “T two A one G three omicron C-E-T alpha C-O-L alpha P-H-E dodeca-chordata T two A one G three.” He gasps for breath; my heart lurches. “T two A one G three omicron C-E-T—”
“That is more than enough.” Wesley Sr. plucks the cube out of the soldier’s hand, hurls it to the ground, and crushes it beneath his moccasin-clad foot. His face reddens as he points toward the ocean. “Out. Get out!”
I look through my binoculars again. Many of the remaining audience members are fleeing the scene, their faces contorted and disturbed. The people that have stayed cluster near the stage, hurling words of condemnation at the Tourmalinian entourage. Never have I heard the Odans’ musical speech turn to wrathful howling.
Ambassador Everett’s jaw quivers. “We only meant to—”
Wesley Sr. looks at the audience and taps his lips with one finger. The scattered plainclothes Sanctuarists raise their blowguns to their mouths.
The Tourmalinian entourage turn on their heels and retreat toward their floating city, Ambassador Everett glaring at the Overhang as she goes. At the last moment, her eyes seem to find the lighthouse, the look in them venomous enough to kill.
I battle the overwhelming urge to shout, to run, to kick something and relish the pain. Instead of taking entire seasons to recover, instead of enjoying the company of Wes and the other Earthbound people I’ve met, I should have been clawing my way back to the Moon. I sit with my back to the lighthouse window, catching my breath.
The Militia troops sent footage of Cygnus’s brutal capture to me and Wes as we escaped Base IV, and yet I didn’t turn back to save him. Guilt has caught up with me, but it’s months too late.
The Tourmalinians showed the torture video to intimidate the Odans, but in doing so, they’ve stirred up a fierce energy inside me. I’m an arrow pulled tight against a string, and if I don’t fly toward the Moon before time runs out, I might splinter bit by bit.
4
I STAY IN THE LIGHTHOUSE, CURLED IN A ball, until night comes. When the temperature drops, tears freeze on my face. The Carlyles will worry about why I haven’t come home, but whatever Wes has to say, whatever Murray’s reactions or the Odans’ declamations against Lunars may be—I don’t want to hear it or be expected to respond.
The waves advance and retreat, the sound like crackling electricity. To my ears, the keening of Saint Oda’s nocturnal animals resembles a young boy’s screams.
When it feels like the next howl will light a fuse in my head, I slide down the lighthouse’s ladder, ignoring the potential for blisters, and begin to climb the mountain. Moments later, I reach a gaping hole in the rock face and duck inside.
Saint Oda is a burrowing city. The interior of Koré Island, the central landmass in the archipelago, is shaped like a cone, with a spiral staircase leading upward. Murray says that both the stairs and the dwellings are modeled after the curves of a snail shell. The frigid air smells of brine; Odans find bleach and ammonia nastier than the gunk those compounds dissolve. During high tides, or when storms blow through, ocean water floods the lower levels. It happened just last month, leading homeowners and shop proprietors to complain at the city council meeting. People lived on a floor below the current lowest level as recently as fifty years ago, when the Earth was cooler and the sea farther down. Only crabs and eels pass through those rooms now.
I emerge into the night air near the peak of the highest mountain. The bioluminescent bacteria in the glass bulbs cast their blue glow, brighter than yesterday. Murray must have fed them flour while I was gone. Despite her family’s stature, she’s expected to maintain the lighting near Koré’s peak and contribute labor to the community like any other adult.
Far below, footbridges float atop the ocean, also glowing blue, bobbing gently with the waves. They connect the four auxiliary islands to each other and to this one. Usually, the vista strikes me dumb with its beauty; today, it impresses my eyes but not my mind. I’ve been stricken enough already. I wipe sweat from my forehead, looking up at the Moon while I catch my breath.
Even if I climbed the highest mountain on Earth, I’d still be too far away to help Cygnus. Somewhere on Saint Oda, a wolf cries, and all I hear is my brother’s pain. Earth is taunting me, and it feels like yet another sign that I belong back on the Moon. But although I’m absent, several Odan agents, Wes’s colleagues and friends, watch over their respective bases. If I could just talk to them . . .
My feet pick up the trail again, energized by a new idea. I keep my eyes turned upward. Unaware that a lost girl is watching them, the stars—and my cratered homeland—continue to shine against the dark.
* * *
Unlike most Odan dwellings, the Carlyle family’s home isn’t underground. It’s not aboveground either: a hollow rock formation makes up three walls and half the ceiling, while lumpy glass shields the rest of the interior from rain and wind. In the absence of mechanized industry, Wes explained, people made these materials by hand. Primitive, a Lunar would say, but I find it charming.
The house is only quasi-subterranean—with one glass wall—because the Sanctuary coordinator needs high ground and an excellent vantage point. Not that Saint Oda is often attacked, but Odans want at least one person to remember that it’s a possibility.
The front door is a wooden block dyed green with foxglove leaf extract. I pound my fist against it until Murray swings it open. Her expression is standoffish and stale, and her gaze dodges mine when I try to make eye contact.
“Cheep! Cheep! Chirrreeeep!”
Having announced my arrival, Lewis rises off of Murray’s shoulder and coasts into the kitchen
. As he swoops across the dinner table, a gigantic hollowed-out tree stump, his wing knocks a clay dessert bowl to the floor. Crash!
I stumble into the entryway. Wes’s parents take in my disheveled appearance, and their jaws settle, firm, like they’re cast in iron. In the corner, Nanna Zeffie, an old woman with spectacles and white hair that coils like sheep’s wool, looks up from slicing an elderberry pie and frowns.
“I told you she would come home, Murray!” Emberley, Wes’s eight-year-old sister, says, taking Murray’s hand and skipping around her in a circle. “Knew it the whole time.” The young girl’s hair is the upbeat orange of tiger lilies, even in the blue light. Beside her, Murray turns her face toward the shadows.
The youngest Carlyle, six-year-old Jubilee, blinks at me. She’s the most like her parents, the hardest to impress.
Wes rushes forward as if he’ll embrace me. Remembering our audience, I raise my hands to prevent a high-momentum collision, and he touches my elbow instead. My heartbeats grow too frequent, and not only because I’ve been running.
“Don’t scare me like that again,” he whispers. “That video smelled like bait.”
I look down at the muddy hem of my skirt.
“I’m sorry. That was inconsiderate. There was no way you could have prepared for those . . . those images.”
“Did you say something, Wes?” Murray’s voice is higher than normal, as if her vocal cords have been stretched too tight.
“Don’t worry about it.” Wes has used that phrase at least twice a day since we arrived. He picked it up from me—without fail, it shuts down unnecessary or unwanted conversation. But as I’ve learned through hard experience, it also keeps people at a distance, and I’m not sure if Wes will want that in the long run.
“Calm down, Marina.” The house’s matriarch rarely uses Murray’s full name. Square-jawed and stout, Wes’s mother, Holly Carlyle, rises slowly to her feet. The gray color of her dress highlights the silver at the roots of her brown hair. “Emmy, Julie, sit down and finish your supper.”
Mrs. Carlyle uses the same cajoling tone to address her little girls as she does with her grown daughter.
I’ve missed dinner. Every day, at exactly eight “p.m.”—or 20:00, as a Lunar would say—the Carlyles gather around their circular wooden table, clasp hands, and recite a prayer to thank God for the plants, animals, and fungi that lost their lives or tissues so the family could eat. Tourmaline’s visit hasn’t disrupted this routine—until now. Wesley Sr. looks anxiously at his two younger daughters and clears his throat. “In fact, it’s Emmy and Julie’s bedtime.”
Nanna Zeffie stops cutting the pie midslice, parks the knife in the golden crust. “I’ll tuck them in.”
Next to me, Wes gulps. Mrs. Carlyle, Murray, and Wesley Sr. must want to discuss the day’s events. I brace myself for the scolding I’ll get when the little girls and their grandmother are out of earshot.
“It’s getting cold, Nanna,” Wes stammers, trying to spare me. “Fay and I could help you stoke the fires in their rooms.”
“You’ll stay right here, Wesley.” Mrs. Carlyle’s voice grows shriller. “And so will Fay.”
“Mother!” says Emberley. “It’s not nine o’clock yet. And I’m not tired!” She pouts and points at the huge analog clock by the wall. It’s so old that its wooden bits are rotting at the edges. The name “grandfather clock” suits it perfectly; Wes told me it dates back to the twentieth century. At that time, I suppose, it was acceptable to use a tree’s worth of wood to construct a mere timepiece.
“You’re never tired, Emmy.” Nanna Zeffie shuffles toward her, tugging a pouting Jubilee by the hand. “Time for bed.”
Jubilee fixes me with a tight-lipped glare that seems unnatural on her plump face, as if she knows I’ve caused her early imprisonment. Then she disappears down the hallway with her sister and grandmother. I hear their slippered feet climbing the spiral staircase to the second floor.
I can’t bear to look at the Carlyles, so instead, I direct my gaze to the wall above Murray’s place at the table. Hanging there is what looks like a photograph of a teenage girl, except her features look smudged and the shadows don’t fall quite where you’d expect; it must be a painting, an Earthbound image that I know takes longer to create. The girl in the picture has dark skin with a luminous pallor and thick black hair that hangs in a braid over one shoulder. Her big eyes seem to see everything—sometimes they follow me around the room—and her unyielding lips are pressed shut.
I’ve looked at her countless times: when Wes’s mother needles him about his interactions with Odan citizens, when his father asks about the minutiae of his exercise routine, when Murray tries to mediate their conversations and the whole scene melts into heated argument. But no one has ever explained who the girl is or why her picture hangs here.
When I can no longer hear Nanna’s or the girls’ footsteps, Wesley Sr. begins to speak. “Fay. Explain yourself, and the quicker you are about it, the sooner you can resume your customary silence.”
I nod, hoping I look calmer than I am.
“Why didn’t you return to the house with Murray when Tourmaline dropped anchor? And why did you stay out so long past sunset? I thought you had heeded our warnings about our island’s nocturnal wildlife.”
Brown bears, wolves, and wild boars roam Saint Oda at night; the Odans consider themselves blessed, as these species nearly went extinct elsewhere. But the predators occasionally attack the city’s people, whose faith forbids fighting back. Wesley Sr. knows I’m terrified of these unfamiliar creatures. Flat-ended bees were the most dangerous creature I ever encountered on the Moon.
As if seeking help, I lock eyes with the painted mystery girl. I can’t risk exposing my Lunar identity by admitting that the boy in the torture video was my brother. Although the Odans treat every living thing peacefully, we are the singular, unnatural “demons” they cannot tolerate. If Wesley Sr. finds out I’m a Lunar, he’ll throw me off Saint Oda into the open ocean, where I’ll drown or be captured. Wes would face exile too, for harboring an enemy.
“Tried to leave,” I enunciate. “Crowd trapped me near the lighthouse.”
Mrs. Carlyle and Murray shudder, as I hoped they would. Wesley Sr. rolls his eyes, unimpressed.
Wes walks toward them. “Want to know what Fay told me, just a minute ago?” His voice grows hushed as he launches into a lie. He developed his technique in preparation for his spy stint and perfected it during those years on the Moon, away from his family. They don’t realize what he’s doing. “She saw the wandering souls of her family—her mother, her brother, everyone who died breathing engine exhaust in the Pacifian motor room.”
Murray throws an arm around her brother’s shoulders and squeezes. “Oh, Wes, I’ve been so insensitive. I didn’t know.” She approaches, hands outstretched to hug me. “And Fay . . .” In her embrace, I can feel her body quivering with emotion.
“My deepest sympathies.” Mrs. Carlyle gives me an awkward pat on the shoulder.
There’s a twinge of guilt in my midsection. Wes and I have upset them—but these are necessary lies. Wes told me once that he forgives himself for deceiving, stealing, hurting, even killing, because he commits those crimes with the noblest intentions. It’s how he stays sane.
“I got stuck. Near the lighthouse.” I will my lower lip to tremble, as if I’m about to cry. Then I remember Cygnus’s screams, and I’m no longer faking sorrow. “Had to walk and clear my head.”
“That explains why you looked rattled when you arrived home.” Wesley Sr. crosses his arms. “Odd, though. I didn’t expect you to be superstitious, given your background.”
My mouth twitches involuntarily. Does Wes’s father suspect I’m a Lunar? I retrace each of my steps, my every word, wondering what could have blown my cover. Tears of panic sting my eyes, but in this case, they’re opportune.
“Look what you’ve do
ne to the poor girl—she’s ready to cry!” Mrs. Carlyle steps forward as if to protect me. “How can you say such things? Pacifians have legends of their own; only those Lunar demons are godless.” She turns to me, using the same tone she employs when Jubilee stubs her toe and cries, or when Murray looks glum for no reason. “Dear Fay, I’m sorry for your ordeal. Really, truly sorry.”
I’ve never heard her speak this softly to Wes, not even when he took over some of his grandmother’s duties, cooking and cleaning and tucking in his sisters, during the week in November when Nanna Zeffie fell ill.
“But I beg you,” Mrs. Carlyle continues, “don’t stay out late again. Haven’t you noticed how Emmy and Julie adore you? That’s why it’s so good to have you here, aside from all the help you’ve given us. You must set a good example for my girls.”
I nod, relieved. I’m safe for today. But Mrs. Carlyle’s speech reminds me of my own mother’s lectures, which I’ll never hear again. Except in my memories.
The cracks in my mind open further, and a surge of grief escapes its deep confinement. Stop right there. Too many tears will give everything away.
“Thank you, dear.” Mrs. Carlyle smiles at me, then stands and circles the table to her husband. She hugs him; his face loses all its suspicion and fills with love. He pats her on her back, brushing his hands over her wavy hair. They share a brief look, and in only a second convey the affection and trust they’ve built up over long years of living together in safety.
I clench my eyes shut—hard, hard, harder, even though the pressure hurts. Mom must have held Dad like that, must have felt what Mrs. Carlyle’s feeling now. Maybe more. But I can’t ask her, so I’ll never know.
She looked at me, through me, in the seconds before she died. Did she know how much I’d miss her?
“Fay . . .”
I open my eyes.
Wes moves toward me, one hand extended. I don’t think he’s even aware of the gesture.
