“That’s Van’s handwriting,” he said, frowning. He handed it back to me.
“ ‘Terra,’ ” I read aloud, holding the scrap of paper between my middle finger and thumb, “ ‘we need extract of common foxglove. Stone will have in herbarium. Bring to next meeting. Van.’ ”
I, too, frowned. “Did you know he was going to ask me for this?”
“No!” Koen said, and from the way that his eyes went wide enough to show the whites, I believed it. “What would they want with some plant?”
“I don’t know,” I said, biting my lip, “but I don’t think I can help them. It’s not like I’ve even seen the herbarium. Mara’s the only one who goes in there.” I’d seen the door at the rear of the lab but never even stepped past the threshold. And Mara wasn’t eager to help the rebels. She’d made that much clear. So I crumpled the sheet into a ball and tossed it down to the floor. Pepper pounced after it, batting it as if it were one of his catnip mice. I smiled at the way the cat’s tail furled and unfurled in slow waves. But then I saw that Koen wasn’t smiling anymore.
“What?”
“You should do what they ask,” he said. I was surprised to hear a note of fear in his voice, bright and clear. “From what Van tells me, they’re not . . . they’re not the kind of people you want to make mad.”
On the floor Pepper took a running dive toward the paper and chased it underneath the bed.
“I’ve proved my worth to them. So why should I be afraid of people I can’t even see?” I glanced at my intended. “Why should you?”
“You’re not the only one who’s had to do stuff for them.” Koen raked his hand through his hair. “They asked me to watch your father, Terra. And report his activities back to them.”
“My father? Really?” It was hard for me to imagine what sort of threat my drunken father might pose to the Children of Abel.
“I don’t even know why. He never does anything. He mostly seems . . . kind of sad.”
“My father is no friend of Abel,” I said, an echo of Van’s voice in my melancholy words.
“I guess he isn’t. But he doesn’t seem dangerous, either.”
Silence stretched between us. Desperate to fill it, I slid down onto the floor and gathered Pepper in my hands. The cat leaned his body into mine, drawn to its warmth.
“I don’t really understand how you got involved with them, Koen,” I said softly. To my surprise, Koen set the journal on top of my desk. He came to sit beside me, his knee knocking mine. Pepper stretched slowly, then tiptoed over onto Koen’s legs. I watched my intended run his fingers along the bony ridges of the cat’s back.
“I used to always hang out in the library. Reading about the way the dome works. The changes of the seasons, all of that. Van started talking to me one day. We hit it off. He’s just so passionate about everything. This was last year. I was worried that the Council would stick me with some job I didn’t want. I don’t know. Once I had my vocation, I thought things would change. That I’d lose interest in the whole thing. But I didn’t, not after Van dragged me to a meeting. The way people talk there . . . it was so easy to get swept up in it.”
I thought of the jumble of voices that had filled the library rafters, rattling the dust and the cobwebs from the corners. I thought of how I’d moved my fingers to my chest in salute without even a second thought. I’d felt proud to be part of something for once. Like it wasn’t so bad that I was different—because there were other people here on the ship who felt as odd and ill fitting as I did. I could understand how someone could get caught up in that. But not Koen.
“I thought you wanted to be normal.”
“I do,” he said. “Of course I do. But . . .”
“But what?” I asked.
“But when it comes down to it, I don’t think I ever will be.”
I didn’t know what to say. By then Pepper had settled in on Koen’s lap. Koen’s big hand rested between the cat’s shoulder blades. His knuckles were bony, and blue veins lined his skinny wrists. Despite their size, they were fragile, delicate-looking hands. When I reached out and finally put my dirty, work-hard hand on top of his, our hands presented a strange contrast. Koen didn’t turn his hand over, didn’t take my fingers in his, squeezing them tight. But he also didn’t draw his hand away.
“That’s okay,” I said gently. “I don’t think I’ll ever be normal either.”
Two days later we entered the edge of the orbit of Eps Eridani, our new sun. The captain decreed it would be a feast day like the harvest, even though the weather was cold and the times were lean. We were excused from our duties and given extra rations, and the little kids all wore their best winter clothes—fur coats and velvet dresses and ribbons in their hair.
I didn’t have anything nice of my own, only a green knit dress that had once been Momma’s. It was too big, but I tried to look presentable, rolling the sleeves up around my elbows, knotting one of her old scarves around my narrow waist. It felt strange to be wearing something other than my lab coat and trousers—I almost didn’t feel like me. But when Abba peered in and saw me staring at myself in my bedroom mirror, a smile lit up his weathered face.
It seemed I was becoming my mother in more ways than one.
The two of us went to Koen’s quarters for an early supper. Koen’s dad made an orange-colored curry and dry, flat loaves of bread that were so different from what we ate in our own household that it was hard to believe they were made from the same species of wheat. But I forced a smile as I chewed and washed it down with a big gulp of my rationed wine. Not that anyone was paying much attention to me anyway.
Koen’s parents spent the whole meal fighting. I might have had the good manners to refrain from commenting on the food, but Koen’s mother apparently didn’t.
“I can’t believe we wasted our protein rations on this,” she said, tossing her napkin down over her nearly full plate. Koen’s eyes widened in horror.
“Well, then you should have spent all morning in the galley!”
“Don’t even start with me! You know I was busy with Stella!”
Koen’s sister was dressed in layers of navy velvet. Her dark hair had been curled into spirals. As her parents argued, she looked somehow pleased, a wicked smile curling up the pretty bow of her mouth. Koen buried his face in his hands. I thought he might start crying, but instead he just stayed there like that, frozen through the rest of the meal.
The only gap in the Maxwells’ argument came during dessert. After Koen’s mother slammed a plate of steaming pie down in front of her husband, she spat, “There! You serve it!” and then collapsed in her chair again. Before her husband had a chance to respond, my father rapped the tines of his fork against his cup.
“I’d like to make a toast,” he said.
Five pairs of eyes swiveled over to him. I think we’d all forgotten he was there. My father lifted himself solemnly to his feet. I watched as Koen’s mom looked to her husband, shrugged. Reaching for our cups, we all stood.
“To my daughter,” my father said. His voice was rough at the edges, a little sloppy. I wondered how much he’d had to drink that day even before this glass. “And to Koen, as they join our families together. To the promise of their lives ahead. To life, and to Zehava. L’chaim.”
Everyone clinked glasses. I only sucked in my cheeks. Then I felt my dad set his hand between my shoulder blades. I could feel the pressure of his wide fingers on my spine as he leaned in close.
“Your mother would be so proud of you,” he said.
I gasped down the last mouthful of bitter white wine and said, “L’chaim.”