Sometimes we stopped on the path. Around us the ground was soggy and dotted with white stuff. Snow. But there were still flowers on the branches. They turned toward us, watching. And I would hear a voice in my mind: Who are you? I don’t know you. You’re not who I thought you would be.
And then I would answer: Bashert. I am your bashert. Your destiny. I know it. You must too.
He fell silent at that.
In my dreams our bodies moved together in a way that felt completely natural, like it was what my body was made for. Like every moment I’d ever felt awkward or out of place or wrong didn’t exist and never had. Sometimes the snow would be so cold against my skin that it nearly burned it. But then he would touch those pinpoints where my flesh had started to pink, and every sensation that wasn’t right and good and wonderful would melt away. Soon the vines that masked the trees crawled down to cover us. They tangled round our limbs, binding us together. Our bodies were covered with flowers. Everything was a flurry of color and feeling and light.
In my dreams I was very, very happy.
I’d wake up with a lump in my throat, like I’d just been crying, or wanted to. Sometimes I turned to my pillow and did cry, hugging Pepper to my chest. I lost something in waking. I always did.
I just didn’t know what.
One night Koen and I sat on a stone bridge that loomed above a river on the second deck of the dome. Our legs dangled above the burbling water. From above, it looked silver over the rocks. You almost couldn’t see the artificial bottom that waited below, or the jets that pushed the stream fore to aft, circulating the water toward the districts in an infinite loop. I shouldn’t have felt unsettled by the sight of it. This was what creeks looked like on the Asherah. But for some reason my belly clenched as I watched the salmon move through the stream. I wondered if rivers were different someplace else.
“Koen?” I asked. “Do you ever dream about Zehava?”
“Sure,” he said, his hair whipped by the wind. “All the time. I can’t wait to see what life will be like once we live there. You know, once we get rid of the Council.” He turned his gaze down the river, watching as a pair of kids untangled their fishing line at the shore. It seemed cold to me for fishing—their bare ears were pink, their hands all wrapped up in their heavy mittens. But, determined, they spiked their bait on their hooks and cast the lines out into the water.
“No,” I said. “I don’t mean ‘Do you think about Zehava?’ Of course you do. We all do. I mean, do you dream about it?”
Koen stared at me, thinning his lips. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I have these dreams,” I said, looking down at my dangling boots, at the untied laces that reached toward the current. “They’re kind of weird. I’m always on Zehava in them. Every single night. It’s always Zehava.”
“What’s it like there?”
I gave a shrug. “Wild. Weird. Hot.”
Koen let out a snort. He fixed his hands against the railing, pulling himself to his feet. Then he stuck his hands into his pockets. “I’ve had dreams like that.”
“You have?” I asked. The wind tangled our hair.
“Yeah. But I’ve never told anyone. It’s kind of embarrassing.”
I let out a sigh, relieved to share the burden. “I know.”
“Terra,” Koen began. A frown creased his eyebrows. “You know it doesn’t mean anything, right? Whatever it is you dream about—it doesn’t mean you can’t be a good citizen, a good wife.”
“Of course not, Koen,” I said, frowning too. “Why would it?”
He smiled faintly. Then he offered me his hand. I took it gratefully, pulling myself to my feet. But as we walked beside each other, we both stared out ahead, our expressions as dark as the shadowed branches that twisted above.
We’d reached a comfortable stalemate, Koen and I. On some nights we’d lounge around my bedroom and whisper about the rebellion. I loved those nights, when his hands would make passionate gestures through the air. Sometimes I teased him, and he blushed, and we laughed together. Sweet, hopeful laughter, laughter that rippled like river water over stones. I felt real and whole and present, like a better version of myself. I wondered if this was what love might feel like.
Other nights didn’t go so smoothly. We walked side by side in the dome, neither of us sure what to say to the other. I let my hair fall in front of my face, hoping it would shield me from his distant, empty stare. When he left me on my doorstep, he leaned forward—and only pressed a dry kiss to my cheek. I’d head inside our dark quarters with my stomach all twisted into knots.
I think we might have always stayed like that if it hadn’t been for Abba. He was the one who always pushed us together, pressuring us to make good on our promise to each other. The first true step toward marriage was the reading of the bloodlines. Once it was confirmed that we shared no ancestors, then we would be able to set a wedding date and seal our match. One morning over breakfast Abba looked up from his coffee and over to me and told me that he’d made the appointment with the genealogist for us.
“That’s supposed to be the bride’s job,” I protested. My father shrugged and pressed a napkin to his lips.
“I want to see to it that your marriage is secured, Terra. I want to make sure you’re firmly promised to the boy.”
“Koen,” I said. “His name is Koen. I don’t know why you’re so worried about it.” And I didn’t. My father had never fretted over me before, not like this.
But he didn’t answer. He only stared at me for a long time, his jaw clenched.
“Your appointment is tomorrow after work,” he said at last.
The next morning, on the day when Koen and I were scheduled to have our bloodlines read, I woke up feeling jittery, ill rested. It was like I hadn’t slept at all. As I dressed I paused to give Pepper a scratch behind the ear. It wasn’t until a half-formed thought drifted through my head—I wonder if Abba will mind if I take Pepper with me to my new quarters—that I realized that it was actually happening, that I was really going to marry Koen.
With a pounding heart I made my way down the stairwell.
But I stopped halfway when the smell of charred oatmeal reached me. My eyes swept over our first floor, quickly appraising the situation: The sink was on, water streaming over a towering pile of dirty plates. There was a pot burning on the stove. All of the cupboards had been thrown open, revealing our banged-up pans and chipped dishes. And my father sat at the table, frozen, his head in his hands.
I hustled down, turned off the burners, the sink. I tried not to think of the wasted water. “Every cup of wasted gray water,” my father had always lectured, “is another hour that some poor worker has to stay late at the plants. Think about your fellow citizen. About your duty!” I was never sure whether it was true or not, but he’d sounded serious about it at the time.
Now he let the water rush out of the faucet, let our rations burn to the bottom of the pot, all the while sitting with his hands covering his face.
“Are you okay?” I asked, standing, motionless, in front of the sink. When he didn’t answer, I cleared my throat. Nothing. Then he stumbled to his feet, not even meeting my eyes when his shoulder slammed mine. Crouching low, he rummaged through one of the cupboards.