Artemis protested, but it didn’t do any good. Mara dragged the girl upstairs, leaving me alone with Koen and Van as the sink water dripped from my pruney hands.
“Close the door,” I said finally. “You’re letting all the cold in.”
For a moment Koen only stared at me, his hands deep down in his pockets. Then he let out a laugh. That strange, familiar bark of laughter, like he knew no other way to fill the silence. It hurt me to hear it, like a knife sliding down into my gut.
“Sorry!” He pressed the door closed with his hip. I exhaled. I thought that the long, slow release of air would still the way my heart was beating. It didn’t, but if the men noticed my barely concealed panic, they gave no indication. They only stood there, fat in layers of clothing, smiling at me.
“If you’re going to stay,” I said, “you can take off your coats.”
Before they could answer, I turned away from them. I thought if I kept my hands busy, then they wouldn’t see how I shook. I fetched three mugs, put a kettle on for tea, and then began to clear the table, still half-scattered with supper plates and Mara’s books. The men peeled off their layers, unwound their scarves from their throats. I could smell the cold rising up off them, and beneath that the musky scent of their bodies. Cedar wood and old pages. Dust and something else. I saw an image in my mind: their bodies pressed together in the forest. Ashamed at the thought and the strange, muddled way it made me feel, I sat down, with my hands in my lap.
“So what do you guys want?”
“What?” said Van. He pulled out a chair at the far end of the table and draped himself across it. “We’re not allowed to come visit our dear friend Terra?”
I glowered up at him.
“I came looking for you after the funeral,” Koen said. At first I could hardly hear him. He spoke in whispers. “First I went to your house, then your brother’s, then Rachel Federman’s. When someone told me you were staying with Mara Stone, I figured you didn’t want to be found.”
“Maybe I didn’t,” I said, not wanting to think about the deeper truth behind his words: that he’d looked for me. That I’d been on his mind. Koen stared down at his cold-chapped hands spread out on the tabletop.
“You’re still one of us, you know,” he whispered. I studied his face. It didn’t feel true, not anymore. If I’d ever held anything in common with the Children of Abel, it had disappeared that night in the dome.
“Look,” Van said. “We’re not here to see you for the pleasure of the experience. There’s something we need to talk to you about.”
I looked over at him. Koen did too, a sort of dread lurking beneath his eyes. But Van just glared at me, his arms crossed firmly over his chest.
“It’s time that you pay up on your promise. We need the foxglove.”
“No!” I cried, looking between them. “I can’t!”
“Can’t?” Van asked. “Or won’t? You wanted to be one of us, didn’t you? To do justice to your mother’s memory and the memory of your ancestors?”
“Van . . .,” Koen said, a warning in his voice. Van’s lip trembled, but he went on.
“You want liberty? This is how we achieve it. Not through meetings or whispered conversation but by taking action.”
I stared at them, my heart falling to pieces in my chest. But then there was a rustling on the stairwell and tittered laughter. I swung my gaze over to the librarian. “There are children here. That’s your rule, isn’t it? That we don’t involve children?”
Van glanced up the stairs. For a moment his mouth was a hard line. But at last his lips softened. He sighed.
“Fine,” he said. “But this isn’t over. Come on, Koen.”
Together they rushed to put on their coats and took harried steps toward the door.
Van went quickly, ducking out without another word. But Koen paused for a moment on the front steps, holding the door open. His brows were furrowed up so high that they disappeared beneath his bangs.
“I’m sorry, Terra,” he called. “I told him this was a bad idea.”
I went to the door. The air outside was sharp, and I could see how the blood was rising to Koen’s pale face.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. I didn’t have the strength left to spit the words. Koen nodded. Then he stuffed his hands into his pockets and turned toward the darkening street.
I shut the door behind him. As I finally went to fetch the kettle from the stove, I spotted movement on the stairwell. It was Apollo. He stood at the top of the stairs. His sister sat two steps below him. She was holding Pepper tight against her chest. Both watched me.
“Want some tea?” I asked cheerfully, and poured the three mugs full of steaming water.
23
Most mornings I took my time, milling through the crowded streets even after the clock bells rang out nine. It was the last luxury of mourning Mara still allowed me—or maybe she knew it wasn’t worth a fight, I don’t know. The day that the second probe was due was no exception, though the energy on the ship was different, jangly and electric. As I neared the lab buildings, I had to duck around white-coated specialists as they laughed and drank. They spilled right out the sliding doors, crowding the fields, trampling dead plants.
“It’s really crass, isn’t it?”
A voice reached out to me from across the path. It was Silvan Rafferty. He sat on the rail of the footbridge that led to the labs, idly swinging his legs. “Doesn’t take much to excite them.”
I frowned, reaching down to jostle the seeds in my pocket. “Well, sure,” I said. “The probe results are due today. Aren’t you excited?”
Silvan gave a shrug. Then he pushed off the rail. He landed with surprising grace—moved with it too. He swaggered toward me.
“Some might be excited by the mystery of Zehava.” His black eyes glinted as he spoke.
“But not you?” I asked.
“No, I’m more interested in our actual arrival.”
Silvan stepped closer. He stood only an arm’s length away, smelling like jasmine flowers and clean hair.
“Why?” I asked. Silvan’s mouth twitched up. He had a dimple—just one—in his left cheek.
“Because it’s our destiny to inherit an entire planet, Terra. It will all be ours. Doesn’t that interest you?”
“Sure. I guess. As much as anything interests me.” I spoke fast, all flustered. I didn’t want him to know about the drawings I had hidden in the sketchbook in my bag—about the things I’d learned from Mara. I didn’t want him to know how I’d changed, softened. So I spoke quickly. “Mara’s waiting for me.”
Silvan held his strong chin up. “Sure,” he replied. “Wouldn’t want to keep the botanist waiting.”
A sly smirk lurked behind Silvan’s eyelashes. I couldn’t stand to look at it any longer. I spun on my heel, rushing past him on the bridge and through the sliding doors.
Even when the doors closed behind me, I could practically feel him there, standing on the path with his hands on his hips. I jogged down the hall and, when I reached our door, pounded my palm against the panel.
I was greeted by the clatter of a clay pot striking the wall. Soil scattered across the floor. Then Mara’s terse voice came calling.
“Terra, is that you?”
“Who else?”
“You’re late,” she said. “As usual.” I heard another crash of terra-cotta, another shatter. I edged toward the rear of the lab.
She stopped throwing things for a moment and stooped over her desk, rubbing soil into her eyes with dirty hands.
“What’s going on?” From the sinking feeling in my stomach, I could have probably guessed the answer.