Glow (35 page)

Was she sick? Did her leg hurt? Had he angered her somehow? He knew he’d said nothing offensive or wrong in his sermon, so that couldn’t be it.

When the final prayers were over, Kieran wove through the crowd, looking for her in vain. A few kids shook his hand and thanked him. Little Serafina Mbewe wrapped her chubby arms around his legs adoringly, but he was so impatient to leave that he almost tripped trying to disentangle himself.

He jogged through the corridors to his quarters, but Waverly wasn’t there. He sat down, stood up. Finally, after feeling stupid, confused, hurt, and useless, he figured out where she’d gone: home.

He jogged down two flights of stairs to where the families had lived.

The door to her quarters was ajar, and he found her on the kitchen floor, crying. There were rotten black vegetables on the floor and an enormous mound of moldy green bread dough on the counter.

“Waverly,” he said, bewildered.

“Just go, please,” she said. She wouldn’t look at him.

He knelt and put a hand on her knee. “What’s wrong?”

“Everything!” she groaned, leaning back against a cabinet.

“Tell me.”

“No, Kieran,” she said, pushing him away. He resisted, but she was still too weak to move him, so she gave up and crumpled into a heap.

“I am not going anywhere until you tell me what’s wrong,” he said. “What is it?”

“You,” she whispered.

“What?”

“You, Kieran.” She swiped at her tears. “What the hell
was
that back there?” she demanded.

“What do you mean? The services?”

“Yes, the services,” she retorted. “Do you have any idea what you’re becoming?”

She reached up, took hold of the counter, and pulled herself to her feet. She seemed unsteady, but she wouldn’t let him touch her.

“Waverly, I don’t understand!” he said, following her into the living room.

Instead of speaking she started tidying, gathering cups from the coffee table, straightening a stack of papers, and lining up three pairs of shoes next to the door. She picked up a jacket that had been draped across a chair and hung it lovingly in the closet. All the while, Kieran watched her, confused and hurt.

“Talk to me,” he pleaded.

When she met his eyes, he saw she was furiously angry. “I just can’t believe it, Kieran.”

“What?”

“You’re just like her.”

“Who?”

“Anne Mather!”

“Who?”
He wasn’t sure he knew the name, though it sounded familiar. Had he read it somewhere?

“She’s the leader on the New Horizon, Kieran. The mastermind behind the attack.”

He sat down heavily on the couch. How could Waverly compare him to one of those evil people?

“She’s their Captain,” Waverly went on, “and their priestess, and their messiah. She has all the power on that ship, Kieran, and she does terrible things with it.”

“I’m not like that,” Kieran objected. “I’m a good person.”

“So was she,” Waverly said. Softening a little, she sat next to him and put a hand on his arm. “But now she says she knows the mind of God. Kieran, nobody knows what God wants.”

“There’s nothing wrong with telling people what I believe, Waverly,” he said with a hint of resentment.

“There
is
something wrong with pretending to be a prophet,” she said, her jaw set.

The unfairness of what she was saying crashed down on him, hard. “Do you know what I’ve been through?” he protested. “I’ve been beaten and starved and nearly
murdered
!” He stood, pushing her hand away. “You have no idea what it was like on this ship after you left!” he shouted, red faced. “No idea at all!”

He expected her to shrink away, but she stood nose to nose with him. “I know what it was like on the New Horizon, Kieran. Anne Mather acted pious, but underneath it all she was violent and insane. And if you continue on this road, that’s what you’ll become, too!”

“I’m making us into a community! I’m making us into a family!”

“You can do that without pretending to know what God’s plan is. No one knows that, and it’s wrong to act as if you do!”

“Why? That doesn’t make any sense! Everything we think and do and say is His plan for us. It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

“Not to me,” she said, her mouth compressing into a stubborn line.

“Whatever human beings decide to do, events unfold in a way we can’t control.”

“And you think God is in control.”

“Of course He is! Everything He does, everything that happens, has a reason! And talking about it has helped the boys. It’s what keeps them going! Otherwise they would have given up, Waverly. Everyone was so … sad and useless. I had to strengthen them somehow.”

“And the only way was to preach the Sermon on the Mount?”

“I gave them something to believe in. I gave them a future!”

“
You
gave them a future?”

Kieran stared at her. How had this happened? Where had all her trust gone? She stared back at him, her face immovable. Had her eyes always been so hollow, her mouth so rigid?

“But … Waverly, it’s me.”

Her face fell into a mass of pain. She nodded, her head flopping, fingers shaking as she pressed them against her eyelids. “That’s why it’s so horrible.”

“Honey…” He reached for her, put his hands on her arms. “You can trust me.”

“Can I? Then prove it, Kieran. Give up this sickness.”

“What sickness?” he cried. “I’ve never felt better in my life! I know my purpose, Waverly.
Our
purpose. We have a destiny to fulfill, and I need you to help me.”

“This isn’t the way. If you’d seen what I’ve seen … Please, Kieran.” She took his hand and kissed it. “Please, please don’t turn into that woman.”

“I am
not
Anne Mather!” he shouted, pushing her away so hard that she stumbled. He stormed down the hallways, burst into his quarters, and threw himself onto the bed he’d shared with her only hours before.

How could she judge him like this? How could she think that the beautiful thing he’d created was bad? Everyone else loved it! Why didn’t she?

He’d expected skeptics. But he’d never thought that Waverly would be one of them!

He had never, ever, felt so deeply betrayed. Yet he still yearned for her.

Maybe when she calmed down, she’d change her mind. Maybe she’d learn to trust him again.

I’ll make her trust me again
, he thought.

There was a knock at the door, and he sat up. “Come in!” he called hopefully. Maybe she’d come to apologize.

But it was Arthur Dietrich, his face flushed with excitement. “Kieran! We think we’ve found the New Horizon!”

“Where?” He bolted to his feet.

“Come on, I’ll show you!”

He followed Arthur to Central Command and peered at the radar display. There was a dot on the screen ahead of them, moving parallel to their own course, toward New Earth.

“It was so easy,” Sarek said, smiling for the first time since the attack. “With the nebula clear, the radar works perfectly!”

“That has to be New Horizon,” said Arthur. “Look how fast it’s going.”

It was true—the dot was practically zipping across the screen.
It’s them!
thought Kieran, transfixed.

He forgot about Waverly and the heinous things she’d said about him.

He had work to do.

WAVERLY

Waverly lay on the floor of her mother’s untidy bedroom, unchanged from the way her mother had left it months before as if frozen in time. Waverly held her mother’s worn cardigan to her chest, and she sobbed. She wasn’t missing just her mother. She was missing her old life, because now she knew that it was gone forever. She’d never go back to being Waverly Marshall again. And Kieran, she didn’t know who he was.

That smile of his at the podium, the way he’d held up his hands as if to embrace the congregation, the words he’d used, everything about him reminded her of … If Waverly thought about it, she’d get sick to her stomach.

When she was all cried out, Waverly wandered down to the orchards and picked a few plums and almonds. She sat at the base of an apple tree to eat. She was glad to be in the orchard, listening to buzzing bees as they flirted with the blooms above her head. It had been horrible to be in the apartment she’d shared with her mother, knowing that she might never see her again.

What would Mom say to me now?
Waverly wondered.
She’d probably ask me how I feel about him. She’d ask if I could look past all this.

“I do still love him, Mom,” she whispered, her eyes on the mossy soil of the orchard. She probably always would. But she couldn’t let herself become blind the way Amanda had been. There had been something pathetic in Amanda’s childish trust of Anne Mather, taken to the point where she couldn’t see all the evil things happening right before her eyes. No. Waverly would not be like that.

But could she remain objective as Kieran’s wife? How could she marry him now?

This thought pushed her into fresh spasms of grief, and she buried her face in the fragrant soil of the orchard. Loam worked its way between her teeth and she chewed on it, her mouth a frothy mixture of earth and saliva as she cried herself to sleep.

The next morning, when the sun lamps flickered on, Waverly sat up. Her mouth was mossy, and there was dirt in her hair and on her clothes. She found an irrigation hose and took in mouthfuls of cold water, swirled it in her mouth, and spat. Then she drank long and deep until she felt refreshed.

She picked apricots, knowing they’d do little for the rumbling in her belly. She’d go to the central bunker for some eggs, but she wanted to do one thing first.

She limped between the trees, breathing in the beautiful scents of fruit and blossoms. She got in the elevator, selected her level, and waited. She wiped her mind clean, and forced her breathing to slow down and soften. What she was doing was logical. She needed information, that was all.

The brig was quiet. There was one guard on duty, Percy Swift, a slow-moving boy whom she caught dozing on his chair with a nightstick on his knees. He stirred when Waverly approached. “Visitors are allowed, aren’t they?” she asked.

“No. He’s in solitary confinement. Kieran Alden’s orders.”

“Don’t worry. Kieran said it’s okay,” Waverly said.

“Really?”

“I’m his girlfriend. He trusts me.”

The boy looked at her warily, but she stared him down.

“You have to sign in,” Percy said as he pushed a ledger toward her.

This isn’t a betrayal,
she told herself as she signed her name, then glided past Percy and down the corridor to look for Seth.

She found him lying on a cot in the farthest cell to the right. She cleared her throat, and he turned to look at her, then sat up, surprised.

“Did you know we came back?” she asked. She felt the old pull toward him. He’d grown since she’d been gone, and his hair was long and hung in his eyes. She took in the bruises on his face and the thinness of his wrists. What had Kieran been doing to him?

“I knew about it,” Seth said, then seemed to think better of his tone and muttered, “Welcome back.”

“You got yourself into a real mess,” Waverly observed.

“I guess,” he said, guarded. His eyes shifted over her suspiciously. “Why are you here?”

“I’ve got questions.”

“What questions?”

Waverly sat on the floor, one leg extended in front of her, the other bent so that she could lean her chin on her knee. “Why did you starve Kieran?”

Seth chuckled. “He told you about that?”

“Seems a pretty harsh thing to do.”

“He starved himself. He kept lying to the crew, and I had to stop him. So I denied him food to try to get him to admit the truth, but he wouldn’t.”

“He’s stubborn,” Waverly said, a deep sadness welling inside of her. “But he didn’t deserve that.”

“I didn’t let him starve. I let one of my guards pretend to sneak him some food. So he’d eat.”

“Oh.” Waverly’s voice was softer now. “It was right after your dad died, right?”

“After Kieran killed him, yes.” Seth scratched at a raw patch of skin on his neck, and Waverly remembered this was a nervous habit with him. “There were a million ways to get them out of the engine room, and he chose the most dangerous.”

“So that’s why you tried to take over the ship?”

Seth nodded wearily. “That, and he made mistakes that endangered us all. He crashed into the atmospheric control dome, did you know? We had to work around the clock repairing it, guys in OneMen who had never flown them before. And he left our parents trapped—”

Seth choked up.

“I’m sorry about your dad, Seth.”

“I am too!” he cried, as though this amazed him. “He was a mean son of a bitch, but I miss him now. I guess you learn to love what you’re used to.”

Waverly studied Seth. He seemed changed, more humble, and only too willing to cooperate. She liked him better now, she decided.

“Do you know about the services Kieran is holding?” Waverly asked him, one eyebrow raised.

He nodded. “He’s built up quite a little cult for himself, hasn’t he?”

“You don’t like that?” Waverly said, trying not to give any hint in her voice of how she felt about it.

“All I know is that he hasn’t held an election for himself or for a Central Council. He’s ignoring all the bylaws. He makes all the decisions himself, and anyone who might question him is either locked up in the brig or sick almost to death in the infirmary.”

Hearing Seth put it this way, Waverly felt her blood run cold.

Seth was eyeing her. “Why are you here?”

Waverly tilted her head, cautious. “I had some questions.”

“You’re Kieran Alden’s girlfriend. Get your information from him.”

“I don’t know who he is anymore,” she said. Tears dropped from her eyes, and she wiped them away.

Seth looked at her, surprised. “Trouble in paradise?”

“No such thing,” she said, not even certain what she meant.