Stardawn (2 page)

I certainly never
kissed
him.

When I reached the tree, the dome lights were already dimming. I could see the first stars burn to life above, shining steady through the glass in their nameless constellations. I fixed my hands to the branches, pulled myself up. I settled in on the widest bough, letting my head rest against the bark. I tried to look . . . I don’t know. Thoughtful, maybe. Staring up at the glass, I made myself imagine what the ship looks like on the outside. A bug, I’ve heard. But how are we to know for certain? We can’t. We have to rely on what other people tell us, our teachers and the captain and the Council. Why, it could be anything, if we open ourselves to the possibility.

Usually that’s a thought I can lose myself inside for hours: all the possible shapes of the ship. Maybe it’s a flower. Maybe it’s a sphere. But tonight, I couldn’t imagine any possibility outside myself—and outside
you
. Even though my eyes were fixed upon the glass, twinkling overhead, all my attention was down at the ground, where I waited for you to darken the path beneath my feet.

And then you did. My breath caught in my throat.

“Hello!” you called as your brown eyes gazed up at me. And then, just like that, you put your hands on the branches and clambered up. Clumsy, your legs swinging back and forth beneath you. I think you must not have climbed many trees, Benjamin. Though I’m not sure why I would have thought otherwise. What time does a librarian have for climbing?

I worried for a moment that my branch wouldn’t hold us both. But you’re kind of short, aren’t you? And light-bodied. Your shoulders aren’t broad, like the men who work in the field. And your belly isn’t big, like your father’s, though maybe it will be someday. Still, I worried about the weight of your ungainly body on my branch as you settled in beside me. It helped me worry about something besides the pressure of your hip, pressed to mine.

I looked at you, noting how your face had changed since I last spoke to you, years and years ago. Your jaw is stronger now, lined with dark stubble. Your curls have grown long, covering your ears and the nape of your neck. But your lips are the same. Full, and a little chapped. Probably because you chew on them. I know because you did it then, like you couldn’t stand to be still for even a moment.

“Hello,” I said at last. That’s when you lifted those dark eyes up and gazed at me, your expression steadier than our bodies on the branch. Almost too steady, like the heart inside your chest hardly beat.

“What?” I asked. Your strangeness made me bold. I put my hand on your arm, resting it on the fabric of your tunic. And then I kept it there. You stared at it, my pale hand on rough-hewn linen, and you finally said, in a whisper full of awe:

“You
like
me.”

It wasn’t a question, not at all. Oh, it made my cheeks burn to hear you say it like that. Like it was plain and simple, and more than a little ridiculous. I snatched my hand away, but I couldn’t deny it.

“So? I know you’ve probably been with plenty of other girls, but—”

“No,” you said quickly. Your voice was so
soft
still. More like a boy’s voice than a man’s. “No girls have ever liked me before.”

I didn’t look straight at you. I was all quick, birdish glances. To be honest, I didn’t believe it. Part of me still doesn’t. Even if your curls weren’t dark as ebony; even if your hands weren’t so swift, so certain; even if you didn’t have a dimple in your chin, you still wear that white cord on your shoulder.
Some
girl must have fluttered her eyelashes at you at some point, intent on making you her husband.

“What are you waiting for? In two years, the Council—”

“I used to say that they could match me with whoever they wished,” you said, speaking out into the chilly evening air. My breath didn’t fog the night, but yours did. Your lips had a heat beneath them that was undeniable. “What difference would it make? They gave me my job, my home. They tell me how much food I can eat. They even tell the seasons when to change.”

“But we make our
own
lives, Benny,” I said. I thought I saw your eyelashes flicker at the old name, and I wondered when last someone had called you that. Maybe it was me, years and years before, that night our mothers had the argument over dessert, and yours went storming from the house. Me, sitting on the front steps, waving as you trailed behind your mother.

Benny, see you soon . . . .

Now, sitting beside me on that branch, you let loose a faint chuckle.

“I never thought that, not before.”

“Before what?”

You turned to look at me. And even though I knew what was going to come next—or maybe because of it—I turned back. I saw the fuzz of dark lashes circling your eyes, the crinkles at the corners of them, that chip on your tooth, your lips, chapped, sure, but big and full as you spoke:

“Before you.”

And then you pressed them against mine.

How can I even describe that kiss? My first, Benjamin. Does that surprise you, that I’ve never been kissed before? I used to wait for it, when I was six and seven and eight. The other girls all had sweethearts who they kissed out in the schoolyard, under the bright, watchful eyes of countless suns. But not me. It wasn’t that I was shy, I don’t think.

It’s that you were.

But not anymore. You wrapped your arms around my lower back, drawing me close. Your lips pressed to mine, hard, at first, then yielding. How long were we locked like that, hungry mouth to hungry mouth, my breasts against your body, my fingers all tangled up in your hair? It couldn’t have been long. Before I knew it, we’d drawn away again. Yet your lips still lingered centimeters away from mine, shining with our shared saliva. When you laughed, I felt your warm breath against my mouth. Light, tickling laughter. I didn’t need to ask what was so funny—I was laughing too. How far we’d come since those afternoons in your room when we were little. How strange the path had been, pulling us away from each other and then close again. And yet here I was, resting in your arms, our laughter everywhere—like a pair of twittering birds, tucked inside that tree.

You let me go. You grew serious again, wiping your mouth against the back of your hand.

“There’s something I need to tell you.”

I thought you might break my heart then. Reveal that you were already intended for someone else. But I guess you saw the look on my face, how my features must have grown grave and pale with your words. So you reached out and touched the tips of your fingers to mine.

“Not like that. It’s just—” You hesitated, your words jagged at the edges. “—about Mazdin Rafferty.”

My fingers should have been warm. They were touching yours, after all. But they were cold as metal, cold as space.

“Tell me later,” I said, my words coming out in a rush. “Not tonight. Please, don’t ruin tonight.”

Of course I wanted to know what had happened between you two, what it was that had made you so swift, so cruel. But tonight? Tonight I needed to believe that you were gentle, that you were kind, that the only people on this whole ship were the two of us, sitting together up in that tree.

“But you wrote in your letters—”

“Benny!” My words squeaked out. “Not
tonight
. Please!”

I slipped my palm against yours and squeezed, to make myself clear.

Smart boy. Or man, I suppose. You listened. How long did we sit there together in the bough of that tree, our hearts beating in both of our hands? It was purple night by the time we climbed down, by the time I thrust myself into your arms. Not to kiss you. Just to hold you for a moment. I smelled your body, heady, beside mine. You didn’t use to smell like that, like book glue and dust and something feral. Once you simply smelled like a little boy, unwashed hair and muddy boots and sweetened milk drying on your breath. Now you’re grown and I am too. I wanted to show you that, so I stood up straight and tried to look brave in the moonlight.

“See you tomorrow?” I asked, my hand lingering in yours. You nodded, but didn’t say a word. You didn’t have to, Benny. Your eyes said enough.

Yours,

Alyana

48th Day of Spring, 22 Years Till Landing

Benny,

Nobody else knows I’m different. That’s the strangest part of what happened between us. Days ago, I was just Alya. I giggled with my friends and fought with my brother when he came over for Friday dinner. I wore my heart on my sleeve—isn’t that the saying? I couldn’t keep a secret because I had no secrets to keep. But today I have you, your kisses, and the way your body felt when we leaned against each other. I am a new creature, with new blood coursing through my veins. Do you feel transformed too? I walk through the dome, bidding the men and women who pass hello. They don’t know why my steps are so light, my smile wide. They think I smile for them.

But it’s your smile. You gave it to me.

There are new lambs in the pasture. Today, I stood by the fence on the way to school and watched them practice ambling forward on their knobby legs. They understand, better than most, I think, the new eyes through which I view our world. Before, it was small, predictable, known. But now? Now it’s grown, Benny. I closed my eyes as I leaned over the splintered rail, offering the half-eaten apple I’d taken for breakfast out to the woolly creatures. When I felt their soft lips against my hand, it felt like laughter. Like falling in love. Like you.

Even school is better. As the months wind down, as my class has neared the age of sixteen, we’ve been left with nothing more to do than whittle the days away. The other kids laugh and gossip, bragging about the jobs they’re sure to get in a few days’ time. But I’m quiet now, penning you this note when my teacher isn’t looking. Full of secrets I share only with you. Do they wonder what’s made me suddenly so serious? Do they have any idea of the magic that’s unfurling inside me? They might suspect, but they can never know.

It’s ours, Benny. Yours and mine. And nobody else’s.

Yours,

Alyana

53rd Day of Spring, 22 Years Till Landing

Benny,

It was fun to pretend for a little while that our love is all sweetness and air, that your violence never cast doubt into my head. But the questions keep popping up like mushroom heads from soil. Will you now tell me the truth about you and Mazdin? I want to know. I’m brave enough, and strong enough. Then I will be able to love you freely, head and heart both. Let’s meet tomorrow outside the library, on the bench at the starboard side, where the dogwood trees will stretch their blossoms like a canopy over our heads. I will be there as soon as school gets out. I will sit there, my legs crossed at the ankles, looking like nothing more than a young girl in love. I will wait for you to finish with your work, whatever that is—pushing around shelving carts, I suppose—and then, when you step through the heavy iron doors, I will lift up my eyes. Ready, then, not to kiss you or to draw you into my arms.

But to listen.

Yours,

Alyana

55th Day of Spring, 22 Years Till Landing

Benny,

Your words have haunted me all day long.

And today, the worst possible day. We had our final interviews with the career counselors today, Benny. Just a technicality, is what Rebbe Schneider said. Nothing to worry about. No reason to fret. Why, the decisions have all but been made about our job placements, our futures. They just need to speak to us one last time, to make certain there are no mistakes.

But what mistakes could there be after everything you told me? It doesn’t matter. It’s fake, all fake. Our qualifications don’t matter. Nor our interviews, our test results. All that matters is what the Council wants. And if it wants to give the best job to a sullen, spoiled boy with no talents or intelligence, it will.

I was one of the first to be summoned. I walked down the hall, every step of my heels feeling weighted by lead. Just a few weeks ago, I chatted with these men and women as if they were old friends.
No worries. Just turn on your charms,
was what Tateh had told me. Back then—it feels like ages ago now—I truly believed that if I just acted like my sweet, smiling self, then the Council would tell me what was in my heart: my deepest, unspoken desires. My vocation, the person I was meant to be.

Today, I sat down before them, my face drawn. I let my hair veil my eyes, in the way that always makes Momme reach out to tuck it behind my ear. But the vocational counselors weren’t going to touch me. I was safe in that. They just gazed at me, puzzled.

“How are you today, Alyana?”

“Fine,” I spat, in a tone of voice that made it clear I really wasn’t. There were two men and one woman in that little room with me. The last time we’d spoken of handicrafts—of the chores I did for Tateh and Momme, of how happy it made me to sweep the front walk. It had been the truth at the time. Those afternoons spent pushing the broom over the ancient slate gave me time to reflect, to be myself. But now I had other suspicions. Perhaps they had steered the conversation that way because they
wanted
me to have a service job, to keep me from rising too high, from threatening them.

“Only three days before the vocation ceremony,” one of the men said. He had a mustache. And a gold thread in his rank cord. Council gold. “Are you excited?”

“Dunno,” I replied, and shrugged my shoulders.

The man reached up and tugged at his mustache hairs. The woman beside him arched her eyebrows. She shuffled the papers before her, reading down my list of scores.

“Your last test indicated a high aptitude for creative arts. Your verbal scores are solid, but your quantitative scores are quite low.”

I looked at her, arching my eyebrows back. Of course, she couldn’t see, not with my hair a crazy net in front of my face. I sighed and shoved it back.

“Always hated math,” I said. I could feel my temper boiling inside me. I needed to get out of there before I said something I was going to regret. The clean-shaven man in the corner smiled, but it seemed a little forced. His eyes didn’t crinkle at all when he spoke.