Starglass by North Phoebe

Author:North, Phoebe [North, Phoebe]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Published: 2013-07-23T04:00:00+00:00

15

Ronen was right. Over the next several days Abba’s mood grew even darker. He came home stinking of wine, grumbling his words. Sometimes he passed out in bed while twilight still rosied the dome ceiling. One night, after he’d skipped the supper I’d made to sleep alone upstairs, he barked my name from his bedroom. I stiffened, sure that he’d finally discovered that the paper-wrapped package had disappeared from Momma’s jewelry box. But when I went to the door, I saw that his closet remained shut. He sat on the edge of the bed, his shoulders slumped.

“Terra,” he said. I could hear the phlegm in his voice. His words seemed to burble up from it, sticky and hopeless. “Marry Koen. He’s a good boy. A clock keeper. Just like your old man.”

“I know,” I said doubtfully, hanging back. “I’ve already given him my consent.”

“Did you?” He swung his heavy head up toward me. His eyes were filmy, hazy, without understanding.

“Yes, Abba,” I said, my words coming out in a whisper. “You were there.”

“Huh,” Abba said, chuckling to himself. “So I was.”

He turned away from me and stared at the wall. I waited only a moment more before I rushed down the hall toward my room. After I closed the door behind me, shutting away the memory of my father’s stiff posture, his gray face, I pulled out my sketchbook. I fumbled with my pencils, scribbling purple flowers across a rolling field. Each green stalk was meant to sag with violet bells. They were foxglove plants, or were supposed to be, at least. I’d looked them up in one of Mara’s field guides. There hadn’t been much information. Only a diagram. Long stalks. Lozenge leaves. Purple bells, spotted white inside. And the ancient name for them: Digitalis purpurea.

Soon I’d shaded nearly the entire page over with purple pigment. I looked down at the frenzy of color, at my hand, red where I’d clutched the pencil too tight. Then I thrust the pencil against the wall and buried my face in my pillow.

• • •

Koen kept me distracted.

Now when we walked through the dome after work, we spoke in hushed tones about the rebellion. Koen told me what he thought of liberty—how, when we reached the surface of our new home, he hoped to find the sort of happiness his parents never had. We no longer held hands. Koen’s were too busy flitting through the air as he jabbered. And I didn’t even try to kiss him. He was always too red-faced, breathless, and antsy for that.

“On the surface,” he told me one night as we walked across the frost-blue pastures, “I’d like to have lots of kids. A whole gaggle of them. Because with the Council out of the way, we can have them make more than two down in the hatchery for us, right?”

“Right,” I agreed. “But why?”

“Because it’s too much pressure to have just one boy and one girl. I mean, look at your dad. He was so worried about whether you would be a specialist or not.

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