Stardawn by Phoebe North Read Free Book Online

even though I’m sure I sounded foolish. The truth is that I didn’t want there to be a moment of silence. I was afraid that if there was, Momme and Miriam would fall back to fighting again.
    But they didn’t. Isn’t that miraculous? Sure, they hardly even smiled at each other until Tateh’s toast over dessert, but they didn’t shout or share cross words, either. I know that their friendship will never be what it once was, if we can even really call it a friendship and not, in truth, a love lost long ago. That hope has coasted away through empty space, just as silently as any spaceship. But tonight they proved they can be civil to each other. Maybe someday, after we’ve stitched our families back together with the thread of our marriage, they’ll be able to see the children we’ve made and know that their love never really died, not completely. Because I see your mother in you, and tonight, after your family left, Momme told me that she does too.
    She says that you’re a good boy—a good man—with a quiet sort of righteousness. Those were her exact words, Benny. A quiet sort of righteousness. From her, that’s the best sort of compliment. Then she told me that she’d once been filled with rage when Miriam had denied her, resisting the Children of Abel and their plot. She’d thought it had meant that Miriam hadn’t loved her. Now she says she sees how it was different. Miriam thought that they’d be able to achieve tikkun olam through their love, that affection alone was sufficient. She’d been hopeful, naive, fierce. Not filled with hatred, like Momme was. Momme had been so angry that the Council conspired to make their love forbidden, she’d been blinded by it, losing sight of what really mattered: what the two of them shared in quiet moments, alone.
    It was strange to have my mother tell me these things. I blushed to hear them, like a little girl visiting the hatchery for the first time. But I think Momme believes it’s time to share these truths with me, and for our relationship to change. I’m no longer merely a daughter, a child. I’m a full citizen, and soon, after the reading of our bloodlines, after I’ve held your hands in mine and said those vows, I’ll be a wife and a mother, too. I’m her equal. She speaks to me like one, treats me like one, no matter how uncomfortable that might be for me.
    But I suppose I’ll get used to it—just like I’ll get used to our new quarters, to sharing a wide bed with you instead of this narrow one I lie in now. I can’t wait to sleep tucked against you, our hearts beating in unison. Until then, I feel as if our song is unfinished. Our chords were plucked out of the air when we were only children; these notes lingered, but didn’t fade.
    May we sing together soon.
    Yours,
    Alyana

97th Day of Spring, 22 Years Till Landing
    Benny,
    I don’t believe it. I can’t. My bones deny it—my spine, my jaw, my every rib knows that it is not true, that there must have been some sort of mistake.
    But the Council doesn’t make mistakes. That’s what Momme said, after we returned to our quarters tonight, and she pounded her fist against the galley table so hard that all the dishes rang out like bells.
    Still, an error. It must be. Our families have known each other all these years and we never knew that we were third cousins—and our mothers second cousins, too. It doesn’t make sense. We should have known . I stare down at the printout the woman at the records office gave us, tracing the names with my index finger. Jacob Stein, grandfather of Miriam. Sylvia Katz née Stein, grandmother of Liora. Brother and sister.
    Cousins . We’re cousins.
    I feel a knot in my stomach about it. There are things the Council has done that I don’t agree with—doling out the choice vocations to their sons and daughters, keeping women like our mothers apart. But no matter what you believe about the Council, we all know how important maintaining the bloodlines has become. With a