Stardawn by Phoebe North Read Free Book Online Page B

into a million pieces. And I will marry Arran.
    His eyes are dark, like yours. He gazes at me with love, as you once did. But he is nothing like you. His dreams are so small. So . . . simple. He tells me of the children we’ll have. A girl who will look like me. A son who will look like him. His parents are cruel to him, in word and deed and fist, and so he dreams of treating our own children better. He is full of tiny, tentative hopes. They are nothing like your ambitions, of overthrowing the Council, the captain, of taking over the ship for ourselves. But they feel possible. Palpable. Real. Today, we sat in the clock tower after his rebbe had gone home, looking out at the fields and talking.
    “I’ll make a good life for you, Alyana. I will make sure that you are happy.”
    He spoke stiffly, but with an earnest light in his eyes. I met them, and for the first time in days, I felt my chest swell with warmth. I don’t love him. Not yet. But I will learn to.
    I hope you will find your own love. Some girl who will help you see that a good future is possible, despite all of this. You turn twenty in a year, and I hope you’ll listen. Before the Council forces your hand, your will. Before you have no say. If you ever loved me, if you ever cared, you’d do this. Find your own future. Make it a good one.
    Yours,
    Alyana

42nd Day of Winter, 22 Years Till Landing
    Benjamin,
    I am a married woman now. Please stop writing to me. As I’ve heard that you have declared your intentions to Zipporah Cohen, I will stop writing to you. I don’t want to cause your future spouse the same distress that Arran has experienced with every mail delivery. This will be my last letter.
    In fact, if you have kept my letters, I ask that you now destroy them. Throw them out an airlock. Have them incinerated by a waste-treatment worker. I don’t care what you do with them. Just make sure that they’re gone.
    Best,
    Alyana Fineberg

16th Day of Autumn, 17 Years Till Landing
    B,
    I have carved a message for you in our old meeting place. Let me know when you receive it.
    Yours,
    A

25th Day of Autumn, 17 Years Till Landing
    Benny,
    You asked me why now, after all these years. Why return to you? Why take a knife from the kitchen I share with my husband and cleave those words into the bark of that tree? After all, weeks ago, if you’d stopped on the street to lift a hand at me, I would have pulled my son close to me, diverted my eyes, and hurried away. But that was before I learned the truth.
    It came on an ordinary evening. I was washing the dishes, listening as Arran helped Ronen practice his letters. My son will start school next year, and he’s so eager to learn. Arran is a good teacher. Patient, always. Better than his father ever was, or ever hoped to be. Seeing them together, like a pair of identical young mallards, I have often felt excited about the day I’ll have my daughter, so I can see myself twinned in her. But then a knock came to the door, and my daydreams were diverted. I wiped the gray water from my hands, threw the kitchen towel over my shoulder, and went to answer it.
    It was Momme. She held a book under her arms.
    I don’t know if you’ve seen my mother in recent years. I hardly have, not since Tateh died. She’s grown hard. Bitter. And she hates Arran more than anything, so she rarely shadows my doorway. On those infrequent visits she makes when my husband is off ringing the bells, her face always surprises me. She’s no longer the raven-haired woman she once was, with fine, smooth skin. As she’s climbed through middle age, her hair has grown streaked with silver. The lines around her mouth are thick. She could cover the years with dye or makeup, but she won’t. And yet on this day, she looked young. Those brown eyes were very bright.
    “Alya, I need to speak to you about something.”
    Somehow I instantly knew what she must have meant. The Children of Abel. That strange band of freedom fighters whom I’d turned my