The Silver Ship and the Sea by Brenda Cooper Read Free Book Online

her hard, wanting to hold on, but the next person stood in line and I turned away from her to help Joseph tie on his ribbon.
    There must have been nearly a hundred ribbons; parents, brothers and sisters, life partners, and children. Everyone with a ribbon stood in the first circle around the wooden pyres. Jonas, Mary’s husband, stood near us, his face a mask of stoic calm except for the tears trailing down his cheeks.
    The wood looked dry; it must have been stacked since the storm. A team had been up the High Road and returned with three more bodies, all they could find, or reach. Therese, Mary, and Rob. The bodies were draped in long blue shrouds. Someone had thrown yellow flowers on top of Therese’s shroud. It was a gift that the faces of the dead were covered. I wanted to remember them all alive and active and smiling.
    Five tall pyres clustered together, and around them, five cones of wood for the missing dead; we would honor everyone.
    Full dark fell. We turned, facing outward, watching the living watch us. “This is your remaining family. They embrace you in your grief,” Nava intoned from somewhere to our right. Electric light came from behind the crowd, so we saw silhouettes, rows and rows of them, then bright lights, and behind them, green trees dotted with red fruit. The light evening wind blew toward me, and I smelled apples and the fiery metallic scent of thesmelter, which could not be shut down for something as simple as a funeral. Not when the colony was in crisis.
    Nava continued. “We are gathered to mourn the passing of our leaders, of Steven and Therese, and of eight other brave souls. Gi Lin…Mary…Rob…Hans…AnnaLisa…Barnil…Thang…Jackson.” As Nava spoke each name, a moment of silence trailed behind the name before she began the next.
    When the list was complete, she said, “We will miss them all. This is the largest funeral since the war.”
    I swallowed, uneasy. We reminded Nava of the war. It was a dim childhood memory to us, but many adults still felt losses from the war sharply; loved ones killed by our original parents, by our real people—and they hated us for it, as if we had pulled triggers. Some passed their fears to their children, and so Garmin and a few others hated us. The war was our unwelcome shadow and I didn’t want it here, not at this funeral.
    But as Nava continued, she said, “We should take this as a reminder that we are at war with Fremont. We will stand together in our fight, and we will win. We will rebuild all that has been broken in Artistos, and we will go forward and rebuild the families that are broken.”
    In the short silence she left then, I thought of her new leadership. Was there anything except politics in her assumption of care for me and my brother? I thought not. We were symbols of Therese and Steven’s life. The previous leaders had us so Nava would have us. White-hot anger threatened to rise up alongside my grief, but I pushed it down. This was not the time.
    Tiny fires sprang to life; ten funeral torches. Tom carried one to me, a stick as long as my arm with a flame burning at its top. His face seemed to dance and sway in the firelight. “Light the pyre behind you for Therese and Steven, who loved you both well.” He switched his gaze from me to Joseph. “Stand with your sister. Use the fire to cleanse and purify your grief.”
    Joseph nodded, his eyes fixed on the fist-sized fire, his hand clutching mine. We stood until all of the torches were delivered.
    Drums sounded.
    The signal.
    Joseph and I stepped forward together, and I lowered my hand, touching the bright torch to the corner of stacked wood nearest me. Flame leaped from the torch to the dry wood, rising fast, and I handed the end of the burning brand to Joseph. He hesitated a moment, then with a low moan, he clenched his teeth and tossed the entire torch up high, near Steven’s covered body. Heat drove us back, step by step, until we touched the crowd. I felt Bryan’s arms