The Star Dwellers (37 page)

When I lean against the wall, shocked by what
I see, a memory is unlocked from some safe deposit box in my head,
more vivid than if I was living it right now.

I’m ten years old and it’s my birthday, but
it’s just like any other day. My dad wakes me up at six in the
morning for training. It’s still dark in the caverns, although even
at midday, the thin, pale lighting from the overhead cavern lights
is dim at best. We train on the tiny stone patio behind our shoebox
house. My mom is already up and getting breakfast ready, but she
doesn’t say anything as I pass her. She does glance at me, however,
and I can tell from the slight curl on one side of her lip that she
knows it’s my birthday and wants to surprise me. I pretend not to
notice.

My dad is already outside, stretching his
arms and legs. I follow his lead, because if I don’t, I’ll be sore
tomorrow. As I stretch my arms above my head, I see the glittering
flutter of wings as a bat slides noiselessly above us. The rough,
gray cave ceiling is slowly coming into focus as the cavern lights
begin to brighten right on schedule.

We start with hand-to-hand combat—my
favorite—and, according to my dad, the most important part of
training, because “you can always count on your own hands and
feet,” as he likes to say. I’m feeling energetic, which I try to
use to my advantage, striking quickly with sharp stabs of my feet.
But my dad is always up to the task, faster than me, blocking each
attack with ease. Even when I start inventing my own moves, my dad
just swats away my roundhouse kicks and judo chops like pesky
gnats. He says my invented moves are creative and effective,
although they never seem to work on him.

It gets frustrating sometimes, not being able
to beat him, especially considering how hard I work. He says he
pushes me harder than Elsey because I’m the older sister, and I can
protect myself
and
her. That just seems like a free pass for
El. He also says I’m getting stronger and faster with each training
session, which sometimes is the only thing that keeps me
motivated.

So I keep at it, chucking fists and feet at
him faster and faster, until a thin sheen of salty sweat is coating
my bare arms and legs, where my pale blue tunic won’t cover. As I
begin to tire, I become bolder, lunging forward and aiming a
knotted fist at his sternum, at one of the places that he told me
will hurt the most. To my absolute shock, my clenched fingers slide
smoothly past my dad’s blocking arms, connecting with his chest,
and I feel the solid
thud
of bone on bone and muscle.

My dad grunts and lifts a hand to his chest,
massaging it gingerly. I can’t help but to lift my offending hand
to my mouth as my lips form an
O
. “Dad, I’m so…I’m sorry. I
didn’t mean to—”

My dad laughs and I stop talking, my eyebrows
rising along with my confusion. “Don’t ever apologize for winning a
fight, Adele,” he says.

“Wha…what? You mean I…?”

“Won—yes.” My dad is grinning. “You are
learning so fast, Adele. In a couple of years I will have nothing
left to teach you.”

“So the student will become the master?” I
joke. I am such a dork—but I don’t care.

He laughs, deep and throaty. “I wouldn’t go
quite that far, but yes, you are doing well.” Sometimes Dad can be
so serious.

But I am grinning, too. I’ve never even come
close to hurting him during training. The familiar rhythm of my
hands and fists smacking against his hands and fists has become
like a soundtrack for our mornings together. But I’ve added a
thud
to the mix, and for that, I am proud. I couldn’t ask
for a better present on my birthday.

“We’ll finish early to celebrate your
success,” my dad says.

I frown. “No, Dad, I want to finish the whole
session, please.”

Dad laughs. “That’s my girl,” he says.
“You’re so much like your mother.” I never understand what he means
by that. My mom is a quiet, generous soul who would never hurt a
fly. Me, I’m tenacious, feisty, and sarcastic. A redhead with black
hair, my mom always says.

I’m not able to beat him again during
training, but once was enough for me. When we come inside I’m
exhausted but happy. Somehow our tiny stone house looks even
smaller than before, but to me it’s cozy, it’s home.

A warm and tempting aroma fills my nostrils
when we cross the threshold. My birthday surprise. Freshly warmed
bread, not more than a few days old, from the bakery in the
subchapter. Only half a loaf, but more than I’ve ever seen in our
house before. A real birthday treat.

“Happy birthday, Adele,” Mom says. “Go wake
your sister.”

I smile and sigh. Yes, we live underground.
And don’t have much money. And live in constant fear of the
Enforcers, who ceaselessly roam the streets. But we have each
other: my mom, my dad, my sister, Elsey, and me—a family. We’re all
we really need. Oh, and a warm half-loaf of bread for a birthday
treat. For a moment, I am happy.

“Adele,” my mom says, and the memory fades.
Remembering my father, how things used to be, makes the flame that
started in my belly flare up, heating my chest. It’s a fire I
haven’t felt in a while. “Are you okay?”

I shake my head and the cobwebs disappear.
“Yeah. I was just remembering.”

“Your father?”

“And you,” I say. “All of us. Before…”

“I know. This place is so full of memories.
That’s why I wanted to come here one more time.”

My mom moves away from me, rummaging through
the rubble, looking at old pictures and trinkets. I watch her for a
minute.

When she turns around, there’s a sparkle in
her eyes. “There’s something I want to give you.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Give me? Mom, I just
need you.”

“Just follow me.” She walks the three steps
across the living area to the door to the bedroom that my sister
and I shared with my parents. The door is hanging by a single
hinge. My mom pushes it aside and enters. When I slip in behind
her, I’m surprised to find the bedroom mostly intact, although
there is glass everywhere from the shattered window.

Using the hem of her tunic, Mom brushes the
glass from atop the bed and motions for me to sit down. I do,
wondering what in the Tri-Realms she could possibly want to give to
me. I watch her while she scans the ground, as if looking for
something she dropped, and then bends down. She uses her fingers to
pry at a loose stone in the floor, which wobbles and then lifts.
The gray rectangular rock is heavy and I see her straining at it,
so I get up and help her lift it out and roll it to the side.

Beneath where the stone used to be is a
wooden box. When I look at my mom, she offers me a slight smile and
then reaches down to retrieve the chest. It’s small and looks like
it couldn’t hold more than a few marbles at most. However, when she
lifts the lid, I see a slight sparkle under the glow of the
flashlight I’m holding. Using a single delicate finger, she lifts a
necklace from the box. I gasp. Its band is thin and silver,
polished and gleaming and well cared for, but that’s not what makes
me gasp, nor is that what sparkled when she first opened it.

Dangling from the end is a gem, big, perhaps
the size of a gold Nailin, beautifully cut and a brilliant green
hue that seems to catch every bit of light offered and then shine
it all back tenfold in a dazzling array of green slivers. An
emerald.

“Mom, I…I don’t understand. Whose is
this?”

“It’s yours now,” she says, handing it to
me.

“But this must be worth hundreds—no,
thousands—of Nailins. Where did you get this?”

Mom’s smile is almost as brilliant as the
emerald I’m holding. “It was your father’s gift to me after you
were born. I don’t know where he got it and I didn’t ask. When he
saw those emerald-green eyes of yours, he just knew you were going
to be something special, so he gave me this necklace as a keepsake,
something for me to pass down to you.”

My eyes are watering. “But this is too much.
I can’t accept this,” I say, knowing that I will.

W
hile Adele is away
with her mother I worry about her. Not because she’s not capable of
taking care of herself—I’d have to be an idiot if I didn’t know
that she was by now—but because there’s some truth to what she said
to me earlier. Awfulness does seem to follow her around. But I
guess these days terrible things are happening to everyone.

I also feel somewhat lonely because she’s not
here. Trying to kill time, I rummage through my pack, organizing my
stuff. As I toss out a few bags of dried meat and a dirty tunic, my
hand brushes against something hard.
The diary.
Ben’s diary.
Well, not his diary, but the one he let me borrow. I never gave it
back. And now he’s gone. As I flip through the brittle
time-yellowed pages, I remember him. His calm, solid demeanor; the
ever-present twinkle in his trustworthy eyes; his rare combination
of optimism and realism: he was a good guy. The best kind of guy. A
friend, in the end.

He deserves some words from me. Something to
honor him.

“Ben,” I say, glancing uncertainly at the
cave roof, as if he’s above it somewhere, “I wish you were still
here. You were…you were everything my father never was.”
Were.
Such a simple word but with such an awful meaning. I
choke on my words, my eyes brimming with tears. I fight them off,
take a deep breath, determined to finish my personal eulogy. “In
just a short time, you were my role model, mentor, trusted
adviser...” The words are sticking in my throat; the pale tears
overflowing and tracing lines to my chin. “You were my friend. I’ll
miss you so much.”

I cry lonely and silent tears for him.

Ben should be alive and my father shouldn’t.
The world is broken, turned all upside down. Evil seems to conquer
good again and again.

* * *

I spend a few hours with Elsey, who manages
to cheer me up with her stories about her and Adele as kids. She’s
an amazing little girl. I should be the one cheering her up
considering all she’s lost, but it’s the other way around.

When Elsey’s shattered body gets tired after
sitting up for only an hour, I go to find Roc. I’m walking down a
random street in subchapter 1, hoping to run into him, when a
shadow falls over me. Spinning around, I only have a split-second
to react before a large, dark hand grabs me by the tunic and lifts
me in the air, slings me against a rock wall.

It’s Ram. Come to finish me off. After
everything, I’m still not worthy of his trust.

“Thanks for that,” I choke out smartly.

“My pleasure,” he says, his lips curling into
a broad grin. It’s not his usual
I’m-going-to-get-great-enjoyment-from-hurting-you grin. I look at
him oddly.

“Am I missing something?” I gasp, trying to
suck air through my crushed windpipe.

“I’m just messing with you, man,” Ram laughs,
lowering me to my feet and straightening out the collar of my
tunic. With that, he walks away.

As I gulp in the air I chuckle to myself; I
guess being friends with Ram isn’t that different than being
enemies with him. But I’ll take it anyway.

Still smiling, I go to find Roc.

Roc’s been spending so much time with Tawni
that I don’t see him much, but that’s cool, because it’s nice to
see that they’re getting on so well. Just before Adele’s expected
to arrive, however, I manage to corner him as he’s returning from
somewhere with Tawni. She gives his hand a slight squeeze and
leaves him with me. She’s a perceptive girl—always seems to know
what’s going on in the world around her. Right now, she knows I
want to talk to my best friend.

“Hey, man,” I say.

“Hey,” he says. Roc’s grinning from ear to
ear.

“Things going that well, eh?”

“We have a lot more in common that you’d
think,” he says. “I really like her, Tristan.”

“I’m happy for you. How are you really doing
though? I mean, after everything…”

At first his face shows surprise, but then it
falls and I see sadness in his eyes. “It’s tough. I mean, we just
met Ben and he was such an amazing guy, and now….now it’s like he
never existed. And Elsey—Tristan, I feel so bad for her. She didn’t
deserve any of this.”

“I know. I feel the same way. Adele was a
mess when she left with her mom. I just feel like there’s nothing I
can say or do that will help.”

I’m surprised when Roc laughs. “I know how
that feels,” he says. I feel sheepish, because I remember how many
times Roc tried to talk to me, to cheer me up, after my mom
disappeared. But I just kept pushing him away, sort of like Adele’s
been doing. At least she finally let me hug her, finally talked to
me, even though her words were filled with grief.

“I’m sorry,” I say. It’s too late for it, but
I still feel like I should say it.

“It’s okay. I understand. And maybe your
mom’s out there somewhere,” he says. “I hope we find her someday.
She was my mom too.” Gravity takes his words and pulls them through
my ear canals and all the way down to my toes. They are heavy
words. The heaviest.

“Roc, I just want to say again that I’m so
sorry about what my fath—”

“Our father,” he corrects. “And it’s okay.
I’m not sad anymore, just angry. So angry that if I ever see him
again, I think I’ll kill him, Tristan. I really mean it.”

I know
exactly
how he feels. If I ever
see my father again, I think I’ll kill him too.

* * *

As I wait for Adele’s train to get in, there
are so many things I know I want to say to her, to try to make
things right, but I know none of them will help. A thought flashes
through my mind, something I’ve almost forgotten about. Something I
need to tell her, to tell someone, but it’s so important I can’t
just go out and say it. While it won’t necessarily help her with
her grief, it might take her mind off of it, which could help—in a
way.