There Once Were Stars (4 page)

“What does?”

“How did that Outsider get around without any evidence of radiation sickness?”

“He was wearing protection.”

“No, he wasn’t. I was in the lobby when they brought him in.

“You don’t know everything, plus, who cares? We have more important things to worry about. Like right now, this tree.”

“But what if it’s safe outside?”

“Then they’ll let us know after they talk to him.”

The saw starts up again. I creep around the perimeter of the clearing until I reach the bushes that rest against the edge of the dome. I crouch down, until I’m lying on my stomach, and then drag myself along the ground, concealed amongst the bushes.

Ahead I can see something shine in the dirt. I scoot faster, my sounds masked by the saw. When I’m almost within arm’s reach, the shape of the locket is visible. How could I have been so stupid? I start to reach out of the bushes when two Order members burst into the clearing. The saw abruptly stops, leaving echoes of its vibrations ringing through the air.

“How are things going?” An Order member close to my age points to the tree.

“Almost done,” the woman replies. “Are you here to help us haul out the pieces?”

“Leave them for the morning,” the other Order member says, waving his hand dismissively as he turns in my direction. He’s older than his partner, but it’s not until he turns around and I see his face that my chest tightens and panic courses through my veins; he’s the one who peered through the glass when the Outsider was captured.

“Did the Outsider really look inside here?” the other horticulturalist asks.

“Right over here,” the older Order member says walking toward me as he puffs out his chest. “After I apprehended him, I noticed something wasn’t right with the glass on the dome out there. As I got closer I noticed his handprint; and on the other side was that rotten, old tree. You scientists sure missed this one,” He grunts. “All this wasted space could be creating more oxygen.”

“We’ve got a job to get back to,” the woman says, irritation at the edge of her words.

“Hold on!” the younger member exclaims. “Well, what do we have here?”

Is it my locket? Or worse, have they spotted me?
I freeze, tucked under the bushes, too afraid to breathe. If they catch me, that’s it. Everything Grandmother said will come true, only worse because they will think I’m the one conspiring with the Outsider.

“I’ll be,” the older member says, slapping his partner on the back. “Get my kit out of my pack for me, rookie.”

“What did you two find?” the male horticulturalist asks.

“Another handprint,” the younger member says as he leans down and rummages through his bag. He’s low enough that if he were to turn his head, he’d see me staring back at him. I don’t even dare blink, straining to control every ounce of my body. He grabs a box from the bag and stands up, while I slowly let out an exhale.

“I think we may have found our person of interest,” the older member says. He steps toward the bushes, one foot landing on my locket and the other close to my head. So close, I could reach out and grab him. After a few minutes he exclaims, “Got it! This might be our first chance at catching those rebels. Great job, rookie.”

“Really?” I can’t see the face of the younger member, but I can hear the pride in his voice. I’m not as congratulatory. I know that once they run those prints, I’m screwed.

You two get back to work now, and don’t speak a word of this, got it?”

“Yes, sir.” The sarcasm drips from the woman’s voice.

The sound of the Order members crunching through the woods adds to my panic. How long will it take them to run that print? I know there’s a record of my prints in the database, from when I started at the Learning Institute. Everyone’s are taken on registration day.

“Do you really think a rebel was in this clearing?” the male horticulturalist asks.

“If they were, they better be careful.”

The rev of the saw fills the air as they begin working again.

I reach for my locket, where it’s embedded into the dirt, and dig it out with my trembling fingers.
My handprint.
I can’t get it out of my head. The ramifications of this are overwhelming. What’s going to happen to me now?
Is there a way to get out of this? Maybe someone can hack into the system for me. Someone like Jak.

The locket comes loose and I grasp it in my hand as I crawl through the bushes. The saw still roars through the air, as I make my way back to the trees. Once I’m standing again, I dash through the forest, not caring who might hear me. What could be worse than the fate that awaits me now? I’ll be sent to the Learning Institute for reformation, or worse, to B2 to live among the screams. I’m not sure which is worse.

By the time I reach the fence, I’m so worked up, I can barely see between my tears. I crawl through the space in the fence and sprint away into the darkness, hiding in the shadows until I’m safe at home. But I know this won’t be good enough; no one is safe from his or her actions under the dome.

As I burst into my bedroom, Grandmother is sitting on my bed holding my mother’s notebook.

“Where have you been?” she hisses at me. “You missed supper.”

“I had to go back to the clearing—”

“You did what!” She jumps up and slaps me with such force I fall back against my bedroom door.

I cradle my cheek as tears run down my face. She has never struck me before, and though I know this time I have gone too far, my tears are not from the sting of her hand as much as my own fear, because this time I know she’s right.

“I told you to never, ever, go back there. Do you have any idea what you are doing?”

“I had to. I dropped my locket earlier and overheard at work they were going to the clearing to cut down a tree. I knew if they found it, they would come after me.”

She sits down and throws the notebook on the floor as her hands tremble. She clutches her fingers together in her lap and stares at them as if they’re something foreign now. She looks up at my cheek, where I feel the red welt growing. “Oh, Nat,” she whispers. “Do you really have no recollection of what happened before? They wouldn’t come after you, they would come after us.”

“I don’t understand,” I say. “Why would they come after you?”

“When your parents had their … unfortunate accident, the Order members came. Do you remember what they did to your grandfather?”

I remember it all too well. It was nine years ago, and I was playing hopscotch on the front sidewalk with other kids. Order Members trampled through our game and entered our building. I had never seen them before, in their crisp suits, and couldn’t help but follow them up to the apartment, all the way to my grandparents’ unit.

No one saw me standing there when the men said my parents’ expedition went
terribly
wrong. The entire Expedition team had been killed by radiation poisoning. I turned, and ran down the stairs, into the street, but didn’t stop there. I passed all the familiar faces and buildings I knew until I no longer recognized anything. I kept running, blinded by the watery world of my tears. And that was when I found the opening to the Outer Forest.

“I ran away, remember.”

“Oh, that’s right,” she nods. “Your grandfather got up to run after you, but the Order wouldn’t let us leave. We were detained, and there were so many questions—accusations that turned to threats. You know how Grandfather can be. So stubborn. He turned the tables and started accusing the Director and the Order, until finally they took him away.”

All I remember was holding Grandfather’s hand at the funeral. Was he gone before that? He was silent for such a long time afterward, but wasn’t that from the grief?

“What did they accuse you of?”

“They thought your parents were involved in something untoward. They never explained it to us, but it couldn’t have been good. Your mother, always scribbling in that notebook. She had too many questions. Thankfully, they cleared your parents in time for a funeral, even if there were no bodies to bury.”

“No bodies.” My voice comes out in a whisper. “But that’s not what happens in radiation poisoning, is it?”

She shakes her head. “It was the radiation that poisoned them, but something much worse killed them. By the time the members got their distress call, it was too late; they found the entire Expedition team had been attacked. Their bodies were ripped apart.”

“By what?” I stammer, unable to digest this secret that has been kept from me half my life.

“After the Order identified who was who, we only had pieces to bury,” Grandmother says, distant, as if she’s returned to the moment she lost her two children. Both my father, and Uncle Alec, died that day with my mother. Everyone important to me.

“What was it?” I plead. “Wild animals? The infected?”

“All of the families were sworn to secrecy,” she says, ignoring me. “No need to interrupt the peace of the dome when the threat was outside it. They assured us the responsible party was taken care of.”

“But what was it?”

“We were never told,” She snaps her head in my direction, coming back to the present. “The expeditions were shut down and life moved on. That’s how you survive, by looking forward. Aren’t you listening, Natalia? You don’t ask questions—they bring trouble.”

The bed groans as she stands up to leave. She pauses, staring at the floor where my mother’s notebook is sprawled open. “And get rid of that. Nothing good comes from digging up the past.”

“I will not. It’s all I have left.”

“You never listen,” she turns to me, her eyes flashing with anger. “You’ll end up taking us down with you. I won’t have it. You leave me no choice.”

She slams my bedroom door shut behind her, and I hear the click of the lock slide across the outside. The lock she installed shortly after my parents were killed when I used to sneak out at night and go to our old apartment. The lock she used to trap me, like the dome traps her.
No!
She can’t lock me in here. I need to go see Jak. I run to the door, and try the handle, but it resists against my hands. I bang on the door, but I know it’s pointless. Grandmother’s paranoia has no reasoning.

With my back against the wall, I slide down and slump to the floor. My head is spinning with too many questions to handle. Has my entire life been a lie? If my parents weren’t killed by radiation, what killed them? I reach in my pocket and pull out the locket, flipping it open to see the photo of my parents.
What killed you?
What tore you apart?
To die in such a terrible way—I can’t bear the thought.

One thing I know, it could not have been an infected. Someone would have spotted them out there by now. Although, when no one is allowed in the Outer Forest, how can people see what dangers are outside the dome?

I close the locket, and reach for the notebook, but notice the photo I found in the elevator fell onto the floor next to it. It’s a photo of a girl, with pigtails and a large grin plastered across her face; she might be three years old. I flip it over onto its back and see the initials N.G. My initials. I flip the photo back over and hold it up to the one on my nightstand. The similarities are undisputable.

How did the Outsider get a photo of me? Did someone give it to him, or worse, did he steal it from my parents? Was he the one who killed them?
I fall to my bed; I don’t know what to think. Questions roll around inside my head until I’m so overwhelmed the room begins to spin and I succumb to exhaustion.

After a fitful night dreaming of the Order banging down our door, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see my friends again. But the sunlight of morning woke me to not only an unlocked bedroom door, but also a tiny shred of hope that everything that happened yesterday had just been a dream. A terrible, screwed up, dream.

“I can’t believe I missed your birthday!” Xara exclaims.

“Yesterday was crazy. I started my contribution—and—stuff.”

Her dark ringlets jump around her face as she squeals. “You’re eighteen now!”

“Happy birthday, Nat,” Jak says in his quiet voice, standing next to her. Though we’ve all been friends since we started school, Jak is often left in the shadows of Xara’s enthusiasm.

“Did you get anything good?” Xara asks. “Or is that too much to ask of your grandmother?” She doesn’t hide her eye roll. Xara has put up with me and my frustration with Grandmother for nearly a decade. But she’s never complained; the sign of a true friend.

I hold out the locket from my neck and can’t help but let a smile spread across my lips when Xara’s mouth drops. But I’m not going to open it and show her the photo inside. It’s a final secret between my parents and me; something I will never have again.

“Wow, Nat,” Xara leans in, “that’s gorgeous. Real jewelry. You’re so lucky. All my mom gave me was a book about etiquette.”

“Maybe she’s trying to tell you something,” Jak pipes up. Xara punches him in the arm as he hides his face.

“What did you get?” she asks Jak.

“A tie,” he beams. “Perfect for working as a Delegate one day.”

“You wish.” Xara snorts. “You’re a business district boy. You’ll end up in a bank, at best.”

It’s true. Jak is from a more privileged area than Xara and me, but she doesn’t have to be so single minded. She knows that anyone can try for positions above their district. At eighteen, you get to leave the Learning Institute and go out into the real world where you have up to two years to figure out how you would like to contribute to the dome by trying out a variety of different jobs until you find your fit.

“Did you hear they found someone on the outside?” she says, her brown eyes wide with excitement. “Seriously. They brought him inside—I heard his skin was melting off from radiation exposure.”

“No, I don’t think that’s right—”

“And I heard that the Order took him to the Axis so he could die with dignity.”

I recall the Outsider’s black eye. He looked pretty alive to me.

“I was asking where he came from, because no one seemed to be worried about that. Mom said in the olden days, people who didn’t want to follow the rules of a dome were cast out.”