Phoebe North - Starbreak

Ive never kept a journal before.

Never thought about it. Its not how my brain works, not really. I see colors, the ways that shadows mingle with the light. But words? I could take them or leave them, or so I always thought.

One of my ancestors kept a journal. All about how she arrived on the Asherah, how she came to live inside the ships dome. How she hated it there. She thought she was trapped inside the deepness of space. She could never forget ithow her freedoms had been taken from her, one by one, by the High Council.

Her journal was passed from hand to hand to hand among the women in my family. My grandmother gave it to my mother, and eventually it found its way to me. The leather cover shines from the oils of our fingers. The pages are falling out. But its an important reminder of where weve been before, and what weve lost.

I needed that. Without that book I never would have joined the rebellion on our ship. I never would have tried to escape either and taken off for the surface of Zehava when the riots broke out. I would have tried to force myself to be happy. I would have gone ahead and married Silvan Rafferty, a boy I didnt love. All because its what normal girls did on our ship. They got married whether they loved their husbands or not. They didnt think about how they were trapped. We were all prisoners. Powerless, voiceless. I understood that only because centuries ago someone decided to write it all down. She told me with her words, her pen.

So when you suggested that I write my feelings down, I didnt scoff. I might not be much of a writer. Im better with a paintbrush. After my time spent with Mara Stone, Im better with plants, too. (Dont laugh. Please. I know youre laughing. I dont mean it like that!) But I know that maybe these words will help you understand menot just my language but me.

And so I figured that it was worth a shot.

Now, where was I? Oh yeah, the shuttle . . .

On the night of the riots, I wasnt the only one who ran for the shuttle bay.

As I pressed across the frozen pastures, my hands balled into fists, my feet bare against the cold ground, I was joined by throngs of people. Citizens, their gazes drunk-dizzy and crazed, spilled out from the districts and the fields, clamoring for the aft lift. That daymy wedding day, the day we arrived on Zehavawas supposed to be a festive one. The citizens had been saving up their rations for weeks, stockpiling bottles of wine so they could drink from the first moment dawn cracked until the planet was stained black by the darkening night.

But the planet never went dark. Instead Zehava twinkled and glinted in the dome glass like a second sky. Lights. The northern continent was scattered with lights, clustered around the black oceans like gilt edging a page. Those lights could only mean one thing: people. There were people on our planet, the planet wed journeyed five hundred years to find, the planet wed been told would someday be our home.

Maybe they didnt believe it, those citizens who ran by me, jostling and shoving one another. Maybe they were so drunk, theyd convinced themselves it wasnt true. Zehava was theirstheir abbas had sung them songs about it; their mommas had told them about the good lives theyd live underneath the wide open sky. Maybe they thought the lights were something else, a trick of Mother Naturephosphorescent algae or glowing rocks. Whatever the case, in their drunken fervor theyd convinced themselves that the path ahead would be easy. Theyd take a shuttle down to the surface and find Zehava perfect and empty. It had been promised to them, after all.

I ran for a different reason, the pleats of my long golden gown clutched in my fists. Sure, I was just as starved as the rest of them. I wanted Zehava too; the Goldilocks planet would be our better, more perfect home. But that night? I mostly just ran for my life. When I squeezed myself into the crowded lift, the smell of sweat and wine and bloodstained wool all around me, I gave one last look back. I couldnt be certain, but I thought I saw her there. Aleksandra Wolff, leader of the Children of Abel. The captains daughtera woman so powerful that shed kept her familys name for her own, defying all of the traditions of the ship. Her black braid swung behind her as she ran.

When the door shut behind me, I put my hands on my knees, panting. The air felt cold and sharp inside my lungs. I remembered the expression on Aleksandras facewild, hungry. Id seen the whole thing, standing frozen in that cornfield as Aleksandra held that silver rope of hair in her hand and drew the knife across her mothers throat.

An old woman stood beside me in the lift. She touched her hand gently to my bare shoulder.

Arent you happy? she cried. She was hazy with drink. The Council, fallen! Fallen at last!

I winced. The lift was filled with people, too many people, as it plunged into the depths of the ship. They sang and chanted, pumping their fists, but I couldnt hear their words. Instead I heard an echoCaptain Wolffs voice coming back to me, just before she made that last, strangled sound.

They wont follow you. Not after theyve discovered that you killed your own mother.

Aleksandra had answered easily: Good thing they wont find out. But I knew, I knewand worst of all? Aleksandra had caught me listening. On her belt she carried a knife, still hot with her mothers blood, sharp as a straight razor and twice as quick.

But I had somewhere to go. Zehava. The purple forests writhed and shifted in the corners of my memory. And I had someone waiting for me too. The boymy boythe one whod haunted my dreams for months. Hed keep me safe from Aleksandra, and from the bodies that jostled me in their drunken fervor as they spilled from the lift. Hed be my home. My haven. My sanctuary.

He just didnt know it yet.

I stumbled from the lift into the crowded shuttle bay.

Once, the bay had been closed to all but necessary personnelshuttle pilots and their crews, the captain, the Council. But someone had cracked the lifts control panel open. It trailed wires like a jumble of guts. When we arrived, the doors opened easily. Already the room was packed with people who elbowed one another, shouting. Most carried handcrafted weapons, table legs broken off or knives filched from their galley drawers. Someone had a shepherds crook theyd broken down into a splintered spear. I had to duck under it as I scrambled toward the air lock entrance.

At first I just stood there staring, my bare feet flat against the rusted floor. The air lock was open. Inside waited row upon row of shuttles, gleaming beneath the dim track lighting. Wed prepared for years for disembarking. In school Rebbe Davison had taken us through the necessary drills: meeting with our muster groups, filing in one group at a time. Of course, it had only ever been for practice. Id only ever seen snatches of the air lock beforewith its precarious walkway and its long tunnels that reached out into the universe beyondjust before the air lock shut.

I heard a familiar ding. When I glanced back, I saw the lift doors open again. Still more people spilled out. I was frozen, my dress in my hands. But then I saw a face in the crowd in the lift. Aleksandra, her pale features drawn, stood among the new group. I wondered if they knew that she was their leader. I hadntit had been a secret, well kept. But now it seemed the news was spreading as quickly as a winter cold. Field-workers bowed their heads to whisper to specialists. Merchants lifted their eyes, squared their shoulders, and pressed two fingers to their hearts. They rushed toward her, flanking her on all sides. It give me time, but not much. I had to hurry as the people raised their weapons in salute. I pressed forward through the crowd, nearing the air lock door.