The Star Dwellers (13 page)

There’s a blank page, which I pass quickly in
an effort to get to the next entry. I’m gripped by the young girl’s
words, speaking from beyond the grave. The history books don’t tell
it like this. They’re all patriotism and new beginnings and marvels
of engineering.

I read the next page:

“Just like me, the elevator shakes and
trembles as it descends deep into the earth. We are packed into the
metal box like the yucky sardines my dad likes to eat are packaged
into their smelly cans. My stomach feels funny as we drop, like
when my dad took me and my friends to ride the rollercoasters at
the amusement park. The elevator is bright, lit by yellow
fluorescent light that hurts my eyes. I close my eyelids, because
there’s nothing to see anyway. I imagine I’m still with my family,
playing in the backyard with my sister while my dad mows the lawn
and my mom does yoga. My imagination tells lies.

“When we exit the elevator it is dark. We are
in a cave full of gray rock walls and pointy stones popping from
the floor and ceiling that I know from school are called
stalactites and stalagmites. The cave is the biggest cave I’ve ever
seen, even bigger than the ones in Laurel Caverns, where my family
went spelunking on one of our family vacations. This cave is so big
that I can’t even see the other side of it, which seems to
disappear into the gloom at the far end of my vision. The roof is
so high that I have to squint to see it, and I can only make it out
then because of the dim overhead lights strung up on the
ceiling.

“They give us hardhats with lights on them.
Mine is too big, but they say it’s better to be too big than too
small. They tell us we have to hurry, that the scientists are
predicting the meteor will hit earth very soon.

I can’t hold back my tears any longer, but I
wipe them away quickly with the back of my hand.

“We all line up with our helmets on and sit
on the hard stone floor, which pinches my skin beneath my jeans.
They tell me to put my head between my knees so I do. Silence. A
child whimpers. Not me. Someone shushes him and he’s quiet again.
Silence. A bead of sweat trickles from my helmet down my forehead
and into my eyes. I blink it away, ignoring the stinging.

“The impact is so powerful I think the earth
will be torn in two. I’m flung to the side and I land in a tangle
of arms and legs. There are bodies all around me. People screaming.
Kids crying. I cry. The lights flicker and go out. The earth is
shaking, shaking, shaking to pieces. The sky is falling and my head
hurts when I feel the stones crack against my helmet. Sharp pebbles
sting my skin, but I keep my head down like they showed me.

“I am scared.”

I take a deep breath and look up. “I can’t
imagine what it was like,” I say.

“One more entry,” Ben replies.

The next page is dated two weeks later. I
read:

“It’s the first time I haven’t cried in a
week. My family is dead, they told me. Nothing could have survived
it. I don’t understand it all, but they say that it wasn’t the
meteor that killed everyone. Mostly it was the oceans, which rose
up and covered everything when the meteor hit. They say we are
lucky to be alive. There they go with the lucky thing again. It
bothers me, but I just listen.

“One kid asks when we can go back outside
again. I can tell he’s scared of the dark. I’m glad I’m not,
because it’s dark most of the time. They told him never. That it
would be hundreds, or maybe thousands, of years before anyone could
go back up. They told us this is our home now—in the caves.

“I feel so alone.”

I feel something tickling my cheek and when I
touch my face with my hand it comes away wet. A single tear, filled
with the girl’s desperate tale, moistens my cheek. I don’t know why
I’m moved by something that happened five hundred years ago, but I
am.

“Why did you show me this?” I ask, looking
up.

Ben doesn’t answer right away and I think he
may have fallen asleep, weary from the gunshot wound and our
harried flight from subchapter 26. I’m about to ask again, but his
eyes flash open suddenly. “I just wanted to change your
perspective,” he says.

My perspective? My perspective is that my
father’s a creep and he needs to be stopped; that I want to help;
that I want to forge a new life for myself; that I want to get to
know Adele better. What’s wrong with that? I puzzle over Ben’s
words, trying to understand what he means. What does our fight have
to do with a diary from five centuries ago?

Something clicks in my brain, and I realize
how dense I am sometimes. Everything I want is for me, selfish. I
want to stop my dad because he drove away my mom, and because he
didn’t love me or her, not really. I want to help because I think
it’s what Adele wants, or maybe because Roc thinks it’s my destiny,
I don’t know. I want to forge a new life and be with Adele because
I think it will make
me
happy. I want, I want, I want. I am
stunned when I realize how self-centered I’ve been. It all comes
together in an instant.

“You want me to see that this is bigger than
just me, just you, just any of us.”

There’s an invisible smile on Ben’s face and
I know I’m right, even without him saying it. “If we’re not doing
this for the right reasons, we won’t make the right decisions,” he
says simply.

I know he’s right.

“M
om!” I cry out,
bumping Trevor from behind as I dash past him. She’s on her feet,
moving around the desk, and we meet partway. And then my arms are
around her and hers around me.

I’m dreaming. I’m dreaming. I’m waking up for
sure. Any second. Any moment. I’ll be back in the inter-Realm
tunnel, feverish and delirious with Bat Flu. I’m not sure my heart
can take the loss of my mom again, and I hold on tighter, willing
her not to disappear.

I realize I’m crying, sobbing into her
shoulder, my nose running like a faucet. Maybe it would be better
if it was a dream. I don’t want my mom to see me like this.

“Adele…” the melodious and familiar voice
murmurs. “You found me. You’re okay and you found me.”

Before I pull back so I can look at her, I
wipe my nose and face on the shoulder of my tunic. It’s gross but I
don’t care. She’s looking at me. My mom. Anna.
The General?
Reality flashes back and I have so many questions.

“Mom—what are you doing here?” I ask.

Her hazel eyes are full of compassion, just
like I remember, soft and somber. She lifts a hand and gently wipes
a lingering tear from my cheek with the backs of her fingers.
“There’s so much I have to tell you,” she says.

Her head jerks to the side as she remembers
we’re being watched. I follow her gaze and notice Trevor staring at
us, his eyes narrowed, his lips contorted into a slight frown. An
unwanted shudder passes through me. Tawni is behind him, smiling
bigger than I have ever seen before. Or at least since before Cole
died.

“Mom, I want to introduce you to my friend,”
I say, motioning with a hand. She steps forward. “This is
Tawni—Tawni, meet my mom, Anna.”

My mom releases me from her embrace and
shifts forward, ignoring Tawni’s outstretched hand, hugging her.
Tawni takes it in stride, hugging back.

When they pull away, Mom says, “Any friend of
Adele’s is a friend of mine. Thank you for coming all this way with
her.” The way she says it makes it sound like she knows exactly
what we’ve been through—every challenge, every heartbreak, every
success. But of course, that’s impossible.

“It’s nice to meet you, too, Mrs. Rose,”
Tawni says respectfully.

“Call me Anna.”

“Of course.”

“Thank you, Trevor,” she says, her eyes
flitting to the door. One side of my lip turns up when he gets the
unspoken message:
You’re no longer needed here
. His eyes
dance from my mother to me and then back again, before he takes a
slight bow and exits the room, closing the door on his way out.

“What is with him?” I say, not trying to hide
my annoyance at our guide.

“Trevor’s okay,” Mom says. “He’s not the one
to worry about.”

I search her once-young face for a mystery,
but find only lines of age and hardship, despite having been away
from her for only eight months. “Then who is?” I ask.

“There are many liars in our world,” she says
cryptically.

“And Trevor’s one of them.”

Tawni laughs, high and musical. “She’s been
talking like this since we met him.”

“You’ve done well in winning Adele’s
friendship,” Mom says. “It’s not easy to come by.”

A comment like that should make me angry, but
my heart is too full of excitement at having found my mom, and it
just rolls off my back like the trickle from an underground
waterfall.

“C’mon,” she says, tugging my hand to the
side, where a stone bench sits, padded with something dark. We sit
in a row, me, Mom, and Tawni.

I bite my lip as my brain pushes me to ask
one of the zillion questions swirling around my head. As my mom
smiles at me, her delicate features—a small, upturned nose,
doll-like lips, and rosy cheeks—bring on memories of my childhood.
I shake my head, willing them away. There’s no time for
memories.

“We have to get out of here,” I say. “Dad
said—”

“Tell me everything, Adele.”

I sigh, trying to organize my thoughts. My
mom’s hand rests lightly on my leg and it gives me comfort.
“Everything?” I ask.

“Take your time,” she says. “Everything is
important.”

“But I don’t understand. Why are you here?
Why are they calling you the General?”

“All in good time, honey. But first, I need
to hear what you know.” I’m confused—so freaking confused that if
my mom suddenly turned into a dog and started licking my face it
would make just as much sense—but I just go with it. I know my mom
too well. She’s a patient woman, not one to be rushed.

I start with the Pen, about meeting Tawni and
Cole—my voice cracks slightly when I say his name—how we escaped
the electric fence, the bombs, rescuing Elsey, Rivet’s attempts to
capture or kill us. Unlike when I told my father, I don’t leave
anything out, including Tristan. I tell her about my surprising
feelings for him, how he followed us, saved us, pursued us on the
train to subchapter 26. Tawni interjects from time to time, adding
important details, but for the most part she is silent, just
listening. Just before I get to the part about Cole’s death, she
gets up and leaves. Mom raises an eyebrow and then turns back to
me.

When I get to the fight on the train
platform, I pour my heart out to her, telling her of the pain I
felt at losing Cole, the rage inside me as I killed Rivet, my deep
sadness and rebound as I got to know Tristan. I even told her about
holding his hand before we slept. It’s like I’ve been bottling up
all my most powerful emotions and finally they spill over, with my
mom as the recipient.

Tawni reenters the room and I relay the story
of rescuing Dad, our frantic race through the city, and how we
parted ways at the reservoir. I condense our monotonous jaunt
through the inter-Realm tunnel to just a few sentences, focusing
mainly on when we crossed paths with the sun dweller army, and end
the tale when we pass out after contracting the Bat Flu.

When I finish, my mom leans back and puts
both hands behind her back, closes her eyes and breathes deeply.
“You’re sure you saw sun dweller soldiers in the Moon Realm?” she
asks.

“Yeah, in the inter-Realm tunnel. What do you
think they’re planning to do?”

“I’m not sure, but nothing good. And you’re
sure your father told you to come rescue me?”

I try to remember. “I don’t think he said
‘rescue,’ but he did say to find you,” I say, glancing at Tawni.
She nods once in agreement.

“Then he really doesn’t know what’s
happening.”

It’s not a question, but I feel obliged to
answer. “He didn’t know anything. He said they didn’t get much news
inside Camp Blood and Stone, just rumors. Mom, please, what is this
all about?”

“And he didn’t tell you anything else about
me, or him, or the past?”

“No, Mom, I don’t know what you’re talking
about.”

“Then I’ll start from the beginning.” Her
eyes open and she looks tired, like all the years and troubles and
stress are catching up with her. “Your father and I are in the
Resistance.”

The words ring through my head, but it takes
me a moment to register their meaning. A strange feeling washes
over me, like I know what my mom just said won’t be the biggest
surprise. My initial reaction is to deny it, to even scoff at it,
but somehow I know it’s true. Probably because my mother has never
lied to me. At least not that I know of. Evidently she’s kept some
secrets, but it’s not the same thing as a bold-faced lie. “Okayyy,”
I say. “You mean, like part of the Uprising in 475 PM?”

“Correct.”

“I thought the Resistance was defeated, Mrs.
Ro—I mean, Anna,” Tawni says.

“Sort of. The sun dweller army was too
powerful. Many of us were killed, but not all. Nailin knew it, but
he instructed the press to imply that all Resistance members had
been killed in battle, or captured and executed.” This is a
different woman than the one who raised me. I’ve never heard her
speak of death so brazenly. Nor have I heard her utter the
Tri-Realm leader’s name with such disrespect. Growing up, it was
always
President
Nailin.

“How many survived?” I ask.

“Not many, a hundred, maybe. But most were
the Resistance leaders.”

I stare at her, pondering her words. I don’t
ask the question. Can’t. Want so badly to ask it, but my tongue is
tied.

As usual, Tawni comes through for me. “Were
you one of the leaders?” she asks.