The Stars Never Rise. Rachel Vincent
didn’t happen, I poked the alarm button, relieved that I hadn’t yet made the news, and the DJ’s voice faded into blessed silence.
That alarm radio was the only thing on my scratched, scuffed nightstand. It was the last thing I saw before I fell asleep and the first thing I saw every morning. The clock divided my days into strict segments devoted to sleep, school, homework, housework, and real work. I had little time for anything else.
My sister’s nightstand was covered in books. Not textbooks or the Church-approved histories and biographies available in the school library. Mellie had old, thick hardcover volumes, some with nothing but black-and-white print stories, others with brightly colored strip illustrations of people with ridiculous powers, speaking in dialogue bubbles over the characters’ heads. She borrowed them from Adam Yung’s dad, who had a secret collection of prewar stuff in his basement.
The Church hadn’t officially outlawed secular fiction, but they had a way of making things like that unavailable to the general public. Right after the war against the Unclean, they’d recycled entire public library collections to reuse the materials. And after they’d brought down all cellular transmission towers—to keep demons from communicating with one another en masse—people had no use for their portable phones and communication devices, so there were recycling drives for those too.
Collections like Mr. Yung’s were rare. When we were kids, I’d read his stories with Melanie, curled up in our bed, dreaming of eras and technologies that were long past by the time we were born.
Then I grew up and realized that was all those stories ever were. Dreams. I lived in the real world, where Mellie was only a part-time citizen.
“Time to get up, Mel.” Standing, I gave my sister’s shoulder a shove. She groaned, and I grabbed the towel hanging over the footboard of the bed, then trudged into the hall.
My shower was cold—the pilot light on the hot water heater had gone out again—and we were out of soap, so I had to use shampoo all over. The suds burned the fresh scrapes on my lower back, a vivid reminder of my near death in the alley, and when I got back to the bedroom, shivering in my towel, my sister was still sound asleep in the full-size bed we shared.
“Melanie. Get up.” I nudged the mattress with my foot, and she rolled onto her stomach.
“Go away, Nina.” She buried her face in the pillow without even opening her eyes.
“Up!” I tossed the blanket off her, holding my towel in place with one hand, and my sister finally sat up to glare at me.
“I’m not going. I’m sick.” She swiped at yesterday’s mascara and eyeliner, already smeared across both her pale cheek and her pillow.
I felt her forehead with the back of one hand while new goose bumps popped up on my arms, still damp from the shower. “You’re not hot. Get up. Or would you really rather be here with Mom all day?”
Melanie mumbled something profane under her breath, but then she stumbled into the hall. Even half-asleep, she remembered to tiptoe over the creaky floorboard in front of Mom’s room on her way to the bathroom.
When we let our mother sleep, we were rewarded with benign neglect. The alternative was much less pleasant.
I was buttoning my school uniform shirt when Melanie came back from the bathroom, pulling a brush through her long, pale hair still dripping from the shower. She looked her age, with her face scrubbed and shiny. Fifteen and fresh. Innocent. Without the eyeliner she’d taken from the Grab-n-Go and the lipstick our mother had forgotten she even owned, Mellie looked just like all the other schoolgirls in our white blouses and navy pants—shining beacons of purity in world that had nearly been devoured by darkness a century ago.
We were living proof that the Church knew best. That the faithful only prosper under the proper spiritual guidance. And about a dozen other similar lines of bullshit the sisters made us memorize in kindergarten.
“Today’s the day,” I said when she handed me the brush. I pulled it through my own thicker, darker hair. “I’m really going to do it.” I’d almost forgotten what today was, thanks to the demon in the alley, but cold showers have a way of bringing reality into crisp focus.
“Do what? Admit that you’re a hopeless stick-in-the-mud who never lets herself have any fun?” She tugged the last pair of school pants from a hanger in the closet and shoved her foot through the right leg. Thank goodness we wore the same size, because we never could have afforded two sets of uniforms on our own, and if the Church found out our mother wasn’t working, they’d take us away.
Melanie wouldn’t make it in the children’s home. The sisters were too watchful, and she had become mischievous and careless under what the Church would characterize as neglect on our mother’s part.
I’d characterize it like that too. But I’d say it with a smile.
“I think you’re having enough fun for both of us, Mel.” Sometimes it didn’t feel possible that we were only a year and a half apart. It’s not that Melanie didn’t pull her own weight; it’s that she had to be reminded to help out. Constantly. If I didn’t beg her to take the towels to the laundry on Saturdays, we’d have to air dry all week long.
“So, what’s so great about today?”
I didn’t get eaten in the alley behind the Grab-n-Go. But there were only so many secrets my sister could keep at one time, and our mother took up most of those spots all on her own.
I took a deep breath. Then I spat the words out. “I’m going to pledge.”
Melanie froze, her pants still half buttoned. “To the Church?”
“Of course to the Church.” I tucked in my blouse, then pulled hers off its hanger. “We talked about this, Mellie.”
“I thought you were joking.” She grabbed a bra from the top drawer and took the shirt I held out by the neatly starched collar.
“I don’t have time for jokes. Why else would I spend all my free time working in the nursery?”
“For the money.” As she buttoned her blouse I brushed sections from the front of her hair to be braided in the back. She hated the half braid, but it made her look modest and conventional, and sometimes that demure disguise was the only thing standing between my mischievous sister and the back of the teacher’s hand. “The same reason I watch Mrs. Mercer’s brats after school and tutor Adam Yung on Saturdays.”
I glanced at her in the mirror with eyebrows raised. “You get credit for the babysitting.” The Mercer kids really were brats, and she wouldn’t have gone near them without a cash reward. “But we both know why you tutor Adam, and it’s not for the money.” He didn’t even pay her in cash—Adam usually came bearing a couple of pounds of ground beef or, in warmer weather, a paper bag of fruits and vegetables from his mom’s garden. Which we’d learned to ration throughout the week.
He’d never said anything, but I always got the impression that his mother sent payment in the form of perishables to make sure our mother couldn’t spend Mellie’s wages on her “medicine.” And to make sure we ate.
“Stop changing the subject.” She scratched her scalp with one finger, loosening a strand I’d pulled too tight. “You want to pledge to the Church just so you can teach?”
I didn’t want to pledge to the Church for any reason. But … “That’s the way it’s done, Mellie.” All schools were run by the Church, and all teachers were either ordained Church pledges or fully consecrated senior members. Same for doctors, police, soldiers, reporters, and any other profession committed to serving the community.
Adam’s dad said they used to be called civil servants—back when there was civil government.
Melanie took the end of her braid from me. “Don’t you think the world has enough teachers?”
“No, as a matter of fact—”