Glow (34 page)

“Believe it, Waverly,” Kieran said, and he watched her face as she tried to take this in. “His dad died. I think that sent him over the edge.”

He told her about how Seth had starved him and how he’d ultimately gotten a trial, which led to Seth’s overthrow, and that ever since he’d been learning how to be a leader. He almost told her about the services, which were his greatest achievement, but he wanted to surprise her. Besides, he couldn’t wait anymore.

“Tell me what happened since you left, Waverly. Can’t you tell me?” Kieran put down the bread, though he was ravenous. He couldn’t eat until he understood what had happened to her and the rest of the girls. He needed to know everything.

She nodded, seeming to accept there was no avoiding it.

They talked for hours. She spoke of a woman named Amanda and the strange customs on the New Horizon. She told him about how she got that horrible scar on the back of her thigh and why there were puncture marks on her abdomen. He learned that she was going to be the mother of more than a dozen babies on the New Horizon, and he was horrified. The last thing she told him was the worst, though. She had left behind all the adults on the New Horizon, and now they were trapped.

“Did you see my mom or dad?” Kieran asked, frantic.

“No, Kieran. I could only see my mom. We had no time to talk at all. I have no idea who else was with her.”

“You didn’t
ask
about my parents?” Kieran demanded. He felt his face grow cold.

Waverly’s features seemed to wilt, but her voice was strong when she spoke. “There’s a civil war going on right now, Kieran. I think if the opposition wins, they’ll let them out. They’ll be able to come back soon.”

“But what if they don’t win? I can’t believe you left them behind!”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” Waverly’s dark eyes rested on his face like heated stones. “They were shooting at me, Kieran. They would have killed me.”

She watched him angrily, but her face seemed to dissolve before his eyes, and she dropped her head into her hands. “I should have tried harder.”

“I’m sorry.” Kieran rushed to her side. He wrapped her in his arms. “Waverly, you did everything anybody could have done. You had to get the girls out of there.”

She broke into sobs, leaned against him. Words escaped her like spikes. “I didn’t want to go. Mom made me. She said they’d get out. Kieran, what if they don’t? It’ll be my fault!”

“You’re a hero,” he told her with absolute conviction. He realized again that this was the astounding woman he was meant to spend the rest of his life with.

He took her face, wet with tears, between his hands, and he looked into her eyes. “Don’t blame yourself! Do you hear me? None of it was your fault. You saved the girls.”

“Not all of them,” she whispered. She hid her face in his shirt and spoke with such a small voice, Kieran could hardly hear her. He realized that she didn’t really want to be heard as she told him about Samantha. How she’d been shot by a guard, how she’d crumpled into lifelessness before Waverly’s eyes.

“You know that’s not your fault, right?” he said.

“I didn’t imagine the services were being monitored,” she said, sounding robotic. “I wanted the plan to work so badly that I didn’t let myself think of how we could get caught.”

“Waverly…” He smoothed the hair out of her eyes, dabbed at the tears running down her face with his sleeve, then kissed her eyelids, her nose, her chin, her cheeks, her forehead, her lips. She leaned toward him, but he pulled away from her long enough to say, “Your plan worked. You’re here. And so are the girls. You did it.”

“I’m going to miss Sammy,” she whispered.

Kieran could say nothing to this. He took her by the arm and pulled until she got up from his desk and followed him into the bedroom. He sat her down on the mattress, he got down on one knee, and he took her hand and kissed it.

“I need you,” he told her.

She only watched him, but he could see the emotion in her eyes.

“I feel like you’re already my wife,” he told her.

She tucked her chin, nodded. “I do too.”

He rose toward her, pulled her face to his, and kissed her, kissed her, kissed her.

They lay back together on the bed, wrapped around each other, clinging, lips on skin, hands in hair, rolling over each other, silent except for the sound of their rushing breath.

EPILOGUE

Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love’s tragedies.

—Oscar Wilde

STRANGERS

They slept tangled together until a knock sounded on the bedroom door. Waverly lifted her head, drawing breath sharply, then remembered where she was and dropped back to her pillow.
I’m home,
she whispered in her mind, and smiled.

Kieran rose, scrubbing his hand over his face, and cracked the door open. Arthur Dietrich stood outside the bedroom door, gnawing his bottom lip. “Kieran, everyone’s waiting.”

Kieran stared at Arthur blankly. “For what?”

“Services. You’re late.”

Waverly sat up, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She was surprised to find herself overjoyed to see the moon face of Arthur Dietrich. She waved; he nodded shyly.

“Is everybody there?” Kieran asked, sounding embarrassed.

“Yes! I put out the bread. We had to make twice as much last night, for the girls, and we’re out of jam until next week when the strawberries are ready, so I used honey.”

“What time is it?”

“Eight twenty! You better get a move on!”

“Stall for me,” Kieran said, and closed the door. Waverly watched as he ran to the bedroom closet and slipped into a flax shirt, kicked into his suit pants, muttering, “I can’t believe I forgot.”

Waverly wrapped the blanket around her shoulders. She’d been sweaty-cold all night. Now she simply felt cold. “What’s going on?”

“It’s a new thing,” he said distractedly. “I started it to cheer everyone up. You should come.”

“Come to what?” she asked with the slightest pang of dread. Had Arthur said “services”? Dazed, she looked at the objects in the room—an old saddle, a sepia photo of a nineteenth-century hunter holding his rifle—and felt almost as disoriented as she’d been aboard the New Horizon. Watching Kieran knot his silk tie, she asked warily, “What are you getting ready for?”

He smiled. “Services. They’re in the central bunker. Hurry or you’ll miss them.”

Waverly felt as wooden as the chair in the corner. She sat there motionless as Kieran ran to his desk and picked up a portable reader. He was at the door when he remembered her and dashed back to kiss her good-bye.

“Will you come? I want you to know what I’ve accomplished here.”

She wanted to ask him just what he’d accomplished, but he was gone before she had the chance.

She stared at the door as it closed behind him, her arms wrapped around her knees, fighting to suppress a dim panic that threatened to overtake her.

Calm down,
she told herself.
This isn’t the
New Horizon. You’re home.

But she didn’t believe it.

She felt the traces of Kieran on her skin, the rough feeling on her chin and lips where his whiskers had grazed her. Her muscles were sore from the needy way they’d poured into each other. She’d imagined it so many times, she’d wanted it to be perfect. And it nearly was, the way he’d looked so attentively at her eyes and body, his fingers wandering over her skin, the way he’d pulled strands of hair from her face. But when it was over, she couldn’t help feeling as though there’d been something else that was possible, something more that could have blossomed between them.

But she’d told herself that would come, with time. It didn’t all have to happen in one night. And she’d lost herself in the wonderful feeling of sleeping in his arms.

Now, last night seemed unreal, as though it were something she’d watched on a com screen. She barely inhabited her body as she dressed. She pulled on a pair of Kieran’s hemp trousers, a tunic from his closet. She didn’t bother with the mirrors or her hair. She walked barefoot down the corridors, letting the metal chill her soles. Her heart seemed to be pulling blood away from her arms, her legs, her mind. She blinked away dark spots.

The central bunker was crowded, noisy with chatter and laughter. If the girls were sad not to find their parents—or any adults—here, they were also very happy to be back on their home ship with their brothers, friends, and boyfriends. And now that the boys knew that at least some of their parents were alive on the New Horizon, they were happy also. Waverly could feel the hope in the room, but at a remove, as if it couldn’t really touch her.

She sat in the back row and watched Kieran take the podium. He was beaming.

“Thank you for coming,” he said, waiting for the crowd to settle. His eyes landed on Waverly, and he smiled at her before continuing. “First, I want to welcome back the girls. We missed you all very, very much.”

There was a great whoop of assent from the boys, and Kieran laughed, motioning for them to quiet down.

“About five months ago,” he began, “our community was torn apart. The boys were left behind, worried for our parents and our sisters, and afraid for ourselves. The girls were taken to live with strangers, and had to endure unforgivable violations.”

“What does he know about it?” Waverly heard the whisper from a few rows ahead. It was Sarah, shaking her head and frowning. They looked at each other, and Waverly knew they were wondering the same thing: Why was Kieran preaching a sermon? Did he know he sounded just like Anne Mather?

“When you’re dealt such a horrible blow,” he went on, “there are two choices. You either give up, or keep going. But you can’t do it alone. We humans are social creatures. We boys needed each other while we waited for you girls to come back. We had to find a way to join together, to create a new, stronger community. And we did.

“The Empyrean has remade itself into something vibrant and healthy. We have our trials, our issues, our thwarted dreams, and our private grief, but we also know that every week we can set all those things aside and come here. We break bread together, we talk, and we remind each other of the purpose that’s so much greater than our small plans and concerns.”

He looked out over the audience, and Waverly thought of an old film she’d seen about the proud, single-minded conductor of a symphony orchestra. He’d looked at his musicians the very same way.

“There is a design working behind the curtain of the stars, and we are fulfilling it, drawn toward the future on the tide of time, toward our destiny as the first settlers of a new world.”

The room was still.
He has them,
she thought. Even the older girls were listening hard.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow,” said Kieran. “We’ve learned that the hard way, haven’t we? We had a peaceful existence for so long, we thought we’d always have it. But we were wrong. There was a threat behind the veil of the nebula that we didn’t see, and it left us hurt, bleeding, near death. But now we understand who our enemies are. And we will triumph over them.

“How do I know that? How can I be so sure that we are meant to avenge our loved ones? I’ll tell you what I know, deep in my heart.”

He paused. His knowing, calculated delivery reminded Waverly so much of Anne Mather that she nearly groaned.
This is his talent,
she realized.
His gift
. It had been hidden all along, this strange ability to make people believe he knew some secret truth, that only he could show them the way.
Because only he knows the mind of God.

It was such a dangerous, terrifying lie.

And all the more terrifying because he believed it.

“What we’ve made here, after all our pain and hardship, is special,” Kieran said. “It’s like a glowing light in the dark universe, kindled by God and burning inside of us. The sacrifices we’ve made, the pain we’ve endured, has been for a purpose: to make us into this.”

Kieran’s arms opened wide, as if embracing all the young people sitting before him.

“We are the new generation. With God’s help we will make our new home into a land of plenty. We’ll welcome the millions that follow us to our rich, bountiful world. But before that, I promise you this: We
will
find our parents, we
will
punish the people who took them from us, and we
will
be the victorious makers of our new world, our New Earth, our new home!”

Kieran smiled at the rapt faces before him, stepped away from the podium, and sank to his knees. Folding his hands under his chin, he prayed.

Seeing the entire congregation follow Kieran’s example, Waverly got to her feet and stumbled out of the room.

I got Samantha killed,
she thought, leaning against a wall in the hallway.
I killed a man. I left my mother a prisoner. And after all that pain and misery
,
I finally escaped from Anne Mather and her insanity.

Except I didn’t.

KIERAN

Kieran got to his knees, thankful that his sermon had gone so well. He’d had to update it, extemporizing the parts about the girls being back, but even so, it had flowed seamlessly. As always now, he’d felt as though something greater were speaking through him, using him to show his congregation the way.

Each sermon made his faith stronger.

When the congregation got to their knees, he glanced around quickly to find Waverly, but she wasn’t in her chair. Had she gone? Though her absence startled him, he went on smoothly, calling out, “Who has thanks to share?”

It turned out that almost everyone in the congregation had something to be thankful for, so the service went on for a long time. Kieran listened as patiently as he could, but his attention kept drifting to Waverly’s empty chair. Where
was
she? And why had she gone?