Read Online For Darkness Shows the Stars by Diana Peterfreund - Free Book Online
Authors: Diana Peterfreund
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breathe.
F IVE Y EARS A GO
Dear Kai,
I was sorry to learn what happened to your father today. These pills are the medicine they gave to my grandfather after he had his strokes. If you give two a day to Mal, it might help. I know you’re still mad over our argument about the Wars of the Lost, but I hope you know I’m thinking of you. Please tell me if there’s anything else I can do.
Your friend,
Elliot
Dear Elliot,
Thank you for the medicine. I hope it can help my da. They’ve taken him away to the healing house—I hate that name. They never do any healing there. People just go there to die. It’s hard to see him. This is the man who taught me to read and write and fix engines, and now he just stares at me like one of the Reduced.
He must hate that. He used to tell me how hard it was for him growing up. It wasn’t like now. He was one of the only Posts on the whole estate. They didn’t even have a name for what he was growing up—they hadn’t started calling us CORs yet. He loved his family—his parents, his brothers and sisters who were Reduced, but he wasn’t one of them. He spent his whole life proving that. And now he’s trapped, he’s mute, he’s just like them.
And that made me think of the wars. If there was a war tomorrow, would your father send the Reduced out like they did in the old days? Would you send out my uncles and cousins? Would you send out my da, now that he can no longer speak or work for you?
I will tell you the truth. The truth is I was angry at you. The truth is that you’re my closest friend, and I still felt like there was no way I could possibly make you understand what it’s like to be me, what it’s like to be my da. The truth is that my da is dying, and because he’s a COR, he’s shoved away to be forgotten in the healing house, while your grandfather gets medicine and nurses who wait on him hand and foot. The truth is, if there was a war tomorrow, everyone I know would be forced to do exactly what your father wants, just like they forced my father to go into the healing house, just like they will force me to go work as a foreman in the fields, because I’m not old enough or educated enough to keep being a mechanic if my da’s not there to teach me.
The truth is that I’m scared to even write these things down and send them to a Luddite to read. Even if that Luddite is you.
Your friend,
Kai
Dear Kai,
You are my closest friend too. And I promise I will do everything I can to help you and Mal. I will talk to my mother. I will talk to my father if I have to. You may not know everything you must to be our mechanic, but you know enough to apprentice at it, and my father will have to admit it would be a waste to track you into a foreman job. My mother knows who you are, and she knows what we owe you and Ro since your mothers died on the day we were all born. I know she’ll help us.
I wish the shipyard were still open. I think you’d have liked it there, even if I’d’ve missed you. And my grandfather is a good man. They say he even had a Post as his first mate, back when he still traveled up and down the coast.
Is the medicine helping at all? I’m going to go sit with Mal in the healing house, since I know you have to work.
Your friend,
Elliot
Eight
THE STAR-CAVERN SANCTUARIES COULD be reached only through a tunnel in the North cellars, which helped the family restrict access to those they deemed worthy. A few Reduced housemaids were allowed down for cleaning purposes, but generally the space was reserved as a monument to the Luddites’ great accomplishment: perseverance.
Elliot had always been in awe of her ancestors. They’d possessed the strength of mind to fight against the tide of their society. When everyone else was putting their faith in scientists like Gavin and Carlotta and getting the ERV procedure, the Luddites had their doubts, as they did about corporate foods whose very genetic codes killed competing
F IVE Y EARS A GO
Dear Kai,
I was sorry to learn what happened to your father today. These pills are the medicine they gave to my grandfather after he had his strokes. If you give two a day to Mal, it might help. I know you’re still mad over our argument about the Wars of the Lost, but I hope you know I’m thinking of you. Please tell me if there’s anything else I can do.
Your friend,
Elliot
Dear Elliot,
Thank you for the medicine. I hope it can help my da. They’ve taken him away to the healing house—I hate that name. They never do any healing there. People just go there to die. It’s hard to see him. This is the man who taught me to read and write and fix engines, and now he just stares at me like one of the Reduced.
He must hate that. He used to tell me how hard it was for him growing up. It wasn’t like now. He was one of the only Posts on the whole estate. They didn’t even have a name for what he was growing up—they hadn’t started calling us CORs yet. He loved his family—his parents, his brothers and sisters who were Reduced, but he wasn’t one of them. He spent his whole life proving that. And now he’s trapped, he’s mute, he’s just like them.
And that made me think of the wars. If there was a war tomorrow, would your father send the Reduced out like they did in the old days? Would you send out my uncles and cousins? Would you send out my da, now that he can no longer speak or work for you?
I will tell you the truth. The truth is I was angry at you. The truth is that you’re my closest friend, and I still felt like there was no way I could possibly make you understand what it’s like to be me, what it’s like to be my da. The truth is that my da is dying, and because he’s a COR, he’s shoved away to be forgotten in the healing house, while your grandfather gets medicine and nurses who wait on him hand and foot. The truth is, if there was a war tomorrow, everyone I know would be forced to do exactly what your father wants, just like they forced my father to go into the healing house, just like they will force me to go work as a foreman in the fields, because I’m not old enough or educated enough to keep being a mechanic if my da’s not there to teach me.
The truth is that I’m scared to even write these things down and send them to a Luddite to read. Even if that Luddite is you.
Your friend,
Kai
Dear Kai,
You are my closest friend too. And I promise I will do everything I can to help you and Mal. I will talk to my mother. I will talk to my father if I have to. You may not know everything you must to be our mechanic, but you know enough to apprentice at it, and my father will have to admit it would be a waste to track you into a foreman job. My mother knows who you are, and she knows what we owe you and Ro since your mothers died on the day we were all born. I know she’ll help us.
I wish the shipyard were still open. I think you’d have liked it there, even if I’d’ve missed you. And my grandfather is a good man. They say he even had a Post as his first mate, back when he still traveled up and down the coast.
Is the medicine helping at all? I’m going to go sit with Mal in the healing house, since I know you have to work.
Your friend,
Elliot
Eight
THE STAR-CAVERN SANCTUARIES COULD be reached only through a tunnel in the North cellars, which helped the family restrict access to those they deemed worthy. A few Reduced housemaids were allowed down for cleaning purposes, but generally the space was reserved as a monument to the Luddites’ great accomplishment: perseverance.
Elliot had always been in awe of her ancestors. They’d possessed the strength of mind to fight against the tide of their society. When everyone else was putting their faith in scientists like Gavin and Carlotta and getting the ERV procedure, the Luddites had their doubts, as they did about corporate foods whose very genetic codes killed competing
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