A Million Suns

21 ELDER

I WAS THIRTEEN AND STILL LIVED AT THE HOSPITAL. THE SHIP was going to land in 53 years and 147 days, and by that point, I would be the one to lead everyone off Godspeed and onto the new world. I’d been at the Hospital long enough to know that Harley was my best friend, that Doc was mostly okay, and that it would not be too long now before I would — finally — start my training as Elder.

Life was good.

Then.

Harley had dared me to climb the statue of the Plague Eldest that stood in the Hospital gardens. I hadn’t gotten past the pedestal, but he was hanging from the Plague Eldest’s benevolent left arm, gazing down the path to the pond near the back wall of the ship.

“Something big is floating in the water,” Harley said. He swung his body and released his grip, landing with a thud in the fake mulch beside me. He left a purple paint stain on the Plague Eldest’s elbow. “Let’s go see.”

Harley was taller than me and walked with longer strides. Even so, I was tempted to ask him to race. But Harley was also four years older than me, and racing was for children.

“Race ya,” Harley said, kicking up mulch as he leapt away. He looked over his shoulder, laughed, and almost tripped over a blooming hydrangea spilling out onto the path. Little blue petals went flying, whipping past my ankles before drifting to the ground.

I had almost caught up with Harley, was reaching for his shirt to jerk him back and throw him off course so I could speed past him—

— when he stopped cold.

Harley threw his arm out. It caught me in the chest, painfully, winding me and bringing me to a stop.

“What the frex was that for?” I gasped, bent over.

Harley didn’t say anything.

His face was sweating from the race, but underneath he was pale, giving him a deathly sheen. I turned from Harley to the pond.

I knew immediately the girl floating facedown in the still water was dead. Her hair was pulled over her head, the long dark strands of it sinking beneath the surface as if they were anchors being dragged along the silty bottom of the pond. Her arms lay relaxed on either side, palms down, and as I watched, they slowly disappeared under the depths.

There was something about her—

— something familiar…

All along the hem of her tunic were tiny white dots.

Almost like the tiny white flowers that Harley had painted for his girlfriend, Kayleigh. The ones he painted on her favorite tunic, the night he’d spent eight hours straight covering her room with ivy and flowers.

Kayleigh’s flowers.

Kayleigh’s tunic.

Kayleigh.

Harley made a barbaric noise and lunged toward the water’s edge, leaving a deep brown-red scar in the earth from the force of his foot. He swept the water away with his arms as he threw himself into the pond, as if he could wipe away everything he saw before him.

The water didn’t want to give her up. Her head sank lower.

Harley dove and grabbed Kayleigh by the wrist. He turned her over in the water and slapped her face as if to awaken her, but her head just bobbed gently. He swam a little, then jerked her body forward, then swam some more, then jerked her again. She floated willingly by his side, her arms and legs dancing like a wooden puppet’s when all its strings are yanked at once.

Harley slipped, going to one knee, then found footing on the wet bottom of the pond and trudged through the thick mud. With one final, mighty heave, he tossed Kayleigh’s body onto the bank and collapsed beside it.

A dribble of muddy water trickled from the left corner of her mouth, just where she used to twitch her lips up in a laughing smirk. Grime slid down the side of her face, pooling at the edge of her cheek and falling unceremoniously into the ground below.

Harley was shouting and sobbing something, but I couldn’t understand the words.

All I could do was stand there, a witness, my mouth hanging open a little.

Like Kayleigh’s mouth.

Her left leg was twisted backward, her ankle under her backside and her knee jutting forward in a sharp angle. One arm was thrown across her stomach, the other stretched out as if it were pointing up the path toward the Hospital. It suddenly became very important to Harley to position her body just right. He straightened her leg and smoothed her trousers down. He placed her arms by her sides and rubbed his thumb over the palm of her right hand, like he used to do when he thought no one was watching, just before he’d lean in for a kiss, and they forgot about everything but their love.

“Harley,” I said, breaking the spell. I took a step forward, squelching the mud by the banks. I knelt down and felt the warm water seep into the legs of my trousers and reached — toward him or Kayleigh, I’m not sure.

“Don’t touch her!” Harley snarled.

I didn’t move quickly enough. Harley lunged at me and threw the full force of his fist against my jaw. My teeth snapped over my tongue, and I tasted blood. I let myself fall away into the mud and cowered behind my arms.

When I dared look again, Harley was staring up. One hand still held hers, his thumb going methodically over her cool, lifeless palm, back and forth, back and forth.

“Why did she leave me?” he whispered to the painted metal sky above us.

Because this wasn’t an accident.

It couldn’t have been an accident.

Kayleigh loved the pond. Loved to swim with the koi. She’d dive under with handfuls of feed in her grip and uncurl her fingers underwater so the shy fish would dance up to her and nibble from her hands. She could hold her breath longer than anyone I knew. No one could catch her when she swam, not even Harley, who always tried.

Kayleigh couldn’t have died by accident. Not in the water.

I stared at what was left of her.

Pale yellow square patches lined the inside of both her arms. Doc’s med patches — the ones that made you fall asleep. This — this was what killed her. Not an accident. A choice. Kayleigh put herself into a watery bed and made sure she would never wake up. Suicide. We knew it must have been suicide. She’d been talking about how much she hated living, trapped on this ship, for weeks. Months. Just little things, a comment here, a snide remark there. Nothing we noticed. Not until—

My eyes drifted from her body to the lapping, almost-still waters behind her. I looked farther, over the reeds and lotus flowers on the far edge, my eyes skimming across the bright green new grass.

Where they crashed against a metal wall.

A hard, cold, relentless metal wall, studded with rivets and stained with grease and age. My eyes burned as I followed a seam in the wall up, up, curving higher up, until it met with the bright solar lamp in the center of the ceiling. Above that, I knew, was the Shipper Level, and above that, the Keeper Level.

And beyond that — beyond tons and tons of impenetrable metal — was a sky I had never seen.

A sky Kayleigh had never seen.

And she couldn’t live without the sky.