The Stars Never Rise

“Of course. Go on.”


I made myself walk away from the gym, then into the courtyard through a different door, when I really wanted to run. The rain had slowed a little, but the day looked gray, viewed through the steady drizzle, and my hair was drenched again by the time I got to the dais. The only sounds were the constant loud patter of raindrops, the occasional roll of thunder, and the quick tap of my school shoes on the sidewalk.

Matthew Mercer looked up from the dais when he heard me coming, and one glance at his rain-soaked misery urged me to move faster.

If they’d force a five-year-old to kneel all day in the rain for blasphemy, what would they do to a disobedient fifteen-year-old fugitive? I couldn’t remember anyone else defying the Church so openly, except for…Clare Parker.

My stomach clenched around my breakfast at the memory.

One day, the year I was nine, Clare had refused to kneel for worship. They gave her three chances. When she still refused, Brother Phillip said refusing to recognize the Church’s authority was the first sign of possession. He called in an exorcist, and two hours later, Clare was sentenced. The exorcist said that since her possession was recent, her soul could be returned to the well of souls—if it were purified by fire.

They forced her to her knees on the dais, closed the steel cuffs above her calves, then burned her alive in front of the entire school.

She was seventeen years old.

What if they thought Melanie was possessed?

Terror pumped fire through my veins and pushed my feet faster. At the rear entrance to the administration building, I turned to make sure no one was watching, then slipped inside. My shoes squeaked on the tile and left wet footprints, but there was nothing I could do about that.

Careful not to slip, I snuck through the back hall, then ducked into the laundry room. When Mellie was little, she loved to hide in the bundles of freshly laundered sheets before they were folded and distributed in the children’s home attached to our school. The laundry was the only place I could think of to look for Mellie on campus, and at first I didn’t see her.

I’d almost decided to climb over the fence and go look for her at home, when the pile of clean white sheets in a huge wheeled cart moved.

“Melanie? It’s me. Come on out.”

But she didn’t move or make a sound, so I had to pull the sheets off her one by one and pile them on a table until I found my sister curled up in a ball at the bottom of the cart. Her hair was soaked, her braid destroyed. Her face was red and swollen from crying, and the terror in her eyes made her look about ten years old.

“Mellie, you have to go back. It’ll be okay if you apologize and take your punishment.”

Fasting? A week of silence? Public lashing? Any of those would be better than suspicion of possession.

“It’s not going to be okay.” Melanie sat up, sniffling, and wiped her nose with the back of one hand.

“Not if you don’t get up, it won’t. Hurry, before they decide you’re possessed.” Any reasonable person could see that she was just scared and upset. But the Church saw what it wanted to see, and it wouldn’t want to see a fifteen-year-old it simply couldn’t control.

Melanie shook her head slowly, and two fat tears rolled down her cheeks as she stared up at me. “I’m not possessed, Nina,” she said, her voice raw and hoarse. “I’m pregnant.”





“Pregnant…?” My voice sounded hollow, and when Melanie nodded, I sank to the floor on legs that would no longer hold me up.

No.

My sister climbed out of the cart, then knelt next to me on the floor, wrinkling her navy slacks and her drenched white blouse. “Nina, say something. I don’t know what to do.”

“Are you sure?” I grabbed her hand and squeezed it, looking for any sign of doubt in her eyes.

“Pretty sure. I missed last month entirely, and I’ve been feeling sick all week.” She sniffled and swiped one hand across her dripping nose again. “Not just in the morning, though. Kinda off and on all day.”

But for one long moment, I could only blink at her, and even once I was capable of speech, the words seemed to get stuck on my tongue. “How…? Who…?” She looked at the floor, and my eyes narrowed. “Adam Yung?” I demanded in a harsh whisper, and she nodded miserably. “Melanie, how did you think you’d get away with this? You knew your physical was coming up, and even if you hadn’t gotten pregnant, they can tell when you’ve lost your virginity!”