The Stars Never Rise

I still had worth. I still had hope. My future was whatever I wanted to make of it.

That was what the other mothers said to their newly sterile fifteen-year-old daughters. I could hear them. But the chair by my bed held only my little sister, her eyes as wide as saucers and as wet as the ocean. She was as scared as I was angry, and together we could only cry.

“You ruined everything for us that day,” my mother spat. “I planned for you, and I saved for you, and I carried you so carefully. You and your descendants would have been my future—a long line of made-to-order hosts. A genetic gift to myself. My legacy. Instead, you got yourself sterilized, ruining decades of planning, and your sister, whose value depended entirely on youth and purity, got herself knocked up. You’re a perfect pair, the two of you—beautiful and largely worthless. An exquisite catastrophe.”

I couldn’t make any sense of that last bit, because the first part kept playing in my head.

You ruined everything for us that day.

Had I? Had my sterilization been the trigger for our mother’s descent into depression and neglect? And madness, evidently? Was I the reason she’d stopped even trying to be a parent?

My hands were damp with nervous sweat, so I wiped them on my jeans, but I couldn’t do anything about the ache deep in my chest.

“Nina?” Melanie said, and I looked up to find her standing in the middle of the living room in jeans and a dark blue shirt, staring past me at our mother, who now clutched her car keys in her burned right hand. “What is she saying?”

I opened my mouth to tell her that everything would be okay, but the words melted like sugar on my tongue—sweet yet insubstantial.

“I’m explaining the state of things to your sister.” Our mother turned back to the teakettle. “Nina’s a little slow today, but I think she’s finally starting to understand just how badly the two of you have screwed things up for our happy family. But mostly for me.”

Listing price. Made-to-order hosts. Genetic donation.

A picture was forming in my head, but it wouldn’t come into focus.

“Fifteen is young.” Mom was talking to herself now, as if she’d just thought of something new, but I couldn’t even process what she’d already thrown at me, much less whatever screwed-up epiphany she was having. “Maybe youth will balance out a loss of innocence. Some of it, anyway.” She whirled around then and eyed Melanie as she’d eyed me minutes earlier. “Thin but well shaped. Pretty,” she muttered, and her gaze lost focus again. “Of course she’s pretty. Her genes were carefully selected. This one will age well if she’s not overworked.” She blinked, and her gaze focused on Melanie again. “You might still be worth something after all.”

“Nina…?” Mellie was close to panic, and I wanted to help her, but I was confused. Lost and drifting in a sea of words that made no sense. Dots I couldn’t connect.

“I could crunch the numbers,” Mom continued, wandering around the kitchen now as if we weren’t even there. “The profit margin is narrow, and I’ll need a new genetic donor”—she glanced at me, and chills shot through every bone in my body—“but it’s not a total loss. I’ll just have to get a credit extension…” Her gaze fell on Mellie again, and my sister started to tremble. “Assuming I get fair market value.”

And she must have been right about Melanie being the smart one, because my little sister figured it out first. Part of it, anyway. I could tell from the raw horror shining in her eyes and the way she backed away from us slowly, as if she were afraid to move too far, too fast, and trigger some sort of predatory instinct in our mother.

“No…,” Melanie moaned. “Nina, she’s going to sell me.”

“What?” How could you sell a person? Who would buy a fifteen-year-old girl?

Then I remembered Dale-the-dick and his favorite form of currency, and my blood curdled in my veins. No…

“You would sell your own daughter?” Melanie whispered, but her angry gaze was much bolder than her voice. Her eyes demanded answers.

Our mother laughed, and the cruel sound resonated in every cell in my body. “I don’t have daughters. I have very carefully conceived investments. You were born to be sold.” Then she turned to me. “And you to be bred. Strange how sometimes life just laughs in your face, isn’t it?”

“She’s crazy,” I whispered, edging toward Melanie with my arms out, as if I could shield her. Our mother had lost what was left of her mind. And her heart. What kind of parent would sell her own child?

And we were her children. Melanie had her fair hair and skin. I had her eyes, pale blue, and virtually colorless when we got angry.

Mellie only shook her head. “Not crazy, Nina. She’s possessed.”

An ice-cold lump of terror fell into my stomach and lodged there.