The Stars Never Rise

“December eighth, 2034,” I said around a mouthful of peanut butter and bread as we rounded the house and stepped over the broken cinder block hiding the emergency cash I kept wrapped in a plastic bag. If Mom knew we had money, she’d spend it on something less important than heat and power, two resources I greatly valued.

“Um…the first televised possession, caught on film at a holiday parade, before the Church abolished public television to support and protect the moral growth of the people.” Melanie shoved one arm into her sweater sleeve, then transferred her toast to the other hand and pulled the other half of her cardigan on over her satchel strap. “So, how dangerous could secular programming have been, anyway? It’s just a bunch of videos, like the discs in Mr. Yung’s basement, right? Stories being acted out, like we used to do when we were kids?”

“I guess.” But according to the Church, those videos tempted people to sin.

Mr. Yung had an old TV and a disc player that still worked. I’d seen one of his videos once, but the disc was badly damaged, so I only caught glimpses of couples swaying in sync with one another, dressed in snug clothes. At the time, I’d been scandalized by the sight of boys and girls in open physical contact with one another—those would be secret shames in our postwar world. But the adults in the video didn’t seem to care, and no one was driven to wanton displays of flesh or desire, that I could see.

There was no sound on the video, though, so I couldn’t hear what kind of music they’d had or what they were saying.

Maybe the sin and temptation were more obvious in the parts I couldn’t hear.

We turned left on the cracked sidewalk in front of our house, and I eyed the dark clouds in the sky, struggling to bring my thoughts back on task. “September twenty-ninth, 2036.”

Melanie held her toast by one corner. She still hadn’t taken a bite. “The first verified exorcism. Established worldwide credibility for the Unified Church, whose exorcist—the great Katherine Abbot—performed the procedure in front of a televised audience of millions.”

“Good. June—”

“Did you know that wasn’t even her real name?” Melanie said suddenly.

“What wasn’t whose name?” We turned left again and followed the railroad tracks between the backyards of the houses a block over from ours. The train hadn’t run since long before I was born, but little grass grew between the rails, which made it an easy shortcut on the days we were running late. Which was most days, thanks to my sister.

“Katherine Abbot. Her name wasn’t really Katherine. The Church renamed her because they thought her real name didn’t sound serious enough, or holy enough, or something like that.”

“So what was her real name?”

Melanie shrugged, and her uneaten toast flopped in her hand. “I don’t know.”

“Then how do you know it wasn’t Katherine?”

“Adam told me.”

“Adam, who needs your help to add double digit numbers?” I said as we cut through the easement between two yards and back onto the street.

“He’s bad at math, not history. His dad says the Church does it all the time—changes facts. Mr. Yung says history is written by the victor, and if the elderly don’t pass down their memories, eventually there won’t be anyone else left alive who knows how the war was really fought.”

I stopped cold on the sidewalk and grabbed her arm, holding so tight she flinched, but I couldn’t let go. Not until she understood. “Melanie, that’s heresy,” I hissed, glancing around at the houses on both sides of the road. Fortunately, the street was deserted. “If Adam Yung and his father want to risk their immortal souls”—or more accurately, their mortal lives—“by questioning the Church, that’s their business. But you stay out of it.”

Skepticism and profanity were largely harmless in private, and goodness knows I couldn’t claim innocence on either part. But the more often they were indulged, the more likely they were to be overheard. And reported. And punished.

“You’re going to have to tutor him in public. At the laundry, or the park, or something.” Anywhere public exposure would keep him from filling my impressionable sister’s head with dangerous thoughts she couldn’t resist sharing with the rest of the world.

I wanted to tell her to stop tutoring him, but frankly, we needed the food.

“Why aren’t you eating?” I glanced pointedly at her untouched breakfast.

“I told you. I don’t feel good.” She scowled and pulled her arm from my grip. “Next date.”

“Um…June 2041.” I pushed her toast closer to her mouth, and she finally took a bite.

“The Holy Proclamation, establishing the Unified Church as the sole political and spiritual authority,” she said, with her mouth still full.