That day, Stanton was bitten by the Maw, and we rushed him to the healers, who did what they could for him. . . . But no one could say with certainty if he would ever wake up. Stanton was out for five hours, and Mom and I spent every one of those three hundred minutes trying to find his fate in the Ephemeris.
But it was Dad—not the stars—who kept Stanton safe. He sucked the poison from his wound after the attack, and while Mom and I were off predicting if my brother still had a future, Dad was caring for Stanton in the present. He sat beside him and held his hand all five hours.
Whenever I’ve thought of that day, Mom’s stood out in my memory as having saved us. She killed the sea snake. So why am I only seeing the true hero now, when it’s too late?
“Please promise me you’ll never take it off,” says Sirna, pulling me out of my sink-sand past and clasping the gold chain around my neck. “Let it bring Cancer to you, wherever your travels lead.”
? ? ?
I wish Sirna a tender goodbye, and after she leaves, Mathias tells Hysan he needs to talk to me privately. I can barely speak, but he thinks it’s because of what happened at the Plenum and where I plan to go tomorrow.
I can’t tell him or Hysan about Dad. That would make it too real.
“Please, Rho.” It’s Mathias in the room with me instead of Sirna, but my eyes keep finding the same spot of the floor, like I can’t stop reliving the realization of Dad’s death.
“It’s my duty to raise objections. I’m just trying to help you think clearly.”
“I know,” I manage to say. “I’m just tired.”
His baritone grows gentler. “I’m going to do some scouting tonight with my mom, see if I can find out who’s after you. I’ll be back in the morning. Just try to get some sleep . . . and think things over.”
“I’m leaving tomorrow to find Ophiuchus,” I say in a dead voice.
Mathias goes without answering.
When I’m alone, I strip off my clothes and step inside the shower. Once the water is scaldingly hot, I sit on the tile floor, huddled against the wall, and I let the sticky steam fill me with something—anything but this awful, gaping, deadly absence.
I rub Sirna’s rose pearl between my fingers, thinking of Dad. The last time we saw each other, I was on vacation from the Academy, a year and a half ago. Stanton was home, too, and it was almost like going back to when we were kids, and the three of us lived together. Mom’s ghost still haunted the bungalow’s darkest corners, but mostly she was gone, and we had a great visit.
The last day of vacation, I helped Dad clean our old schooner. I told him about starting a band with my best friends Nishiko and Deke, and we even talked about my plans after the Academy. It was the closest he and I had come to a real conversation in years.
There’s so much I wish I’d told him. The tears flood my eyes all of a sudden, one for every truth, story, and feeling I should have shared with him—all the unsaid things I kept stuffed inside my shell.
I should have told him why I left home. I should have asked how he felt after Mom took off. I should have admitted I was angry with her, but that I was angry with him, too—for not protecting me from her mania.
Everything pours out from me in sobs that shake my chest and scrape my throat, like my memories and emotions are trying to claw their way to my surface.
By the time I turn the faucet off, my eyes feel desiccated and my fingers look shriveled. I slip into a cottony white robe and sit in front of the mirror, passing a brush through my wet hair, staring into my dull and deadened eyes. Their pale green reminds me of the bioluminescent microbes that glow in the inner lagoon where Dad keeps his nar-clam beds.
Where Dad kept his nar-clam beds.
My exhalation gets caught in my throat and won’t come out. Just like my brain won’t accept this nightmare as my new reality. Dad can’t be gone.
Suddenly, I hear drumming in the distance. No—knocking. It sounds faint and far off, like it’s coming from somewhere in my head.
Then I realize someone is at my door.
My face comes back into focus in the mirror. Enough time has passed that my hair is dry. Since I’ve been brushing it nonstop, it’s almost straight. I have no idea how long I’ve been sitting here, thinking of Dad. Of our home on Cancer. Of everything I’ve already lost.
So what’s the harm in one more gamble—one last trip into Space?
“Rho? Everything okay?”
Hysan’s voice wraps around my soul like a blanket, and I feel myself pulling out of this stupor, peeking out from my shell. This cold aloneness isn’t what I need right now. I need warmth.
“Come in,” I say, tucking the pearl necklace under my robe and cinching the belt tighter.
“I brought you something to sleep in,” he says, stopping short when he sees me. “Your hair . . . I like it.”
“Thanks,” I say, taking the sleeping shirt and stretchy pants he hands me. He’s wearing his gray coveralls again, and there’s a stylus in one of the pockets, like he’s been working.
“Room service will bring you anything you need—toothbrush, food, clothes. Just tell the wallscreen what you want, any time.” He’s silent a moment, then turns to leave.