She walked around in a little circle, rubbing her arms and looking up at the stars in the roof. When she was younger, she"d dreamed about sneaking Kai in here to see them. Now he was here on her sister"s invitation, and he was remarkably unimpressed.
"Miss Elliot," said a voice in the blackness, and out stepped Andromeda.
Elliot stopped short and pressed her hand to her chest in shock. "I didn"t see you."
"I know. Luckily, I saw you." Andromeda"s eyes looked even more odd in the distant, dim glow from the few lit sconces, their daytime glittering blue nearly swallowed completely by her dark pupils. "Are you going somewhere in particular?"
"Just wandering. What did Mrs. Innovation mean back there? Was she talking about the admiral? I"m sure if he wishes to see the sanctuary, my sister will oblige him-"
"No," said Andromeda stiffly. "She doesn"t mean the admiral. She means her daughter."
The Innovations had a daughter? "Oh. Where is she?"
"Dead."
Elliot swallowed. "Oh, I"m sorry-"
"I think the Grove girl is down there with Wentforth," Andromeda said quickly, gesturing further into the sanctuary. "How old is she, by the way?"
"Fourteen," Elliot blurted.
"Fourteen." The Post nodded. "He"s eighteen. Four years is a long time, don"t you think, Miss Elliot? It makes for many changes."
"Please, call me Elliot." What was she getting at? At its surface, only the age difference between Olivia and Kai. But Elliot was quickly learning that nothing this Post girl said possessed only one meaning.
"Of course, Wentforth has always had a rather foolish preference for Luddites. I"d thought he"d grown past it. Excuse me, Miss Elliot." She brushed by and away.
Elliot stumbled forward into the darkness. So Andromeda, at least, knew of her former closeness to Kai. It was clear from the Post"s att.i.tude that she didn"t think much of Elliot, either. Elliot wondered what Kai had told her.
"-stuck in the past." His voice stopped her dead on the path. For so many years, it had only existed like this-disembodied, solely the product of memory. It was hard to believe he was here again, even though he was more distant than ever.
"Not all Luddites are," Olivia"s voice joined his, low enough to be a whisper.
Elliot put out her hands and turned around in the darkness, but she couldn"t see them at all.
"My brother and I are very interested in the new Post technology. We have sun-lamps in our home, and Horatio wants a sun-cart, depending on how much we make from the harvest."
"I"m sure I could give you a discount," Kai replied with a chuckle that seemed to go straight through Elliot"s soul. Since Captain Wentforth had discovered the cache of sun-carts, Kai owned every single one of them. Kai"s voice sang through her nerves, making her hair stand on end and sending ribbons of heat over the gooseflesh on her arms.
"No, you"re not like the Norths," he continued. "They"re obsessed with their position, with the old ways. But there are too many Posts like me now, and more born every day. The world isn"t the same place we grew up in, where the Luddites make the rules and we all have to abide by them. Look at their estate. It"s falling apart. They"ll be left behind."
"Tatiana can be a little sn.o.bby, yes," said Olivia. "But don"t tar Elliot with that brush. You should see her and my brother talking about how they"d like to improve their farms. Fortunately, my brother has the means to actually implement the improvements."
"Your brother and Elliot are close?" Kai asked.
Now it was Olivia"s turn to laugh. "Not like that. They"re friends. We"ve been good friends with the Norths for the past three years, ever since we lost our father. Horatio and Elliot love to talk about their crops. Elliot"s the only one of her family that seems very interested in the subject, in case you haven"t noticed."
"I have noticed that the Norths do not seem as interested in their property as they might be."
"She tries her hardest," Olivia said defensively. "And if Horatio ever did take an interest in a woman, I wouldn"t mind if it was Elliot North."
"Perhaps you don"t know her as well as you think," said Kai.
Elliot caught her breath.
"I"ve known her for years," Olivia argued. "I doubt your opinion of a person can change after so many years."
There was a pause before Kai spoke again. "I envy you that innocence, Olivia. But people can be deceptive. I hope you never learn what that is like. I grew up on an estate, and I spent four years in a Post enclave, and the only people who have never lied to me are the Innovations. Even my father-though I don"t blame him. He was trapped by the world he was born into."
Elliot bit her lip to hold back the sob that rose in her throat.
"How horrible," said Olivia. "Well, I"m not like that. I was born a Luddite, but I see a future that includes us all."
"You"re unique among your caste then," Kai replied. "But do not trust the Norths. Any of them."
"Elliot?" Horatio came upon her so quickly, she almost jumped out of her skin. He held a lantern in his hand. "Have you seen my sister?"
She blinked in the sudden brightness of the lantern. Now she knew where she was-another whisper zone. This one was marked off by a blue stone.
"I think she"s . . . just down here." She pointed ahead of her and Horatio widened the aperture on the lantern to shine ahead. Sure enough, about ten meters away, Olivia and Kai stood close together near another blue stone. Olivia was squinting into the light. But Kai stared back at them, his black eyes steady and focused on Elliot, his mouth drawn into a tight line. And, as she watched, he reached out his hand and placed it on the blue stone.
How he"d known she was standing there, Elliot couldn"t guess. But he"d meant her to hear every word.
FOUR YEARS AGO.
Dear Kai, I can"t come to the barn tonight. Tatiana is becoming suspicious. Ever since she took over the household duties, she"s been acting like she can tell me what to do as well.
Yours, Elliot Dear Elliot, Of course she does. She knows your mother isn"t here to protect you anymore. But you know what the solution is: stay out of her way.
Stay here.
Stay with me.
Yours, Kai Dear Kai, I only wish I could. But my mother isn"t here to do quite a lot of things anymore. So I"ll have to settle for imagining I"m with you.
My father wants to tear down the apple grove. He says it obstructs his view to the sea. He wants us to buy all our apples in the future, but I doubt Mr. Grove will give us a good deal, given that my father hasn"t spoken to him in years.
He"s also been complaining about the Posts" string-boxes. You don"t think he would make you give them up, do you?
Yours, Elliot Dear Elliot, Tatiana isn"t the only suspicious one. You know Case, who oversees the dairy? He saw us together in the loft last week. He says I"m the biggest fool who ever lived.
I don"t think he"s right.
But, just to be safe, I"ll put out the lamp. We"ll pretend we"re the ancient explorers, and find our way by the stars.
Yours, Kai Dear Kai, I don"t need to see the trail to know you"re at the end of it. My grandfather"s compa.s.s may not work, but mine is still true.
Yours, Elliot E,.
Your da made me move to the laborers" barracks. Find me there.
K.
Dear Kai, I"ve sent this letter through the hands of Mags. I trust that it has come to you safely. Mags and Gill will offer you lodging in their cottage. You should take it. So far, however, I can do nothing about the work order. My father is being very unreasonable-there is no other Post on the estate as qualified as you to be his mechanic. I don"t know what he"s thinking!
You don"t think Case said anything, do you?
Don"t worry, I"m sure my father will come around. Eventually.
Yours, Elliot Dear Elliot, I miss you. And I miss the barn. It"s not that fieldwork is hard, but it is so boring. Gill told me the tractor broke. He"s sneaking me into the barn tonight to fix it.
Meet me there.
Yours, Kai Dear Kai, I have wonderful news. My father"s record player broke tonight. He needs someone to fix it. I wonder who that could be?
Yours, Elliot Dear Elliot, Another night in the barn . . . alone. There"s nothing to fix. There"s nothing to build. And you can"t come because your father is at home. I thought the fields were bad, but I"m here with my machines and I"m still bored out of my skull.
Did you hear that Case has left for points unknown?
Yours, Kai.
Ten.
ELLIOT HOPED TO BE free of further interactions with the Posts after Tatiana finished her tour of the sanctuary, but she wasn"t granted the opportunity. As soon as Olivia was back on the surface, she started dropping heavy hints about taking a spin in the sun-carts, and before Elliot knew it, she"d been conscripted into a cart along with Tatiana and the Phoenixes. Kai drove the Groves and Felicia Innovation in the other cart.
The carts consisted of three-wheeled platforms, with a long bench seat in front and two tiny bucket seats in back, right before the panel of angled, golden mirrors that supplied the carts with their power. Metal frames arced over their heads for support and handholds, but the carts were open to the air. The control panels, to Elliot"s eye, were no more complex than she might find on one of the estate"s ancient tractors.
"If you"re planning a long ride," said Elliot, climbing into the shotgun seat, "perhaps you can drop me off at the barn? There are some things I need to see to yet today."
"Certainly," Andromeda replied. She signaled to Kai to take the road toward the barn. He frowned but complied, and they were off.
Tatiana gripped the handrails firmly. "I have things to see to this afternoon as well. My hostessing duties have, I"m afraid, forced me to fall behind on some pressing household matters."
Elliot wondered what those could possibly be. New flower arrangements for the table?
"Is that how you divide up your work on the estate?" Donovan asked. "You manage the household while Elliot takes care of the farm?"
Had their duties been a topic of conversation among all the members of the Fleet?
"My father, as head of our estate, manages the farm," said Tatiana. "He controls all the movement of the workers and the crop planning."
To their detriment, Elliot wanted to add.
"Elliot just likes to play at gardening. She"s much like our mother in that way."
Elliot looked out over the fields and toward the sea. Contradicting her sister would only embarra.s.s them all.
Up ahead, Kai had turned the controls of the sun-cart over to Olivia, and the machine noticeably slowed, moving in awkward jerks and jumps as the girl got a handle on its operation.
Donovan sucked a breath in through his teeth. "Wentforth"s got to be going crazy watching her ruin the transmission like that. She can"t push the brakes at the same time as the accelerator."
"Perhaps," Andromeda replied as they swerved off the road to pa.s.s the other cart. "He probably has more patience with the sister than he would with the brother, though."
"Knowing him," said Donovan.
Elliot grimaced at the Post"s words. Knowing him. When she had known him, he"d been nothing like that. Or had he? Did she just never notice because she"d been the recipient of his attentions?
Elliot looked away from the other cart. It was silly to make anything of it at all, no matter what Andromeda had said to her in the caves. She hadn"t been jealous of Ro"s scarf, and she wouldn"t be jealous of a sun-cart lesson and a conversation, either. Still, Andromeda knew this new man that Kai had become. Perhaps she knew what it looked like when Kai was interested. Perhaps, now that he was a famous explorer, he was interested quite a lot.
Tatiana piped up. "Olivia is still a child. She has been given far too much liberty ever since the death of her parents. Horatio is a good man, of course, but he does not know how to raise a teenage girl. He was made the head of his household at seventeen, and she has been the lady of the house since she was eleven. They have some . . . strange ideas. Look at the way he allows her to dress."
Elliot was pretty sure that Andromeda steered them into the next puddle. Tatiana shrieked and drew back to avoid the splash of mud. Elliot barely managed to hide her smile. Tatiana had also been made the lady of the house as a young teen.
"There are those who"ve been holding their own since they were that young," said Donovan. "Like my sister. It"s been eight years since she and I left our estate-she was only twelve, and I was eight. We made it all right."
Tatiana"s eyes widened, but she remained blessedly quiet.
As they pa.s.sed, Elliot got a quick glimpse into Kai"s cart. His hands were covering Olivia"s as he showed her how to work the controls. Elliot focused very hard on the horizon until the grinding noises coming from the other cart faded into the background. When driven properly, Elliot realized, the carts made almost no noise at all, just a soft whir as the wheels spun and a clank whenever the shocks moved over the b.u.mpy dirt road. This was much better than the smelly roars of the tractor.
Andromeda spoke again. "Would you like to give it a try, Miss Elliot?"
Elliot looked down at the controls the Post was offering her, and then up into the other girl"s strangely bright eyes. As usual, she could read nothing. Was Andromeda hoping to embarra.s.s her, too, or was she trying, in some odd way, to even the score with Olivia? It had been a long time since Elliot had viewed the operation of machinery as anything more than a ch.o.r.e. She"d spent too many hours driving the thresher and tractor around in the heat of the midday sun.
And yet she found herself taking hold of the controls. The cart needed a light touch, she discovered quickly, as her first attempt to put pressure on the accelerator sent the machine careening over the next hill. In the backseat, Tatiana squealed and jounced into Donovan"s lap. He gently pushed her off.
"Sorry," Elliot said, correcting the speed. The setup, she noted, was surprisingly similar to the tractor she"d grown up using. Because of this, she found her way around the controls with ease and was able to keep the cart going at a swift but steady clip until they arrived at the barn.
Elliot pulled the cart to the side, expertly parking in the shade of the barn. She handed the controls back to Andromeda. "Nice cart."
Andromeda smirked. "You aren"t what I expected, Miss Elliot," and left Elliot to pa.r.s.e those words as she joined her brother on the gra.s.s.
Much to Elliot"s chagrin, they decided to wait until Kai and the Groves had caught up to leave her alone in the barn. Tatiana took Elliot by the elbow and led her out of earshot. "Do you think . . . Were they insinuating that Captain Wentforth might have . . . designs on Olivia Grove?"
"They met less than an hour ago," Elliot replied firmly. It was the only true thing she could bring herself to say.
"Horatio would never allow it," Tatiana stated. "Should never allow it. A Post? It would do irreparable damage to their family"s reputation."