A Million Suns (Across the Universe 2)

Here, in this one small part of the ship, with no one here but Elder, I’m not afraid.

Elder plods along down the path, his eyes down and his face troubled. I know the way silence and secrets can eat at you from the inside.

I touch his elbow and he stops, startled.

“Tell me how she died,” I say.

21

ELDER

I WAS THIRTEEN AND STILL LIVED AT THE HOSPITAL. THE SHIP was going to land in 53 years and 147 days, and by that point, I would be the one to lead everyone off Godspeed and onto the new world. I’d been at the Hospital long enough to know that Harley was my best friend, that Doc was mostly okay, and that it would not be too long now before I would—finally—start my training as Elder.

Life was good.

Then.

Harley had dared me to climb the statue of the Plague Eldest that stood in the Hospital gardens. I hadn’t gotten past the pedestal, but he was hanging from the Plague Eldest’s benevolent left arm, gazing down the path to the pond near the back wall of the ship.

“Something big is floating in the water,” Harley said. He swung his body and released his grip, landing with a thud in the fake mulch beside me. He left a purple paint stain on the Plague Eldest’s elbow. “Let’s go see. ”

Harley was taller than me and walked with longer strides. Even so, I was tempted to ask him to race. But Harley was also four years older than me, and racing was for children.

“Race ya,” Harley said, kicking up mulch as he leapt away. He looked over his shoulder, laughed, and almost tripped over a blooming hydrangea spilling out onto the path. Little blue petals went flying, whipping past my ankles before drifting to the ground.

I had almost caught up with Harley, was reaching for his shirt to jerk him back and throw him off course so I could speed past him—

—when he stopped cold.

Harley threw his arm out. It caught me in the chest, painfully, winding me and bringing me to a stop.

“What the frex was that for?” I gasped, bent over.

Harley didn’t say anything.

His face was sweating from the race, but underneath he was pale, giving him a deathly sheen. I turned from Harley to the pond.

I knew immediately the girl floating facedown in the still water was dead. Her hair was pulled over her head, the long dark strands of it sinking beneath the surface as if they were anchors being dragged along the silty bottom of the pond. Her arms lay relaxed on either side, palms down, and as I watched, they slowly disappeared under the depths.

There was something about her—

—something familiar . . .

All along the hem of her tunic were tiny white dots.

Almost like the tiny white flowers that Harley had painted for his girlfriend, Kayleigh. The ones he painted on her favorite tunic, the night he’d spent eight hours straight covering her room with ivy and flowers.

Kayleigh’s flowers.

Kayleigh’s tunic.

Kayleigh.

Harley made a barbaric noise and lunged toward the water’s edge, leaving a deep brown-red scar in the earth from the force of his foot. He swept the water away with his arms as he threw himself into the pond, as if he could wipe away everything he saw before him.

The water didn’t want to give her up. Her head sank lower.

Harley dove and grabbed Kayleigh by the wrist. He turned her over in the water and slapped her face as if to awaken her, but her head just bobbed gently. He swam a little, then jerked her body forward, then swam some more, then jerked her again. She floated willingly by his side, her arms and legs dancing like a wooden puppet’s when all its strings are yanked at once.