Stars Above: A Lunar Chronicles Collection (The Lunar Chronicles) Read online

  Climbing the creaky stairs, she knocked at Scarlet’s bedroom door. She heard rustling inside before Scarlet opened the door a crack and glared out at her.

  Michelle pretended to still be angry with her, too, though she despised herself for it.

  Lifting her chin, she said, “This cold is making my arthritis act up and I wasn’t able to do most of the chores this morning. I need you to go do them. The cow will be growing uncomfortable if she isn’t milked soon.”

  Scarlet propped open the door a bit more and drew her brows together. “Since when do you have arthritis?”

  Michelle met her glare for glare. “You know that I don’t like to complain, Scarlet. I don’t speak of it much.”

  “Or ever,” she shot back.

  Michelle sighed. She didn’t want to fight. “I know you don’t like milking the cow, but could you please just do it?”

  Scarlet threw up her hands. “You could just ask, you know. This is my farm, too. I haven’t complained about doing chores in years, but you still treat me like some spoiled city kid who’s going to throw a tantrum every time you ask me to do something. All I want is to belong here, and for you to treat me like I belong here.”

  Michelle’s eyes began to water. She tried to respond, but was rendered speechless.

  Scarlet sighed and turned away, the disappointment obvious on her face. Michelle hadn’t thought it was possible to feel worse than she already did.

  “You’re right,” Michelle finally whispered. Scarlet glanced back at her, and Michelle gave her a weakened smile. “I’ll try to be better.” She cleared her throat. “So, will you…”

  “Of course I’ll go do the chores,” muttered Scarlet, looking only slightly appeased. “Just let me change my clothes.”

  She swallowed, watching as her granddaughter pulled her red hair up into a messy bun.

  Stars, she loved this child. This child who was becoming a young woman before her eyes.

  She couldn’t wait until she could tell her so.

  “Thank you,” she said, and made her way back down the stairs.

  Minutes later, she heard Scarlet’s footsteps pounding down the stairs. The back door creaked and shut—not a slam, but not particularly gently, either.

  No sooner had she started a pot of coffee than she heard a quiet knock at the front door. She tensed. He was early. She hoped Scarlet hadn’t noticed his arrival.

  Wiping her clammy hands on a towel, Michelle went to answer the door.

  “Bonjour,” she said to the dark-haired man on her stoop. “You must be Monsieur Linh.”

  He was fidgeting with the collar of a heavy winter coat, and he didn’t stop fidgeting even when he took her hand. His smile was big, though. Big and eager and nervous and impressed. “And you are Michelle Benoit,” he said. “The keeper of the greatest secret of the third era. It is a most profound honor to meet you.”

  Still reeling from the fight with Scarlet, Michelle found it difficult to smile back, so she just stepped aside and offered to take his coat. “My granddaughter lives with me, and I’m afraid she doesn’t know about any of this, so I’ll appreciate your discretion.”

  “Of course. If I could not be discreet, I’m sure Logan would not have considered me for this momentous responsibility.”

  “I’m sure that’s true. Please, come into the kitchen. My granddaughter is out taking care of some chores. We should have about half an hour to discuss the girl and the procedure before she returns.”

  * * *

  Famous last words, Michelle thought, repeating the catastrophe of her meeting with Garan over in her head again and again. She sat at the foot of her bed, a box settled on her lap. She was staring through the window at a half-moon partially obscured by wispy winter clouds and wondering how the politics and mysteries of a world so very far away had managed to take such a toll on her own life.

  She had hardly slept. Though she and Scarlet had certainly had their spats since Scarlet had come to live with her, never had their fights been like this. Never had they felt like they mattered. Never had Michelle felt hopeless to make things right.

  She hadn’t given Scarlet enough credit with the chores. She’d completed them almost as quickly as Michelle herself could do them, and Michelle had still been talking with Garan when Scarlet had come back in. Sneaked back in. She’d eavesdropped on their conversation, and though Michelle wasn’t sure exactly what she’d heard, it was clear that Scarlet hadn’t figured out anything about Princess Selene. Rather, she’d misinterpreted the conversation and now seemed to be under the impression that Michelle was going to send her away. That Garan was adopting her.

  And Michelle didn’t know how to explain otherwise. She didn’t know how to make this right.

  “Soon,” she whispered. Soon this would be behind them. Soon she would find a way to make this up to Scarlet.

  She looked down at the box in her lap and unfolded the flaps. A red hooded sweatshirt was folded neatly inside—the cotton soft and still smelling of newness. It was by no means a fancy gift, but it would transition nicely into spring once the snow melted, and Scarlet loved wearing red. She treated it like an act of defiance given her red hair.

  Michelle looked forward to giving it to her once this whole mess was over.

  The alarm chimed on her portscreen. Two hours past midnight. It was time.

  She tucked the box beneath her bed. Opening her bedroom door, she hesitated for a moment in the narrow hallway, listening until she could detect Scarlet’s heavy breathing from the other bedroom. She took a step closer and laid her palm against the closed wooden door.

  “I love you, my Scarlet,” she whispered to the still night air. Then she turned and slipped down the stairs, careful to skip over the stair that creaked.

  Logan and Garan were already working when she arrived in the secret room that housed Selene’s body. Over the last week the princess had been transformed from the mutilated child Michelle had been keeping watch over to a cyborg with metal plating and a complicated software system integrated with her brain. Michelle had acted as Logan’s assistant, getting supplies and tools and monitoring vital statistics, but for the most part she’d tried to keep her eyes averted. She had a strong spirit, but even this intrusion was a bit much for her to handle.

  Logan glanced up when Michelle’s feet hit the concrete floor. He nodded in greeting. He and Garan were each wearing masks, and Michelle grabbed an extra one and slipped it on over her mouth before approaching the operating table.

  The child had been turned onto her side. Logan was holding a medical portscreen over her neck, letting a laser gently meld together the incision in the back of her neck. They’d already finished installing Garan’s prototype onto her spinal column. That meant it couldn’t have taken them more than forty minutes.

  Michelle was comforted by the knowledge. After all, her turn would be next.

  “How is she?” she asked, glancing at the shiny metal hand and leg.

  “Surprisingly well,” said Logan. “Her body has adapted to the new prostheses and wiring even better than I hoped. I’m optimistic that the worst is behind us.” He checked the incision—almost invisible now but for a pale white scar that would fade with time. “There. Let’s get her back into the tank.”

  They worked together to move her. Though she was still of slight build, the new leg added a surprising amount of heft to her body.

  “Are we putting her back into stasis?” Michelle asked.

  “No.” Logan’s eyes glimmered as he looked up at her. “We’re waking her up.”

  She stiffened. “What? Tonight? I thought it was still going to be a week or more before she’s ready.”

  “A week before she’s ready for long-distance travel,” said Logan. He bent down to connect a set of sensors to the child’s head. He’d been removing and reapplying those sensors all week, after every operation. “But we’ll begin the awakening process tonight. I want to make it slow and gradual. Her system has gone through enough shocks—I’ll
do my best to make this as smooth a transition as possible.”

  “She’s going to be conscious, then?” said Michelle. “For the next week?”

  She hadn’t been expecting this. She couldn’t keep an awake, sentient girl down in this dungeon, but she couldn’t bring her into the house, either, and—

  Logan shook his head. “Awake, but still heavily medicated. It will be a couple of days before she’s cognizant of her surroundings, and Garan has agreed to stay with her and begin working with her to build up her muscle tissue. If the tank has done its job correctly, and the new wiring has synthesized properly with her system, then I hope she will be capable of walking out of here in a week’s time.”

  Walking. After all these years, the princess was about to be walking, and speaking, and awake.

  Michelle stepped closer and peered into the girl’s face. Her brown hair was slick with the gel that had harbored her since she was only three years old. Her face was gaunt and her frame lithe, almost bone-thin. She hoped Garan would feed her a big meal when he welcomed her into his family.

  She was only a child, and there were already so many hopes and expectations heaped on her shoulders. Michelle suddenly pitied her.

  More than that, she realized she was going to miss her, this child who had caused her so much worry. Who had been a constant fixture in her life for so long, and who would leave now and never even know Michelle’s name. Never know who had cared for her for so long.

  “All right,” Logan murmured. He had attached a portscreen to the side of the tank and was staring at it. “I’m going to initiate the procedure. It will be a few moments, but we should soon begin to see signs of life independent of the machinery.”

  There was a hum from the base of the suspension tank.

  The girl didn’t move. Not a breath, not a flinch.

  Michelle glanced up at Garan, who was watching the child with eager curiosity. “What are you going to call her?” she asked.

  Garan turned to her. “Call her?”

  “You can’t very well call her Selene. I was wondering if you’d chosen another name.”

  He stood up straighter. His expression took on a look of bewilderment. “I honestly hadn’t given it any consideration.”

  “Michelle is right,” said Logan, still inspecting the portscreen. “We will need to give her an ID chip, too, if we expect her to fit in here on Earth. It will require some history for her—a family, and a believable story for how she became a cyborg. Enough to keep away any suspicion. I have some ideas already, but you are welcome to assign her a name, as her guardian.”

  Garan’s gaze dropped to the child again. His brow was furrowed. “I’m not good with naming things. My wife chose the names for our daughters. I don’t think it even occurred to me that I might have a say in it.”

  Michelle licked her lips behind the face mask. “I have a thought.”

  Both men glanced at her.

  “What about … Cinder?”

  There was a hesitation, and she could tell they were doubtful about the name. She lifted her chin and explained, “It’s an unassuming name, but also … powerful. Because of where she came from. She survived that fire. She was reborn from the cinders.”

  They turned as one to look at the girl again.

  “Cinder,” said Logan, rolling the name over on his tongue. “Cinder. I like it, actually.”

  “Me too,” said Garan. “Linh Cinder.”

  Michelle smiled, glad they had been easily swayed. A child’s name was not a decision to be made lightly, but she felt it was the perfect name for her. And now the princess would have a token to take with her. A name that Michelle had given to her, like a parting gift, even if she never knew it.

  Cinders. Embers. Ashes. Michelle hoped that whatever strength had allowed this child to survive the fire all those years ago was a strength that still burned inside her. That it would go on burning, hotter and hotter, until she was as bright as the rising sun.

  She would need that strength for what lay ahead.

  Michelle pressed her palm to the top of the tank, near where the girl’s heart was, just as a screen pulsed.

  A heartbeat.

  Then, seconds later, another. And another.

  Nerves tingling, Michelle leaned closer and let her breath fog the glass. “Hello, Cinder,” she whispered. “I’m so pleased to finally meet you.”

  As if she’d heard her name being spoken, the child opened her eyes.

  Glitches

  “Are you ready to meet your new family?”

  She tore her gaze away from the window, where snow was heaped up on bamboo fences and a squat android was clearing a path through the slush, and looked at the man seated opposite her. Though he’d been kind to her throughout their trip, two full days of being passed between a hover, a maglev train, two passenger ships, and yet another hover, he still had a nervous smile that made her fidget.

  Plus, she kept forgetting his name.

  “I don’t remember the old family,” she said, adjusting her heavy left leg so that it didn’t stick out quite so far between their seats.

  His lips twisted awkwardly into an expression that was probably meant to be reassuring, and this ended their conversation. His attention fell down to a device he never stopped looking at, with a screen that cast a greenish glow over his face. He wasn’t a very old man, but his eyes always seemed tired and his clothes didn’t fit him right. Though he’d been clean-cut when he first came to claim her, he was now in need of a razor.

  She returned her gaze to the snow-covered street. The suburb struck her as crowded and confused. A series of short one-story shacks would be followed by a mansion with a frozen water fountain in its courtyard and a red-tiled roof. After that, a series of clustered town houses and maybe a run-down apartment complex before more tiny shacks took over. It all looked like someone had taken every kind of residence they could think of and spilled them across a grid of roads, not caring where anything landed.

  She suspected that her new home wasn’t anything like the rolling farmland they’d left behind in Europe, but she’d been in such a foggy-brained daze at the time that she couldn’t remember much of anything before the train ride. Except that it had been snowing there, too. She was already sick of the snow and the cold. They made her bones ache where her fleshy parts were connected to her steel prosthetics.

  She swiveled her gaze back toward the man seated across from her. “Are we almost there?”

  He nodded without looking up. “Almost, Cinder.”

  Enfolding her fingers around the scar tissue on her wrist, she waited, hoping he would say something else to ease her nerves, but he didn’t seem the type to notice anyone’s anxiety above his own. She imagined calling him Dad, but the word was laughably unfamiliar, even inside her head. She couldn’t even compare him with her real father, as her memory had been reduced to a blank slate during the intrusive surgeries, and all she had left of her parents were their sterile identity profiles, with plain photos that held no recognition and a tag at the top labeling them as DECEASED. They’d been killed in the hover crash that had also claimed her leg and hand.

  As confirmed by all official records, there was no one else. Cinder’s grandparents were also dead. She had no siblings. No aunts or uncles or friends—at least, none willing to claim her. Perhaps there wasn’t a human being in all of Europe who would have taken her in, and that’s why they’d had to search as far as New Beijing before they found her a replacement family.

  She squinted, straining to remember who they were. The faceless people who had pulled her from the wreckage and turned her into this. Doctors and surgeons, no doubt. Scientists. Programmers. There must have been a social worker involved, but she couldn’t recall for sure. Her memory gave her only dizzy glimpses of the French countryside and this stranger sitting across from her, entranced by the device in his hands.

  Her new stepfather.

  The hover began to slow, drifting toward the curb. Its nose hit a snowbank and it
came to a sudden shuddering stop. Cinder grabbed the bar overhead, but the hover had already settled down, slightly off-kilter in the packed snow.

  “Here we are,” said the man, eyes twinkling as the hover door slid open.

  She stayed plastered to her seat, her hand still gripping the bar, as a gust of icy wind swirled around them. They’d arrived at one of the tiny shack houses, one with peeling paint and a gutter that hung loose beneath the weight of the snow. Still, it was a sweet little house, all white with a red roof and enough dead branches sticking up from the ground that Cinder could almost imagine a garden come springtime.

  The man paid the hover with a swipe of his wrist, then stepped out onto a pathway that had been plowed down to a sheet of ice. The door to the house opened before he’d taken a step and two girls about Cinder’s own age came barreling down the front steps, squealing. The man crouched down on the pathway, holding out his arms as the girls launched themselves into him.

  From her place inside the hover, Cinder heard the man laugh for the first time.

  A woman appeared inside the doorway, belting a quilted robe around her waist. “Girls, don’t suffocate your father. He’s had a long trip.”

  “Don’t listen to your mother, just this once. You can suffocate me all you like.” He kissed his daughters on the tops of their heads, then stood, keeping a firm grip on their hands. “Would you like to meet your new sister?” he asked, turning back to face the hover. He seemed surprised at the empty pathway behind him. “Come on out, Cinder.”

  She shivered and pried her hand away from the safety bar. Sliding toward the door, she tried to be graceful stepping out onto the curb, but the distance to the ground was shorter than she’d expected and her heavy leg was inflexible as it crunched through the compacted ice. She cried out and stumbled, barely catching herself on the hover’s doorframe.

  The man hurried back toward her, holding her up as well as he could by the arm, one hand gripping her metal fingers. “It’s all right, perfectly natural. Your muscles are weak right now, and it will take time for your wiring to fully integrate with your nervous system.”