To Be Lonelier Than a Sun

I suck in air as my eyes fly open, the lightest of early morning sun warming my cheek but doing little to stop the flood of images in my head. Fingers, worms, muscles contracting and bones snapping and a tiger’s eye. I can never remember much from the nightmares, but they always leave my stomach feeling empty, like I’ve just thrown up.

Lise stirs next to me, still asleep. Mother says we’re too old to still sleep together–meaning sleep next to each other, as Lise has made it clear that she’s not romantically interested in me or anyone else. When I realized at thirteen that I was attracted to most anyone, I’d gone through a short phase of trying to get her to like me, which mostly involved teasing and taunting. It’s a wonder she still hasn’t grown sick of me.

But we never grew out of sleeping in the same bed. When we were young I used to yell and kick in my sleep, when the nightmares were bad. Mother and Father, at the other end of the château, wouldn’t hear me. They never came to comfort me, not unless our housekeeper, Giselle, went and fetched them. It was always Lise that would come instead to wake me, or to whisper to me until I fell asleep again. Eventually we both agreed that she should just stay in my room all of the time. Though neither of us would admit it, we’re both lonely enough to crave the company.

I get up and get dressed, even though I know it will probably wake Lise. I’m not as sneaky as I think I am around her. She sits up while I’m buttoning my cape at my throat and looks at me for just a half-second before murmuring, “Nightmare?”

There’s no use in lying, so I break eye contact and nod. She swings her feet off the bed, standing, but hasn’t said anything more. I stare at the plait of her braid at her back while she makes her way to the wardrobe. Before she says anything else, I state, “I’m going down to meet Mother.”

* *

I’m sure every morning is chaos in some of the other châteaus, depending on the number of children and elders and members of Service. I can picture council member Régis, his husband, and his four kids in their half of the finance council château; it’s probably bustling with life, with the littlest kids running underfoot and their pre-teen daughter bored of it all and the staff trying desperately to keep everyone in line while also preparing breakfast.

Here, though, in the education château, it’s silent as I make my way downstairs via the outside staircase. The air is already warm and arid, even in the early morning. The suns glimmer on the horizon, one orange and one white. I can see all the land that our château encompasses: the patio and gardens and grassy fields. It’s all empty of movement, save for two birds that twitter as they fly by. An extensive landscape of seclusion, given to us under the guise of luxury.

Back inside, I join Mother in the drawing room, where she always works before breakfast. She has a desk that she piles with the reports from all the other council members, arranged into three stacks: to read, reading, or completed reading. As the head education councilor she believes that she must stay up to date on everything.

She lowers the report in her hands, pulling her small reading glasses off her nose and watching me sit down in the center of the room. “Julienne, nice of you to return to the world of the council.” Her voice is soft; she doesn’t like to scold me, but I know she’s upset that I ditched the end of the council dinner yesterday.

I fold my arms. “Mother, they didn’t need me there. I’m not on council.”

She gets up from behind her desk, twirling her long black hair back into a practiced bun and holding it in place with a feather quill. “Yet. You won’t get this position when I retire if you don’t show that you want it. You need to be as involved as possible.”

I resist rolling my eyes. “I’m involved,” I tell her half-heartedly.

After a beat, she sits on the sofa across from me. “And you also need to stay out of trouble, Jul.”

I feel my neck grow hot, and it itches like it’s going to alter, but I stop myself. Flashes of adrenaline do that to people. She doesn’t know about me going out as Raven, of course, but I don’t like lying and I don’t want her to think I have something to hide.

“Do you want to talk about the girl?” Mother asks. Her long fingers lace together in front of her, and she’s giving me a hard stare. This is an interrogation, I realize, about the rumor last night.

I tip my head back. “It’s not important! Everything’s fine now. She’s gone.”

“Osmont says he saw you two together multiple times. Who is she?” She’s using that voice that she uses on the children that we teach. The voice where she pretends to be on your side but really you’re about to be in trouble.

Curse Osmont and his persistent need to stick his nose into other people’s business. He’s the other education council member but doesn’t have a partner or kids, so his sole duty seems to be meddling in places he doesn’t belong. We had the misfortune of running into each other when I’d brought a girl back to the château, and I’d intended to keep the whole thing quiet, but he has a way of running his mouth.

“It doesn’t matter–”

“It does matter, because we have principles to uphold, Julienne. Toying with city girls is not what we civilized people do.” Her fingers are laced tighter together, her knuckles white.

I hate the pressure building behind my eyes, the feeling that I’m about to cry. “I wasn’t toying with her,” I choke out, remembering the smell of her hair and the way she always giggled when I’d kissed her.

Mother moves so that she’s sitting next to me, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “All you have to do is introduce her to the council, Julienne. If you want to see her. You know the rules.”

I try to subtly blink the tears back, my fists clenching my lap. The rules. The unofficial rules are that if I’m going to be a council member, I have to get approval on my choice of partner or partners. Anyone in the châteaus, council member or just family, is privy to council knowledge and needs to be trusted. But it all seems unnecessary if I’m not going to marry the person.

Mother rubs my arm soothingly. “I won’t repeat what was said, but you know how stories can unfold into ugly misconceptions. Running off yesterday didn’t help. You need to show the council that you’re responsible and mature.”

Responsible and mature, two adjectives that I’ve never been called in all my life. I shrug her hand off of me. “Right, because that’s simple enough.”

Mother gives me a thin smile. “It’s not hard to win them back to your side. Either make the relationship official, or come with me to the dissertations next week. As a sign of good interest.”

I actually laugh. “You can’t be serious, Mother. Even you find the dissertations boring; I will die of disinterest.” I dig my nails into my palm. “And the girl is gone. So that’s not an option.”

Mother stands, her cape twirling around her legs. “So be it, we will die of disinterest together. And next time, please just present your partner to the council and spare us the drama, yes?”

I stare into the rug on the ground and mutter, “Yes, Mother,” before getting up and leaving.

It's then, walking through the empty hallway, that my mind replays my last memory of Kira, or 'the girl', as Mother called her.

We were laying on the back terrace, basking in the sun like lizards, eating plums off the tray between us. We were deliciously alone; Mother and Osmont were at a council meeting, Father was at the council house doing administrative work (he’s basically Mother’s secretary), and even Lise, for once, was out on last-minute errands, as Giselle had fallen ill.

I had plucked the plum out of Kira’s fingers with a sly smile and taken a bite, relishing the taste. Plum trees hadn’t been in season for so long that I felt like I’d forgotten how they tasted. With our planet’s orbit between two suns being as erratic as it is, the seasons are constantly changing, the plant life with it.

“There’s so much sun out here,” Kira had sighed, her mouth slightly upturned.

“It’s never enough,” I reply, stretching my fingers to the sky like I could take the sunbeams into my hands.

“Julienne,” she had said next, and the tone of her voice had my stomach in knots. Something was wrong.

I had faced her then, touched a finger to the dark skin of her stomach where her shirt had ridden up. Her smile was gone. In the moment, I thought she was going to say something, tell me what she was really thinking. I could see the words being plotted out behind her eyes.

All she said was, “This is the end, Julienne. Goodbye,” as she stood up.

I didn’t hear from her again, even though I tried. And tried, and tried. So now I just need to try a little harder.

* *

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