Free Starglass by Phoebe North Page B

the whole bookcase toppled on him.”
    “Is that what they’re saying?” I blurted.
    “What do you mean?” he asked. Lines settled in on his forehead, underneath the line of his thinning hair. That frown made him look very much like my father.
    “Nothing,” I said. “Never mind.”
    “We have to hurry, Terra,” he said. “They’re doing the funeral before work hours today.”
    I squinted into the darkness. We always held funerals soon after death so that the body would have no time to decompose. But it was so early.
    “What if I don’t want to go?” I asked, but the set of his lips, so like Abba’s, silenced me.
    “Abba said you have to. It’s a mitzvah. He’s gone to ring the bells. He asked me and Hannah to walk you to the field.”
    “I can walk by myself,” I said, giving my head a firm shake. But Ronen only shrugged.
    “Abba said we should take you.”
    I was nearly old enough to earn a wage—old enough, almost, to be wed. But our father still didn’t trust me to walk from the districts out to the pastures under the cover of night. And I knew there would be no fighting with Ronen about it. He always lived just enough within our father’s rules to avoid scrutiny. After Momma died, they even stopped bickering, like her death had drafted a peace between them.
    But not between us . There was never any friendship between my brother and me.
    “Fine,” I said, gritting my teeth. I reached into the bottom of my dresser for my funerary clothes—an old set I’d inherited from Momma, but they would have to do—and huffed off toward the bathroom to change.
    •  •  •
    Another funeral, another white-wrapped body lowered into the ground. I stood at the back with Rachel, chewing my nails.
    We went together to the edge of the grave, knelt in the dirt, and threw handfuls of black soil down. When I rose up from the grass, a pair of bright green eyes caught mine. Van Hofstadter. He was standing at the other end of the unmarked grave, holding a child in hisarms. It must have been his son—red hair curled up from his neck, a shock of color in the dim predawn light. But even though Van clutched the little boy to his chest and even though his wife leaned against him, his attention was fixed on me.
    Those eyes flared a wild warning.
    “Are you okay?” Rachel asked, leaning close. She went to grab my hand, but I didn’t want to let her see how mine was shaking. I pretended not to notice, wiping my palm against my trousers.
    “Last night,” I said, “I saw him, with Mar Jacobi, on the way home from work.”
    “Oh, that’s so sad ,” she replied. “That must have been right before he died, right?”
    I turned to look at her. Her eyes were large and shining. Everything was so simple for Rachel—black and white.
    “Must have been,” I said quickly as I started off across the field.
    •  •  •
    After the funeral Rachel asked me to go with her to Mar Jacobi’s quarters to pay our respects.
    Normally, it wouldn’t have even been a question. No matter how many times my father had tried to force me to become a proper, respectful daughter, I just wasn’t that kind of person. I was bored at weddings, at parties, at harvest celebrations. At school I sighed and doodled in the margins of my notebooks. And funerals wereeven worse. Everyone always stared at me sidelong, waiting for some morsel of wisdom to spill from the mouth of the girl whose mother had died.
    But this funeral was different. I had business to attend to.
    As soon as we stepped through the door, Rachel rushed forward, kissing the wet cheeks of Giveret Jacobi. Rachel shoved a small box of homemade cookies into the woman’s hands. I don’t know when she’d had time to bake. The sun had just barely begun to rise.
    But the curtains were drawn tight, bathing the corners of their quarters in inky black. Even the mirrors were covered, holey sheets thrown over them. Mar Jacobi’s children sat on low stools. Their round faces were blank,