The Seas of Distant Stars

By Francesca G. Varela

Agapanthus was kidnapped when she was only two years old, but she doesn’t remember it. In fact, she doesn’t remember her home planet at all. All she knows is Deeyae, the land of two suns; the land of great, red waters. Her foster-family cares for her, and at first that’s enough. But, as she grows older, Agapanthus is bothered by the differences between them. As an Exchanger, she’s frail and tall, not short and strong. And, even though she was raised Deeyan, she certainly isn’t treated like one. One day, an Exchanger boy completes the Deeyan rite-of-passage, and Agapanthus is inspired to try the same. But, when she teams up with him, her quest to become Deeyan transforms into her quest to find the truth—of who she is, and of which star she belongs to.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Owl House Books
• Release date: Aug 7, 2018
• ISBN: 9781938846366

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Her name back then was not Agapanthus. It was Aria. Aria like the song the wind made through cottonwood trees. They reminded Aria’s mother of feathers, and she often watched the cotton tufts as they floated through the dusk air. She loved when they melted into the flowing, pebble-braided creek, high with water after a storm, or even as they joined the summer trickle when the creek lay stagnant. On summer nights the water shone thick with flies, with dark red clay and the sticky tips of fallen leaves that caked together at the bottom. The freeway hissed in the distance, cars and blackness glimmering just beyond the blackberry bushes.

Aria’s mother pretended the freeway didn’t exist. She often sat alone, or with Aria scrunched between her thighs, while the trees creaked, and the air stunk of pollen. When the cold air spread bumps over their skin she raised her daughter to her feet and draped Aria’s long blonde hair over her shoulder so she could wipe the dust from her pants.

They held hands as they emerged from the ravine. There was the sky again, pale and waning. There sliced the blurred traffic, blazing as always in front of their one-story house. There glowed the fields, the sheep far beyond, the hills broken by dirt patches that always shone reddest at sunset. But sunset was past, so Aria’s mother nestled her daughter inside.

Her husband’s stomach propelled, jiggling, upward and downward with his sleeping breaths. His hands clenched the armrests of the yellow recliner, the remote wedged between his side and the seat. Aria’s mother patted Aria toward the kitchen and kissed her husband’s forehead. He smelled like cinnamon and orange peels, soft remnants of the tea he had finished after dinner.

Aria’s father woke up slowly. He scooped his wife into his lap. She murmured something about Aria’s bath, and then she burrowed her head into the warmth of his shoulder. They breathed together. The screen door slid open, but neither of them heard it. They didn’t hear Aria’s lithe footsteps against the wooden stairs. They didn’t hear her slide down, crawling on her knees into the grass, unsure of how to balance on the changing surface. She couldn’t speak yet, so she didn’t know what the trees were called, but she knew she wanted to stay with them for a little longer.

The grass massaged her bare feet and made them itch. Aria looked up at the clouds. The moon was there, too; strangely thin, strangely weak. It wasn’t dark enough for the moon. A bright star shined over the hill already. It grew brighter. Brighter. Then there was darkness. Claws on her shoulders. Flashes of light so hot she cried out as they teared at her, pulled her up, gripping her shoulders until she felt they would pop from their sockets. And then smooth black stone. And then—nothing.

1

Age: Ten Earth-Years

Agapanthus hated the check-ups. She hated the cold click of the measuring band around her arms. She hated standing against the wall with a straight back while the scientist leaned forward, sniffing and sniffing, like he was about to sigh, only to never breathe the air out again. He scanned her with a cool blink of light to measure her height, her weight, her bone density. Then he nodded, and he looked into her eyes, pulling gently on the lower lids where her eyelashes hung down. Agapanthus stared at the scientist’s eyes as he did this; she thought it was fair to analyze him since he was analyzing her.

He had orange eyes. They were a dim, pooling, saturated orange, the same hue as the gauzy shadows encircling Aamsh and Jord, the homes of the Gods. Agapanthus breathed in. Her cheeks puffed with air.

What’s that? What are you doing? the scientist asked, pointing to her inflated cheeks. His voice was soothing; kind. Now, turn to the side.

She did, and, with an exhale, she stopped holding her breath. The scientist scanned her again. That was another thing she hated; the way the light pricked her, like spiked rocks scratching her arms, her thighs, her forehead. She half expected to see white streaks left behind, tattooed onto her. But when the scientist turned off the scanner, the itching dissipated, and her skin returned to its usual pale-pink.

Alright, we’re all done here, the scientist said. He pressed the button on the side of the stick.

Agapanthus licked her lips because the measuring light had dried them out. She waited for the scientist to rest his hand on her head, the manner in which all adults said hello and good-bye to each other. Sometimes adults did this with children, but rarely outside of the family. Yet, last time Agapanthus had visited, the scientist had done it—simply, casually, like he’d forgotten that she was a child and not an adult.

She hovered near the open doorway. Bye, Feol Vatker, she said to the scientist’s back.

He bent closer to the polished black countertop, huddling over the measuring stick and its data screen like a red-breasted-sper over its prey. Agapanthus lingered a moment longer. Would he do it? Was she an adult, today?

See you next year, Agapanthus Caracynth, he finally said. He tilted his eyes toward the soft skin of her shoes. Take care.

Her foster mother, Leera, stood outside, leaning against the wall, watching the open end of the breezeway where the red sunlight glowed.

How did it go? Her warm hand fell to Agapanthus’s scalp. Leera bent down so Agapanthus could reach her head as well. I hope they’re not sending you back quite yet? Leera led the way outside the building, onto the coarse ground.

I really have to go back? Agapanthus looked up at Leera’s thin cheeks; at her matte, red skin. Can’t I just stay?

Oh, Aga, Leera laughed. I wish you could stay here with us. But when the Gods say you have to go back, you have to go back. And no one knows when that’ll be.

They were silent.

Maybe if you’re good they’ll let you stay until you’re an old woman. Leera patted Agapanthus’s back. It’s happened before. So say the Gods, I can only hope it happens again. She held her outstretched hand in front of the twin stars, Aamsh and Jord, whose slow chase through the sky marked the passing of days. The home sun, Imn, shimmered steadily next to them, high above the rock-carved canyons. Imn burned half the sky with rich, purple-red light.

Agapanthus glared at the stars with an intensity she hoped Leera would find pious. It wasn’t hard to stare at them; Agapanthus often found herself watching their dim movements anyway— their wispy breath, like fire and water wrapped together, mesmerized her. What would it be like to stand on them? How did the Gods do it? How did they stand on those mounds of rolling fire? Did they have feet like stone? Were they shell-bearing, hiding within their coverings and floating over the flames? That seemed undignified, to Agapanthus, but also kind of fun. She wished she were a God, just to see what it was like. Or maybe just meeting one would be good enough.

But she would never say any of that out loud.

Instead she mimicked Leera’s prayer symbol, and held her own hand to the two stars.

An older woman walked toward them, across the scuffed place in the ground where everyone walked. Her breasts shook with each step, even wrapped tightly in her tunic dress. Leera quickly grasped Agapanthus’s wrist. She unfolded it from the prayer symbol and dropped it to her waist.

You’re getting too old to be copying me, especially in prayer. Don’t forget where you’re from, Leera whispered. Don’t forget that these are not your Gods.

Then why do I have to do what they say?

Leera’s wiry lips came together. As the old woman passed—her wide eyes unnaturally pink from vision-enhancement-lens surgery—the two women made eye contact and nodded. Agapanthus blinked at the rocky, red-brown soil.

When the old woman was behind them, Leera said, I don’t expect you to understand. You’re not Deeyan.

Nothing more was said during the walk home. Agapanthus ignored the stark, folded cliffs, beaming red against the darkness of the Waters. Usually she loved to take them in, and the heaviness of the sky, and the warm, dry wind as it caught her blonde hair by the roots; sneaking, sluggish, full; catapulting her long hair outward in all directions. But, for now, in the windy silence, she took big steps to keep up with Leera.

Agapanthus’s nose constricted with effort. She opened her mouth so she could breathe more easily. Even on short walks, her thighs burned along the insides, so much so that she imagined hydrothermal vents were magically popping out of the ground just to burn her. She had only seen a vent once, during the last Festival of the Underworld. It was on one of the other islands, just a pool of black water. The distant steam rising from it.

This is what keeps us alive,The guard standing next to the vent had said.

He bent down close to her. She remembered how he smelled like sweat, and, the vent, like dust.

The lights were on in the men’s side of the house. The women’s windows were dark, as black as the stone that framed the windows, and so were those of the children’s hall and the meeting hall connecting the two wings.

Looks like we’re the first ones back, Leera said. The door slid open as it recognized her body signature.

The white orbs high on the ceiling lit up. Leera and Agapanthus stepped inside. It felt, as always, surprisingly cold inside the thick walls. Geometric carvings patterned the crack between ceiling and floor. Leera swept into the next room, but Agapanthus stood in the front hall a moment. She tilted her neck to look at the recessed mural of the Waters, right above her head, ornately carved into the wall directly facing the door; each stroke was a tiny etch, the work of the ancestors who had first inhabited the house. The picture of small waves was flat and gray, but realistic in its illusion of movement. Agapanthus didn’t like the mural. She didn’t know why, but it wasn’t beautiful to her. It always looked dusty, even though it wasn’t, and that made her want to touch it and scrape her fingers against it to wipe away the powdery sheen. She wasn’t allowed to, though. Oh, no, of course not. It was too old—too precious—to soil with the hand-oils of an alien, or even a Deeyan— none of the women had ever touched it. Not even Grandmother Surla, and she was the oldest of all of them.

Agapanthus didn’t feel like following Leera around until the other women came home, when they would meet with the men to walk to the cafeteria. She was the only child living in the house, so she escaped to the children’s hall to be alone.

The floor was lined with animal skin. Agapanthus kneeled, and its softness embraced her bare knees. She dug out her storyteller from her chest in the corner. A deep, woman’s voice rose from the hand-held machine. Agapanthus stretched back on her bed of leathery-soft skins. It was the story of how the Gods brought the Deeyans to Deeyae. She listened to it often enough that she had memorized certain parts.

The Water Planet was the first home of the Deeyans, the recording and Agapanthus said in tandem. There, they ate plants, and they climbed trees. They lived off the sun, not the hydrothermal vents.

That was all Agapanthus knew about her home planet. There were more audiobooks with information about it; after all, most scientists exclusively studied the Water Planet and its inhabitants, at the request of the Gods. But neither Leera nor Pittick would buy them for her. They told her she was too young for that sort of thing, and the Gods may not like it. Besides, she would go back someday, and then all of her questions would be answered.

Her eyes began to close. The weight of the data-reading with the scientist came over her. She felt it in her limbs; every step, every turn, every motion she had made throughout the day pulled her down further into her bed.

When she sat up again, the storyteller had shut off automatically. She’d missed the end, where the Gods drop the first Deeyans on their new planet and the First Age begins. Agapanthus swallowed hard. Using all the strength in her thin arms, she pushed herself up. She needed to stay awake, or else she would miss the meal. She plodded toward the men’s wing through the other door in the hall.

There stood Pittick. As he smiled, his forehead wrinkled all the way up to his scalp, a red swath behind a veil of black hair.

We’re leaving soon, Aga, he said, tapping her on the head. But first, come look at this.

She followed her foster-father to the study room. Comfortable piles of blankets dotted the marbled floors. Aunt Imari’s husband, Uncle Sonlo, sat on one of them with his naked legs crossed. Both men carried the faint scent of the water creatures which they harvested. They managed the fisheries together.

Hey, how did the visit go? Uncle Sonlo asked her. He smiled, and his white teeth seemed to glow against his dark lips.

Fine, Agapanthus said.

I can’t believe they still make all of you exchangers go there every year, Uncle Sonlo said. They must be busy, with all those test subjects. You’d think they would cut back a little. Don’t they have enough data yet?

They’ll never have enough data, Sonlo, Pittick mumbled. He picked up a thick, crunchy-looking sphere. Ah, here it is. He squinted at her, smiling.

What is it?

Take it.

She pinched it lightly from his hand. It was bumpy, unmoving; like a strange, orange stone.

It used to be a karap shell, Pittick said. I found it just underneath the boat, floating in a shallow area of the Waters. It’s not even molting season.

Good thing it’s not, or you’d be in trouble, Uncle Sonlo said loudly.

If it was molting season I wouldn’t have taken it.

Pittick knelt in front of Agapanthus. Of everyone’s eyes, his were the yellowest, she thought. They were nothing like the orange scientist’s.

This is very valuable. It’s breakable, and it’s rare, and it’s beautiful, too. If you were to buy one of these, it would cost a lot of money, more money than anyone has, except maybe the Contact. He took the shell back from her and shook it in front of her nose. Agapanthus shuffled backward slightly.

Pittick continued, nodding as he spoke. You have to get lucky and find one. And I did. And I want you to have it.

Agapanthus nodded, too, mimicking the short pulses of his neck.

But you have to promise me you’re not going to lose it. It’s worth a lot.

I promise.

Pittick placed the shell back in her cupped hands.

Why do you have to put so much pressure on her? Don’t give the shell to her if it’s that valuable, Uncle Sonlo said as he stood up, stretching his thick arms in front of his chest. She’s just a kid. You know she’s going to drop it or something.

No I won’t!

She’s responsible, Pittick said lightly. His wide jaw settled into a smile. I trust her.

Agapanthus took big steps to her trunk in the children’s hall. She wanted to run there, but her legs were too tired. Sometimes, after a good long rest, she could run for short bursts, but then her muscles began to ache, and so did her spine, and her lungs. Even the bones in her neck seemed to tighten. Most of the time she preferred big strides instead of running.

She delicately nestled the shell next to her pile of folded clothes, along with the collection of pretty rocks she’d found out by the Waters. Now she had fifteen, counting the shell. It fit in perfectly with her collection. She only picked up rocks that were different; one was shaped like a triangle; one had a crack down the middle, exposing light-yellow sparkles on the inside; another was a purple so dark that it looked black unless she held it up to Imn.

We’re leaving now, Aga! Leera voice echoed through the hollow walls.

Coming! Agapanthus called back. She rushed out into the women’s hall. Aunt Imari, Grandmother Surla, and Great-Aunt Tayzaya waited there.

Aunt Imari rushed happily toward Agapanthus, her delicate hand ready to meet her head. There’s my little one! Imari’s sons had married off to different houses just before Agapanthus was adopted. It was a hard thing for a mother to have only boys, because they always left. Sometimes they even went to different islands, and then you could only see them at festivals. Leera had once told Agapanthus that this was why Imari was so kind toward her; she missed her own little ones.

Hello there, Agapanthus, Surla said. Grandmother Surla and her sister Tayzaya rarely offered their hands to Agapanthus. Today they simply smiled at her. Neither looked as old as they sounded. Their voices seemed to be the most aged part of them. Everything they said came out sounding feeble—at least compared to Leera and Imari’s warm, hefty voices.

Imari withdrew her palm from Agapanthus’s head. She walked outside without giving Agapanthus a chance to reciprocate.

Sonlo and Pittick were waiting, their backs turned to the bi-sloped house. Sonlo looked like a giant, compared to Pittick. They were the same height, but Uncle Sonlo’s body was just bigger—more bulky and laborious. Agapanthus liked Pittick’s smoothness better. She thought curvy muscles looked better than sharp-looking ones. Hopefully Pittick wouldn’t end up like Sonlo when he grew older. But, then again, older men usually looked more like Sonlo. He was a strange match for Imari. Her shoulders receded into her neck with smallness, meagerness, fragility. Sometimes Agapanthus wondered if something was wrong with her, but she was afraid to ask.

In a long line, the family headed toward the cafeteria. They walked along without speaking. Each footstep crunched against the gravelly dust.

Then a scream surged over the cliffs. Then another and another, building upon the echoes of the first, until they all blended together into a tunneling, quavering, mass. Grandmother Surla led the family in a slow succession toward the chanting. They walked expertly sideways over the unsteady, sloping ground. As they made it over the top of a red cliff, the Waters came into view. Agapanthus had come to think of the Waters as a person; a very old woman, her arms spread wide to encircle the center of Deeyae, and the warm sky above it, too, and all the Deeyans and the water beings and the Others and even the exchangers, like her. She wished she could speak to the Waters. Well, sometimes she did, while she practiced swimming along the shoreline; she muttered into the musky-tasting water while her lips were submerged. What she really wanted was for the Waters to say something back to her in a velvety, kind voice. Agapanthus, good things are in store for you, the Waters would say, oh so wisely, with each word unrolling like a slow, curling wave.  Of course the Waters would be all-knowing; a future-seer. A goddess. To Agapanthus, the Waters were more godly than the Gods themselves.

A growing crowd hovered at the edge of the Waters, all dressed in sleeveless shifts made of thinly stretched leathers—some of better quality than others. Tayzaya and Imari drifted into the mass of people, but the others stayed back to survey them.

Another coming-of-age attempt? Leera said to Pittick, her gaze still latched onto the crowd and the dark expanse in front of them. I don’t even see anyone out there. They must be pretty far.

I see them. Way, way out there.

A man wearing a black-stone chain around his neck pushed his way from the crowd and lowered his head toward Surla. Surla Caracynth, he said in a deep, creased voice.

Grandmother Surla patted his nearly hairless scalp. Akinan Pelloi.

The man was tall enough that he could touch the top of Surla’s head without her even bending at the knees. Agapanthus recognized him; he was a member of the Council. He had only been added on two years ago. Everyone had been surprised; he’d come out of nowhere, some boat-builder from the other side of the island. But apparently the Gods had been happy with him, because the Contact called Akinan up during the yearly island-wide meeting, and he’d made the announcement right then and there.

Do you think he’s going to make it? Surla asked.

Who is it, who’s swimming? Leera stepped closer to Akinan.

Akinan coughed. He’s the son of Lapars Rq, he said. And I think he is going to make it. He’s already halfway to Shre.

Do they have the boats ready over there? Leera asked, her voice high, her fingers to her lips. Did someone tell them?

I’m sure, Akinan said. "He picked a bad time, though. Yes, the wind is calmer now, but