I settle into the chair in front of the telescope and peer into the eyepiece. Thankfully the storm has broken apart, so I have a clear view as the sky grows dark. The planet Cariad is the first to rise, bright near the horizon. I mark its position on the first of tonight’s charts with a scratch of my pen. I wait for more planets to appear, watching for red Rhyfel and the paler Negesydd, and of course the first of the stars.
There are millions of stars in the sky, and scientists speculate there are millions more we can’t see, even with the aid of telescopes. What I do every night—what my father used to do, before my mother was lost—is mark down the positions of all the stars we possibly can: the ones that make up the constellations, the ones between and around the constellations. The planets. The phases of the moon. I have an empty chart for each position of the telescope, with curved lines marking the path of the ecliptic. There’s one whole chart to mark the Arch of the Wind, the spray of stars that look like handfuls of snow strewn across the sky.
The stars are predictable—that’s what I like best about them. I’ve been charting them by myself for a whole year now, watching them move in their set patterns across the celestial sphere. I really don’t know why the king hired my father to do this, why he demands secrecy. When I was younger, I used to pore over the charts, looking for patterns and predictions. There are stories about the constellations, about the movements of planets and their proximity to each other predicting the future, plotting out the events of your life. But I’ve only seen order. Wonder. Besides Awela and my parents, the stars are what I love best in the world.
Slowly, methodically, I begin the process of charting the stars, shifting the telescope to a new part of the sky when each chart is full.
I’ve marked only three charts when the observatory door creaks open, and I look back to find my father there, his spectacles perched on the end of his nose. His presence surprises me. He looks exhausted, as he has ever since my mother was lost, but there’s a determination in his eyes that’s been gone so long, I forgot it was ever there.
“May I join you?” he asks, hesitant, as though he fears I’ll turn him away.
I grin. “Of course, Father. I’ve only been keeping up the work in your absence.”
“I’m not chasing you away,” he clarifies.
A knot I didn’t know had formed in my chest loosens again. I pop up from the desk and drag a second chair over. Father pours himself some tea, and we settle in together, taking turns at the telescope, trading off marking the stars on the charts.
Contentment fills me. I’ve missed my father—he’s been here and yet not here, gone in a different way than my mother. This is how it used to be: my father teaching me how to chart the stars, the two of us staying awake long into the night drinking cinnamon tea.
The work goes faster with him there, and when the charts have all been filled and bound safely in their folder to be given to the king’s man at the end of the month, Father and I linger in the observatory. I get the feeling that he has missed this, perhaps even more than I have.
“Owen,” he says, as the lamp burns low and we drain the dregs of our tea, “can you forgive me?”
“There’s nothing to forgive, Father.”
His brow furrows, and he puts his hand on my shoulder. “We would have been lost, if not for you. The king’s coin. The house. Little Awela. Without you holding us all together, I don’t know what would have become of us. I shouldn’t have left you to fend for yourself.”
My throat hurts; the subject is perilously close to Mother’s absence, which I’m not sure either of us have the courage to discuss just now. “I’ve been all right. Really. God gave me strength enough.”
Father smiles at me, setting down his tea mug to place his hands on my shoulders. “I am blessed to have such a son. But I have too long neglected you, Awela as well. It’s time for you to start thinking about learning a trade, apprenticing with someone in the village. You’re old enough now.”
I stare at him, entirely blindsided. “I don’t want to learn another trade—I’m going to be an astronomer like you. Besides, you need me to keep the house and watch Awela. Help chart the stars.”
Father shakes his head. “Let me worry about Awela. I need to get both of you away from here before the wood—” The word chokes him. He takes a breath. “Before the wood winds itself into your souls. It’s something I should have done long ago. I can’t lose either of you. I won’t.”
I want to point out that we’ve been perfectly safe for the last year, but I think of the music, oozing more often than not from the trees, of Awela stretching up her tiny hand to reach the branch hanging over the wall, of myself hanging out the observatory window.
“If you would rather, you can attend Saeth University in the fall,” Father continues. “I’ve put money aside for it.” His forehead creases, and I know he’s thinking of my mother—they met at the university. She was a cellist, and he an astronomer, and they used to tease each other that they would have to live on love, since their professions would take them nowhere.
My throat tightens. “Father, I’m not going to leave you.”
He claps his hand on my shoulder as he rises. “You are young yet. There is plenty of time to think beyond the confines of this house and the sky. Just promise me you’ll consider it—you don’t have to make a decision immediately.”
I get up too, dousing the lamp and following him from the observatory.
“I’ll consider it,” I tell him. I don’t mean it. I may only be seventeen, but all I’ve ever wanted is the sky.
Chapter Three
OWEN
IT’S ONLY WHEN I CRAWL INTO BED THAT I REALIZE I FORGOT TO tell Father about my errand—his unexpected plans for my future drove it right out of my mind. I wake early enough to catch him before he leaves for Brennan’s Farm, trying not to see his red eyes, the grief that hangs on him like a physical thing. I didn’t sleep more than a handful of hours after leaving the observatory; he looks like he might not have slept at all.
“I’m going to Saeth University today.”
Surprise sparks in his face. “That time of year already?”
I nod. Every year, my father files an abbreviated record of his annual star charts in the university library. Astronomers all across the continent do the same, scientists pooling our knowledge, collecting it for future generations. I went by myself last year, by train, and the three years before that, my mother went with merchants traveling along the old road across the plains.
“I’m to take the nine o’ clock train from the village.” I think about what the king’s man told me yesterday, and wonder if Father knows the wood has grown around the tracks. “It will be perfectly safe,” I lie. “I’ll spend the night in Saeth and be back tomorrow evening. I’ve arranged for Awela to stay with Efa till then. I’m taking her the moment she wakes up.”
Father scratches at the stubble on his jaw. “Perhaps we don’t need to file the charts this year.”
“I’ll only be gone a day, Father.”
He frowns. “I’ve heard the wood has—”