For Darkness Shows the Stars

T WELVE Y EARS A GO
     
    Dear Kai,
    My name is Elliot, and I am six years old and live in the big house. Everyone says your smarter than me but I know I am the smartest. I bet you can’t even read this letter.
    Your friend,
    Elliot North
        
     
    Dear Elliot,
    I can so read and write. I red your letter and your not so smart. Your just ritch rich. You get tutors in the big house. My da teaches me to read after we work for your da all day long. So I can read and I can fix a tractor too. I bet you can’t.
    Your friend,
    Kai
        
     
    Dear Kai,
    You are very nice. Thank you for teaching me how to change the tractor tire today. It was realy fun, but my mother got mad about the mud on my dress. Don’t wory I didn’t tell her. I hope you like this book. It is one of my favorites.
    Your friend (now I feel like I really mean it!),
    Elliot
        
     
    Dear Elliot,
    Thank you for the book. Your right, it’s really good. My favorite part was the story about Jason and his adentures adventures on the ship. I would like to be an Argonaut. Or even Jason. Do you know they used to build ships like that right here?
    Your friend,
    Kai
    P.S. If you want to come back to the barn, I will show you more about the tractor.
        
     
    Dear Kai,
    Yes, I know about the ships. That was my granfather who did that, when he was younger. They call him the Boatwright, but his name is Elliot too, just like me, and my mother says he was the smartest man on the whole island. But he’s been sick for a long time.
    I have bad news. My sister Tatiana told on me about the tractor, and now my father says you can’t come to the big house. So from now on, if you want to rite write me a letter then fold it up and put it in the knot in the board write next to the barn door. I’ll come by and get it.
    Your friend,
    Elliot
        
     
    Dear Elliot,
    That is nice about your grandfather. I don’t know mine. My da says he was Reduced. He says both his ma and da were Reduced, and that they died a long time ago.
    I hope you like this letter. If you fold it up exactly like I had it, it will fly on its own. It’s an air glider. I can teach you how to do it if you ever come see me again. I know your da said I can’t come to the big house, but he didn’t say you can’t come to the barn.
    Your friend,
    Kai
        
     
    Dear Kai,
    I am sorry I couldn’t come to see you. I hope you like my glider. It’s like yours but I think it flies even farther.
    I am also sorry to hear about your grandparents. Is it strange to think you come from people who are Reduced?
    I would like to come back to the barn. My father goes to Channel City every month and I think it’s best if I come when he’s gone. He usualy takes Tatiana too, so she can’t tell on me.
    Your friend,
    Elliot

One
     
    ELLIOT NORTH RACED ACROSS the pasture, leaving a scar of green in the silver, dew-encrusted grass. Jef followed, tripping a bit as his feet slid inside his too-big shoes.
    “You’re sure your ma said the southwest field?” she called back to him.
    “Yes, Miss,” he huffed.
    She picked up her pace, hoping there was still time to save some of the crop. But she could tell it was too late even before she saw the stricken look on her foreman Dee’s face. “It’s all gone,” she said, meeting Elliot on the road. “I’m so sorry.”
    Elliot crumpled to the ground and rough road gravel scoured her palms. She scraped her fingernails against the dirt. All her work had come to nothing.
    Jef came running up behind them and grabbed the edge of his mother’s gray skirt. The woman swayed a bit, off-balance due to her rounded belly. At the end of the road, Elliot could just make out the figures of her father and Tatiana standing at the edge of the field and watching the Reduced at work.
    “He moved fifty laborers over first thing this morning,” Dee was saying above her.
    Of course he had. Ten or twenty would not have gotten the job done before Elliot had heard of it. If only she hadn’t locked herself in the barn loft at first light. If only she’d attended the family breakfast. She might have been able to talk him out of this.
    Elliot took a deep breath and straightened, unclenching her fists at her sides. She couldn’t betray the extent of the damage to her family, but she needed answers.
    Tatiana turned as Elliot approached, alerted by the sound of boots on gravel. Elliot’s sister was in slippers, of course, and a day dress, and above her head she twirled a