For Darkness Shows the Stars

was nothing more to him than a tool, one he could use to direct the Reduced laborers . . . or punish Elliot.
    “Because there’ll be no one to care for Jef if—”
    “Don’t spend another moment worrying about it.” Elliot cast a glance at the older woman’s stomach. “You have more things on your mind.”
    “I only have to deal with two mouths to feed this winter,” Dee replied. “I can see on your face that you’re worried about a hundred.”
    “Not ‘worried.’ Disappointed that my project won’t be tested for another year, but—” Her brittle smile cracked. Another year! Another year of rations, another year with no harvest festival, with watching the Reduced children grow thin and sickly when the weather got cold, with enduring the pointed stares of the few remaining Posts on the property as Elliot struggled to fairly allocate every sack of grain. This field could have saved them.
    “Are things really so bad?” Dee’s voice filled the space Elliot had abandoned to silence.
    “And what would you do if they were?” She knew what she’d do in the woman’s place. Pack up Jef and depart for whatever points unknown Dee’s common-law, Thom, had gone to two years previously, during the bad time when so many of the Posts had left the North estate.
    Legally, the Post-Reductionists still held the lowly status of their Reduced forefathers. They were bound to the estate on which they were born. But lately, even that system had been breaking down. There was no way to police the movement of Posts who wished to leave the estates they were born to, and no incentive to try if you were a wealthy Luddite who attracted skilled Posts to your estate at the expense of your neighbors. Year after year, Elliot watched helplessly as the North estate emptied of its skilled labor force. But how could she begrudge them their chance to look for opportunities elsewhere, for possibilities her father would never allow? There were even whole communities where—Elliot had heard—Posts lived free. But up here in the north, the only free Posts Elliot had ever seen were beggars desperate for work or food.
    She worried that was what had happened to Thom. She worried that was what had happened to . . . everyone who’d left.
    “I would find a way to help you,” Dee said. “Like you’ve always helped everyone here.”
    “Yes. I’ve been so good at helping them,” Elliot said ruefully. She knew Dee must see Thom occasionally. Her pregnancy confirmed it. But the older woman had never told her where he spent most of his time. Dee didn’t even trust her enough for that, though Elliot had long ago shared with Dee the shape of her own heartbreak.
    Elliot couldn’t afford any more Posts leaving the estate. She was already too much alone here.
    Dee gestured to the field. “I know you wouldn’t have done this if things weren’t desperate, Elliot.”
    That went without saying. She was, after all, a Luddite, and while what she’d done was not strictly against the protocols, it was at the very least in the gray area. She looked out over the savaged field. Perhaps this was a divine warning—maybe her whole experiment was a mistake. After all, if her father suspected the truth, she was lucky that all he’d done was plow the wheat under.
    It was always hard to tell with Zachariah North. What some men might do as an act of deliberate cruelty, her father was just as likely to do out of laziness and caprice. His comments had been just ambiguous enough to scare her—another talent at which the baron excelled.
    “You’ll figure it out,” Dee said. “Don’t be brought low by a setback. Not when your goal is so . . . high.”
    The Post’s hesitation said it all. Elliot’s goal was high indeed. It belonged to a realm that the Luddites had long ago abandoned. What she sought was nothing short of a miracle.

E LEVEN Y EARS A GO
     
    Dear Elliot,
    Thank you for coming over yesterday, and for bringing the new books. I hope you liked lerning about the thresher. It was a good idea to come in those old close clothes, even though I almost didn’t recognize you!
    I talked to my da about the words we were fighting over. He says that your people call people like us CORs because it means Children of the Reduction. There is another word, but my da says we would be in trouble for using it in front of you. It’s called Post-Reductionist. My da and his friends call themselfs Posts. Except you are my only friend. There are no other