Brightly Burning(59)

“Indeed,” I said, falling easily back into the formality she required. “It’s a small private ship where I teach a young girl.”

Aunt Reed shook her head weakly against her pillow. “Imagine you, teaching some little girl. To be difficult, I’m sure of it.”

“Aunt, why am I here? Why did you call for me? You clearly maintain your dislike of me.”

Called out, she set her mouth in a straight line. “Only you would speak to a dying woman in such a way, Stella Ainsley, but touché.” Suddenly she rose, half a foot off the pillow, a hacking cough breaking the conversation. She shook, clearly in pain, and without thought, I steadied a hand on her back, supporting her. I fetched her a pouch of water from the bedside table when she asked. She sucked it down greedily but stopped quickly, pushing it back into my hand. “Don’t give it to me next time. We’ll run out of rations.”

“You’re on water rations?” A lot must have changed on board since last I lived here. Aunt Reed smiled bitterly as she settled back down onto the pillows.

“We’ve been relegated to the dregs of society since all the money’s gone, but the water rations are shipwide.”

I kept a straight face, did not pry, though I desperately wished to know the story. I’d get it out of Charlotte later.

“To answer your question,” she continued, her voice hoarse but strong, “I asked you here to make amends. You are the only one left alive for me to gain absolution from.” She sighed deeply, seeming to sink into her pillows. “But I will have to wait to die tomorrow, for I am too exhausted to hash it out with you right now. Good night, Stella.”

My cue to leave was unmistakable, so I did, though not without some confusion as to the time. It was still morning.

I found Charlotte in the living room, reading. “How is she?” she asked, looking up from her tab.

“Cantankerous,” I replied a bit glibly, then sat in the love seat across from her. “And tired. She’s resting.”

“She does that a lot now.”

“How long has she been ill?”

Charlotte closed her tab, apparently giving up on her book. “She was diagnosed a year ago.”

“A year?” I said. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

She looked confused. “Why would we tell you? Mama only started to care a few weeks ago when it got really bad. Before that, you never came up.”

Of course not. Charlotte didn’t look particularly affected or guilty. I dispensed with any guilt I might feel about prying into their circumstances. “Aunt Reed said something about the money being gone. What did she mean?”

Charlotte rolled her eyes. “Charles spent all our money on booze, women, and high-stakes games. Then he died.”

I was taken aback, both by the news and by the matter-of-fact way she said it. He’d been awful to me as a child, but it was strange to think he was gone. We were all still so young.

“Charles died? When did that happen?”

“Six months ago. Which was when they cut off the drugs from Mother. And here we are. The final countdown.” I noticed dark circles under Charlotte’s eyes. Exhausted.

“Can they do that?” I asked. “Just take away her medication?”

“Apparently. We’re no better than a common food ship now, it would seem. Left to die in our own good time.”

I took the knock in stride. “And the water’s being rationed now?”

“For the last two years.”

As Charlotte sank back against the couch cushions, threw her head back, and closed her eyes, I reflected on how much had changed. My aunt was penniless, defenseless, and dying. My elder cousin, who used to torment me, was dead. The glorious Empire, reduced to water rationing. The medical rationing for the poor was nothing new, unfortunately.

An unholy sound, like a sputtering engine, came out of Charlotte as she slipped into a doze. I was on my own, the Reed household determined to sleep. My eyes darted to the door to the red room. My old room. I had to go in there at some point. Why not unpack now, connect my tab to the network? I hauled myself up and trudged over, grabbing my bag and hitting the button to open the door.

“Lights on,” I said as I stepped over the dark threshold, to no effect. I’d forgotten what it was like to be back in an analog environment. I felt for the light switch on the wall and pressed it on, only to be bathed in eerie red light. How the red room got its name: long ago the lights had malfunctioned, so now they only ever registered red, the emergency-lighting system painting the room in perpetual anger. Of course it had become my room, the least-valued member of the Reed household, because heaven forbid either Charles or Charlotte had to have shared. I felt a pang of sadness; pity. Charles was dead. Nothing was as it had been.

I threw my bag on the bed, taking out my dresses and underclothes, setting them up in the wardrobe. I retrieved both my tabs, setting my drawing one aside while I powered up the other. Immediately, it pinged to the network, home screen lighting up with notifications. I had messages—?four, in fact. Who would have sent me four messages in three days? I tapped the icon. George. And I realized it had been almost a week since his oldest message. Whoops.

The first and second message were nothing special—?the usual from George. Movie recaps and general platitudes. More detail about how it was going with Joy than I wanted to hear. The third was a compilation of messages from the kids.