The Stars Never Rise. Rachel Vincent

We were sterilized that afternoon, in matching white hospital gowns.

      Sister Nurse spoke for another five minutes, explaining what the reproductive assessment would entail and reiterating that the girls should not be scared. Then she asked them to stand and form a single-file line.

      Nothing good ever happens in a single-file line.

      “Nina?” Anabelle put one hand on my shoulder as we followed my sister’s class into the bright hallway. “Are you okay?” I nodded, and she got a good look at my face while the line filed slowly toward the gym, which had been set up with several exam stations separated from one another by thin curtains. Anabelle tugged me into an alcove near the restrooms and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry. I completely forgot.” Her frown deepened. “Is that why you want to pledge? Because of your disqualification?”

      “No. I’m fine. Really.” Melanie filed past us, near the middle of the line, and my gaze followed her. She looked pale.

      She looked terrified.

      “You know this isn’t your only choice, right?” Anabelle said. “The Church wants pledges who want to be in service. And you have other options. I know you don’t want retail or factory work, but what about technical school? Cooking? Gardening?”

      “I nearly burned the toast this morning, and I killed the bean sprout we planted in second grade.” I dragged my focus from the back of Mellie’s head and made myself look at Sister Anabelle. “And anyway, those aren’t careers. They’re jobs. Dead-end jobs, if you hate what you’re doing.” Like the dead-end existence that was killing my mother slowly, from the inside out.

      “Okay, what about college? How are your scores?” Anabelle was irrepressible. “You could wait for the recruitment fair …?”

      My scores were fine. But not good enough to get me recruited by a company willing to pay for my education in exchange for my employment. My spare time was spent working, not studying, and without a recruitment scholarship, I didn’t have the money for college. I didn’t even have the money for dinner. The Church would provide for any higher education required for Church service, of course. But only once I’d pledged. Which brought us back to the starting point of this logic merry-go-round.

      “You could still marry …,” Anabelle suggested softly, as the last of the sophomores filed past, their shoes whispering on bright white linoleum tile. “It won’t matter what you do for a living if you’re in love, right?”

      I gaped at her, momentarily unable to hide my contempt.

      Yeah, in a few years I could marry. If I could find a husband who either didn’t want children or had also been sterilized. But what kind of life would that be? Disqualified for parenthood because of my flat feet and occasional runny nose. Disqualified for everything but retail and factory work because I couldn’t afford an education.

      Could love make that kind of misery bearable? The only thing I knew about love was that Mellie read about it in her taboo books—along with a host of other improbable fantasies.

      Joining the Church to become a teacher was the only way I could think of to stay near my sister yet have a life and a career of my own. Well, a career, anyway.

      “I want to pledge, Anabelle,” I insisted, speaking over the voice inside me that argued otherwise.

      She studied me for a second, and she must have bought my sincerity, because then she smiled and squeezed my arm. “Great! It’s good work, Nina. And I know you love the kids.”

      “Yeah, I—”

      “Miss Kane, please step back into line,” Sister Cathy said, and the rest of my sentence died on my tongue at the mention of my last name. I thought she was talking to me, until I looked up to see my sister standing alone in the middle of the hall instead of against the wall in line with the other girls.

      Melanie stared at the floor, her arms stiff at her sides, and though I couldn’t see her face, I recognized her posture. She was trapped between an idea and its execution, like when she was little and she realized she could sneak an extra cookie from the package but knew she shouldn’t. Any second, she would either step back into line or … she wouldn’t. She hadn’t yet decided.

      “Melanie Kane, get back in line. Now.” Sister Cathy’s voice was sharper this time, and suddenly everyone was watching. Mellie looked at her. Then she looked at the line of her classmates. Then she looked at the door leading into the courtyard, where rain still poured in thick gray sheets.

      My heart hammered in my chest, and I felt like I was on that precipice of disobedience with her.

       Get back in line, Mellie.

      Running wouldn’t get her out of the physical, and it would get her into serious trouble. The kind of trouble that would require a conference with our mother. Which would quickly land us in Church custody.

      Melanie’s right hand twitched, and I knew what she’d decided a fraction of a second before she lurched for the double glass doors and threw her full weight at them. The doors flew open, and she disappeared into the rain.

      There was a collective gasp from the sophomore class and a startled yelp from Sister Cathy as a gust of wind and rain pelted her navy-embroidered pale blue cassock in the two seconds it took the doors to fall shut in my sister’s wake. Then there was silence, except for a clap of thunder and the steady, loud patter of rain on the roof.

      “Find her!” Sister Cathy shouted, soaked and obviously furious, and two of the sophomore class teachers sprinted for the exit, their cornflower cassocks flapping behind them.

      I started to follow, blood racing through my veins, spurring me into action, but Sister Anabelle grabbed my arm and hauled me into the restroom alcove again.

      “She’s just scared,” I said.

      “I know,” Anabelle whispered. “It would be better if you find her and get her to come back voluntarily. Ready to atone. Disobeying a Church official is a sin, Nina.”

      “I know.” Melanie was drawn to trouble like a cat to raw meat—she thrived on it—and I’d always known that eventually she’d make a mistake I couldn’t fix. I’d just hoped “eventually” would come a little later in life. And that it wouldn’t involve my sister disobeying a Church official in front of dozens of witnesses, then fleeing the scene.

      What the hell was she thinking?

      “Is there somewhere she goes when she’s upset?” Anabelle asked.

      “Not lately.” But when we were little … I glanced over my shoulder at the sophomores still filing into the gym four at a time. “I’ll find her. Can you cover for me?”

      “Of course. Go on.”

      I made myself walk away from the gym, then into the courtyard through a different door, when I really wanted to run. The rain had slowed a little, but the day looked gray, viewed through the steady drizzle, and my hair was drenched again by the time I got to the dais. The only sounds were the constant loud patter of raindrops, the occasional roll of thunder, and the quick tap of my school shoes on the sidewalk.

      Matthew Mercer looked up from the dais when he heard me coming, and one glance at his rain-soaked misery urged me to move faster.

      If they’d force a five-year-old to kneel all day in the rain for blasphemy, what would they do to a disobedient fifteen-year-old fugitive? I couldn’t remember anyone else defying the Church so openly, except for … Clare Parker.

      My stomach clenched around my breakfast at the memory.

      One day, the year I was nine, Clare had refused to kneel for worship. They gave her three chances. When she still refused, Brother Phillip said refusing to recognize the Church’s authority was the first sign of possession. He called in an exorcist, and two hours later, Clare was sentenced. The exorcist said that since