Moon (Glimpsing Stars, 1.5) Read Online Free PDF Page B

time; there is food spoiling somewhere. I can smell it. When
I leave here, it will cling to me for days.
    “Yes.”
I peel her fingers off me, one by one, and step aside.  “It’s why I’m here. You
have to be ready. Wash up.”
    Her
face breaks into a smile, her small eyes almost disappearing into folds of
sallow skin. Her hands ball into fists and she hurries off to the washroom.
    My
mother thinks that, because I work at BoTA, I will one day bring her a magic
ticket to the ships. She does not realize that there are other considerations.
Considerations she happens to be failing. It is apparent with a single glance
at her that she is not fit to emigrate.
    My throat
constricts as I remember her eager face, her fevered eyes as she’d promised me
that the day we spied on Neptune would be one I’d remember forever. I remember
her shining pride the day I was accepted into BoTA. I push those thoughts away,
imagining a box deep inside my chest into which I dump them and turn a key. These
are thoughts that must never be revisited. Today is the day I bid goodbye to
them all.
    I
wait a moment to make sure my mother is fully engaged, and then I stride to the
telephone. It is the same one I’d used to call the information line about
Neptune five years ago. My mother had stood eagerly beside me then, her hand
clamped on my skin, infusing me with her strength and sureness.
    I
push the button and wait.
    “Name
of dissident.”
    “This
is Moon Stewart of BoTA requesting an emergency arrest for Venus Stewart.”
    “Certainly,
Miss Stewart. Her crime?”
    “Insanity.”
    “Noted.
The Escorts are on their way. Thank you for your service to New Amana.”
    I
put the phone gently back in its cradle and sit on the sofa to wait.
    Did
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