There Once Were Stars by Melanie McFarlane

thick black line outlining her eyes. The other is a man, though I can’t pin down his age, gray hair along his flat forehead, outlining his face. It matches the moustache under his nose. Whereas her clothes are smoothly pressed, his are wrinkled, matching his wild hair.
    All three of them lean toward me, as if I have the answer they’ve been waiting for. I ignore them for a moment and break open the shell of my hardboiled egg, but I have to eventually give an answer. Mom’s notebook mentioned taking her children somewhere, away from the colony. I can’t remember exactly where, but water flowed there.
    “Is there water somewhere near, a creek, or river or something like that?” I keep my voice quiet.
    “I followed one here.” Evan says. I look up from my egg, but he’s looking at the others.
    “I know where that is, but they will not allow us to go that far,” the male scientist says. “Perhaps once we have a few trips under our belt?”
    Discouraged, I return my focus to peeling the shell from my egg. I don’t know why they asked. What do I know about the outside?
    “I agree,” the other scientist nods her head. Her voice comes out as steely as her blue eyes. “Roe’s already decided we’re going to the meadow. It’s not too far, and we can stay in the view of the dome.”
    I jerk my head up. A meadow? Mom mentioned that somewhere in her pages, but what was it about? In some ways I wish I still had her notebook.
    The woman extends her hand to me. “I’m Cardinal. Gloria Cardinal. This is Karl Waldorf.”
    I shake her hand. “I’m—”
    “We know.” Cardinal cuts me off before grabbing her food tray and standing. “See you back in the lab.”
    Waldorf scrambles to gather his things. “We’ll be working together this afternoon, Greyes.” He offers a reassuring smile and then disappears out the door.
    “How’s your food?” Evan asks. “You haven’t stopped playing with your egg.” A smile plays at the edge of his lips, making the sides of his eyes wrinkle. He leans back in his chair, relaxing his broad shoulders, as he taps a finger on the table. A scar runs across the back of his hand, slightly lighter than his bronzed skin.
    “What happened there?” I point.
    His finger stops tapping and his round eyes narrow as he holds his hand out, examining his hand as if noticing the mark for the first time. His lower lip sticks out for a second, before his gaze returns to mine. “Just being a kid, doing stupid things kids do.”
    “Is that why you call me kid? Because you think I do stupid things?”
    He purses his lips together in a frown, drawing the skin tight along his chiseled cheeks. He opens his mouth, about to say something, and then shakes his head. “I can’t help it if you’re younger than me.”
    “Only by two years!”
    “Don’t worry about it, Greyes,” Evan says.
    “Greyes?” I say raising an eyebrow. “You sound like the others now.”
    “That’s the idea, isn’t it?” He looks around the room, scanning the other scientists. The frown returns to his face and his hands ball into fists on the table. Though his eyes reveal nothing, I know he’s dropped his façade and for that moment shown me a glimmer of his true self. He turns back to me, his face softening but his voice trails off, without emotion. “Put us all together in this tower, and mold us into one functioning unit for the dome. Keep the Order in order and all that. I’ve heard it before.”
    “You have?”
    He stares into my eyes as he leans forward. The entire room disappears around me as I focus on what he’s about to say. “Don’t you like being called Greyes ? I thought it suited you better than kid ?” A flash in his eyes shows he’s returned to his old self, but he completely ignores my question.
    I can’t help but smile. “I like Nat the best. What do I call you, then?”
    “I like it when you call me Evan ,” he whispers. “It rolls off your lips just right.”
    A tiny gasp escapes my