A Curious Moon

By Lauren Stark

Leo 𖤓 | Gemini ⏾ | Aquarius ↑

Oko looked down at their ba’s hand, which lay limp on top of their own in the sunset room. This hand had survived flood and fire, famine and revolt. It had rested suspended in serum on the ship that brought him to Elos, when he was only sixteen, and it had moved with purpose as he’d told stories and sown seeds and carved tools and cared for Oko and their sibling.

This hand had toiled to survive, to see that they would all survive, and to build a new world with his neighbors beyond the doomed planets of their birth. None of that work had kept him from this moment, here on Elos, his body as cool as it had been in that artificial death. And for all those hundreds of millions of miles he had traveled, for all the times he had disavowed his former world and the ideologies that broke it, in his last days, his mind had traveled back to his homeland, back to Terra.

Yorak was still, his breath slow and shallow, his lids flickering for a moment before squeezing closed, tensing in pain. Oko was alone with him while their ama prepared for the sharing. Each member of their rhizome who counted him a loved one would visit one last time, to say a final goodbye to him, and their sibling would be there soon. Some would come from one of the 163 other rhizomes on the verdant moon of Elos, relatives and friends and trading partners.

“Hi, Baba,” they said, unsure how to continue. “I’m sorry I didn’t make it here in time, when you were still awake. You know I don’t believe in spirits returning or anything like that. So this is probably it. But I heard you might be able to understand me, so I am going to give this a try.”  

Yorak’s brows moved together, as if listening in concentration, and then stilled. 

“I still have this,” they said, reaching into their satchel and pulling out a small canvas bag. “Do you remember giving it to me?”

His chest rose almost imperceptibly. 

“Of course you do. It’s been in my room, in one of the cups Ama made, since the day I left home.”

Oko wiped their cheek, breathing in to steady themself before opening the sack. They emptied it into their palm, turning its contents around with their fingers: a three-strand necklace of small white pearls, which their ba had given them years ago when they were preparing to move to their own rhizome community. It was unlike anything that could be made on Elos, covered as it was with lakes and rivers and forests but no oceans. The necklace had been his ama’s, three cords of pearls her own ba had purchased at a big box store in the years before the first collapse. It was the one precious non-essential object she had brought with her when she had escaped on the last ship from Terra.”

“I never knew what to do with it,” Oko continued, their hand sweeping underneath their eyes. “It felt like I had all of Terra – all of its wasted beauty and hateful systems – in that cup. I knew what Ama would say if she knew I had it, something about how we’re not consumerists. And I felt like having it, just having it, I was.”

Oko looked down at the pearls, moving them between their fingers, rotating them along their cord. 

“The last time I was here,” they continued. “You said you wished you’d never given them to me, that you should have given them to Arl, for his partner, that she would have worn them and appreciated them. You said that people – women of value on your planet wore these, that – that they signaled elegance and beauty, that I was no woman, that I was a soulless heathen, that I knew nothing of these things.” 

They looked down at Yorak’s eyes, still closed, his brows tensing and then releasing. Oko cleared their throat, trying to expel the venom of their ba’s words. “You said a lot of awful things, and it’s taken me time to make sense of them. You were never an easy parent, you know that? Even before you got sick. You always seemed like you had something to prove, like you had to be more of an Elosian than someone who had been born here, to distance yourself from the hierarchies of your home.”

They continued, smoothing the pearls between their fingers again: “Every morning, you would remind us. Share. Share and be shared. Everything and everyone.”

“And you were right, you were, in many ways. We were lucky to grow up here, in this world you made alongside the others of the first generations. To live somewhere that brought together the truths and freedoms of Ama’s planet and the lushness of your own. To always have enough and to know that your neighbor did, too. More than anything, it was good to know I had family beyond our rooms, all throughout our rhizome and beyond. I always assumed we really were related to each other, you know? Like all of the kids were my cousins, even though we didn’t live in a bunk house like Ama had growing up. Like every grown-up was my bibi.”

They looked out of the window onto the courtyard where their ama waited with the other members of the rhizome council, and beyond them to the shared kitchen and dining hall and other common spaces. In the distance, they could see their bibis hurrying to prepare for the sharing and the feast that would follow. 

Rubbing the pearls against their fingers again, they said, “The world you made together is a good one, Ba. I wish your mind had been able to stay here, with us, instead of returning there when you got sick, when your body —.” They troubled the pearls, searching for the right word. “I wish I had made it home in time, to be able to say this while you were awake. To be able to give these back to you, to be finally counted in the sharing. To be able to hear you say something in return.”

They smoothed their hair away from their face, breathing in and out the way they had learned from their bibis. Closing their eyes, they said what they had come to say: “I forgive you, Ba. I forgive you for forgetting everything you had learned here, and for the —”

The door opened, interrupting their words, and Oko looked up, expecting to see their sibling.

It was their ama who stood at the door, holding a mug of elomint tea. 

“Oko, I wanted to check in to make sure you’re alright. Your brother will be here soon. You should join us. Come out and drink something.”

Oko wiped their eyes, wondering how it was that they were the one crumpled by their ba’s bed with their ama offering them tea. 

“Sure, Ama,” they replied, stuffing the necklace into their pocket. Something snagged as they stood, and they heard a sound like dried lentils poured into a bucket. 

Seeing the concern on their face, their ama rushed to them, stopping short before the hundreds of tiny, moonlike spheres covering the ground around the hospital bed. 

“What are these?” she asked, placing the tea mug on the table and reaching down toward the pearls. 

“They were Ba’s,” Oko replied, before correcting themself. “Until he gave them to me.”

“I remember these,” Tavek said, inspecting the pearls as she rolled them around her hand. “His ama showed them to me once, but I never saw them again. I thought they must have been lost, or that I had forgotten them being taken for some other use at the sharing.”

Oko’s face reddened, realizing their complicity in their grandama’s secret, which had become their ba’s and now their own. 

“She gave it to him before she died, and then he gave it to me when I moved to a Green Valley rhizome.” They met their ama’s eyes. “I wanted to give them back to him, so that we could include them in the sharing.”

Tavek picked up more pearls from the ground, adding them to the pocket she had stitched in her overcoat, thinking as she piled them together. 

She stopped, looking up at her child, asking, “Is that still what you want to do?”

“Yes,” Oko replied, returning their ama’s gaze with as much confidence as they could muster. They did not want to disappoint her, now especially, and they braced themself for truth: that they had acted like a consumerist, like someone back on Terra, like a worm hoarding its treasures below the earth. 

Their ama said none of these things, not even that Oko should have told her. She picked up the last pearls from the floor and poured them in her pocket, handing her grown child the fragrant cup of tea from the table. 

Oko took it with their free hand, squeezing their ba’s hand one last time with the other. They willed their hand to convey their goodbye and every word left unsaid, before letting go and following their ama out the door. 

Their sibling arrived soon after, hugging his ama and sibling and bibis before joining his ba in the sunset room. 

Oko sipped their tea, leaning against their bibi Mevi’s shoulder, as they listened to their ama’s stories of Yorak’s last days. His condition had seemed to improve earlier in the week, his breathing easier and his mood lighter. There were moments where he had recognized Tavek and spoken fondly of their two children. At other times, he was back on Terra, but he seemed to be remembering the better days, between the floods and fires. He sang a song his own ama had taught him: “Mary wore three links of chain/ Every link was freedom’s name.”

“He always had the most beautiful voice,” Tavek added. “It was one of the first things I loved about him.”

“Yes, but he never sang the right words,” Oko said with a laugh, wiping another tear from their eyes. 

“He made the wrong ones sound good, though,” Tavek replied, laughing. “And he remembered those ones, the words of his ama’s favorite song.”

They both quieted their laughter, returning to the present moment. 

The door to the sunset room opened, and Oko’s sibling looked out, slowly shaking his head. A doctor followed him, walking forward to speak with Tavek and Yorak’s other partner. “I am so sorry,” she said. “He is gone.”

***

Kam entered the wellspace first, the circle parting to let him in, and his sibling followed close behind, honoring the tradition of children carrying the memories of their forebearers. They were not children anymore, of course, although Oko found it hard to believe that their sibling was partnered and living in another rhizome, instead of the room they had shared for so many years. 

They each carried a wooden tray of objects Yorak had collected over the course of his life: a few of Tevek’s cups, a doll Kam had made from the whitegrass lining the rhizome, a knife Oko had carved from the antlers of an elk they had found on a journey to Deep Lake, a shell from the drowned city of his birth, treasures from other partners, bibis, and friends. On Oko’s tray, there was a small bowl Yorak’s ba had made from river clay, and in it the pearls that had fallen from his ama’s necklace. 

“These things we give back to the wellspace, to the rhizome that nourishes us all, to be shared with our community,” they each said, placing the trays on the table at the center of the hall. 

They joined their bibis in the circle lining the wellspace, and one of the council members stepped forward to lead the ceremony. Oko recognized her as Elao, the bibi who had taught them to carve, an elder who must have been chosen for the council at the harvest draw. 

Elao bowed her head to the assembly, her neighbors and bibis.

“We grieve the departure of our friend, Yorak,” she said. “May his spirit journey freely, and may the elements of his life return to the well from which they came.”

The crowd nodded in agreement, Oko wondering where their ba’s spirit would be if it continued beyond his flesh at all. 

“Let us first share the nutrients of our memories of him,” the council member continued, gesturing to Yorak’s loved ones beside her in the circle. 

Kam spoke first, remembering his dawn walks through the wheatfields with his ba, when most of his family members were still asleep. He recalled the stories his ba shared from Terra near the end of his life, from the flooding of his seaside town to the famine that finally drove them from the planet. 

Oko followed, sharing a memory of their first trip to Deep Lake, where he taught them to swim. The crowd laughed as Oko recalled the sea shanties from his planet, which Yorak would sing by the fire late at night, adding nonsense names and lines in place of the words he had forgotten. 

Their ama and Yorak’s other partner followed, along with his other bibis and friends. They remembered his dedication to Elos, his love for his family, his humor and wit. No one spoke of those last few weeks, the monstrous remnants lurking beneath the surface of the lake, bubbling up from his past.

When the memories had been shared, Elao presented the trays to the community for sharing. The elders of the council would distribute them according to the needs that had emerged that year: the doll to a family with a new child, the sturdy cup to a bibi who had recently moved from another rhizome. They did not say what would be done with the pearls. 

Before distributing these items, they paused to ask if any of Yorak’s loved ones objected to the distribution. 

“Is there anything you request to keep?” asked the council member.

There was no reply, and the council member opened her mouth to continue before Kam interrupted: “These pearls,” he said. “I would like to give them to Arl, so that they may stay in our family, continuing the tradition of my ba’s people. That is what he wanted in the end.”

Oko looked over toward him in horror.

“They are indeed beautiful,” replied the council member. “What is the tradition of your ba’s people that you wish to continue?” she asked with curiosity.

“The people – amas and others they called women – of my ba’s people would wear these,” he said. “It emphasized their beauty, their status in the community, and my ba was right to say that there is no one more pleasing to the eye or giving in my rhizome than Arl.”

“I see,” said the council member. “And what does Arl say to this?”

Further down the circle, Arl stepped forward. “I would be honored to weave a thread of whitegrass for these pearls, and to wear them,” she said. “We have nothing like these elements on Elos, and it seems good to honor the customs of Yorak’s people, and his final requests.”

“Yes, we honor Yorak and his people,” the council member replied. “But we also honor our communities and customs. How is it that these pearls have stayed in your family for two generations? We on the council are sure they have not been presented at the sharing before.”

Oko stepped forward. “He gave them to me,” they said. “When I moved to a Green Valley rhizome. He said that his ama had given them to him, and that he wanted me to have them. He said that I would carry our family with me when I wore them, and one of the last treasures of his world.”

“And he changed his mind?” asked the council member.

“He did,” Oko said, weighing how much to say. “I returned the necklace to him in the sunset room, but he was already unconscious. I do not know what he wanted to do with it in the end, whether he would have still given it to my sibling or left it for the sharing in keeping with our customs.”

The council member nodded. 

“Customs are significant,” she said. “The people of our planet have all fled from other worlds, bringing memories and traditions, some of them material, connected to beautiful objects like these pearls.” Looking over to Kam and Arl, she continued, “You are right to recognize them.”

Oko’s throat tightened as they remembered Yorak’s words the last time they spoke. A necklace given to a woman of value. 

“But in building a new world, we have the chance to consider whether the customs we carry still serve us, and to create, to re-create, our own. As you know, Kam and Arl, this has allowed us to release some of the trappings of our peoples’ previous worlds: hierarchism, ethnocentrism, consumerism, inflexibility. These gatherings allow us to consider which traditions we want to transplant into the rich soil of our planet, and which to compost, returning them to the source from which they came.”

Arl and Kam looked over to each other, and Oko knit their brows, following the linguistic and theoretical turns of the council elder. 

“We have spoken with elders who were born on Terra, weighing the traditions they carry, and those we have decided to abandon or create together here on Elos. As you say, Arl, these pearls were worn by some people on Terra, but not everyone. They were objects of beauty, but also markers of hierarchies of gender and caste, reinforcing systems of power and subjugation. These may be unfamiliar concepts to those of you who did not grow up on Elos. Even gender, which we know as a fluid marker of selfhood here, was considered inherent, fixed, and value-laden for many peoples on Terra.”

Oko’s chest tightened again, preparing themself for the council’s decision. They had dreaded the possibility of Arl wearing the pearls, a reminder of their ba’s degeneration and cruelty at the end of his life. Now, they were also dreading the possibility of the pearls being destroyed, as previous councils had decided with some artifacts of hierarchies on their worlds. These were their grandama’s pearls, and she had loved them and given them with love, whatever they had meant on Terra. 

The council member resumed her speech, saying, “Based on these conversations, we have made a decision. The pearls –”

“Excuse me,” interrupted Kam. “Before you state your decision, we want to clarify: these pearls can mean something new to us, if we keep them. We can redefine them, Arl and I.”

“You are excused,” replied the council member with a thin smile. “And I agree completely. We can redefine them. There were 180 pearls on the three-stranded necklace, and there are 164 rhizomes on Elos. We will weave a whitegrass cord with one of the pearls for each rhizome, to be worn by a council member at the monthly meeting. Spirit willing, every member of every rhizome will be a council member at one point in their lives, bringing the wisdom of their experiences and the stories of their peoples. Arl will wear one of Yorak’s ama’s pearls, and so will Oko, and Kam, and every person in this room. The rest of the pearls will be saved for new rhizomes or other uses unforeseen.”

Oko breathed out, their chest loosening. One day they would wear one of their ba’s pearls, and they would wear it proudly as themself, on the new moon, the green world that they loved. One day they would step forward to consider and create the customs of their people.

Lauren Stark is a co-constructor of other worlds, imagining otherwise through teaching, writing, and community organizing. A 2025 graduate of Viable Paradise, she has studied fantastic fiction at the Tin House Summer Workshop, Tin House Online Speculative Workshop, and the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. A radical educator and leader, she has a PhD in the social foundations of education and has published dozens of articles on educator social movements. She can be found covered in ink and spilled tea on unceded Wabanaki lands in the U.S. and Canada.