I was still pretty proud of myself for learning to fly.
“Where’s your friend going?” Rachel asked. She put our orders down on the table.
“He’s got go meet someone really quick,” I said. And with Elysian gone, I had my appetite back, I noticed.
“Do you want a box for his sandwich?”
I glanced over at the door, where Mikey had just made his exit. “Probably a good idea.”
As I was looking toward the entrance, I saw Rachel’s painting, the one she’d gotten for her wedding. Looking at it, one would never know it had been smashed up recently, I thought.
“I’ll go and get that for you,” Rachel said, barraging through my thoughts.
“Rachel, who does all your paintings here?” I asked. “They’re really good.”
When I didn’t get a response, I turned to see she’d already left. Oh well, I thought. I’ll ask her when she comes back with Mikey’s box.
That was the plan, anyway.
Until the moment I saw Orpheus standing in front of Rachel’s Café, peering through the windows.
☼
14 ☼
More Pleasure
“What in the world made you think coming here was a good idea?” My voice was carefully controlled, but the steely grip I had on Orpheus’ frock was shaking with near-rage.
“Please, don’t hurt me, Wingdinger, sir,” Orpheus begged. “I was just looking for you.”
“Why?”
I felt much better about my decision to cut around back and transform into Wingdinger. It had been a bit of a risk to make sure Orpheus didn’t see me in my regular self—I didn’t care if Aleia was all for defending him or not, I didn’t trust him and that was that—but it had paid off.
My wings, now able to light up and fly under my control, had burned out and captured Orpheus with a quick swoop and a dodge back into the alleyway.
Maybe it worked too well, I thought. Orpheus, no longer corrupted by Alküzor’s power, seemed to be a bit of a wuss.
I put him down, not gently, and repeated my question. “Why are you looking for me?”
“Aleia wanted me to let her know if there was anything I should happen to see,” he said. “I’ve been working with the different priests and monks from the church for several months now. And we were just on an inner city mission trip when I happened to see Starry Knight flying through the air.”
“Today?” I asked.
“A few minutes ago,” he said. “She was heading toward Lakeview Observatory.”
She must be checking in on the meteorite again. “Why did you want to tell me that?” I asked. “Aleia wouldn’t care.”
“Aleia can’t always check in on everyone, you know,” Orpheus told me. “She has to get permission from Alora to be able to see people.”
“Alora’s stingy with her power?” I asked.
“Not that, but sometimes Alküzor’s powers, as well as other Stars, have managed to hide themselves from her.”
“Well, you would know,” I said. “You were talking to one of his operatives before last spring, weren’t you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, but his eye, black and dark, went wide with fear.
“I knew there was something wrong about you,” I said suspiciously.
“Please, please, don’t ask me anything,” he said. “Alküzor’s powers are great. We fear him, you know, even as we followed him.”
“What do you mean?”
“We were convinced to follow him,” Orpheus said. “We gave up so much in following him. At first, it was freeing to see what he had to offer us. But we eventually realized he was taking things from us and giving us nothing substantial in return.” He shook his head. “He promised me a future of love, and I only have sadness now. He is dangerous. Exceedingly clever, and excessively dangerous.”
I sighed. I didn’t want to deal with Orpheus. I didn’t like him, I didn’t know how I could have ever liked him, and I certainly didn’t care how he ended up the way he was when I wasn’t even sure if he had really changed or not. “I’ll go and check in with Starry Knight and see what she’s up to. Go find Aleia and tell her what you told me. She’s at the Time Tower at the moment.”
“Thank you,” Orpheus said. “She admires you quite a bit. I hope we will become friends again.”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” I muttered, watching as he scampered off.
My wings flashed and flapped, and I watched as the city grew smaller as I headed out of the alleyway toward Lakeview Observatory.
Flying turned out to be much more fun than I could have ever thought it would. It also turned out to be much faster, and less work than I anticipated. I arrived at Lakeview just in time to see the visiting hour sign go dark and the security guards go through a shift change.
Was Logan working? I hoped he was, on some level, because he seemed to get along well with my Wingdinger persona. On other levels, the ones where I wanted to spend time with Starry Knight, I didn’t want him to show up.
Before our rift in the springtime, we had managed to find out where the meteorite was being held in the building. It was in one of the research labs, in a display case.
The meteorite had been pretty big upon entering the atmosphere. Before it landed, it had whittled away into an awkward cubic foot or two of blackish rock, the largest piece of which had slammed into the ground right in front of Rosemont Academy.
I figured it was a good place to start looking.
It didn’t take me long. I had a happy moment, when, minutes later, I found a figure hunched over the meteorite’s case.
Yes, I found her. That was easy.
I was about to call out when the figure shifted, and I could see it wasn’t Starry Knight at all. It was Logan.
He was carrying a tablet, and in the light of the screen I could tell he was deeply focused on the readings he was getting. He waved a little stick out in front of him and, after another hard, studious look, he wrote down some scribbles on the screen.
I decided it was safe enough to approach him. “Hi, Logan.”
“Wingdinger,” he said. He never took his eyes off the meteorite, but I saw him give a small smile along with his greeting. “It’s nice to see you again. I hope I’m not in any danger this time?”
“I don’t know. Are you?” I asked. “You’re not finding out that that thing is radioactive all of a sudden, are you?”
He laughed. “There’s no harm in it. That we know of, anyway.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“There’s a definite radiation signature to it, but it’s so low you almost wouldn’t notice it if it wasn’t so . . . ”
“Interesting?” I offered.
“That might be a good word for it, but I was thinking along the lines of something more new or unique.” He finally turned around and faced me. “The radiation from this meteorite is a mirror image of the universe’s radiation signature.”
“Uh . . . ”
Logan laughed. “The universe has specific radiation waves that it gives out. The bigger satellites we use can pick up on the microwave radiation waves, but I’m more focused on the background infrared radiation.” Noticing my still-confused look, he added, “It’s one of the confirming scientific elements behind the Big Bang theory.”
He pointed to a poster on the wall. “So the universe, when it came into being, immediately started growing. There’s a radiation signature inside the universe. This meteorite would carry some infrared light absorption, given its charted trajectory. But it’s actually carrying some radiation completely opposite of that.”
“So it’s from outside the universe.”
I finally got one right. I celebrated silently as Logan grinned.
“That’s the hypothesis I think is most likely,” he admitted. “But the matter of proving it is extremely unlikely.” He turned his attention to a darkened screen that showed the night sky over Apollo City. “I’ve talked it over with some of my professor
s and queried other experts on the matter. Many have laughed it off.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “Science is supposed to be open-minded about these things, isn’t it?”
“Sure it should be,” Logan said. “But it gets complicated when it comes to funding.”
“When it comes to people, more likely,” I said. “Greed is a powerful incentive.”
“Yeah,” Logan agreed. “You probably have the right of it.” He turned back to the meteorite. “But you have to realize, if I am right, that means there might be proof of another dimension out there, and that’s too much for some people to believe; and others, well . . . their thoughts on the matter are so strong they don’t need proof.”
“Even if the rest of the scientific community does.”
“Yes.”
I nodded. “Belief does make you uncomfortable,” I thought, recalling my own process of acceptance and agreement with my Starlight Warrior destiny. “Especially if it’s true.”
“Yes. Just because you believe something, doesn’t make it true.” Logan sighed. “I’ll have to remember that while I do my data analysis.”
“No bias,” I reminded him.
“Exactly.” He grinned at me. “So, what did you really come here for? I imagine it wasn’t for me to give you an impromptu lecture on physical cosmology.”
“No, it wasn’t,” I agreed, “though I enjoyed it nonetheless.” I frowned as a new pathway of questioning suddenly revealed itself. “I was wondering if you could tell me about why the mayor is so interested in the meteorite. I know he has regular check-ups on it.”
“I’m not entirely sure why,” Logan admitted. “I thought the mayor’s office was interested in it for the financial appeal—you know, setting it up on a display and making people pay to see it, and things like that.”
“Mayor Mills does seem to want to do a lot as far as the revenue of the city is concerned,” I agreed, thinking of how there had been protestors outside of City Hall from time to time. “There are a lot of people who need jobs.”
“Well, yes, of course,” Logan agreed. “But Dr. Harbor, one of my professors at the college, has been working on a way to chart the meteorite’s pathway.”
“Dr. Harbor?” Jason’s dad.
“Yeah. He’s an adjunct at the college right now. He was the one who figured out the radiation waves were a mirror-image pattern of the universe’s regular waves.” Logan pulled out a chart and wrote a few figures down. “He told me that the mayor was interested in seeing where the meteorite had come from so we could work to prevent it from happening again.”
“Make sense.”
“That’s the thing though. If you didn’t know much about astronomy, you wouldn’t realize that the odds of that happening are so slim, it’s practically nonexistent,” Logan said. “I mean, it was a tragedy, and I’m properly horrified that people were hurt, but it was something that happened and won’t likely happen again. There’s no point in spending the money, if you ask me.”
“I guess I don’t know much about astronomy,” I admitted.
“Don’t beat yourself up,” Logan replied. He smiled. “Not too many superheroes really have to worry about it.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “There are plenty of superheroes from the comics that have to fight space invaders and other supernova-level disasters. It might do me some good to brush up on the subject.”
“Couldn’t hurt, when you put it that way. I’ll be here if you need a reference.”
I paused, looking at the meteorite. It was ugly and crude looking, but it must have held a lot of secrets of the universe as it passed by.
I recalled what Dante had said at the indictment hearing. There had been a way to predict the attacks. Could it have something to do with the radiation? I wondered.
“Can you see the radiation from the meteorite anywhere else?” I asked.
“Not usually.” Logan shrugged. “Sometimes we’ll get a reading on it from time to time in other parts of the city. It could be an instrument failure, or it could just be an anomaly. Radiation’s tricky.”
After carefully scrutinizing Logan’s studious face, I decided to trust him. “I heard that there was a way to track the attacks on the city.”
“Really?” Logan’s interest was piqued.
“Yes. Do you know anything about it?”
“No. Please let me know if you find anything out.” Logan shuddered. “I’d be more than happy to avoid another attack if I could.”
A new voice spoke out from behind us. “You shouldn’t have to worry about that.”
I nearly groaned to myself; I didn’t want to buy into all the sappy romance stuff, especially having acknowledged to myself that I was in love and everything, but I had to admit, my heart jumped happily when I saw Starry Knight make her way over to us.
“Wingdinger is right. More people than ever are watching over the meteorite.”
“Do you know how they’re predicting attacks?” I asked.
“Probably using the radiation signature like Logan said.” Starry Knight came over. “This meteorite was the result of a star exploding; one from the edge of the universe. It wouldn’t surprise me to know there’s a trail from the hole it created to where it landed here in Apollo City.”
“Dr. Harbor will be ecstatic to hear that,” Logan cheered. “Although he might question where I got the support for it.”
“Then you created the hole in Time’s power,” I said, as I realized the full power of what Starry Knight was saying. “The hole she is upset about breaking through her power.”
“Yes,” she admitted. “Alora has never been apt to forgive me for it, either.”
“But it was just as much my doing as yours.”
“She probably preferred to blame me for it entirely,” Starry Knight said with a shrug.
“I don’t know what you guys are talking about,” Logan remarked, allowing me to recall he was still there.
“Sorry,” I muttered. “Do you mind leaving us?”
“I’d love to hear the story, if you don’t mind.”
“Later,” Starry Knight replied. “You might do better not knowing about it until the monsters are eliminated.”
Logan looked a bit perturbed, but he left us alone, saying he had to get all the new readings into the records anyway.
I waited until he was gone from the room before saying anything. I actually waited a few moments longer, so I could regain my wits. Logan’s surprise lecture and Starry Knight’s sudden appearance made me forget I’d come to confess my love in the clearest terms.
“So . . . ” Starry Knight started to say something to me. She peered down at her hands and avoided my gaze entirely for a full minute. “I have something I want to say—”
“I’m in love with you, too.”
Goodness knows I would never have the courage to tell her that if I was rejected before I could even get it out.
Starry Knight just looked at me, a bit shocked.
I carefully, cautiously continued, “I’m not happy with you on some things—things which we’ve discussed before. And I’m not sure I trust you yet—”
“It would be better if you don’t.”
Anger, predictably, stirred inside of me. “Why do you say that? And why now?” I asked. “Does how I feel really mean so little to you?”
“You don’t get it,” she whispered. “I want nothing more than for you to be safe and happy. And falling in love with me will not make that happen.”
“Safety and happiness?” I shot back. “Do you really think I’m that shallow?”
“Anyone can be that shallow.”
“I’m not going to give up on love for a life of comfort and ease,” I said. “It’s not guaranteed anyway.” I reached for her hand. “How do you know I’m not giving up something greater if I walk away from you?”
“It would be better,” she said.
“Why?”
“Don’t you see? Our love brought us here.” Starry Knight
gestured around. “We are here on Earth because of our love.” Her hand reached up and cupped my cheek gently. “I already lost you once. I can’t lose you again.”
Her words were poignant and beautiful, even if they were absurd.
“You would stay away from me to keep from losing me?” I almost laughed. “You have a problem with irony, don’t you?”
“You could still fall in love with a human,” she insisted. “And that would make you turn into a full human. Your power would go away, but you would be happy.”
“I already told you, I don’t want to be happy, I want to be with you!”
And before I could realize my own absurdist twist, or she could object, I leaned in and kissed her again.
She exhaled as her lips met mine; I felt her relax against me, even though she was trying to put on a show of strength. It was endearing and sweet, and totally useless. I could feel her uncertainty about the situation, but I knew she loved me.
Power surged through me, my body incapable of holding it all in. The storm of fearlessness and joy battered on inside of my soul, moving me to new worlds and across the planes of unknown paradigms, even as my physical being was still and unmoved.
A sharp knocking noise from across the room caught us off guard.
“Who’s there?” I called.
“I don’t see anyone,” Starry Knight whispered. Her hands fell into mine as I turned my attention back to her.
“Maybe it was my imagination,” I said.
“I doubt it.”
“Maybe it was Logan.”
“Probably.”
“I don’t want to talk anymore.” I leaned back toward her. “I want to kiss you again.”
Fear squeezed her heart as her hands clenched mine. “We should stop.”
“We haven’t even started,” I promised her.
“But that’s it,” she said. “You still don’t know me. You don’t know who I am anymore.”
“So? There’s bound to be a bit of a learning curve,” I said. “You didn’t know about the Prince and all the supernatural stuff until you were seven, right? Well, I didn’t know until last year. And we’re doing okay.”
Remembering (The Starlight Chronicles Book 4) Page 11