Wildalone

  “These are the five Lagrange points in the sun-Earth system. They are regions in space where the pull between us and the sun creates a gravitational static, collecting floating wreckage from the cosmos much like water gathers at the bottom of a well. Anything caught inside that well will rotate with the Earth and the sun indefinitely, unless another pull of gravity interferes from outside. Here, in L4 or L5”—a small x appeared over two of the dots along the circle—“is where Theia is rumored to be floating still, after five billion years, in the form of leftover asteroids.”

  I tried to picture my mystery namesake and not get lost in Jake—in his voice, whose stories I could listen to endlessly; in his fingers that held the drawing of gravitational wells and cosmic secrets. “And this planet created the moon?”

  “So they say. Disturbed out of its equilibrium, Theia collided with Earth, then the debris from both coalesced into the moon. It’s known as the Theia hypothesis, and the part about the origin of Theia began right here.”

  “At Princeton?”

  “Yes. Belbruno and Gott. Gott is my thesis adviser.”

  “You are writing about all this?”

  “I wish I were!” The laughter cleared his eyes to a softer, almost transparent blue. “It would have made a fantastic thesis: Astronomy and the Greek Myths.”

  I thought he was making things up to provoke me, alluding to our chat by the Greek vases. “Jake, this isn’t funny.”

  “I’m not joking. Sort of eerie how everything is linked, right? Theia is the Greek Titan who gave birth to the moon goddess Selene—which is why your name is by far the best choice for the colliding planet. Every once in a while, though, an alternate name is thrown around: Orpheus.” He gave me a moment to absorb that last detail. “And it doesn’t make sense, because Orpheus has no connection to the moon. None whatsoever.”

  Maybe not to the moon, but he had a connection to me. So much, in fact, that hearing the name no longer shocked me. Orpheus—and through him, Elza—had permeated my entire life at school. Why would they miss my few moments with Jake under the dome of stars?

  “This reminds me what I wanted to show you.” He typed new digits into the panel, erasing the moon from it. The telescope went back into motion. Searched the sky. Stopped. “Constellation Lyra. The lyre of Orpheus. Not exactly the one from your vase, but still—”

  “Jake, would you mind if we . . . can we look at something else?”

  My request startled him but he didn’t ask anything, just changed the digits again. “Okay, how about my favorite piece of the sky? Here . . . take a look.”

  It was as if his eyes had left behind the stunning residue of their color: a cluster of stars imbued the night with a pale sapphire glow.

  “That’s the most luminous constellation in our hemisphere. And one of the closest to Earth.”

  “How close is ‘close’?”

  “Four hundred light-years.” He waited until I looked back at him. “Amazing, aren’t they?”

  “I never knew stars could be this color.” Nor eyes. Your eyes, the blue universe of their silence.

  “These are the Pleiades. They owe their color to a very fine interstellar dust through which they happen to be passing. It reflects blue light from all the younger stars.”

  “How old are the Pleiades?”

  “A hundred million years. About twice as much left to go.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then the gravity of the universe will take its toll, forcing the sisters to go their separate ways.”

  “Sisters?” Something about the way he had said that word gave me chills.

  “The Pleiades are seven sisters. Orion tried to woo them, but they fled from him until Zeus turned them into stars.” He looked through the telescope and adjusted the lens. “They should be easier to spot now. Do you see them, all seven?”

  This time the shapes emerged distinctly in the sky. A four-cornered diamond and a small triangle next to it, encrypted into dots that even a child could have connected within seconds.

  I asked him why one of the stars was less bright, the one at the very bottom.

  “That’s Merope, the youngest Pleiad. She barely shines because she is eternally shamed.”

  “For what?”

  “For falling in love with a mortal man.”

  His voice had become so quiet that I lifted my face from the eyepiece. “How can falling in love be shameful?”

  “Apparently it could be, to the Greeks.” He put the cap back on the lens. “Let’s go, I’ll take you to Forbes.”

  I would have loved to be with him longer. To walk in the moonshade of trees and buildings, all the way across campus, back to my room. But this was Jake. There could be no “back to my room” with him.

  While he was shutting down the telescope, I checked my phone and found a text from Rita: Dev did get persuaded. The answer to your question is yes.

  “Ready?” Jake was at the door, waiting to turn off the lights.

  “Thanks for showing me all this. But don’t worry about coming to Forbes. I’ve taken up enough of your time, and given that it’s Friday night—”

  “My time is yours whenever you need it.”

  Mine? Since when?! This was the guy who had wanted a dorm room just so he wouldn’t run into me at his own house. Now, all of a sudden, he was giving me astronomy tours and offering to walk back with me? Unless he had done it out of pity. Some vicarious guilt for what his brother—that same brother of his who so deserved happiness—was doing right now on the Street, behind my back.

  “Good night, Jake.”

  The staircase flew under my feet, the door of the building flung open for me, and the quiet Princeton night took me in, rushing my steps while I made up my mind—about Rita’s text, about Jake’s role in all of this, and about what those mocking stars must have known all along was going to happen next.

  “GOOD EVENING, MISS THEA. IS Master Rhys expecting you?”

  This had been a bad idea, I knew it the moment I saw the butler’s sullen face. He didn’t invite me in, didn’t move an inch from the door. Only glanced at the bike I had borrowed from Rita—it waited by the wall, ready to take me back.

  “I don’t believe Rhys is expecting me, no. This was a . . . spur-of-the-moment visit. Would you mind telling him I’m here?”

  He minded. It exuded from every pore of his being. But a voice echoed down the hallway:

  “Tell them I’ll be a minute, Ferry. I just need to find the damn—” Then he saw me and froze. “You?”

  The old man stepped aside, making way for Rhys to come out and close the door.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Good question. Clearly, I was no longer even allowed in his house. “I wanted to talk to you.”

  “About what?”

  “About everything you haven’t told me.”

  He tensed up—the instinct of an animal preparing for an ambush. “And what do you think that is?”

  “You know very well.”

  “I don’t. And I also don’t have much time. So whatever it is you came to talk about—say it.”

  His voice was calm but he left no doubt about the icy distance in it. I felt humiliated. Lower than those precious pebbles under his feet.

  “Thea, will you please tell me why you’re here?”

  “I can ask you the same thing.”

  “Me? This is my house!”

  “I thought you said you’d be gone.”

  “Plans change.”

  “Party plans?”

  He might have answered, but a rumbling noise stormed up the driveway and we were drenched in the glare of two giant headlights. An open jeep full of guys, louder than both the engine and the blasting music.

  One of them jumped out, only inches from me. “Nice! Who is she?”

  Rhys was already standing between us. “Get back in the car, Evan.”

  “Chill, man. I was just checking her out. She’s coming, isn’t she?”

  Rhys pushed him
back. “Get in the car and shut up!”

  The others were laughing, shouting things I tried not to listen to.

  “What’s your problem?” It was Evan who pushed Rhys this time. “I thought the rule was we don’t bring our own snacks to the picnic.”

  “I said shut up!” Rhys’s voice drowned the music, the engine, and any other sound still coming from the jeep. “Since when are you telling me what the rules are?”

  He grabbed Evan and hurled him back with such rage that the guy hit the front tire and collapsed on the gravel. The others watched. Rhys grabbed him again, pulled him up, and shoved him in the front seat.

  “You don’t make the rules, you fucking asshole!”

  Someone had stopped the music. The engine was now the only sound left.

  “Get the hell out of my house! Out!”

  They didn’t wait to hear it a second time. And neither did I. The moment that jeep drove off, I reached for the bike.

  “Hey—” He turned me around. The bike fell to the ground, tires spinning. “Sorry about all this. Let’s pretend it never happened.”

  “Pretend? As in get amnesia?” I pulled myself out of his arms. “It doesn’t work that way, Rhys.”

  He lifted the bike and leaned it back against the wall. “I already said I’m sorry. What more do you expect me to do?”

  “At this point—nothing.”

  “Come on, I don’t want to fight.” His voice was receding back to its disarming velvet. “Let’s finish this inside. Then I’ll drive you to Forbes.”

  And drop me off and be free? All according to plan.

  “I think the snack is leaving, Rhys. Have fun at your picnic.”

  Then I got on the bike and left. He shouted something after me—it sounded like a question, but I had no more answers for him.

  BEN OPENED THE DOOR AND his face flushed with relief. “Finally! I’ve been calling you all evening. Did Ivy Lane swallow you whole?”

  I skipped the explanations. “Is the invite to Boston still open?”

  “Of course it is.”

  “When are you driving there?”

  “Tomorrow, with the others. Why, what’s wrong?”

  “Would you mind if you and I left tonight instead?”

  “Tonight?” His eyes searched mine, cautiously. “I thought we were going to a party later.”

  “We were. I just . . . I really need to get out of this place, Ben.”

  It was obvious that my change of mind had nothing to do with him, but he didn’t hesitate. “Come, I’ll help you pack.”

  Then, without asking anything else, he headed down the hallway.

  CHAPTER 9

  Noche de Brujas

  BEN’S HOUSE WAS a historic brownstone in the heart of Boston’s Beacon Hill. It had belonged to several generations of his family—and still did, except now they had taken the form of hallway pictures, mostly faded.

  We arrived late. I had dreaded spending the night in someone’s home, by myself, upset at Rhys and his games. But I fell asleep as soon as my cheek touched pillow, and when I woke up, Ben was already downstairs, reading.

  “There she is!” He closed the book, looking refreshed and cheerful. “You must be starving. Ready to go explore the local flavors?”

  As we grabbed our coats, he asked which part of Boston I wanted to see first. I didn’t know much about the city. Mostly Harvard, and only from the Internet.

  “Harvard is not a bad idea, actually. We should check it out, so you know what you’ve been missing.” His hand traced an imaginary band of subtitles through the air: “A day in the life of Thea, had she gone to a certain other school.”

  Going to that “certain other school” might have been a safer bet, away from ritual-obsessed art professors, mysteriously vanished relatives, and elusive guys who came in doubles and lived in butler-run mansions. But I kept all this to myself, telling Ben I was ready for whatever part of Harvard he thought would cause me the most envy.

  That part turned out to be Harvard Square. Frantically alive, contagious, a cauldron of energy—nothing like its tame Princeton equivalent, Palmer. Three streets converged in the middle, cars dashing through: a giant star about to collapse in on itself. And wherever you looked, spilling from the campus gates, a dizzying kaleidoscope of people reconfigured its shape constantly.

  We bought sandwiches at a local deli and my tour began. Ben was an encyclopedia. School history. Names of buildings. Trivia that would have earned even a professional guide extra credit. But despite his vivid stories, the campus left me cold. There was none of the white-stone mystery; no cloisters, arches, or secret corners. Only redbrick structures, crowned with Harvard’s famous white bell towers.

  When I couldn’t take any more sightseeing, we went to Ben’s favorite café, Tealuxe, whose menu boasted more than a hundred types of tea. He found us seats by the window, next to an old typewriter and a display of tea sets.

  “This reminds me of Lewis Carroll.” I lifted one of the teapots: mint-green belly, curved like an inflated meadow over a chess-checkered base.

  “You’d make a fantastic Alice—if only you could learn to whine a bit! That girl does it all the time, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard you complain about anything.”

  “It would be weird if I did.”

  “Why? It’s not like everything here is perfect.”

  “Maybe it isn’t. But I can’t go around complaining just because I’m in a new country that confuses the hell out of me. Better try to figure it out first, right? I mean . . . there must be a reason things work the way they do.”

  “Not sure how much there is to figure out. You can always look for hidden subtext, but with us Americans what you see is usually what you get.”

  “Yeah, if only!” I laughed and took the teabag out of my cup. A smell of roses, pine, and berries filled the air. “So if I’m Alice, does that make you the Mad Hatter?”

  “I’m more of a Cheshire cat.” He flashed an exaggerated grin at me. “Except I suck at the vanishing act.”

  And thank God he did. Too many people in my life excelled at it lately.

  “Thea, does being in America really feel like Wonderland?”

  “Exactly like it. One wrong move, and they’ll chop my head off.”

  “No, seriously. That thing you said, about being confused—I can see why. New place, new crowd. Besides, Princeton is definitely not middle-of-the-road. It was a bit of an adjustment even for me, and I’ve lived in the U.S. all my life.”

  “You don’t seem confused by Princeton.”

  “I don’t?”

  “Not at all. Which is sort of like Wonderland. Everyone here seems so . . . sure of everything, as if they’ve never made a mistake and never will. Don’t you think that’s madness?”

  “Confidence isn’t a bad thing, just a survival tactic.”

  “Still . . . I like people who can be fallible now and then. We’re all human, you know? Might as well be humble about it.”

  While he looked for a response to this, his phone rang. He muted it, but saw who it was and decided to take the call. Said almost nothing for a while. Then hung up and gave me a long, guarded look.

  “That was Rita. I had several missed calls from her.”

  “Is everything okay? I didn’t get a chance to say good-bye.”

  He put the phone down—slowly, as if to minimize the sound it would make against the copper tabletop. “Who is Rhys?”

  I almost choked on the last sip of tea. “Why?”

  “Some guy named Rhys has been looking for you.”

  “Looking for me . . . where?”

  “Apparently, he couldn’t find you in your room and your cell kept going straight to voice mail. So he tracked down Rita and she told him you were in Boston.”

  “How does she know I’m here?”

  “I e-mailed her this morning. Maybe I shouldn’t have.” He rose from the chair. “Whoever that guy is, he wants you to call him. I’ll wait outside.”

  “Ben,
stay. I don’t have my phone anyway; I left it at your house. But even if I hadn’t—”

  “Here. Use mine.” He pushed it closer to me and wrote something on a napkin. “This is our address. He’ll probably ask for it.”

  “What are you talking about? Why would Rhys want your address?”

  “Rita said he left for Boston earlier today—something about an apology he owes you. By now he must be already in town. Come get me when you finish, I’ll be at the newsstand across the street.”

  I watched him walk away. And with that, my last chance of a peaceful fall break dissolved under the flash of the streetlights.

  BEN WAS RIGHT: RHYS DID ask for the address. And by the time we arrived at the house he was already there, waiting.

  The two of them exchanged curt greetings. Rhys had managed to suppress his dislike of my friend, although not enough to accept an invitation to come in.

  “Thanks. I mean it. But let’s not drag this out—I’ll wait here while Thea is getting her things.”

  “Why do you assume I’ll be getting anything?”

  “Because I’m not leaving without you.”

  To avoid an argument in front of Ben, I said nothing, just waited for him to go inside.

  Rhys checked his watch. “We’ve got fifteen minutes. Can you make it?”

  “Fifteen minutes until what?”

  “Until we have to be on the road.”

  “Rhys, I am not going anywhere.”

  He smiled and tried to put his arm around me. “Fine, I’ll take extra punishment if you want. Although, by most standards, the way you vanished on me today would have been sufficient.”

  “I wasn’t trying to punish anyone.”

  “No? Strange, then, that I should wake up this morning to find out my captive had become a fugitive. Why did you run away from me?”

  “From you? Does it cross your mind that not everything I do revolves around you?”

  “It does, it crosses my mind quite a bit. But does it cross your mind that everything I do revolves around you?”

  “Including last night?”

  “I’m sorry about last night.” The smile disappeared. “There are things I can’t change, Thea. Even for you.”