Starcrossed

by Josephine Angelini

  snapped out of her morose reverie.

  “Seeing him? Every time I look at him I want to tear my eyes

  out,” Helen replied honestly.

  “There! Right there! That’s what I don’t get,” Claire exclaimed.

  “You have never hated anyone before, not even Gretchen who’s

  been nasty to you since fifth grade. You just walked away from her

  like it was nothing, and you used to be just as close to her as you

  were to me. But this thing with you and Lucas? It’s eating you up!

  You have been so angry since he moved here. I don’t understand it

  at all. It’s like the only explanation that makes sense is what everyone’s

  been saying.” Claire stopped herself abruptly.

  “What is everyone saying?” Helen asked, pulling up short. They

  had been jogging at a slow pace to begin with, but Helen needed to

  get a straight answer. She forced Claire to stop and look at her.

  “What are they saying?” she repeated. Claire sighed and got it over

  with.

  “That you and Lucas met randomly on the beach right before

  school started and slept together. Then he lied to you and said he

  was just on vacation so he wouldn’t have to call you. That’s why

  you flipped out when you saw him in the hallway, because he used

  you and you were in love with him.”

  “Wow. That’s pretty dramatic,” Helen said, feeling detached.

  “Yeah, but is it true?” Claire said, her eyes pleading. Helen sighed

  and put her arm around Claire, leading her to a walk.

  “First of all, Lucas and I never even met before that day in the

  hallway, let alone slept together. Secondly, I would have told you if

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  I’d even kissed another boy since the disaster with Matt in the

  closet in seventh grade. Third, and probably most important, I was

  never as close to Gretchen as I am to you. You’re my best friend,

  Gig.” Helen squeezed her until Claire gave in and smiled. “I’ve

  been strange lately, I know it, and I’m really sorry. Some weird

  stuff is going on with me. I want to tell you everything about it, but

  I can’t because I don’t understand it yet. So please, please just stay

  on my side, even if I am angry and miserable all the time.”

  “You know I’m always on your side, but do you want me to be

  completely honest?” Claire stopped again and turned to face Helen.

  “I know I’m supposed to say that this is nothing, and that it will all

  work itself out, and feed you all that supportive nonsense, but I

  can’t. I don’t think this is going to get better on its own, and I’m

  worried about you.”

  After track practice, Helen went to hold down the store. She had

  offered to give Louis the night off so that his marathon weekend

  manning the store while Kate and Jerry were in Boston would start

  on a full night’s rest.

  Customers were still looking at her funny as news of her meltdown

  made its way to every year-rounder on the island, but she

  had too much to do to get bent out of shape about it. By the time

  she was done cleaning and setting everything up for Louis in the

  morning it was after midnight.

  There was a moment while she was locking up and walking to the

  Pig when she was alert and listening for danger, but it passed by

  the time she was backing out and on her way home. She had been

  cautious, but that didn’t matter. It was after she had parked in her

  driveway and was walking toward her house that she got jumped.

  The first thing she felt was gratitude. At least the Delos clan had

  waited until Jerry was safely out of the way before they came to kill

  her. A wiry arm wrapped around her neck, simultaneously pulling

  back and pressing down until Helen fell to her knees. Her breath

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  was cut off, and she was bent forward in such a way that she could

  see nothing of the person behind her. She wondered who had won

  that whole “she’s mine” argument, Lucas or Hector? White and

  blue blobs bloomed across her field of vision from lack of oxygen.

  Then she pictured her dad coming home to find her dead body in

  the driveway, and she knew that no matter how outnumbered she

  might be, she had to fight back. She couldn’t let him lose another

  person he loved. He’d never get over it.

  Helen crooked her arm and rammed her elbow into her attacker’s

  solar plexus with every bit of juice she had in her tank. She heard

  the person suck wind and then she felt herself get dropped. The

  heels of her hands scraped against the ground as she stopped her

  forward momentum. She took two deep breaths before she looked

  up, surprised that one of the others hadn’t jumped in to secure her.

  Lucas stared down at her, his right arm thrown out and gripping

  Hector by the shirt. Strangely, Hector was looking over his

  shoulder—away from Helen. She barely had time to register that

  fact before Lucas spoke. As he did the Furies began wailing behind

  him. Helen wondered why it had taken this long for them to show

  up, but she didn’t have a chance to dwell on it.

  “Jason! Ariadne! Bring her back alive,” he commanded, stressing

  the word alive as he looked pointedly at Hector. The twins took off

  in the same direction Hector had been looking. Helen took that

  moment to jump up and run for her life.

  She had never tried to run at full speed before. She’d always

  known that if she did she would discover every nightmare she had

  ever had about herself was true. Monster, freak, animal, witch: all

  of the names she had whispered to herself when she did something

  impossible would come gushing to the surface if she ever let herself

  loose. But when she heard Hector snarl her name she didn’t think

  about what it would mean, or how it would feel, to run as fast as

  she could. She just did it.

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  Something led her out onto the moors. The dark, flat lands that

  stretched out under the color-bleaching light of the moon were

  somehow safer than the roads and the houses of her community. If

  she was going to die, it would be alone, with no weak normals sacrificing

  themselves to save poor Helen Hamilton, their lifelong

  neighbor and friend.

  If she was going to turn and fight, she wanted to be under the

  broad, low sky of the uninhabited parts of her island and not

  hemmed in by the quaint shingle-sided whalers. She went west,

  across the northern side of her island, the calm waters of Nantucket

  Sound sighing somewhere off to her left, and Lucas and Hector

  calling her name from behind. They were gaining on her.

  Helen crossed Polpis Road, skirting Sesachacha Pond until she

  saw the true Atlantic, not its calmer cousin, the Nantucket Sound,

  but the wild water at the end of the continent. She needed to hide,

  but the land was flat and open and the air was clear and bright.

  Helen looked out over the dark waves sparkling like inky tinfoil in

  the moonlight and begged for some kind of mist or haze to come

  and cover her. That damn ocean owed her for almost taking her life

  as a child, she thought hysterically, and it should pay. After a few

  more huge strides, Helen’s plea w
as miraculously answered. She

  ran north up the coast, out onto the uninhabited sand spit on the

  northern tip of the island, into a damp, salty fog.

  In the wet air, Helen could hear her pursuers even more clearly,

  and she knew they could hear her better, too. Panicked and exhausted,

  she blindly tossed herself into the fog and asked her body

  to go even faster. On the edge of collapse, she felt her body grow

  light and her labored breathing unexpectedly eased up. The jarring

  impact on her joints and spine from her gargantuan strides ended

  abruptly. She was still moving, but she no longer felt anything except

  the cold and the wind that spun her hair into whips. She burst

  through the edge of the fog and saw nothing but darkness and stars

  around her. There were stars everywhere. She looked down.

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  Below her were twinkling lights outlining the edges of a familiar

  sideways comma in the middle of the ocean. Looking around for

  the airplane that would normally be housing her body at this altitude,

  Helen saw her limbs floating in the air, buoyant and sinuous

  as if they were submerged in water. She looked down again and

  realized that the twinkling comma was her beautiful little island

  home. Her vision contracted into a narrowing tube of blackness.

  Without a sound, she fainted and fell out of the sky that had so recently

  claimed her.

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  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  .....................................................................

  Chapter Six

  It was nighttime in the dry lands. Helen was surprised that

  there was such a thing as time here. It confused her so much

  that she glanced around, uncertain as to where she was.

  After a few moments she decided that, yes, she was in the

  dry lands, but this time the hilly terrain was flatter and

  more open. The dark, empty sky seemed lower and heavier somehow.

  Then she looked over her shoulder. It took her a few moments

  to understand what she was seeing.

  Miles away, there was a line across the land and sky, where the

  flat nightscape turned back into the more familiar, hillier dayscape.

  The different time zones sat next to each other like two

  paintings in an artist’s studio—unmoving, unchanging, and both

  equally as real. Here, time was a place and it never moved. Somehow

  that made sense.

  Helen walked. It was cold in the night version of the dry lands,

  and her teeth chattered uselessly. In the dayscape, there was no

  relief from the heat, so Helen knew that in the nightscape there

  would be no warmth no matter how much she rubbed her arms

  and shivered. She saw someone up ahead. He was panicking.

  She hurried forward until she could see that it was Lucas. He

  was on his hands and knees, feeling around as if he were

  blind—grabbing at the sharp stones, cutting his hands on their

  edges. He was very afraid. She called out to him, but he couldn’t

  hear her. She knelt down next to him and took his face in her

  hands. He flinched away from her at first and then reached out

  blindly with relief. He mouthed her name, but no sound came out.

  In her arms, he felt very light. She made him stand up even

  though he was so frightened he hunched over on shaking legs. He

  cried silently, and Helen knew he was begging her to leave him

  behind. He was too frightened to move, but Helen knew she

  couldn’t heed him or he would never leave this dark, dry land.

  Even though he screamed, she forced him to get up and walk.

  Helen was in terrible pain. She wanted to groan but she didn’t have

  the strength to make any noise. She could hear the ocean close by,

  but she couldn’t move or open her eyes to see where it was. She felt

  her head bob gently up and down, as if she were lying, stomach

  down, on a lumpy raft, and her lips twitched in the faintest of

  grateful smiles. Something had broken her fall and was gently supporting

  her. She concentrated on that bit of good fortune as she divided

  her pain up into manageable little bits, one heartbeat at a

  time. After ten heartbeats she counted to twenty. At twenty she

  asked herself to get to forty, and so on. She heard another steady

  rhythm under her, and after a short time her heart was in sync

  with the sound coming from her life raft. They beat together, each

  encouraging the other. She kept very, very still.

  After what seemed like hours Helen was still immobile, but she

  could finally open her eyes and focus them. All she could see in the

  sweeping, blinding flashes sent out from some distant lighthouse

  were walls of sand. Under her right cheek was a warm T-shirt.

  After a few moments she realized there was a person in it. She was

  lying on top of a man. The lumpiness under her head was his chest

  and the bobbing sensation was him breathing. She gasped. The

  Delos boys had caught her.

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  “Helen?” Lucas asked, his voice faint and breathy. “Make sound.

  If alive,” he barely managed to say. He didn’t sound like he was going

  to kill her so she answered.

  “Alive. Can’t move,” she whispered back. Every syllable sent

  threads of pain radiating out from her diaphragm.

  “Wait. Listen to waves. Calm,” he said, struggling with every

  word as her body weight tried to press the air out of him.

  Helen knew she couldn’t so much as raise her arm, so she relaxed

  like he told her to and just watched as the world swayed up and

  then back down with every breath he took. They waited in the intermittent

  light and dark of the lighthouse signal, listening to the

  surf fizzing in the sand.

  As the agony began to lessen into something semi-endurable,

  Helen was able to notice more things about her body. From what

  she could see, her outward shape seemed mostly normal, but her

  insides felt gooey and soft, as if she were a freshly microwaved

  chocolate chip cookie. Her bones were barely supporting the

  muscles and tissue they were supposed to, and there was an itchy

  heat in her marrow. She recognized that sensation as being similar

  to the one she’d experienced once when she was learning to ride a

  scooter and accidentally flipped the thing. Some part of her knew

  at the time that she had broken her arm, but by the time she got it

  X-rayed it was as good as new. The itch meant she was healing.

  Somehow, she had fallen out of the sky and survived. She really

  was a monster. A freak. Maybe even a witch. She started to cry.

  “Don’t be scared,” Lucas managed to say in one try. “Pain will

  pass.”

  “Should be dead,” she whined quietly through her liquefied jaw.

  “What’s wrong with me?”

  “No. Not wrong. You’re one of us,” he said with a slightly

  stronger voice. He was healing just as fast as Helen was.

  “And what’s that?”

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  “We call ourselves Scions,” he said.

  “Offspring?” Helen mumbled, remembering the definition from

  one of Hergie’s despised Word of the Day assignments. “Offspring

  of wh
at?”

  Lucas answered her. Helen heard him, but she didn’t. The word

  demigod was so far from what she was expecting to hear she had to

  think about it for a second. She had prepared herself for it to be

  something horrific, possibly even evil, which made her the way she

  was.

  “Huh?” she blurted out stupidly, so confused she had stopped

  crying. Her view jiggled, and Helen realized that Lucas was

  laughing.

  “Ouch. Don’t make me. Laugh,” he said even though his chest

  kept bouncing up and down.

  It felt funny to have her head bobbing around like that so she

  started laughing, regretted it, but couldn’t seem to stop. It was almost

  as if the pain was so awful she had to laugh it off.

  “This really hurts,” he said as he started to get hold of himself.

  “If you stop, I’ll stop,” she said, her fit winding down as well.

  In between recurring snickers, they went back to quietly managing

  their pain and waiting for their bodies to knit themselves

  back together. Despite the pain, the time ticked by soothingly. Out

  of one ear, Helen could hear the steady thump of Lucas’s heart,

  and out of the other she could hear seagulls. Dawn was on its way,

  and she felt completely safe for the first time in weeks.

  “Why don’t I hate you anymore?” she asked when she felt like her

  head bones were solid enough to enunciate properly.

  “I was just wondering the same thing. I think the Furies are

  gone.” Lucas sighed deeply, like a huge weight had just been lifted

  off his chest, even though Helen knew her head was probably as

  heavy as a bowling ball. “I was scared for a moment when we were

  in the air. It was very hard not to engage you.”

  “We? Oh, you can fly!” Helen said, realizing.

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  She remembered how Lucas had a habit of appearing and disappearing

  so suddenly, and how she had heard the thuds and scuffs

  of his takeoffs and landings. She had never seen him fly because

  she had never thought to look up.

  “How did you get under me?” she asked, shifting her position

  ever so slightly.

  “I caught you. I saw you faint and slowed your fall as best as I

  could, but we were already close to impact when I got an arm

  around you.” He shifted as well, and then flinched in pain. “I can’t

  believe we’re alive.”

  “Neither can I. I thought you were coming to kill me tonight, but