Starcrossed

by Josephine Angelini

  He threw it out there, like it was the most logical explanation. “She

  doesn’t seem like a zombie, but maybe Achilles didn’t, either.”

  “No. I would bet anything she still has her soul,” Castor said,

  shaking his head.

  213/395

  “And how would she have gotten to the River Styx? There hasn’t

  been a Descender in millennia,” Cassandra added doubtfully.

  Descender? Helen wondered.

  “What about something more basic, like a gun?” Jason asked. He

  was still trying to wrap his head around Helen’s unbelievable

  talent.

  “Since when were bullets ever fast enough to hit a Scion? That’s

  why we still use swords, dummy,” Ariadne said with a smirk.

  “We’re the only things that can move fast enough to kill us.”

  “Yeah, but what if we had her just stand there and take a few bullets?

  Technically, we can be killed by them, if we’re hit enough

  times,” he said logically.

  “It doesn’t matter how many times she gets shot. You could drop

  a bomb on her and she’d be fine, that’s what I’m trying to tell you,”

  Cassandra said with tired frustration.

  “There has to be a reason behind it. It isn’t a talent, so she must

  have some form of protection we don’t know about. I’ll start doing

  some research and put together a list of possibilities,” Pallas interjected,

  still staring at Helen.

  “I’ll help you, Dad,” Hector said from the doorway. He limped into

  the kitchen, his hair damp from a shower. “I’m dying to know

  how Sparky here does her little impervious trick.”

  “I tried to get him to lie down, but he wouldn’t listen,” Pandora

  complained from the hallway behind him. Hector walked straight

  over to Lucas.

  “How are you feeling?” Lucas asked guiltily.

  Hector clasped hands with him. “It’s okay, brother. I would have

  done the same thing if I were you,” he said. Then he flashed one of

  his mischievous smiles. “Only I would have hit you harder.”

  They hugged each other, and just like that the whole confrontation

  was forgotten. Ariadne started to ask Pandora a question, but

  Helen couldn’t hold her tongue for a second longer.

  214/395

  “Will someone please tell me why you all call me ‘Sparky’?” she

  burst out in frustration. “And if I get stabbed one more time tonight

  I’m going to lose it!” she added, rounding on Jason who was

  sneaking up behind her holding a stapler.

  “You haven’t told her yet?” Cassandra said to Lucas with disbelief.

  “You should have done it days ago.”

  “I was going to tell her today, but I never got the chance,” he

  replied, looking at the floor.

  Helen thought about how he had hunted her down in the hallway

  after school, like he had something urgent to say, and how she had

  told him she didn’t want to see him. But that was his fault, she reminded

  herself. He was the one who was forcing himself to teach

  her how to fight and fly, right?

  “Well, tell me now, then,” she said briskly. Lucas looked up at her

  sharply. His eyes were angry.

  “You can generate lightning. Electricity. I don’t know how strong

  a charge you can create, but from what I’ve felt, and what Hector

  felt in the grocery store, I’m thinking it’s big.”

  “Lightning?” Helen said with disbelief.

  She remembered Hector convulsing when he first touched her in

  the grocery store, and then she remembered Lucas letting go of her

  so abruptly in the hallway the very first time she had seen him. She

  had been so afraid of them both, so desperate to defend herself

  . . . . Was it possible she had summoned a power she had never

  been aware of? Had she created lightning?

  Somewhere in the back of her mind she saw a blue flash, and

  Kate crumple to the ground. A terrible thought occurred to her.

  She tried to banish it as she had done since childhood, but this

  time the thought wouldn’t go away.

  “We think that means you are descended from Zeus,” Cassandra

  said. “But from which House is still uncertain. Three of the Four

  Houses were founded by either Zeus or his god-children,

  215/395

  Aphrodite and Apollo. Only the fourth House, the House of Athens,

  was founded by Poseidon, so it can be ruled out. Well, maybe.”

  “My House?” Helen said, still so wrapped up in her own head

  that she was having a hard time understanding English. She was

  remembering a blue flash from her past, and a scary man that kept

  trying to touch her hair, flying away from her off the back of the

  Nantucket ferry. The smell of burning filled her throat. Helen

  rubbed her hand over her face and tried to rebury that memory.

  She had always believed that she couldn’t have been the cause of

  that. And worse—had she hurt Kate, too?

  “When we say your House, we mean your heritage, Helen,”

  Castor said gently, noticing Helen’s disquiet. “Zeus had a lot of

  children—including our father, Apollo—so your House can’t be

  pinpointed with any certainty yet. But don’t worry, we’re still trying

  to find out who your people were.”

  “Thanks,” Helen muttered, still overwhelmed.

  “You can’t control the lightning yet, it sort of jumps out of you

  when you’re upset,” Lucas said after a long pause. He was looking

  at her strangely.

  “Is it like a Taser?” Helen asked anxiously, suddenly snapping

  out of her trance.

  “Yeah,” Hector said as if he was recollecting both sensations and

  comparing them in his mind. “But stronger.”

  “Does it really hurt?” Helen said quietly. She felt sick to her

  stomach.

  “I guess,” Hector said with a condescending shrug. “You know, if

  you put in some real training, you could probably generate a lethal

  charge soon.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Helen said, jumping to her feet, horrified

  with the suggestion. And with herself.

  “Wait, Helen, it could be a good thing,” Jason replied. “You could

  learn how to use your bolts instead of fighting.”

  216/395

  “You don’t have to use them to kill. Just to knock people out,”

  Lucas amended, aware now that something was disturbing Helen

  deeply.

  He couldn’t know that what he was saying to make it better only

  made it worse. Helen thought of Kate’s unconscious body—how

  Kate had convulsed in that nauseating way when the blue light

  flashed. How her head had lolled back and her mouth fell open uncontrollably

  when Helen had picked her up off the ground. She

  couldn’t get the horrifying images out of her head so she started

  pacing around, wringing her hands to dispel the nervous energy

  she felt. She knew everyone was staring at her. She looked up and

  locked eyes with Pandora, who was clearly attentive to her strange

  reaction.

  “Why don’t we talk about this tomorrow?” Pandora said to the

  room in general. “Hector needs to eat and everyone else needs a

  shower. No offense, but pee-ew, guys.” She got a few laughs, but

  more important, she got the focus off Helen. Helen could have

&n
bsp; kissed her.

  “Are you okay?” Ariadne whispered in Helen’s ear as the family

  meeting broke up. Helen squeezed Ariadne’s hand and tried to

  smile, but she had no idea what to say. She started to wander toward

  the door.

  “I’ll take you home,” Lucas called out over his shoulder to Helen,

  ending the brief conversation he was having with his father and

  uncle.

  “I’m supposed to watch Helen tonight,” Jason said apologetically.

  “And I have my bike,” Helen said. She couldn’t bear to be with

  him alone.

  “I don’t care,” Lucas replied bluntly to them both. He stared

  down Jason for a moment, speaking volumes with his eyes, then

  turned back to Hector. “I need your truck,” he said with barely controlled

  anger. Hector nodded, glancing over at Helen and back at

  Lucas with something approaching sympathy.

  217/395

  Lucas grabbed Helen’s hand and pulled her outside. He loaded

  her bicycle into the back of Hector’s SUV, held Helen’s door open

  for her while she got in, and drove out of the garage without a

  word. Once off the Delos property he pulled over into one of the

  many scenic park-and-gawk spots and turned in his seat to face

  Helen.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, angry and frustrated and frightened

  all at the same time.

  Helen didn’t have an answer for him.

  “Will you at least tell me what I did wrong?”

  “I already told you, you didn’t do anything,” Helen said to her

  lap.

  “Then why are you treating me like this? Look at me,” he

  pleaded, taking her hand. She stared at their linked hands like it

  was the first time she had ever seen anything like it.

  “What the hell is this?” she asked. She pulled her hand out of his

  with disgust. “You know what? I take it back. You did do

  something to me. You led me on.”

  Luke’s whole face crumpled. Helen had had no reason to hope

  after what she had heard the night before, but for some reason

  there was a tiny spark still glowing in her that maybe, somehow,

  she had misunderstood. Or that he would change his mind. It went

  out completely when Lucas nodded.

  “I led you on,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut and clenching his

  fists so hard Helen thought for a moment he was going to rip the

  steering wheel off. His voice was harsh, almost a snarl. “You and I

  can’t be together, so just get it out of your head and move on.”

  Helen unbuckled her seat belt and got out of the car.

  “Wait, please,” he started to say, almost as if he was in pain, but

  Helen slammed her door shut and cut him off.

  “Wait for what? For you to tell me that I’m a really nice girl but

  you’d never touch me? Thanks, I got that part already. Now open

  the back so I can get my bike,” she bit out. Her voice was foreign to

  218/395

  her, so bitter and loaded with sarcasm that it sounded like

  someone else’s.

  “I promise I won’t say anything the rest of the way if you don’t

  want me to. Just let me take you home,” Lucas replied calmly. She

  hated that he was calm.

  “Open the damn door, or I’ll rip it off!” Helen yelled back.

  She knew she was making a fool of herself, throwing a tantrum in

  the middle of the road like this, but she couldn’t stop. Humiliation

  was leaking out of every pore and she needed to get away from him

  fast. She didn’t want to leave anything behind, either—nothing that

  would force her to come back to him later to ask for what was hers.

  She stood at the back of his car with her head down and her arms

  crossed tightly over her sore heart. She knew he was looking at her

  in the rearview mirror, so she angled her body away. Finally, he

  popped the back. She got her bike out and rode off without another

  word.

  When she got home she fell into bed without even taking her

  clothes off. She could hear Jason moving around on the widow’s

  walk as he settled down for the night, but she didn’t feel guilty

  about leaving him up there. All Helen wanted was to run as far

  away from the Delos family as fast as she could.

  She was on the edge of the dry lands, in a new place that she had

  seen from a distance, but had never thought she could reach. It

  was still rocky, but interspersed with the tufts of razor-sharp

  grass, there were tumbled-down drums of mason-carved marble,

  a thousand Parthenons’ worth of scattered columns. There had

  once been an empire here. No longer.

  Far off, there was the promise of a river. Helen couldn’t tell if

  she could hear it, or if she felt the extra part per million of moisture

  in the air, but she knew there was running water nearby. She

  felt so dry and empty inside. Where was the river?

  219/395

  As she searched, she looked down at the fallen architecture and

  read the names graffitied on its sides. Gracus loves Lucinda.

  Ethan loves Sarah. Michael loves Erin. For what seemed like days

  she ran her fingers over the names carved into the broken bones

  of fallen loves, stepping around the tumbled pillars of unkept

  vows and dusting the headstones in the graveyard of love with

  her hands. Every kind of death had a resting place in the dry

  lands.

  She walked until her feet bled.

  Helen woke to a room filled with sad blue light. She tried to roll

  over and felt tied to her mattress, like she had been jumped by the

  Lilliputians in the middle of the night. Somehow in her sleep she

  had shucked off her shirt and shoes, but her jeans were so tangled

  up in her sheets that she had to push herself off the bed and fight it

  out on the floor to unwrap herself. It was an ugly battle, especially

  since she was still covered in dirt from the trench Lucas had dug

  with Hector’s body, dried blood from her cut feet, and a gray,

  powdery dust from the dry lands. Her feet had healed themselves,

  of course, but still there were blood-encrusted foot smears all over

  her sheets. They were ruined, and she would have to buy new ones.

  Luckily, her dad was too squeamish about girl stuff to ask

  questions.

  She shimmied out of her jeans on her way to the bathroom and

  climbed into the shower before the water even had a chance to heat

  up. Opening her mouth, she gulped down as much of the cold

  spray as she could catch. She was so dry inside. Her body ached

  from walking hundreds of miles under a dead sun—the cold water

  was like a blessing even though it made her shiver. Helen looked

  down at her skin and watched the water get forced into little rivers

  by the raised hairs of her goose bumps. It made her think about the

  river she had seen from a distance right before she woke up.

  She couldn’t remember it.

  220/395

  She knew she had felt a sigh-worthy relief, and only one thing

  could have made her feel that way in the dry lands. Water. But she

  couldn’t remember anything about it. How could she forget a river

  in the dry lands? It was unthinkable, so she stopped thinking about

  it.

  It bothered her that
her brain refused to think about it. She

  walked, still naked and dripping wet, to the vanity in her bedroom,

  picked up some old viper-green eyeliner Claire had left the last

  time she slept over, and wrote THE RIVER I CAN’T REMEMBER

  on the mirror, just in case she forgot again. Then she got dressed.

  It was getting cold out, and the air was damp with fog. Helen

  zipped her jacket up to her throat and regretted not bringing

  gloves. As she rode to school she had to keep one hand in her pocket

  and one on the handlebars, and then switch off when the hand

  she was using to steer got too numb.

  When she arrived she saw Lucas waiting in the parking lot, leaning

  up against an Audi she’d seen in the Deloses’ garage, but never

  seen him drive before. It reminded her how stupid she’d been to

  think he was going to kiss her that night in his garage. She dropped

  her head and hurried toward the school without waving to him. He

  took a step after her and opened his mouth to say something, but

  stopped himself and let her go.

  When Helen got to the door, she heard Claire call out from behind.

  She paused and waited for her to catch up.

  “Are you two fighting?” she asked, glancing back at Lucas’s

  stooped form. When she got a good look at how terrible Helen

  looked she burst out, “Holy crap! What the hell happened to you?”

  “I didn’t sleep well last night,” Helen mumbled.

  “Your eyes look black and blue, Len. Like you haven’t slept in

  weeks,” Claire responded, sounding seriously worried. “Were you

  crying a lot?”

  221/395

  “No. Not at all,” Helen said. It was true, too. She was sad, but she

  never felt like crying when she was depressed. She felt like

  sleeping.

  “Can you tell me what the fight was about?” Claire asked

  cautiously.

  “There was no fight, really. Lucas just doesn’t want to be with

  me,” Helen said. She rammed her fists into her pockets. She found

  that if she tensed her muscles she could keep herself from giving

  up on moving.

  “I don’t believe that,” Claire said doubtfully. “He punched Hector

  in the face for just talking to you and pretty much announced to

  the whole school that you were his girlfriend.”

  “Well, I guess he must have changed his mind since then,” Helen

  said, shrugging. She didn’t have the strength to argue. She barely

  had the energy to turn the combination on her locker. She was so

  tired from walking for weeks, but that had been a dream, hadn’t it?