The Trouble with Shooting Stars

by Meg Cannistra

  I grab my watch off my desk and zip a hoodie over my pajamas.

  “I’ll be over in a bit!” I yell out the window. “Do you want me to come through the front or back door?”

  “Door?” Alessandro yells. “We’re tossing you a bridge.”

  “Bridge? What are you talking about?”

  Chiara’s loud laughter whips up in the wind and travels between our houses. “You’ll see.”

  She tosses one glowing strand of rope between our windows and then another. Both latch on to the wooden platform in my tree with little crescent-moon-shaped fasteners. Chiara bolts the other two onto their window. Lighted threads weave together between the ropes and form a walkway. The bridge illuminates the space between our houses, making a clear path through the whiteness. I scurry out onto my tree and press my palm against the glowing bridge. It has the same sturdy resistance as any bridge found on a playground. I can’t quite believe my eyes. My stomach flutters like it’s full of baby stars, squirmy and wiggly.

  “It’s safe!” Alessandro yells. “Don’t worry about it.”

  I unknot the worry in my stomach and tuck my sketch pad under my arm. Alessandro and Chiara wave at me to hurry. I’ve never done anything like this. The closest I’ve come is the treetop ropes course Gloria and I did at summer camp. I take deep breath and grab hold of the railings. Snow collects on the lighted path and quickly melts into the rope. Wind lashes at my face, but the bridge remains steady and the light makes it easy to see through the storm.

  “Don’t look down. Don’t look down,” I whisper, pushing through the snow. I block out the rushing sounds of wind and the ice cold seeping under my skin and instead focus on Alessandro, Chiara, and the warm light pouring from behind them.

  Chiara and Alessandro reach outside and help me into the room, shutting the window.  “It’s chilly out,” I say, rubbing the warmth back into my arms.

  Alessandro hands me a dark-blue star-patterned blanket, and I toss it over my shoulders. “Of course it is.” He smiles. “You just ran through a snowstorm in only a sweatshirt and pajamas.”

  “That bridge is so awesome.” I look out the window. The glowing bridge remains steady in the storm.

  “Thanks,” Alessandro says, running a hand through his curly dark hair. “We build them ourselves. Spider silk and spun silver.”

  “And a little bit of moondust?” I ask.

  “Obviously.” Chiara laughs. “Couldn’t do it without that.”

  I tighten the blanket around my body, looking around the room. It has to be Alessandro’s bedroom. His walls are painted the same dark blue as the blanket, the floors a rich dark wood. The bed, dresser, and nightstands all look heavy and well crafted—as if they were made centuries ago. On his bed are crisp white sheets pulled tight and a fluffy gray comforter. Movie posters with titles scrawled in Italian hang in frames on his walls. Shelves of fantastically bizarre trinkets and models of flying machines hang over his bed and desk. A full-length mirror sits next to his dresser. I resist the impulse to peer into it.

  Everything is neat and tidy. Even the books in his bookcase are organized by color, and not a single paper is out of place on his desk. I think about my room: the mugs of half-drunk tea, my wrinkled comforter spilling over my window bench, crumpled-up drawings scattered across my floor like tumbleweeds in an old Western film, and books stacked high on every available surface. “It’s like a tornado touched down in here,” my mom often says with a look of exhaustion. Usually I tell her a messy room is a sign of creativity, but then she just stares at me until I start cleaning.

  “Your room is so organized.” I run a hand over his dust-free desk. “Everything’s so precise.”

  “He’s weird about messes.” Chiara rolls her eyes. “One time I spilled water on his rug and he ran for the paper towels he keeps in his bottom dresser drawer to clean it up.” She shrugs. “It would’ve dried clean.”

  “You have no concept of mold, Chiara.” Alessandro glares at his sister. He looks at me and straightens his shoulders. “I like things in order. An uncluttered room lets you live an uncluttered life.”

  “Come on.” Chiara tugs at my hand. “I wanna show you my room. That’s where the sleepover is gonna be anyway.”

  “Do your parents know I’m here?” I pause, thinking about our trips to the sky.  “Do they know I’ve been going up to the stars with you guys?”

  “Our mama knows,” Alessandro says. “She saw us dropping you off the first night. She said we should invite you over.”

  “Papa doesn’t know.” Chiara looks at her purple-painted toenails. “He gets nervous about keeping the oath, but he’ll be fine.”

  “But we’re not going to tell him,” Alessandro says.

  “He won’t mind if he finds out.” Chiara smiles with the confidence of a girl who knows she’ll be able to convince her dad that she didn’t break any rules.

  “Is your mom a spazzatrici?” I ask. “I mean, if she’s not part of the Order, then how does that work?” My eyebrows knit together while I envision different threads coming from the spazzatrici and tying together Alessandro, Chiara, and their parents. I had never really thought about the history of the spazzatrici or how their magic works.

  Alessandro shakes his head. “The people of Stelle, our home, know the spazzatrici and the order of families are real. But they’re the only people who are supposed to.” Chiara pulls me through Alessandro’s door and down the hall.

  “We’re famous there, which can be very hectic. That’s why we pop up in empty houses in big cities across the entire world. It’s safer for us. We can get up to the sky with no one really paying attention. Things are quieter,” Chiara says.

  “The light pollution from cities helps too. When you can’t see the stars, you’re not really looking up. Plus, if anyone did see us, they’d mistake us for a blimp and we’d simply move to a new city,” Alessandro adds.

  “Spazzatrici must have been coming here a long time,” I say.

  “For a while. We started traveling to America in the twenties, when it became too hectic to go to the sky from Stelle and when places like New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago became big cities—especially for Italians like us.”

  Chiara pushes open her bedroom door. “I cleaned up a bit before we invited you over, but it’ll never be as neat as Alessandro’s.”

  She’s not wrong. Chiara’s bedroom is the near opposite of her brother’s. Her dark wooden floor is covered with a fluffy white rug that looks perfect for a long nap. The walls are a deep yellow and bordered with hand-painted green ivy.

  “We use magic to make our rooms look like they do back in Stelle,” Alessandro explains, noticing my eyes linger on the intricately painted walls.

  A white cast-iron bed sits in the center of the room, a gold canopy covered with butterflies hanging from its sides. Her dresser is cluttered with notepads and colored pencils and books about insects and flowers. Unlike her brother’s room, Chiara’s feels lived in. Comfy.

  Chiara dances into the center of her room and falls backward into an orange beanbag chair near the foot of her bed. “Mama said she’d make us snacks.” She gestures toward a purple beanbag chair a few feet from hers. “Sit down. Take off your shoes and relax.”

  I remove my shoes by the door and carefully sit down across from Chiara, sinking into the beanbag chair like a stone in wet sand. “Your room is so bright,” I say.

  She smiles, toying with the end of her long black braid. “Thank you. It’s warm, isn’t it? Like the sun is always out.”

  “I would’ve expected stars.”

  Chiara scrunches her nose. “I like stars, but I see them all the time. Even more than the sunshine.”

  Alessandro grabs one of the hundreds of pillows on Chiara’s unmade bed and lies down on the fluffy carpet by our feet. “I’m surprised she’s never drowned in all her pillows and blankets. I could never leave my bed so messy.”

  “Good thing my bed isn’t your bed, then.” Chiara pokes at my lady
bug-speckled bright-green socks. “These are neat.”

  “Thanks, they’re my favorites.” I wriggle my toes, making the ladybugs dance.

  There’s so much to their world that I don’t know. I stare down at the little ladybugs and take a deep breath. “Tell me more about the spazzatrici.”

  Chapter 18

  Chiara looks at Alessandro. “Like what?” she asks. “What would you like to know?”

  “Everything,” I say. “I’ve been up in the flying ship. I’ve gathered moon- and stardust. I’ve sung lullabies to baby stars. But why? Why do the spazzatrici exist? Who gets to be one?”

  Alessandro laughs. “Slow down. We’ve got a lot to cover.”

  “But we can answer your questions.” Chiara shoots up from the beanbag chair and pulls several books from her bookcase. “Mama and Papa make us learn all about the history. We have to study almost every day. It gets boring.”

  “It’s not boring.” Alessandro sits up. “It’s important that we know what the Order and our family have accomplished. We need to learn if we want to be great spazzatrici.”

  “But I don’t want to be an official spazzatrici, remember?” Chiara says.

  “You know Papa doesn’t like when you say that.” Alessandro crosses his arms over his chest.

  “It’s not his decision.”

  Chiara places a stack of leather-bound books in front of us. Each one looks older than the last, dust permanently trapped in the cracks and crevices and loose pieces of paper sticking out from their sides.

  She opens the largest book, handling the moth-wing-thin pages with care. “This is my favorite one. It’s got spazzatrici fairy tales.” Chiara points to a drawing of a beautiful woman with dark braided hair like hers, sitting atop the crescent moon—a band of silver stars circling her head.

  “Is that Luna?” I ask.

  “Yep! The moon goddess herself. We sweep for her.”

  “My uncle says you get your powers from her.”

  Chiara and Alessandro share a look. “Your uncle?” Alessandro says.

  “Oh, well, my uncle Mike saw a drawing of mine,” I say. “Of your zeppelin.” My face burns up. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned my uncle, but it’s too late now. “His dad told him all the stories of the spazzatrici. Except he called them streghe.”

  “Legends of the spazzatrici travel far and wide.  Though most people think of our magic as just that. Legends.” Alessandro turns through pages in the book. “It’s remarkable that he has held on to believing we exist.”

  “He said the stories stuck with him all these years. I think we—my uncle Mike and me—have an eye for these things,” I say.

  “You wouldn’t be the first. But it’s not typical outside of Stelle, at least,” Alessandro says. “Most people’s eyes glaze over when they see us. People need to be willing to believe and not try to use logic to explain away magic.”

  “My uncle also said that in my nonno’s stories, Luna blessed the spazzatrici with their powers.”

  Alessandro shakes his head. “Not exactly. Your nonno’s not wrong. He also wasn’t wrong when he said we’re streghe. We’re just a different kind. Our magic’s older than Luna’s blessing and stronger because the spazzatrici devoted their lives to helping her. Our magic is handy.”

  “Handy?” I say.

  “Useful, practical. We’re not focused on making things look nice,” he says. “Our magic’s not fancy or pretty like streghe who use theirs to transform into animals and cast good luck spells or those that can conjure up fields of flowers and lush forests from dry earth. But it is special.” He smiles, leaning closer. “We don’t make things like love potions and charms—that’s not our trade. But utilitarian streghe, like us, did help build the Colosseum. Our kind of magic is stuff even ordinary people can comprehend.”

  “You built the Colosseum?” I ask.

  “We sure did,” Chiara says. “Well, our ancestors did.”

  There’s a knock on the bedroom door. “Chiara, Alessandro,” a soft voice calls, one with an Italian accent as rich as my nonna’s. “Midnight snacks?”

  Alessandro jumps up and opens the door for his mom.

  Mrs. Sapienti walks into the room carrying a tray of hot chocolate with snow-pile mounds of whipped cream and a plate of fresh chocolate chip cookies with sea salt sprinkled on top.

  “You must be the famous Luna.” Mrs. Sapienti’s warm, dark-brown eyes land on me. She’s a short woman, only a few inches taller than Alessandro. Her hair is thick and falls down her back in large black curls. Mrs. Sapienti’s skin is the familiar olive tone of my Granny Ranieri. She grins, an easy smile, and puts the tray on the desk nearby.

  “Nice to meet you,” I say. “Thank you for letting me come over. And for the cookies and hot chocolate.”

  “Of course.” She ruffles Chiara’s hair, patting me on the shoulder. “Alessandro, it’s getting much colder out there. Your papa wants your help moving the stars into the house.”

  “Now?” Alessandro groans.

  “Yes, now. He’s waiting for you downstairs. It’ll only take a moment.”

  Alessandro shakes his head, but hurries out of Chiara’s bedroom. Mrs. Sapienti watches him go before handing Chiara and me mugs of hot chocolate and placing the plate of cookies between us.

  Chiara dunks a cookie into her hot chocolate and shoves it into her mouth. “Mama makes the best hot chocolate.”

  Atop the fluffy whipped cream is a small sprinkling of what looks like stardust. “Just a touch,” Mrs. Sapienti says. “To keep you all well.”

  I slurp from the mug. The chocolate is rich and milky, hot but not too hot, warming me from the inside out. “It’s delicious.”

  Chiara takes a long drink from her mug, getting a glob of whipped cream on her nose.

  “You got it all over you,” I say.

  Chiara laughs while trying to lick it away.

  “Chiara says you’re a Bianchini.” Mrs. Sapienti looks at me over the whipped cream bobbing up and down in her cup of hot chocolate.

  “I am,” I say.

  “Very good. Very good.” She grins. “I’ve known many Bianchini in my life. Good people. I see you’ve got the nose.”

  My cheeks heat up. I touch the spot where my mask meets my nose. It doesn’t really look the same. “I don’t know about that.”

  “Well, I certainly see it.”

  I smile, happy she can see the nose I’m still struggling to remember.

  “What are you two looking at?” Mrs. Sapienti eyes the book between Chiara and me.

  “We’re teaching Luna about Stelle.”

  Mrs. Sapienti places her mug of hot chocolate on the floor and kneels next to us. She turns to a page in the book of men and women holding their hands out in a gesture that reminds me of the way Chiara held her hands out when she was making the furniture in their home grow big that night they moved in. Before the men and women in the picture is a large ship like the Stella Cadente. “This”—she taps the page—“is the first flying ship. Built in 1832. The four families came together and crafted it to honor their foremothers. Before the ships, star sweeping was much too dangerous and done in rickety single-person flying machines. But the spazzatrici did it anyway. They always had a love for the moon. That love began all the way back with the Four Sisters—the Quattro Sorelle,” Mrs. Sapienti says. “The founders of Stelle.”

  “Oh! That one’s my absolute favorite fairy tale ever.” Chiara clutches a heart-shaped pillow to her chest, eyes wide. “Mama tells it the best.”

  “It’s my favorite too.” Mrs. Sapienti smiles. She flips through the book to a page featuring a drawing of four women standing in an open field, their heads tilted toward the night sky. Each woman is draped in a dark-blue cloak, stars dotting their hems. “These are the Four Sisters: Augusta, Alba, Aurelia, and Aelia.”

  Chiara taps the image of the shortest sister. “Aelia is our great-great-great-times-a-hundred-grandmother.”

  “Plus or minus a few of those greats, but
yes.” Mrs. Sapienti takes a sip from her mug. “The Four Sisters escaped Rome during an angry feud between the gods. Legend says they traveled all the way south and took refuge on a hill by the sea. No food, no clean water. Their magic was weakening and the sisters were ready to give up. Except for Aelia.

  “Aelia began to shape a tall tower from the earth. She worked through the night since the days were too hot for work. Using the moonlight as her guide, she built the tallest, sturdiest tower in all of Italy.”

  “The moon liked that, right, Mama?” Chiara asks while nibbling on another cookie.

  “She did. The stars did too. They peeked down from the heavens to watch Aelia build her tower. Luna, the goddess, whispered to Aelia. She told her to keep building, and if the tower kissed the belly of the sky, she would bless her and her sisters with rivers flowing with fresh water, a sea full of fat fish, and endless fields of golden grain.”

  Mrs. Sapienti turns the page to an illustration of the Four Sisters using their magic to build the tower higher, the stars, the moon, and Luna looking on from the sky. Fireflies circle the sisters as they work. It’s beautiful—I can almost imagine the sisters leaping from the page and actually dancing together in the moonlight. “Aelia got her sisters to help build, and together they completed the tower in three nights—the moon and stars keeping them company. It would have taken decades without magic.

  “Luna was impressed by the sisters and kept her word, blessing them and their city,” Mrs. Sapienti says. “In return, the sisters named the city after the stars and pledged allegiance—and their magic—to Luna. And soon others fleeing from war-stricken cities found safety in Stelle.”

  “That is how the Order of Spazzatrici formed,” Chiara adds.

  “That’s right. The sisters had Stelle’s finest artist create the first tools to sweep the moon and stars. Including that rudimentary flying machine to fly to the heavens. Flights in that were quite harrowing. The one you and Alessandro use today is much more secure.

  “Soon the Four Sisters got married and grew into the Four Families—each family able to trace their bloodlines all the way back.” Mrs. Sapienti turns the page to a map of Stelle. It’s nestled in a valley with high mountains on three sides, open to the Mediterranean on its fourth. “Stelle is a small city, but it’s proud. We honor Luna with a huge festival each year, and the city has great respect for the families.”