by A. B. Bloom
Sitting on the edge of my bed, in a strange house that wasn’t my home, an empty echo radiated from my chest. I fell onto my side and hugged my knees to my chest.
Aaron? Ash? Whoever he was—what had he done to my life?
When Nick turned up and told me I was the last of the Star children, that was one thing. Finding out that my stepdad was the hunter who'd been hiding me in plain sight all along? That was enough to blow my mind.
I didn’t want to, I tried not to, but big fat droplets of tears weaved their way down my face. They rolled down my nose, soaking the pillow until I could no longer see straight.
And now Nick was gone. My chest heaved. A tight clawing sensation worked it’s way around my throat, making me feel I would be sick or stop breathing—one of the two.
What was I going to do?
Sit here?
Fight? How could I fight? What was I fighting? What if Ash found me while the others were looking for him? It was feasible. It could happen.
There were just too many questions. Too many things I didn’t understand.
The darkness was still growing.
Before the events on the moor it had been totally dark, then during my time here in Cornwall, the sky had lightened to a dark purple.
What was changing it?
Why was it changing still? What was the variable I didn't know about? Because there was one, I was sure of it.
There were too many unanswered questions for me to lay on my bed crying. With a last sniff and dragging my hands over my face to remove the damp tear tracks, I sat up.
I would get answers if only by annoying the one person left to give them to me.
The smell of burning greeted me as I made my way down the stairs. I was wondering if Connor had given up trying to protect me and had put his head in the oven. But then remembered that Star’s couldn’t die. I could. I had. On the moor. But real Stars, whole Stars, couldn’t. Only if they had their energy stolen, or were stabbed with a sun ray.
“What are you doing?” I walked into billowing smoke. Connor had his head in the oven, literally. When he pulled it free he looked the most dishevelled I’d ever seen him.
“Cooking for you.” He wiped at his brow with his arm. His hands were clutching a tray containing some burnt offerings I couldn’t distinguish. “I’ve been told that you need feeding.”
I smiled, even if it felt unnatural. “Thanks. I think.” Taking a step closer I inspected the tray and then grinned at him. “Honestly, I’m fine without eating.”
Connor rolled his eyes. “That’s what I said.” He shoved tray into sink, contents and all. “But no, Nick knows best, as always.”
My heart gave a little jump at the fact Nick had asked Connor to feed me, no matter how misplaced his intentions may have been.
“It’s kind of you to try.” I tried to look friendly. “Honestly, I’m all good. I haven’t had much of an appetite since I found my moonstone and absorbed my energy.”
Connor flicked the tea towel over his shoulder and sat on one of the high kitchen stools. He looked at me intently, his head dipped to the side. Wearing a royal blue T-shirt, dark jeans and flip flops, he looked like he was about to head to the beach in the height of summer.
“You do know it’s October?” I questioned, settling myself on the stool opposite him.
“I don’t feel the cold. Do you?”
I thought about it. Did I? It hadn’t crossed my mind. I looked down at my arms, they were bare in just a T-shirt. Maybe I didn’t feel the cold anymore?
Cool.
“Interesting,” he murmured.
I sat up a little straighter. “What’s interesting?”
“Well.” He spun the knife on the table like a spinning wheel. “I’ve never actually seen any of the other Star children grow into their energy before.”
“What do you mean?”
“Normally,” he sighed and the sound made him sound older than I’d ever considered him being. This was silly considering he was as old as time. “Normally we wouldn’t get to them in time.”
“Normally?”
“Well, sometimes we did.”
“And you still couldn’t save them?” Aaron had killed every single Star Child before me. That I was alive past my sixteenth birthday was rare.
Connor’s face snapped shut like the close of a heavy book. “No.”
“Can you tell me about them?” I softened my voice so it didn’t sound like I was conducting a police interview. It was how Aaron had always questioned me at home so I wouldn’t be intimidated by his police officer bearing. Although now I didn’t know if he had been a police officer at all. For all I knew, he could have been hanging out down the local park every day, wasting time.
“Fascinating,” Connor said, his eyes lightening a notch.
“What’s fascinating?” Although his growing smirk told me I wasn’t going to like it.
“Your brain just goes off on tangents every split second.”
“Ugh.” I wished I could remember how I’d blocked Nick from my mind the previous day. Typical that now I needed the skill it had evaporated.
“You blocked Nick? Wow!” Connor laughed some more and I wanted to punch him. “Did he give you the hurt puppy dog look?” Connor looked up through his lashes and dropped his bottom lip. I had to laugh. I didn’t want to, but I had to all the same.
“No! He did not.” I retorted and tried very hard not to think about the look of hurt that had flashed across Nick’s face.
“So predictable.” Connor shook his head.
I let out a deep breath and tried not to rise to the bait. “So what are we going to do?”
Connor appraised me. “Well, I think it’s time you got a grip on your energy. The better you control it the better chance you have of surviving.”
“Good, good.” I nodded. “I want to survive.”
He chuckled. “That’s always a good start.”
“So what do we do?” I was quite excited and I found my worries and questions fading away.
Connor clapped his hands together and I jumped. “Firstly we need to lock all the windows and doors so we keep the baddies out.”
I slid off my chair. “Sure, I think there is a key here somewhere.”
Connor groaned. “Stop thinking like a human, Bronte, and think like a Star. You can use your energy.”
I remembered Nick’s violet pulse of light out of his hand.
Connor rolled his eyes, his favourite gesture, “Yes, yes, it’s all about Nick, I know. But how about this for a party trick.” He snapped his hands together in a loud clap. When he separated them, sparks of blue ran between his hands like electricity.
“Wow.”
He raised an eyebrow. “That’s what all the girls say.” This seemed to be his go to wind up line. I felt sorry for any girls that had put up with him.
I chuckled. “Sure they do. You keep telling yourself that.”
He sniggered. “Come on then, Bronte, show me what you’ve got. Either that or we go to school and act like humans for the day.”
I didn’t want to act human. The only humans I cared about no longer remembered me. I wanted to let go of that part of my life. “No.” I shook my head.
“Let's get going.” He grinned and I knew he was pushing me. Testing me. I wanted it though. I wanted to be tested. Encouraged. Taught.
I clapped my hands together. Nothing happened. Well, they hurt, but other than that nothing happened. Connor snorted, his freckles crinkling around his eyes in glee.
“Did you actually just clap your hands and that was it?”
“Well, yeah.”
“You are just too precious. Come on princess, let's do this right.”
“I’m no princess!”
“Whatever.” He took my hands in his. “Remember the energy you feel when you use a glamour? When you transform the way you look?”
“Yes.” I called the feeling back to my mind. “It feels like it couldn’t be anything other than what I want it t
o be.”
“Good.” He nodded encouragingly. “Now, you need to recall that feeling and focus it on your hands. There is so much more you can do with it, but let's start small. Imagine that the energy is right there at your fingertips, that it’s tangible, vivid, real.”
I closed my eyes and centred myself around what the energy felt like. The way it coursed through me, the way when I ran over the moor with Nick, I’d felt it pulsing through my veins.
Then it was there. It was in my fingertips. I knew it was, it was a conscious sensation as it moved through my body and located itself right where I wanted it to be.
“Open your eyes and look.” Connor’s voice was closer than I expected and my eyes flew open. He was leaning forward, his attention focused on the violet snapping at the edge of my fingers.
Wow.
For the second time in as many moments, I was being rendered speechless. This time it was at my own capabilities. “It’s the same colour as Nick’s.”
“Yeah, well.” He pulled away a fraction as I stared at the sparking violet bursts.
“What do I do with it now?” I was totally in awe.
“God, I don’t know, sweetheart.” His voice laced with the sardonic bored tone I knew him for. “Go and lock some windows.”
My eyes snapped onto him. Our truce was over. “Fine.”
He turned his back. “Fine.”
He hated this. The journey to nowhere was never ending. And all the time they were searching, looking for someone who knew how to hide in plain sight, she was with him.
The chain that connected them drew tighter, tauter, the further apart they went. It made him feel ill and he hated what their separation might do to her.
Since he and Celeste had run from the house, his snatched moments with Bron had been playing on a constant loop in his head. The way she’d felt sat on his lap, her arms looped around his neck, her fingers in his hair.
It had felt so good. Years-of-waiting good.
It had been so different this time. He’d never found her, known her so young. Normally it would take him years to find her after her soul had reincarnated. Sometimes he found her even when he didn’t want to, when he was too tired to go through the endless heartbreak again. But then when they met, it was instant. Their connection, the pull, they couldn’t fight it. This time he’d been fighting it by himself for sixteen years. Never had a handful of years seemed so long.
Showing her the memory of Rose had been a joy. It had lifted his heart. All these years and he'd never been able to share anything. Rose, Rose was special. Hell, she was always special, but his time with Rose had been something else—the closest they’d ever gotten to normality. When she’d passed, it had destroyed him. It had killed him too.
He could remember it like yesterday. Sometimes he wished he couldn’t. Sometimes he wished she knew what it was like, how much it hurt. But if she knew, then she would know what he was guilty of and he never wanted that to happen. Don’t covet what isn’t yours. It was the rule he’d smashed to pieces.
As he ran, Celeste ahead, he allowed his mind to recall the day the bright spark that was Rose, faded from his life.
August 1980
I knew I didn't have long. I also knew I shouldn't be mourning— I'd had so much longer this time than was normal. More time for laughter, and kissing, more time for shouting and anger. More time for just being whole.
But it was nearly over.
She didn't know what I was. She never did.
“Nick?” Her fingers sought mine over the white sheets of the bed. They were crisp with starch and had been difficult to tuck in around her wasted body. It sounded morbid but it had been nice to see her age like this. We'd managed sixty years. Sixty years was a blink of an eye but it was a lifetime to her, my Rose.
Next time she'd have a different name but she would still be mine.
Because I was her Star. And she was my soul and together we were cursed.
A nurse scooted over the linoleum floor and tapped me on the shoulder. “Sir, there's a phone call for you.”
I frowned. My liver spotted hands clutched the arms of the easy chair I had made my own these last short weeks. “Sure, thank you.” With a last look at Rose, I followed the nurse to the staff station down the hallway. She handed me a beige receiver attached to a phone with big bold numbers. Anyone would think humans were worried they'd forget what the digits meant. Fools.
“Hello?” My tone rung with my frustration and caused a few glances to flit my way. I turned my back against the stares. For a moment I forgot I was supposed to be ninety years old, and these nurses honestly didn't miss a trick.
“Nick?” It was Celeste, her melodious tone ringing down the line. I hadn't seen her for a while, she had honoured my request I be left in peace for these few short years. When Rose had lived past twenty-five it had gone down in history as a rare and momentous occasion. I'd asked the others to stay away. That they had for this long was a miracle.
“How did you know where I was?” My annoyance was clear.
She laughed, which just annoyed me more. “We always know where you are, don't be a fool,” she paused and then softened her voice, “how goes it, Nick?”
I sighed. “Well, I look old, I'm not sure it's a look that works well for me.”
“How is she?” Celeste’s tone held a note of reverence.
I found my throat tightening. “Not much longer.”
“I'm sorry.”
Another sigh escaped me. “It's been good, there is nothing to feel sorry for.”
Silence ran down the telephone line. “What's worse, Nick, losing her before you've loved or losing her after a lifetime of it?”
It was a question I'd been asking myself as I'd sat listening to the machines beep. It had been solitary sitting by myself. I'd seen other families come and go with tears in their eyes, as they watched their loved ones let go of their grasp of life. For Rose, it was just me. There were no children to gather at the end of the bed, their fingers grasping the blankets. For us, there were never children. There couldn't be. A Star Child was forbidden.
I chose not to answer Celeste’s question—there wasn't an answer to give. “What do you want?” I asked instead.
“Kesh has been tracking; he thinks he's found another energy force.”
“Yeah?” I couldn't bring myself to be interested. My heart and soul wanted to be in the room down the hallway. With her.
Celeste tutted loudly. "I feel for you, Nick. But there is still a war going on."
I puffed out a blast of air. "War? Star's taking sides, friends turning into foes? Is that what war is Celeste?" I sighed and leaned my head in my hand. "It's not war, Celeste, it's the end."
She cut me off. “Connor thinks it’s the one.”
I signed again. “Connor always thinks it's the one until we are too late and then he goes dark.”
“He can't help the prophecy,” Celeste snapped.
“No, we all have our burden to bear.”
“Yes we do.” It was Celeste’s turn to sigh. “Will you come, Nick? When the time is right.”
I didn't want to. I wanted to go home and nurse the wounds of my broken heart until her soul resurfaced and I could fall all over again.
From my spot against the nurses station I could see white soled shoes running down the hallway. A chilled clench tightened on my heart.
“I've got to go!’ I shouted.
“Will you come and help?” Celeste insisted. I wanted to lash out at her.
“Yes! Now let me grieve in peace.”
“Nick.” Her voice was tight. “You're always grieving, you need to learn to live.”
I didn't bother to respond. I flung the phone down, the handset rocking in the cradle, and ran down the hallway faster than a man of my assumed age should.
Nurses were fluttering around the bed, their dresses brushing with the sound of stiff cotton. There wasn't much for them to do— there was no way to stop the inevitable ravages of old age. The n
urse with the red hair, who had made a point of checking on Rose every shift looked at me, her eyes conveying her remorse. I smiled. “It's okay.” My throat was tighter than I was expecting. “You can leave us now.”
With silent footsteps and heads bowed, they filed out of the room. I stepped towards Rose, watching her violet energy flicker and fade as it pulsed in and out. It was the unique colour of her soul that ensured I found her in every lifetime—now it was passing on.
My hand smoothed over her skin. While papery and thin, like an aged parchment holding an ancient secret, it still felt like her. The touch of our hands jolted electricity up my arm. Her eyes flickered and I knew she felt it too.
“Nick,” she sighed. I brushed a kiss along her lips. “I don't want to leave you.”
I settled closer, my lips by her ear. “You're not leaving me, my heart, I'll see you again.”
This was harder than I thought it would be. I straightened my back, breathing in deep. “Shall I tell you a story?”
Her lips ghosted a smile. “You tell the best stories.”
“That I do.”
Rose sighed and relaxed, her face smoothing and becoming slack.
My time was over.
“Once there was a man who loved a girl. He loved her so much he would have given up everything for her.”
Her fingers tightened on mine and I swallowed down a lump in my throat. My eyes blurred and stung.
“He would have given her his half of their soul if he could,” I continued to whisper.
“Why?” I jumped at Rose’s question.
“Because he fell for her. Every time. Always”
Rose let out a deep breath and I waited for her chest to rise again, but it didn't. I watched as the violet of our soul evaporated into a fine mist. It absorbed back into the fabric of the universe, where it would wait until it was time for the cycle to begin, again.
“Nick!” Celeste’s sharp call pulled him back into the present. His eyes refocused on his surroundings. She came to halt, wheeling around to face him. “What were you doing?” Celeste’s rose tinted soul flickered and curved around her body.