The Aeon Star

by Hart, Lauren T.

  "Yeah, and lots of it," he said. "You want to split some sweet potato fries?"

  Marcus was seething at Paul's apparent treachery.

  "Absolutely," Jen said.

  "And some sweet potato fries," Paul added.

  "Thanks Kevin," she said as he turned to go.

  "What do you want?" Marcus seethed at her through gritted teeth.

  "World peace," Jen shot back. "What do you want, Marcus?"

  Marcus sat back in his seat, sneering. He folded his arms and just shook his head at her.

  Marcus was quiet for the rest of lunch while she and Paul chatted. They talked about the weather and the city, and Paul teased her about the movie she'd been too afraid to actually watch. They talked about work as they finished off the sweet potato fries, and Paul told her how he worked for the Ange as a driver.

  "Do you like it?" Jen asked.

  But before he could answer—

  "You had your chance," Marcus cut in. "Now it's gone."

  "Marcus," Paul warned.

  Marcus scowled. "The search for souls has ended, Angel. You'd walk away if you knew what was coming." His words sounded more threat than warning.

  What would be the harm, if she let Genevieve out again? Could she control it? She wondered. She steadied her breathing and then—

  She felt Paul's hand on her thigh.

  For an instant she saw herself reaching for Paul, grabbing hold of him and pulling him toward her, and then the image was gone.

  Reality returned. She swung her head around to face him. Paul looked just as alarmed and confused as she did.

  "Sorry," Paul caught himself. "I was—," he stammered, "just reaching for my napkin."

  Marcus laughed haughtily. Put five bucks on the table — not enough to cover his meal — and left.

  "Sorry," Paul said again. "I didn't know you were... an intuitive." He said the word intuitive, not as if he meant it, but as if it were the most politically correct term he could think of at the moment.

  "What do you mean?" she asked. She wasn't an intuitive. No more than any other person — or was she? Is that what had happened earlier?

  "I'm not an intuitive," he said with the same odd tone. "But I can usually tell when other people are, especially when they are really trying to read other people." He explained.

  "I don't do that."

  "You were trying."

  She was, but she shook her head anyway.

  "Let me give you some advice," Paul offered. "Don't. There are some things that are better left unknown. Especially in the minds of people like Marcus." He warned. "Just... don't do it, okay? Ever. To anyone," he said firmly. "Move," he ordered.

  She stood and let Paul out of the booth. He put a twenty on the table and started to leave, and then he turned back and said. "Did you feel anything... odd before you got here?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "I don't know. It happened about twenty minutes before you got here. It was like... I don't know. It's kind of hard to explain."

  Twenty minutes before she got there she had been standing in St. Mary's Square. Was he talking about her? About Genevieve? Had he felt her from there?

  She shook her head.

  "Kay," he nodded then left.

  She added a twenty of her own to the mix and handed it all to Kevin, before she left.

  Ashley phoned her that evening, shortly after Sammie's had closed. The first thing Ashley said after Jennifer's hello was: "We were so busy today."

  "I know," Jen said. "I came in for lunch."

  "That's what Kevin said. How come you didn't come back and say hi?"

  "Mostly because you were so busy."

  "Well if you had, I could've told you the then."

  "Told me what?"

  "I think you know," Ashley said coyly

  She had a pretty good idea. "So, are congratulations in order then?"

  "Yes!" Ashley squealed. "He asked me last night. We haven't set a date yet, but soon, January maybe, or October, if we can wait that long."

  Jen laughed.

  "We've waited long enough," Ashley rationalized. "But I have a huge favor – I have a sister who lives in Utah who will expect to be my Maid of Honor, you know, because she's my sister. But there's no way she'll actually be able to help me with anything, so will you be my other Maid of Honor? My actual Maid of Honor?" Ashley reiterated.

  Jen laughed again. "Of course."

  Later that night, as she got ready for bed, Jen retrieved two pieces of paper from her pocket: Mike's phone number and Jenny Taylor's obituary.

  Jenny Taylor. 'Our Shining Star' the caption read.

  She didn't read the obituary. She knew she couldn't endure the onslaught of lies about a much-loved daughter, tragically taken before her time. She folded the papers together and secured them carefully in her big blue purse, in the bottom drawer of the dresser — along with the rest of her past.

  Chapter 21

  Fire Light

  She was just drifting off to sleep, with Peaches at her feet, when she heard Roger mew behind her. She turned to welcome him onto the bed and saw the little boy.

  Roger was on the chair, looking rather curious about the anomaly in front of him. The little boy smiled at Roger, and reached his hand out toward him. Roger lifted his paw to bat at the preternatural form before him, and then the figure was gone.

  She couldn't decide if Roger seeing the disappearing boy made her feel better about it, or worse. But at least she hadn't been as frightened.

  A few nights later Marcus stopped by. Jen decided she was going to go to bed early in an effort to avoid him. She wasn't even the slightest bit tired. She slipped into her cream colored nightgown and picked out a book from Lindsay's collection to read. She left the door open for Peaches and climbed into bed.

  Marcus and Nick were in his office with the door closed so she couldn't entirely make out what was being said, but she could tell when their discussion turned into an argument. Not because they were yelling, but there was a very distinct difference in their tones now. A moment later the office door opened and they were in the foyer.

  "C'mon Nick, be reasonable."

  "I'm trying Marcus, I really am. That's why I think it's best that you leave." She knew that tone; he was disappointed.

  "You're acting like a fool."

  "Maybe." Nick replied.

  She heard the front door open.

  "Where exactly is your loyalty, Nick?"

  The lights in the foyer flickered momentarily.

  Nick sighed. "My loyalty lies with the truth Marcus, where it's always been." His voice was calm but held a definite undercurrent of offense at Marcus's intimation. "My feelings for her will never change that."

  Her. Secretly she wished that 'her' was in reference to Peaches but she knew it wasn't.

  Marcus said something more to Nick but she couldn't make it out and then a moment later the door shut. She set the book face down on the nightstand and crossed to the landing. She peered over the railing into the foyer expecting to see him but he wasn't there. She retrieved her robe and made her way down the stairs.

  Nick was in his office — a room she seldom entered. It was an unspoken rule — and maybe it was just her rule — but the house was quite clearly divided between his spaces, her spaces and public spaces. Her spaces were her room and the bathroom next to it. His were his room and bathroom and his office. She'd only been in his office twice before in the time that she lived with him and never in his bedroom, just as he never went into hers, at least not since her first night when he delivered the Purple Monster there.

  Both of the double doors were swung wide. He was standing behind his desk with a small wooden box in his hands. He ran his fingers over the inlay on the top of the box. She stood, facing him, stopping just outside the doors. He acted for a moment like he was going to ignore her but then he placed the box on his desk next to a pile of books and his eyes met hers. They looked tired, burdened even, as he searched her features yet they were still
just as breathtakingly beautiful as ever.

  "Did I wake you?" he asked.

  "No." She crossed to him and took his head in her hands. She ran her thumbs across his anxious brow.

  He pulled her to him and kissed her. "It's been a long day," he sighed. He walked her to the top of the stairs. "I'm going to go do lights and locks." He kissed her again. "Goodnight," he said then headed back down the stairs.

  She waited at the edge of her bed. After a few moments the chandelier in the foyer clicked off, leaving only the light from the lamp in her room and the one from Nick's office still shining. She knew then that he was not planning on going to bed anytime soon. He'd gone to the effort to escort her to her room, which probably meant that he wanted to be alone.

  Confirmation came only moments later, when the light from his office diffused as he shut the frosted double doors. And again, moments after, as she could just make out the subtle clicks and ticks of his keyboard.

  She wished she knew what Marcus had said to him. He'd questioned Nick's loyalty, asked him to be reasonable. Was it possible that Marcus had said something so offensive about her that Nick had finally decided he'd had enough? Had Marcus given him an ultimatum?

  Did any of that even matter? All she knew was that he was troubled and she hated to see him that way.

  She couldn't sleep. She sat awake in her bed for a very long time, watching for a change in the light, waiting to hear his office door open.

  Nothing.

  Every once in a while she would glance at the clock on her phone. Time was the only thing that changed over the next couple of hours.

  A clattering noise from the bathroom took her attention away from the foyer. It was probably just Roger, knocking over whatever was on the counter, but that was all the more reason to go and check.

  She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and tiptoed quickly to the bathroom.

  She swung the bathroom door open slowly. Roger was sitting on the counter. He flicked his tail as if to acknowledge her as she entered but his attention was on the child in front of him.

  The disappearing boy.

  He turned toward her and peered up at her with his big blue eyes. He reached his hand out, as if to touch her, as if to see if she were real. She put her hand out to touch his. As she did he vanished before her, as did the bathroom, and she found herself standing in a place she had never expected to be.

  The ballroom.

  She felt a twinge of disappointment run through her as she realized that she must have fallen asleep. This was only a dream. As if by this realization, her outfit changed as well. Her nightgown was gone and she was in the pink dress she'd first worn here; the same pink dress she always wore when she was here.

  She walked to the very center of the ballroom then spun around to face where she had just come from. The door. She had been standing just next to the door.

  The little boy. He was on the other side of that door. The door she could never bring herself to open. But this was only a dream and she wasn't afraid of anything in her dreams.

  She was Genevieve.

  Genevieve wouldn't be afraid to open a door, she told herself. But she was afraid. She tossed her fear aside and paced toward the door. She could hear distant voices on the other side, but couldn't make out what was being said.

  It was gibberish.

  She reached for the ornate handles of the large double doors, and in as fluid a motion as she could manage she pulled them down and yanked on the doors.

  They opened freely. She wasn't sure why, but for some reason she had expected them to be locked or at least hard to open.

  A large gallery hall lay before her, as equally ornate as the ballroom. She wasn't sure why she'd been so worried before; it was just another room.

  A piercing shriek broke the silence from some far point in the house followed by what sounded like ordered shouts but she couldn't understand the words.

  She thought of the little boy. She knew that he was somewhere out there beyond the confines of the ballroom. As she stepped near the now open doorway her vision caught just the faintest hint of something red.

  It looked like light.

  She saw it again as she got closer. A flicker of soft red light, paper thin, only within the frame of the door. It reminded her of a laser light, invisible unless it was bouncing off something. She spied the edges of the doorway but could not see their source.

  The shouting continued, and was getting closer. She cast her eyes around the ballroom — there was nowhere to hide — yet another reason to leave. She stepped forward through the doorway.

  Fire! She was on fire!

  She stumbled backward into the room, shrieking, as she burned. Piercing flames of pain shot through her and she fell to the ground.

  A loud boom accompanied her fall. A sound that came from all around her.

  She held her hand before her. Visually, there was nothing on her, and she was not on fire, or melting, though it felt like she was. Her hand looked as it always did, healthy and pink, and then she saw just the slightest hint of red light dance across her fingertips.

  She looked toward the doorway. The red light was clearly visible now, flickering and waving in wispy undulations, very much like a fire. There was no gallery hall beyond the red; there was only a solid sheet of black.

  The flickering wisps of light began to undulate in color as well just then, from red to yellow. She wasn't sure at first what she saw next, it might have simply been a trick of the light, but it appeared as though the light was moving toward her. As soon as it cleared the frame of the door, she lost her doubts. The sparks of light moved outward from the wall in front of her. She shot her eyes about the room. It was everywhere, closing in on her.

  There was no escape.

  All she could do was delay the inevitable. Her only defense was to retreat toward the center of the ballroom.

  The shrieks and shouts from outside of the ballroom reached its perimeter, and began pounding on the sheets of black. More shouted gibberish, and then through the gibberish she heard—

  "Genevieve!" It was a woman's voice, frantic, screeching her name. "Gerard we must open the doors!"

  "No!" a male voice boomed. "Elle calm down!" He had an accent. It sounded British. "We cannot open the doors, you know that. The wave is too dangerous."

  "I don't care, Gerard! She's my child! Genevieve!" She screamed again. Weaker, almost like she was choking on the air, and then she was silent.

  "Genevieve!" came the voice of a child — no, children.

  "Genevieve, I'm sorry!" called one of them, while the other sobbed her name in streaks.

  The pain was intense, searing, burning, unrelenting. She felt like she might lose consciousness and then there was a word in her mind. A name.

  "Ian!" she yelled.

  "Genevieve," the child yelled.

  "Ian. Help me!"

  "Genevieve?" The British accent, Gerard, yelled, "Genevieve. You have to concentrate."

  The wave of Fire Light was almost on top of her now.

  "Go home Gen!" the young voice, Ian, shouted. "Go home!"

  Home.

  Nick.

  There was more screaming then. But it was only hers this time. She was in the bathroom lying on the floor, still on fire.

  It hadn't helped.

  Still dreaming, still burning — still dying — she was sure. Water. She needed water. She screamed again, trying to fight her way free from her clothes — and pull her way towards the bathtub. And then he was there.

  Nicholas Grace.

  He scooped her up off the bathroom floor and carried her to the bed.

  "Shhh," he was saying, "Shhh. Jen what happened? You're freezing."

  Freezing?

  "I'm on fire!" she insisted. "I'm burning."

  "No Jen, you're not, you're safe, you're home, you're with me."

  Searing pain ripped through her again, she screamed through gritted teeth.

  "Jen look at me," he demanded.

&nb
sp; Her breathing was rapid, her pulse pounded wildly in her ears, more of a flutter now than a constant beat. She was burning. Burning from the inside out.

  "Jen, please, look at me," he demanded again.

  She met his eyes and tried to concentrate on only them. If she were going to die now, here in his arms, she wanted to see his beautiful jeweled eyes one last time.

  She wanted to tell him that she loved him before she died, while she had the chance. She wanted to thank him for loving her, for taking care of her. She wanted to apologize for hurting him, for leaving him, for dying. But the pain encompassed her and she couldn't speak.

  His lips were moving, he was speaking to her, but she couldn't hear him, and then a moment later, she found she could no longer move.

  She wondered briefly what they would find had killed her, a brain aneurysm maybe? Did it matter? Whatever the reason, it wouldn't change the fact that she'd be dead. She kept her eyes on his as the rest of the world faded from her view and then all was dark. She was dead.

  Chapter 22

  Queen to C-7, Check

  She waited alone in the darkness. Burning. Was there nothing more than this? Wasn't there supposed to be some sort of light? A tunnel? She looked, but there was nothing... nothing and nothing and then... more nothing... only the dark, and the soft whispers of the flame.

  Was she in Hell? She was burning after all.

  She could almost make sense of the whispers of the fiery light. Fire Light. A spark of light leapt from her, whispering and sparking then dissipating into the darkness.

  They were rather fascinating; the little sparks of light, once you got past the searing pain that came from touching them. It receded slightly, every time one of them left her. But they took with them the light, as well as their soft, whispery voices.

  "Jen?" A voice in the distance called through the darkness. "Jen, can you hear me? Open your eyes."

  Not even the oblivion of death would keep her from him. "Nick," she forced her eyes to open. Her eyes struggled for a moment to find focus. They were not in her room anymore. It took her about a half a second to figure out where they were, but she asked the question anyway.