The Name of the Star

by Maureen Johnson

  “We were sent to the same hospital,” he said.

  He came to the bedside and looked me up and down, assessing the state of things.

  “The wound,” he said quietly, “it didn’t penetrate your abdominal cavity. I’m sure it hurts quite a bit, but you’ll be all right.”

  “I don’t feel it,” I replied. “I think I’m on some awesome drugs.”

  “Rory,” Stephen said. “I don’t want to put pressure on you in this condition, but they’re coming.”

  “Who?”

  No sooner had I said this than there was a crisp knock on the door. Without waiting for a reply, a man walked into the room. He had a youngish face and a head of what seemed to be prematurely gray hair, and he was dressed in plain but well-tailored clothes—black overcoat, blue shirt, black pants. He could have been a banker or a model of some idealized traveler like I’d seen in the airplane magazine. Somebody expensive and polite and almost deliberately forgettable, except for the gray hair. Another man followed him—older, in a brown suit.

  The gray-suited man gently shut the door and came around to the side of the bed closest to the window, where he could address both Stephen and me.

  “My name is Mr. Thorpe, and I am a member of Her Majesty’s security service. My colleague represents the government of the United States. Forgive the intrusion. I understand you’ve both had a difficult evening.”

  The unnamed American man folded his arms over his chest.

  “What’s happening?” I asked Stephen.

  “It’s all right,” Stephen said.

  “We have some business to finish to clear this matter up,” Thorpe continued. “We require assurance that this matter is at an end.”

  “It is,” Stephen said.

  “You’re quite sure, Mr. Dene? Were you present?”

  “Rory was.”

  “Miss Deveaux, can you say without question that the . . . person . . . known as the Ripper is no longer with us?”

  “He’s gone,” I said.

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure,” I said. “I saw it happen. Jo took the terminus and . . .”

  “And what?”

  I looked at Stephen.

  “They’re both gone,” I said.

  “Both?” Mr. Thorpe said.

  “Another . . . someone we work with.”

  “One of them?” Mr. Thorpe said.

  Just the way he said it made me hate him.

  “The threat has been neutralized,” Stephen said evenly.

  Mr. Thorpe sized us both up for a minute. Before, someone like him would have scared me to death. Now, he was nothing. A man in a suit, living and breathing.

  “You must understand . . .” Mr. Thorpe bent down to speak to me. He’d overdone it on the breath mints. “ . . . that it’s not in your best interests to discuss what happened to you tonight. In fact, we must insist that you do not. Not with your friends, your family, any religious counselors or mental health professionals. The latter would be most detrimental to you personally, as your account would be interpreted as delusional. Furthermore, you have become involved with an agency covered by the Official Secrets Act. You are bound by law to remain silent. We think it’s best that you remain in the United Kingdom for the time being, while this affair is being sorted out. Should you choose to return to the United States, you will still remain bound by this law, due to the special relationship between our two countries.”

  Mr. Thorpe looked to the man in the doorway, who nodded back.

  “You must realize talking about this won’t help anyone,” Mr. Thorpe said, softening his tone just a bit in a way that felt very deliberate. “The best thing you can do is return to school and continue with your life.”

  The brown-suited man took his phone from his pocket and started typing something in. He walked out of the room, still typing away.

  “Constable Dene,” Mr. Thorpe said as he straightened up, “we’ll be in touch, of course. Your superiors are very pleased with your performance in this matter. Her Majesty’s government thanks you both.”

  He didn’t waste any more time on good-byes. He was gone as quickly as he had arrived.

  “What just happened?” I asked.

  Stephen pulled a chair over to my bedside and sat down.

  “The cleanup is starting. They have to create a story the public can handle. The panic has to end. All the loose ends have to be tied.”

  “And I can never tell anyone?”

  “That’s the thing about what we do . . . We can’t tell anyone. It would simply seem insane.”

  For some reason, this is what did it. This is what made all the fears of the last days and the last hours come to the surface. I let out a sob. It was so loud and sudden that Stephen actually startled and stood up. I began crying uncontrollably, heaving. I don’t think he knew what to do for a moment, it was such an onslaught.

  “It’s all right,” he said, putting his hand on my arm and squeezing a bit. “It’s over now. It’s over.”

  My wailing drew the attention of the nurse, who snapped the curtain back.

  “All right?” she asked.

  “Can you do something to make her comfortable?” he said.

  “Are you finished with your questions?”

  “We’re done,” he said.

  “It’s been four hours since her last dose, so that’s fine. Give me a moment.”

  The nurse went away for a moment, returning with a syringe. She injected its contents into a bit of tubing coming off my IV line. I felt a tiny rush of something cool coming into my vein. I took a few more sips of the water, gagging and coughing a bit before I could get them down like a normal person.

  “Nasty wound,” the nurse said quietly. “I hope you catch whoever did that.”

  “We did,” Stephen said.

  After a minute or two, I felt myself slowly calming, and I had a strong desire to close my eyes. The tears were still running down my face, but I was quiet. Stephen kept his hand on my arm.

  I heard my door open again. I thought it was the nurse until I heard Callum say hello to Stephen and ask if I was okay. I managed to extract myself from the gooey pull of the druginduced sleep. Callum was pushing Boo’s chair. As soon as they were over the threshold, Boo took over, wheeling herself up to me and clonking into the side of my bed. Her eyes were solidly red and her face was streaked with the remains of her eye makeup. She grabbed my hand.

  “I didn’t think you’d come out of that room,” she said.

  “Surprise,” I replied.

  “I went into the toilets after they took you out. I saw the mirrors and the window. I smelled the air. And Jo . . .”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “I told her where you were,” she said, fighting to keep her voice steady. “I saw her go in. That’s what she’s like, you know?”

  Some heavy tears ran from her eyes. We all had a silent moment for Jo. Callum put his hand on Boo’s shoulder. I had a feeling he was thinking about the fact that he was the only one out of us that had been unhurt. Stephen was barely upright, Boo was unable to walk, and I was flat out in a hospital bed. But he may have been in the most pain.

  “We found the terminus as well,” Callum finally said. “Boo managed to get it out before it was bagged up as evidence. It doesn’t work anymore. I tried it. It’s not just the battery in the phone. Something’s happened to it.”

  He reached into his pocket and produced a diamond. It had gone a strange smoky shade, like lightbulbs do when they’ve blown out.

  “One terminus down,” Callum said. “Poor Persephone.”

  “Where are the others?” Stephen said, rubbing his eyes. “God, I’d forgotten . . .”

  So had I. They didn’t even know the worst of it yet.

  “He threw them into the river,” I said.

  Two tiny diamonds somewhere in the Thames. One tiny diamond filled with smoke.

  “That’s us fin
ished then,” Callum said quietly.

  “It’s not,” Boo said, dropping back into her chair. It almost got away from her, but Callum steadied it in time.

  “No terminus?” he asked. “No us.”

  “There was a squad before the terminus,” Stephen replied. “There will be one afterward. The Ripper is dead, and we’re all still here.”

  The drugs were creeping into the edges of my thoughts again, but it was warmer and more pleasant now. Everything started to go a bit slower, and things were running together. The tubes were a part of my arm. The blanket was a part of my body. But I don’t think it was the drugs that made me think that I was a part of the “we” now.

  37

  WHEN I WOKE AGAIN, IT WAS DAYLIGHT. I WAS uncomfortable. My stomach was itchy.

  “You were trying to scratch at your stitches,” someone said. The voice was American, and very familiar.

  I opened my eyes to find Stephen, Callum, and Boo were gone. In their place, I found my mother.

  “You were trying to scratch at your stitches,” my mom said again. She was holding my hand.

  “Where did the others go?” I asked. “Did you see them?”

  “Others? No, honey. It’s just us. We got on the first train. We’ve been here since this morning.”

  “What time is it now?”

  “It’s around two in the afternoon.”

  I desperately wanted to scratch at my stitches. She steadied my hand again.

  “Dad’s getting a coffee,” she said. “Don’t worry.

  He’s here. We’re here now.” My mom sounded so . . . Southern. So soft. So out of place. My mom was home. This was an English hospital. She made no sense in this context.

  My dad joined us a minute later, bearing two steaming cups. He wore his slouchy dad jeans and Tulane sweatshirt. My dad never went out in the Tulane sweatshirt. They both looked like they had dressed in the middle of the night, in whatever they could find.

  “Hot tea,” he said, holding up the cups. “It’s just wrong.”

  I smiled a little. We were iced tea drinkers, all of us. We’d joked about how disgusting it would be to drink our tea hot, with milk. That is just not how we do it. We had iced tea with every meal. Unceasing rivers of iced tea, even for breakfast, even though I knew that unceasing rivers of iced tea will stain your teeth a fetching ecru color, like old lace. I liked mine disgustingly sweet, too—so extra dental care points there. Iced tea, my family . . .

  “Dad,” I said.

  He put down the cups and they both just stood there, looking upset. The only thing I could think was that this is what people must see at their own viewings, when they’re stuck in their coffins. All you can do is lie there while people stand over you and mourn. It was a little much to bear, and my memories were coming back faster and faster. There were things I needed to know—I needed updates.

  “Can I see the news?” I asked.

  I don’t think my mom loved the idea, but she swung the television over and got the remote out from where it was tucked on the side of the mattress. The news station was, predictably, running the Ripper story. The bold words at the bottom of the screen told me everything: RIPPER DIES IN THAMES. I got the gist of the story fairly quickly. Police had been tracking suspect . . . suspect spotted at the Wexford School, just blocks away from the Mary Kelly murder site from 1888. The school, the location of the fourth murder, was speculated to be the intended site of the last murder as well. Police intervened when suspect tried to break into building . . . suspect ran . . . suspect jumped into Thames . . . body pulled out of Thames by divers . . . evidence confirms suspect was involved in all murders . . . name not yet released . . . police confirm the terror is over.

  “The police kept the details about what happened to you out of the press,” my father explained. “To protect you.”

  They had done exactly as Stephen said—they’d made a story that people could handle. They’d even put a body in the water for the police to fish out. I watched the footage of the divers bringing it up.

  I turned the television off, and my mom pushed it to the side.

  “Rory,” she said, smoothing my hair back from my forehead, “whatever happened, you’re safe now. We’ll get you through this. Do you want to tell us about it now?”

  I almost laughed.

  “It’s just like the news said,” I replied.

  That answer would hold water for a while—certainly not forever, but for a few days, while I recovered. I fluttered my eyes a bit and tried to look extra tired, just to steer them away.

  “You’re supposed to stay here for a few more hours at least,” my dad said. “We have a hotel room for the night, where you can get some rest, then tomorrow we’ll all go to Bristol. You’re going to love the house.”

  “Bristol?”

  “Rory, you can’t stay here, not after this.”

  “But it’s over,” I said.

  “You need to be with us. We can’t . . .”

  My mom gave a terse head shake, and my dad nodded and stopped talking. Silent communication. A united mental front. That was a bad sign.

  “That’s for now,” my mom said carefully. “If you want to go home . . . we can do that. We don’t have to stay in England.”

  “I want to stay,” I said.

  Another silent communication—just a look this time. Silent communications meant that they were serious and it was a done deal. I was going to Bristol. There was no fighting this one, really. There was no way they’d let me out of their sight now, not after I’d been slashed open in the school bathroom. I would be watched carefully for a while, and if I appeared in any way bonkers because of this, we would be on a plane back to New Orleans in a minute and I would be in a psychologist’s office the minute after that.

  Which was all really undesirable right now. England was my new home. England was where the squad was, where I was sane. This was all too complicated for me to figure out right now.

  “Can I have another shot?” I asked. “It hurts.”

  My mom hurried off to find someone. She returned with a new nurse, who gave me another injection into my IV. This was the last, she told me. I would be given some painkillers to take with me when I left.

  I spent the afternoon drifting in and out of sleep and watching television with my parents. There were still a lot of Ripper roundups, but some stations had decided it was okay to start running non-Ripper-related programs. Normal life was taking over again on midday television—trashy talk shows, and antiques shows, and shows about cleaning. English soap operas I couldn’t understand. Endless commercials for car insurance and strangely seductive commercials for sausages.

  Just after four, I saw two very familiar figures in the doorway. I knew they would come eventually. What I didn’t know was what to say to them. Their version of reality and mine had diverged. There was formal handshaking with my parents, then they came to the bedside and smiled slightly fearful smiles—the kind of look you give when you have absolutely no idea what to say.

  “How do you feel?” Jazza asked.

  “Itchy,” I said. “Kind of high.”

  “Could be worse,” Jerome said, trying to smile.

  My parents must have realized that my friends needed a minute to say whatever it was they wanted to say. They offered teas and coffees all around and excused themselves. Even after they were gone, the awkward silence reigned for a few moments.

  “I need to apologize,” Jazza finally said. “Please let me.”

  “For what?” I asked.

  “For . . . well . . . it’s just . . . I didn’t . . . Well, I believed you, but . . .”

  She collected herself and started again.

  “The night of the murder, when you said you saw someone and I didn’t. For a while I thought you made it up, even when the police were around you last night. All along you were a witness—and then he came after you. I’m sorry. I’ll never . . . I’m sorry . . .”

 
For a second, I was tempted—I just wanted to spill the entire thing, start to end. But no. Mr. Thorpe was right. I couldn’t do that, ever.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I would have thought the same thing about me.”

  “Classes are still canceled,” Jerome said. “But we were stuck there until they chased the news people away. It’s a circus. Wexford, site of the final Ripper attack . . .”

  “Charlotte,” I said suddenly. “I forgot Charlotte. Is she okay?”

  “Yes,” Jerome said. “She needed some stitches.”

  “She’s acting like she was as hurt as you,” Jazza said in disgust.

  Charlotte had been beaten over the head with a lamp by an invisible man. I was prepared to give her a pass.

  “You’re famous,” Jerome said. “When you get back . . .”

  Something in my expression made him stop.

  “You’re not, are you?” he asked. “They’re taking you out of school, aren’t they?”

  “Is Bristol nice?” I asked them.

  Jerome exhaled in relief.

  “It’s better than Louisiana,” he said. “That’s what I thought you were going to say. Bristol is reachable by train.”

  Jazza had remained quiet through all of this. She took my hand, and she didn’t have to say a word. I knew exactly what she was thinking. It wouldn’t be the same, but I was safe. We were all safe. We’d survived the Ripper, all of us, and whatever happened now could be dealt with.

  “There’s just one thing I wish,” Jazza said after a moment. “I wish I could have seen her get hit with that lamp.”

  38

  SO MY UNCLE WILL HAS THESE EIGHT FREEZERS UP IN his spare bedroom. It took a lot of effort to get those freezers up the steps, and I think he had to reinforce the floor. He keeps them filled with every kind of provision you can imagine. One is filled with meat. Another with vegetables and frozen dinners. I know one has things like milk and butter and yogurt. I think he even has frozen peanut butter in plastic jars, and frozen dried beans, and frozen batteries because he read somewhere that freezing them makes them last longer.