The Fallen Stars (A Star Child Novel)

by Stephanie Keyes

  “Gabriel.” I reached out to touch his arm. “Did something happen?” He didn’t answer. “What happened when you said the protection spell?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. I won’t say it again, so don’t ask me,” he said, sounding angry.

  Shocked, I took a step back. Gabriel had never spoken to me that way before.

  Gabe gave a weak smile. “I’m sorry, okay, C? I just don’t want to talk about it right now.”

  “I understand,” I said, walking over to sit next to Kellen, entwining my fingers in his. The cushions on the couch made a ssshhing sound when I sat down on them.

  “We’ve done all we could to protect the house,” Kellen said to Gabe. “I’m not sure if it’s going to be enough, though.”

  Gabe looked him square in the eye and said, “It’ll have to be.” He picked up a mug from the kitchen counter. “So tell me more about these Children of Danu.” Gabe walked into the living room then sat on the floor by the fire. The contents of the mug released little swirls of steam into the air.

  “They were the good guys, once,” Kellen said. “Many of them came to Earth to help the mortals of Ireland in a fierce battle. They lost. Arawn, the Lord of Faerie, forced them underground. Lugh couldn’t save them, so they’re pissed at him. And me, apparently.”

  “They’ve turned into something else. They’re not the same.” I could hear the sadness in my own voice. I’d always wondered what my life would have been like with so many aunts, uncles, and cousins around. Yet I never got to find out. They’d never been a part of it. Arawn had won that battle; Kellen won the other.

  “They’re like fallen stars…or fallen Star Children, really,” Kellen added, bringing me back from my thoughts. He relaxed more into the couch, pulling me back against him.

  All three of us yawned then, nearly in unison. The events of yesterday, our wedding…It had all taken a toll. We needed to rest now, in the daylight. If they were going to come for us, it would be at night. They always came for you at night.

  “They’re after Lugh too? I thought they just wanted you, K.” Gabe’s voice sounded matter-of-fact, but I could hear the fear in his tone.

  “I think they’d take us both if they could, but I’m the one without powers. They definitely want me,” Kellen said.

  His words caused a shudder to ripple through me. No, they can’t have him.

  Kellen talked to Gabriel about the tree and the message in its base for Kellen. I listened, staring out the window at the sea. How much time do we have? Hours? Days?

  Kellen started running his hand idly up and down my side. He did things like that when he got nervous. This action made me want to laugh but I didn’t know why. I stopped his hand by linking his fingers in mine.

  “I have a weird feeling about this,” Gabe said, setting his mug down.

  “Agreed,” Kellen said. “Plus, they had Lugh and Brigid captured. Why didn’t they just kill them, and me for that matter, if it was just for revenge? They talked of me having something…”

  “And you don’t know what they’re talking about?” Gabriel asked.

  “No,” Kellen said.

  Though Kellen had a point, the thought of anything happening to my parents, to him, made me want to retch. I focused on calming my breathing and toyed with the seam along the side of my pants.

  “Do you think your uncle is really going to come here and help us?” Gabriel asked, turning to me. He looked serious, more so than I’d ever seen him.

  “I’m sure of it. If he left those messages for us, then he has been keeping an eye on us. It’s only a matter of time, Gabriel,” I said.

  “Okay, well, since we have to wait for him to show up…” Gabriel muttered these words before he rolled over onto his side.

  “He’s right. We need to rest,” I said to Kellen. Grabbing one of the blankets that we’d used last night, I spread it over him and snuggled up against him. The feeling of his chest under my hand, rock hard after the fighting in Faerie, both comforted me and distracted me at the same time.

  “Okay, Cali,” Kellen said, pulling me closer, tucking me in under the blanket. In no time at all, his breathing evened out and I could hear the steady rhythm of his heart as he rested in my arms.

  But I couldn’t sleep now. I kicked around Gabriel’s words in my head. What did they think that Kellen had, and how far would they go to get it?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  KELLEN—THE CARETAKER

  “Come on in, man.” Gabe’s voice sounded far away as I meandered my way back from a deep and dreamless sleep. The nap had been one of those where you feel overly warm, almost unable to move afterwards. You linger just a bit longer in that purgatory that hovers in-between the sleep world and the real world.

  Gabe’s voice got louder. Guess my nap’s over. Nice. Thanks, man.

  When I opened my eyes, I practically fell off the sofa at the sight of the tall stranger standing above me. Easily six-foot-four, with pale skin, and a jacket that dripped water onto the hardwood, he smelled like dirt and rain as he regarded me with eyes that were an odd shade of blue-gray. Based on his neutral expression, I couldn’t tell whether he’d come on a mission of goodwill or ill will.

  “Hey guys, this is William.” Gabe leaned against a beam about a foot behind the stranger. “He’s the house caretaker.”

  “Hi, William.” I gave a quick wave before disentangling myself from the blanket. I tried to take my time sitting up, as though he hadn’t surprised me at all.

  “I didn’t know that you’d taken over for Thomas. He probably had a little too much to drink again, huh?” Gabe laughed.

  William laughed right along with him. “Oh, you know Thomas. He’s a strong old sod; nothing keeps him down for long. He’s just been having problems with his arthritis. You know how the Maine winters can be. Sorry for coming over uninvited,” William apologized, looking slightly embarrassed to have caught us all napping.

  Shaking his head, Gabe gestured to a chair. “No worries, man. Why don’t you make yourself at home.”

  “No, I don’t want to intrude. Actually, I came over to invite you to dinner,” William offered. It would have seemed like a generous offer if his facial expression hadn’t contradicted the message. This guy seemed like he didn’t exactly socialize much, so why invite us over? There are no coincidences. Cali’s voice rang in my mind from our conversation earlier.

  The three of us just stared at him. The clock on the wall read four o’clock and we’d all been sleeping. Obviously, we hadn’t made any plans for dinner. How did we get out of it? Surely it wouldn’t be safe…

  My brain, still a little foggy from my nap, kicked into gear. “Hey man, that’s nice of you. I’m Jack, this is…uh…” Eyes alighting on a coffee table book on the Kennedy family, I gestured to Cali. “Kennedy. You already know Gabe.” I smiled at William, extending my hand.

  William took my hand and shook it. “Nice to meet you.”

  “I think we’re all just wiped out from traveling, so we’re going to have to pass,” I began. If Gabe or Cali had any thoughts about my easy alteration of our names, they didn’t let on. Though it put me a little more at ease knowing that William worked for Eleanor Stewart, I didn’t want to let my guard down.

  “But thanks for the invitation,” Cali said. William’s eyes rested on Cali a little too long, taking far more time to assess her than I liked. Cali looked away, as if reconsidering her words.

  “The thing is, William, we’re pretty beat from our drive up,” Gabe said.

  “Look, I know you’re all tired, and you don’t have to stay long. I just made a simple meal—it’s nothing, really. You can eat and run for all I care.” Again, his face contradicted the message.

  Staring at Gabe, I tried my hand at mental telepathy. How do we know this guy isn’t one of them? That he’s safe?

  “I guess we could…” Gabe said.

  I glared at Gabe. Apparently I didn’t have the gift of telepathy. Damn. What were we supposed to do no
w? Go off with this stranger? How did we know that we could trust him? What if he turned us in? I wanted to tell this William character to get lost. Instead I ended up searching for my shoes.

  “Follow me, then. You’ll need your coats.” William immediately turned and walked to the door. As he reached it, he turned back. “Gabe? If you talk to your mother, could you let her know that I found the check that she sent me?” He held it up in the air in front of him, as if to emphasize his words. “Please give her my apologies for waiting so long to cash it,” William said, smiling.

  Gabe looked at the check for a moment and then smiled, seeming relieved. Whatever he’d seen on the check apparently convinced him that this guy was the real deal.

  “Gabe? Can you show me how to lock up? I couldn’t get the latch shut all the way before,” I said.

  Gabe turned and looked at me, understanding dawning on his face. “Sure. C—uh, Kennedy, you’d better see this too so you know how to do it. We’ll meet you outside, William,” Gabe said to the stranger.

  William nodded. “Sure.” Turning, he walked out the front door, shutting it behind him.

  As soon as he’d gone, I turned to Gabe. “I don’t like it. Plus, we don’t know who this guy really is.”

  Cali nodded. “I agree. I thought maybe I’d get some sort of feeling about him, but I guess that’s not something that came with my mortality.” Her eyes flickered for a moment, returning to Gabe’s. “We need to make our apologies, Gabriel.”

  Gabe shook his head. “Look, he checks out. He had a key, and that was my mom’s freakin’ check in his hand. She uses checks with some weird dogs on them, and the check was made out to William O’…something. He knew about Thomas and he had a key.”

  “He could have gotten all of those things together if he really wanted to,” I said.

  “Look, man, I know you’ve been through some stuff, but things are simpler here. I think we can take this guy at face value. Besides, I’m starving.” Gabe looked down at his stomach like it was an alien creature. “Look, let’s go, and if you or C think we need to, we’ll leave.”

  I still didn’t like it. However, I remembered the small bridge to the footpath that led in the opposite direction of the parking area. If he truly were one of the Children of Danu, he wouldn’t have made it across the bridge and into the house uninvited in the first place. Members of Faerie had to be invited into a house before they could enter it. My Gran taught me that.

  “Come on, K. Remember that saying, keep your friends close and your enemies closer?” Gabe pleaded.

  “Okay, but the minute there’s something off, we leave,” I said. “I just don—” I stopped as something caught my attention behind Cali. My eyes shot to the chalkboard on the wall, just off a little bit to the right behind Cali’s head, one of those artsy things that people kept near the phone to take messages, or in some homes to write the menu of the day. A single piece of chalk rose in the air by itself and positioned its tip against the chalkboard, as though preparing to write a message.

  “What is it, K?” Gabe asked.

  When the squeaking sound of the chalk against the board began, he and Cali both turned and saw it too. Writing appeared on the board, a message printed on it before our very eyes in tight, spiny scrawl. When the chalk dropped to the ledge, the writing stopped. It read: I trust him. Go.

  It matched the handwriting from the notes and from the tree in town. There’d been no doubt about it. Dillion’s handwriting couldn’t have been any more distinct.

  The three of us stared at one another, locked in a silent discussion. There’d be so much risk associated with going with William, but if Dillion trusted him…

  “If my Uncle trusts him, then I think we need to as well,” said Cali.

  “Okay, but if we go with him, we leave at the slightest hint of anything funny. Got it?” I said, repeating my earlier lament.

  “Agreed,” Gabe and Cali said in unison. It felt like we’d just sworn a pact, like in one of those weird teenage movies where they spit on one another’s hands or exchange blood. Thankfully, this pact involved neither.

  Stopping by the door, we each put on our parkas. My fingers immediately found the piece of iron in my pocket. Grasping it with one hand, I held Cali’s hand with my other. I started out in the lead, but Gabe quickly cut in front of me to talk to William.

  We didn’t have far to walk, maybe several hundred yards. The path took us directly to a small gatekeeper’s house that I hadn’t noticed before. How Hansel-and-Gretel-esque. Though I couldn’t see much of the exterior of the place in the dark, it definitely reminded me of something straight out of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale. A cottage deep in the woods. Maybe we were going to be the dinner…

  “This way,” William muttered over his shoulder as he led us into his house.

  The last to cross the threshold, I couldn’t have been more surprised at what greeted me. The cheerful one room cottage epitomized the phrase “neat and orderly”. From the tidy blanket that covered the bed, to the colorful collection of books and music on the wall, it truly represented a home. Dried flowers and herbs hung artfully from the ceiling in various places. A variety of plants rested on the windowsills, tabletops, and mantel. A blazing hearth was the focal point in the room, flanked by two overstuffed chairs. Then my gaze shifted to the table, which overflowed with place settings for a formal dinner. Rich blue damask fabric covered the table and ran down to the floor where it pooled at the feet of the chairs.

  William took our coats before removing his own oversized outer gear. In the light of the cottage, he appeared younger than I’d first assumed. Perhaps in his early twenties, late teens even. Short brown hair framed his smooth-shaven face. Again, he stared at Cali, but not for as long this time. After a moment, he snapped into host-mode. “I’m, uh, sorry. Have a seat.” William pointed to the table and chairs, not commenting on how he knew there would be four of us for dinner. Yet he immediately answered that question when he said, “I didn’t know how many we’d have for dinner, but it looked like I guessed right!” He smiled, his hands outstretched as he indicated the table.

  Cali, Gabe, and I exchanged looks but took our seats, sinking into the comfortable chair cushions that dotted each of the chairs at the large round table.

  “Should we even eat what he serves us?” I whispered to Cali, remembering the advice from Gran that you should never eat anything given to you in Faerie. This was close enough.

  Cali shrugged. “Dillion would have warned us otherwise. Besides, don’t you think I would feel anything if he were one of them?”

  The word no lay on the tip of my tongue, threatening to come out, but I held it back. In truth, I didn’t know if Cali still had the ability to discern anything about Faerie, and that worried me.

  William returned with four red dishes, setting one on the table in front of each of us. “Nothing special, I’m afraid. Just a simple shepherd’s pie.”

  As he spoke, I picked up on the faintest traces of an Irish accent. The tantalizing smell of the food wafted up under my nose, teasing me. When had I last had a meal like this? I practically moaned with gratitude in anticipation of the meal. Warm Irish Brown Bread complimented the dish, along with a bottle of wine.

  It was on the tip of my tongue to say that we weren’t of drinking age yet. However, I remembered that I was the only one who hadn’t reached drinking age. Cali had come of age centuries ago. No one could have doubted her. She and Gabe accepted glasses of wine from William without hesitation.

  “Jack?” William held up the bottle, about to pour me a glass.

  “No, thanks. Gives me a headache,” I said, kicking myself for not just accepting the wine.

  “Some milk then?” William’s smile appeared mocking, as if he’d known my true age.

  “Nothing, thanks,” I said.

  Gabe smirked, digging into his dinner with gusto. Taking a bite myself, I had to admit that it far exceeded my expectations, though it would never measure up to Gran’s. Restaurant qua
lity, certainly.

  “So tell us a little bit about yourself, William.” The guy had given me dinner. Plus we needed more info on one of the few people that could pinpoint our location.

  “What do you want to know?” His face seemed closed off.

  Normally I had a talent for reading people. Not William. “Well, you aren’t from Maine, that much is obvious from your accent. Where are you from?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light, even, not wanting it to sound like the interrogation that it was.

  “Dublin,” he said easily, though he didn’t expand on that information. He went back to eating his dinner as though the rest of us weren’t there.

  “That’s a cool city,” I said. I’d only been there once and it’d been a long time ago.

  No one spoke for about a minute. Awkward.

  Gabe, who had never been able to stand silence, seemed compelled to break it. “Where’s your family, man?”

  “Dead,” William said in a flat voice. Gabe flushed.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Calienta said, placing her hand on William’s. He looked up and met her eyes, staring into them as if he could see into her soul.

  “Yeah, man, me too. I didn’t mean—” Gabe said.

  William turned to Gabe, breaking his connection with Cali. “It’s nothing,” he said. “It happened a long time ago. A lifetime ago.” With no further comment, he left the room, but before we could share any whispered thoughts in his absence, William returned with a cheesecake, a pot of coffee, and several cups. “Dessert?” he asked. We all nodded and he began serving dessert as though there hadn’t just been a supremely awkward moment between the four of us.

  Deciding to try another tack, I looked around the room. “There are quite a few plants and herbs around the house here. Are you a gardener?” I asked.

  William smiled; his personality was a puzzle. “I’m a warlock, actually,” William said.

  Cali’s eyes darted to his before she met mine, and I picked up on her feelings of suspicion. Gabe looked at me as well. I didn’t believe for one minute that any of this was a coincidence.