The Sound of Stars

by Alechia Dow

  “Beyoncé’s ‘Single Ladies.’ Of all the songs... Come on, I’ll show you.” Ellie waves him closer to her. An invitation. He readily agrees to forget the world around them and dance for a little while.

  Fear worms its way into his mind as he realizes that this may be the last joy they have together. But he chooses to ignore it for now. Ellie wants to show him her dance, and he will not ruin this moment.

  He settles in beside her as she throws her hands up just like the song commands, and he follows. Then her movements come faster, and more difficult to copy. Yet, his heart is thumping in his chest, and it feels good to try. And Ellie hasn’t stopped grinning at his efforts.

  His gaze roams over her, and he forgets to imitate her as her hands flex at her waist; she dips, and twists around. And then she... M0Rr1S’s breath catches. She shimmies to the floor, and if that is not the most attractive thing he’s ever seen...

  He stands there in awe of her. “Ellie. I want you to dance this dance every day for the rest of our days.”

  She giggles, pulling him closer, but M0Rr1S is too distracted, too powerless to dance beside her. He is utterly mesmerized. Humans use their emotions to create emotions in others. M0Rr1S follows every step Ellie makes. He can’t take his eyes off her. If anything happens to her on the rest of their journey, his guilt will consume him. He couldn’t live with himself. But if she departs from his life now, it would be as if the sun could never shine on him again.

  The universe has planted him here at this time at the right place. This was fate. The fate Andarrans believe in and he scoffed at when their sacred fish kissed his fingers and promised him a destiny. This must be it. He was meant to find Janelle. Meant to find her book. To engage in a series of weird and dangerous events so that he could stand here, at this moment, enjoying her dance and realizing every plan he’s ever made means nothing if Ellie isn’t there with him.

  She keeps pointing to her finger throughout the dance, and singing something about a ring. His body aches to respond to her, to dance with her, be close to her in a new, exciting way. But it’s not the right time, and neither of them are ready.

  Still, he yearns.

  The song ends and she smiles through shallow breaths. “What’d you think? I’ve never done that in front of anyone before.”

  “That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in my entire existence.” He can’t keep the awe from his voice, nor the desire.

  “Morris, you’re blushing.” So is she. Her eyes lock on his. “Do you want to dance one more time?”

  “Yes.”

  PART FOUR

  THE WORLD IS THEIRS NOW

  The Starry Eyed: “Lost With You”

  The Sound of Stars

  Written by: Cecil Wright, Allister Daniels, Rupert Montague, Whisper Landsome

  Lost in the cosmos, stuck in the colonies

  Worlds upon worlds in the galaxies

  The spectrum as far as our eyes can see

  Honey, do you trust me?

  Past the sun, on the other side of the moon

  I know you’re scared, we’ll be there soon

  You read me the book, I’ll sing you the tune

  I make you laugh, you make me swoon

  If we’re lost, my dear, I don’t care

  I found you

  If we’re together, it doesn’t matter where

  I want you

  Places in the universe we’re going to explore

  I’ll break the lock, you push open the door

  With you by my side, I’ll never ask for more

  You make my soul smile, I make your heart soar

  If we’re lost, my love, I don’t care

  I found you

  If we’re together, it doesn’t matter where

  I need you

  I’ll show you everywhere and anywhere my dear

  I’ll take you places, I’ll always hold you near

  I know you’re scared, but there’s nothing to fear

  One shot into space, right through the atmosphere

  If we’re lost, I just don’t care

  I promise you

  If we’re together, it really doesn’t matter where

  I live for you

  They say we’re in space, but please stay close to me

  I revolve around you, you’re my gravity

  They say we’re too different, that it can’t last

  That you’re a star, shooting too fast

  But you put your hand in mine, taking me with you

  I love you

  I love you

  CHAPTER 22

  “To be fond of dancing was a certain step toward falling in love.”

  —Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

  JANELLE

  My mind keeps traveling back to that kiss. The way his lips felt against mine.

  Then my mind travels to Alice, and her kiss. My first kiss. I liked Alice, loved her as a friend. She was my first crush. If we’d had time and our circumstances were different, maybe we would have dated. But now that I’ve had the best kiss of my life, there’s no one else I want to kiss. My cheeks heat, and I distract myself by peering out the window at the shifting landscape.

  I wonder if that’s how Wylan felt when he finally kissed Jesper, or Dimple and Rishi’s first—no, second—kiss, or when Camille finally got to kiss Lazare, or Jack when he gets to kiss Kate the first of many first times, or Elizabeth and Darcy...although they never do kiss in the book. I imagine it would be a lot like ours.

  We pass a sign welcoming us to California, The Golden State. Another version of me would have held my phone out, taken a picture of it and posted it online. But this version of me doesn’t have a phone, or anyone to share with.

  My mind travels to my parents, possibly unconscious in their own bodies by now. I wonder what they would think about me traveling across the country with an Ilori boy who I’ve kissed and might be falling in love with.

  My mom would have been weirded out but happy. She was always trying to goad me into making more friends and finding a significant other. Probably neither of us imagined I would.

  Now I’m sitting next to an Ilori boy. An Ilori boy who I might sorta love? I guess in a way it all makes sense. It all comes together. The only person I’d fall in love with is an alien. But how can I love Morris when our future is so uncertain?

  Morris is lost in thought as he drives. If he’s scared, he hasn’t said.

  It’s the middle of the night, and I wonder if now would be a good time to pop one of my newly acquired pills. I guess I’m expecting to live longer in this body, so I’ll need this medicine to last longer than a few days. Then I wonder, if I get vaccinated, will the Ilori inhabiting my body have the same hypothyroidism with a generous dose of anxiety? Will they take the medicine, or will they have some magical cure?

  I bend forward and pick up one of the small boxes of medicine. I forgot how delicate the cardboard is, and am careful not to crush it.

  Morris looks over as I open the flap to release a flimsy metal sheet dotted with tiny pills. “What is that?”

  “Medicine for my... I have a thyroid condition.” I don’t really want to talk about it, though. I told all my friends; it was hard not to when I had to keep canceling plans because I felt like there was fire in my veins, and I analyzed everything a million times. Alice and I talked about it often. She did wellness checks and knew how to talk me through an attack. But right now, I want to enjoy the last few hours we have left, not thinking about my illness or the medicine I’ll take that won’t actually work for weeks.

  Morris seems to understand and doesn’t ask more about it. I appreciate that. The pill sits on the tip of my tongue till I wash it down.

  “Want me to tell you the rest of the story?” We’re almost to the end of it, and Morris has loved it so fa
r.

  “No, although I want to know how it ends and I really want them to get together. But if they don’t, and that is the last story I hear in this world, in your voice, then I don’t want to imagine any story where love doesn’t find a way in the end.”

  I sigh. “Oh, Morris.”

  “I know.” And I know he does. He’s afraid that our love story might not have a happy ending.

  He pulls the car over and turns it off. “We’ll be in Los Angeles in a few hours if we keep at this pace. But unfortunately, the closer we get to the city, the more the Ilori control, and then we must also be careful to avoid the Andarran lands. IpS1L is on the coast, along the beaches. I wish I had a map to show you.”

  “Andarrans? As in other aliens?”

  Morris nods, and I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I decide not to ask as much as I can about it. “It doesn’t matter. You know where you’re going, and I’ll follow you.”

  I stretch in my seat and give him a half shrug that I hope encourages him to continue.

  He clears his throat. “We will have to leave the car somewhere before Los Angeles. Otherwise, we would attract unwanted attention and more danger than necessary.” He takes a deep breath. “We’ll have to walk the rest of the way. Are you okay with this?”

  I twist my hair up before pulling the hat down over it. “We’ve already made it this far. What’s a few more miles on foot?”

  “Your optimism is both surprising and delightful.”

  “No one has ever described me that way,” I joke.

  “Oh, really? Does anyone truly know you, I wonder?” He turns his beautiful, round eyes on mine.

  “I’m difficult to know,” I admit.

  “I think I do. Know you, that is.”

  “We’ve known each other—what—eleven or twelve days?” I bite the inside of my cheek to tamp down my heart.

  “And that is all it took.” His gaze drops to my lips.

  I lean forward to kiss him. Never in my life did I imagine that, in a series of eleven or twelve days, I, Janelle Baker, would be kissed three times. But now it’s happened, and I have to say, I really enjoy it. Alice’s kiss was sad but filled with platonic love. Morris’s kiss is...filled with desire and a very different sort of love. The kind of love that makes your stomach warm, and your heart flip in your chest like it just doesn’t know what to do.

  The seconds turn to minutes, and the softness turns to passion. Next thing I know, I’ve straddled his lap, and the steering wheel is poking into my back, but I pay it no mind. I’m lost in Morris, and he’s just as lost in me. Every place our bodies touch feels like fire—deliciously warm fire—when all I’ve known is the cold.

  His hands are firm around my waist, and the world falls away around us. Heat blasts through every dark and distant thought that warns me that time is running out. That we don’t belong together. That this thing is too wild to be tamed. Right now, all I want is to live; to be truly alive and human, with an Ilori boy who inspired love in me.

  I pull my lips back from his. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  His gaze falls. “Do you regret this?”

  “No, I’m sorry, I don’t mean that. I mean, I don’t know how to do this...you know? Um, intimacy? I don’t know.”

  His tongue darts out to lick his lips, and my breath hitches. “Neither do I.”

  “But you’ve done it before.”

  “But I’ve never felt like this before.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “We...” He sighs. “If we were going to...make love, I don’t wish for it to be in a car. Nor do I want our fates to remain unknown, or you to worry, or—”

  “If we wait for perfection, we might never experience anything.” I shift in his lap, aware of how my actions affect him. Part of me, a big part, knows he’s right.

  “This is true, but I’m nervous and I want it to be perfect. Do you think that would be okay?”

  I nod in agreement, before kissing him quickly on the lips. I’m rushing it, because I never felt this way, never wanted to feel this way, and I’m afraid my life will be over soon. “We’ll wait.”

  “Are you disappointed?”

  “No.” I slide off him and sit back in the passenger seat. “Never.”

  “Can you tell me the rest of the story?”

  “I’d love to.” I adjust myself, letting the coolness of his absence wash over me. “And we still haven’t listened to the first Starry Eyed album.”

  “Well we should listen now, before we lose the chance.”

  I twist in my seat and search for my other phone through the hard drives and books. I find it underneath my copy of The Hate U Give, the book that started it all. I yank the old phone out and push the new one in. A moment passes before the familiar voice of Allister Daniels fills the car. I lean back in my seat. “Where did we leave off?”

  * * *

  We finish the story when we slow to a stop in West Covina. I hand Morris the USB stick from the console so that he can rearrange his bag, then step out and stretch my legs. I yawn. I wish we hadn’t left my leggings in a field somewhere in Arizona, because the more my thighs rub together, the more they’ll become an intolerable, painful, fiery hell.

  I can’t help but cringe as I remember this happening to me while walking the Brooklyn Bridge after stopping for ice cream. I’d been tempted to drop it between my legs for relief.

  Maybe we’ll stop somewhere and I’ll miraculously find some pants that fit me. But the invasion started in eight places: São Paulo, Lagos, DC, Moscow, Paris, Tokyo, Sydney and Los Angeles. I’d be surprised if there’s any clothing or supplies left out here.

  “Are you ready?” He stuffs the medicine into his bag as I collect the buzzkiller from the glove compartment.

  We start walking down a deserted street on broken pavement that eventually melts into dirt and grass. There are a few immaculate buildings standing—only a few traces of humans—interspersed with gardens that have all sorts of dangling fruits and vegetables I don’t recognize hanging from tall trees.

  “Wow. This is another world.”

  Morris squeezes my hand. “This is how most of your world will look in just a few days. Forest, gardens, green spaces and wildlife. Flowers. Pure enough for the Ilori. This atmosphere might even be clean enough for them now.”

  My eyebrows lift while dread sits in the bottom of my gut. The Ilori may be better for Earth, but I think humanity can still change. That humanity deserves to reclaim our planet and be better to it.

  “You told me that your dad will kill you and then punish your mom if you fail here. Why would he do that?”

  Morris plucks a shimmery purple fruit from a garden as we pass. “Because I didn’t want to marry 0rsa. Because my mother gave me her genetic material, making me one of the strongest labmade Ilori. And because he didn’t want me. I guess I should say, he didn’t want a labmade son. My mother couldn’t have more children.” He takes a bite and sighs. “Would you like one? They’re called starberries.”

  I shrug and take it from him. My teeth sink into the soft flesh, and I think I make a little sound. The fruit is sweet, like eating ripe strawberries, but has the sharp tartness of a plump clementine. It’s the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten. Morris looks at me, a blush creeping onto his olive cheeks. “Sorry, you were saying?”

  Morris nods, looking a bit distracted. “When I was in the labs, my father spoke to me. He explained the rules of our home, of our people...he described the palace. I am not certain why he did this, whether my mother forced him to—but as his visits became more frequent, I became more attached to him. I liked hearing his voice and his thoughts. But I do admit, I was not listening as carefully as I should have. I was too in awe. When I was born, I mistook his interest in me as love. And I remember the look he gave me when I made that mistake. I didn’t know it then, but I kn
ow it now as disgust. And therein began our complicated relationship. I’m too feeling, too impure for him. I will never be a true Ilori. From the beginning, I’ve felt deeply, only with shame.” Morris’s mouth wobbles. “I’ve been carrying this burden longer than I can remember.”

  His head droops a little. “When my grandfather dies, my father will become emperor. He can forbid any communication between my mother and me.”

  I pat his arm, but the news surprises me. “I’m so sorry. Is that why you’re rebelling against him?”

  Morris stops and looks at me. “In a way, yes. But also for my mother. She loved me...she helped me, groomed me for this purpose regardless of my inferiority, to become the seed of rebellion against my own father. How long she’s been standing beside him while plotting against him, I don’t know. She gave me this mission, and that is why I have always been careful in Il-0CoM.”

  We begin walking again as he catches his breath. “I’m telling you this because I trust you. I kept the truth from you before because I was trying to protect you, but I was also pushing you away. I won’t do that again.”

  I take his hand as we continue through the forest. “Thank you for trusting me, Morris.”

  “Thank you for...everything, Ellie.”

  I keep my head down as a grin spreads across my face. I hope we don’t run into any Ilori, and I really hope that I keep Morris’s secret with me forever. He and his mother seem to have a close bond, as close as I had to my parents. I don’t want to be the human girl who destroys that.

  “How long a walk is this going to be?” I find myself wishing for the flimsy blue sneakers we lost in Oklahoma. My feet are sweaty in the boots without socks.

  “Around nine hours without using my abilities. Six with.” Morris shoots me a look of concern. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m just a little worried. Every time I take a trip I worry.”

  “What are you worried about?”

  Honestly? What aren’t I worried about is a better question. My legs, my feet, my hair, his brother and, of course, making the decision to go with him or stay here, be killed by his betrothed or vaccinated. What if that ship, the only chance he has at uploading and broadcasting his song, doesn’t work? The other aliens. And death. I’m probably going to die today. Oddly, that doesn’t scare me as much as all the other things.