Our Child of the Stars

by Stephen Cox

  As she walked into Francine’s, her friends rose to embrace her.

  ‘Well!’ Molly said, sitting and flourishing the book, but Janice was bursting with something.

  ‘Have you heard the news?’ she babbled. ‘They’ve found a ring of Russian spies! Four people! They were arrested in Bradleyburg and they’re after at least two others, a man and a woman.’

  ‘Wow!’ Molly’s shock was genuine; she avoided the news as much as she could. What does this mean for Cory?

  Janice hadn’t finished. ‘Two Americans – imagine that! Two of our own! And a Czech and a German. At least that’s what their passports say, but the radio thinks they’re Russians, or working for them, anyway.’

  ‘We came to Amber Grove because of Hube’s job, and because nothing much happens here,’ Diane said. ‘We didn’t want excitement – then when Hube . . . then the Meteor, and now this.’ Together, without words, Janice and Molly each took one of Diane’s hands. Grief has no logic: it never wholly goes and it doesn’t care when it chooses to assert itself.

  Change the subject. Molly opened her mouth to ask, ‘Spies – but why here?’ but then she realised that was the stupidest question: the Meteor had brought the spies, of course, not to mention whatever the army was up to in the woods.

  ‘All sorts of people are passing through now,’ Janice said, ‘and it’s hard to spot spies – they’re not going to send sinister, unshaven men who speak with Russian accents, are they? Look, that couple over there? They might be spies for all we know.’

  Molly didn’t recognise the unremarkable people on the next table; Janice was right: they might be anyone. She wondered if the real spies had heard about the fifth floor and that made her worry all over again.

  But Janice was still talking. ‘Meteors aren’t radioactive,’ she said, an inconvenient fact lots of people had learned. She waved out at Founders Green, where the giant chunk of meteoric iron was still embedded. ‘That bit’s not radioactive, is it? So where’s the danger coming from?’

  Molly gave the agreed cover story, invoking the sacred name of Dr Jarman, then she said, just a little worried, ‘Did I warn the druggist I was coming? Oh . . . I can’t remember . . . It will be such a nuisance if he doesn’t have it made up. Give me a minute, will you?’ She took her purse over to the phone and with her back to her friends, rang Peggy first: two rings, pause, two rings. Peggy had been briefed; she knew what to do in a raid. Then she called the library and Gene himself answered.

  ‘I heard the news,’ he said immediately.

  ‘I’m with Diane and Janice. I suppose I’d better get back.’ Neither of them ever mentioned Cory on a phone, even obliquely.

  ‘I bet they ask who’s been asking about the Meteor,’ Gene said, ‘but everyone does! Any visitor who doesn’t is going to be far more suspicious.’

  There wasn’t anything else she could do, other than to call the druggist and ask for a repeat prescription of the pills she never took.

  ‘Trouble getting through?’ Janice asked when Molly re-joined them, and how she hated the little lies to protect the big one.

  ‘It helps to remember the number correctly,’ she joked. ‘Now, never mind the Russians: what about this book?’ Fifteen minutes perhaps, then I’ll go.

  Janice leaped in, never shy of an opinion, and all Molly had to do was nod.

  Russian spies. They’d known peace people, back in the day, who’d been starry-eyed about the Soviet Union, but the Myers remembered the tanks rolling into Hungary and the crushing of the Prague Spring last year and that poor boy, Jan Palach, who’d burned himself to death in protest. How brave and how foolish, to light such a fire, in the hope that his people would remember their freedom . . .

  The job of a spy was to dig up secrets – she didn’t need to guess what the Soviets would give to know about Cory.

  Diane was back on her usual form, telling Janice, as only a friend could, just how wrong she’d got something, so Molly ventured a thought or two of her own.

  And here, walking to the counter, came Sheriff Olsen, his uniform as pressed and well-fitting as always, his smile confident. Her heart began racing, but she kept her face still. Was this the end?

  The Sheriff saw her and raised his hat. ‘Ladies. Good to see you out and about, Mrs Myers.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She felt so paranoid now, starting to think everyone suspected.

  Olsen took a cup of coffee from Francine with a nod and sat so that he could watch her without it being too obvious. Or was that in her head? Now she didn’t know if her making tracks would just add to his suspicions.

  Molly began to construct her excuse to get away. If Olsen followed her, she wouldn’t go home – but then she’d need to phone Peggy. Or get Gene to leave work, but they were so busy. Headache, left the stove on . . .

  *

  The FBI turned up again, after supper this time. It wasn’t Anderson but the agent who’d come before, with a new colleague. Cory hid in the attic, this time without argument or proposing a better plan, while Gene and Molly sat in the front room with the FBI. They asked a lot of questions, starting with, had anyone been snooping around? Had the Myers volunteered anything to anyone?

  The truthful answers were no, and no. Good start. Molly hoped Gene’s nerves were less visible to them.

  When they finally showed the FBI to the door, Molly even managed to thank them for catching the spies. Then she shut the door and hugged Gene.

  ‘They could have just called us.’ Now she could be angry.

  ‘They’re keeping an eye on us. It’s pure intimidation: “Don’t step out of line, or else.” I’ll go and find Cory.’

  Molly wanted a drink, and she wasn’t going to have one. ‘I need a walk, okay? Just fifteen minutes.’ She slung on a coat, thinking she’d walk to the view over Amber Grove, then maybe into the woods, enjoy the fresh evening air.

  On the brow of the hill, looking down on the town where so much had happened, she heard a cough and there was Sheriff Olsen, walking towards her.

  ‘You made me jump,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Myers,’ he said, his back to the fading sun. ‘I trust the Feds treated you kindly?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Why are you following me?’

  He looked her in the eye. ‘You were a real Good Samaritan on the fifth floor,’ he said. ‘I should have come and thanked you when the child died. I know you did everything you could.’

  Was he really going to discuss that here, in the open air? But their voices were low; she guessed no one in the houses could hear them, and she couldn’t ask him back to hers.

  ‘I can’t talk about that,’ she said firmly. Gene and Cory were probably playing guitar by now.

  Olsen slipped his thumbs into his belt loops. ‘I promised his mother we’d keep the boy safe. She knew she was sick, and around us in the forest, my head was still ringing from the impact, all that fire and smoke. I thought the world was ending. You can trust me, Mrs Myers.’

  ‘I need to get back.’

  ‘I get that the Feds scared you – but you need to know how it was with me, okay? Purple or not, that was one steely lady. She asked me what I held dearest in the world, most sacred, and I swore by my Lord and Saviour, and on my oath of office, that I’d protect her and her boy. Every hair on my body stood on end, like the Angel of Judgement was at my shoulder.’

  He scratched his head. ‘Once I got Dr Jarman involved there was nothing more I could do. It was all Jarman and you nurses. I just wish it had worked out better.’

  ‘So do I,’ she said. ‘It was all very difficult.’ Tears wouldn’t work, not on a man like Olsen, so she couldn’t work out how to extricate herself. ‘Why didn’t you turn her over?’ she asked.

  Olsen paused. ‘Because I promised a dying mother I’d keep her son safe. Because I prayed on it and my heart was opened that was the right thing to do. B
ecause I trusted Edgar Jarman . . . Was there more I could have done?’

  ‘Um, no,’ Molly said after a moment. ‘I guess you did the right thing.’

  He waited, then went on, ‘You know, all this time, I keep wondering: did Our Lord die for the purples too? Don’t it say in the Good Book, all the Heavens proclaim His name? Maybe every star has people, each looking different, but children of the one Father. Did you get a chance to talk to the boy?’

  ‘No. I found his death very painful.’

  ‘I’ll pray for you,’ Olsen said. ‘His mother told me they had no need of weapons or war, so maybe these purples never fell from Grace at all. If you saw a wounded angel, would you walk by on the other side?’ For a moment he looked rapt, like he was in church.

  Then he shook his head and the normal Olsen was back.

  ‘Please don’t follow me,’ Molly said. ‘Gene won’t like it.’ What an odd thing to come out with.

  He laughed. ‘I figured out you told him something. Well, Mrs Myers, a crazy business. I thank you for your time. And these spies – if anyone from out of town, anyone, looks suspicious, you give me a call, okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Good night.’ She walked away, trying to fit that conversation into what she knew and what she’d heard as rumour. He still thinks Cory is dead. At least, she thought so.

  That night in bed, they ran over the familiar argument: Gene took Let’s go, now and Molly Let’s stay. They could argue either side with the same conviction.

  They chose to stay. There was no argument about whether to tell Sheriff Olsen that Cory was alive, because neither of them trusted him an inch.

  CHAPTER 16

  The outing

  Saturday evening, while Gene was off having a beer with Roy, his part of pretending things were normal, Molly invited Rosa Pearce and Peggy Fell for supper. Talking to Rosa was a bit like talking to Mount Rushmore, but Peggy was becoming a real friend; with her busy private life, she had a lot to chat about.

  Rosa turned up early, kissed Cory and said, ‘Now, young fellow, I want to see how your handwriting is getting on.’

  As Cory, rarely slow to show off, raced away to get a great sheaf of his writing, Molly asked, ‘How have you been?’

  ‘Oh, the Administration is hopeless,’ Rosa said. ‘I’m really not impressed with the new students. We need people with their heads screwed on.’

  Is that actually a compliment? Molly thought. ‘Well, I’m afraid I can’t come back to work,’ she said, glancing at Cory. Tonight, she was going to ask Peggy if she could commit to Cory-sitting a day a week, so she could help Dr Jarman with his research.

  ‘When Peggy gets here, I have a little G-I-F-T for himself,’ Rosa said.

  Cory’s ears went right up. ‘Cory not supposed to hear that,’ he announced.

  Rosa touched his head. ‘Oh, what a clever boy.’

  The bell rang, although Peggy had her own key, and when she walked in, they could see she was excited and flushed and holding her left hand a little oddly. A new ring glinted.

  ‘Well, he did it,’ Peggy said, moving her hand to be sure they saw it. ‘He asked on one knee and I said yes! And here’s a stroke of luck: the hospital near his new job is hiring nurses.’ Peggy’s on-again off-again boyfriend was moving to Maine.

  Molly hugged her, hiding her shock. Her work plan had just completely collapsed. And she’d been able to confide in Peggy. Gene was great, but a woman needed another woman. But of course, Peggy deserved happiness, so Molly tried hard to be glad for her.

  Peggy hugged Rosa, her boss, who was stiff and solemn, like a cigar-store wooden Indian.

  ‘You’ll be a loss,’ Rosa said. ‘He’d better treat you properly. I have my doubts.’

  Molly agreed with Rosa that the beau was flaky, certainly not someone to trust with the secret of Cory. But grown-ups must make their own decisions.

  ‘Don’t go,’ Cory said, and she realised he was upset. ‘Everyone went.’

  ‘I’ll visit,’ Peggy promised, stroking his ear. ‘I will miss our sweet little monster so much, and you too, both of you. But . . . this is the real thing.’

  Peggy had love and grit aplenty and Molly really did hope it would work out for her.

  ‘I’ll do your letter of recommendation tomorrow,’ Rosa said. ‘I’ll do a stinker, so you’ll have to stay.’ She was just a little flushed, a tiny bit moist-eyed. She coughed and added, ‘Well, that has overshadowed my news but I have a little present for Cory.’

  Cory was sitting bolt upright, like a dog expecting a treat. Rosa slipped him a tiny parcel, which he unwrapped using tentacles and hands together. He admired the little silver medallion, holding it close and sniffing it.

  ‘It’s St Christopher, little one,’ Rosa explained. ‘He guards travellers. You’re the most travelled person on Earth, and maybe you have longer journeys to come. He safely carried the most precious boy ever across a river.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Cory said, and gave her his strange tentacled kiss. ‘Wear on neck or wrist?’

  ‘It should go around your neck. It’s come down through my family: my great-grandfather bought it for my grandfather – that was my father’s father. It’s very precious. I want you to have it.’

  The chain was too short, but that was easily sorted.

  They ate, then Cory sang them a fierce song about sailing in a storm. Peggy had to leave early, to meet her fiancé, so Cory insisted on two stories from Rosa before bed.

  Later, Rosa spoke to Molly alone.

  ‘Her fiancé reminds me of one of the most feckless men I ever knew,’ Rosa said. ‘All charm, and as reliable as a drunk coyote. You can’t tell young women anything.’

  ‘My parents hated Gene,’ Molly admitted, ‘but we were barely speaking by then.’

  *

  Today would be glorious and hot, but the radio was still talking about spies; eight Russian diplomats had been expelled, because of the spy ring. Dr Jarman said someone from British television had come to talk to him; he’d heard the FBI thought there were more spies. The Mayor had even called a town hall meeting about it all. Molly wanted none of this. She stood in the garden with Cory, listening to the birds and watching insects flit from flower to flower.

  ‘Let’s take a trip in the car,’ she said. Let’s get out of town, away from the spies and the FBI and the army. A healthy Cory was like a sack of half-grown puppies. She needed to run him off and calm him down.

  Cory had no smile, but his ears went up, his tentacles danced and his tail wiggled. ‘Yes-yes-yes!’

  Molly drove with the window down. She knew a quiet place by a cool creek they’d tried a couple of times; once there were splashing boys who’d ignored the PRIVATE signs too, so she’d just turned the car around, but the second time, Cory had a blissful hour of swimming. He could breathe right in, those skinny ribs swelling fit to burst, and then dive under for ten or fifteen minutes without trouble.

  Cory wore a hooded sweatshirt big enough to cover his face and to hide his hands, and he would lie on the back seat until she gave permission for him to sit up and look. You couldn’t rely solely on his ability to hide because it didn’t work on a camera – there was no mind to fool. And if you stood far enough away, it wouldn’t work either.

  As she drove, Molly remembered an old counting song her mother used to sing when they went on vacation. Cory joined in the chorus. They took the main road east out of town, passing through fields and wood. To the north was the strange piebald part of the forest where the Meteor fell. The army had released many dramatic photographs, including twisted chunks of iron as big as a house, but only the authorised got to see the moonscape in person. She hoped nature would soon reclaim the damaged place, seed by seed and vine by vine, green inch by green inch. After all, even on islands of black volcanic rock there were plants growing . . .

  Cory’s eye was drawn to the d
evastation: it repelled him and she could feel his shudder. Of course, she and Gene were intensely curious about the hidden spaceship, but Gene had gone up a couple of times and reported that the army was even guarding the approach road: soldiers photographed the licence plates of anyone using the access roads, soldiers with dogs patrolled everywhere and tripwires and alarms had been set up behind the double fence. There were grimmer rumours, too, of at least one dead soldier. And Cory, shaking, never wanted to talk about his landing, the death of his mother or the Ship.

  ‘That place make Cory ill,’ he’d said, shivering in their arms.

  They’d left the site of the Meteor far behind when there was a sudden ripping sound and the steering wheel fought Molly’s hands. Something clattered, under and behind. She slowed at once, manhandling the car to the side of the road.

  ‘Stay in the car, Cory,’ she said, and got out to find a savage wound in the rear tyre’s black rubber. Twenty feet behind, a fist-sized piece of rusty metal lay in the road. Well, that threw a spanner into her plans. The later they got to the creek, the less likely they’d be alone.

  Insects chirped and hummed and a bird trilled nearby, but it was too open here by far. The nearest field was red clover and some green plant she didn’t recognise, very low to the ground.

  ‘All-fine car mend car,’ Cory said helpfully.

  ‘No sweetie-pie, our machines don’t fix themselves,’ she told him. ‘It’s just a flat tyre, simple to mend.’

  She wasn’t some fluttering Victorian miss in a corset. She could do this. ‘I’ll use a jack to lift the car up, take off the broken tyre and put the new one on. Then I’ll lower the car down and off we go.’

  ‘Cory want watch.’

  ‘Cory wants to watch, sweetie-pie,’ she said, a little distracted. ‘Well, find somewhere you’re not obvious.’