The Star-Fire Prophecy (2 page)

Chapter Two

Danica pulled the brush listlessly through her red hair. In the mirror she saw the shaded circles under her eyes. Even their translucent green seemed dimmed, as she herself was. Nothing would ever be the same. She had failed in her duty, failed the solemn oath she had taken three years ago to “practice my profession faithfully.” She hadn’t.

Those who said she wasn’t to blame were wrong: the director of nurses at the hospital, Angie, even Kevin’s parents.

“Fire,” the gypsy woman had said. “Not time now,” Danica had said to Kevin, but the time had been then and she hadn’t known, though she should have. She’d been warned three times: by Madame Rena, by Kevin himself, and by Jerry’s mother. But she’d ignored each warning. Now Kevin was dead and Jerry in Children’s Hospital with his burns. Was she to carry tragedy to others? Is this what her birth prophecy meant?

“I understand your feeling,” Miss Defoe, the director of nurses, had said. “Of course you need some time off. But please don’t resign. No one blames you. The janitor’s closet should have been locked, but none of us knew the lock was defective. How the boys got hold of the cotton balls I simply can’t imagine. And the lighter from Jerry’s mother’s purse…” Miss Defoe sighed. “She blames herself most of all.”

“I was in charge,” Danica said stiffly. “It was my job to know what was going on at all times. My fault…”

Miss Defoe held up a hand. “I’ll certainly grant you a leave of absence. But we’d like you to come back. You’ve been a conscientious nurse, but more than that, you love the children. They’ll miss you. Take some time away from nursing, but don’t brood. You aren’t guilty and there’s danger in condemning oneself. It’s not mentally healthy.”

So here she was brooding and not working. In another week it would be her birthday, she’d be twenty-four. She did have some money saved, perhaps she should go to Tahoe as Angie urged. Or to Las Vegas. The gaudy neon lights flashed in her mind as bright as fire.

No. Not Las Vegas. She was in no mood to seek pleasure. And she didn’t want to go into the desert. Once away from the frenzy of the Strip, there was nothing but desert all around Las Vegas. Emptiness, the sky black with night, the stars blazing, a shooting star tracing its own death path…

But the old man had said meteors brought life. It had been November then, too, the year Danica turned twelve. Her mother’s great-aunt had died on the Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation in southern Arizona, and Danica and her mother had come to attend the funeral.

“I didn’t know your grandmother was Indian,” Danica said to her mother. “That makes me part…”

“Not Indian,” her mother said. “I wish she had been.”

“But then why…?”

“This is where they chose to live, the two sisters. And now they’re both gone, finally gone. No one left at all except…” Her mother’s voice trailed away and she stared out into the desert night. “Do you hear me, Path Marker?” she called suddenly. Her words fell into a rhythm. “I have kept the pact, I bore the child, I have brought her here this last time, now I am released. Do you hear, Path Marker?”

In the dark a coyote howled and Danica’s mother stepped back a pace, listened and nodded, while Danica stared, fascinated. Her mother refused to explain and insisted they both go to bed.

Danica woke early; her mother still slept. Dawn was near, the sky beginning to redden, when Danica finished dressing in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. She slipped out of the cabin and walked into the desert, beginning to run as the sense of being alone and a truant exhilarated her. The air was sharp and clear, filling her with a sense of expectancy as she ran on into the emptiness, sky and dirt and rock, the hills etched against the sunrise, the giant saguaro cacti reaching for the light, straight or multi-armed sentinels. The desert was exotic in comparison with the wooded hills and ocean that surrounded Santa Barbara, where she’d lived her twelve years.

I’m the first
, she thought,
the first to see this new day
, and she ran on until she stumbled on a rock and fell, twisting her ankle. After a moment she sat up and held her ankle, not crying, but making low moaning sounds of pain. She didn’t see the old man until he stood over her.

“Oh!”

“You are the child,” he said. He squatted and laid his hands on her ankle and she stared at him. He was not looking at her; his attention seemed to be concentrated inward and he held her ankle, not moving for moments more. Then his hands came away slowly and it was as though he drew out the pain with his hands. Danica flexed her leg, and stood up. There was no pain at all.

“Thank you,” she said.

He nodded once.

What had he said—she was the child? Like her mother the night before. What did it mean? “I’m Danica Linstrom,” she said.

“They call me Francisco,” he answered.

“Are you from the reservation?”

“No.” His voice was low and without accent, yet his words sounded different.

“I woke up early,” she said, “and I came out to see the sunrise. Then I fell…”

“Pain leads to discovery.” He pointed to the ground between them and Danica noticed a dark object.

“That’s the rock I stumbled on,” she said. But when she picked it up it didn’t look like any rock she’d ever seen.

“You have found your amulet,” he said. “Never lose it.”

Danica stared at the odd piece of metal that was pointed at one end like a crude dagger. “But what is…?”

His thin finger touched the metal. “You would say
meteorite
,” he told her, “a traveler from worlds other than this, burning as it falls through the night, bringing protection to a child yet unborn.”

“You said it was mine.”

“This fell from the sky the night you were born and has waited for your finding. Now in your hands it has become the Sign and has gathered power.”

“What sign?”

“The sign of the Archer, Sagittarius.” The old man chanted the prophecy to her and the words seemed to burn inward, making her head ache.

“I—I don’t understand.”

“At the right time you will remember, understanding will come.”

“How do you know all this?” She examined him as she spoke. He was old, though his brown skin was hardly wrinkled. Old; she felt he was old beyond guessing. “You’re not one of the Papagos,” she said. “Are you related to me?”

He smiled, an ancient, sad smile. “Enough to matter,” he said. “But not as you think of being related. She has died and I am the last of the Watchers.”

He means my great-great-aunt
, Danica thought, and was suddenly aware of the strangeness of the man and their conversation. “I’d better start back,” she said. She was not afraid, but a quivering had started deep inside her. She looked for the village and saw nothing except the desert stretching around her in all directions.

“I—which way do I go?” she asked.

“The way Path Marker has shown you,” he answered. “There is no other way.”

Path Marker. Danica remembered her mother listening to the coyote howl in the night. She shivered and turned away to look again, and saw thin threads of smoke in the still air. When she looked back, he was gone. She’d never seen him again.

The piece of metal was here with her now, she’d always kept it. But what kind of lucky charm would allow her to let Kevin die? Danica went to the closet and lifted the meteorite from the shelf. It was surprisingly heavy for its size, a rough chunk of fused metal, crudely arrow shaped. The end product of a shooting star. She’d never seen a shooting star in Los Angeles, what with the smog and the city lights. Maybe Evan Hanover saw them where he worked—what was that odd name? Star-Fire. Unusual name for a home for mentally disabled children. Still, Evan had said the place was controversial, experimental.

“You’d fit in beautifully, Danica. This work you’ve been doing with light energy, the laying on of hands, complements what we’re doing. Another branch of the same theory, as far as I can tell.” Evan had taken her out after the seminar and they sat over coffee. His blue eyes blended into green, almost an aquamarine, and they shone with enthusiasm.

“We haven’t a full staff, why don’t you apply? I’ll tell Galt Anders about you as soon as I get back. I know he’ll want you. I certainly do.” Evan had smiled, a handsome man, blond and tall. “Drive up and I’ll show you around.”

But Danica had refused, happy with what she was doing and thinking that if Evan was really interested in seeing her again, he’d come to L.A. After all, how far away was Star-Fire? Evan had mentioned a five-hour drive.

Danica placed the meteorite on her dresser and rummaged through a desk drawer for a California map. Yes, here was Porterville; Star-Fire nestled in the foothills somewhere east of the town, according to Evan. What would they be like, this dedicated group who sought to help the disabled by using psychic energy? Suddenly she wanted to meet them, see for herself what they were doing.
Maybe I can help
, she thought. Evan had said it wasn’t easy to find the right kind of person to be a part of Star-Fire. But he’d also said she was one.

She pictured the setting in her mind: a group of rough cabins sheltered by pines, the children and staff living together, sharing a camp-like camaraderie. Probably little money, but…

I could work for nothing if they want me
, she told herself.
At least for a while. I need to be a part of something, I need to be useful
. She stood up.
I’ll drive to Star-Fire
, she decided.
I can call Evan from Porterville, he’ll tell me how to find the place from there
.

Danica pulled out suitcases and began selecting clothes. Best to be prepared to stay. Would it be cold? Snow? She added sweaters, socks, her heavy shoes. She left her uniforms hanging in the closet.

Angie was working—she’d have to leave a note for her.
What should I tell her
? Danica wondered.
No point in mentioning Star-Fire, I haven’t before and she won’t understand. I’ll just say I’m driving north and will write when I have an address
. Danica left the note in an envelope with a check for her share of December’s rent.

Once on the Golden State Freeway, heading north in her red VW, excitement and anticipation made her skin tingle. She found herself tense with eagerness to be there, foot pushing the accelerator past the speed limit, hands clenched on the steering wheel. Danica took a deep breath and tried to relax, but the freeway was no place to gather awareness and use her white star of energy to achieve inner harmony.

The car climbed the Ridge Route out of the L.A. smog and into cleaner, colder air where the sun shone on the bleakness of upended rocks. She had a milkshake in Gorman and the wind blew chill through her sweater. It was a disappointment to descend the Grapevine into Bakersfield and see a thin, dirty haze over the city.

After getting gas in Bakersfield, she found the Porterville turnoff a few miles beyond, and soon the haze was gone and the land began to hump into rolling hills instead of the flat sameness of the San Joaquin Valley. She drove through young orange groves, but otherwise saw few trees.

The highway ducked around Porterville, so she stopped in a gas station to call Evan.

“Danica Linstrom! I’d given you up.”

She made a face at the phone; what did she care if he hadn’t been as interested in her as he’d pretended? What mattered was getting to Star-Fire. “In Porterville?” Evan was incredulous. There was a brief silence and her heart sank. Had he made it all up: the job, her rightness to fill it?

“I’ve got a great idea,” Evan said. “Why don’t I drive down there and we can have supper in town?”

He was keeping her away. “I’d like to see Star-Fire,” she said bluntly.

“Well, naturally. You can follow me back after we eat. It’s rather tricky to find if you don’t know the area.”

They had supper at White Blossoms, an old, temple-like building in a large orange grove. The trees crowded close, each branch dripping with green globes shaded with orange.

“I’m glad you like Chinese food,” Evan said.

Danica smiled at him. “I surprised you, didn’t I?”

“You were so positive you’d never leave where you were.”

Her smile faded. She couldn’t talk about Kevin yet. “I—we all need a change sometimes,” she said. “I couldn’t get Star-Fire out of my mind. Did you ever mention me to the director?”

“Galt? As a matter of fact I did. He said we’d be glad to welcome you to Star-Fire.”

“Just like that?”

“Well, of course, there are a few formalities.” Evan lowered his head to sip his tea, then glanced up at her through thick blond lashes. “How do you feel about horoscopes?”

“Horoscopes? Why, I don’t know, I’ve never thought about them much.”

“Ever have your own cast?”

“My horoscope? No.”

“Any objection to having it done?”

“I—I suppose not. What are you getting at?”

He grinned. “That’s part of your application to Star-Fire—a suitable horoscope.”

Danica stared at him. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

He nodded.

“But who—where would I have such a thing done?”

“We cast it for you.”

“You?”

Evan laughed. “Oh, I’m not qualified as an astrologist. No, Melantha does all the horoscopes. Melantha Cross.”

Before they left the restaurant, Danica cracked her fortune cookie and drew out the printed slip. She read it and frowned, then smiled at Evan. “I guess you’re okay,” she said. “This warns me to be careful of a dark stranger. That’s certainly not you.”

He crumpled his fortune into a ball.

“What’s yours?” she asked.

He shrugged.

“Oh, come on.” Danica held out her hand. “Let me see.”

“‘Every gift has two sides,’” she read off the wrinkled paper. “What’s so bad about that?”

He half smiled. “They’re warning me about you,” he said. “You’re my gift to Star-Fire.”

Danica shook her head. “Now you
are
joking.” But her voice was uncertain.

They crossed to the door. Danica waited while Evan paid the cashier. She was conscious of stares from the nearby tables and looked down at her clothes to make sure there was nothing wrong.