The Stargazers (19 page)

Cuddling Larkspur c
lose, she whispered in his ear
. “Watch her, but stay invisible. Do you understand?” The feline purred and licked her hand with his rough tongue, signaling that he did indeed understand. She put him down and watched his massive body dart up the stairs again with all the grace of a cat half his size.

She decided the best thing to do would be to leave before the other girls came downstairs and started asking questions. With only one destination in mind, she put on her shoes and left.

-15-

Her feet carried her along
the same path she’d walked yesterday with Ruby,
and eventually
she was approaching the Quick Lube
.
It was the only place she could think to go.
Apart from Ruby, Bryon was
her only friend. Well, he was supposed to be
more
than just a friend now, wasn’t he? She remembered everything that had happened atop the hill yesterday, and her cheeks warmed. Then Ivy’s words from earlier floated up like a poisoned bubble.

It shouldn’t be too hard for you to find a boy to spread your legs for
.

The same stools were arranged out in front of the
shop
, and Onyx was perched on one of them reading a newspaper. When he spied Aster walking toward him, he folded it and tucked it under his arm. “Say there. You venturing out into the metropolis on your own already, huh? Brave girl.”

If only he knew how
very non-brave
she felt right then. “Hi, um. Is Bryon here?”

“Not yet. He comes in at nine. Wanna come in and have some coffee while you wait?”

“Sure, I guess.” She followed him inside to a little sitting area where a glass pot sat full of the strong-smelling black brew that everyone seemed to drink in this world. There were various teas and chicories in Ellemire, so she was familiar with the custom of drinking liquid energy, but she’d never partaken.
Had never needed to, really.
Today, she decided to change that.

Onyx
poured some into a small white cup
. “Do you take cream or sugar?”

Aster didn’t know how to answer. “What do you recommend?”

“Since you’re a girl…” He reached for a bottle that read
French Vanilla Creamer
, three words her tired brain struggled t
o identify
. After dumping in a heap of the white powder within, Onyx gave it a stir. “Try that, and tell me you won’t be a caffeine junkie from here on out.”

Aster took a cautious sip, minding the steam. It was sweet and creamy, without any of the bitterness she had expected. “It’s good.” They sat in silence for a bit,
sipping at their drinks
.

“Is Ruby all right?” he asked.

She debated over how much to tell him, but came to the same conclusion she did earlier when she considered sending a message home. It was too soon. “She slept in today. Had a nightmare last night. I think it’s the earthquake.”

Onyx nodded, his thick shoulders slumping over as he sat down across from her. “Ruby’s always had bad dreams. Me too. They seem to run in our family. Our mom used to say we were cursed.”

“I know what you mean.”

“She took it real hard when our mom went to prison. And I couldn’t afford to raise her right. She was getting suspended from school every other week for fighting and pissing off the teachers, and I had no idea how to be a parent to her. Hell, I’m still a big kid myself. Staying up until four in the morning playing Halo and smoking weed with your friends is no way to raise a kid.”

“What did you do?”

“Miss Ivy knew our family was in a bad way long before mom shot that cop. I was a bit of a hellraiser myself. The family’s always had a reputation. Our dad spent a lot of time in prison too, on drug and robbery charges mostly. Hell, all us kids were conceived during conjugal visits.
Then he killed himself a year after he got out. Ruby doesn’t remember him that much, but I do. He was a real asshole, so no loss there. But I think Ruby got a hard time just because of all our dumb shit.”

Aster nodded. “I c
an relate to having a poor
family reputation. Mine isn’t very well-loved where I come from either. And I think everyone is messed up from dealing with it. My mom is nice, but she’s also subm
issive and afraid. My aunt has given her mind over to the weed
. And my other aunt, she… She’s just really bad.”

“I’m not perfect at this whole wise adult thing, but I can offer you some advice if you want to take it.”

Her heart leapt up at anything that would lift her out of her terrible mood and give her something to hold onto. “
Okay
.”

“You can’t worry about them. Take whatever help and breaks you can that will help you break the chain of their bullshit. Your family may be your family, but they’re not you. If they’re a bunch of head cases, you have to be better and stronger than them. When Miss Ivy offered to take Ruby in, I jumped at it. The kid hated me at first, but I think she gets it now. We were both better off apart. I got my mechanic’s license and opened this place, and she’s with her own kind. With the right friends, she might even get out of this cow town someday and make something of herself.”

The idea that Aster might be ruining Ruby’s future by being involved in her life made Aster even more depressed. Onyx
didn’t
know that things had suddenly turned darker at the Oasis house
, and if she did something about it, he wouldn’t have to know
.
Aster
had to see this through all the way, for Ruby’s sake. “I’m very grateful to have her as a friend, and I will treasure her and watch out for her. She’s the only friend I have. Well, other than Bryon. And you.”

Onyx laughed. “It’s all right if you want to get to know me better before calling me a friend. I’m not a bad guy, though. And I know Bryon likes you. I’m not gonna break
the bro
code and ask about the two of you, but I can at least say he’s working slower than ever since he met you, so that has to be a good sign.”

The thought of Bryon’s kisses made her a little heady. She preferred to think that she wasn’t using him as a means to an end if she enjoyed his company so much. Just then, someone walked past the front window and in through the door. It was Bryon in his dark blue cap and coveralls. Her heart leapt up like it had been goosed.

When Bryon saw her sitting there, his face immediately lit up. “Hey!”

Onyx stood. “You’ve got five minutes before your shift. But take your time anyway. Unless we get a walk-in, we don’t have anything to do till noon.” He walked out through the door behind the service desk that led into the garage, leaving the two of them alone.

Aster thought it was so odd how things like this worked. They had kissed
, had shared some of their hopes and dreams
. S
he was also now his “girlfriend.
”
So
why did she still feel like she could hardly look at him?
Part of it was Ruby, she supposed, but it was something more. She was going to wind up breaking this nice boy’s heart, whether she wanted to or not.

“I hope you don’t mind that I came down here. I
was going
for a walk and found myself sort of heading this way automatically.”

“If your walks take you here every day, that’s fine with me.”  Right then, there was something about the way he looked at her that made her feel safe and loved.  Maybe it was the unassuming smile or the honesty in his eyes that told her he was nothing more or less than what he appeared to be. When he furrowed his brow and asked if she was okay, she felt a dam in herself open up, and all her worries spilled out of her in a flood
of tears
.

He stepped forward and pulled her into an embrace, and she breathed in the oily but somehow comforting smells in his coverall
as she soaked the front of it
.

“Everything’s just so messed up right now. I feel so alone here. I mean, I thought it was going to be okay for a little bit, but now it seems like someone’s workin
g to take all that away from me
.”
It was as close as she could come to expressing everything that was worrying her, but it was good enough for now.
She sobbed against his chest, not even caring if Onyx or customers came in to witness her meltdown.

He stroked her head. “It’s okay. Everything’s gonna be okay.” Stepping away, he lifted her chin. “Nobody hates you. At least nobody that matters. And if they did, well that’s just something wrong with them. You’re awesome.”

She felt the opposite of awesome, but she appreciated the kind words. Looking into his eyes, she wondered if she would be capable of doing what she was sent here to do, to take what she was sent to take. Because that’s what it was, wasn’t it? Taking his seed and then killing the flower it bloomed.

If he knew
who she really was
, he would hate her.

“Did you want to come over for dinner tonight? My dad would really like to meet you, and we’re grilling steaks. I could pick you up when I leave here.”

“Okay, but I’ll just meet you here.”

He smiled. “That’s fine. We can take the telescope to Carpenter’s field later too if you want.”

“That sounds great. So I’ll see you later then?”

He cupped her face in his hands and brought her in for a kiss. The giddy feelings from the previous day filled her head like a sweet vapor
, and some of her worry abated
. “Yeah, around four-thirty,” he said after they broke.

She walked out of the shop feeling much lighter on her feet than she had when she came in. Turning east, she decided to walk until her feet couldn’t bear it anymore.

-16-

The street went on for another mile or so before it became something more resembling the wide black ribbon of road she’d first rode on with Ivy. A
highway
. She was happy to be retaining at least some of this world’s terminology.
There were no such roads in Ellemire.

The rural countryside reminded Aster so much of home that she might have been convinced she’d walked between worlds again if not for the vehicles zooming by
fast enough to ripple her clothing
.

Corn and bean plants covered most of the rolling hill landscape, dott
ed by old farmhouses, silos,
and windmills.
The houses were spaced much farther apart to her liking, and e
ach large porch had a rocking chair or swing, where people probably spent their evenings taking in the sunsets. Occasionally, she spied fields of sunflowers, blue bonnets swarming with bees and butterflies.
Bizzure bugs, or whatever they were called here,
buzzed contentedly away in the trees, singing their praises to the heat. The black road absorbed most of the sun and made her skin boil. She wished she had thought to bring along some water before she left the house.

Ivy probably had the other girls killing themselves out in this weather, and Aster wondered what Ruby must be thinking about her new friend’s sudden absence. But being out here also gave her time to ponder the possibilities of what had happened to Ivy in the woods.

Everything Ivy said, and the way she said it, reminded Aster of her unpleasant aunt. But it was the chocolate in Larkspur’s whisker that kept coming back to her. It could have been any old piece of candy from this world, but she had delivered Oleander enough of the stuff over the years that she would always associate the substance with her aunt. The smell of it was imprinted on her brain. But the part that made her the most certain that something was awry, was the change in Ivy’s touch.
Something had spoiled it.

Had Oleander somehow possessed Ivy?

Ellemiren laws strictly forbade the use of dark magic,
and it was punishable by death,
but there had been some instances of it that were now draped in legend. Occasionally, a story would float out to the countryside about a scorned wife turning her cheating husband into a rat or someone spontaneously combusting while playing with a noxious potion, but she had never heard of someone either taking over the body of another person or replicating someone else.

That didn’t mean someone had never done it, though. And if anyone could, it was Oleander.

“Why would Oleander even want to hurt
me, though
?
It couldn’t just be revenge for what happened my last night home, could it?
” She spoke aloud as she trudged along under the blistering sun, needing to hear the sound of a voice, any voice in all this quiet.

Aster shuddered at the thought of returning to the house. But she had Ruby
and the other girls
to think about.
She would not have their misery on her conscience. None of them had asked to be a part of this.

But
she couldn’t confront the woman just yet
.
She had no idea how she could even begin to fight
. Oleander was a formidable witch. Probably the most powerful one in Ellemire. Of course, her mother and Nanny Lily would insist that Aster was the most powerful now, but she f
ound that impossible to believe, as woefully uneducated as she was.