The Stargazers (9 page)

“The suspense is killin
g
me.” She reached over and turned off the lamp. “G’night, Pinkie.”

Aster snorted laughter and the two girls giggled until sleep took them both.

-7-

Early the next morning, while Ruby still lay buried beneath her blankets with only her feet sticking out, Aster slipped into a pair of shorts, a p
ink cotton shirt, and her favorite
floppy hat before heading downstairs for some gardening time. She was not used to having her legs exposed, and she fought a naked anxiety for several minutes
, pacing back and forth in the kitchen,
before she gave into her need to have her hands in the dirt.

She took a few minutes to eat an apple and drink a glass of milk, and lamented the dull flavor of the food and drink in this world. It was as if someone had coated her tongu
e with wax. Maybe with her help and a little luck,
the bounty from their backyard garden would taste a little more like it was grown from Ellemiren earth.

Dew still covered the grass, reflecting like glitter dust in the early morning sun. She removed her shoes so she could feel the individual blades licking her feet and ankles like little tongues. Having such close contact with the vegetation always quickened her pulse and made her feel more alive, and it was the perfect way to escape the worry always troubling her
mind. But when she saw
this garden, her stomach roiled with nausea and dread.

T
he variety was good—green beans, peas, cucumbers, peppers, squash, tomatoes, and a couple others she couldn’t identify—
but
the plants themselves were shriveled and sad. Tomato plants that should have been producing succulent orbs any day clung to their cages like starving children, their tiny fruit wrinkled like raisins. Three raised beds held moldering lettuces and insect-bitten herbs. A quick dig into the hard dirt revealed rocks and sand and soil starved of nutrients. But what the plants needed most was a good watering, and she wondered where she might find the nearest well or stream.
Then she spotted a water spigot next to the shed, and it was attached to a long hose.

She’d not watered with such a contraption before, but the knob on the spigot turned easily enough, and soon, ice cold water was flowing from the end of the hose. Aster could have jumped with joy. What a marvel this world was! She had to keep herself dancing as she gave each plant a good soaking.

Afterward, she dabbled a tiny bit of
her special magic on each plant the way a painter would stipple a highlight onto a still life.
She had to be careful not to do too much, or she would risk drawing too much attention to herself.
Still, she
smiled as she
imagined how the girls would react
upon seeing a
fertile
paradise of produce in their backyard. Perhaps she could do it for them as a going away gift.

After grabbing a hoe from the little tool shed, she cleared weeds and loosened the rows of dirt. It was hard work,
but it was made a little easier with the soil moistened
.
And she was a fast worker.
She had to be. W
orking under Oleander’s oppressive supervision
since birth had drilled it into her
. 

An hour later, the sun was shining full and a mountain of w
eeds lay at her feet
.
She took a few minutes to wipe some sweat from her brow and take a drink from the garden hose.

“Jeez. You sure know how to make a girl look bad.”

Aster turned around to see Ruby standing in her pajamas, her hair a frazzled mess of spikes, nursing a hot drink. “If you like, I can put it all back.”
She grinned.

“Don’t you dare. I’ll just move all
that stuff to the compost pile so it looks like I at least did something.” She took a few steps closer to the garden and put her hands on her hips.
“
You know, the plants look better already.
I was sure those tomatoes were goners.
Do you have some sort of magical green thumb or what?”

“Something like that.”

Ruby grabbed the wheelbarrow from beside the shed and started moving handfuls of weeds into it. “
If we get done early, I think I can talk Ivy into letting me take you around the town a little bit. The main drag is just a short walk up the street.”

Aster perked up at the idea of a walk. Anything that didn’t involve a ride in another demon carriage. “That sounds wonderful.”

“Well
don’t get too excited
.
You’ll soon find this
place is a ghost town.”

Aster immediately thought of some of the witches back home who called on the spirits of the dead. She’d never participated but had always been curious. “Really? Do you actually
get to converse with ghosts
?”

Ruby frowned for a second. “Who? Oh… you thought I meant real ghosts?” She burst out laughing
. “W
e have to work on your lexicon.”

They were just hauling the last load of weeds to the compost pile when Ivy came outside to inspect their project. Her face went slack with shock. “My gods! You girls are like the Wonder Twins out here. This garden never looked so good.”

Ruby shook her head. “Work and me get along about as good as Team Edward and Team Jacob. The newbie did all the heavy lifting.”

Ivy gave Aster a knowing glance.
“Beautiful job. Just make sure you’re not working
too
hard, understand?”

Aster, who knew the true meaning behind that statement, nodded
.  “Yes, ma’am. I guess I got a little carried away.”

Ruby snorted. “You don’t see me complaining. Hey, can we take a walk down the street? Show Aster the sights in our quaint little village?”

“I suppose. Just don’t let me hear about you smoking, Miss Ruby. I got eyes downtown, and they report back regularly.”

Mischief danced across Ru
by’s face. “You’re not talking about Missus Crenshaw down at the ice cream place, are you? She’s blind as a bat
. C’mon,
Aster. L
et’s get cleaned up and go before she changes her mind.”

A half-hour later, the two girls met on the porch. Aster had grown tired of baring her legs and settled on a light ankle-length skirt with a matching short-sleeved shirt of the softest Ellemiren cotton. Ruby, however, was the complete opposite. Her skirt was a pleated heavy fabric of dark
green
and black checks. She topped it with a short black shirt with ANARCHY—
another word with which
Aster was unfamiliar—splattered across the front in red, like blood. Completing the look were heavy black boots laced up to her calves and black and white striped stockings that went up past her knees. The outfit made no sense at all to Aster, and yet it se
emed to work at the same time.
None of the other girls dressed like Ruby
, and that was probably how she
intended it.

Soon they were strolling toward the center of Miller’s Gl
enn, where Ruby said “
it all went down.” Aster wondered if that meant the town was at the bottom of the hill, or if it was more of this world’s strange slang. 

Most of the houses on either side of the street were just as tall and grand looking as the Oasis house, but many were shabby with peeling paint and weed-infested lawns. A few residents sat out on their porches to enjoy the cool morning before the heat moved in. They eyed the girls with narrowed eyes as they passed by. “Why are they looking at us like that?” Aster asked.

“They know who I am. That’s reason enough. And they don’t know you, so that’s two strikes against us.”

Aster understood. “They don’t like you? How come?”

“Everybody around here has a story about the Hill family. If it isn’t about my crackhead mom, it’s about my idiot brother usually. But I’m not exactly a saint either, I guess.”

“How so?”

Ruby laughed and gestured toward her outfit. “Look at me. Shouldn’t that be enough?”

“Maybe, but in my family we’re regularly
judge
d
by appearances.
It isn’t right.
”

They walked in silence for a few minutes, and Aster thought the subject was closed. Then Ruby said, “Okay, it’s not like I’m
that
bad. But I’ve been in trouble with the police.”

“Yeah? For what?”

“
Fighting in school, mostly. I don’t take shit from the bullies. Did a few weeks in juvie for putting a rock through the school quarterback’s prized 1969 Mustang, after he threw a full cup of Coke at me while driving by.
He also called me Cuntbreath, which really pissed me off.
”

“Didn’t he
get in trouble too?”

“You kidding? The Miller’s Glenn Vikings were the division champs that year. Football owns this hellhole.”

Aster shook her head. “That’s horrible.”

“The worst was when I got busted for b
reaking and entering. Into my own house.” She burst out laughing, her raucous giggles echoing down
the quiet street. “So very lame
. I lost my key and was trying to climb in through a window when a neighbor saw me and called the cops.”

Aster laughed as well. “That’s pretty bad, all right.”

Ruby let out a couple more giggles
and sighed. “Okay, so I’m not the worst
juvenile delinquent or
anything, but I’m still d
amaged goods emotionally. I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m alone the rest of my life after chasing away everyone who
’s
tried to care about me. Hell, my brother didn
’t even want the responsibility
of raising me after mom got sent up.”

Aster sto
pped and so did Ruby.
“You’re being too hard on yourself. It’s not your fault what your mother did, and I’m sure it hurt your brother
a lot
too.”

Ruby s
tared at the ground
, kicking pebbles down the sidewalk. “Onyx is a good guy. I guess I can’t blame him. Mom didn’t really give him the tools to be a parent, but he tried. Eventually the state decided the Xbox was doing more work keeping an eye on me than he was, and they wanted to put me in foster care. But Ivy stepped up, and here we are now.”

“So I guess it all worked out, right? It seems like a good place.”

“It’s a great place.” She met Aster’s eyes and grinned. “It’s an even better place now.”

They started walking again.

“I had a baby sister once
. Born when Mom was hitting the pipe hot and heavy. She died of SIDS when she was still a newborn. Or so Mom said. Onyx and I always wondered about that, though.”

Aster thought of a dead baby, possibly a
murdered
baby, and shuddered.
It was a subject that hit too close to home. “Gods, that is terrible.
”

“Gods? Mighty pagan of you.” Then she looked over at Aster and frowned. “Do we need to sit down
? You look a little pale
.”

“I’m okay.”

“If you say so. I mean, I guess it is pretty bad. But it was a long time ago. I hardly remember any of it. Anyway, we’ll see Onyx at the Quick Lube this morning. Maybe he’ll let me bum a few smokes
, and you can finally not be such a wuss and have one
.”

All the slang and unfamiliar terms were hitting Aster like a blizzard, and she struggled to decipher all of it. “What’s a Quick Lube?”

“Wow
, you really are Amish, aren’t you? There are these things called
cars
, you see? And these cars need
oil
to work correctl
y, you see?
Onyx runs a place where they do that. You see?”

Ev
en though it was clear Ruby was mocking her
, Aster was grateful for the explanation. “I see.”

The town was waking up around them as shop owners flipped their OPEN signs and put out their street wares. With its brick storefronts and little striped awnings, the street was quaint and friendly looking and not completely unlike Ellemire. She spied an ice cream parlor called Double Dips, an art gallery, a few cafes w
ith outdoor seating where a couple lonely souls sat eating breakfast
under umbrellas. On the corner, a team of men were rolling a red and white cart into place that, according to its sign, sold something called “hamburgers.”

Several cars drove up and down the street, but slowly as if to take in the day rather than outrun it. The reek of their engines still got to her, but it was fainter than it had been the night before. “I like it here.”

Ruby shrugged. “It’s not a total shit hole. You won’t find many gang shootings and crack heads in sleepy little ‘burbs like this at least. But small towns have drawbacks for people who just want to forget where they came from, believe me.”