Every Star in the Sky Read online

  I pass a varnished oak sign that says “Welcome to Petal Village” in big, friendly letters. As I find myself at the entrance to the market, it’s made crystal clear that this is no haven. The people are scrawny, and they wear dirty clothes and burlap headdresses-- a stark contrast to the vendors, dressed extravagantly in the finest silks and satins. The sheer amount of color and money invested in their clothing tells me that something is very, very wrong here.

  A dirty old woman leans against the back of a house while she sits on a red towel. She has wrapped burlap, dyed a dark blue, around her head. Her eyes are pale with blindness and she looks as though she’s within minutes of death.

  “You there… with the black hair and pink gown,” she mumbles, gesturing for me to come closer with a crooked finger.

  I gasp.

  “Come here, dearie,” she says, voice heavy and crackling with the effect of age. “Sit.” She gestures to a cushion across from her, and I obey.

  “I… I thought you were blind,” I say.

  “Just because I’m blind doesn’t mean I can’t see.”

  That’s actually the exact definition of being blind, but okay.

  “So you’re going somewhere, eh? Rowena, I take it?”

  My eyes shoot open, “Y-yes. How did… How do you--”

  “It doesn’t matter.” She’s smiling giddily and moving her hands through the air as though she’s conducting an invisible orchestra. This old woman is batshit crazy.

  “I know the way. It’s not a path that many people know. But I do!” She chirps, eyes closed.

  “Please,” I say tenderly, trying to hide my frustration, “How do I get to Rowena? I need to find the aviary. For… for a friend.”

  “Oh, I know who you are! You’re the girl who Jericho Exodus fell in love with! Yes, yes, I know the boy! But… hmm. Something seems off here. You’re very hurt, are you not? Your body, surely-- you’re hungry and your feet are cut and you’re exhausted from a very long journey. But I can sense some discord in your heart. You are worried about someone you love.”

  “You’re telling me things I already know.”

  “Oh ho ho, feign some patience at least, now, child!”

  I grit my teeth, “You are thinning my patience the longer we talk. I don’t know how you know all of this stuff, but please, I need to get to Rowena.”

  “If you come visit with me for a while, I will give you some food, medicine, and bandages, and then you can rest. Only then will I tell you how to get to Rowena. You can’t go there on an empty stomach, little Jaybird.”

  “I-- how do you know my name? My… my real name?”

  She smiles, and for a moment, I see a young woman with long white hair and eyes made from rainbow.

  “Don’t you remember me?”

  I shake my head, “I’m sorry, I… I have no idea who you are.”

  She smiles, “That’s okay. You will! Come with me.”

  She gets to her feet and leads me through the crowds. I didn’t think anybody could move this slow while still actually making progress.

  She leads me to the edge of town, and she is rustling through a bush.

  I feel my face go slack. “Don’t tell me you live in this bush.”

  “Of course not! I’m just looking for my keys, dearie.”

  “You… you keep your keys… in a bush.”

  She puts a hand on her hip. “Well of course I do! Where else would I put my keys?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, in your pocket?”

  She waves a hand as if to dismiss the thought. “Don’t be silly, dearie. Ah! Here we are!” She puts a stick out of the bush and I nearly start crying in frustration. But then she waves it in the air, and a door appears before us.

  Oh my god.

  She holds open the door for me. “Come now, my darling little girl.”

  And we are in a different world entirely.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The grass here is purple and soft like carpet beneath my bare feet, and the sky overhead looks like gold lace, littered with stars that reflect every color of the rainbow. The air smells like nothing I’ve smelled before-- like fresh spring water, silver, and lavender. There are birds everywhere, of all kinds. Crows, doves, pigeons, bluebirds, nightingales, jaybirds, cardinals, sparrows… I recognize them all from the books I’ve read. Most of them are perched in the trees or bathing themselves in a large, stagnant fountain, with water the color of crystal.

  The elderly woman is elderly no longer. She has white hair that falls to the ground in stunning symmetrical waves, but her face is young. Half of her body is snow white, the other half the pitch black of night. Her irises are rainbow prisms, rivaling the stars in their quality and color. Her lips are a blood red, and she wears a strapless white chiffon gown that wraps around her and falls to her knees. She is tall, maybe six and a half feet in height, and she has thick breasts and hips. Every other part of her body, save for her face, which is chiseled and stark, is only slightly chubby-- just enough to show her health and vibrancy.

  She is strange and ethereal and I understand nothing but the fact that she is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life.

  “Do you remember your home, Rose?” She asks, voice as silky and pleasant as the certainty of the phases of the moon.

  “My home?” I whisper. I can’t help but kneel, touching the purple grass, and I am suddenly surrounded by hummingbirds.

  The woman smiles, “They always liked you the best. Tell me you remember.”

  I shake my head desperately, “I’ve never been here before. Who are you?”

  She smiles sadly, “Perhaps it is for the best that you don’t remember this place… It does not give the feeling of reality, because it is not your reality. We are on a different astral plane entirely-- the Lunar Plane. And I am your biological mother. Reya.”

  I stare at the ground for a long time, unable to respond or get to my feet to face her. The smell of the grass is so aromatic and sweet. I want to lie on the world’s back and sleep there forever.

  A green hummingbird with a watercolor pink throat dances in front of me, zipping around in a triangular formation and staring at me all the while.

  I look up to Reya. “You’re my mom? This is my home?”

  She looks around for a moment, and then glances at the hummingbird dancing for me. Only then does she look into my eyes, a sad smile painted on her perfect red lips. “No. I don’t think so. You were born here, but you only stayed for a few moments before you were gone. Your DNA is mine, and you were born of me, certainly. But Jay… do not mistake blood for family.”

  “What should I call you?”

  “Reya is perfectly fine. I know who your true mother is, and it isn’t me. A mother is the one who raises you with all of the love in her heart… not the woman who gave birth to you.”

  I close my eyes. “Who’s my biological father?”

  She shrugs, “I’m not sure. Perhaps the sky? The rivers? Mayhap the clouds--”

  “What are you talking about?” I ask, bewildered.

  “My dear, if I am the moon, then it would only make sense for me to make love to the earth. That is my job. You can make love with anything.”

  I shake my head, “What? No. No, you can’t.”

  She chuckles, “Well I can. If I want a child, I find a piece of the earth, or rivers, or clouds, cup it in my hands, and a child is born.”

  “I don’t want to be here anymore.”

  Reya frowns. “I know, my dear. I apologize. I only brought you here to show you the truth.”

  I look up. “T-the truth?”

  She closes her eyes, and paints a circle in the air with her hands before cupping them together. A sphere of glimmering water has formed in her hands, and a scene is playing out inside of it.

  “Watch closely,” she whispers, “And listen with your heart.”

  She pushes the water sphere towards me, and it hangs in the same position in the air as it glides towards me.

  I am s
uddenly sucked within it.

  I’m back at the castle, but there’s a sharp black outline around everything I see-- a frame of reference. I can move freely. I try taking a step forward and it is a success-- but there is no foot in the place where mine should be.

  What has she done?

  I hear coughing, and turn to look at a bed with a beautiful, blue-eyed, blonde-haired little boy resting within its folds. His breathing is shallow, and his face is stained with agony and exhaustion, a greyish-purple, though his nose, cheeks, and trembling hands blush red.

  “J-Julian?” I whisper, but it’s obvious that he doesn’t hear me. He’s too far gone.

  “Is someone here?” He mumbles.

  I feel my pupils dilate. “Julian, yes! I… Er. I’m here to help you, I think.”

  “Make me better,” he begs, reaching out a trembling red hand.

  I can’t control it. I begin to shake and sob. No. I can’t. Why did she bring me here? I can’t help him...

  I reach for his hand, and I feel his startling, feverish warmth seep through my being.

  He smiles for a moment, with what little energy he has, before it fades back into agony.

  “Are you a ghost?” He asks, coughing weakly.

  “I… I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  “Who are you?” He squeezes tightly onto the hand that isn’t there, and even though I can’t see it, I can feel his fingers wrap desperately around mine, clinging to something that’s real, clinging to life.

  Clinging to what little time he has left.

  “My… my name is Jay.”

  He smiles. “I knew you were real. See… Nobody ever comes to visit me. Just my big brother Leo. Benny comes sometimes, but I can tell he’s scared of catching what I have, so I tell him to go away. Silas saw me once and started crying and shaking and had to leave. And Elliot never comes. My parents don’t, either. Oh, but Anna does! That’s my--” he begins to cough violently, struggling for air. I grip his hand tight, and sing ‘Amazing Grace’ gently, to see if it soothes any part of his soul or throat or lungs.

  He stops eventually, tears forced from his eyes by the sheer strain of heaving for air that won’t come. “Anna’s my big sister. She brings me my food and refuses to let anybody else help me out, unless they’re changing the sheets or something. Then the servants do it. But Leo sees me the most. He comes every day. He reads me these stories about the constellations because I love the stars and I can’t see them from in here. Sometimes we even get to play checkers, but I think he lets me win. Unless he’s really bad at checkers.”

  I giggle. “He sounds like a wonderful brother.”

  “I love him a lot,” Julian says quietly, but then he starts to cry.

  “Julian? Julian, what’s wrong?” I ask, panicked.

  “Jay,” he whispers, “I’m afraid my brother is going to die.”

  “What? Leo? Why?”

  He cries quietly, “I don’t know. I just have a feeling that somebody is going to kill him. And I… I can’t lose him, Jay. He’s my best friend.”

  His body begins to shiver with his sobs, so I kneel at his bedside and wrap his frail, tiny body in my arms. “You won’t lose him, Julian. I’ll make sure of it. I will protect him with everything I have.”

  “Are you an angel?” He whispers.

  I laugh, “No. I’m just Jay.”

  “What was that song you were singing?”

  “Oh, it’s called ‘Amazing Grace.’”

  He smiles and closes his eyes, “Please sing it again. I… I love your voice. It sounds like sunshine.”

  I sing for him, and I watch as his closed eyes grow soft and heavy with sleep. He has to breathe through his mouth, mostly. But he looks so at peace. So beautiful.

  I hear the door open. “Fix him or you’re dead, Exodus.”

  I turn to see a massive in width, small in height man with a thinning blonde beard and crown shove through the doorway, dragging a dirty boy with long black hair after him and tossing him forward.

  The boy is shot forward, and he topples awkwardly onto the ground, keeping himself upright with a single forearm. I can tell that tears are biting at his dark brown eyes, but he says nothing, his purple cloak wrapped around his lanky body.

  Calico. This is Calico Exodus. The boy strewn on the ground before me, desperately trying not to cry, is now the man we have set out to kill.

  I shake the thought away.

  He gets to his feet, and he gingerly takes Julian’s sleeping hand in his own, feeling his pulse.

  “King Luther, your majesty… I think it’s just the flu. A really bad flu, but he just needs some medicine--”

  Luther’s eyes narrow. “Exodus. Kill him.”

  Calico’s eyes grow wide as his vision shoots towards King Luther. “W-what?”

  Luther shoves a vial into Calico’s hands. “Kill him. I’m tired of raising a bastard child with no blood of my own to speak of. He was born to die. You’ll be doing him a favor.”

  Exodus pauses, but then he shakes his head angrily, “You’re insane. He deserves life every bit as much as anyone else. He is your child! How could you want him dead?”

  Luther leans forward and grabs Calico’s throat, “Fine. I know somebody who’ll get the job done, you filthy traitorous monster.”

  Calico’s fists clench and shake as he is left to himself, a vial of poison in one trembling fist. He stares at it for a long time, but only after five minutes does he look at Julian’s frail body.

  Calico nods his head, as if to reassure himself, and he throws the vial at the wall before scooping Julian’s body into his arms and running out of the room.

  “Calico!” I yell after him, but he doesn’t seem to hear me the way Julian does. I race after him through the corridors and endless staircases, and not once does he falter as he clutches the dying boy’s body close to his chest.

  But we reach a dead end, and I hear cackling from behind us. I turn just in time to see the shadow of a sword being drawn on the wall, and then the man who has done it.

  Elliot.

  His eyes are a horrid, scorching black, marring his handsome face. “Look what I found,” Elliot hisses, his voice far from human. He sounds satanic, demonic… evil.

  “Elliot, get away from me,” Calico says, clutching Julian closer. “You don’t have to do this. He’s your brother. How could you even think about it?”

  Elliot’s eyes flare wide with fury and malice. “HOW DARE YOU QUESTION ME. He is no brother of mine. He is my mother’s bastard son. He deserves to die, and so does she, for her treason against Avis. All of you. YOU ALL DESERVE TO DIE!” His voice is a roar, and his eyes become pools of darkness, his pupils turning red. His skin seems to vanish to reveal a black skeleton beneath. He screams with a strange pleasure as black wings dig their way from his back into existence, and sickly copper blood falls from the new wound. He breathes a gaseous smoke, grinning maniacally, inhuman and insane.

  He readies his sword and rushes towards Calico and Julian. Calico drops Julian on the ground, which rouses the little boy to consciousness, as he shoots a beam of light out of his palm towards Elliot, evading the unforgiving edge of the blade just in time.

  “Julian!” I scream, and he seems to remember my voice. He rushes toward me, and I scoop him into my arms and run. “Where is your brother, Leo? He’ll protect you! We have to find him, Julian.”

  Julian coughs weakly, “Calico tried to save me,” he whispers.

  “Julian, please. We don’t have much time!”

  “The piano,” he murmurs, eyes glazed over with a silent fear.

  I need no more probing, rushing up the stairs with all of my energy, this dying little boy clutched in my arms, when I reach the piano room. Leo has just sat down at the bench when he turns.

  “Julian! What the… Who are you?” He looks at me, astonished.

  I try to shake off the fact that this is a different world entirely-- a world where he doesn’t know me. A world where we haven’t met unti
l now, and he does not love me.

  “You need to save him. Calico Exodus says it’s just a flu, and he can be treated with medicine. Your father and brother Elliot tried to kill him. Hurry, do something-- please,” I beg.

  He nods as he takes Julian from me, “You… Where…”

  “Leo. It doesn’t matter. Please, try to save him.”

  Suddenly I grow very dizzy and am absorbed into darkness. Everything that plays out next is like a slideshow before me.

  Calico flees the castle, barely alive, stab wounds riddling his body.

  Leo takes Julian to Dr. Rolphe, on the outskirts of town. He agrees, it is the flu, or pneumonia, and treatable.

  Darkness. “Her name was Jay,” Julian tells Leo.

  “She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Leo whispers back, as he begins to tell stories from a book of constellations in the dimly lit room of Dr. Rolphe’s home.

  Guards from the castle find Calico and beat him senselessly until he looks dead.

  But he’s not dead.

  The right side of his body is horribly mangled.

  He becomes the apprentice of a man who saves him from death. A dark mage of sorts.

  He is bullied. Shoved, pushed, beaten, spat at, called names.

  He decides to seek revenge.

  Elliot poisons Julian in his sleep, despite his newfound health, back at the castle.

  Calico tries to bring Julian back to life, but he fails. He is stuck halfway when Elliot comes in the room, and Calico swears he will kill Elliot. Elliot swears the same back.

  Leo is at a bar, getting wasted, girls clambering on his lap.

  He is mindlessly having sex with these girls, dimly lit hotel bedrooms, so much booze.

  “Why couldn’t I protect him?”

  The prostitutes take his money while he cries himself to sleep.

  “The baby… he’s yours, Leo.”

  Her name was Jay.

  “His name is Jacob.”

  Calico comes to see the baby at night, knowing he will become ill due to poison.

  “I can save him this time,” Calico begs.

  Leo is terrified. “GO AWAY! DON’T KILL MY SON!”