Every Star in the Sky Read online

  He walks to the front of the group of his siblings, and his eyes brush slowly through the crowd. “Ladies of Avis,” he calls to us. “Please stand.”

  Grace helps me to my feet once she is upright.

  “My father is very ill, and it is time for me to search for a wife to be the queen of the kingdom. My father gave a checklist of necessary traits for my future queen to have, and he sent many groups of servants and knights across the kingdom to find potential candidates. And now, you stand before me today. I feel very blessed to have your cooperation, and I apologize for the way it was carried out. Had I any control over the situation, things would’ve been very different. I give my deepest condolences to all of you. However, I can assure you that all of you will be treated very well here, and most of you will be allowed to go home immediately following a dance that will take place tonight. I will personally ensure that, based on the reports from my squires, money and resources will be sent to each of your villages for your participation, as well as the hopeful productivity of your village in the future.”

  Out of respect, we stay silent, though I can imagine the mix of feelings going through the heads around me. Excitement, fear, joy, anger, frustration, sadness. A circus of feelings we cannot control.

  Personally, I am scared. If mother thinks that I was meant to come here, then surely it is too soon for me to be sent home. Elliot will not choose me to be among his potential marriage candidates, nor would I want him to. There is nothing I can give him, let alone the country. But there is something waiting for me here.

  For no reason at all, the door in the hospital wing with the black “X” bursts into my mind. Maybe its contents harbored the secret of the disease Evan was talking about, and the dead bodies that were evaporating into birds.

  I finger the dagger that Evan had given me in my pocket. I can’t leave.

  So maybe… Maybe I have to pretend to be someone else for a while. Someone Prince Elliot would be interested in marrying. I need to stay…

  Remember the birds.

  He talks for a while longer but I don’t hear much. Just that we will all be treated to a spa and bath and we’d be having our makeup and hair done, so that we can look as queenly as possible.

  This is fucking ridiculous. I will not be made a doll of, and I will not be made a joke by a man who doesn’t know the word humility.

  I feel a deep anger biting away in my chest and throat, but I refuse to let the fire breath within me escape my lips. I finger the dagger again.

  Mother. I will keep my promise.

  Father. I will avenge you.

  Grace. I will protect you.

  We are shuffled into small groups and taken away to different baths throughout the palace. We are stripped without question, and I find myself trembling and crying, trying to cover the pieces of me that are secret and mine. It doesn’t matter to them. We are cattle. I am touched in places I don’t want to be touched. My body is sold to the world at the price of a cigarette. I am so furious and terrified and embarrassed, I struggle to breathe. Grace is in another group. Everything is going by too fast, a freight train in a tornado, and I need Bear but Anna is taking care of him.

  “Please don’t touch me,” I say repeatedly, but nobody seems to listen.

  “I’m scared. Stop, please.”

  “I don’t feel safe.”

  “Don’t touch me there.”

  “Please listen to me…”

  “STOP IT!” I scream at last, and my fist makes contact with whoever has been so vigorously waxing my legs. He falls to the ground and looks astounded as blood drips from his nose.

  The world is a white, silent grave.

  “You… you dirty bitch,” he says, eyes wide with rage.

  “I s-s-said to stop, i-it hurts me, I n-n-need to go outside, my d-d-dog, I c-can’t breathe--”

  “What the hell is happening in here?” Leon storms into the doorway, furious. He sees all of the women in towels and quickly looks down to the bleeding servant on the floor.

  “This woman kicked me in the face, my liege. She is an animal!”

  “He was hurting me,” I whisper, trembling in my towel as tears fall down my face. “Nobody would listen to me, and I’m s-s-so s-sorry…”

  Leon continues to stare at the man on the ground. “Fetch Princess Anastasia. Now. I will have her take care of this, for her temper is far better than mine.”

  He terrifies me, but I also feel relieved. Did he just try to protect me? Has he given me forgiveness? Maybe Prince Leon is just as strange as I am.

  He storms out as quickly as he came, and a small, gentle-looking maid comes to my side. “I will help you to somewhere more comfortable, dear.” She leads me into a corner of the bathhouse far away from the other women and gives me a box of tissue paper to cry into.

  “Are they going to kill me?” I ask her, trembling.

  “Oh, no, miss! I’m sorry you have been in such pain and fear. I assure you, there was no intention to hurt you, but I am truly sorry.”

  “I’m just scared here. There’s so many people, and none of them are like me… I feel very trapped, so far away from the wilderness, and I miss my dog, and my mom.”

  “Jay? Jay!” The princess bursts through the door and rushes to my side, leading Bear on a leash. “What happened?”

  Bear leaps in my lap and I smile and hold him tight. “I punched someone on accident. I didn’t mean to, I was just scared and it sort of… happened. I’m s-sorry, Anna.”

  She shakes her head, “I should’ve told them that you’re much more sensitive and perceptive than everyone else here. You’re different. And that needs to be appreciated, not ignored. Come with me.”

  She gives me a silk robe to put on, and she, Bear, and I walk through the maze of the palace interior until we reach a relatively empty room, with some exquisite rugs, a few vanities and matching chairs, and a rack of gowns on the other side of the room.

  “I’ll help you myself.”

  “Anna… I don’t want to marry your brother. But I want to stay here-- in the capital. There’s some things I need to do.”

  She pauses. “Things, hm?”

  I hold Bear’s head in my lap. “The disease. And the birds.”

  “...you’re not supposed to know about any of that.”

  “There’s something I have to do here. I don’t know what it is. But my mother… she thinks I’m Reya, the moon goddess’s daughter. She thinks I will find more out here.”

  “A few miles from here is The Temple of Reya. Your religion is not one that I’m familiar with, nor is your cause, but I will do what I can to help you. Just know that of the royal family, my power is the most limited. But I have never met a person more genuine or honest. If you somehow have the power to stop this plague, then I will do everything in my power to aid you.”

  I smile. “Anna… thank you.”

  She smiles back, “Thank you for being one of the first friends I’ve ever had. Now let’s doll you up a bit. Maybe Elliot will do all of the work for me,” she winks.

  I laugh. I don’t mind being a pawn if I am a pawn in my own game. In this game of chess that I’ve created, I am my own queen. Not by choice, but by obligation.

  She begins to paint my face with all sorts of skin colors on a palette.

  “Anna… You really get lonely? Even with all of the people here?”

  “Oh, sure,” she says. “I’m not allowed to leave the castle without at least two guards and one servant. The townspeople are too intimidated to talk to me, the servants and knights and soldiers aren’t allowed to talk to me casually, my parents and brothers are always busy… Loneliness is something I know very well.”

  I nod softly, “That must be horrible.”

  “You know loneliness too,” she says, “I can tell. Your eyes show me everything.”

  I don’t know what else to say, but I feel so much more at peace. There is a beautiful silence between us, of understanding, friendship, protection. The beginning of a strange sort of
love. She finishes my face and dusts some powdery stuff over my wounds to make them less visible.

  “You can barely see them,” I gasp.

  She grins, “I’m a magician, you do realize. Now, let’s pick out a dress! This is my favorite part. What color do you think? Maybe green, that’d really bring out your eyes-- oh, but purple would be stunning with your complexion--”

  “White.”

  “Huh? Why? That’s awfully risky, isn’t it?”

  “Exactly. Nobody else in the room will be wearing white because it’s too risky. I will be forced to stand out. Your brother will have to look at me.”

  A slow, devious smile grows on Anna’s face. “Absolutely.”

  She digs through the rack in the back until she finds something. “What do you think?”

  The entire bodice is crystals that gleam in the light, shimmering like the surface of a pond after a leaf has fallen onto it. The skirt is a flowy silky material. It’s definitely dangerous. I can imagine that all the other girls will be wearing poofy dresses to best resemble a queen.

  But I am the queen in my own game of chess, and this dress is the first pawn to move.

  “Could I try it on?”

  Anna cheerfully helps me slip into the gown and zips it up from behind. It fits me perfectly, hugging my curves. I look in the mirror. I am weak no more. I am strong, beautiful, the embodiment of simple elegance, and with the dark red lipstick Anna chose, I am also the embodiment of desire.

  I’ve never felt so powerful.

  “This is the dress,” I say. “Let’s do this.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I keep my blade strapped to my leg with a garter. I don’t tell Anna about it. I don’t tell anybody about it. That knife is mine and mine alone, a secret I keep with me that nobody ever has to see. With the makeup covering my wounds, and how the ballroom is expected to be dimly lit, I know I am about to kill it. My own personality is weird and different and wrong. But I am also an excellent chameleon.

  We shuffle into the ballroom, and, though it was dark, red and gold draping makes the room alive with color. The music is something I’ve never heard in my village. It is too elegant for that. It is the powdery dust of angel lips. I try to play a different song in my head. Something much more confident and appealing. Something that makes me feel strong. You are a goddess. Don’t ever forget. You are a goddess.

  I was right. Nobody else was wearing a white dress in the whole room. There was a lot of red, which I expected. Purple, blue, green.

  I am an original make and model. At least, I am trying to be.

  Grace is antsy next to me, fidgeting in her lilac gown. “Jay, I’m scared. I don’t want to go home…”

  I frown. I hadn’t even thought about Grace having to leave and go back to her abusive boyfriend and enabling family who were obviously not doing a good job of taking care of her. I couldn’t let that happen, either… I’d have to study Elliot and figure out what he liked. Though I couldn’t imagine he wouldn’t like Grace. I can’t imagine that any living human being with a beating heart couldn’t like Grace. It just wasn’t possible. She was so gentle and sweet… Unlike me, trying to manipulate royalty with my tight white dress, dark red lipstick, fake breasts…

  I suddenly feel sick. Why did I do this? This was wrong. This was all wrong. None of this is who I am. I’m the hunter from a nameless village who rarely speaks, and who only wants to protect her mother.

  “I wish my mom was here,” I whisper.

  Grace looks up at me. “Jay? Are you alright?”

  I shake my head, “I--”

  The princes walk in, and I see the pleased look on Elliot’s face. I had forgotten that I was dealing with a man. I felt a sudden surge of intense hatred as he looks over his cattle in expensive gowns. I wanted to take his heart in my hands and rip it to pieces.

  I WILL NOT BE YOUR GAME.

  YOU WILL BE MINE.

  I smile, “I’ll be fine. I feel very… confident today.”

  You killed my father. I’ll break you.

  He smiles, “Ladies, thanks to all of you for joining us today. I am looking forward to taking a few minutes to talk to each and every one of you, as are my siblings.”

  Wait, why are the other princes here, anyway? I thought Elliot was looking for a queen. The others aren’t. Are they? I’m confused. And hungry.

  “Now, let the ball begin!”

  The ladies all clap and cheer as the princes walk down the staircase to greet us.

  “He’s so handsome, isn’t he,” Grace whispers, eyes fixed on Elliot. “I wonder if I’m enough.”

  “Don’t say things like that. He should bow down and thank the gods for letting him be in the same room as a girl as stunning as you.”

  “How are you not scared, Jay?”

  I shake my head. “I… I can’t afford to be.”

  A group of girls starts sobbing as servants lead them out of the room. My eyes grow wide. He’s already thinning us out?

  And then he’s close. Too close. Moments away. I don’t know how to be sexy! What the hell am I doing?

  “Greetings, ladies,” he says cheerfully, as though he hadn’t just made a group of girls cry.

  I force a smile, “Well if it isn’t Prince Elliot.” I curtsy in a way that pushes my breasts up a little. I pray it’s enough. “A pleasure to meet you.”

  He takes my hand and kisses it. “Please, milady, the pleasure is mine.”

  I nudge Grace since she’s absolutely star struck, frozen in Elliot’s presence.

  She curtsies a little, smiling. “Prince Elliot! You look dashing as ever.”

  He kisses her hand. “You have beautiful eyes,” he says gently to her. “I hope that I have the chance to dance with both of you lovely women later tonight.”

  “I’m looking forward to it,” I smile slyly, batting my eyelashes.

  He takes a long, last look at the both of us before he leaves. I sigh and let my body go back to its usual, slightly slumped over position.

  “What the hell was that?” Grace asks, eyes narrowed.

  “I’m trying to stay,” I say quietly.

  “But that’s not who you are!”

  “That’s who I need to be, for now. I would tell you more if I could, but I just…”

  She rolls her eyes, “No, I get it. I showed you my scars, but whatever secret you have that makes you act like… like whatever that was, your stupid secret is more important.”

  “Grace,” I whisper.

  She shuts her eyes tight, and a single tear falls from her eye. “I just want somebody to love me,” she whispers.

  I don’t think. I pull her into my arms and hold her close and let her cry, the way my mom always did for me. She hugs me like vines around a stake, “I trust you, Jay.”

  “Hold yourself together. Be strong. The world is so much bigger than a nameless village with a man who hurts you.”

  “Promise?” she sniffles.

  “Promise.”

  I don’t know for sure how big the world is, but we drove a long time to get here. And when I look at the sky, I know there is more than what I’ve been shown. I like the night sky better for a reason. The day sky makes me hungry. It makes me lust after places and experiences that might not exist. But the night sky tells you that, in that moment, wherever you are, everything is okay because the night sky is a black blanket cut with little holes so that the dead can look down on their loved ones from above. Dad is up there. He makes everything okay. He is protecting me.

  I suddenly want fresh air. Praise the gods that there is a door in the ballroom that led outside to a table full of drinks and food. I point it out to Grace.

  “Yes, please,” she says, and we walk out together.

  I load up a plate full of chocolate chip cookies and take a wine glass filled with lemonade, downing both as quickly as I could to satiate the thunderous hunger in my stomach.

  That’s when the storm comes. Clouds the color of graveyards circle maliciously overhead, somet
imes parting to release branches of electricity. The rain pours like watery bullets.

  And then I see the crows.

  They circle the castle, squawking horribly, soaring in a constant, swooping ring. They begin to fall all at once, some dead, some alive.

  The rain pounds harder on our skin, and a dead crow lands a few feet away from me. All I can hear besides the storm is screams.

  “Get inside,” I yell at Grace, who’s cowering beside me.

  “Why aren’t you coming?” She screams.

  “Because I have to save your life,” I scream back, pulling the dagger from my garter as a man leaps over the fence, racing toward Grace.

  I intercept his reach with a kick to the chest. He staggers back just in time for me to pounce on him and pierce my thrust my dagger through his heart. He screams so violently, so piercingly, I can’t imagine he’s human. His scream lets out a great breath of fiery smoke, and then he’s only flesh, and then bone.

  I turn to Grace, her jaw slack and eyes ringed with a thick, black terror.

  “Go!” I scream at her, as two more of the monsters rush toward me from either side. If I had a sword, I could take both of their heads off at once…

  As Grace rushes back into the palace, I dodge out from between the two black cloaked figures, their heads banging together like metal. I slit their throats at the same time in one fell swoop. But they keep coming in bigger and bigger waves, an unstoppable plague of things in black cloaks. All at once, I’m surrounded. The only way to safety is to go through the palace, but these things are fast. I can be stronger than them, but I can’t be faster, and I can’t let them infiltrate the castle and potentially kill the people inside.

  They’re here.

  Closer and closer.

  And I can feel their gritty black claw hands on my arms and legs, their breath reeking of carrion. One of them takes my chin in his hands and pulls my eyes up to face him.

  He’s not like the rest of them. He is a person. He is alive, flesh and blood, white teeth, human fingers, but his irises are utterly black.