Stars in Her Eyes

by Becky Lee Weyrich

  Dazed, Emily glanced up when she felt someone grip her arm. She found herself staring into Jonathan’s eyes—wonderfully blue eyes, but without their usual sparkle. They seemed clouded now, troubled, matching the look of alarm on his handsome face.

  “Hurry, Emily!” he said, his tone quiet but urgent. “We’ve got to get out on deck, to the lifeboats.”

  When she failed to respond, he repeated the words, then caught her shoulders and shook her gently. “Emily, listen to me. We’ve struck something. We’re sinking! The ship is going down! There isn’t much time.”

  His alarming words seemed to swirl around in her head, refusing to fit themselves into proper order. None of this could be happening!

  The next few moments seemed the longest of Emily’s life. Her whole ordered world turned to chaos. With Jonathan supporting her none too gently, she inched her way slowly toward the wide doors of the dining room—clutching at tables, chairs, shipmates, anything she could get her hands on to keep from falling. The going was slow, perilous.

  Once they reached the badly listing deck, they found themselves in the midst of a mob scene. The entire starboard side was awash. Women screamed, babies cried, crew members shouted orders, and everyone seemed to charge in all directions at once, slipping and sliding as they went.

  What struck Emily most, however, and would stay in her mind long after other details of this terrible night had faded, was the odd, greenish glow from the sky. Without that light, she realized, they would be trying to save themselves in total darkness. She wondered momentarily about its source, but too much was happening all around her for her mind to linger on any one thing for long.

  “We have to find Hattie!” she said, as much to herself as to Jonathan.

  She glanced about wildly, hoping to spot her secretary somewhere in the terrified mob. She guessed that after their disagreement in her cabin, Heatherbee had gone to her own quarters below deck on the starboard side. What if she was trapped down there? If anything happened to her, Emily would never forgive herself. After everything the two of them had been through together over the past several years, they were more to each other than employer and employee; they were friends.

  “Heatherbee!” Emily screamed. Each time she called, her voice seemed to be thrown back at her by the tumult on deck. But she kept it up until her throat felt raw with the effort.

  She had all but given up hope when a wraithlike figure, a blanket clutched over her flowing white nightgown, pushed her way through the crowd.

  “Lord sakes, Miss Emily, I thought I’d never find you.” Hattie, peering owl-eyed through her spectacles, gripped her employer’s hand. Hysteria was written all over her.

  “I can’t swim, you know. Not a lick!”

  “Don’t worry, Miss Heatherbee.” Jonathan now had both women in tow. “I’ll get you into one of the lifeboats. We’re in a main shipping lane, and I’m sure Captain Sidney has sent out a distress call. You’ll be rescued in no time.”

  As good as his word, Webb had the two women installed in a sturdy lifeboat minutes later. But he refused to accompany them, offering the last seat in the boat to an elderly gentleman with a cane instead of claiming it for himself. Even as the craft was being lowered over the side, Emily—trembling now as much with relief as with fear—held fast to Jonathan’s hand.

  “Get in, Jonathan!” she cried. “Hurry! Come with us!”

  Forcibly, he slipped his fingers from her anxious grip. “This boat’s full,” he called back. “Don’t worry, Emily. If I don’t see you before, I’ll meet you at the Castines’ garden party. Take care!”

  Numb with panic, Emily tried to keep track of him in the eerie, green light. She watched as he and crew members helped more and more women and children into the boats and lowered them away from the dying Union Star. Her final glimpse of him brought tears rushing from her eyes and an icy cold to her heart. He lay clinging to the ever-tilting deck with several other men. The last boat was gone. The last hope was gone for Jonathan Webb.

  “Look up there!” the elderly man next to Emily cried, pointing his cane toward the glowing heavens.

  All heads turned to see a brilliant arc of green fire carving a path through the darkness.

  “The lights in the sky,” Emily murmured, feeling an odd ray of hope even as she spoke the words.

  The soaring apparition seemed to explode in midair. There was a blinding flash of green close to the water. For an instant, it seemed to Emily that the eerie glow settled directly upon Jonathan. She could see his face quite clearly, although her boat had drifted far from the sinking ship. Then, only a second before the Union Star gave its final gasp and shudder, then sank below the churning waves, the entire vessel shimmered with luminous green light that danced forward, then aft, and back again.

  “St. Elmo’s fire!” someone in one of the lifeboats cried.

  But Emily doubted that. She felt a strange sense of oneness with the glow. It was almost as if the oddly luminous light came from her own soul—a brilliant lifeline that might save the others.

  Save Jonathan! she begged wordlessly.

  Long, black moments followed. The light had faded. Only the terrible memories lingered as the little lifeboats bobbed in the dark sea. An ominous silence fell over the scene, then from a distance came a low moan.

  The eerie phenomenon of the lights was all but forgotten moments later. Out of nowhere, a storm blew up. Suddenly, waves crashed against the lifeboat, dashing it this way and that, drenching Emily and the other passengers. Heatherbee set up a banshee’s wail as the cold salt sea soaked her through. Jagged bolts of green lightning split the blackness of the sky. Bad progressed quickly to worse as the boat was sucked into an angry whirlpool, spinning faster, faster, ever faster.

  “Hold on, Heatherbee!” Emily shouted. “Hold on for dear life!”

  And then it happened.

  The turbulence, the screams, the rush of cold water. When an especially vicious wave crashed into the boat broadside, Emily was catapulted over the gunwale and into the icy, swirling Atlantic.

  The shock of her plight took away her senses for precious moments. She allowed the sea to have its way with her, snatching at her heavy gown to drag her deeper and deeper under the black water. She drifted down, having no sense of direction, no idea how to go about saving herself.

  When she recovered enough to think, she realized instantly that her sole desire in life was to live, and with that realization, her fighting spirit returned. There was so much she still had to see and do. And she’d always imagined that her life had some grand purpose, which she had yet to discover. She would never give up. She had to find out what lay ahead.

  Desperately stroking and kicking, she tried to fight her way to the surface. But something beyond the drag of her sodden skirts held her back. The necklace! The very piece of jewelry that she had proclaimed to have magical, life-saving powers only an hour before was now using its magic to ensure her death. Tangled in an anchor line from one of the boats, it seemed determined to hold her fast until she drowned.

  Struggle as she might, there was nothing Emily could do to save herself. The catch was snarled in her hair. Her fingers as she fumbled at it seemed frozen solid. Finally, with a painful jerk of her neck, she broke the precious relic. It disappeared into the fathomless depths, lost once more to the world.

  Her sudden relief at freedom gave way to immediate despair. Lungs bursting, limbs numb with cold and exertion, Emily felt death closing in. She continued to fight, but it was useless. She could hold her breath no longer.

  Only twenty-six years old, she mused objectively, and my life is over.

  Save Emily!

  The two words became the Starwanderer’s call to battle. Without his sophisticated video receiver, he was at a distinct disadvantage. After crashing his ship into the sea, he had combed the Union Star from stem to stern, but Emily was nowhere to be found.

  He located the man named Jonathan Webb, who, during the evening, had kindled a peculiar and u
npleasant sensation previously unknown to the Starwanderer—a sensation his Earth file identified as jealousy.

  “Not one of the more pleasurable Earth feelings,” he mumbled to himself as he searched on.

  When he realized that Jonathan Webb was dead, his anger turned to a different sort of feeling. He had no Earth word to identify this emotion, but it left him with an empty sensation and a new empathy for this other being who had loved Emily.

  There was no time to contemplate this new awareness. He had to keep searching. Time was running out.

  Emily was nowhere on the stricken vessel, which meant that she had to be somewhere out there, in the vast, churning sea. He scanned the ocean’s surface—boat by boat—using his special infrared night-vision to see through the darkness. Still he could not locate her.

  Then he picked up two faint signals—one from deep space and the other from deep water.

  Haste was essential. But he must have solid form in order to save Emily. Salt water, he knew, would disperse his vaporous mass. He needed an Earth suit to accomplish his mission. Glancing about, he spied the lifeless body of Jonathan Webb once more. A vague alarm went off in his mind. What he was about to do could be dangerous, even deadly. But there was no time for a slow, safe transition. If he was to save Emily, he must do it now.

  “You wanted Emily, and you shall have her, Jonathan Webb. I promise!”

  The Starwanderer steeled himself for the unknown, wondering if this moment might be his last. But his only fears were for Emily. Knowing there was not another moment to lose, he telescoped his glowing form into a long beam of light as thin as a needle. He paused for an instant, gathering force, then plunged himself into the Earthling’s still heart. Instantly, Jonathan’s inert body gave off a greenish glow as the Starwanderer’s formless vapor flowed into it, bringing back life and breath, and with it, excruciating pain.

  The sudden transition left the Starwanderer dazed. He had never before worn the skin of an Earthling. He felt as if he were suffocating inside the confining space, being squeezed until he could hardly draw a breath. But he disregarded the discomfort. There was no time to consider his own agony. There was only time enough—just barely—to save Emily.

  The Starwanderer launched himself away from the sinking ship.

  “I am coming, Emily!” he cried, before plunging deep into the stormy, black sea.

  Drowning! Yes, she was drowning, Emily told herself quite matter-of-factly. Fight as she would, there was no way to save herself.

  Suddenly, she became vaguely conscious of her own name being whispered through the water, then a green glow surrounding her—pulsing, prodding, imploring her not to give up. She tried. Oh, how she tried!

  But, finally, there was nothing more she could do. It seemed utterly useless to fight the fierce, cold ocean. At last, her whole body numb, her lungs burning for air, she let the blackness close over her and embrace her intimately.

  In that instant, thoughts and regrets rushed in on her. Why had she never known her father, and why had her mother died so young? Why had she not known that her own life would be so short? There were so many experiences she would miss. What must it feel like to love a man—to be loved in return? She realized with terrible sorrow that she would never know.

  The very moment that Emily accepted what she knew she could not change, she felt herself drift out of her body. From a short distance away, with a measure of detachment, she viewed the limp doll hanging there in the water.

  Done! Dead! Such a pity!

  Even as that thought formed, Emily felt the black, dead-cold depths turn to green, pulsing warmth. She sensed she was glowing. In the light that seemed to come from her own soul, she saw a man swimming toward her.

  Could it be Jonathan? Had he survived after all?

  What a shame that he was too late!

  A moment later, she watched from a distance as the man pulled her own limp form into his arms. At his touch, she returned instantly to the shell of her body, just in time to feel his lips cover hers—urgent, insistent, demanding, but ever so sweet. She moved her mouth under his and tasted his warmth. He breathed life-giving breath back into her lungs.

  Suddenly, she became conscious of her heart beating against his. She was alive! She could feel her whole body once more—her breasts pressing against his hard chest, his sheltering arms around her, his strong hands supporting her, caressing her, sending reviving jolts of energy surging through her system.

  As their watery waltz continued, warmth turned to passionate heat, then searing need. Long after she revived, she clung to him, drinking the delicious breath from his open mouth, begging him silently never to let her go. She realized suddenly that her whole life had been only a prelude to this moment. Whatever her grand purpose on Earth, it was beginning now.

  A new and welcome sensation stole through her, making her feel light and carefree. Yes, even happy. She was saved! But there was something more…

  Then she heard the voice again. “Emily,” he said. Simply Emily. Yet the rich, caressing sound of her name from those phantom, life-giving lips told her suddenly and clearly that she was loved—loved as no woman had ever been loved before. That they were meant to be together—always!

  A moment before she would have given herself to him totally, she was wrenched out of his embrace. She felt hands clawing at her, heard other voices calling her name. She was hauled roughly up out of the warm green glow, into the cold, windy night. Her aching body scraped painfully against rough wood as Heatherbee and the others in the lifeboat dragged her to safety.

  For long moments, Emily lay gasping in the boat’s bottom, coughing up sea water, trying to get her breath, straining to remember what had happened down below. When she recalled the wondrous, life-giving kiss and the man who had truly saved her, she screamed.

  “It’s all right!” Heatherbee cried, trying to restrain her. “You’re here in the boat now, Miss Emily, and help’s on the way.”

  “No! You don’t understand!” Emily sobbed, scrambling to her knees and leaning so far over the side of the boat that they nearly capsized. “Jonathan’s down there! We have to help him. He swam down and found me. I was dead, but he shared his breath with me and brought me back to life. We can’t let him drown!”

  Clutching hands pulled her back into the bottom of the boat. Emily saw Heatherbee’s taut face close to hers. “There now. You lie easy. You’ve suffered a shock, but we’ll have you ashore soon.”

  Her secretary’s patronizing tone was more than Emily could bear. They didn’t believe her. They were going to sit there and let Jonathan drown down in the awful, cold darkness.

  Wrenching free from the restraining hands once more, Emily struggled to her feet, as if she meant to plunge over the side and back into the water. Again, she was brought down roughly, her head striking the gunwale.

  As darkness closed in around her, she was still calling Jonathan’s name, still begging them to save him.

  4

  Nervous for no apparent reason, Emily kept glancing out her bedroom window as she finished getting dressed for the evening’s party at Senator and Mrs. Castine’s home.

  If anyone had told her two weeks ago that she would be safely back in Washington tonight, preparing to attend the Castines’ anniversary celebration, she would have called that person a fool and worse.

  “Corpses do not attend garden parties!” she confirmed aloud.

  And Emily Middleton Larchmont had been dead, of that she was certain. How she had revived and been rescued had no place in her memory of that awful night. However, she did recall some rather strange visions and sensations—seeing her own poor drowned body, then seeing a man under water with her, hearing him call her name, and being protected by a warm, green glow. It seemed, too, that he had kissed her, and that his touch had brought her immeasurable pleasure.

  “Ridiculous, of course! A mere trick of my waterlogged brain.”

  In truth, none of what she remembered made any sense now. It could all be simple
imagination brought on by the shock of the tragedy.

  Some said that a storm off the coast that night had spawned water spouts at sea. Perhaps that was as good an explanation as any for how Emily got snatched from the lifeboat and dumped into the ocean. But no one could ever explain to her satisfaction how she came to be saved. According to Hattie Heatherbee, Emily had simply floated to the surface moments after she disappeared below the waves.

  “Preposterous!” Emily had exclaimed, when she heard Hattie’s tale.

  “You said that nice Mr. Webb swam to your aid,” her secretary had insisted. “You said you saw his face as plain as day when he came to help you. Such a shame he couldn’t save himself. He was indeed a brave man.”

  Emily walked slowly from the window to sit down at the vanity, her thoughts still churning.

  “Dear Jonathan! He most certainly was a brave man,” she whispered now, remembering how he had given up his place in their lifeboat and stayed on the sinking ship to help all the women and children to safety. She clearly remembered watching him as he did it.

  But even in her overwrought state that night, how could she have believed that it was Jonathan who had brought her up from her watery grave? Hadn’t she watched him go down with the ship? Hadn’t she seen his face the very instant before the Union Star disappeared forever? She’d been out of her senses when she was rescued. For heaven’s sake, she’d just come back from the dead!

  Still, someone had been down there with her.

  Emily fastened her mother’s pearl choker around her neck, wishing for the thousandth time that she hadn’t lost the necklace from Crete the night of the accident.

  “But at least you have your life,” she reminded herself, still in awe that she wasn’t stone-cold dead, feeding fishes on the bottom of the Atlantic.

  She gave her smooth black hair a final pat, then pushed one more ivory comb into the chignon at the nape of her neck.