Bright Star

by Grayson Reyes-Cole

  The Shift did not take forty seconds. The fire was out. The pyre was gone. Again, there were no amazing flashing lights or booming claps of thunder. Bright Star’s flames did not reverse until they subsided, nor did her wounds. No, the state of the universe merely changed from one to another, a world where Bright Star had not burned. But she had. There remained the acrid smell of smoke and her fiery auburn locks were still seared to the quick in patches on her smooth and melting skull.

  Rush turned to leave.

  “You saved me,” he heard from behind him. Then there was an awed and subdued cheering. The Followers were embracing Bright Star and hailing Rush.

  *

  “Wake up.”

  Jackson rolled to a sitting position in his bed. He squinted against the near blinding sunbeams streaming through the window.

  “What did she do?” he asked groggily. His voice was raspy.

  “She had those fucking Followers of hers set her on fire in the ballroom!” Rush answered. “A ballroom we didn’t have two weeks ago. Do you understand?”

  “What?” Jackson asked attempting desperately to shake the cobwebs from his brain. Then, the words registered. His eyes snapped wide. “What?”

  “You were there, Jackson!” Rush answered slowly through his teeth. “You saw her soak herself in oil and have Monk light her up with a burning torch. She was only one and a half minutes from death at my estimation and not the kind you come back from. She couldn’t even call to me. She had Monk do it instead.”

  That woke Jackson. Truly, truly she could have died. What if Monk had not been strong enough to call to Rush?

  “I would have known anyway,” Rush responded to the unasked question.

  Jackson scowled at him, irritated at the mind intrusion. Then he swung his legs off of the bed and stood, heading toward the bathroom. “What are you going to do?” he questioned his brother.

  “Do?” Rush shrugged coming to lean against the door frame. “I’m not going to do anything. In fact, I think I’m going to go away for awhile.” He brought up a hand to massage the back of his neck.

  “Go away?” Jackson asked, hoping he didn’t sound like an overly dependent little brother as he splashed water on his face.

  “Yes. I haven’t decided where, but I think that I may be able to relax some if I leave for awhile.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Jackson argued as he toweled himself off.

  “Maybe she won’t do it if I’m not here,” Rush offered finally and Jackson met his gaze in the bathroom mirror. He said nothing.

  Rush gave a derisive grin, then turned to leave. He knew hope was futile. He knew she would always, always, be able to find him. The pain in his back started again.

  “You should go see Dr. Sandoval.” Jackson watched his brother wince.

  “I thought we’d established that Randall was useless,” Rush answered dryly. He wasn’t going to see anybody. The problem in his back was purely and simply stress-related, and it was never ever going to go away. It would only get worse until, well… the pain wouldn’t matter anymore then.

  “Where is she?” Jackson asked.

  “In the kitchen,” was Rush’s response. “She’s waiting for you. Even if she seems as if she is not. She is.”

  “Not Bright Star.”

  Rush looked at him sharply. “Who?” his voice was gruff.

  “Never mind,” Jackson answered softly and left the room.

  *

  When Jackson entered the kitchen, it was to see Bright Star curled into a window seat eating a bowl of fruit. She gazed outside wistfully. Badly bruised all over her body, she smelled like burning tar. Her lips were cracked and raw. She had very little hair and her scalp looked at if it were still melting. It was shiny and smooth like plastic. Still, her face remained the same. Beautiful.

  “Why do you allow it to remain that way?”

  “What?” she asked turning to him. “My hair?”

  Jackson nodded.

  “I can’t change it,” she answered without pain. She obviously considered the loss of her hair insignificant. And—Jackson was convinced—she chose not to dwell on her inability to reverse what was a minor consequence of the fire.

  Jackson reached out to her abused skull. Where his hand smoothed over the brittle stubble, bright, burnished copper locks fell straight and familiarly. As he touched her with his hand and his smile, her crowning glory was returned. She reached up. Her hand mingled with his as she touched the soft strands. He rubbed a thumb over her lips. Her rosy lips made a soft O. Still, she was silent.

  “Don’t forget: I am still the Precocial.” He stood back from her. If he had remained close to her, still smelling the musky scent of burned wood and oil on her skin…

  Bright Star smiled warmly. The sight stirred that longing inside of him until he realized she looked beyond him. He turned.

  Rush entered the kitchen wearing only pajama bottoms. While his body had grown thicker in the past few months, he grew only muscle. The ropy cords of ligaments, the smooth egg of muscle on his biceps and another connecting his shoulders to his neck, frowning angrily on his shoulder blades. His waist was narrow, his stomach hard and ridged. Even his feet were broad and sinewy. His physique was enhanced by the velvety, glowing brown skin covering him. He looked like the heathen Jackson’s father had always called him. Rush had always been powerful, now he allowed his physical presence to show it. No need to hide anymore. Everything about him gleamed with health. Jackson didn’t know what to make of it. He considered asking his brother why he’d hidden himself for so long, but he wouldn’t dare. He was just as afraid of the answer as he was of posing the question.

  Rush reached into the refrigerator and produced a bottle of water. The one sweeping move captivated the woman at the table. Her eyes blared aqua. Jackson could hear her breathing deepen. He could hear her throat’s reflexive swallow as she watched the movement of Rush’s Adam’s apple. This was disgusting. Jackson started out of the kitchen. Bright Star wanted Rush. She would always want Rush.

  “Don’t go,” they both commanded. Jackson turned around. They had both spoken the same words for obviously diametrically opposite reasons. Rush because he wanted Jackson to understand that there was no strength of bond between him and Bright Star. Bright Star so that Jackson could witness that bond.

  He looked to his brother, but Rush spoke to Bright Star. “I see that your appearance has improved.”

  Bright Star cast her eyes down and bit her lips together. If Jackson did not know better, he would think that she hung her head in shame, but he did know better. She would never be ashamed of what she had done in that old ruined ballroom.

  “I did not change myself, my world. I was unable to do so. I was embarrassed by my vanity when I realized you had stripped me of the ability.”

  Ah. Jackson realized now that Bright Star was not ashamed of her actions the night before. She was ashamed she had allowed Jackson to repair the damage that had been done.

  Rush studied her for a long while. “I was wrong.”

  “My world?” She asked.

  “I assumed that letting you stay here would make it easier to keep an eye on you, to prevent you from bringing harm to yourself and others. I thought I could change all of this. So stupid, when I’ve been telling Jackson all along that there was nothing to be done. So arrogant.” His lip curled and his eyes narrowed as if he ached. “I was wrong.”

  Her pale white cheeks flamed red and she lowered her eyes. “My world, I only do what I must. I can’t stop until you acknowledge who you are.”

  “Burn,” he breathed through his teeth.

  Her mouth opened and her hands tensed until her nails dug into her palms. So tense, she began to shake. “I…I’m not,” she stuttered.

  “I acknowledge who I am,” Rush inserted. A rare show of irritation creased his brow. “You are asking me for a whole lot more than that.”

  “You must be responsible, my world,” Bright Star argued. Jackson had never witnessed her
argue with Rush.

  In a sudden change of conversation, Rush asked Jackson, “Have you noticed how our apartment isn’t an apartment anymore?”

  Jackson chewed the inside of his jaw. Rush had asked him a similar question earlier that morning. He had noticed. This had once been a two-bedroom apartment with an eat-in kitchen and small living room. It had become veritable mansion. There were twenty bedrooms now. There was a formal dining room and an informal one. There were two wings and a courtyard. There was a nursery. There were buttresses and gargoyles. And no one seemed to notice that it had been a fundamental change in the scenery of the city. What had once been a block of old re-purposed government buildings and residences, was now all one unit. It was all undisputedly Rush’s home, and now there were at least 50 occupants.

  Rush shook his head then, and left the room.

  Jackson remembered his conversation with his brother. He went and joined Bright Star on the window seat. He took one of her hands in his.

  “Bright Star,” he began.

  “Yes, Jackson.”

  “You don’t know what you’ve done this time,” he urged wearily.

  “What is it?”

  “Today, Rush talked about leaving.”

  “What?” she straightened and her eyes started to glow.

  “He talked about leaving and not letting anyone know where he’s going. I think he means through a very serious Shift. I think he intends to block you out. You won’t be able to call to him.”

  Her lower lip quivered as she struggled to breathe. She blinked rapidly and turned her gaze anywhere but on Jackson.

  “Bright Star,” Jackson called and captured her head in his hands. He turned her to face him. For a moment he was captured in the soothing light of her water eyes. “He left you burned as a warning. He won’t save you again. “

  Jackson could see it in her eyes. She wanted to argue. She wanted to give him some spiritual lecture explaining why his words couldn’t be true. But she’d seen it when Rush left the room. Finality.

  Crash

  Bright Star hadn’t wanted to believe it. Jackson could tell. Rush had been gone for six days already and the entire house and its inhabitants seemed to buckle under the strain. They cried and they sought Bright Star for explanation. For the first time, she was silent. She only communicated through telepathy and only then to say she would not speak or eat or sleep or drink until she had the answer. The assumed question was “where is Rush?”, but it that wasn’t what she wanted to know. Bright Star would not tell them the question. Instead, she left them to work through their despair alone, and like new orphans, the Followers were lost.

  When they failed to get their reassurance from Bright Star, they went to the Monk who put them at ease before invariably leading them to Jackson. Jackson didn’t understand it, but Monk for some reason felt that Jackson was the key to communicating with Rush. The Followers came to the Precocial and made offerings of mundane items, items of significance to them and them alone. Teddy bears and gold watches, old coins and colorful scarves. And even though Jackson rejected their gifts outright, they peered at him with cloying and needy eyes. Clearly, they made him uncomfortable. Jackson tried to avoid them. He had nothing to offer.

  Even so, he had come to spend nearly a hundred percent of his time at home in the kitchen. There was something about that one room, the one unchanged room in their home that made him feel near to his brother. Safe. The rest of the time, he sleepwalked through his shift at the SHQ. The only reason he continued to go to the site was that every other day, though silent, Bright Star went with him for her sessions with Dr. Sandoval. Jackson told her shortly after she began her visits that she could end them. Her time with Sandoval had changed nothing. He would not admit it to Rush, but Jackson agreed that Bright Star seemed to be influencing Randall rather than the other way around.

  On the seventh day of Rush’s absence, Jackson shut down his computer, gave a longing stare to his mother’s picture, then locked his office. He went to the observatory to wait for Bright Star. She never liked when he came to her sessions, and he hadn’t wanted to exacerbate her despondency by interrupting.

  This day, the domed ceiling was rolled back, and he was staring at the sky when she came to find him. As she neared him, he gave her a tentative smile. Her lips moved and he thought she would return the expression. She didn’t. Instead, Jackson realized she was talking to herself, and though she neared him, she didn’t seem to see him.

  “Bright Star?” Jackson queried. There was no response.

  “Bright Star?” he tried again. This time she acknowledged him with little more than a subtle tilt of her head towards him. “What’s wrong?”

  “Hmm?”

  “What’s wrong?” Jackson asked again, this time with more force.

  “Nothing,” she answered and continued to watch the trees move past them as the car seemed to stand still.

  Jackson did not ask how the sky had gone dark and why he was now driving the car home. These things he didn’t spend much time on anymore. Shifts in space and time were inconsequential these days.

  “You seem distracted,” Jackson pressed.

  “I do?” was the wan and noncommittal response.

  “Yes, you do. And not just distracted, disturbed.”

  “It’s nothing,” she said and leaned back, resting a hand over her eyes.

  The subject was closed.

  When they arrived home, Jackson came around to open her door. Slowly, she stepped out of the car and seemed to look past him again. She didn’t start for the house. He followed her into the statuary. Her lips began to work again, and Jackson was at a loss.

  “What happened when you went to see Randall today?” he asked.

  At first, Jackson didn’t expect her to answer. But after a long pause, she did. “Nothing. Nothing ever happens when I see him. I talk and he listens. He says very little, but he listens very well. Today was no different. But I asked him, Jackson.” And there was a catch in her small voice. “I asked him to help me, this time.”

  Jackson held his breath. Maybe this time…

  “I asked him to help me but… but…” There was another catch. “He couldn’t. Do you know what his Talent is, Jackson?” Jackson shook his head. “Well I won’t tell you. I won’t.”

  That’s when Jackson stood in front of her. Tears were flowing freely down her face. Jackson wanted to touch her, to console her. But he knew she wouldn’t have any of it. And he knew that Rush, however far away, would know that he had touched her. Rush would know that he had wanted to support her... He couldn’t do it.

  “Why?” she pleaded with him. “Why won’t he just accept his fate? Why does he fight me?” Her leg seemed to be aching. Jackson had no idea where she had gotten the injury or if she had, in fact, been injured at all. When he scanned her, he could sense no trauma, though to her body the pain was undeniable. She kept putting weight on it. Jackson could barely admit to himself the dark fact that he was fascinated by this. So rare was his ability to even feel a morsel of what she did. As it finally gave out, she slowly sank to the ground.

  She picked a crystal goblet from the air. There was what appeared to be red wine inside. She took a small sip. The crystal goblet lolled listlessly in her hand until its burgundy liquid dribbled on to the ground and its lip kissed the smoothed stones of the walkway. It was then that in a fit of rage she smashed the bell of the glass against a limestone cherub, shattering it so the stem she held in her hand was capped by a ragged glass crown. She wrapped her whole fist around the upside down stem and ground the sharpest, most angled edges into the inside of her wrist. The brittle tips crumbled but eventually cut through her skin and into her meaty flesh. She twisted it. The only sounds were a sharp sigh and a dull—near silent—thump of fat drops of blood landing on the ground.

  Jackson ran over to her to pull the glass from her wrist, but she wouldn’t let him. She wailed and she fought. She swung the glass at him, grating it across his cheek. A mild, thin pin
k slash appeared on his face, then just as quickly disappeared. When he pulled the glass free and clamped his hand over her wound, she screamed. She brought up her knee and planted her foot in the center of his chest, trying to get him off her. Jackson moved back in concert with her movement and twisted to the side. Her foot slid past him and he was back, grappling for her hand.

  Bright Star balled up the fist of her good hand and swung hard until she connected with his face again. After, she dug her nails in. She reached back to swing again, but he caught her other hand, tried to hold her still. Then she started to kick again. She kicked and kicked until he was forced to let go of her hands. Then she levered herself up until she was on her feet and ran in the back door directly to the counter in the kitchen where the knives were. She reached for a large chef’s knife. She took an unsuccessful swipe at an already mending wound.

  It was then that she looked down. There was no more break in her skin. The blood was even dissipating. It was as if she had done nothing. She raised the knife then drove it directly into the front of her throat. Only a sharp cough escaped her as she fell to the floor once more and blood sputtered out of her mouth and from the wound. Not seconds later, though, the knife appeared to free itself, levitating until it set itself back on the counter.

  Jackson heard a hoarse wheezing and realized that she was crying again, this time in great painful wracking sobs. There was no wound, no more blood. He knelt down beside her, not knowing what to do. “Bright Star,” he whispered, stroking her hair.

  She took deep gulps of air and coughed as she tried to stop the tears. She jerked her hand away as he tried to grab it.

  “Bright Star,” Jackson started again. “He saved you. Isn’t that what you wanted? Isn’t that what he always does?”

  She shuddered. Then her body went dead. She was still when she answered in a sharp, gruff tone. “He didn’t save me.” She didn’t give Jackson a chance to ask the obvious question. “It was automatic. A side effect from the last time. It won’t last. I didn’t even feel him,” she spat. “He didn’t even come for me. It’s just… just secondary Perma-Shift, or leakage, whatever you people call it.”