by Liz Williams
“No, I don’t really think they do, either. God, the boringness of a lot of the people you meet – all they can think about is their dinner and the football and when they’re next going to get laid. Anyway, maybe we shouldn’t talk about it. I myself have no magical properties. Apart from my ridiculous levels of charisma, obviously.”
“Obviously. I don’t think I do either. But, Ward, look, I can’t say the same for the house.”
Their eyes met.
“That spectacular woman in green, at the end of your catwalk show. I didn’t see her around the place beforehand. And trust me, I’d have noticed. She’d give Charlize Theron a run for her money on screen. If I was an agent I’d be down on my knees waving a contract at her. I overheard some woman saying she must be a supermodel and you knew her through your job, but she’s not, is she?”
“No, she’s not.”
“Serena – what is she, then?”
“I think she is a sort of star spirit.”
Ward’s eyebrows had, by now, nearly reached his slightly, if elegantly, receding hairline.
“A star spirit.”
“A star spirit.”
“And what is a ‘star spirit?’ when it is at home?”
Serena sighed. “Let’s start getting this gear back to the house. I’ll show you. Sort of.”
Soon after this, they were standing in Abraham’s study. The box of gemstones had been retrieved from the linen cupboard and the stones were now once more scattered over the green leather top of the desk. Serena handed Ward a chart.
“This is a list of the Behenian stars and their correspondences. Each of them has a stone, and a plant, and a flower. Some of them are male and some of them are female but they all look like women. Don’t ask me how that works.”
“So how many of these have you actually met?”
“We tried to make a list and it was difficult because we used to see them sometimes when we were little girls, and it’s hard to remember. But we think we’ve met most of them.”
“And the one on the catwalk was –”
“Spica.”
“I’ve met another one.”
“You have?”
“Yes, when I first started going out with you and we came down for Christmas – that year it rained all the time. Do you remember?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I went to the loo in the middle of the night and there was a woman standing on the landing looking down the stairs. She was in a massive dress of blue velvet and she had sapphires in her hair. I could smell something and later, actually when we came down in the summer and we were in the garden, I realised that it was thyme.”
“That would have been Capella. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought she was a ghost.”
“And so –”
“I had it drummed into me as a kid, by my gran, that if you saw something weird – especially in someone else’s house – you kept your mouth shut about it.”
“That does make a lot of sense.”
“Gran was very sensible,” Ward said. “Despite dressing like Edith Sitwell.”
Stella
Stella felt a little of the tension go out of her shoulders when it became apparent that the storm was actually dying down. She wasn’t afraid of the weather itself – though it was always wise to be wary – but she didn’t like the idea of having to share this cramped, enclosed space with Tam Stare any longer than she had to. The prospect of needing, at some point, to go to sleep had been worrying her. She wouldn’t put it past him to try something on while she lay there inert. So when the last patter of drops sounded on the iron roof and there was only the crash of the waves, Stella bounced up.
“Right! Let’s get on with it.”
She had been expecting dissent but, rather to her surprise, Tam seemed relieved.
“Yeah, I don’t want to spend more time in this shithole than we have to.”
Perhaps he, too, had feared the thought of sleep. This was a little heartening to Stella. She pushed open the door and found a still evening, the smell of salt and rain hanging heavy in the air. But apart from the spray cast up by the waves, it was dry. The big clouds were racing away out to sea and the sky was once more green.
“Which way?” Stella wondered aloud.
“Hey,” Tam said. “I can see a light.”
He was right. It flickered once, dim and wan, and it was moving.
“Someone with a torch?” Tam said.
“What’s that stuff that used to lead travellers astray in the marshes, though? Some kind of gas?”
“Will o’the wisp.”
“What if it’s that?”
“Well, as long as we don’t actually follow it, maybe.” Tam blew on his hands. Stella had warmed up a bit in the hut but he still seemed withdrawn and shivery. Despite her earlier contemplation of pneumonia, she hoped he wasn’t coming down with something. She shouldn’t feel responsible for him, and yet, she was beginning to. This irritated Stella and she bit back a snap which he did not really deserve.
“Okay. You’re right. It looks like it’s heading away from us, anyway. Look, it’s going along the shoreline.” The wavering light was growing fainter. “So we can follow it without following it, if you see what I mean. At least we know we’ve got shelter, if we need it. We can always head back to the hut.”
“All right.”
They set off along the shore at a brisk pace. Stella’s hair was still wet and she shoved it back into the hood of her parka, but she had to keep the hood down, otherwise she couldn’t see very well. It narrowed her view, like a horse’s blinkers, and Stella wanted as much vision as possible. The light dipped, up and down, following the contours of the low rise beyond the shore. Not high enough to be called a cliff, it was a long snaky dune of sand and coarse grass. The relative flatness of the land meant that the light could be kept in view. Tam and Stella pursued it, trying to keep a distance. At least Tam had finally shut up. As they came up over the dune, Stella saw that they had reached a river. It ran, low and bubbling, through a cut in the dunes to the sea. It had carved channels in a space of sand between the shingle banks and soon merged with the tide. Upstream, a waving blond mass was, after a moment, recognisable as reed beds.
On the opposite bank stood a building, on a spur similar to the one on which the hut had stood, and the light was heading for it. But the building, too, was lit. Within its dark, pointed bulk was the flicker of a candle flame in a window, blue behind stained glass.
“It’s a church,” Tam said, uneasily. He stopped walking.
“A chapel, surely? It’s not big enough for a church.” Stella could see that at one gable end, there was a small arch with a bell.
“Whatever.”
“Well, I’m going to take a look. Coming?”
“Yes. I’ll come.” But he did not sound enthusiastic. Maybe he is a vampire, thought Stella. Perhaps he would burst into flames on entering holy ground? Hey, fingers crossed. She was wary of whoever might be carrying that light. It was no longer visible but she had heard the old creak of a door opening: the person, or thing, had gone inside. Stella did not like to think about what it might be, if not a person. She swallowed the fluttering lump in her throat as they came closer to the chapel. A flagstone path led along the spur of land and as they reached the door, the bell began to toll, strangely high and sweet above the sound of the sea. Tam and Stella looked at each other.
“Someone’s ringing that,” Stella said.
“Or it’s just the wind.”
“No, it’s too regular.” The bell tolled nine times and then fell silent. Wasn’t there something about a toll of nine? Stella couldn’t remember. Nine for a death?
“You still want to risk it?”
Tam shrugged. “We’re here now.”
She reached out and gave the door a push. It was old, bleached oak, very pale. The salty air couldn’t be doing it much good. Her footsteps rang on the stone within. It seemed much bigger inside, a Tardis-chapel, but
only for a moment. Stella blinked. There was no sign of the light, or its bearer. The chapel had a ceiling like King’s College: she couldn’t remember what the style was called, but it was light and arching, reminding her of trees. Columns marched down the aisle to an altar and she could see the candle now, placed high on the ledge of a window. Then she looked again. It wasn’t a candle. It was flickering blue-green like a driftwood fire, unattached to any lamp or wax. Marshfire, needfire… words whispered in Stella’s head.
And all of it – the columns and arches, the dimly lit walls, were encrusted in seashells.
“It’s like a folly,” Stella whispered.
“A what?”
“One of those Victorian things. There’s one on the Exe estuary – a little house, filled with shells.”
Tam looked at her, uninterested. Then his gaze sharpened and he looked past her.
“What’s that?”
Stella turned and saw that there was a column standing at the side of the church, also encrusted with shells.
“It’s a pillar or something,” she said.
“No, it isn’t. It fucking moved.”
Stella felt a cold prickling blush rush up the back of her neck. She mouthed, repeating, “Fuck.”
“I’m not going near it,” said Tam and this decided Stella, even if it was a bad idea.
“I will, then.” Cautiously, she approached the column. As she did so, the marshfire light in the window flickered into further life and she saw that the column was indeed not a pillar, but a figure in a long gown, standing with its back to the chapel. The skirts of the gown seemed to grow up from the floor, or perhaps had grown into it (stalactite, stalagmite, thought Stella, trying to recall the little mnemonic about which was which), and they were heavy with scallops, mussels, tiny whorls of whelks, and skeins of weed. Then the figure twitched, sending Stella stumbling backwards. Alive alive o. But it did not turn to face her and somehow this gave Stella courage. She sidled down a pew and back down the side of the church towards the figure. As she did so, the profile turned and looked at her directly. Stella swallowed.
The figure was a woman. She reminded Stella of a ship’s prow, with the pale curve of her breasts outlined by the low cut of the gown (at this point, a Joyce Grenfell song beloved of her grandfather came irreverently to Stella’s mind: ‘stately as a galleon’). Her hair, white as plaster, was piled up and decked with pearls, and her sorrowful face was pale and symmetrical, reminiscent of a Classical statue. Her lips moved but no sound came forth. Her eyes were dark and whiteless. Stella was, by this time, much less afraid and feeling rather smug: she did not get a strong sense of threat from this woman, and she had dared where Tam had not. She said, “Who are you?”
The woman’s lips moved again. There was a whisper, nothing more than a breath.
“I’m sorry,” Stella said. “I can’t hear you.” She leaned closer.
“Watch it,” Tam said from behind her. But Stella knew the woman wouldn’t hurt her.
“Tell me,” she said. She was close enough now to smell the woman. There was an odour, very faint, of the sea: fresh and wild and salt, no shellfish or rot. The woman spoke again and this time Stella could hear.
“I am a captured star.”
Serena
All the guests had gone home. The orchestra had played, to great acclaim. No expert in classical music, Serena had recognised at least one piece, because Abraham had played it a lot. She thought it had been Mercury, The Winged Messenger. Earlier, Ben’s band had also played, minus their lead singer. The rest of Coldwar ‘did not know where he was’, they had told Serena apologetically. He was supposed to meet them at Paddington but he hadn’t shown up and wasn’t answering his phone, so after some debate they had got on the train without him and Seelie had taken over the vocals.
“I’m, you know, really sorry? About all this?” Seelie had shuffled her feet like a child caught out.
“It’s not your fault.”
“Yeah, but it makes things awkward and –” here Seelie looked Serena anxiously and directly in the face “- we don’t like her. None of us. We think she’s creepy.”
“Thank you!”
Despite the disruption, Coldwar had down well, and if the audience had been disappointed not to see Ben Amberley, no one had said anything. What a freaking anticlimax, Serena thought: she had too much to worry about without yet more crap to do with her errant boyfriend and she resented, retrospectively, the energy she’d put into fretting over him. Apple Day had left an empty marquee, a trace of laughter, a few paper plates scattered across the lawn which Luna and Sam had retrieved in case the rising wind took them and flung them across the fields, and quite a lot of money, destined for the church roof restoration fund, which Caro and Serena now sat counting around the kitchen table. Neither Stella nor Bee had been seen for some hours and Serena sat with this knowledge nestling in a thick lump of worry beneath her breastbone.
“They’re grown women,” Luna said. She seemed less concerned than her sister. “And they will be with the stars.”
“Are we sure about that?”
Luna’s face crinkled. “I think so. I hope so. I think we just have to trust everyone, Serena.”
“This isn’t like you,” Serena had to say.
“I know. I suppose I’ve always been a bit – a bit everyone-else-is-always-wrong, haven’t I? Maybe I need to take a look at myself.”
“Maybe we all do.”
“Did you change, when you had Bella?”
“Massively. I changed massively, Lune. Everything was different. A whole load of shit that had always been important suddenly wasn’t. And it wasn’t just me any more. I wasn’t the most important person in my life any longer and I never have been since then and hopefully I never will be again, because if I am, it will mean that something has happened to Bells. It doesn’t mean that stuff like Ben doesn’t matter or doesn’t hurt. It’s really –” She paused.
“Fucked you over?”
“Yes, it has a bit and there’s all this stuff happening around Dana Stare and her brother. I don’t know what it means.”
“Do you think the stars left us behind because we’re mothers? Or soon-to-be mothers, in my case.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know whether that would even be a consideration. They’re so unhuman.”
“If they wanted someone to hold the fort, you’d think it might be Bee: she’s like the linchpin here at the house, isn’t she? But it does suggest,” Luna said, “that they might have some sort of plan.”
“The queen is in her counting house,” said Caro Amberley, coming in through the back door.
“Sorry? Oh, counting out her money. Yes. The church’s money, anyway.”
“I need to say a big thank you to Bee, and to all of you. It went really well, didn’t it? I think that ought to do a bit for the Celebrate Somerset campaign and the church roof, anyway.”
Caro did not seem to have noticed either Stella or Bee’s absence and Serena did not know why this was, for Caro was an observant woman, never complacent. Either the stars had done something to her memory, or she had decided to go along with things, perhaps. But then Caro said,
“Has Bee gone to bed? She must be shattered.”
“I think she has, yes, Stella’s in the bath,” Serena lied. “And yes it did, the day I mean, but I’m glad it’s over. Now I can enjoy it.” I hope. She bundled up all the notes and stuffed them in an envelope. “Here you go.”
“Thanks so much. I really appreciate all this.” Caro glanced at the clock. “I ought to be getting back. The animals should be fine, someone will have fed them, but…”
“It’s been a long day,” Serena said. “Do you need a ride home?”
“I’ll call Ward. He said he’d pick me up.”
“Cool,” said Serena, but she was conscious of a little niggle of disappointment. She had wondered if Ward might have liked to come over and keep her company, if there was to be a vigil for her missing sisters. Then she felt guilt
y, because of Ben – but Ben wasn’t here, was he? And Ben had made it abundantly clear that things were over and you shouldn’t rebound from one man to another like this. Like what? Serena chided herself.
Caro made her phone call and Luna wandered off into the house and soon Ward swung into the yard in the Amberley’s Range Rover and whisked his cousin away into the dark with barely a nod to Serena. Feeling flat and fed up, she went back into the kitchen and opened a bottle of Pinot Grigio. First drink of the day; she hadn’t dared touch the cider. She sat, sipping, and checking her phone. Nothing. But in a surprisingly short time, there was the sound of wheels on gravel again and the kitchen door opening.
“Are you going to drink that all by yourself?” Ward Garner said.
Luna
Luna wandered down to the horses. Apple Day was over and it had gone well. She was pleased, but there had been too many people: she was peopled out. Sam didn’t count as people and her relatives sometimes did and sometimes didn’t. This evening, they definitely did and Luna preferred to seek the quiet company of the piebalds instead of sitting in the kitchen and dissecting the day’s events. Besides, she wanted time to think about what was happening: about her mother, about Bee and Stella, about the baby. The child seemed to be absorbing her normal levels of anxiety, dissatisfaction and stress, like a black star sucking in light, except that the light was the darkness and the child itself felt bright inside her, alchemical and transmuting. Luna was, at some level stifled by hormones or something else, worried about this, too: surely it could not be good for a growing baby to be subjected to all this weirdness and angst. Yet she still felt an unaccustomed calm. Guided by instinct and torchlight, she walked down to where the piebalds grazed at the end of the paddock. The grass smelled fresh and wet, the air held a warm whiff of horses. They looked up as she approached, then down again. She was one of their humans and they were used to her. Luna placed her hand on a black and white neck and the horse ignored her, continuing to pluck at the grass. As always, she marvelled at them: at their mild dark eyes, the feathers at their heels, their waterfall tails. Sam had told her that this kind of horse dated to the First World War, when the travelling communities had bred coloured horses so that their beasts would not be taken for the cavalry: the army apparently preferring single shade mounts. She did not know if this was true or a traveller’s tale, but it didn’t really matter. She switched the torch off, not wanting to dazzle the horses, and the soft cold blackness closed in. She could see lights down the road at the start of the village proper, and the stars were out: it took a moment or two for her to place them, wrapped as they were by the flying clouds. The wind was bitter against her cheek but Luna didn’t mind: months in the van had toughened her against the cold and she was bundled up.
