Dark Star

by Bethany Frenette

  I shrugged, turning back toward her. She’d forgotten the coaster again, but I decided to let it go, just this once. “That cop knows something,” I said. “I wanted to see what I could find out.”

  “Did you get anything?”

  “Um . . . he likes fly fishing, and his favorite band is the Grateful Dead.”

  Mom sighed.

  “And he knows about you. I’m not sure what he knows, or how—but I think he has some idea of your abilities.”

  “Another reason it was irresponsible of you to give him a reading,” Leon interjected.

  “I said he knows about Mom,” I retorted. “You really think he’s going to take a teenager telling fortunes seriously? How about this: if he calls asking for lottery numbers, I’ll let you know.”

  “I’m more concerned about you not taking it seriously,” Leon shot back. His eyes were fixed on me, and that disapproving slant to his mouth meant he wasn’t done with whatever scolding he had in store. I decided to cut him off before he got the chance.

  “How is this even any of your business? I hate to break it to you, Leon, but tagging along after Mom doesn’t actually make you part of the family.”

  He went quiet for a moment. “I don’t tag along.”

  I ought to have felt bad.

  When it came down to it, we were pretty much the only family Leon had. He didn’t talk much about his life before Minneapolis, but I knew his parents were dead, and so was the grandfather who had raised him. He didn’t seem to have ties to anyone else in the Cities. Though he went to college, I didn’t think he had any friends. He took his life as Guardian so seriously, I doubted he had time for them.

  He’d arrived three years ago, showing up at the house one summer evening in the blank heat of twilight. I remembered that clearly; it was only a few weeks after Gram had died. Mom and I had been sitting outdoors, eating Popsicles in the grass because the air-conditioning was broken and it had been too hot to stay inside. And then Leon had appeared at the end of the drive, all puppyeyed and starved-looking and earnest, and instead of returning him to whatever pound he’d surely escaped from, Mom had let him be her sidekick. Or fellow Guardian. Or whatever.

  At the time, I’d found it exciting—the way he’d appeared out of nowhere, on that night when the heat was so thick the moon was nothing but a smear in the sky above us. The way he’d walked slowly toward us, seeming nervous and confused and somehow vulnerable. How he’d introduced himself to my mother, his voice steady and strong, a confidence at odds with the wariness in his blue eyes. How he’d turned, then, and looked at me. He’d looked at me a long time, and there was a puzzled little smile on his face, an expression I didn’t understand but wanted to. And then he’d told us he knew our secrets. That he had secrets, too.

  For the first few weeks, I’d idolized him. I’d followed him around, wanting to know everything about him—where he’d come from, why he’d come, how he’d known to find us. Back then, I actually thought he was perfect, with his dark hair that curled just slightly, that effortless way he moved. The gravity that never quite left his voice made everything seem important, even me. But before the month was out, he’d made it clear that he thought me nothing more than some bratty, clueless kid—and he’d been bossing his way around my life ever since.

  So I didn’t feel bad. Instead, I scowled and copied his stance.

  Then my mother said, “Actually, Audrey, that’s what I was meaning to talk to you about.”

  I was busy trying to outstare Leon, so it took a moment for that to sink in. I turned, giving her a blank look. “Huh?”

  “We’ve been discussing it for some time now, and it really makes more sense for Leon to live here. With us.”

  “Funny,” I said.

  “I’m not joking. We have the room. And with everything going on—it’s just safer this way.” She broke off, turning toward the window. Leon straightened and lost his scowl. Outside, the drone of traffic and chatter of birds died away. The late sun flared through the panes, coloring the floor around us orange and red.

  A sudden, sharp awareness settled around me, not quite a Knowing. I glanced at them: my mother facing away, Leon silent and unreadable. Something unspoken passed between them—one of those secret Guardian exchanges that never signaled anything good.

  It’s just safer this way.

  I rubbed at my arms, feeling a sudden chill. “You two could not possibly be more ominous. What’s going on?”

  Mom gave me her standard answer: “Nothing you need to worry about.”

  An unsettling thought struck me. Strange that they’d brought this up today. It could be pure coincidence, but—“Does this have something to do with Kelly Stevens?”

  Leon’s gaze snapped toward me. “What do you know about that?”

  “I know she’s dead,” I answered.

  “This is about practicality,” Mom cut in, giving Leon one of those quelling glances she usually reserved for me. “It just makes sense for Leon to be here when I’m out, so I don’t have to worry about you being alone.”

  I didn’t believe her for a second, but it was useless trying to pry information out of Mom when she was determined not to give it. She seemed to think that if she didn’t tell me about the dangers she faced, I wouldn’t notice the occasional bruise, or the blood that dried on her clothing. She probably didn’t realize I’d stocked every room in the house with first-aid kits.

  Since she wasn’t going to tell me anything, I tried a different tactic. “I’m a little past the age of needing a babysitter.”

  “As your conduct today clearly proves,” Leon said.

  I ignored him. “It’ll be weird, Mom. As you two go to such pains to point out, keeping the secret is difficult enough without having a sidekick to explain away.”

  “A lot of people rent out their houses to college kids,” Mom argued.

  “But—”

  She turned her quelling glance my way. “It’s my decision, and I’ve made it.”

  My mind raced. Leon—living with us. How was I supposed to react to that? I didn’t know. My thoughts wouldn’t settle themselves, and I felt a strange, inexplicable surge of panic. Leon had turned away again, and I couldn’t see his expression. He was one of the few people I’d never been able to read at all, not even with my Nav cards, and now I wondered what he was thinking.

  I sighed. I felt scattered, out of sorts, but there didn’t seem to be anything I could do about it. “When’s he moving in?” I asked finally, trying to find out how much time I’d have to hide the really embarrassing things I’d left lying around the house, like romance novels and dirty laundry.

  They exchanged a look.

  “Pretty much now,” Mom said.

  I took a breath. “Right. How long did you say you were planning this?”

  Another look.

  “A while,” Mom answered.

  “And you waited until now to tell me.”

  “You won’t even know I’m here,” Leon said.

  I almost laughed. “Right,” I said. As though there was any possibility of that being true.

  ***

  Mom and Leon took the early evening to move his belongings. Since she could probably carry everything in his apartment by herself, I didn’t feel my presence was necessary. I went for a run.

  After everything that had happened that day, I needed to clear my head. I kept thinking about Mom’s words—it’s just safer this way—and about what she wasn’t telling me. Secrets. That hint of worry on her face that she struggled to hide. I thought back to my dream: the darkness of the city, the silence. I thought about Kelly. Her twisted silver sandal. Her eyes closed, her face blue and marbled and dead.

  And then I found myself at Gideon’s.

  It wasn’t a surprise, really. Gideon only lived a mile or so away, and my legs were accustomed to taking me there. He opened the door before I could knock, giving me that lopsided little grin of his.

  “I had a feeling you’d show up,” he said.

&
nbsp; “What, now you’re psychic too?”

  “Say that a little louder.”

  I shrugged and followed him down the stairs to his room, then flopped onto his bed while he turned off his computer game. The two cats lounging on his pillows looked irritably up at me.

  “How was your talk?” Gideon asked. A third cat began to slink out from under the bed, and he bent to catch it.

  I groaned. “Sidekick Extraordinaire is moving in with us.”

  “Leon?”

  “No, her other sidekick.” I flipped over onto my stomach.

  “And you’re upset.”

  “Not . . . upset, exactly. Unnerved.” It still wasn’t anything I could put into words.

  “Worried about having a man in the house?”

  I rolled my eyes at that. “I wouldn’t call Leon a man.”

  He grinned. “You are harsh on my gender today.”

  “So this is a male solidarity thing?”

  “It won’t be such a big deal,” Gideon said. “Aren’t you always complaining that he’s there all the time anyway?”

  “Exactly. He already treats me like the younger sister he never wanted—and if I wanted a brother, I’d hire you.”

  “What, do you really think he’s going to tie your shoelaces together and put grasshoppers in your bed?”

  “Okay, maybe I wouldn’t hire you,” I said, laughing. Gideon certainly had big-brother experience, though. His parents had been one of those couples that try for years to have a child, finally decide to adopt—and then promptly have three more children. As far as I could tell, all of his sisters worshipped him. I figured he was kidding about the grasshoppers. “But that doesn’t make me any happier about this.”

  “Leon’s not so bad.”

  Easy for him to say. For some reason I truly could not fathom, Gideon and Leon actually got along. “You just think he’s cool because he can teleport.”

  “How is that not cool?”

  Well, I had to give him that one. It wasn’t as spectacular as, say, flying—but it did have a certain appeal.

  I sighed. “At least he knows how to bake.”

  “What’s really bothering you?”

  “I don’t know.” I rolled to my side, dislodging one of the cats. Gideon’s room was below ground level, but he had a window well, and the blue of twilight drifted in. “There’s something going on,” I said. “Mom won’t talk about it, of course—but I think something’s happening. I’m worried about her.”

  “Your mom knows how to take care of herself.”

  I knew that. She didn’t need protecting. She was strong, and not just physically. She’d had to be strong.

  But something was out there. Something I felt in more ways than just Knowing.

  And it seemed, for just a moment, in the thready blue light that moved across the floor, that it was calling to me.

  6

  The night Gram had given me my Nav cards, she came into my room and sat on the floor, spreading the cards out before her.

  The memory was always clear in my mind: it had been one of those dark midwinter nights when the frost on my window was so thick I couldn’t see out and the wind was so loud it didn’t rattle so much as roar. Gram loved nights like that. The best time for stories, she always said, and she lived to tell stories.

  “Audrey, sweeting,” she’d said, beckoning me toward her. “I have something for you.”

  I knew the cards. We’d used them before, when I was first learning about my Knowing. I hesitated, touching them lightly, feeling the smooth surfaces against my fingertips.

  Gram smiled. “These are yours. They were given to me as a young girl, and now I’m giving them to you.”

  “You don’t need them?”

  “Not anymore. Not for many years. Someday, you won’t, either. For now, they’ll teach you. Your mother has no real talent for Knowing, and my gift isn’t as strong as yours—they’re meant for you. Now, listen. I’m going to tell you a secret.” She gestured toward the cards. Slowly, as I watched, she flipped each of them over, so that only their backs were showing. All except one.

  Card twenty-six. The Triple Knot. The knot image was larger on the front than the back, but otherwise it might have simply been double-sided.

  She lifted the card and placed it in my hands, closing her fingers over mine. “Remember this one,” she said. “This is the Astral Circle.”

  I’d known about the Circle already. It was another one of Gram’s stories, something she told me when we first moved to Minneapolis. She’d spoken to me of a power that dwelled unseen within the heart of the city. You will know it, she’d told me. You will feel it. It will call to you.

  She was right.

  I’d never been to Minneapolis before. Gram and Mom had lived there most of their lives, but they’d headed north before I was born, choosing a small, sleepy town dotted with lakes and evergreens. Until we moved, I’d never been farther south than St. Cloud—but I felt the difference as soon as we approached the Cities, even before the skyline appeared and the highways widened around us. A sudden warmth filled me, vibrant, pulsing, a sense so strong and sharp that for a moment, I couldn’t draw breath. But when we arrived in Minneapolis, I was disappointed. “I don’t see any circles,” I’d complained.

  Gram patted my hand gently. “That doesn’t mean it’s not here.”

  As Gram told it, the Astral Circle wasn’t physical; it wasn’t something we could hold or touch. It was visible only on rare occasions, appearing as a faint glow near the skyline, like the gleam of the northern lights. It couldn’t be seen by everyone, she said—and for the past eight years, it hadn’t been seen by anyone. Its light had gone out.

  “There is energy within the Circle,” Gram had explained. Not the type used to heat houses or turn on appliances, but energy all the same, urgent and wild. “But its power has diminished. It’s been years now since the Circle went dark. Some even believe it to be dead.”

  It didn’t feel dead to me. I sensed it like a hum against my skin, something whispered just out of hearing. “So, it’s broken?”

  “You might say that. Or sleeping, maybe.” For a moment, she’d looked a little sad—but she continued her explanation. “The Circles are ancient and powerful, but very rare. There are only a few of them now, scattered across the world. One of them is here.”

  “Is that why we moved?” I’d asked. “The Circle?”

  “Yes. Because it is a part of us. A part of you. And we have been away from it far too long.”

  So when she handed me the card, I didn’t ask about the Circle. I knew. But I didn’t understand what any of this had to do with the Triple Knot—and told her as much.

  She gave a wheezy sort of laugh. “This is its symbol. It’s about connection. Power woven around us. The same power that lives in you, that lives in your mother and all Guardians.”

  “There are other Guardians?” That was the first I’d heard of it. To hear Mom talk, the superhero club was extremely exclusive. She wouldn’t even entertain thoughts of me following in her footsteps.

  “Well, of course,” Gram had answered. “But none quite like your mother.”

  Since that time, the only other Guardian I’d met was Leon, but I often wondered. I wondered where these other Guardians were—who they were. I wondered if they spent long nights and empty dark hours moving in silence through the streets, keeping the city safe. I wondered if they knew about us.

  And I wondered about the triple knot worn by Iris St. Croix.

  It could be a coincidence. It probably was; that’s what I told myself during school the rest of the week as I watched for her in the halls, trying to get another glimpse of the necklace at her throat. It likely meant nothing. It was just a symbol, after all, and not an uncommon one. She could’ve picked it up for five dollars at some junk-jewelry store. Except for that shiver of Knowing I’d had, I wouldn’t have noticed it at all. And though I kept looking, I didn’t catch sight of her.

  The school was still reeling
from the news of Kelly’s death. It was all anyone wanted to talk about. We’d all seen the television reports: the statement made by her parents, the pain haunting their eyes; the mayor offering his sympathies; promises that an investigation was ongoing, but no suspects could be named. Speculation was rampant. The police hadn’t released the exact manner of her death, and the more ghoulish members of the student body spread rumors that Kelly had been mutilated in some terrible way. Teachers relaxed homework assignments for the week. The school set up counseling and memorials. A sheet was placed on the wall for students to write out their condolences and sign their names. All of it took on an eerie familiarity. Kelly hadn’t been the first student to die this year: a sophomore girl had been killed in a car crash the first week of school.

  “It’s a bad year for Whitman,” Gideon remarked after we added our signatures to the wall.

  “This is way too depressing,” Tink said. “Let’s talk about something else.” That was Tink’s style. According to her, the best way to deal with anything upsetting was to pretend it didn’t exist. By the end of school on Friday, all she would talk about was our plan to meet at the Drought and Deluge. “Eight thirty,” she told us. “Don’t forget!”

  At home that night, I ate leftover lasagna and sat on the couch watching the news. The anchor said our heat wave was nearly over, that repairs on some city building were under way, and there was no progress in the Stevens case. Mom frowned at the television before she left for the evening, then told me not to stay out too late.

  “Ditto,” I called after her. “Superheroes need sleep too.” She’d been busier than usual the past week, and she looked weary—but her only response was an exasperated sigh and a shake of the head. I listened to the door shut, then headed to the kitchen to rinse my plate. Around me, the house sat silent and empty.

  Despite his assertions, I’d noticed Leon’s presence in my home. Although he went out nights like my mother, he tended to leave later and come home earlier. He had an actual job and school to deal with, so he couldn’t keep her hours. That meant he was around for dinner, and around for breakfast, and generally just around.