Gravity: The Gravity Series #1

by A. B. Bloom

"Be back at the end of school." It was his turn to frown—his expression grim.

  "Promise." I said although I realised that made it two days in a row I'd explicitly lied. I'd be back after school but only if I got all my answers first.

  Out in the street it was deathly quiet. It was early, but I didn't think the lanes around our cottage had ever been that quiet. It was to do with narrow space and the reverberation of sound along the walls of the buildings that made it so loud. Aaron had explained it to me once. All I knew was that when the rubbish truck came along at five a.m. it was damn noisy. I sprinted down the road; I knew I could make it to Lauren's in four minutes if I tried to run without falling over. That's when I saw them.

  Dead birds. Everywhere. Crows, sparrows, blue tits, and blackbirds scattered along the pavement like discarded rubbish. "What the—?” I was actually lost for words. I tried not to look, but the beady eye of one yellow beaked blackbird was determined to make eye contact with me. 'I'm sorry," I muttered and scurried on past.

  Lauren's room had the curtains pulled tight. Yanking my phone out of my pocket I tried her number again. It could have been that she was asleep, but I wasn't willing to take the chance. When she didn't answer, knowing full well I was about to incur the wrath of Lauren's mum, Brenda, I rang on the doorbell.

  "What do you want, Bronte?" Lauren's mum pulled the door open.

  "Good morning." I tried to make my voice breezy, like knocking on the door at the crack of dawn was the norm. "I'm supposed to be meeting Lauren for a pre-school study session. Isn't she up yet?"

  Brenda snorted, and pulled her dressing gown tighter around her middle. "What's going on out there?" She motioned to the neighbours opening their front doors and looking up at the sky, possibly expecting a bird to fall and dart them in the face.

  "All the birds are dead, I think."

  Brenda shook her head. "Sorry, what?"

  "It's on the news." I didn't want to be rude but I needed to get up to Lauren's room and check she was okay.

  Shouts filtered out from deep within the house. Brenda sighed and brushed a piece of hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear. "Boys, if you argue this early in the morning you'll lose the Xbox all day." Her threat didn't seem that convincing as the shouts continued and her shoulders slumped. "Come in, Bron." She shuffled away in her slippers, tutting at the noise the terrible twins were creating. She muttered under her breath, "News, I never get to watch the television in this house."

  I walked the worn carpet up the familiar stairs to Lauren's room and pushed her door open. My muscles, which had been tight like a spring, relaxed and uncoiled when I saw her under her duvet. A gentle snore fill the air. "Thank god," I said louder than I intended.

  Lauren sat bolt upright her hair tangled and yesterday's make-up dried in crusty lumps dotted over her face. "Oh, it's you." She fell back, face first onto her mattress.

  "All the birds are dead." This wasn't what I was going to say. Although it seemed a better starting point than 'where did you go to when the imaginary house on the moor disappeared?'

  She cracked an eye open. "Does that mean more spiders?"

  In my head, I ran through the ecology system as taught years before. "Yes, I think it does."

  "Great. I'm going back to sleep before mutant eight legged beasts plan their attack."

  "Where'd you go last night?" I can't hold the question in any longer.

  She cracks the same eye open again. "Where'd I go? Where'd you go? One minute we were watching Eleanor rub her sticky mitts all over Paul Rogers’ painfully perfect body. Then the next thing you were gone."

  "Paul Rogers?"

  Both eyes opened. "Yeah, we were at his party remember? Eleanor was like a puppy, licking ice cream off the floor, the floor just happened to be Paul. She's such a bitch, everyone knows he's mine."

  I pursed my lips. "Babe, he's never been yours."

  Groaning, Lauren pulled her duvet up over her head. "I know but he could be. If she'd back the hell off."

  Laughing, I shook my head. "So we didn't go to the moor? Or to Phoenix's house?"

  The duvet came down with an elaborate flip. "No? What's with you and the moor? Why can't you remember what we did last night?" Lauren sat up straighter. "More to the point, who the hell is Phoenix? Paul, Bron. Not Phoenix. Hell we've only known him all our lives. Bron, did you have an episode and not find me?"

  Episode? Is that what we're calling it now?

  "No, I just got worried about Aaron busting me so I went home. Sorry I didn't come and find you." How many lies was that now? Although as I didn't know how I got home or what happened, it wasn't a lie in the true sense of the word.

  Lauren rolled her eyes. "You're such a scaredy pants."

  "A scaredy pants who has spent more days in hospital than I'd care to remember. You can't blame me for taking it easy."

  She weaved her fingers through her hair, pulling on the knots and scrunching her face. "True." With one hand she groped for a phone lying on the bedside table.

  “Wait, you've got your phone? I've been calling you." All that worry and Lauren was just doing her best Sleeping Beauty impression.

  "Seriously, you did not wake me up at six thirty?"

  "I might have done." I shrugged and grimaced. It seemed a bit erratic now.

  With a flick of the wrist, she threw back the cover. "Are you getting in? No way I'm getting up yet." I stood there unsure. Normally I would just jump in and we'd snooze until a suitable hour to wake, but I knew there was little chance of me getting any sleep. What I wanted was answers. I would not get them staring at Lauren's ceiling any more than I would get them staring at my own.

  "I'm going to head to school." I turned for the door, my feet determined to move me forward on my mission for answers.

  "It's six thirty."

  “I know. I mean I’m going to go and get ready for school."

  Lauren snuggled back down. "Mm. I'd get changed. Dirty stop out." I flushed even though I had no reason to.

  "Better go and get changed then."

  I crept out of the house not especially keen to see Brenda again. She was intimidating and unbearable at the best of time—least alone today.

  My toes turned for school, but I knew I should go get changed. I forced myself to walk back along the uneven pavement at a slow pace. I then counted all fifteen steps to my room individually just to waste time. Under the hot shower, I tried to process what I knew, although as I knew nothing, there wasn't much to process. Instead, I twitched to get to school and find answers. By half seven I'd waited long enough and marched back out of the front door.

  I planned to get answers if it was the last thing I managed to do.

  "Who are you looking for?" Lauren quickened her pace to keep up with my scurried steps. I slammed the door on another empty room.

  It was like he'd never been here.

  Maybe he hadn't. Maybe I truly was insane.

  "Nothing," I sighed. "Come on, let's just get to class.

  What's going on with you? Lauren slid her note across the desk during double English. Normally this would be the highlight of my week. Today though, my ears refused to hear a word the teacher said. The words from Jane Eyre just swam in front of my eyes—meaningless. I felt sad for them, I knew Mr Rochester deserved better.

  Nothing I scrawled back. I twisted the paper slightly so she could see my answer without Mrs Evans getting wind of it. Mrs Evans liked to sit on a high stool so she could keep an eye on our waning enthusiasm and stifled yawns.

  What were you looking for?

  I tutted and shook my head, my eyes focused on the front of the classroom, but she nodded at the paper. It's hard to explain I shrugged with my response. Lauren's face folded into the firm scowl I was seeing all too often. She grabbed her pencil in her hand, looking like she was preparing to write a dissertation. I watched her scrawl with concentration when a paper aeroplane landed on the desk in front of me. Lauren and I looked at each other—eyes wide—and she spun in her seat
to catch the culprit.

  Unfolding the precisely folded sheet of A4 I smoothed it with my hands. You don't look like you're enjoying Jane Eyre.

  My pulse thudded, which created an unwelcome ringing in my ears. Out of the corner of my eye I watched Lauren. Her search for the plane thrower had come up bust. She was shrugging and turning back around, her mouth downturned at the corners.

  She still can't see him?

  I thought I might be sick.

  Frozen rigid, I sat still in my seat, unsure what to do. Part of me was longing with gut wrenching desperation to turn around and see him. The other part was escalating into a hyperventilating freak out.

  In the circumstances, ignoring him seemed best.

  Another plane landed in my lap with remarkable accuracy. My fingers trembled as I carefully pulled back the edges. Fancy escaping the boredom?

  Was he asking me to go somewhere with him.

  I ran it through in my head.

  A boy who no one else could see, and who thought he was a star—wanted to skip class with me?

  Obviously the idea was ridiculous. But then there was that incessant rattling on the chain in my stomach and this burning desire to see him . . .

  Shifting in my seat a little, I glanced over my shoulder and sure enough, there he was at the desk behind. I was pretty sure that someone else had sat there at the start of the lesson. He was folding another aeroplane, baseball cap in place. A hint of a smile peeked out from under the shade of the cap. He was sat with his long legs stretched out from under the table, his scuffed boots tapping the floor. My eyes wouldn't behave and drank him in. If I'd had a chopstick to hand I would have poked them out all too willingly.

  Whirling like I was on a waltzer, my head spun. I concentrated on breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth. If I could just breathe then I would consider that an achievement.

  "You okay, Bron?" Lauren whispered.

  "Yes. No. I don't know." Sweat prickled along my brow and I wiped at it with my hand as another plane landed on my lap. Need some fresh air?

  I scraped my chair back. The front legs tilted and tipped off balance and it crashed to the floor with a bang. "I've gotta go." I said to no one in particular. Abandoning my belongings, I ran for the door.

  Outside, I leant my hands on my knees and took some deep breaths until a pair of black boots entered my field of vision. Straightening up, I found him closer than I was expecting.

  "Your stuff." He held out my folder and books. Surely Lauren would have seen him take them? Wouldn't she?

  “What is going on?" My tongue felt fat and useless as I tried to speak.

  There was a distinct pause of hesitation followed by a small sigh. A hand lifted and fingers grazed along my cheek. "Would you like to walk with me?" The chain rattled and pulled, edging me closer to him. I tried to fight it. The sensation was terrifying because I felt I had no hope of controlling it. It pulled and pulled, winding me closer and tighter to him.

  Lifting my gaze, I found violet eyes watching me. His face, exposed for one of the first times, was breathtakingly beautiful, but marred by a look of defeat.

  "You don't want me to, do you?" I asked. I could sense it. It rolled off him in waves. The chain rattled and tugged.

  Another stretch of silence echoed around us as his eyes rested on my face, my eyes, my mouth. He leaned forward and I waited for him to make some physical connection with me. My body primed for his touch. I'd felt nothing like it before and it pulled deep on my insides, twisting them into knots. "Believe me, I do," he said, a breath of the sweetest air breezed across my face.

  "But?" There was a huge unspoken “but” I wished I knew what it meant.

  "But I just don't want it to be you." The tone of his voice ran my insides to liquid and a heavy ache filled my chest.

  I stared up at him blindly, my eyes stinging. "I don't understand."

  "I know." His fingers curved around my elbow. Angling me into his side, it felt as if he was trying to protect me from an unknown threat I couldn’t comprehend. "You will."

  He moved me on, his fingers never breaking contact. "Come," he said. And I did. My feet followed him and I knew in that instant, I would have followed him to the ends of the earth. The chain that ran from the pit of my stomach connected me to him in some inexplicable way. I had no way of knowing what it meant but I felt it all the same.

  "May I?" He nodded his head towards my hand and held out his own.

  Was he asking to hold my hand?

  "Sure."

  His fingers slipped alongside mine and warm licks of heat lapped up my arm. I glanced up at him. Can you feel it too? I wondered. His lips which were kissable and wide set into a firm line, and he stared straight ahead.

  I stumbled blind behind him, unable to see where we were going because all I could see was him. Finally, he stopped and I recognised an old oak out on the school field. It's twisting roots offered misshapen seats which he pointed to. "Would you like to sit?" His speech lilted with an unusual cadence that reminded me of something I couldn't put my finger on. All I knew was that it jarred against the baseball cap and the combat style clothing that clung to his tall frame.

  "I think I'll stand." Why was my voice so gravelly?

  "Of course you will." A faint smile ghosted across his face.

  "How do you know what I will or won't do?" Straightening up, I pulled my shoulders back and shifted myself a fraction away. It made no difference, every move I made, he mirrored, so we were always the same distance apart. Not far enough, my head told me, although my body wasn't so sure.

  "I know everything about you." His lips crimped into that line again. "Well, nearly everything."

  God. Why was he so cryptic? "Listen. Can you just take the cap off? It's annoying me."

  He laughed, an unexpected sound. He seemed too intense to be the kind of person to laugh. "Well, I'd hate to annoy you." He swept the cap off, leaving a shock of jet-black hair standing on end.

  "Oh." My mouth fell open.

  "Oh, what?" His eyes narrowed and I snapped my mouth shut.

  “Nothing." I took a few breaths, just to make sure I was alive and there was the slimmest chance this was real. "So, am I going to ask the questions or are you going to talk?"

  He laughed again, and I was sure his body pitched a little bit closer to mine. Violet eyes pinned me in place and I struggled to remember how to swallow. "When you were seven you decided you wanted to climb trees."

  My body stiffened. "Yes?"

  "There's a fir tree in your back garden that's easily sixty feet high."

  "Yes?"

  "What do you remember about the time you fell?" The violets flickered at me. "It was August and scorching hot, you were wearing red shorts and a yellow T-shirt. You fell through the branches like a pine cone?"

  I stared up into his face, his skin was dark olive, eyes burning bright. My tongue ran along my lips while my heart made a terrible thudding noise in my chest. "I don't." I whispered. "I woke up and I was on the ground."

  "I know. I caught you." My body stepped back although his hand darted out and snatched hold of mine. "Bronte, I've been watching you your whole life. I know it sounds weird." His nose scrunched as he contemplated just how weird it sounded.

  "Why?"

  "Because," he ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up at electrifying angles. “Because you're the last of the star children. The last of the half born."

  "Half born? That sounds rude." His nose scrunched again and I knew that it meant my guess was right. "Charming."

  His fingers grabbed my arm, finding purchase on my skin, digging in deep. "I don't understand why you don't know." He shook his head. "This isn't the way it's meant to be."

  "How's it meant to be?" His words were rubbing me up the wrong way and a flush was warming my skin. Everything was fading around me apart from him. I was supposed to be in class but I wasn't. I'd left my best friend without a word, twice, but I couldn't resist the pull of intrigue I felt towa
rds him.

  "You were meant to turn sixteen, come into your power, understand who you are and that would be it."

  His face told me this wasn’t a joke.

  “Sorry to disappoint.”

  A wry flash of regret crossed his face. "It's just more complicated than I thought, that's all." The complication meant something to him but he didn’t offer to fill in any of the glaring blanks.

  "Hm." I nodded slowly. I couldn't believe I was taking this seriously. Yet at the same time, I couldn't believe anything other than what he was saying. "Why do you need me to do whatever it is you need me to do?" I gave a befuddled shake of my head. "Whatever."

  The left side of his lips lifted into a half smile and for a moment I was floored. "Have you been watching the news, Bronte?"

  I flushed. "Yes.”

  "We are falling?"

  "Who?"

  He took a step closer and I swallowed around a choking hazard in my throat. "The Stars."

  This was real.

  "You're a star."

  Violets burned into me. "Yes." Leaning closer. "So are you."

  It was my time to laugh. "No, I'm not. I'm just a girl that falls down a lot."

  He nodded. "Well, you're that, too." His lips transformed into the most beautiful smile I'd ever seen, would ever see. He glanced at the roots of the old oak. "I don't suppose you'd like to sit down and talk?"

  My knees folded at once. "Sure," I said, a fraction of a moment too late.

  I sat cross-legged, picking at the grass with my fingers. "So, why are you falling?"

  A deep line furrowed between his eyes. "The Stars are dying. They always have been."

  I nodded slowly. I knew this from a long distant science class. "Yes?"

  "Well, there are some that don't think we should. They want to tip the balance, use our energy and power to make night last longer, to fight the sun."

  "That's impossible."

  "It would seem not." There was no flicker of humour on his face although I searched for it.

  A gasp escaped my lips. "That's what's going on now? Why this morning all the birds were dead."

  His frown deepened. "Yes. The ecology of the planet is a delicate thing. The slightest change can have the most dramatic effect."