The Fallen Stars (A Star Child Novel)

by Stephanie Keyes

  She watched me as though looking at a stranger. Perhaps that’s what I’d become to her in that moment. Yet we were no longer on an uneven playing ground. We were both mortal now. That meant that all of my long ago mortal insecurities about not being good enough for a goddess had vanished. Ironically, she’d been the one to teach me that I deserved love, that I had worth.

  “Kellen, you would know if there was something more on my mind,” she said, looking more beautiful than she had any right to.

  “Maybe it was a good thing that we didn’t get married after all.” There, I’d said it. It had been hanging out there, the worst kind of elephant in the room, just waiting to be called upon. It sat between us, this giant obstacle of our own making.

  She shook her head, pursing those lips that I wanted against mine more than anything that I could imagine. “I don’t think so, because I still want to marry you. The prophecy claimed that you would turn evil, would turn against me. Why would I want to talk about that, even mention it?”

  “Cali! God! To help me! Don’t you want me to win? Don’t you want me to be able to walk away from this? Because now I’m unprepared. I don’t know enough about it to know how to fight against it happening. I don’t know anything about it. I just know it exists. I don’t even know what it says!”

  “Neither do I!” she exclaimed, her chest heaving.

  Doubt filtered into my mind, changing my face. “How can I believe you?”

  “Because it’s the truth. I never wanted to know because the very idea terrified me. I don’t even know what it says exactly. What you’ve heard is all that I know.” Her voice held a pleading note.

  “But even that much would have prepared me for something.” My voice sounded tired and so low in volume that I was surprised it even reached her ears.

  It seemed as if she understood, her face a perfect portrayal of the remorse that she’d been communicating to me. By keeping this from me, she’d only endangered me more. Her head hung low; her cheeks burned as I registered her shame.

  “You know me. Better than anyone. How do you think it makes me feel, knowing that you kept this from me?” The tears were back and I hated them, but a lifetime of repressing them made them hard to force back now. Now, when my world sat on the precipice between its beginning and end.

  “Betrayed,” she said through her tears. “I never meant to betray you. Please…you have to believe me.” Cali raised both hands as if to touch me and then lowered them, seeming unsure. “I did it because I love you. I never thought…”

  As I looked into her eyes, the emotion that came across to me more powerfully than all the others was love. Her intense love for me slammed into me, a tsunami that forced the rough waters of our argument to lift up into the air, to twist and turn and suck me in. In my world, people didn’t usually make choices on your behalf because they loved you; they made them because they wanted to manipulate you, to use you for their own sick purposes. But in Cali’s world…

  In Cali’s world, people protected one another. They stood by one another. They stood by me, no matter what. What Cali had done was to make a mistake. How many times had I messed up as a kid, only to be alienated by my own father for weeks at a time? I wouldn’t do the same thing to Cali. “Let’s not fight,” I said.

  She began to cry uncontrollably, all the while staring at the shoes on her feet like a child who’d lost her favorite toy. Cupping her face in my hands, I raised her eyes to meet mine. Relief overwhelmed me as I finally touched her. I’d come home. That’s how I felt every time I touched her.

  “Don’t. Don’t cry, love.” My lips grazed her eyes, cheeks, and mouth and I lost my breath. I’d always thought of her as a puzzle piece, the final one that would complete me. That was what she’d always been.

  Leaning into her, I deepened the kiss, letting my hands fist in her thick hair, as I’d wanted to earlier. The need to be as close to her as possible overpowered me, and the kiss became increasingly intense as we stood there.

  “Cali, my Cali,” I whispered.

  “Kellen…” She reached up and slid her hands into my hair, gripping it as I did hers. The heat from her body as it melded into mine pitched me forward from a place of quiet relief to a place from which I couldn’t return. I wanted her and I couldn’t control it any longer.

  My mind told me that I should slow things down, but my body said something different. That it was done waiting. Again I pressed closer to her, wanting every part of her, all of her. The absence of Gabe’s cheeriness and Dillion’s authority made me feel all the more alone. We shared desperation in our need to be close to one another; it came through in Cali’s sighs, her touch. She wanted me too.

  “Where’s Dillion?” I asked, as my lips pressed against her earlobe. I didn’t really care, apart from the fact that this time with Cali, I wanted us to be truly alone.

  “Outside,” she said, her voice sounding breathless. She wrapped her hand around my wrist, cutting me with her engagement ring, which had shifted on her finger.

  Moving to the divan seemed like a natural progression and we fell onto it easily, our mouths locked, bodies entwined, and my hands slid up the back of her shirt, splaying over her feverish skin. Never did I want this to end. Time had stopped, and nothing but the two of us existed.

  The Children of Danu, the second part of the prophecy, Lugh, Dillion…they could all go to hell. Right then I needed to be as close to Cali as possible, to be connected to her, to be one with her. Reaching up, I started to unbutton the top button on her shirt.

  Then she spoke, her voice a whisper. “Kellen, your ribs…?”

  Though I hadn’t given it a thought before, I recognized now that I’d been healed. “Nah, I’m fine.” My mouth twisted with hers, my tongue dipping in between her lips, tasting the saltiness of her tears.

  “But I don’t want to hurt you,” she said.

  “Dillion fixed” was all I could answer. I wanted to taste every part of her, to be closer than we ever had, to wipe away everything that had happened. My mouth wandered to her neck, kissing her there, making me feel dizzy, heady. I unbuttoned another button on her blouse; my body became warm, too warm, as I tasted the skin that I saw there. Hands seeking, I slid my hands from her back to her stomach, my thumbs tracing smooth circles on her belly as I gripped her waist.

  “Cali…” I stared at her, my breathing hard.

  She looked up at me, breathless and beautiful. “Yes?”

  “About what I said earlier.” Breathing was difficult and I had to force the words out between breaths. “I’ve always known I would marry you, from the first moment we met. What I said was…out of line.”

  “I know. Me too,” she said, pushing me down against the cushions, unbuttoning the buttons on my shirt. Her fingers found my pendant where it lay against my chest. Slowly, she traced the outline of the symbols, her finger burning my skin where it touched. She surprised me then as she repeated the same action that I’d taken, kissing my neck.

  She has to be mine. I refused to die without ever having known what it was like to be with her. Cali would be mine, forever. My hand slid ever so slowly from her stomach up to her—

  “Kellen!”

  Turning, I could not comprehend what appeared in front of me. Then I caught up and my mind switched gears from passion to rage. William stood in the very room in which I’d been about to make love to Cali, a mixture of fear and anguish on his face.

  “William! What the hell!” I could feel Cali tug at her shirt beneath me, trying to cover herself up from William’s searching eyes.

  “It’s Gabe. He’s been in a car accident,” William said, his eyes shifting from Cali to mine. Gone were all traces of the mocking tone that William usually seemed to cling to like a security blanket. Now he only conveyed his concern.

  “Gabe? How do you know?” Cali cried, pulling herself into an upright position.

  “I had a vision. I saw his car go off the road,” William said. “You either come with me now or you’ll lose him
.” It had started to rain and William stood there, dripping wet, on the carpet. Raindrops pounded on the glass all around us, making it hard to hear. The kind of rain that stung your skin if you ran in it.

  As I looked into William’s eyes, despite all the lies that I knew he’d told us, the truth lay there for me to see. They’d taken Gabe. What part William had played in it remained to be seen.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  KELLEN—SEARCH PARTY

  Cali looked at me, a million questions evident on her face as she became paler by the moment. I didn’t know whether William spoke the truth. How could I, after the confusing experiences that we’d had with him so far? However, this was Gabe we were talking about. My best friend. Gabe would do anything for me. I would do anything for Gabe. We had no choice but to trust William, because not trusting him meant that Gabe could be in danger—exactly the sort of thing that we’d sent him away to avoid.

  “Kellen. You need to come with me now.” William looked genuinely upset. His eyes flicked to Cali.

  “Don’t look at her.” My voice held the same warning that it had when we’d stood on the path and William had forced the drink on me. However, for some reason he seemed to react differently tonight, for he said nothing and his eyes were immediately back on me. “You don’t deserve to look at her,” I said. “What are you doing in this house? I believe you were kicked out,” I reminded him. Cali stayed behind me, silent.

  “Kellen, I’m not lying. Gabe’s car went off the road. You have to come with me.”

  “And why would I believe anything you tell me? You’ve been playing with us. You sent us letters. You made me go out for a walk yesterday. Made me have the dreams. Then you hit on my fiancée. Tell me why I should listen to anything you have to say.”

  “Kellen, I did kiss Cali, but I don’t know anything about the other things that you mentioned. Gabe needs your help. It looked serious, Kellen. You need to come with me. I can’t get him out of the car alone,” William pleaded.

  Was he that good of an actor or was he for real? What would he have gained by running here in a rainstorm to tell us about Gabe’s accident?

  Cali stood behind me, obviously reluctant to face William after he’d made moves on her. Turning to Cali, I kissed her hard on the mouth. Leaning into her ear and away from William, I warned her. “Lock all the doors. Don’t open them for anyone unless you know it’s really them. I’ll be back to finish what I started.” Pulling back, I touched her cheek and she held my gaze for a moment. We both knew how risky this would be.

  “Come back quickly. I have a bad feeling about this,” she whispered, mirroring my thoughts. Then she stood on tiptoe and kissed me. A passionate, heart-wrenching kiss that I knew was as much for William’s benefit as it was for mine.

  In all likelihood, William planned to trick us, but what if Gabe really was in trouble? Could we risk his life? I didn’t think so.

  We all ran to the front of the house, where I grabbed a coat from the rack by the door. I whipped the hood over my head and pulled the strings around it tight to mold it to me. Following William, I stepped out into the rain.

  Cali called my name one last time. “Kellen!”

  Turning, I took in her gorgeous form in the doorway. Her emotions overpowered me. She was scared, not just for Gabe, but for me. She worried that she wouldn’t see me again.

  “I’ll come back for you. I promise. I’ll come for you,” I said.

  My words hung in the air like tangible things as I turned and ran after William, Cali’s image burned into my brain. You just made a promise that you may not be able to keep.

  ***

  William hadn’t bothered to wait for me and I could see the back of his coat up ahead. We weren’t walking on the main road, but instead running through the woods, the exact place that he’d told me to stay out of. Picking up the pace, I ran after him.

  Though it was early afternoon, it looked like some sort of power had eclipsed the light and it was now dark. Not pitch black, but more like early evening. Funny thing, the dark...Regardless of what time of day it was, when the light went away, it began to cause a sort of panic to rise in most people. Scary things often lay in the darkness when no light existed to guide the way, to provide companionship.

  Continuing to run, I recognized where we were after we crossed Route 3 and headed into Acadia National Park. Then the view of William’s coat disappeared entirely, as had any trace of light. “William!” Screaming as I ran, I listened for some sign of him, looked around for him. He was nowhere to be found.

  A familiar beeping sound emanated from my pocket. My cell phone battery was going to die.

  “William!” Yelling again made no difference at all. There was no answer. “Gabe!” Trying a different approach might work, but I reminded myself that William could have made everything up. Gabe could be in Portland by now. What time had he left?

  Reaching into my pocket, I grabbed my cell phone. Pressing the power button, I waited for the display to come up. The screen read No Service. Looking around me, I turned slowly in a circle as I realized that the woods looked exactly like the ones that I’d started out in.

  “I’m screwed,” I said to no one. My body shook with cold even after such a short time spent outside. The rain beat down on me, pelting me with sharp unforgiving pellets which, combined with the wind, soon brought exhaustion.

  The worst part about it all was that I had no idea how to get back to Cali or how to find Gabe. They were as gone as William. I’d run after nothing and away from Cali, away from safety. What direction had I come from?

  “Gabe!” I screamed, my throat hoarse. “William!” The scream erupted from me again. “You bastard!”

  “My, my, my, all of this yelling! You are certain to wake…well, just about anybody.” The voice was out of place in this nightmare I’d gotten myself into. Deep, like a bullfrog’s, but with a pleasant timbre to it that suggested the owner could sing.

  Looking behind me, my eyes blinked involuntarily at the sight before my eyes. A small man stood a few feet in front of me, perhaps the size of a toddler. Dressed in flannels, he would have looked like a local if it weren’t for his size. He stood regarding me, encased in a bubble about the size of a small car. Yeah, because my life just can’t get any weirder.

  “What are you about, being out in this rain? You’ll be soaked to the skin. Why don’t you join me and have a dry-off?” the man asked. Though it poured outside, the inside of the bubble looked dry and sunny. He sat, smiling, on a small boulder that was large enough to keep his feet from touching the ground. Despite his reprimand, he seemed welcoming.

  The rain continued to pour on and around me. Though I could hear him plainly, I needed to yell to be heard. “I learned long ago not to trust your kind. The Children of Danu are not among those I choose to believe in.” For a moment, I worried if I had offended him. Despite my intense dislike and lack of trust for William, I still wanted to heed his warning to be respectful of the “Good People”.

  “Oh goodness, goodness.” The little man jumped off the rock and looked up at me. “I’m not one of them, see. I’m a Mihkomuweh. We’re a different breed, we are. A different sort altogether.”

  “William warned me about you,” I said. Though the moment I spoke, I questioned the validity of the information. How could I even trust William about this? He’d led me out into the woods in the middle of nowhere and now neither he nor Gabe were anywhere to be seen. William had probably killed Gabe.

  However, none of my thoughts were apparent to the little man in front of me. “William? Warned?” The Mihkomuweh’s voice was conversational, but there was…something…in his eyes. Maybe it was the way he turned his head that made me second-guess him. Regardless, I turned and ran in the opposite direction from which I’d come.

  As I ran, Mihkomuwehs’s voice rang in the distance. “Come back! You’re making a mistake. My name is Walter!”

  There was no way I was going to stick around and find out if Walter meant me a
ny harm.

  Holding my finger on the power key, I tried to turn on my phone. Even if I couldn’t tell anyone where I was, maybe I could use my GPS to find directions to the main road or call 911 and tell them about Gabe.

  Miraculously, my phone lit up and had a signal. One small bar of coverage displayed in the upper right corner. Trying to shield the phone from the rain did little good. I could only hope that waterproof had been on its features list.

  Quickly, I selected the phone option and dialed 911, pressing Send. A heartbeat-long ring sounded in my ear before an operator picked up. “911 Emergency Dispatch.” His words were delivered in a crisp, competent voice.

  “Hi, I think my friend has been in a car accident on Route 3. He may have gone off the road. Also, I’m lost. I tried to go through the woods to help my friend and I can’t find my way out.”

  There was a great deal of clicking on the keyboard as I waited in silence on the other end. “What is your name, sir?”

  “Kellen. Kellen St. James.”

  “Okay, Kellen, let’s start with your friend. What is his name?”

  “Gabriel Stewart.” My throat seemed to expand with thickness; my stomach roiled. Having this conversation had to be one of the hardest things I’d ever done.

  “Of the Stewart family at Alastrom?” Alastrom was the name of the house; in Bar Harbor, most of the houses had names. I’d seen this one on the plaque on the front of the house and also in the binder that sat on the kitchen counter. The kind of binder typical of rental properties…it contained a guest book, restaurant list, and other pieces of information that might hold interest for tourists.

  “Yes, that’s the family.”

  “How do you know that Gabriel has been in an accident?” the dispatcher questioned.

  “The caretaker for the Stewarts’ house told us.” Then I remembered that William wasn’t the caretaker and didn’t even know Gabe’s family.

  “Thomas has gone missing. When did you speak to him?”