Beneath the Guarding Stars

by Everly Frost

  I gulped as her gaze shifted to the tiny cut on my shoulder. She wanted to keep me safe, and to be safe I needed to keep a low profile, to not cause waves. She was right. I’d taken a big risk. I could’ve hurt myself very badly.

  “I couldn’t stand the way they looked at me.”

  She poked at her pasta. “I’m not asking you to stop feeling what you feel. Just … promise me you won’t take any more risks like that.”

  I nodded, and her face relaxed.

  “Okay, then. This is your charge card.” She slid it across the table with an expression that was firm but gentle. “It has 500 credits on it, and I don’t intend topping it up for the next three months, so spend it wisely.”

  The card was the first thing that looked exactly like the ones we had in Evereach. Except this one had my name on it and not my parents’ and, as I turned it over in my fingers I sensed the difference in the substance it was made from. Definitely not plastic. Most probably plant matter, judging from everything else around me.

  I swallowed and stared at it. “It’s really too much.”

  She paused my incessant flipping with a gentle hand. “Ava, you’re sixteen. Once you’re seventeen the dance troupe will pay you a wage. Until then, you’re my responsibility. I’m not your mother, but for all intents and purposes, I am your guardian.”

  I gulped again.

  “Tomorrow morning you need to go shopping for clothes and things. I understand you need proper dance shoes.” There was a glimmer of a smile as she said it. “Eat up now. The kids meet at the gallery from six o’clock. And remember to take your jacket. The temperature drops rapidly after sundown.”

  As soon as I finished eating, showered, and changed into a shirt and jeans, I headed back to the train station, hoping I’d soon get used to traveling by train all the time. I still wasn’t clear how the transport system was being paid for. Nothing in Evereach was free, but nobody had explained to me how I could ride the train with a simple fingerprint in Starsgard.

  Tower Sixteen had a giant, abstract sculpture outside it, and I was beginning to see the pattern with all the towers. Ruth’s tower had winter flowers, and there were starry planets on the dance troupe’s tower. Tower Sixteen wasn’t so subtle. The strange object outside had angles in all directions like it was trying to escape from inside itself. It could only be art.

  I traveled the escalator upward and followed a walkway similar to the one in the dance tower in the direction of the signs pointing to the gallery. Directly inside the door was a room that reminded me of the cafeteria at school but much more opulent. Leather couches were scattered throughout without apparent care, somehow creating circles of kids. Mingled in were tables and chairs. I suspected the main gallery containing the artwork—whatever it actually was, paintings maybe?—was situated much further inside, but the doors on the other side of the room appeared locked.

  I searched for Michael, needing to see his familiar face and his smile, to find out if he was okay. Kids perched on the edges of chairs and tables. Some had books, paper, and pens. Some played chess. Others arm-wrestled, chewed gum, chatted. There was a group of mostly girls to my distant right and a couple of loners on the outskirts, but otherwise the kids seemed evenly dispersed. Music played from somewhere. I wondered how many galleries Starsgard had, because it didn’t look as if this one held all of the kids in the country.

  I spotted Michael’s brother first. Jason was close to the cluster of girls, not quite in among them but somewhere on the edge. I headed in his direction, sure that Michael would be close by.

  Then I pulled up, suddenly wary, when I realized that Michael was quite close by, in the middle of the cluster.

  A girl with wavy hair past her shoulders—eighteen-years-old maybe—leaned in close to him, blocking my view. I could see only half of Michael’s face. I remembered the last day of school when Sarah Watson had oozed off Michael’s arm, cutting herself with her nail scissors to show off her healing skin. I’d joked that she could be a Basher with that kind of healing speed, but it turned out the Basher had been standing right next to me. My own best friend.

  My back suddenly felt naked without my long hair.

  “Ava!” The shout came from the side and Luke bounded over to me, weaving through the room to reach me. “There you are. Can I get you a drink? They have the best hot chocolate here.”

  He smiled. He didn’t seem to realize that he’d drawn everyone’s attention to me. All the way from the lone girl with the black hair sitting in the far right corner of the room to the group near the coffee machine. Or maybe he didn’t care. I thought that was more likely, and I couldn’t help but smile back, trying to ignore all the stares.

  All except one.

  Michael’s face split into a smile—relief, hope, happiness—like light exploding across his face. His eyes locked on mine as he rose and strode over to me, getting up so quickly that the girl who’d been pawing all over him almost fell on her face. She laughed, shaking her head, and said something to her friends.

  Michael practically leaped over the chairs and people in his way. He was in front of me in three seconds flat, crushing me in a hug. Tingling warmth flooded me like dawning sunlight, and I relaxed for the first time all day.

  “Star girl.”

  I absorbed the warmth, and relived his heartbeat for a too-short moment, before his arms tightened around me in the way that always spelled a warning as he murmured, “I heard they dance with knives.” He drew back far enough to see my face. He was fighting the urge to check if I had any wounds. I could see it in the way his eyes darkened.

  “Precious, isn’t it?” I said, with a wry laugh. “Ruth refused to send me north. You know, to where they dance with more dangerous things—like flowers.” I widened my eyes in pretend horror.

  His worry increased. “It’s because of me. I’m sorry my family’s here. Mom said Ruth had a massive argument with the other Councilors about it, but she refused to split us up.”

  “Don’t ever apologize for being with your family.” I touched his cheek, feeling stubble and warmth. “I went to the medical unit today. They said you were having tests done.”

  Michael’s face fell; a darkness descended, and straight away I knew something was wrong. He shook his head as though he didn’t want to talk about it, and I clamped down on the slow panic rising in my chest. They’d found something. The ampule had hurt him somehow.

  “Not here, okay?” he said, and all I could do was nod.

  Visible over Michael’s shoulder, Luke raised an eyebrow at me, and I returned to myself, conscious of all the heads still turned in our direction and the fact that our conversation wasn’t even remotely private.

  At least Luke didn’t look annoyed at being shoved to the side.

  “Hey, buddy,” he said to Michael, interjecting himself into the conversation. “You don’t have to worry about Ava and the dance troupe. She can take care of herself. And if she can’t…” He winked at me. “I’ll take care of her.”

  Michael swung to him with the same expression he’d use with another fighter at the Terminal, and Luke took a swift step back, hands up.

  “I mean in a purely platonic sense, of course.”

  “Michael, this is Luke.” I drew Michael’s attention back to me, keeping his arm around my waist, waiting for him to relax. “He’s my dance partner. Luke, this is Michael, and he doesn’t like it when people come up behind him.”

  “Hey, I totally get it.” Luke smiled and held out his hand.

  They shook hands, and Michael’s shoulders finally relaxed.

  “You look like you could use an escape.” Luke inclined his head from Michael toward the gaggle of girls. One of them had broken off and was heading in our direction. It was the girl Michael had unseated when he got up.

  She smiled a greeting when she reached us. “That’ll teach me to lean over someone else’s man.” She offered her hand to me, never taking her eyes from my face. “I’m Clara. That’s my book club.”

 
; “Book club?” Not at all like Sarah Watson, then.

  “Yeah, we read all sorts, but mostly philosophy and existentialism. Until you came along, mortality was kind of an urban legend around here.” She shrugged. “Like the Snowboy in the Mountain. Sort of a myth, you know.”

  Snowboy? It wasn’t a myth that I’d heard of—abominable snowman maybe—but I guessed Starsgard had its own folklore.

  She shuffled, flushed. “So I guess we kind of, um, wanted to know everything about you. And since you weren’t here yet…”

  I exchanged a glance with Michael. “You were pumping Michael for information? About me?” I couldn’t help laughing, and not just because it all seemed so absurd but because of the relief I felt that their intentions were so innocent.

  She chewed her lip with an apologetic smile. “I figured it was better to be honest. We’d love it if you joined us.”

  I wondered if I’d ask the abominable snowman, or Snowboy, or whatever she’d called him, over for a coffee, but she looked genuinely hopeful and I couldn’t help nodding.

  Luke followed. “I’m coming with you. I’d like to hear about the snow-Ava-in-the-mountain, too.”

  They made space for me and Michael on one side of the couch, while Luke perched on the arm of the chair next to me, and I couldn’t help thinking that both boys seemed to have positioned themselves to get me out of there fast if I gave the slightest indication of discomfort. Michael especially. Now that we’d sat down, he seemed particularly on edge. His hand squeezed mine and he never stopped assessing the room—a habit we’d both picked up on the run, but there was more to it tonight. As though he expected attackers to crash into the room at any second.

  Jason waved a hello and said something about getting me a hot chocolate, and Luke seemed content to let him, although he’d originally offered me one. I suspected that if he gave up his seat, he’d be replaced by a member of the book club eager to sit right next to me.

  Clara and the others leaned in, all eyes on me. She gestured around the group, introducing them.

  “Hi,” I said, and one of them, a younger girl, actually giggled.

  Clara kicked the offender and cleared her throat. “It’s a good thing you’re not a boy,” she said, glaring at her friends. “Or you’d have entirely the wrong impression right now.”

  Luke folded his arms across his chest. “You can throw some of that love my way, ladies.”

  Clara rolled her eyes. “So, Ava, we’d love to ask you all about yourself, since we’ve heard a lot of rumors, but every good philosopher knows that rumor may as well be fiction. It’s concrete facts we’re interested in. But I’m laying down some ground rules, girls. Only one question each, so make it count. And Ava gets to pass on anything she doesn’t want to answer. Me first.” She cleared her throat. “When the sunlight shines, does it appear golden to you?”

  Nothing like what I was expecting, but her face was perfectly serious, so I chose to answer. “Yes. And just to elaborate, it feels warm on my skin, and if I stay in the sun for a while, I tan like everyone else.”

  She nodded. “Source of life potentially the same, then.” Her friends nodded. I raised my eyebrows at Luke, wondering if he knew what on earth they were talking about. But he shrugged.

  Clara caught the look and explained. “We’ve been debating what it is that keeps you alive. You see, there are two schools of modern thought about the ability to regenerate. There are the religious ideals that the Creator blessed us as a result of a choice between good and evil and that human beings have enjoyed regeneration ever since. Then there’s the scientific hypothesis—the theory of regeneration—that we evolved into our present genetic capabilities, with a lot of research spent on what appears to be a sudden burst of evolution during the Middle Ages.” She flushed, her cheeks a pretty pink color, and I noticed that Luke couldn’t stop looking at them. “Sorry,” she said, “I talk too much, and I’m hogging the conversation.”

  “No, not at all. We study the theory of regeneration in Evereach, too. And it causes as much controversy there, trust me.” Some kids practically boycotted senior biology because of their beliefs.

  “I don’t know what keeps me alive, exactly,” I said. “I need food, water, and sunlight like you do, but I think the difference is that if I don’t get those things, I’ll die final death really quickly.” When I first learned about my mortality, Officer Reid—the officer helping Michael’s dad—had told me I had a gene that inhibited regeneration. But he’d suggested that if I died, my body might release contagions that could spread to normal people. I was sure it was all talk, that he’d been trying to make up excuses about why we couldn’t bury Josh, but I wasn’t about to say any of that. I glanced up, to the innocent-looking mottled walls. There’d be cameras in there somewhere. I followed Michael’s gaze and realized that he’d located at least one of them, across the room on the wall directly opposite us.

  “While we simply go into a coma if we don’t get food or water.” Clara shuddered. “Living death.”

  Living death. “Is that what you call it?”

  She ducked her head, not seeming to want to say more about it, and signaled to the next girl, who studied me with bright eyes. “Does your hair grow as fast as ours?”

  “Um. I don’t really know.” Only when nectar is forced into my bloodstream. Michael knew what I was thinking and squeezed my hand, and the girl seemed to notice that she’d touched a nerve. Her expression turned to confusion. It must have seemed strange to her that I’d answered the question about how I stayed alive but I didn’t want to talk about something as simple as my hair. It was impossible to explain the truth.

  Luckily, the hot chocolate arrived and I smiled at Jason before he took a seat.

  I used the drink to steal a moment to compose myself and think of a quick answer. “I actually think that it does. I had a friend my age in Evereach, my best friend actually. I cut my hair more often than she did, so I guess my hair grows the same.”

  The tense moment was gone and the questions continued. They ranged from the serious—how did I feel about environmental issues? To the curious—had I ever been drunk? To the deliberately silly—if I could be an animal, what kind of animal would I choose to be? When I spoke, I sensed some of the other conversations around me dim, as though others were listening, too. Except for the dark-haired girl sitting in the far corner, whose head stayed down, writing intently in a book on the table, completely disinterested in me and my opinion on renewable energy.

  By the time we reached the last of the book-club girls, I’d managed to get through the questions without any passes. She was possibly the youngest of the group, hair a whole inch above her shoulders—thirteen maybe. She smiled, her cheeks flushed. “You can totally pass, if you want to but … my question is actually for Michael.” Before Clara could object, the girl blurted her question, blushing as she spoke. “What’s it like to kiss a mortal?”

  Michael paused. There was an expression on his face that I couldn’t read. I wondered if he’d pass or if he’d make a joke to get around responding.

  Or if he might answer.

  Luke snorted at my side. He took a swig of coffee and muttered under his breath. “This is Ava we’re talking about.”

  At Michael’s glare, Luke threw his hands up again, coffee sloshing in his cup. “Purely platonic, my friend, purely platonic. I mean, I might dance with her every day but, uh, yeah, shutting up now.”

  Michael turned back to the girl and the innocent hope on her face. I sensed his pulse quicken in the hand that held mine.

  He said, “It’s like kissing starlight. And I’m scared it will slip away because it’s not mine to hold.”

  Chapter Eight

  THE GROUP was silent. One of the girls sighed.

  My heart burned. I’d watched Michael die terrible deaths. He’d eaten bullets for me, pushed me from an exploding car. And I’d watched him come back from all those deaths. It was hard for me. But for him…

  One wrong moment and I�
��d be gone. And now I was dancing with people who danced with knives. Except, for some reason, I didn’t think that was the only reason for the tension in his posture or the way he kept an eye on our surroundings and the people near us.

  The girl broke the silence with a starry-eyed look. “Why can’t I find a mortal to kiss?”

  The girl next to her gave her a hug. “If only.”

  Luke threw his hands in the air, this time spilling his drink. “Hey, I might not be mortal, but come on.”

  They all stared at him. Clara leaned over and gave him a sympathetic pat on his knee. “You know we love you, Luke, but we’re talking about starlight here.”

  He watched the hand leave his leg, and I caught the way he looked at her, but Clara had already turned away.

  When we finally left the group, it was late and a lot of the other kids had gone home already. Jason took himself off to the far side of the room and pretended to clean up the coffee cups while Michael drew me aside, away from the still-curious looks of those remaining, most of them on their way out.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  It was the question I wanted to ask him.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’m glad they didn’t ask about Josh.” I couldn’t have talked about my brother’s death or how I felt about it.

  He dropped his forehead to mine, a comforting touch, and I waited for him to talk to me, tell me what was wrong. I couldn’t push him, but I had to know…

  I suppressed a frustrated growl as another couple of kids walked past, glancing my way. I tried to draw Michael further to the side but we’d soon end up plastered against the wall trying to get some privacy. “There’s always someone watching. How long do you think we can stay before they turn off the lights or Ruth comes looking for me?”

  “Not long, I think. What about meeting up tomorrow?”

  “Ruth is sending me shopping before dance. I guess you can’t come with me.”

  Finally there was nobody else there other than me, Michael, and Jason. And the girl in the corner who seemed to be packing up her things.