The Star Child (The Star Child Series) (11 page)

“Kellen.”

“You’ve got a pretty high opinion of yourself.”

“Kellen…”

“You’re crazy.”

“Kellen.”

“No, you need to stay away from me. This is insane.” I began to back away toward the door, looking for a way out.

“I suppose it would seem that way to you.” She suddenly appeared directly behind me, when I wasn’t even aware that she’d moved. I turned on the spot to face her, backing up a little more toward the opening through which we’d come.

Her voice was pleading. “This is my life. My normal life, as strange as that may seem. Kellen, you are free to go, but please listen to the entire story before you leave.”

“Why should I stay for the rest?”

I’d been played. Though I had to admit that her AV system was out of this world, the idea that Calienta could be from a family of gods, that she was one herself, was too far-fetched to believe.

“Let’s say that I believe your story. I don’t understand what any of this has to do with me. Why are you telling me this?"

“You are very frustrating, do you know this? All these questions! Can you please,
please
pay attention for a little while longer?” Her change in tone was unexpected and I found myself again doing the opposite of what I wanted.

She turned to the next picture. “Lugh’s family was a happy one.” She looked back at me for a moment and glared before continuing. “Though he mourned the loss of his brothers, sisters, and parents, he had found peace again. Also, the world had changed and he recognized the importance of knowledge and education.

“Eventually he let his eldest daughter, Rowan, visit Earth. When she visited and came back unharmed and Lugh decided that it was safe for our kind to return, he planned for his son, Cabhan, to visit.”

The next drawing depicted a young man with an eager glint in his eyes. This drawing was five times the size of the others.

“I have another question. I’m sorry,” I added as she raised an eyebrow.

“Go ahead.”

“Why is this painting so much larger than all of the others?”

“Because there is more to tell.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

PROPHECY

Before I could react, I was watching Cabhan running over the hillside as fast as his legs could carry him. The landscape of the countryside through which he ran was rocky, uneven, yet this didn’t seem to concern him as he sought his destination. He sprinted as though the earth beneath his feet was nothing more than a flat, cemented walkway.

As he turned the final corner, I recognized Lugh waiting for him with a smile. He seemed to fit right in, in a pair of trousers and a common work shirt. When Lugh spied his son, his entire face lit up with pleasure. He stood up, his hands outstretched as he closed the space between them. Cabhan took his father’s hands in his own and smiled in greeting.

“So, how was your first trip? Hopefully you didn’t get into too much trouble.”

Cabhan smiled, a mirror image of his father. The only exception to their similarity in looks was that Cabhan’s hair was a very pale blond, almost white, with thick curls that fell to his shoulders.

“Father, you will not believe it. You will not. I’m in love, I am.” He shouted triumphantly.

“We have much to talk about. You must tell me more about her.”

Cabhan launched into an explanation, rich in detail, which highlighted his time with his love. His last words conveyed his intent to marry her.

“You’ve known her for ten days and already you wish to marry?”

Clearly, this wasn’t what Cabhan was expecting to hear. His brow furrowed and he brought both hands to his hips.

“What difference does it make how long I have known her?” Cabhan, instantly defensive, crossed his arms in front of him.

Lugh sighed and turned to sit on a nearby rock, placing his hands at his temples. “Cabhan, I’m simply asking to get a better idea of how this relationship transpired. Please don’t judge some simple questions. You’re my son; naturally I want to know about the girl.”

Cabhan walked over and sat cross-legged across from his father on the muddy ground, his hands resting at his knees. The mud immediately started to stain his pale trousers.

“Father, I know you, and therefore know why you ask such questions of me. It is because you are trying to convince me to reverse my decision.” Cabhan’s mouth set into a firm line.

“You must have decided to either make her one of us or become a mortal yourself.”

Cabhan didn’t respond.

“You know of course that I can make you a mortal, but it is not in my power to make your woman one of us. She must be granted that gift from Síl.”

Cabhan looked down and nodded. The absence of a vocal confirmation appeared to tell Lugh what he needed to know.

“That is it? You want to become a mortal, then?”

“Yes.” Cabhan’s voice was rough. He acted as though the idea terrified him, as though he didn’t have any other choice.

“Son, I’m sorry, but I can’t do it.”

“It is not that you cannot, but that you will not!” Cabhan jumped to his feet. He began to pace on the spot. “You are always talking about the importance of guiding the mortals and finding ways in which we can share our knowledge with them. Is that not why we come here? All my life you have talked of Earth and mortals and their importance. How it is our job to come to Earth and share our wisdom, to guide them. I happen to love one, Father. I love her and I have made my choice. Change me into a mortal.”

Lugh sighed. “Yes, it is my wish that you guide the mortals, as your family did before you, but I never wanted you to become one of them. You do not even know the girl.”

“Father, I am two hundred and twenty years old. I am a man, and one who is old enough to decide for himself who he should be with.” His eyes blazed.

Lugh reached out and tried to touch his son’s arm, but Cabhan pulled away, acting childish. “Son, I do not discount your age, but do you realize that this action cannot be reversed? You will remain a mortal no matter what happens to your love. Do not mistake my words; mortals are wonderful creatures and they have much to share with our kind.”

“But you turned Rowan into a mortal,” Cabhan insisted.

“Yes, and I have lost her. I have not seen her in years. Do you think that I want to lose you as well? Do you know that you will lose your powers and your strength? You could even become sick or wounded. And someday…you will grow old and die. You will leave us.” Lugh was clearly overcome with emotion as he considered his son sick and dying.

“Yes, I have considered this.” Cabhan’s voice grew softer with each syllable.

“And?”

“And I cannot live without her.”

“Regardless, my answer is still no, I am afraid.”

Cabhan’s faced instantly distorted into raw anger and the scene faded.

I sighed. “Cabhan fell in love with a mortal?”

“Yes, and my father would not help him become a mortal.”

“Do you agree with that?” I searched her face.

She looked down for a moment, taking some time to contemplate my question. When she met my eyes again, her expression was serious. “I believe that everyone should be able to do whatever they wish. To have a desire so intense that you would be willing to give up your entire life for it and not have it fulfilled…I cannot imagine that.”

What an unusually fascinating beauty she was. The need to believe her pressured me more and more as each minute passed. These feelings could all be part of a trick, but I’d always gone with my gut. At least I’d finish hearing her out.

Her eyes bore into mine, and I felt again as though she was waiting for something, but I didn’t know what. I wanted to stay there and stare into her eyes for an eternity. I could get lost in them. However, she broke the connection by walking to the next painting.

Suddenly Cabhan was on the screen, racing across beautiful grounds, clearly irate. Lugh stood on the opposite end of the grounds, clearly waiting for him.

“You knew this would happen,” Cabhan shouted. “That if you did not change me I would lose her and you could keep control over me. How could you do this, Father? Why could you not make me mortal?”

“Son, what’s happened?” Lugh sounded like a normal father and not a god.

“I went to her and found her married. Married to someone else. You wanted this to happen.”

Lugh’s face was deeply apologetic. “Son, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to lose you.”

“You will certainly lose me now,” Cabhan declared, and in an instant he was gone.

“What happened to him? Cabhan, I mean?” It alarmed me to find out how invested in the story I was.

“Cabhan left to live on one of the stars that we lit every night. We do not know which one he went to, for there are billions, and my father searched for him for a very long time.”

“Wait, a star? I thought that stars are a collection of gases. How do you live on a star?”

She smiled patiently, as though she’d anticipated this question. “Stars are actually tiny little worlds that exist to the mortal eye as beams of light. They are completely self-contained; there is no exposure to the outside world at all.”

I nodded and tried to look as though I was taking all of this in stride, but it wasn’t coming off that way. I was such a geek. As I tried to shake it, some of the other more important points of her story finally started to hit home.

“That must have been terrible for you, losing your brother.” I understood what it meant to lose someone. Though Cabhan certainly wasn’t her parent, he was still important to her.

She didn’t speak for a moment. Instead, she walked around the room, looking at the drawings on the wall and stopping at each one, placing her hand to her ear. Eventually she walked back to my side.

“He is not totally gone. After years of searching, my father has found him.” But her smile wasn’t a happy one. There was more to the story; I waited for her to continue.

“My family is so much easier to see on Earth, we stand out, we glow almost. You only need to look down upon the planet to see one of us. That is how my parents always kept us in check. In the heavens, though, where there are so many brilliant things, our light cannot be distinguished from the other magick that exists there.”

“How did your father find him?”

“There is an old evil that has entered our realm. We believe that Cabhan’s anger, his hatred toward my father, has called it. There is a single unlit star, the only star from where light does not shine.”

“You think that’s where he is?”

“Yes. That is why we had to find you. The hatred is spreading, and we feared that if we did not get to you in time that it would be too late. My father is very wary of losing his family again, you see.”

I absolutely didn’t see and had no idea what she was talking about. As I stared at her with what I’m sure was intense disbelief, I noticed that her clothes were completely clean and dry while mine were covered in grime and soaked through. The dirt that clung to my palms from the climb was starting to make my hands itch and I brushed them against the sides of my jeans awkwardly.

“The thing is, I
don’t
see. No disrespect intended, but I don’t actually know what you are talking about. You’ve given me the last page of a book when I’ve only read the first.” Changing my tack, I reminded her in harsh tones, “You never answered my question. What does this have to do with me?”

This girl showed up at my house, told me several stories that I wasn’t sure I believed, and kept referring to my involvement in “something”. What was I missing?

“You sought me out; you came to me when I was young. Why? You seem to know Gran. You seem to know me. Even if I discount this,” I gestured around the room, “none of it makes any sense, Calienta.”

Silent, she walked to one of the torches on the wall, removing it from its bracket. She hesitated for a moment, clearly torn between showing me something more and leaving things as they stood between us. She walked to the far side of the wall, which had the least amount of light, and placed the torch in the final bracket.

The remaining images, which came into view in this light, were faded and hard to interpret. They looked as though someone had tried to remove them and had only succeeded in blurring them. I took several steps forward before my breath caught.

The last drawing depicted a man and woman wearing matching golden rings and crowns. They were perched atop vast thrones. They, too, were large in stature, their beauty evident even through the façade created by the crude painting. At their feet were dozens of roses.

“My father found this cavern on one of his many travels to Earth. The drawing indicates a marriage ceremony, the crowns high kingship. I came here today, Kellen, because it was foreseen that you and I will be married. It was foreseen that you alone would be the downfall of my brother and the savior of my family. Of the world as we know it.”

My jaw dropped.
Marriage? Downfall? Savior? Whoa, did they ever have the wrong guy.
“Gee, no pressure there.”

Even if my surroundings didn’t pre-dispose me to believe this young woman’s tales, this drawing certainly added something to what she’d said. There was no mistaking both Calienta and myself in the picture, even with the tampering.

Yet, despite any evidence to the contrary, I had to dispute this. What she was telling me wasn’t real, it was a story; she was making it all up. She knew that I’d lost Gran, inherited some money, and now she was playing me with some high-tech video equipment and an authentic-looking cave.

But there was a large part of me that wanted desperately to believe it. I’d been stumbling through my own life for so long, never fitting, never belonging anywhere. How easy it would be to take everything that she said at face value and go with her anywhere she wanted.

A large part of me wanted to know that I would never be on my own again. Yet, another part of me wouldn’t give up that easily, couldn’t relinquish the possibility that this was a dream or a hoax.

“There’s a rather obvious solution that’s staring us in the face. You painted all of this yourself, today. You must be an artist.”