The Stargazers (11 page)

Bryon laughed and stood up. “Good stuff, Ruby. I gotta go, though. Break time’s about up.”

Ruby winked. “Such a good little worker bee.”

“Thank you for the ice cream,” said Aster.

Bryon turned to go but hesitated for a second before turning back to Aster. “Do you like stargazing, by chance?”

Aster’s heart skipped a beat. “Why do you ask?”

“It’s sort of this hobby that my dad and I have. We both put our money together and bought a great telescope a few months ago. I like to take it out to Carpenter’s field when the weather’s nice. I could come pick you up one night this week, maybe. If you want.”

Aster’s mind raced. Is this how it was supposed to work? A nice boy would pick her up in his carriage and take her stargazing in some remote field, where she would lay with him and get pregnant
? She didn’t even know Bryon
, but there was something about his shyness that set her at ease.
But she wasn’t ready for this.
Nanny Lily’s news just before she left was still circling
in
her head
like an ugly carrion bird
. “It sounds lovely, and I do love stargazing, but I’ll have to think about it. Maybe after I’m settled in a little more?”

Although she hadn’t said yes, he smiled as if she had. “T
hat’s good enough for me.
I’ll see you around then?”

“Yes, I am
sure you will.”

“Awesome. See you later, Ruby.”

The door’s bell jangled as Bryon left. When Aster turned back, she saw the girl glowering into her empty ice cream dish. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. Let’s go.”

The trip back to Oasis house lacked the conversation and laughs of their morning walk. Aster hung back a few paces, wondering what she could have done to make Ruby so mad. Was it because Bryon had asked her out? Had Ruby wanted him to ask her instead? Aster felt guilty and she didn’t even know why.

Back at the house, Ivy met them at the front porch. “Have a good look at the town, Aster?”

“Yes. We had ice cream. It’s a very nice town.”

“I had a feelin’ you’d like it,” said Ivy.

Ruby walked up the porch steps. “She also got asked out on a date from Bryon Kettering.”

Ivy looked at Aster with a raised eyebrow. “Did you now? What did you say?”

“I said I’d think about it.”

“Good girl. No need to be in a hurry.”

“That’s what I thought too,” said Ruby. She stomped inside and let the porch door slam behind her with a loud crack

“I think she’s mad at me.” Aster sighed.

“Why do you say that?

Aster told her about how the other girl’s mood had changed immediately after Bryon had asked her to go stargazing with him. Ivy nodded.  “Ruby’s different from the other girls here, and they treat her that way. She’s very lonely and I think she sees somethin’ special with you.
Maybe
she’s worried that Bryon will try to scoop you away just as she’s found herself a new friend.”

Aster frowned. “But I only just got here last night. How could she consider me so close a friend in such a short time?”

“Same way that the
Kettering
boy
probably knew he wanted to ask you out the minute he saw you. The same way that you knew deep down you’d probably say yes
,
if you wer
en’t afraid of what it would mean
. Sometimes your gut gets to the quick of things long before your head comes around.”

Aster
hated how everything in her life seemed like it had to be one way or the other. Never both ways. And never what she wanted. She wanted Ruby as her friend, but she also wanted to be able to take Bryon up on his offer of a date without anyone else getting mad.

Ivy put her hands on Aster’s shoulders. Immediately a feeling of peace washed over her. “You’re puttin’ too much of a burden on yourself tryin’ to please everybody. Sometimes honey, you just need to do whatever your heart tells you and damn the consequences. Don’t let Ruby’s bad mood keep you from doing what you want to do. If she’s truly your friend, she’ll come around.”

Aster felt grateful for Ivy’s words and her ability to deliver them with her comforting touch. “Thank you, Miss Ivy.
I guess I should go talk to her.
”

Just then, the ground began to tremble beneath their feet. 

-9-

Oleander Stargazer didn’t believe in letting things go. As such, she hoarded every possession she collected throughout her life. Heaps of clothing and shoes billowed out of the dozen or so trunks she kept in her room. Jewels and stones from hundreds of rings and necklaces overflowed from the jewelry chest she kept on her vanity table, which was also littered with dozens of potions she used to keep her skin supple and wrinkle-free.

However, her biggest stockpile was in her closet, w
h
ere bits of organic matter from every tree, flower, and insect in the Ellemire lay in thousands of glass bottles
and jars
stacked from floor to ceiling, and carefully catalogued and arranged in alphabetical order. At her fingertips was any potion she could
imagine. Of course, many of the specimens
were expired well beyond their t
ime of usefulness, never used
even once, but she kept them anyway. Throwi
ng them out
would
have meant
she was wrong about needing them. And Oleander Stargazer also didn’t believe in being wrong.

The same went for grudges, and Oleander stored her indignation in her heart the way she stored her herbs and fly wings in their little glass bottles. It came in handy for those times when she had to kick the useless old bats she lived with for not moving fast enough. Especially Holly, whose brain was so shriveled by salvia that it took almost all of Oleander’s energy make sure the idiot girl could walk straight and dress herself.

Lily was easy enough to keep in line. Without Oleander’s mastery in anti-aging potions, the old biddy would have been a pile of ashes on a funeral pyre years ago. But then there was Dahlia. Sweet, smart, perfect little Dahlia, who had always earned Lily’s favor from the time they were little girls. It didn’t matter that they were triplets and therefore equals. Five measly minutes of seniority had earned that weakling the
seat by their mother’s side in all matters
.

When it came time for their
Lily
to begin teaching them the craft, it was Dahlia who had received the most time and attention. And after she’d given
birth to the pink-haired brat
, Dahlia became Lily’s universe. Of course, all that time alone had its advantage
s
. Oleander and Holly were left free to run the Ellemire countryside looking for any sort of amusement two outcasts could
find. Holly turned to the weed
and lost what little mind she was born with. Oleander turned to boys—ones who were as lonely and angry as she felt.

It was the most forbidden act for a Stargazer witch to fraternize with an Ellemiren man. It was something about incompatible magic, and the resulting chil
dren being born demons. But
Oleander was never much for conventions or traditions, especially her mother’s senseless mysticism. She’d had no intention of going through Tree of Doors under their terms. The World of Man was only useful to her insofar as she could steal its secrets. Her
tiny
piece of the Old Magic would never go to anyone else. She would become an ugly old hag for no one.

So when she did become pregnant not more than half a year before her own scheduled departure,
scandalizing all of Ellemire and shattering the last shred of good will that Lily had for her,
she saw it as an opportunity.

Of course, Lily had been incensed nearly beyond reason.
“You must not bring this abomination into the world! You stupid, stupid whore of a daughter!”
She begged Oleander to take the Black Cohosh and Pennyroyal tonic to induce miscarriage, but Oleander had refused.

“I would never kill my child!” she’d cried, clutching her already protruding belly for maximum theatrical effect. Of course she wouldn’t kill
him (she knew the child was a male, the first to ever be conceived by a Stargazer woman, as far as she knew)
yet
. The boy had much to teach her, both about being pregnant and what enhanced abil
ities she might gain from it. She would have
six months of complete magical abandon, and she had a potion already concocted to end t
hings when the time came. If
the bastard was destined to be a freak, then Oleander was doing it a favor.

As for the old bat, she was swayed by Oleander’s tears and pleading, so she had reluctantly allowed the pregnancy to continue. Or rather, she ignored her other daughters al
most completely. Except, of course, for her precious Dahlia
.

During those pregnant months, Oleander tested various herbs and potions to see what effect it might have on the growing baby. He was lively in the womb most of the time, and eventually Oleander found herself talking to him as she worked. “There there, Lichen. What if we used just a smidge more frog saliva? I think that’ll do the trick.” She felt perfectly in tune with his mind, and he usually signaled his agreement with a gentle kick, while a hard blow to her ribcage would indicate a “no.”

The symbiotic relationship between mother and child made Oleander a better potion maker, and the Old Magic surged through her veins as never be
fore, almost as if the baby was
some sort of amplifier. She devised creations and potions that no one in Ellemire had dared ever imagine
, writing them down lest she ever forgot them
. Because of her new insights, Oleander believed she would become the most powerful witch in the land, all thanks to the little demon spawn growing in her belly.

There had been a moment’s hesitation when the time came to inject the poison into her womb. After all, Lichen had helped her so much from within her. Perhaps he would make a fantastic apprentice. And she could even devise a potion that would make him age faster so she wouldn’t have to suffer the inconvenience of mothering a squawking infant. But there was one bit of magic she couldn’t get around, and that was the transformation that would occur
when she gave birth to him. After seeing it happen to Dahlia, she knew it
would render her nearly powerless
, and no bit of alchemy she had tried thus far could overcome that
.

Three months
befo
re the child’s impending birth,
Oleander crept down to Mirror Lake
by the light of the full moon
and i
njected a custom
herbal infusion that would make the elimination of the child as quick as possible.

The pain was enormous, stomach-splitting. Her screams filled the night,
and
there was no one there to answer her cries. No Lily to help catch the babe or wipe her head with scented rags
, no sister to hold her hand when she needed to push
. Ellemire was as silent as a grave.

On the fourth
push, the child slid the rest of the way out. He w
as also silent and still. With
hair as orange as flames, the babe looked as if he were sleeping. Oleander could see none of the promised deformities of an Ellemire-sired child. Ten fingers, ten toes, two eyes, perfect skin. She surged with hatred for her mother. Lies, all of it! Although she’d had no intention of sacrificing her body and her Old Magic to a freak, would she not have at least considered it for
the love and adoration of
a perfect child?

She cuddled Lichen clo
se to her and screamed into the silent and unanswering world
, roiling with rage and grief borne from false prophecies
, determined to make the
women who had filled her head with the
ir lies and superstitions
pay
dearly
.

She then staggered with him to Mirror Lake while his skin was still wet from the womb and kissed him before she dumped him into the water. Her son was last person she would ever kiss. Before returning home, she s
nipped off portions
of t
he baby’s placenta and umbilical cord
, which she would use for a potion.

Lily seemed unsurprised by her daughter’s story of a stillbirth, and Oleander never told her that the child had been beautiful
and flawless
. Instead, she devoted herself exclusively to perfecting her alchemy, cultivating her family’s dependence on her with potions that made it possible for them to live and walk and look in the mirror. A
heated
confrontation in the form of a simple family squabble wouldn’t suffice
. The sort of vengeance
Oleander was after would take time to develop.

But Dahlia was a challenge. As mother to the Great Mother, the woman acted far above her station, and that had rubbed off on her pink-haired brat too. But Oleander endured it all, keeping her eye on the ultimate prize. Soon, they would all be on their knees.