The Stargazers (8 page)

“That’s Mary,” said another girl, a tall red-head with a short ponytail. “
She’s new here too. Well, maybe not
new
new. She’s been in and out.
I’m Tonya. I like your hair too. Kinda punky for the ‘burbs, thoug
h. But it’s cool
.”

“We’ll finish up with the introductions ove
r dinner,” said Ivy. “
And by the way it smells in here, I’d say we’re having pizza.”

A plump girl in a blue apron raised her hand. “But I made pancakes, Miss Ivy.”

Everyone burst out laughing, and with that, Aster felt the energy in th
e room change
.
She let out a breath
she
felt like she’d been holding since she stepped through the Tree of Doors.

“All right then, you girls get the table set. Except you, Ruby. Show Aster your room.” Ivy handed her one of Aster’s bags while Aster carried the other.

Ruby shouldered it and made for the stairs. “Let’s get this over with quick. I’m dying to wrap my lips around one of Cynthia’s hockey puck pancakes.”

“Be nice!” hollered Ivy after them.

Aster followed Ruby up the narrow stairway to the house’s second floor and then up an even narrower stairway to the third, which was really a giant open room with three beds along the wall and windows between each one. Larkspur claimed a windowsill and immediately set about observing the outside world.

“That’s the biggest cat I’ve ever seen. What’s he doing here? Ivy doesn’t let us have animals.” Ruby tossed the bag on the bed farthest from her own.

Aster hesitated to find a properly vague answer. “He’s very special to me. I’m afraid we can’t be separated.”

“He got a name?”

“Larkspur.”

Ruby looked at her. “Aster and Larkspur. Got any other family named after plants?”

Aster burst out laughing. “Actually yeah. All of them.”

A ghost of a grin passed over Ruby’s face. “Families are strange. My mom named all her kids after their birthstones. Sister is Amber. Brother is Onyx. Terrible name, if you ask me. It’s a Wiccan thing, I guess.”

Aster frowned. “Wiccan?”

“Oh you know, witchcraft. Pagan shit. Worshipping trees and wind and rocks or whatever. She was heavy into that stuff.”

“She isn’t anymore?” Aster was rapt at the idea of
real
witches in this world.

“She started worshipping a different kind of rock. Ended up shooting a cop
and a teenage boy
during a liquor store holdup, trying to get a few bucks for another hit. She’s sitting on death row now.”

Aster thought of her aunt Holly’s salvia addiction. It seemed that both of their worlds were full of people trying to escape. Maybe they had been born on the wrong side and were just trying to find their ways back. “I can relate. Where I come f
rom, people also take substances
.”

Ruby grinned. “Yeah yeah, drugs are bad, crack is whack. B
ut not
all
drugs are bad.” She crossed the room to the window and pushed it open. “Keep an ear out for the Great Mistress, will ya?” She pulled a small silver case from between the mattress. Inside was a small
baggie with crumbled green leaf
and littl
e white papers to roll it with.

“What sort of leaf is that?”

“No worries. It’s just some good old American Spirit tobacco. I only do the wacky stuff occasionally, and only when my brother is feeling generous in doling it out. Besides, I can’t afford to get sent back to juvie. But if Ivy sees me doing this
, she’ll have me on toilet duty for the next month.”

Juvie
? That wasn’t a word that came through in translation, but Aster made an easy enough assumption. Ruby must have been a girl who’d had trouble with authorities in the past.
“Your secret’s safe with me.
I have no desire to create enemies here.
”

“Then you and I should get along just fine.” Ruby lit her cigarette and offered it to Aster. “Want some?”

Aster thought about it for a moment. Why not? Sure, her mother expressly forbade it, saying the smell would turn off any man who might otherwise give her a second look, but Dahlia and her stern warnings seemed another world away now. Still, maybe it was best to avoid falling in step with someone who appeared to be the
house troublemaker. “Thanks, but maybe next time?”

“Suit yourself.” Ruby leaned back and took a deeper drag while Aster set about unpacking.

She undid the buckles and ties on her bags and began pulling out her pants and shirts to put in the dresser next to her bed. “Does anyone else sleep in this other bed?”

“As of now, no. But Ivy’s like a crazy cat lady. When she sees a stray, she has to bring it home with her and feed it. Is that how she found you?”

Aster remembered Nanny Lily’s admonition about telling no one where she was really from. “I was… an arranged pick-up.”

The other girl blew tendrils of smoke out through her nose. “Your accent’s a little strange. Where are you from?”

“I’m from
… all over.”

“I guess I can believe that. Y
ou couldn’t look or sound like more of an alien if you tried.”

Aster looked down at the array of bright and tight clothing brimming from her drawers and thought of her mother’s tireless work making them in some other universe. She fought back more tears. “Tell me about it.”

“Hey, yo
u know what? That was meant to be a compliment
.
Fuck normal
.” Ruby shut the window and grabbed a perfume bottle from her bedside table. Soon the room smelled like warm cinnamon. “Now let’s g
o grub it up before Ivy sends
a search party.”

Ivy’s face lit up when the two girls took their seats at the table. “All settled in?”

Aster nodded. “The room’s really nice. Thank you.”

“You’re so lucky. Everyone wants that room,” said Tonya, struggling to saw apart what looked to be a very dark and flat pancake.

Ruby rolled her eyes. “Whatever. It gets about a thousand degrees up there in the summer.”

Tonya laughed. “You just don’t like it because it makes it harder for you to sneak out at night.”

“That’s enough out of you two,” Ivy said. “Aster, you just say the word and I can bunk you with one of the other girls if you don’t like the arrangement.”

Aster looked at Ruby, who sat gazing stone-faced at her plate. It was almost as if the other girl expected rejection. “No, Miss Ivy. I like it just fine.”

Ruby gave her a grateful glance and everyone else prattled on about gardening, fitting Aster into the chore schedule, and how Cynthia’s pancakes could be sharpened into deadl
y throwing discs to
assassinate an evil world leader.

Aster learned the names of the rest of the Oasis residents. No one went into too much detail about wh
at brought them there, but she
cou
ld see the sadness, worry, and in some cases cuts and bruises in
almost all of their fac
es
.
Tonya and Ruby had been at Oasis the longest, and they seemed to have the easiest relationship with Ivy. They spoke a bit about the other girls who had come and gone over the years, most of them moving on after their 18
th
birthdays.

Some had gone on to better lives, others didn’t fare quite as well. They’d either fallen into abusive relationships or into drugs. “I do what I can for ‘em when they’re here. But some folks just don’t wanna be helped. Some folks can only understand the world when they’re hurting others or being hurt.”

Some of the girls nodded at this while others looked at their laps or played with their food, saying nothing. Aster thought of Oleander and understood.

When Larkspur wandered into the kitchen as they were cleaning up, apparently seeking out some
food of his own, everyone came
over to pet and coo over him. The
spoiled
feline flopped onto his side and took in all of the attention with obvious relish while Ruby cut up some chicken to put on a plate for him.

After a quick tour of the rest of the house, Aster retired to her room to change for bed. Thankfully the night time clothes weren’t much different from the heavy cotton gowns she wore back in Ellemire. She wished she could wear them all day. After she was dressed, a knock sounded at the door. “Come in,” she said.

Ruby stepped in and Aster started to leave. “You don’t have to go. Just look over there while I change if you want. I’m not shy.”

Aster pulled back the covers and got into bed. After such a long day, the cool sheets felt like a blessing. “I don’t think I’ll ever get up again.”

“Don’t get too comfortable. You and I have weeds to hoe and veggies to pick in the morning. The summer’s been hell on our tomatoes.”

Aster smiled.
What Ruby considered work, Aster considered part of everyday life. This had been the first day in recent memory that she hadn’t at least carried water from the well or harvested some vegetables for supper.
She craved some time among the plants.
Nanny Lily had her fire and Oleander had her potions, but Aster could make
even the even the saddest flowers
stand up tall and beautiful with a little bit of coaxing and love. Somet
imes, on the way to the market,
she w
ould run her hands along
the drooping hedges bordering people’s yards, singing life back into them.

It was never much. Her abilities as a witch would not be fully explored until after she had
her child and passed on the Old Magic, for it wasn’t until then that she would know what sort of abilities she would even still have. The only ones who didn’t follow this custom were Oleander and Holly. As far as Aster knew, neither of the women had ever been pregnant, and had never been expected to be. Her one attempt to get more information on this from Nanny Lily had resulted in a stern tongue lashing. Dahlia had also been about as talkative on the subject as a brick wall.

“I could do with some gardening,
”
Aster said, trying to sound casual about it.

“You’ll be right at home here, farm girl. You can turn around now. I’m decent.”

She rolled over to face Ruby, who sat cross-legged on her bed in a pair of flannel pants and a sleeveless black top that clung tightly to her breasts. Aster didn’t know if she would get used to showing the world her body that way. It was almost as if every
young
girl over here was in the constant act of trying to attract a mate, even if they didn’t realize it. “I’ve spent a lot of time in gardens,” said Aster. “It’s a favorite hobby of mine back home.”

“Good, because I fucking hate it.” Ruby studied Aster’s face for a minute. “I want to warn you that I kinda have bad dreams at night. Talk in my sleep. Sometimes scream out. It’s one of the reasons I sleep up here. So I don’t disturb the other girls. Sometimes Ivy comes up and talks me through it. She has a way of calming down almost everyone she touches. It’s like magic.”

Aster remembered her ride over here
. “I noticed that about her. Don’t worry, though. My mother also sleeps poorly sometimes, but she taught me an easy
herbal
tonic for it. Maybe I can mix one up for you tomorrow.”

“You make it sound like she’s your best bud. What did you do, just decide to run away this morning or something? You some spoiled rich kid whose daddy didn’t get you a Beemer for her Sweet Sixteen?”

Aster suddenly felt
like she was
on unsure ground. Ruby’s voice wasn’t angry, but it wa
s challenging nonetheless, and if Aster got one word wrong, it could ruin her time here
. “No, that isn’t what I meant. It’s… complicated.”

“All our lives are complicated. You’re not that special here, believe me.”

Aster wished with all her heart that was true, but she found some relief in someone else thinking she was ordinary. “I love my mother. She’s not really the problem. There are so many other things.”

Ruby’s face lit up. “I get it now! Your mom married an abusive drunk prick, right? And he knocked her and you around a few too many times, and you tried to get your mom to leave him, but she’s a co-dependent who doesn’t think anything’s wrong, so you just ran away in the hopes that you could get her to dump the guy?”

Aster gaped, not just because of the sad story, but also because of how easily it fell out of the other gir
l’s mouth. It sounded like something she’d seen a lot of, and that was very sad indeed.
“How did you come up with that?”

“It’s the most common story you’ll hear among the girls here.
The first thing you’ll learn during your stay here is that men are assholes. So tell me about these herbs your mom gave you.
” She smacked her lips and winked.
“
Sounds tasty. I’ll try anything once.”

Aster smiled. “I’ll tell you more tomorrow.”