Shadows Cast by Stars (10 page)

I start to say that it’s nothing, that it’s made only from grass, but I stop myself and just smile instead.

Bran sweeps his hair back and stands, offering me his hand. “Well, we should probably be getting back, I guess.”

“I guess.” Though I could stay here forever, on this hilltop, with the grass swaying in the wind, the hummingbirds, the flowers.

But I still take Bran’s hand. Our palms meet, and this time, even after he’s pulled me up from the ground, we don’t let go.

Paul sits beside the beached canoe, smiling as we approach. “I thought you two had run off together,” he says as he touches his swollen lip.

“Thought about it. Figured you’d hunt us down before long.” Bran gives Paul a friendly punch to the shoulder. Paul stands up and punches him back. They both laugh.

This is how things are meant to be, and I would stop time right now if I could. My brother is happy. I am happy.

But time doesn’t stop.

And everything changes.

S
ometimes, I think the earth can hear my thoughts. There are days when I wish for a storm, or for a clear sky to see the moon, and the wish arrives.

Today I wish for wind—a brisk wind, fierce, even—to bear us across the lake, to raise whitecaps so high that Bran is trapped at our house, and it comes, rushing over the hills, bending the firs, showering the lake with needles as Bran and Paul paddle the canoe toward home.

My father greets us and holds the canoe steady while we scramble onto the dock.

“Help me lift it out, Paul,” Bran says. “Last thing I want is for these waves to swamp it.”

Doesn’t sound like such a bad idea to me, but I don’t say so.

“The wind will die later,” my father says as clouds slip across the sky.

Not if I can help it
.

My father brought down a brace of grouse while we were away. Bran and Paul pluck them while I light the fire.

“Tell us a story,” Paul says as we settle in. The grouse sizzle and pop each time Bran turns them.

My father doesn’t look up. “Maybe later, Paulie,” he says, though we know from the tone of his voice that “later” really means “no.”

I love my father’s stories, but he seldom tells them anymore. Some things are best left to die, he says. Stories haunt the living and when my father turns his gaze back to the flames, I can see he’s no longer with us. Words hold power—everyone knows this—but perhaps those who tell stories know it better than the rest, for through their voice, the dead live again, resurrected like that story of the woman Eurydice, except there’s no Orpheus to lead the way back to the world of the living.

Just as well—he didn’t do a particularly good job of it.

“You tell one then, Cass,” Paul says. “You tell a story.”

I’m not sure why, but the look in Paul’s eyes tells me he needs this story from me, to hold him to the earth, to tie him to something solid. Stories do that, my father says.
They make the impossible real. That’s why my father’s choice to not tell stories anymore hurts both Paul and me. Some days we need to believe in the impossible.

But when I try to find the words, none will come. I try, but all I can think of is that my father looks so sad tonight, staring into the fire, remembering. I know the story he would tell, if he could speak, the one of how he met my mother and knew, in an instant, she was the one he would marry. He’s told it to us often enough, but tonight, for some reason, he can’t, and neither can I.

Later, against my wishes, the wind dies and Bran leaves. My father leaves as well, but Paul and I stay by the fire. Paul stares at the coals pulsing gray and gold. The fire has stolen him, drawing him down into the world of vision.

Above us, stars crowd the heavens. When we were little, Paul wanted to be a star. I don’t know where he got that idea, but stars were the one thing he never tired of learning of at school. He learned all the myths, of Andromeda, of Calliope, and, especially, of Orion. The stars of Orion’s belt have always been his favorite. My father says his father told him those three stars were once three ravens, crossing the heavens.
To go where?
I wonder.
To do what?

A branch breaks in the forest behind me, as if in
answer to my questions. I whirl around, but there’s nothing there.

My movement rouses Paul. “What’s the matter?” he asks, rubbing his eyes.

“I heard something behind us.” A shiver slithers up my arm. “Probably just a deer.”

“Probably,” he says, yawning, but I see the worried wrinkle of his brow as he turns his gaze back to the fire.

What does he see in the embers? I wish I knew, but I must wait until he’s ready to tell me. And I hate waiting.

He knows this and lies down, leaving room for me. When we were little, our family would spend nights under the stars, lying with our heads together to create a star of our own. The top of my head touches Paul’s, and my arms stretch out at my sides, filling the space our parents would have claimed. Satellites swoop through the heavens, as bright as fireflies.

“Do you think they’re watching us?” Paul asks.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I hope not.” But I get up and head for the house anyhow.

I bolt awake.

Moonlight spills into my room, painting the floor a milky white. The grumble and roar of my father’s snoring rises from downstairs.

Paul isn’t in the house. I can feel it. Something is wrong. Altered.

I slip from my sleeping bag and tiptoe downstairs. Sure enough, Paul’s sleeping bag is empty again.

Outside, the lake stretches out like a silver gauntlet, beckoning me.

I step over the threshold, out into a night full of frog song. But then, the frogs stop singing. The night goes silent. I stand completely still. Paul is out there somewhere. I want to search for him, but fear grips me and all I can do is stare into the depths of the forest.

A rock bounces out of the shadows, nearly hitting my leg.

“Paul?”

“Go back inside.” His voice drifts up from somewhere down the hill. There’s no way he could have thrown that rock.

“Paul, what’s wrong?”

“Cass, go back inside.”

“But …”

“GO NOW!”

I flee, tripping over the threshold and falling into the house.

My father wakes up and stumbles from his room to stare at me. “What’s going on?” he rasps.

I don’t answer. I don’t have an answer. Sparks of spirit
float around my head, trying to warn me of something I don’t understand. My father draws me into his arms, but I can’t see him. The sparks press in on me, droning like a swarming hive, so thick I might drown.

And then I feel it, way down in the bottom of my gut: only a tickle at first, but then it grows, crescendoing to a rumble, forcing me to my feet as I drag my father after me.

The world is about to change.

The floor shudders and suddenly my father understands. “Up to the road!” he shouts.

Stones bite into my bare feet. I slip, fall, skin my knee, my hands, as I try to stand. My father hauls me up. The sparks coat my eyes, my ears. I feel like I’ll retch, but I can’t. Not yet.

We fall on the old, broken asphalt.

My father wheezes, “Paulie?”

In reply, the world begins to sway.

When the earthquake finally stops, I scramble down the hill to search the lakeshore while my father scours the woods that flank the house. No Paul. The look on my father’s face when I meet him halfway up the hill mirrors my own. We are panic-stricken.

“Back up to the road,” my father says. “He’s probably waiting for us up there.”

But the road is no longer a road. Asphalt lies in heaves and gullies, and trees are strewn about like spent match-sticks. An earthquake is always a reminder that we humans are as expendable as anything else, and if a fir that has weathered five hundred years of existence can be toppled, so can we.

A whistle from behind makes me whirl around, and there Paul is, stepping out from the forest, covered in scrapes. He holds his left forearm with his right hand and the dark seep of blood stains his shirt. A piece of wood is embedded in his skin.

We run to him.

“Leave it,” he says when I move to examine his arm.

I give him my sternest look. “Only if you want it to fester. You’ll lose your arm.” I can’t tell him how relieved I am, how worried I was.

“Fine,” Paul snaps. “Get it out, then.”

We head back down the driveway and stop at the truck. Paul paces, waiting as my father fishes our precious supply of whiskey out from behind the seat, as I stare at the house, looking to see how it fared. In the predawn darkness, it looks okay, but what damage will daylight reveal? None if we’re lucky, though I know that’s too much to hope for.

“Here, Cass,” my father says, handing me his jackknife. “Use this.”

Paul watches as I dig the wood from his flesh, and doesn’t wince—not once, not even when I pour whiskey over the wound and stitch it with deer-gut thread.

“Another scar,” I murmur as I tie off the knot.

He grins. “Good.”

Our house, by some miracle, is unscathed. Below, the boathouse has come loose from its moorings and the dock is partially submerged, but it’s nothing that can’t be fixed.

Only then, after we’ve surveyed the damage, do I let myself think of Bran, of Madda, of the people in the town. If the wind listens, if the sky hears my words, surely they will see them all safe.

Paul touches my arm. “Relax,” he says. “It’ll be okay.”

But I see the raven in my brother’s eyes, and I know more is yet to come.

D
aylight breaks after we’ve begun the long walk into town. Fallen trees litter the road. Our father makes us stop at each one, inspecting it carefully while Paul and I pace. We’ve been through earthquakes before, and we all know what the aftermath brings. Our house might be safe and we might be unharmed, but what about everyone else? What about Bran? Helen? Madda?

Paul carries an ax, and my father a machete and a shovel. I bring a basket holding bandages, a bottle of whiskey, needles, and thread. No one speaks, allowing me to run through the things my mother taught me: how to start a heart. How to stanch a wound. How to tie a tourniquet. How to stitch a person back together. Some
of these things I’ve never done, but my mother made sure I knew how to, just in case.

The smell of smoke reaches us long before we arrive in the town. Something’s burning. When we finally emerge from the forest, we see it’s the church. The roof has already collapsed and smoke billows from its shell. People have formed a fire line and swing buckets of lake water from hand to hand, dousing the house next to the church, but I fear it, too, will go up in flames before long. Someone will then have lost a home, and all their belongings along with it. My heart squeezes tight at the thought. I know what that feels like.

Down the way, in the park, a tent has been set up. It seems to be a hub of activity, so my father steers us there, but once we step under the canvas awning, we realize the tent is a hospital. My father pats me on the shoulder before he and Paul step back outside. He knows I’ll be able to help here.

A huge woman barking orders spots me and waves me over. “What’s wrong with you?” she says.

“Nothing.” I hold the basket I carry out to her so she can see inside.

She cocks an eyebrow at me. “You know about healing?” She plants her hands on her wide hips and
assesses me with muddy eyes. “What do you know?”

“I can stitch wounds and set bones.”

“Good enough. I got work for you.” She nods at a man in the corner with a bad burn on his hand. “See to him. Oh, and my name’s Adelaide Corry. Holler if you need anything.”

I sit down before the man and wince. The burn’s not terrible, but still, it must hurt. There’s not much I can do but clean it as carefully as I can and wrap it in a clean bandage.

“What about butter?” he asks. “That’s supposed to be good for burns.”

I shake my head as I tie off the bandage’s knots. “No. The skin’s got to breathe to heal. Butter will just give you an infection. There.” I sit back to admire my handiwork, and then offer the man a swig of whiskey. “Keep it clean, and wash it tomorrow. And no butter!”

He nods as he heads out of the tent, but I’m pretty sure from the look he gives me that the first thing he’ll do when he gets home is find a pat of butter and smear it all over his hand.

Next is a little girl with a cut on her arm, followed by a woman with a bad bump on the head. I do the best I can, stitching and bandaging and hoping that I’m helping. My hands have work to do, and it’s good work, needed work. Important work. I feel like myself for the first time since we arrived here.

As the day wears on, the number of people needing help diminishes. The temperature under the canvas climbs, so when we can, Ms. Adelaide and I sit outside, watching what’s going on in the town while we wait for our next patients to arrive. I look for Bran, but he’s not among the people passing by.