Astronomically Pure: a Documentation of a Star Who Fell for a Girl on Earth

Astronomically Pure: A Documentation of a Star Who Fell for a Girl on Earth

Risa Moran

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of

The Wilkes Honors College

in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences

with a Concentration in Creative Writing

Wilkes Honors College of

Florida Atlantic University

Jupiter, Florida

December, 2019

Astronomically Pure: A Documentation of a Star Who Fell for a Girl on Earth

Risa Moran

This thesis was prepared under the direction of the candidate’s thesis advisor, Professor Rachel Luria, and has been approved by the members of her/his supervisory committee. It was submitted to the faculty of The Honors College and was accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences.

SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE:

______Professor Rachel Luria

______Dr. Nicholas Baima

______Dean Timothy Steigenga, Wilkes Honors College

______Date

ABSTRACT

Author: Risa Moran

Title: Astronomically Pure: A Documentation of a Star Who Fell for a Girl on Earth

Institution: Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University

Thesis Advisor: Professor Rachel Luria

Degree: Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences

Concentration: Creative Writing

Year: 2019

Astronomically Pure is a work of fiction that started out as an idea of a boy falling for a star and evolved into a story about a star falling for something more than just love.

It follows a star’s short visit to Earth through the perspective of a Valentina “Val” Ride who has given up on her life due to her terminal diagnosis. This story sets out to explore the limitations of love and LGBT themes through the romantic relationship developed between the main character and the star. Other themes expanded upon include friendship and loss once conflict arises between the main character, her human friend, and the star.

iii

Acknowledgements

I’ve had this story in my mind for years, scattered in fragmented notes across notebooks and Google Docs, so I would first like to thank Professor Luria and Dr. Baima for helping me to commit my words to paper and my characters to scenes. They are no longer a part of me, but something they’ve helped me to create. Professor Luria has seen this project develop from my early days in Intro to Creative Writing and has helped me to curate a set of characters whom I love and wish to see with happy endings. While this project was a little out of Dr. Baima’s realm, his comments and encouragement helped me to keep writing.

Secondly, I’d like to thank the friends I’ve made at the Honors College and probably some of the best people I know. I thank Jessica Young for her ideas and advice when writing this story and with life in general. I always enjoy our late-night writing rants. I thank Angie Joseph for her constant and continuous support and her ability to make me smile even when I’m feeling down (If you don’t write a book about your family, I will). And finally, I thank Liz May for her endless love, forgiveness, and music taste (I’ve only listened to “Bohemian Trapsody” while writing this). I don’t know if you guys know, but you mean the world to me. You three have helped me to become who I am today, and I surely would not have enjoyed my time at FAU nearly as much if it weren't for you guys.

I would also like to thank my friends Arielle and Brianna Danchenko for being

Astronomically Pure’s first readers when it was still a short story and for introducing me to Stardust. I promise I will finish this movie soon! I also thank Lauren Cook for being iv such an avid reader of mine (and possibly my biggest fan). I really do appreciate the times that you call to check up on me and all the feedback you have to give on my stories

(however incomplete). I will get more chapters (if not the rest of the book) to you shortly!

I give special thanks to my friend-from-up-north, Stephanie McDowell for her relentless love and her offer of prayers, some of which I do believe have helped. And special thanks to my 8th grade English teacher, Mr. Matluck who, even after all this time, still cares for his students and who encouraged me to think critically and creatively while writing my stories but, most particularly, while writing my essays.

Of course I would also like to thank my parents for their support, the comfort when I wanted it, and the truth, however hurtful, when I needed it. I thank my older brother, Joseph, for his story ideas (we have to cowrite something sometime) and my oldest brother, Eric, for his honesty and ability to write emails, for without you, I would never have sent any. Ever.

I love you all very much and this story would not have been the same if it weren’t for each and every one of you.

Table of Contents

Prologue ...... 1 Chapter 1 ...... 3 Chapter 2 ...... 9 Chapter 3 ...... 21 Chapter 4 ...... 34 Chapter 5 ...... 39 Chapter 6 ...... 49 Chapter 7 ...... 61 Chapter 8 ...... 67 Chapter 9 ...... 77 Chapter 10 ...... 84

Prologue

The stars knew each other; perhaps not exactly by name, but by their presence in the cosmos. They were the cosmos, and the absence of even a single star left a darkened space no other could ever fill. Together, they watched as the universe lived and moved around them, the stars situated in their spots. Some would watch as worlds formed, moons collected, and life grew, just far away enough as to be out of reach.

Some stars were talented enough to create such worlds, Life Planets, as the Universe knew them. It, the Universe, granted these stars the ability to make their own Solar

Systems and grow new galaxies with one another. These stars were like nothing else. If, by chance, a star could make a planet that lived, a Life Planet, the star was known throughout the galaxies. On these Life Planets, creatures grew. Living, breathing creatures came about to inhabit them. Some worshipped and lived by a ruling of the stars; others ignored them and went about their existence without even so much as acknowledging them. Stars often competed with one another to have the most planets, these Life Planets in particular, for to create life made a star a god amongst others.

Space was never empty; planets of all shapes, sizes, and hues populated the spaces between the stars. Some were molten red of uncharted magnitude; of chilling blue made from ice and stone; or of luscious green from new life. Some stars grew creative and made planets from the gases alone, taming them, shaping them into spheres. And space was never lonely, at least not for some. Space was full of possibilities and pleasures, such as creating planets or watching the Life Planets grow to become beings known in the

Universe. And Earth was one of the most entertaining to watch. Earth, by chance, became 1 the most active with upright creatures of a unique design; the one the stars liked to watch the most. At least, it was the favorite of another star, by one who did not own it.

She, like many others, spent her time watching the development of these Life Planets.

Without any stars in close enough proximity to talk with and without planets of her own to occupy her, she was left with a lot of time to watch these planets and to think about them. She had watched these creatures, the humans, for so long, she had grown to know a number of their languages, but if only she had a mouth to speak.

On Earth, the closest and easiest for her to see, were creatures that called themselves humans. They were of the type to live by the stars and give each a name, but they soon grew out of that, as their life grew to exorbitant amounts across the planet. There were beautiful sights on the Life Planet, Earth; natural structures the humans called

“mountains” or “waterfalls”; but there were things humans created too that amazed her.

“Shrines,” “temples,” “skyscrapers,” “buildings,” they were called, built so high off

Earth’s surface she wondered if she reached out far enough, she could touch one of them.

And she had wondered, for the longest time, in silence and alone in her spot in the universe, what it would be like to be there on the planet, and to see such things up close?

What would it be like, she often thought, to look up and see the stars from down there?

Chapter 1

The star fell at the time of month when the moon was full and lit up the night sky and ground below.

Valentina, or Val, as she preferred, just finished a three-hour shift working register at the rinky-dink shop, Summer Haze Boutique. It was a quirky store at the corner of a bougie strip mall near downtown that sold only the highest end of fashion. The store’s bay window housed mannequins dressed in a variety of styles: a frilled front white blouse matched with a fringed hem denim skirt and strappy brown sandals, a top that reminded

Val of melted sherbet paired off with neon green shorts and matching tennis shoes, and an outfit consisting of a lacey, see-through crop top paired with cargo shorts and brown combat boots. Val thought them all interesting, surely nothing she would wear herself, but then again, she wasn’t in charge of the window display.

The shop itself was small, smaller than the local coffee place. Next door was a hot yoga studio open to its full-time members only, and next to that was an Italian place that sold dishes made solely of imported ingredients. The whole building was waterfront, a nice place a little south on the East Coast of Florida. People came from all over to walk the board walk and shop at the ridiculously overpriced stores, at least that’s what Val was always told. To Val, it was just another view of the ocean, one that could be found anywhere on the coast of Florida; the overpriced shops too.

She’d only just started working there a few weeks ago, right before the end of her junior year of high school. Since then, she’d discovered a new sense of feeling tired; a kind of tired that’s more like exhaustion weighing down on her brain and bones. Val had 3 felt all kinds of tired the past few months, but nothing quite the same as working retail, even if it was only for three hours.

It was a Thursday night around seven o’clock, and the store had one of its slowest nights in Val’s recent memory. Mrs. Elrich, the owner and donor of Val’s temp summer job, followed a mother-daughter duo round the store’s innumerable clothing racks, insisting they purchase the latest, “just got them in today,” bikinis. Val didn’t exactly know how, but Mrs. Elrich, in her voluptuously curled gray hair and eccentric fashion choices, always managed to pull off a sale on even the most reluctant of customers.

“You won’t find this style anywhere else!” Val heard the older woman exclaim. “If you won’t try it on here, then I insist you bring it home and try it on for yourself. You won’t be disappointed!”

Sometimes Val thought the customers bought the clothes more out of pity for the older woman, but the few times Val had overheard the woman persuading the customers, she had to admit the woman had a way with words. Val was beyond convinced that Mrs.

Elrich could make anyone purchase the ugliest garments, and at full price too. Val had witnessed it a number of times in that very store.

Val rung up the mom and daughter’s items, a gaudy leopard print bikini that looked more like strings tied together than an actual suit, and another floral print bikini with turquoise accents along the ties, waving them off with a “Have a good night! Come back soon!” as the register clock struck 7:00 p.m., marking the end of her shift.

“Well,” Mrs. Elrich said, approaching the front counter. “Looks like that’s it for the night.”

“We didn’t do too bad,” Val replied.

“Not at all!” She stood on her tip toes then, to get a look behind the counter, before spinning back around. “Do you happen to know where Kailey ran off to?”

The only thing worse than the post work-shift exhaustion, in Val’s mind, was having

Kailey as a coworker. A year or so younger than Val, she was Mrs. Elrich’s granddaughter who worked at the shop upon her parents’ insistence. Beyond the same wild curls, though Kailey often attempted to tame them into a bun at the nape of her neck, the same big cheeks, and slender body frame, Mrs. Elrich shared no resemblance to her granddaughter, let alone work ethic. The girl never did anything helpful. Once or twice a shift, she would wander around the store, not bothering to talk to any of the customers; she’d straighten up the already immaculate displays and often unfolded clothes just to refold them and make it look as though she were really working. Val lost count of how many times she had to step up to help someone because Kailey had completely blown them off to go scroll through her phone in the back-storage room. They’d both unconsciously agreed on a mutual dislike of one another and to not get in each other’s way; but that didn’t mean Val wouldn’t be honest if Mrs. Elrich ever asked about her.

“I think she’s been in the back for the past hour or so.”

The woman deflated.

“That girl,” she said, shaking her head. “Her parents ought to have taught her some manners. What do they expect an old woman like me to do with her?”

Val nodded along silently as she began to pack up her things. She’d already clocked out, right on the dot, as Mrs. Elrich had told her to when she first started. And as much as

Val respected her, Val would rather bike twice the distance it took her to get home than to stay and listen to her complain about her granddaughter. Val knew the woman could go on for hours about Kailey’s immaturity, and she was in no mood tonight to extend her shift past 10 o’clock.

“And how are you parents? I haven’t heard of either of them lately. It feels like only the other day you and your mom were in here shopping for your new school clothes.”

The sudden take on her mom made Val stop just as she’d reached down for her backpack that she kept behind the counter. There wasn’t much to say about her mom only that she never often got to see her. Val could hardly remember the last time her and her mother sat down and had a decent conversation with one another; weeks, if not months ago, maybe. Even when Val called her mom, she was sent straight to voicemail only to receive a “what’s wrong” text two hours later. Sometimes the sickly thought that her mom should just move into the hospital came to Val. It made sense, she practically lived there already; but those thoughts never stayed. No matter how true or not they were to

Val, she rushed them out of her head as soon as they entered.

Val lifted her bag to her shoulders and smiled to Mrs. Elrich across the counter.

“Mom’s great! She’s been picking up a few more shifts in her unit. She actually helped deliver a baby last week!”

“Oh, she sure sounds like an accomplished woman! And what about your father?”

Val didn’t even want to get started on her dad.

“He’s good too, applied for a promotion at his work. I’m sure he’s gonna hear back about that shortly.”

Val slipped out from behind the counter and started heading towards the door.

“I’m sure! I hope he gets whatever promotion they’re offering. Are you and him still working on that telescope? I remember when you first got it, and you were so excited-”

“No, actually,” Val turned around once at the door to fully answer the older woman.

“With dad focusing on his work and me on my online classes, we don’t get much time to take it out.”

Val hated the feeling this conversation drew up from her. It was true, she’d go out with her dad, telescope and astronomy notes in hand, to stargaze. It was their typical weekend outing. The stars were a passion of her father and soon became Val’s passion too. She loved the stars so much she would spend her weeknights researching the cosmos and different techniques when it came to their telescope, already anticipating their next weekend trip. But this passion, this desire to search and see more dwindled as her father drew distant and their outings became less and less frequent until they stopped all

7 together nearly a year ago. She still loved the stars, sure, just – not as much as she used to.

Mrs. Elrich tilted her head and a frown cemented itself on her face, a pitying look.

“Oh, well that’s a shame. Hopefully you and your father can take it out again soon. It would be a shame if it remained unused for too long. Collecting dust never looked good on anything.”

Val pressed her lips into a tight line and nodded. Even having known Mrs. Elrich the few weeks she had, Val didn’t really know how to end these types of prodding conversations. Sometimes Elrich would give her a clear opening, but other times Val was left desperately flitting her eyes to the exit, hoping that the older woman would get the hint. But Val happened to be lucky that night.

Mrs. Elrich waved her hands towards Val and the door as she began to turn, probably to go in search of her absent granddaughter.

“Well, I won’t keep you any longer. You better head back on home to your folks. Be sure to tell them I said hello! And to your mother to come in again soon!”

Val breathed an internal sigh of relief. Maybe the universe did still work in her favor, even if they were only small favors. She sent up a silent ‘Thank you,’ regardless.

“Will do!” she called out. Given the go-ahead, she bolted out of the shop, pushing through the double doors and into the humid night.

Chapter 2

As Val stepped out into the night, the weight of her lies did not lift completely off her shoulders. Her chest felt tight at the very thought of them. A part of her felt bad for it, but another felt as though she had no other choice. Her parents hadn’t exactly given her much of one.

She sighed, trying to shrug off the feelings, as she rounded to the back of the building and unlocked her bike from the metal rack. The humid night stuck to her skin like glue and she couldn't wait to get home if only just to shower and change into something more comfortable. She re-tied her long, brown hair into a ponytail and with one last glance up at the sky, Val took off for home. She rode out of sight of the tiny corner shop, down the long stretch of back road that would twist and curve away from the boardwalk and would bring her all the way home.

Her favorite thing about her work was this quiet street she took to get there. Rarely did she ever see a car on it, unless they were lost or knew the area well. As much as she loathed biking the few miles in between the shop and her home, there was one part that

Val absolutely loved. It wasn’t particularly breathtaking, just another line of view of the shore that stretched on for miles, but at that time of night, when there was hardly a car on the road and no passerby, not even a single soul on the beach, Val loved it; the view of the surf beneath the moon when it was full, then the view of the stars when it wasn't. This view was clearest for only a few dozen yards, a small blip in Val’s overall trip, but she loved the few seconds she had to admire it. It made the trip worth taking.

As Val drew closer to her favorite spot, she noticed smoke, gradually drifting into the sky. She slowed down, moving cautiously.

As she approached the clearing, she noticed how the smoke wasn’t nearly as thick as a fire’s, but this stretch of beach wasn’t known for hosting parties, so a fire was unlikely.

The smoke wasn’t nearly as big and billowing as she had thought from a distance. The smoke was thinner, cooling, as if whatever caused it had already happened, and Val was now only seeing the aftermath – but of what? A crash?

Her bike swerved beneath her. She looked down and, astounded: the road was covered in sand. The thick layer, at least an inch deep, forced her off her bike. She pushed it through the sand, hoping to find clean road again; but just as she reached the beginning of the clearing, she saw it: a gigantic hole in the ground, almost a quarter mile wide. The steam evaporated into the air in little whisping tendrils. Sand was blown in all directions, even covering the minimal foliage that occasionally obstructed the view of the water from the road. Setting her bike on its kickstand, Val walked over, using the light from the moon and her phone to light her path. It was only as she drew closer to the crater that she noticed the smell, the awful burning of sand with hints of sulfur. She’d never smelled anything like it and had to cover her nose before she grew too lightheaded and possibly passed out. Her steps grew slower, shorter as she approached the depression in the sand.

The sand in the crater was no darker than the rest of the beach, but the spot in the middle was the darkest. Val couldn’t tell if it was merely from the shadows alone. Her

10 phone’s flashlight couldn’t travel to the crater’s deepest end and the moonlight didn’t provide much aid from above. It looked nothing more than a dark pit.

She tried leaning over, bending forward to get some better light to the center. Her heart pounded louder in her ears as she did so, completely blocking out the crashing waves just a few dozen yards away from her. She took one step forward to get a better look, but the sand shifted beneath her weight. Her foot went skidding down the edge, much faster than she had anticipated, sending her sliding faster and faster. She yelped, would’ve screamed if her voice hadn’t caught in her throat. On a poor attempt at regaining herself, she fell back. She tried clawing and kicking at the sand to stop, or at the very least slow, her descent, but to no avail. Only once she reached the center did her movement cease.

It took Val a solid minute to ease her stiff muscles, it took another for her to catch her breath. On the third, she gathered herself again. By some miracle, she still had her phone in her hand. With as much courage as she could muster, she lifted her head to see the darkest patch of sand move. Val watched with a fevered heart as the darker mound of sand developed arms and what Val thought to be its head, then legs soon after formed beneath it. Paralyzed, Val could only watch the hair on its head move as it sat up. It wasn’t facing her, and Val gasped when it looked up to the sky. She didn’t know who, or what, she was looking at.

Val’s head was feeling dizzy now. The smell of burned sand was worse in the center of it, more concentrated and potent where Val sat with the undefined darker matter. It certainly looked human, but Val still wasn’t sure what exactly she was looking at. Part of 11 her brain thought alien but her panicked brain assumed killer; and although Val was getting a sinking feeling she stumbled into something she shouldn’t have, she hoped, to whatever higher power was listening, that it was, at the very least, human.

It slowly looked back at Val. It had a face with human-like features, from what she could tell, the faint moonlight only outlining its silhouette. The light from her phone, still clutched in her hand so tight her fingers were cramping, illuminated the small space between them as well; however dimly, Val could make out the nose and the ears and the eyes, like small galaxies of their own design, that were dark within. And for a second Val thought herself crazy when she thought those eyes looked as though they reflected the sky. Even the little stars in them seemed to move, though the two beings sat transfixed, just staring at each other.

Val’s head was muddled in thought. Her fluttering heart didn’t help her lightheadedness, and the close proximity with this – thing – only put her more on edge.

But was it human? It certainly looked more human than anything else, but those eyes –

Val tried to breathe. Although the sand had settled around the two of them, Val felt as though she could hardly move. She didn’t want to move for fear of what would happen next. Nothing had happened just yet, but maybe it was all just a dream, she wondered, another muddle thought lost in the tangle of her consciousness. Or, if by chance, her brain had simply made this all a hallucination.

Had she already fainted? Was this a dream? It was getting harder for her to stay focused and even harder for her to decipher the rational from irrational, the real from fantasy. 12

“H-hi,” Val stuttered trying to find her breath, her voice. In a single, shallowed breath, she asked, “are you real?”

The being turned fully around to face her. A string of unintelligible sounds fell from its mouth. Slowly, stiffly, moving as unsurely as Val felt, it grabbed ahold of Val’s outstretched ankle. Panicked, Val went to pull away but the grip on her ankle tightened and the star-eyes captured her attention. She stilled. Ever so slowly, the star-eyes shifted closer, sitting on its knees, leaning over Val’s legs with its other arm to help prop itself up. The small space between them began to grow brighter. The being’s eyes dropped to the spot where the two touched. The light came from its hand, seemingly pouring out of the fingertips and crawling up Val’s legs like tendrils. The light slithered up through the veins of Val’s leg, and it burned a near blinding heat that illuminated the space in a warm glow; but the burning soon became too much.

Definitely. Not. Human.

“Stop! What are you doing!” Desperation traveled faster through her body than the light did as Val tried to scutter up the side of the crater – but the sand kept moving her closer and closer to whatever held onto her ankle. Her leg felt as though it were on fire.

She dug her free hand as deep as she could into the sand, as far as she could get it.

With some purchase, Val yanked her leg out of the being’s grip. The heat slowly evaporated, and the light faded from Val’s leg, drawing the two back into the sullen, moonlit darkness.

“Ooo…” it said. She said. Val flipped her phone over in her hand to bring more light to the center of the crater. In the slowing seconds and with the added light, Val started to make out different, almost feminine-like features of the being’s face and body – this was a girl. Val could see she wore no clothes but was covered in a soot of some kind.

“Are you ok?” Val stopped her retreat entirely. The girl didn’t make another approach towards her, instead she sat back on her knees, staring up at Val and repeated the sound again.

“Ooo…”

“Do you need help? Did someone hurt you?” Star-eyes didn’t reply. The only movement she made was to look up at the sky.

“…ace,” she said. Dumbfounded, Val didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what to do, other than to stare. Then the star eyes stared back.

“Ace, ace!” she repeated with more vigor. She advanced to Val once again. This time, the light caught onto her face and Val saw that the girl was covered in an odd grey dust that coated her skin and cracked around the area of her mouth as she spoke.

“Space?” Val tried.

“Pace!” the girl exclaimed, sitting up straighter.

“You’re from space?”

The girl lunged forward, one of her hands landing atop one of Val’s knee. The tendrils came hotter this time – an instant fire against her skin. The light traveled faster 14 up Val’s leg than before, traveling further past her hip. Val yelled and kicked at the glowing arm.

“Don’t do that!”

The girl fell back from the force of Val’s kick, but her excitement did not falter.

“Space!” She cried, a tone of glee in her voice at finding the word. Val rubbed at the spot on her knee where she could still feel the heat receding. The light had come and gone in a flash; Was this girl really not human? Drunk or on drugs wouldn’t explain the light from her hands, but what else could she be?

“You’re from space?” Val started, holding her leg close, unsure whether to believe the girl. “How did you get here?” The girl sat up on her legs again, her hands on her knees. She stared at Val with tireless regard. “Do you have anywhere to go?”

“You!” the girl shouted. Val winced at the pitch of it.

“Me? What about me?”

“You! You!” She shouted. Val’s hands flew up to her ears to block her voice.

“Alright, alright, hold on.” Val knew that she wasn’t going to find out much more this way. She wished she could have said that she had more fight in her, but the fall must have done more to her than she thought. Sighing, Val stood on shaking legs and looked up the side of the crater. Coming down had been easy enough; a trail ran down the side from where Val had slipped. Climbing out of the crater would be difficult on her own but assisting another would be a different challenge entirely. Val stowed her phone into her

15 back pocket to have another free hand. At the very least, Val could help the girl out of the hole, maybe Val could even call someone to help her once they got out.

Val looked back when she felt star-eyes watching her as she moved. The eyes were odd, to be sure, but Val felt herself drawn to them. There was something about them, and the girl herself, that drew Val closer, almost like a gravitational pull, an unseen force, but not just in a physical sense. Val knew she couldn’t talk, not really, but she kept talking to her as if she could. Maybe Val was just waiting for something else to happen, but what,

Val wasn’t too sure herself. She just knew they needed to get out of the crater.

“Can you stand?” she asked, but the girl didn’t move. Val went to offer her hand, but, too unsure, she lowered it again. “Do you need help getting up?”

The girl didn’t respond. Her enthusiasm had dwindled as fast as the light had disappeared from Val’s skin. The two remained unmoving in the still of the night, the distant sound of waves the only thing they could hear. No cars drove past them on the road; no one else had trampled onto this discovery yet. At the thought of anyone else finding them here, Val felt a sudden urgency to get the girl out of here, at least somewhere away from the huge crater. Then, an idea popped into Val’s head.

“Here, put this on,” Val dropped her bag to the ground. From it, she grabbed a black bomber jacket and handed it to the girl. When she didn’t immediately take it, Val held it up to her from the shoulders. “You put your arms through these holes, and then we can zip up the front,” she explained. The girl moved forward, as if to put the jacket on backwards.

“No – no, turn around, then put one arm into each sleeve.”

She moved slowly, seeming unsure of either herself or Val’s directions or both, but she kept moving. Val helped the girl to pull on the jacket, catching a glimpse of her rolling her shoulders in the moonlight.

“And then you can zip it closed,” Val said. The girl turned to face her. Val reached for the ends of the jacket and zipped it closed for her. Then Val pulled her phone out of her pocket again. “I think I might have something else for you too.”

Using the light from her phone, she searched through her bag.

“I should have an extra pair of shorts or – here.” From the bottom of her bag, she pulled out the running shorts Mrs. Elrich convinced her to buy and sold to her for half off earlier that night. “I don’t know if they’ll fit you, but it’s worth a try. A pair of shorts is better than nothing.”

Val sat back at the oddity of what she’d just said. She hardly knew this girl, yet she was handing over her favorite jacket and her newest pair of shorts. Of course, the girl needed it, but Val felt a weird sense of apprehension and wonder. Perhaps it was just the curious side of Val, but the girl already believed she was from space and could hardly talk. The more rational part of Val thought little of it; the girl was probably just lost, fell and hit her head on something, or someone possibly abandoned her here, though that wouldn’t explain the trick with her hands. Although she was about Val’s size, it all felt a little odd, especially for her not to speak, or even really know how to. That’s where the

17 crazier side of Val screamed, albeit from a distance and with little sense of justification, that perhaps the girl really was from space – it would explain a lot.

Just as with the jacket, Val helped the girl to her feet, then helped her step into the pair of shorts.

“There you go. Now,” Val said, staring up the side of the crater, “how do we get out of this?”

It wasn’t steep, exactly, but it would take them a great effort with the shifting sand, especially since the girl wasn’t stable on her own feet. Val kept a hand or two on her to keep her steady. At every point they touched, a warmth, softer than the blistering heat before, coursed through Val. She didn’t think much of it as she took the other girl’s arm and wrapped it around her shoulder, granting a wider spread for the heat to travel as the two trudged up the cascading incline. They crawled at first, sliding down every now and again. With each step, Val felt as though she slid back several inches, but she continued to dig her hands and feet into the sand and forced her way to top. Halfway up the side, the girl had begun to copy Val’s movements with her free hand. They eventually made it out once she began stepping in time with Val, as if she were learning as they moved together, making the trek out of the crater that much easier.

Once they reached the top, Val helped the girl back to her feet. Her arm fell from

Val’s shoulder, but afraid that she might fall, Val kept a hand on her, even if it meant holding onto the girl’s hand all the way back to the bike. And she never pulled herself

18 away from Val, not once did she show any sign of resistance or distress; she seemed comfortable, calmly and quietly following Val.

The girl took her first few steps with Val’s assistance. She held onto Val, taking a few unsteady steps at first. She slowly gained confidence as the two walked to where her bike sat on the sand-covered road. Val grabbed for her phone again.

“There’s no service here, do you need me to call someone for you?”

The girl’s face hadn’t changed since they left the crater; her expression open, listening. Val wasn’t even sure whether the girl could even understand her; whether she did or not didn’t hardly registered on her face.

She checked her phone again. No calls, no texts, no service. Her battery was almost dead too. She tapped the side of the screen with her thumb, thinking of what to do next.

“Here,” she said, pulling up the notes option on her phone. “Can you tell me who you are? Where you need to go?”

The girl hesitantly took her phone and looked down at the screen. Val had already pulled up the keyboard and anxiously waited for the girl to write something, to do something, anything. The girl pressed her thumb onto the screen, brightening it with a single touch. The screen grew increasingly brighter, brighter than Val had ever seen it go.

Her thumb remained pressed there, growing brighter and brighter until the screen began glitching – the app closed. The clock disappeared. Then the screen blacked out. A short- circuited sound came from it, and a burst of smoke wafted up from the device. Val

19 snatched the phone back, but it was overheated. The phone burned her fingers and she dropped it onto the overturned sand.

“What the – what did you do?” She stared down at her broken phone through her singed fingers. Slowly, she looked up at the girl, still giving her the same, solemn look.

“What are you?”

Lifting her arm, the girl pointed up to the sky; Val followed her arm, her pointed finger, and looked up.

“Space.”

“Ok, from space” Val said. The girl nodded. “Are you, an alien?” the girl furrowed her brows and stretched her arm further, pointing to the sky with more insistence.

“Space!” she exclaimed, forcing her arm as high towards the sky as she could manage.

“Ok, ok, not an alien. Are you – a star?”

A smile grew onto the girl’s face as she lowered her arm. Val picked up her phone, holding it only long enough to slide it into her pocket. Heat radiated from it onto her skin through the fabric of her work pants and she felt she had to keep moving.

“Let’s, um,” Val looked the top edge of the crater from where she’d slid down and where the two crawled up together. She thought of her bike she’d left abandoned at the edge of the road and all the sand she had to push through to get it there. “Let’s get you back to my place. We can figure something out when we get there.”

Chapter 3

“I don’t know how we’re going to do this exactly,” Val said, swinging her leg over her bike.

The two had managed to get back to Val’s bike easily enough. Val noticed how the girl walked with more confidence on her own, not over or under stepping as she went.

Although she watched her feet, the girl hadn’t stumbled once since Val pulled her out of the crater.

Once they had reached the bike, Val hiked up the kick stand and began walking with it. The road was still covered in the layer of sand, and Val thought better than to try biking through it, especially if the girl were going to ride on it as well. But Val felt the other girl’s eyes on her as she pushed the bike off the covered patch of road, her fascination moving from her feet to Val. She looked back at the girl, offering her an encouraging smile. Even out of the crater, Val still felt a pull towards her.

Now they stood where the sand had thinned enough for Val to ride without a hindrance. The clearing had ended meters away from them, leaving the sound of crashing waves but a mere distant memory. Here, they moved more so underneath the lamp light than by moonlight, and Val could see some extent of the mud-covered girl. She couldn’t tell what it was exactly, but the girl was coated in it, from the roots of her hair to her bare feet. Some of it had rubbed off on the clothes Val had given her. Briefly, Val had worried the mud would stain her jacket and shorts, but she noticed how easily it broke off and crumbled, even how it cracked around the girl’s mouth and eyes. Maybe it wouldn’t stain after all, whatever it was. 21

“Here, stand on those,” Val suggested, pointing out the spokes sticking out from the center of her back wheels. The girl stood still for a moment, staring down at the bike wheel, before following Val’s instructions.

“And hold onto me,” Val continued. The girl did as Val said, standing on the spokes and placing her hands onto Val’s shoulders, a subtle warmth seeped out beneath their pressure. She silently hoped that the heat wouldn’t grow, or else the ride would take even longer. “Hold on tight. We have a long ride until we get back to my house.”

They moved slowly at first, Val testing the weight and the other girl’s balance. If she’d only just learned how to walk, Val figured that standing on the bike would be difficult for her, but they didn’t exactly have any other options. Her phone sat warm in her back pocket, still broken so she couldn’t call her friend, Brandon. He would know what to do and he had a car. Val wasn’t about to walk all the way back to her house.

They had to bike it, and surprisingly enough, as Val kept moving, the girl managed to find her balance, and Val found she could go faster than she had before. In no time at all,

Val surpassed her normal speed, the extra weight on the bike and the weight on her shoulders hardly a hindrance at all. At times, she often forgot the girl was even on the bike at all. The evening air, usually a wall of heavy humid heat, felt light and refreshing as Val peddled faster through it.

Val’s stomach dropped as her house came into view. She couldn’t help the sinking feeling in her gut at the sight of her dad’s parked car. In the back of her mind, she had hoped both her parents would’ve still been out; she hadn’t thought of what she’d tell them regarding the girl. Her dad she could easily get by, so long as he stayed in his room 22 and didn’t ask any probing questions. But her mom – for once Val hoped her mom wouldn’t show up at home tonight. She could always tell when Val was lying. A part of her wanted to keep biking, maybe bring the girl somewhere else, but Val couldn’t think of anywhere else.

Val pumped her legs the last few feet up the slightly inclined drive before coming to a complete stop. The girl stepped off the bike before Val even began to move, but as she stepped off the bike herself, Val noted how her legs didn’t feel nearly as sore from the bike ride home as she usually did. In fact, she didn’t feel tired from it at all. She even walked with the slightest bounce in her step as she hauled her bike back into the garage and led the girl into the house. The house was a two-story, stand alone, painted a deep navy blue to contrast with the neighborhood’s wannabe tropical Key West vibe. They lived in south Florida, but not that south.

Inside the house, everything felt still, almost sterile. The dishwasher wasn’t running, the oven wasn’t on and cooking; Val could only hear their AC unit turning on again and her father’s TV from upstairs muffled by the closed bedroom door. Her parents had stopped waiting up for her to come home, even from an early shift at work, when she had turned 16. They either knew Val would never purposefully stay out past her 11 p.m. curfew, especially on a weeknight, Val wasn’t exactly the partying type; or they had both grown too busy with their own lives that they hadn’t much time to worry about Val coming home on time. Either way, Val was glad, at the very least, that she did not make them worry regarding this.

“Follow me.” Val walked past the empty dining room and started up the steps. 23

“Where we…”

“My room.”

In the newer, brighter light, Val could see the full extent of the grey mud encrusted over the girl’s entire body. It looked as though someone had dipped her into a vat of gray paste. None of it hampered her moving, but it certainly wasn’t suited for it. Even her hair was caked in the stuff; Val couldn’t tell the color of it beneath the thick mud, but she just hoped the girl wouldn’t leave too many crumbs behind, let alone footprints. She didn’t want to have to go through the pains of cleaning up after her, at least not right now, not right after saving her.

They carried on up the stairs, passed her parents room, through the loft, and into Val’s room. Her room was relatively large for only herself housing a small bed, desk, and dresser; the on-suite bathroom certainly didn’t hurt either. Val immediately turned the two of them into the bathroom and into the half that housed the shower-tub combo. She leaned over the tub and turned the shower head on warm. Walking around the girl, who had followed her into the bathroom and stood closer than Val had first noticed, Val grabbed a towel, bringing it into the smaller half of the bathroom and dropping it onto the toilet stationed next to the tub.

“You can take a shower and get all of that mud off. I’ll grab you a washcloth.”

Back at the closet, Val was tempted to grab a rag her mother would’ve used for cleaning (if her mother was ever around anymore to do any of the cleaning) but thought

24 better of it and grabbed the girl a decent washcloth. Val would just have to take extra care in scrubbing the mud off of it later.

Van entered the second part of the bathroom where the girl still stood, and Val handed her the washcloth.

“Here, you can use this to scrub the mud off.”

The girl only stared at Val; her eyes were still dark, no longer reflecting any stars. Val sighed and stepped closer. Grabbing ahold of the girl’s arm, Val brought her over to the side of the tub. She dampened the washcloth under the spray of water, and with the jacket sleeve rolled up and the girl’s hand over the side of the tub, Val began scrubbing at the grey dirt. It grew thicker and more paste like with the water, but it came off, nonetheless.

“Do you see?”

“Yes,” the girl said, taking the washcloth as Val handed it to her. The grey paste began to wash away, revealing the girl’s skin underneath.

Then as the girl moved to wash her other arm, Val said “Be sure to take off the jacket and shorts when you get into the tub. And when you’re done washing the rest of the mud, you can dry yourself with this towel.”

“Yes,” the girl said again, intent on washing away the mud from in between her fingers. Val nodded and lingered in the doorway for another moment more. She stayed and watched as the girl moved the cloth further up her grey covered arm before leaving the bathroom and closing the door behind her.

Even through the door, Val could still hear the water running. As she returned to her room to gather clothes for the girl to wear, Val found herself at a loss for words. The weight of the evening finally taking its toll on her. She should’ve known better. What person in their right mind would slide into a ditch in the middle of the night and bring home the girl she finds there? Especially if the girl is covered in dirt and can’t walk or speak? Who can make light appear from her hand that burns when it touches skin? Val felt her stomach churn at the thought, and for the second time that evening since meeting the girl, Val felt herself breathless and her mind scrambled in disturbing thought.

Val did her best to shove her unforgiving thinking aside, promising herself that she’d return to it later, and went back to finding new clothes for the girl. Pajamas? Was the girl staying the night? Of course she was, she had to at this point. But how long was she going to stay here? Val hadn’t given it much thought, but quite frankly, she hadn’t given the ordeal much thought either. It had all happened so fast: sliding into the ditch, helping the girl, riding home – Val hardly had a chance to catch her breath until this very moment. What was she going to do?

She opened her closet, pulling out an old charity shirt Val’s mother had given her from back when their family still had the time to do charity work. It was a size too big, but that made it even more appealing to wear in the evening. Val matched it with another pair of gym shorts that she herself would typically wear to bed and went back to the bathroom door.

“Hey, you doing alright in there?” Val asked, giving the door a light tap.

“Yes!” the girl called back. It hadn’t even been five minutes without the girl in her sights, but Val could still hear her heart beating inside her ears.

“I have some clothes for you to put on when you’re done! I’ll leave them outside the door here for you when you’re ready!”

“Ok!”

Even just hearing some of her voice helped to calm Val down, albeit the tiniest bit.

She couldn’t help but wonder if she were doing the right thing. Of course, the girl didn’t have any other place to go, and Val didn’t even want to think about what might’ve happened if anyone else had found her in the crater. She would’ve been helpless, she couldn’t do anything –

Val had to call Brandon. He would know what to do. Or he would at least know what to say to Val to help her calm down.

She pulled her phone from her back pocket. It had cooled down by now, but it wasn’t until the device sat heavy in her hand that she remembered what happened. It wouldn’t work, it wouldn’t even turn on. Val pressed and held down the power button for longer than necessary and grew frustrated at the black, reflective screen. With a huff, she abandoned the phone on her desk and made a quick dash downstairs. Even though she and her parents were hooked up with cell phones of their own, they kept a landline in the kitchen for emergencies. It sat in its console at the furthest end of the peninsula, right where it connected to the rest of the kitchen’s counter.

She picked it up, not minding the phone’s bulkiness in her hands and watched the numbers light up beneath her fingers as she punched in the number she knew by heart.

The phone rang with the familiar dial tone as she pressed it to her ear, all the while urging

Brandon to pick up his end. She hated leaving voice mails.

“Slice of Heaven Pizzeria, Brandon speaking. How can I help you?”

“Brandon,” Val breathed, relieved. “It’s Val.”

“Oh, hey, Val. How was work? Are you ordering a pizza?” he asked casually. Before she could respond, “Why are you calling from your home phone?”

“No. Long story. When’s the earliest you can come over tomorrow?”

“Hmm, it depends. What do you need me over for?”

Val mentally kicked herself. Of course she had wanted to call Brandon to tell him what happened, but she hadn’t thought of how she’d explain it to him. How could she?

What would anyone think if you told them you might’ve found a fallen star on your way home from work and brought her back with you?

“Well, um. Something happened on my way home from work.”

“Are you ok?”

Val could’ve kicked herself again. What she hated more than useless voicemails was making Brandon worry about her for no good reason. He already had enough to worry about that didn’t even involve her.

“I’m fine,” she assured him. “I just – I think – No, I know – I found, or fell, into something.”

“What kind of something?”

Val took a breath. At least she had started the dialogue. Ignoring the growing tension she felt through the phone, she continued.

“Do you know that stretch on Seaside Ave.? The one where you can clearly see the water?”

“Yea?”

“Well, something happened there. There was all this sand on the road, and I couldn’t bike through it, so I got off my bike and I went to check it out and I found this crater – it was huge, almost caving into the entire beach – and there was this girl in the crater – she couldn’t walk or talk, I mean a little bit, but not really – and I helped her out, gave her some clothes and I brought her home and now she’s in my shower.”

Val took another breath, waiting for Brandon. She couldn’t tell if she felt better or not after telling him everything. She just felt – empty. She wasn’t sure if he had even heard everything.

“Give me a sec,” Brandon said from his end of the line, followed by a succession of banging noises. Val held the phone away from her ear to hear. From where she stood in the kitchen, she could almost hear the water still running from her bathroom upstairs. She knew from experience that it was hard to hear anything when it was set on that full of a

29 blast. And she hadn’t heard anything else from up there, but she thought nothing of it and held the phone back up to her ear.

“So, let me get this straight,” he said, his voice sounding clearer from the landline’s speaker. “You found this girl on the beach, and you brought her back to your house?”

“I found her in this crater, Brandon. She said she was from space.”

“I thought she couldn’t talk?”

“She can say a little bit. Look, I just-”

“How do you know she’s from space? Did you try calling someone? Like, I don’t know, the police?”

“I was going to!” Val whined into the phone. She knew how crazy she must have sounded, but she was feeling exasperated by it all. She didn’t know what else to do. “I gave her my phone to see if she could type something in, but she did this light thing with her hands and it kind of killed my phone, that’s why I’m calling you from the land line.”

The phone stayed silent for a moment. Val could almost hear Brandon thinking on the other end. She wondered what he was thinking. Honestly, she could hardly believe her own words coming out of her mouth right now. She licked and bit her lip to keep from speaking, from saying anything more and sounding too desperate. That would really freak

Brandon out.

“Does she glow?”

Val thought of the tendrils that appeared on her skin and how the girl had put them there. A phantom feeling briefly ghosted down her leg where they had appeared before.

Val ran a hand down her leg to drive away the feeling.

“Not exactly, she was covered in this, like, mud when I found her.”

“On the beach?”

“I don't know what it was, but she's showering it off right now.”

“You left her alone?”

“I’m not just going to watch her shower, Brandon! There’s not much harm she could do in there anyway.” Her voice sounded so confident, so sure for a moment that she almost believed what she had said herself. “Look,” Val sighed, switching the phone to her other ear. “Will you just come over and take a look at her yourself? Help me figure out what to do?”

“I can come over right now? Mom’s having me close the pizzeria tonight, but I can be there in less than an hour if you need?”

“No, it’s too late, I can’t ask you to do that.”

“Will you be – alright? With just you and this girl at your house?”

“I’ll be fine, my dad’s home.”

Brandon stayed silent for a moment. Val knew what he was probably thinking right now. They both knew her dad wouldn’t be much of help with anything, but he was probably better than nothing. Even so, Brandon knew better than to push Val. 31

“I’ll be there first thing in the morning,” he said. Even as casual as it was, Val found comfort in his voice. “I’ll be over before my first shift.”

“Thank you,” she sighed. A sliver of rational thought came back to her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to call the pizzeria, I just – I needed to talk – I just wanted to tell you-”

“No it’s ok,” he said, this time reassuring her with his words. “I’m just glad you’re ok.”

Val couldn’t help the small smile that came to her face. It was getting to be rather late in the evening, and the two of them had just worked that day, Brandon still doing so, but she felt so much more calmed having heard his voice. He believed her, to some extent, and that was all that she could ask of him. All she had to do was survive the night alone with the star, and then tomorrow, the two of them could work things out together. Maybe they could send the girl back into space, maybe even just as easily as she had fallen from it, if that were possible.

It was only then, with Brandon on the other end of the line, assuring her of everything, that made Val alright again. For the first time that night, Val felt she could relax, take a breath, and just listen to the phone’s silence. It was the most normal thing to happen to her thus far that evening.

The two stayed on the phone for a few minutes more, enjoying each other’s company.

It had been a while since Val had called Brandon actually needing something, and Val was sure that Brandon liked the feeling of being needed. And Val liked that she could

32 have Brandon to rely on. He was the best kind of friend that she could have ever asked for.

The sound of a car door slamming broke Val from her silent trance. Then came the sound of a car’s lock fob.

Her mom was home.

“Brandon, I have to go. I think my mom's home,” she said, breaking the silence on the phone.

“You going to tell her?”

“Not if I don't have to. See you tomorrow?”

“See you tomorrow.”

Val hung up the phone before she could hear Brandon’s goodbye and dropped the landline back into its slot just as her mother walked in through the front door.

Chapter 4

Most children rushed to complete their chores before their parents returned home. Val began hers once her mother arrived, if only to share the space with her for a few minutes.

If Val didn’t, then she would hardly see her mother.

Val greeted her mom as she entered the kitchen. Her mother stood tall in the center of the kitchen, a pure image of immaculate integrity. Even after a 10-hour shift sorting through paperwork and patient sheets at the local hospital, her mother’s hair was still styled in perfect ringlet curls and makeup, albeit minimal, remained un-smeared. The only indicator of her age were the faded dark circles beneath her eyes and the early onset wrinkles of her overworked hands. Her mother plopped her work bag onto the counter and proceeded to empty it of used Tupperware containers, which she dumped heartily into the sink, and crumbled granola bar wrappers that went straight into the trash.

Thus began the silent dance they performed on the nights her mother was home.

Around the small kitchen, the two would move as if they were the same side of a different magnet, repelling against one another; they moved without a single touch, often not a single glance. They had both become so good at it that they could move about while hardly noticing that the other was even there.

“Did you eat dinner?”

Her mother might ask; it was a break from the silence, but not from the distance.

“I ate at work. Mrs. Elrich gave me some of her apple slices and leftover casserole.”

“You should give her something to thank her.” 34

Often their conversations would lull back into silence. Her mom might recount the events of her day if she noted anything worth mentioning; or if Val were in school, she would ask about her classes. But Val wouldn't say much, just what she was learning.

She'd keep it short, knowing too well that her mom had far too much on her mind to offer

Val anymore space that she already occupied. And Val had learned from the many years of trying, that gaining her mom's full attention was never possible, unless it was life threatening.

A few minutes after their conversation had died, Val would sidle up to her room, followed by her mother not too longer after. And that would be the end to their evening.

But tonight, Val noticed a slight change to her mother’s routine. Instead of carrying out the usual clean-prep-store-food-for-tomorrow-routine, she did a clean-prep-put-new- food-back-into-her-work-bag routine. To Val’s surprise, the sight unsettled her.

“Are you going back to work tonight?”

Val’s work of cleaning the dishes had come to a full stop. Her mother’s work, however, continued with an unstoppable force, as if nothing had phased her.

“I picked up an extra shift tonight.”

Of course she had. If she could, Val was certain, that her mom would pick up an extra shift every night.

“Aren't you limited on how many you can take?”

“Yes, but that’s why if I leave out of here soon, I’ll have a few hours to sleep.” Her mom shoved the last of her new, fully packed Tupperware containers into her bag and slung it over her shoulder one again. She stepped into Val's space where her body was still frozen and dropped a light kiss to Val's head. “Bye, sweetie. I'll be home late tomorrow.”

Val watched as her mom moved to leave the room. She couldn't help how her heart clenched at the sight, how much she missed her mom the most in these moments, the ones where she watched her leave.

“Mom?" She called after her; a last-ditch effort to call her back, to ask her to stay.

“Yes, mija?" Her mother answered, turning back to look at Val. For a moment, just a moment, Val had her attention. Her heart hurt even more knowing that she was keeping her mom from doing so much more, that she was holding her mother back.

“Can I – have a friend stay over tonight?”

“Claro,” her mother adjusted the bag strap on her shoulder. “But if Brandon’s staying over, remember that he’s sleeping on the couch.”

“Actually, mamá, it’s not Brandon.”

Val should have expected the surprise that came to her mother’s face. She adjusted the bag on her shoulder again, probably already sore from working for so long.

“Oh,” she said. “Who is she?”

“A friend from school.” The lie rolled easily off of Val’s tongue, not that she hadn’t lied to her parents before. She didn’t like making a habit out of it, but she thought it better than to try and explain to her mother what had happened to her that night when she was just about to walk out the door.

“I would like to meet her sometime.” The tight smile that followed her mom’s sentiment made Val’s stomach twist. They both knew how rare it was for Val to have a friend outside of Brandon. They both knew how rarer, still, it was for Val’s mom to meet any of the others.

Val returned the tight smile that both of them had grown to wear so well.

“Of course.”

Val followed her mother to the front door, the conclusion to their alternative swing.

While she upset at having to watch her mom leave again so soon, Val was relieved to have her mother go. At the very least it meant less of a chance of the girl running into either of her parents, and Val had worried more so about her mother happening upon the discovery than her father.

Before walking entirely out of the front door, Val’s mother turned around last minute, the doorknob just secured in her hand. She gave Val one last smile, something softer, something apologetic. It made Val’s stomach churn again at the sight and she almost felt sorry for lying to her.

“Not too late tonight, ok? Necessitas dormir.”

“Sí, lo sé,” Val said. Her mother smiled at her again.

Her mom never meant to, but the door always seemed to slam shut behind her every time she left the house; and this time was no different. And every time the sound made

Val jump, as if the sound reverberated in her bones once her mom left. It always served as a jerking reminder that her mom was gone and that she was alone.

With shaking hands, Val locked the front door and waited until she heard the car peel out of the driveway to turn off the front porch light. With a slow exhalation, she returned to the kitchen. She had left the dishwasher open, awaiting to be emptied and filled back up again. Val sighed and looked back to the sink, overflowing with her parents’ dishes from the day.

Somehow the menial task looked that much more daunting, and Val was already exhausted from the sight.

Chapter 5

Val returned upstairs. She went to the linen closet at the landing to pull out an extra sheet and some blankets and hauled them all into her arms back to her room. Her family didn’t have a guest bed for the girl to use, nor was Val prepared to spend another night on the couch downstairs even to keep an eye on her there. No, the floor of her room would have to do.

When she opened the door to her room, she nearly dropped the bundle to the ground.

The girl stood in the middle of her room, bright, almost blindingly golden hair dripping onto the charity shirt Val had given her. The shorts may have been pulled up a little too high, and Val couldn’t help but check out how well she looked in them. From what Val could see in the dimness of her room and the flooding of the bathroom’s light, there wasn’t a trace of the mud left on her.

Val must’ve stood for too long – she couldn’t help it; the girl was enrapturing – because the girl turned and stared back. And the star-eyes shined brighter in the room than when they were outside. Val could’ve stayed there all night, mapping out those eyes, but her body acted for her. She stepped farther into the room and dropped the blankets to the floor. Flicking on her beside lamp, Val immediately set to making a mini makeshift bed. She didn’t lift her head, determined to remain focused on her work, but she could feel the star-eyes watching. Val should have felt more unsettled by the watchful eyes.

This was a stranger, someone she had met not two hours ago after all, and yet – she was oddly ok with it.

“I’m just making a bed for you here. I don’t have anywhere else you can sleep.” With the covers made, Val stood to admire her handiwork. “I hope that’s alright?”

She chanced a glance at the girl. She’d just caught the star-eyes as they moved to the neatly piled blankets before them.

“Yes,” she said.

Val wanted to say more, to prod the girl about what she knew – she probably knew a lot more about Earth than what Val had been giving her credit for, which wasn’t much, by any means. Val would be happy just to know how the girl felt right now. She seemed more aware of herself now and what was around her. She didn’t have that dazed look about her. Instead, her attention went from the bed on the floor to the posters taped to

Val’s bedroom walls. There weren’t many, Val had recently gone through a purge of her things, anything that didn’t hold value to her, or anything that brought forth unpleasant memories, found a new home in her trashcan.

One of the two posters that remained on the wall above her dresser pictured a woman stood in a dark blue dress against an even darker background. The dress looked as though diamonds dotted the fabric, creating a slight difference to the darkness about her. As she held onto the top of her violin, her hands were clasped in front of her, as though in prayer. She was looking up at the sky, as if she were waiting to hear back from the stars.

The second and only other poster in her room, this one taped above her desk directly opposite the violinist, was a poster of the constellations. She’d had the poster since she was a child, and it was more of a children’s version, the constellations cartoonishly drawn

40 with big plot points to place the stars, and thick, dramatic lines to connect them. The ones depicted with human characters, such as Aquarius, Gemini, and Orion, had extra detailing to accentuate their features.

To keep the poster to a manageable size, the images were all clustered together, not entirely accurate in their placements, but Val loved it all the same. Although she had since moved on from the childish replications to mapping out the stars herself, she kept the poster as a reminder of where she’d started and where she had once dreamed to go.

Both posters, bittersweet in their own sense, were opposite each other in Val’s room.

The beautiful woman and her violin were taped above Val’s dresser; across from her, above Val’s desk, were the constellations. The two sides of Val’s self. She wondered, briefly, the thought instantly popping into her head, but for a mere moment, if she were that simple, so easy to read.

“My mom actually gave me that poster,” Val began to explain, pointing to the one with the violinist. “It was for some junior competition I won while I was in middle school.”

The girl looked over at her. Pointing to the poster, she asked, “You?” An involuntary chuckle escaped Val’s lips before she could coherently respond.

“No, that’s not me, but I’m sure my mom wishes it was. No, that’s actually my mom’s favorite artist. I don’t remember her name, but she was the first female Argentine violinist to tour around the world. My mom wanted to be just like her, but nona – my grandma – said no. My grandparents wanted her to become a doctor because they wanted

41 one in the family. They offered to pay for everything for her med school, but if she went for music, my mom had to pay for herself. So, my mom became a doctor. She then tried to get me into music – she wanted me to go to Julliard and fill up music halls and play concerts like she hadn’t been able to, but,” Val shrugged.

“It’s just not what I want to do anymore. After my dad bought me a telescope, music just didn’t seem that important or interesting anymore. It just doesn’t feel the same to me as it had been, but I don’t think it ever really was mine to begin with,” she said, her voice growing softer. “Sometimes I wonder if my mom resents me for giving up on her dream.”

Val stopped. She didn’t know what made her confess all of that all at once. She hadn’t even told Brandon before how she felt about her mom and her music. Sure, Val still loved the violin, could still play it if she tried, but she knew it would be too much for her. Her mom never talked to her about music after that. Her medical practices became too important, but Val kept the poster regardless, partially for the aesthetics, partially as a reminder of those times when they did talk about music, when her mother taught her to play and when they played together.

She looked to the girl only to find she had gone back to gazing up at the woman who prayed to the stars. The star’s face remained stoic, unphased by the breathtaking image.

As Val looked longer, she noticed how the star-eyes moved; not the irises themselves, but the stars within them danced as they took in every inch of the woman before them.

Val wanted to say something, do anything, to break the girl from her trance. What had the girl thought about what Val said? Val blushed at the thought of her now knowing

42 something no one else knew. Why had she told her? There was something about the moment that seemed right, it almost felt perfect, but it still shook her up. Val took advantage of the silent moment to run to the bathroom and change, and to hopefully regain some semblance of composure. So, she grabbed some clothes from her dresser drawers, a tank top and a pair of comfy pants, and slipped into the bathroom.

She hadn’t expected to find anything when she entered the bathroom; she honestly hadn’t thought anything would happen, but the sight of the tub nearly made her drop her clothes.

The tub was a mess.

It looked as though hardly any of the mud had even gotten close to the drain, let alone gone through it. Every inch of the tub was covered, as though the tub itself were made from this substance. Val thought herself lucky that it hadn’t gotten splattered onto the walls or ceiling, or that would’ve just made more of a mess to clean up. As she drew nearer, however, Val realized something odd. Even in the bathroom’s low lighting, spots in the mud seemed to shine, as though it were made of glitter or the dust of a cut diamond. She had no idea what any of it was because it surely wasn’t just mud, but the sight was mesmerizing. It almost looked as though it were galaxies, like little stars shifting with the water along the bottom of her tub, particularly at the end farthest from the drain where a puddle had collected. The mud swirled in the pool, the particles and glitter moving together, the spectacle practically hypnotizing.

She pulled herself out of it – of course mud wasn’t a mass of different galaxies, all moving together at the bottom of her tub. What was she thinking?

She dropped her clothes onto the closed toilet seat and reached for the shower head, still warm from its recent use. Val didn’t think this would have been her plans on a

Thursday night, but she went to work washing away the rest of the mud. Amongst the congealing mess near the drain, Val found the washcloth she’d given to the girl. It was hardly recognizable; the mud, or whatever the gray substance really was, stuck to every fiber of it, no matter how much Val ran the water over it or pinched at the fabric, hoping to get at least some of the mud off it. She rinsed and rung it and rung it and rung it, but she just couldn’t seem to get any of it out. Each time gave way to a new bout of anger flaring at her temples, her knuckles turning white each time she went to work at it.

Then, Val sighed, and sat down on the bathroom floor. She was too tired for this. Her efforts proved fruitless, and seeing as cleaning it became a lost cause, she tossed the ruined cloth into the nearest trash can. The tub proved much easier to work, though. With the washcloth removed from the drain, the gray mud easily went down the drain, and Val made quick work of washing the rest all away.

Once satisfied, Val stood and returned the shower head to its rightful place. To her relief, the girl had left her jacket and shorts outside of the tub. Whatever gray matter Val found on them easily crumbled away beneath her fingertips. Val sighed, relieved as she shook off as much of the gray stuff off her clothes and into the tub before throwing the articles into the dirty laundry hamper stationed in the other half of the bathroom.

She finally changed after that, and immediately felt the relief of peeling off her work clothes from the day and dawning her pajamas. She washed and dried her face, then grabbed her face moisturizer to bring out with her. When she left the bathroom, she found the girl standing at the foot of her bed, staring out the window.

The girl turned when she heard Val exit the bathroom. The little lights of her eyes – stars, weren’t they? – didn’t shine as brightly as they had before. Probably from the low lighting, Val figured, and she saw what she thought was a smile come to the girl’s face.

Val cast her glance away; though not as bright as they had been, Val felt bashful under the star-eye’s blatant gaze. She did her best to ignore them as she went and crawled into bed, under the covers.

Still not looking up at the star, she took some lotion from the bottle and began to rub some onto her face. This brought the girl closer to Val’s, her eyes wide. Val almost had to lean back in her bed to keep form brushing against her. The girl pointed at Val’s face.

“That?”

“This?” Val’s hand stopped just at the apple of her cheek. “This is moisturizer. You put it on your face after you’ve washed it.”

The girl sat down on the bed opposite of Val and then pointed to her own face.

“Me?”

“You want to try some?”

The girl nodded and held out her hand. Val did her best to give the girl the same amount she’d give herself and went back to rubbing some onto the missed spots on her face. She didn’t know exactly what she expected, but the girl didn’t move. Her eyes flickered from Val’s face down to the dollop in her hand, then back up again. Her eyes, now dull in this lighting, looked up almost pleading.

“Do you not know how to apply it?” Val asked, trying her beset not to sound condescending. The girl answered by looking down at her hand again. “Here, watch me. I usually start with my forehead.”

Val demonstrated for the girl her usual evening moisturizer routine. It was nothing special, it was just moisturizer, but the way the girl looked at her, Val thought she was sharing with her a secret of the universe or something. There was something about the way the girl watched Val that made her feel warm, comforted in a way. The pull to be closer was hardly there anymore. Val could still feel some extent of it, but it felt more subdued as they sat near each other on the bed.

“And then I usually just go to bed after it’s absorbed into my skin.”

The girl patted her check, as if to check her skin were dry, then pointed down to the blankets on the floor.

“Yes, that’s your bed for tonight. I would have gone with the couches downstairs, but my dad has an early morning tomorrow, and I don’t want him to wake us up.” It wasn’t entirely a lie. Her dad would have to get up early tomorrow, Val was sure, but she didn’t want to risk him catching the girl doing anything with her light-up hands. That, and Val

46 was in no mood to sleep on the couch. She still felt bad, however true her words were.

She looked up to see if the girl had caught her in her fib, but instead found her already on the floor, in her bed.

Val gazed down upon the girl in the makeshift bed on her bedroom floor. Her eyes traveled about the room, taking everything in from the new perspective, but they never strayed too far from Val, always ready to uptake a new movement. Even at the sight of the girl, Val still couldn’t fully wrap her mind around everything that had happened that night: the crater, the light tendrils, the mud made of diamonds – her phone, her confession. Val closed her eyes as tight as she could and willed herself to wake up from the dream she’d found herself in. Even as childish as it was, it had to be the only explanation to what was going on. But when she opened her eyes, she found the girl gazing up at her, but no more stars in her eyes.

She should have felt unnerved, uneasy by the star’s constant watching, especially now in this quiet moment – What could she possibly have to look at other than Val’s tired face? – but oddly enough, Val felt as though they were both transfixed by one another, for she was studying the girl as much as the girl was studying her. And maybe, Val thought, they were both simply learning from each other about one another; of course, maybe the girl more so in this instance, but she was still learning about Earth and how to act as a human before she could learn about Val as a person. But maybe in the process of it all, she could find out, and maybe, Val, too, could discover more about this star. Why did she come to Earth? How did she get here? but most importantly, who was she?

Val wanted to learn everything that she could, as much as she could, about this girl, but the discoveries would have to wait until morning. Sleep was quickly overcoming her, and she had less than half a mind to sleep with the lights on.

“Goodnight,” she said, reaching over to turn out the lamp on her bedside table.

And from the stillness of her darkened room, she heard the faintest whisper of a

“Goodnight” returned.

Chapter 6

Val work up the next morning with a brain splitting migraine. Although the blinds were closed and most of Val's dark hair covered her face in a tangled sleeping mask, the room was far too bright. She tried turning away from the window, pulling the covers over her head in some faint hope that she could return to sleep. At that point, however, her migraine had grown too blindingly painful that even if she managed to fall back to sleep, she would not find refuge from its lashings.

One right after the other, each day seemed to blur with the rest, like the edges of her vision when her headaches were most unbearable. They grew progressively worse every day to the point where pain killers couldn’t completely clear the fog and ease the pain.

Val had lived with them for so long that she couldn’t remember a time when she didn’t feel like busting her head in with a cleaver.

She didn’t bother to grab her phone to check the time. She didn’t need it to tell her that it was morning, and that both her parents were probably off at work by now. The light from her phone would’ve bothered her too much anyway, and her eyes were to focus on much of anything anyway. Wait – her phone.

Val groaned as she forced herself up to sit. Through the slits of her eyes she peered over to her side table. No phone in sight. She forced herself up further, muttering a curse at herself beneath her breath for not grabbing a glass of water the night prior – at least then she could’ve taken something for her head. She sat at the edge of her bed, blinking her eyes clear and rubbing the pressure point at her temples. In the faintly lit room, her

49 eyes immediately went to the floor, onto the makeshift bed with its pillow turned over and its covers askew, empty. Then she remembered.

The crater. The mud. The girl – the girl, where was the girl?

Panic spiked in Val’s heart and the headache suddenly became an afterthought. Val had found the star, saved her from the smoking pit the night before. Where could she possibly have gone? Val racked her mind. Hadn’t she told the girl to stay put until morning? Had she forgotten like the glass of water? She just hadn’t thought of it, but now

– Val felt sicker than she had before. The room felt as though it were turning, and Val thought that she might have to lay back down. Sighing, she leaned her head against the wall, thoughts ceaselessly whirling around her head. She really hoped that her parents were gone for the day, whatever time it was.

Val only opened her eyes when her mind had still, for the most part, and the room no longer had the spinning-top quality. Her eyes had adjusted to the light by now; looking around the room didn’t feel so terrible. The makeshift bed still laid haphazardly on the floor, and atop her desk Val spotted her phone. Of course, her phone was still broken. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head at the sight of it, a momentary feeling of dread washing over her, thinking of the prospect of trying to explain that to her parents.

She lost the battery? It fell in the toilet? Brandon ran over it with his car? Even in the delirious state of her mind she could think of a few excuses that could work, she just hated the idea of putting her parents in the situation of buying her a new one. They

50 wouldn’t be able to afford it right now. She rolled her head to the side to look out through the crack in the blinds and–

There, in the middle of her back yard, she saw the top of a blond head. The girl.

Val jumped for the strings to her blinds, revealing the girl below. She stood barefoot in the oversized shirt Val lent her the night before. Her golden hair, a stark contrast to the garden around her, made Val’s eyes drawn to her. Before Val could stand from the bed, the girl began to move. She walked further into Val’s backyard, right to the wooden fence where Val’s mother had planted a row of leafy bushes to decorate the fence. Her mother loved those plants, she had talked about them for months before she planted them, and even then, it took more than a year for the bushes grow to their fullest.

Val watched the girl in utter fascination as she moved forward and touched one of the bushes. From her fingers a sickly brown bloomed onto the leaf and, like a disease, it spread until the plant withered and fell dead at the feet of the girl. Val could only stare, wondering what she had just witnessed. Slowly, with her eyes still on the girl outside, Val slid off her bed and to her feet. She ran from her room; despite the lag in her bones and the fog on her senses, she wasted no time meeting the girl outside.

Her feet pounded down the stairs as she went, and she threw aside the slider on her way out into the backyard. She stopped before the fallen plant, dropping to her knees.

“What did you do?” she exclaimed. The girl hadn’t looked back at Val when she opened the sliding back door and Val was too stunned by the sight before her to look

51 back for the girl’s expression. With a nervous hand, Val reached out to touch one of the wrinkled leaves, but it crumbled into dust beneath the lightest brush of her fingertips.

“You’ve killed it,” Val gasped.

The girl said nothing. Val turned back to her. She hadn’t moved. She stared at Val with wide, examining eyes as if she were only observing Val’s actions, her movements.

She stood so still, Val didn’t even think she was breathing.

“What did you do?” Val asked again, just about pleading at this point. When the expression on the girl’s face didn't changed, Val sighed and turned back to the plant laying in a pile of its own dead leaves. The girl, the plant; Val couldn’t figure out how she had done this to an entire bush, let alone why she had in the first place. It was too much for Val to handle in one morning. She didn’t even have breakfast yet.

As Val moved to get back to her feet, the girl spoke.

“Energy, its energy,” she said, speaking in a nasally tone. Val turned and watched as the girl took another breath and spoke again with more clarity. “I have its energy.”

Val gaped at her. “You took its energy?”

She stared at Val a moment, then nodded. “I took, I took, I took,” she said, repeating the words over and over, as if testing how they sounded.

“How did you do that?” Val asked when she had stopped chanting.

“From the plant?” the girl asked, and her voice sounded slightly off to Val. She sat, shocked, staring up at the girl. It was only the night before that she could hardly even say a full word, and now she was speaking in near complete sentences.

Val nodded to the girl’s previous question, still squatting on the ground. She watched as the girl went to the second bush in the line along the fence and reached for one of its protruding leaves. With a small piece between her fingertips, her hand began to glow. It started where her fingers touched the leaf, a faint glow that only grew larger and brighter the longer the contact remained. Soon her whole hand began to glow with tiny orbs of light traveling from her fingertips, through the veins in her hand, down her wrist and dispersing into the length of her arm.

Val fell back onto the ground, taken aback by the scene unfolding in front of her. As the light continued down the girl’s arm, the plant began to suffer. It started at the stem; the thickest part, at the base near the roots, turned a dark brown. The deadly color moved through the rest of the plant. The leaves shriveled and curled in on themselves. Some of the smaller stems even broke off from the rest of the plant. In a matter of seconds, the once beautiful bush turned into a pitiful brown mass on the ground. The plant looked as though all of its life had been sucked out of, and just by the touch of the girl’s hand. And the girl appeared to think nothing of it, merely taking a step back from her work and looking over to Val.

“Did you see that?”

“Wow," Val breathed, “you did that. How did you do that?”

For the first time, the girl smiled. Although the light had disappeared the moment she took her hand away from the plant, the girl still seemed to have this sense of illuminance about her, as if the plant’s life, it's energy, were still settling within her.

The girl moved again before Val could speak. She went to the next plant and tucked one of its leaves between her fingers. Again, the light came from the point where her finger touched the plant, and the same process began.

“No!” Val rushed toward her and grabbed her hand, though Val had to immediately wrench her had back the second she pulled the girl’s hand off the leaf; the illuminated skin burned like the bulb of a lamp left on for too long. But Val’s action had interrupted the flow of light, and with nothing else to take from, the light streamed down the rest of the girl’s arm until it gradually disappeared. The girl stared at Val with wide eyes, her hand still hung in midair.

“You can't take anymore from these plants, they’re not for you to take energy from.”

Confusion turned to understanding on the girl’s face, and her hand fell to her side.

“Ok,” she said.

Val rubbed the skin of her hand that had been burned. It didn’t hurt so much now, not nearly as much as she had expected. If anything, she could hardly tell that the girl had hurt her at all. She glanced from the girl over to the piles of dead leaves and thought for a moment.

“Can you put the energy back?” Val asked. If it was possible for the girl to take what she had called the plant’s energy, then surely, she could put it back. If the girl restored the bushes back to what they were, then maybe Val wouldn’t have to come up with a crazy excuse to tell her mom as to why only two of her innumerable bushes disintegrated out of nowhere.

“I can try,” she said, stepping forward and kneeling beside Val. There was something about the girl sitting so close to Val that made her feel weird, just a bit different somehow. Val had felt it the night before, too, as they rode on the bike and when they sat on Val’s bed together. Gravity felt altered, almost shifted somehow. Although the girl wasn’t so close as to touch, Val could feel the girl’s presence beside her, almost like they’d be pressed too close together, almost suffocated, if they moved closer. The pressure made Val’s head spin, and she briefly wondered how she was able to be so close to her before for so long.

Val shrugged off the feeling and blamed it on the morning heat and the headache that she hadn’t recovered from. Instead, she forced herself to pay attention to the girl. She reached out to one of the dead leaves, only it didn't disintegrate beneath her touch like it had with Val. The light came back. From her shoulder underneath the shirt, all the way down her arm and to the tips her fingers, her veins warmed to a glow that flowed into the plant, the stream of light returning as quick and bright as before. Like the plagued brown from before, a vibrant green exploded from the leaf and traveled to the rest of the plant. It grew and grew, lively and green. The girl stood to her feet, following the plant’s growth, her finger still on the leaf. Before Val could even blink, the bush returned to its thriving

55 self. But the Girl, nor the plant, stopped there. She allowed the light to flow until the bush towered over the two of them. Before, the bush merely decorated the fence’s face; now with its collection of new growth, Val couldn’t even see the fence through the interchanging leaves.

The girl let go of the leaf, allowing it to fall back into place amongst the others, and she turned to gaze down at Val.

“Good?”

“Good?” Val laughed, breathy and exhausted. “It's amazing, I – I don't know – how did you know you could do that?”

The smile fell from the girl’s face. Her face clouded over as her eyes darted to the ground, as if searching for something – for what, exactly, Val didn’t know exactly, but she wasn’t about to sit there and wait. At any other time, she would have – Val was fascinated with the girl; she had learned to speak so quickly. Had she known this whole time? And the plants, the bush before her, how had she done it? Almost instantaneously and on command too. Had she known all along that she could do it? Could she do it to every living thing, plants, animals, humans? To what extent did this light, this power of energy transfer go? Val wanted desperately to know, to know everything about the girl, but she couldn’t do it now. Her heart hammered in her chest, not quite relieved from her initial shock, and the pounding and craze only made her head worse. She couldn’t handle the girl alone, not like this.

She ran a quick hand through her hair, absentmindedly thinking of throwing it up in a bun. Her messy hair was the last thing she needed to deal with today. Val took a breath, gathering herself and her voice back together.

“I’m going inside to make a phone call. Don’t take from anything else while I'm gone, ok?” Val waited a long moment before she heard a raspy “Ok” from the girl. She still didn’t look up, but Val nodded, taking it as a sign she could leave, and continued to back away, keeping the girl in her sight at all times, until she reached the house.

She went straight to the kitchen, the phone within her hands in an instant. Without even thinking, Val keyed in Brandon’s cell number. With the phone pressed to her ear, she turned to keep her eyes on the girl as she traipsed around in the backyard, her head still turned downward as if in thought. Val kept a hand around her midsection as she watched the girl. She felt uneasy, waiting for Brandon’s voice.

He picked up on the second ring.

“Good morning, Sunshine,” he said in his extra cheery morning voice. Normally it would’ve gotten on Val’s nerves, and she would have urged him to knock it off, insisting that no one could possibly be as cheery as he sounded in the morning. But she didn’t have time for their usual petty banter, and she was sure Brandon could tell from the sound of her own voice.

“How fast can you get here?” she asked.

“I’m less than five minutes away, why? Did something happen? Are you alright?”

Her stomach churned at his sudden change of tone. She hated making him worry, but this was serious.

“Yes I’m fine,” she assured him. “I just watched that girl kill two of my mom's plants, then brought one of them back to life."

“She did what? How'd she do all that?”

“I don't know, she just touched it and light started coming from her hands,” Val said, unconsciously flailing her free hand as she spoke. Val brought her attention back to the girl outside. She still stalked around the backyard, paying particularly close attention to the potted plants strewn about the yard. As she moved about the garden, she had slowly made her way back to the couple of bushes Val has failed to save. She watched the girl move closer and kneel before what remained of the other plants she had taken energy from. For a split second, Val prepared to launch herself from behind the counter and run to the backyard as she had done before, but the girl merely sat in front of the hedge. Then she stood. As she had done with the other bush, she brought the others back to life. The transformation seemed even more unreal the second time around as they grew fuller, greener, than their counterparts down the row. Val almost couldn’t believe her eyes.

“Brandon you have to get here.”

“I’m on it,” he said into the receiver, his voice somehow louder. “Have you tried talking to her again? Has she said anything?”

“It comes and goes,” Val sighed, unconsciously tugging at the end of a strand of hair.

“She’s said more this morning than she did last night though, so it’s a start.” 58

“Maybe we can get her to talk today, get some answers on why she’s here and all that.”

“We can try.”

As with the night before, the two sat silently on the phone together, and Val, again, found comfort in that. It wouldn’t be long, she assured herself as she watched the girl from within the house. The girl had remained still after reviving both bushes, so still that

Val had to blink a few times just to be sure she wasn’t seeing things. But no, she saw correctly, the girl faced the bushed, motionless, as though she were a board apart of the fence that lined the yard.

The sound of Brandon’s voice brought Val back to the inside of the house.

“Driveway,”

“Ok,” Val said, hanging up the phone and dropping it back into place. By the time she reached the front door, she heard a car door close from the other side. She opened it to find Brandon walking up the stoop.

“Hey,” he breathed, pulling her into a hug. Val noted his red collared shirt and black pants, already dressed for work. He couldn’t stay long, Val reminded herself. Maybe just a few minutes was long enough, just enough for Val to regain her bearings.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, pulling back. “Besides everything that's happened,

I mean.”

“Fine, just a little shaken up is all,” Val said, pulling herself away as well.

“You have anything for breakfast?”

She shook her head, turning to lead him through the house.

“Didn’t get a chance.”

“Val,” he started, in his other annoying voice that reminded Val of a teacher’s scolding.

“It’s Friday, my mom probably left something in the fridge for me. But it’s not that important right now, Brandon.” She stopped before the slider and looked back at him before opening it. She watched as his eyes widened as he looked out.

“I have a star in my backyard.”

Chapter 7

The pair walked out to her, standing before the freshly regrown bushes. The one she had revived in front of Val stood in its leafy luster, towering above them and above the fence behind it. The second and third ones, now that Val had a closer look at them, were about as tall as the other, but something about them set them apart. Their leaves held more vibrancy in their veins and were far larger and more in number than any other bush along the fence, including the first.

“Does she have a name?” Brandon asked when they first set out.

“Haven’t gotten that far with her yet. She can barely talk, remember?”

Brandon nodded, acknowledging this, but his face remained stern. His thinking face,

Val determined, but he was right. Among the things they needed to learn about her, of the many questions they needed to ask and have answered was one so simple: what was her name? Val mentally kicked herself for not having thought of asking her sooner, it should have been the first thing! But remembering the night before in the brief flashes her sluggish mind would allow, even if she had asked, the girl couldn’t possibly have answered. She barely spoke a sentence this morning, let alone a full word last night.

The girl turned to face them as they approached, her face blank, unreadable; her eyes dull, void of any light, any stars.

“Hey,” Val began, hating the pause after the word where the girl’s name should have gone. “I want you to meet Brandon. He's a good friend of mine.”

The girl’s eyes dragged themselves over from Val to stare at Brandon, her expression never changing. Brandon, as friendly as he was, didn’t falter. He smiled politely and held out his hand to her.

“It’s nice to meet you,” He greeted. “Val’s told me a little bit about you, but maybe the three of us can work to get to know each other a little better.”

The girl said nothing. Brandon hand remained suspended in the space between them for a time until it became apparent that she wouldn’t return the gesture. Yet again,

Brandon was unphased by the unfriendliness. His smile intact, he continued onward with his introduction.

“Val told me that she didn’t have any breakfast this morning. Safe to assume you haven’t had any either, am I right?” Brandon allowed for the briefest of pauses to pass, unsure if the girl would respond now. When none came, he continued as though he had received one. “Well then, let’s all go inside and get something to eat! I know Val’s mom probably left something in the fridge for her, but if there’s anything else you’d like to have, I’m sure I can figure out how to make it.”

Val spoke only to continue the dialogue amongst the group, making up for the girl’s silence.

“That’s a great idea!” She offered. To the star she said, “C’mon, let’s go inside.”

The pair turned back to go inside the house. They moved slowly, waiting for the girl to catch up with them, but so far, she had made no move to do so. Val briefly wondered as she opened the slider for herself and Brandon if the girl had understood them at all. 62

She acted so differently now with Brandon here. It couldn’t have been him being there, could it? She’d been so lively before when she tampered with the plants. What changed?

What caused her to change so much in that short span of time?

“I thought you said she could talk?” Brandon asked as he brushed past Val to go inside the house. She spoke after him, her words following him inside.

“She can,” Val insisted. “She was earlier, before you got here.”

He glanced back at her with a look that held the same questions Val thought to herself. She could only shrug as her response.

Val glanced behind her, back to the garden, when she heard a sound. To her surprise and Brandon’s relief the girl walked towards them on shuffling feet, just making a step large enough to enter the home. Val almost felt the urge to reach out and help her inside; she would have, too, if Brandon hadn’t beat her to it. He reached out his hand again, this time taking the girl’s in it, and tucking it round his arm. He led the slow girl towards the kitchen, his aid making the trek faster than it would have been.

He left her by the bar stools, gesturing for her to take a seat, as he walked round into the kitchen. He sauntered about the room with a sense of grade and confidence one would have within their own home. Val watched as he went, closing the slider behind her and coming up to the girl. They stood awkwardly together, as Brandon headed for the fridge.

“Huh, I’m only seeing some eggs, maybe a few things to go with them,” his voice faded with the last words until he paused for a moment, shuffling some containers around within the fridge. 63

“Eggs are fine,” Val surmised, rubbing at her forehead. The pain she had felt earlier that morning had returned. She felt lightheaded, unstable. Maybe some food would be good for her, but she felt almost too nauseous to even think about eating.

“Scrambled eggs it is!” he exclaimed, slamming the fridge closed as Val made her way to the couch.

“Wake me when the foods ready.” She heard a few more banging noises coming from the kitchen: a pan she could tell for sure, a glass mixing bowl with a whisk whirling round inside of it, and a cutting board with a knife on top, all laid out on the counter.

In her haze, she didn’t know whether to be impressed or concerned about Brandon’s ability to effortlessly find everything he needed. But then she heard his voice, calling out to ask if she were ok. Yes, she was, she heard herself assure him. By now she had reached the couch and lay face down, her cheek squished into one of the cushions. She just needed to rest. She didn’t know if she had said it, but it must’ve been enough for the sounds in the kitchen continued. All the activity of the morning, the running down the stairs, the whole plant fiasco outside, was slowly catching up to her. If she has taken her medication, then maybe her headache wouldn’t be bothering her so much now, but then her stomach - she still hadn’t eaten, and any medication she took now wouldn’t be a good idea. In her daze, she weighed the pros and cons of a headache over a stomachache, but she couldn’t figure which one she preferred to suffer. Both attacked her now, making it particularly difficult to think, but she decided then, as she allowed herself to sink deeper into the well-worn cushions, that she would have preferred one or the other, so long as she didn’t have to deal with them both at once. 64

From the kitchen came more sounds. Vegetables chopped to pieces on the cutting board, eggs pulverized with the whisk, all serving as perfect white noise to back Val’s internal debate. She felt herself lulling closer towards sleep as Brandon sprayed the pan with an oil mist and poured the eggs into it. The sizzling sound of eggs hitting the pan tantalized Val’s ear as further she fell; not quite asleep, but far enough that it would take her a while to wake back up again. Even so, she found herself dreaming, more of a daydream, back to when things were normal.

Not the new normal that took Val weeks to become accustomed to, but the old normal. The time before when her parents had the time to be around more, when they didn’t have to work extra hours to make ends meet, when Val only had school to worry about and not if some experimental treatment would work on her or not. Back when Val’s parents comforted her more than she did them. She missed when things in her life were actually normal.

She let herself drift into the daydream to the point it almost felt real. From the kitchen, she heard her dad puttering about and making breakfast. Upstairs, her mother was still waking up, recovering from a late shift that she took so she could be home for the weekend. It was Saturday, not Friday. Her parents weren’t working, they were home, spending some time with her. And Val wasn’t tired from the medication she took every day, or the extra excitement a star could bring to a morning. She was tired from spending the week studying for a midterm. Everything was normal. Easy. Manageable.

A new sound snapped her out of the dream. A voice. It wasn’t her father’s, but

Brandon’s. What was he saying? He knew she was sleeping, he wouldn’t have spoken to 65 her. Who was he speaking to? The girl? Had she gone into the kitchen with him? He continued speaking, his voice low, something like a rumble carried into the living room.

Val waited for the star to reply, to supplement something of her own to the conversation, but it remained one-sided. Brandon’s voice became more urgent then,

Stop! What are you doing?

Then came a loud bang, the eggs stopped cooking. Val turned over on the couch, forcing herself to wake. She opened her eyes. In her sleep-blurry vision, she saw the girl at the stove. What she glowing? Or was it the stove in front of her? What was she doing?

Brandon stood back from her, eyes wide and mouth agape. What was he staring at? What was going on?

Val went to sit up, but the weight of her pain forced her back down. She could only watch from the couch as the scene unfolded.

The girl glowed.

Brandon told her to Stop, get away from there!

Val’s head spun, even as she laid there.

The lights went out, and the kitchen went dark.

Chapter 8

“Powers back on!” Brandon called.

“Thank you!” Val called back in between bites of the apple Brandon had given her.

When the lights had gone out, Brandon noticed how pale Val was, and brought her an apple to help her, even just a little bit. After the first few bites revived Val to a fuller consciousness, Brandon filled her in on what happened. She had been right. The girl had gone into the kitchen. Brandon originally hadn’t thought anything of it, but then she had put her hand on the stove, near where Brandon was cooking. Her arm did ‘the glowy thing,’ as Brandon had called it and as Val had seen from the couch. Brandon had told her to stop, but she didn’t listen. She kept going, pulling more and more energy from the stove until it short-circuited and cut power to the whole house.

“Wow,” Val had said.

“Yea.”

“What should we do?”

“Talk to her?”

Val took another bite of the apple, musing over Brandon’s idea, as she waited for him to return from the garage. She had meant to talk to the girl, but there just hadn’t been a good time. Last night felt like a blur to her, as she thought back on it. This morning, too, felt like a whirlwind of events that lead them up to this point. She hadn’t expected anything like this to happen. Of course her phone was still broken, the girl having done the same thing to it, but how could she have expected the girl to take the electricity from 67 the kitchen stove? She sighed and looked down to her half-bitten apple, supposing that now was a good time as any to interrogate the girl, especially with Brandon there to help her.

Val looked over at her, then. After the stove incident, she had followed Brandon back into the living room when he’d first gone to check on Val. The girl sat cross-legged on the floor, her eyes wandering about the room. Every now and again, her eyes, alight once more with stars of their own, landing on her. Val had caught her looking more than once, and again Val wondered what she possible had to stare at? What was so special about Val as to warrant the relentless attention?

Brandon returned to the room in a huff. He made a noise akin to a groan, as he flopped down on the couch next to Val.

“How are you feeling?” He asked, rolling his head across the back of the couch to look at her.

“Better,” she answered, wrapping the rest of her apple in a tissue and placing it on the coffee table in front of her. She wasn’t lying, the apple, however few bites she had of it, did help to ease her headache. Her stomach had even subsided in its churning. She felt better. She could think clearer now.

“What’s the state of the oven?” Val asked.

Brandon sighed at this, running a hand through his hair before he answered.

“Could be better, could be worse. It can turn on, so that’s good. But you may have to tell your parents why the stove top is cracked.”

“What?” Val’s head whipped round to stare at him.

“Where she had her hand,” Brandon said, gesturing to the girl before them, now staring, enraptured by their conversation. “There’s a few cracks. Nothing too big, but I don’t know enough about stove tops to fully diagnose it if it’s a hazard or not.”

Val fell back against the couch, releasing a sigh of her own.

“Safe to say it’s broken then.”

“Yea,” he agreed, sounding just as dejected as Val felt. They both sat there in silence for a time. Val wondered how she’d explain that to her parents, on top of her phone and the plants out back. The phone wouldn’t be too difficult to get by with her parents. She believed she might’ve been due for an upgrade anyway; but surely her parents would notice a cracked stove top before they noticed how a select few of the bushes out back, flourished in a way that the others hadn’t. And although they wouldn’t demand anything from Val about it, they would certainly still ask, and Val would feel more than obliged to give them some form of an answer.

“S-sorry.”

The voice came so quietly that Val wasn’t entirely sure she had heard it at first. She looked to Brandon, who faced her with the same confused expression. They both turned to the girl who looked apologetic.

“I’m. Sorry,” she said again.

It was her. The girl spoke. Val was taken aback by the girl’s voice. It was softer than it had been earlier, and Val wondered if she were doing it on purpose. Did she really understand herself? What she was saying? What she had done?

Brandon leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees, his face skeptical.

“Why did you do it?”

“Energy, its energy. I needed – its energy.”

It took her a few moments between each word to find the next, but the girl had managed. And it all made sense, Val thought to herself. The girl had spoken this morning only after she’d taken from the plant. Even last night she’d grow more cognizant after touching Val and breaking her phone. And in the dark of the night, Val remembered the star-eyes that stared back, the very same ones that looked back at her now, bright, active, alert; the energy from other things had given her the power to learn, to speak. That’s what’s been missing. Now that she had a decent amount, it seemed, her eyes alight, maybe Val and Brandon could get some answers.

“So,” Val started, clearing her throat. “Can you tell us why you’re here?”

Her and Brandon sat anxiously waiting for the girl to answer. Val had even leaned forward too, mirroring Brandon’s position of his forearms resting on his knees. They waited a few moments more, Val eerily aware of the ticking coming from the wall- mounted clock above the landline. When no answer came, Brandon asked again.

“Why are you here?”

The girl looked between the two of them. Something about her eyes seemed to change, and she finally answered, but it was not what either were expecting. She answered with a raise of her hand, pointed directly towards Val.

“You,” she said.

Val sat back, taken aback by the girl’s answer. She was speechless. Why would the girl come for Val? She had to have misunderstood the question, there was no possible way that could be true. The girl couldn’t have known of Val prior to their first meeting the night before, she couldn’t have come here just for Val, she wouldn’t believe it to be true.

Brandon kept on with his questioning, unphased by the unexpected response.

“Why are you here for Val? What do you want from her? How did you even get here?”

But the girl didn’t respond to any of Brandon’s questions. He was relentless in his bombardment, but nothing he said seemed to effect on the girl. Her star-eyes remained fixed on Val who remained silent.

“This isn’t working,” she said, breaking her silence and stopping Brandon’s succession of questions. “She’s not answering any of them.”

“She answered one of them,” Brandon countered.

“With an answer we can’t take much from. We have to try something else.” Val thought for a moment, her eyes traveling about the room. She wasn’t too sure what she was looking for, just something she could use-

“I got it.”

She got up from the couch and went straight for the TV remote, retrieving it from atop of the TV stand. The girl turned to her as she sat on the ground.

“Here,” Val said, popping out the two AA batteries from the back and dropping them into the girl’s hand. “It’s not much, but it’s worth a shot.”

Val could feel Brandon’s eyes on her, but she ignored the feeling as she watched the girl’s hand move. The batteries rolled around in the girl’s hand as she gained a better hold on them. She pinched them between her fingers and her fingers began to glow. The orbs of light came forth again, moving from her fingertips and down into her hand, disappearing past her wrist as she drew both battery’s power. But the process didn’t last long. The batteries were small, and partially used; they didn’t carry as much as a pair straight from a new pack. The light of the girl’s hands vanished as soon as it appeared, having drawn from them as much as she could.

Val sat back, realizing only after it ended how tense she’d been while watching. She tried forcing herself to relax as she waited to see what happened next. She wanted to see if it worked, to see if the girl could actually speak now. She wanted to hear her voice, hear her say more, anything more. She wanted-

The batteries exploded. 72

A black tar oozed out of the ends of the batteries. The girl released her grip on them, allowing them to smear the discharge all over the rest of her hand.

“Oh shit, shit, shit – Brandon!” Val cried, reaching for a box of tissues on the coffee table. Brandon ran from the couch into the kitchen as Val went to work cleaning to oily goo. She wrapped the remains of the batteries into some tissues and discarded them to the floor. Behind her, Brandon returned with a bundle of wet paper towels and immediately passed them off to her.

The girl remained still, for which Val was grateful. The goo wiped cleanly off the star, and the skin of her hand appeared unbothered by the chemical components. Val was careful not to get it on her own hands as she wiped it away, knowing how irritating the substance could be if it contacted skin.

As she held the girl’s hand gingerly with her own, she felt watched again, and this time not by Brandon. She glanced up, her eyes meeting stars. It was something about them, something about meeting them in this close space as Val onto her, that made Val blush and look away.

“I-I’m sorry,” she said, trying to save herself in more ways than one. “I didn’t think you’d cause a reaction. Or for them to explode on you.”

Sheepishly, Val pulled her hand from the girl’s, making sure not to meet her gaze again, though she could still feel them upon her.

“I can take that,” Brandon said, reaching down for the bunched-up tissues and paper towels. Val double checked her own hands, giving them a second clean before passing 73 them back to Brandon, a soft “Thank you” beneath her breath. Then Brandon left for the kitchen, and Val was alone with the girl. Her heart still raced at the thought of their touch.

She hadn’t noticed before, but the star’s hand was warm. Val could still feel it on her skin where her hand had been. Maybe that was it, the warmth of her hands had overheated the battery, causing it to explode.

For the umpteenth time that morning, Val thought of the night before, remembering the star’s touch, her hand releasing tendrils of light down Val’s leg. The heat had been unbearable then, scorching, almost leaving a burn in its wake. It hadn’t, thankfully, but the memory of it only made Val curious about the girl, now more so than ever.

Val looked up and met her eyes, knowing that there was only one way to find out more of what she wanted to know.

“Why did you come here?”

The stars in her eyes danced a fevered tempo and Val knew that she would get an answer this time.

The girl moved, shifting closer to Val.

“Stay,” the girl said. She sat up on her knees, bringing her hands up to grab Val’s head. She pulled Val closer. Her hands were still warm, and Val could see the light coming from out of the corner of her eye. She closed them as the star drew nearer, her forehead now against Val’s. It was warm. Val could almost feel the light.

But in the space behind her eyelid, an image came to her. In the darkness, a light came to view - a circle, a planet – Earth? It was Earth, the star was showing her Earth. Is this what she had seen before? The planet drew nearer and nearer until it became a blinding light - Val felt it run over the course of her body - the fire, the spark of an explosion - now she moved too fast - the ocean, the planet’s lights - her town, the street, the beach, then nothing.

Val felt the impact, a tightening around her body, her body shifting, her atoms moving, condensing. She felt solid then, whole in a way that she hadn’t ever felt before.

She moved to sit, then looked up. She saw the sky, the moon, watching her from above.

A peaceful, quiet moment. She made it.

Her body began to settle, she felt at ease. She had made it; the moon and other stars had seen it. But then a sound behind her. It was different than she had expected, hearing, maybe because it was closer. She turned – a human, a girl – horrified at what she saw –

Val

Her eyes shot open – Val was in her living room. Brandon and the girl in front of her.

She no longer sat close; Brandon having moved in between the two of them. The girl held an expectant stare in her now darkened eyes; but Brandon had shoved the girl away, keeping her at an arm’s length away.

“Val?” he asked. “Are you alright?”

Brandon’s concerned face came in through Val’s blotted vision; but she did not look at him.

“Yea, I’m fine,” she said, staring past him. To the girl, she said, “You are real.”

Brandon turned and followed her gaze. The girl – the star – visibly relaxed at Val’s words, a small smile coming to her face.

“I’m. From. Space.”

Chapter 9

“Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yes, Brandon, I’m fine,” she said, pushing the orange juice back into his hands.

They were in the kitchen, Val sat atop the counter and Brandon stood in front of her.

He had moved them there after the star’s show of her powers. Val couldn’t really tell what it was, or what had happened, only that she had felt dizzy, almost unreal, afterwards. She was only now coming back to herself, the effect of the star slowly wearing off with each minute that passed.

“Have you taken your medication yet, today?”

“No,” she said, thinking of the star in her garden. “I was kind of preoccupied.”

Brandon turned away, but not before Val caught a trace of the look coming to his face. Val sighed. She didn’t really know how to feel about instances like this. While a part of her appreciated his insistence on caring for her, how he had inserted himself into her life like this, another part, the part Val never liked to listen to, but often felt on the side of, didn’t like Brandon being so – present. A simple doting, offering water or food, was fine, but everything beyond, she didn’t like. She didn’t like how involved Brandon was. He was her friend, after all, and she had gotten him involved with the star, sure, but she hadn’t meant to get him so invested in her life, as if he were her sole caretaker and her parents were in-case-of-emergency only; he acted as if it were his job to take care of her, and she hated herself for putting him there. And another part of her, the more apologetic side, felt as though she were stealing something from him. The fact that she

77 had never meant to have things between them end up this way irritated her, especially in these small moments.

By the time Brandon turned back to her, a cup of water in one hand and multiple pills of varying sizes and colors in the other, he had tamed his face. Whatever he had felt, whatever he was feeling right now, he’d pulled back from the light of day and stowed away in a box, hidden well within himself. Val knew it was there, sitting in the back recesses of his mind for no one, maybe not even himself, to see; she couldn’t help but wonder with a fading though how she might reach them. But right now wasn’t the time, she reasoned with herself; she didn’t have the energy to try, not that he would give in to her so easily anyway.

“Thanks,” she said, taking the pills from him, knocking them to the back of her throat, and easily washing them down with a few gulps of water.

“Anything else you’d want for breakfast?” he asked, turning away to look through the cabinets where the dried food was stored. “Since the stove’s broken now, it’d have to be simple.”

“Doesn’t matter. Whatever’s easiest for you.” Val looked down at her feet as she kicked them out, away from the counter. She thought about the star. She wasn’t too far away, just on the other side of the open concept floor, they didn’t want to let her out of their sight. With all that she had done that morning, they just couldn’t risk it. Brandon turned the TV on, more so as a distraction for her than background noise for him, but Val felt the star-eyes on her, watching as Brandon moved about as he cared for Val.

And she was a star. The thought made a pit out of Val’s stomach and she felt lightheaded thinking back on what the star had shown her. A type of premonition? A vision? Val didn’t know what to call it, but it had to do with her and how she got here.

Was it simply her journey to Earth? It couldn’t have been all of it, but that was the only explanation for it; and she had shown it to Val, shared it with her through a simple touch of their hands and forehead.

The idea of it happening all over again made a shiver run down Val’s spine, goosebumps traveled all the way down her arms. It was one of those psychic, telepathy things she’d probably see in one of her favorite sci-fi shows, but the fact that it happened to her? In real life? She almost couldn’t believe it. And the weirdest part about all of it was, that whenever Val went to recall what the star had showed her, it came to her as if it were her own memory, as if all the events she had seen had actually happened to her. She could feel everything again, too, the burning of what Val thought was the atmosphere – it was, her mind told her, somehow already knowing – then the fall, the impact, how she formed; Val could remember it all, and her body reacted in a way that made her feel as though it all still lingered there under her skin. How could the star make her feel that way? How had she done it?

Val looked back over her shoulder at the star; her suspicions had been correct. The star sat erect, facing the kitchen, staring straight at Val. The star smiled at her. It was small, hardly making a dent on her face, but Val immediately felt drawn to it, to her, the star.

Val thought of the moments before, the shared consciousness, an exchange of telepathic thought - or whatever it was. The feelings stayed with Val – the touch, the heat; the falling, the forming. If it was real, if that was her – how did she do it?

The questions irritated Val to no end; she had no other way of finding answers without breaking more kitchen appliances and electronics in her home or sacrificing the lives of her mother’s outdoor plants, both of which Val couldn’t bring herself to do, no matter how badly, how desperately, she wanted to know more of the star. If she could talk, if only she could talk, then Val could ask and find out more.

Agitation grated to much on her that she grew restless. While Brandon stood with his back to her, busy mixing together some breakfast concoction of his own design, Val kicked her feet out once again, this time fully pushing herself off the counter. Brandon glanced back at her, but let Val be as she rounded the peninsula to enter the living room once again.

With a sigh, Val sat back down before the star. The few stars remaining in her eyes, however faint, twinkled at the sight of Val now closer to her. Val didn’t take it to heart, their glittering light couldn’t have anything to do with her, she told herself, that’s just how they were. Instead, Val took the star’s hand once again, turning it over within her own.

“I’m sorry,” Val said, inspecting the hand for any marks. She noted its softness, how it didn’t as warm as before. “With Brandon so busy taking care of me, there was no one to check on you.”

When Val was satisfied with her search of the star’s hand, she returned it and reached for the other.

“Not gonna lie, but you really freaked Brandon and I out with the whole stove thing and shutting all the power off.”

“M’sorry,” the star spoke. Val forced herself to remain nonchalant. She wanted the star to speak more, but Val couldn’t risk scaring her by acting so over-enthusiastically about it.

“It’s alright,” she said instead, finding no marks on the other hand as well. “We just hadn’t expected it. We’re still learning about you, after all.”

The star-eyes twinkled faster, as though she were pleased with Val’s words. The sight of them sent Val’s stomach churning and she forced herself to believe she was only hungry.

Brandon came up behind her then, placing a bowl of oatmeal topped with fresh blueberries, chunked pieces of banana, and a handful of crushed walnuts onto the coffee table next to her. It looked delicious, probably better than what the omelette would have looked like, and Val found her mouth watering.

“This looks really good, thank you,” Val said reaching out for it.

“Thanks, I just found some oatmeal in the cupboard. I didn’t know if-”

Val looked up as he gestured to the star. Val looked to her, then down at the bowl.

She’d already stirred a part of it together, but that wouldn’t matter if - Maybe this could work.

She held the bowl out to the star.

“Would you like to try some?”

The star stared down at the bowl of mixed mush for a moment before taking it with hesitant hands. She held the bowl and spoon as Val had done, watching her now for further instruction.

“Good, now you take a little bit onto the spoon, like this.” Val reached over, cupping the star’s hand that held the spoon, and helped her to get a fair amount of oatmeal, blueberries, banana, and walnut for her first bite. “Yea, just like that. Then you put it in your mouth, chew, then swallow.”

The star seemed to process this in her next hesitant moment before following Val’s instructions. To Val, it felt like watching a cooking show’s final taste test, but in slow motion; the star moving at the pace of a sloth as she took her first bite.

Val just about sat on the edge of her seat, Brandon silent besides her. She wanted it so badly to work that she almost reached forward and moved the star’s hand for her; thankfully, she hadn’t. The star’s face remained stoic as she finished, but this first bite sparked a fire within the star. Val wondered if it were the taste or just the food itself to spur the star on to continue eating. Bites two-three-four-five vanished, and the rest of the bowl not too long after as she shoveled the food into her mouth. Before she began to 82 scrape at the bottom, determined to eat every last morsel, Brandon turned back to the kitchen with a sigh and a promise to Val that he would make her a second bowl.

Star-eyes returned to her of a greater degree than they’d been before, and the star smiled again, this one only a fraction larger, but just as polite and discreet as the first.

And only Val could tell, since she had sat there waiting for it.

“Was that good?” Val asked, taking the bowl back.

“Yes, thank you.”

Chapter 10

Brandon only left at Val’s insistence that he’d be late to work, and she refused to be his reason why.

“You want me to leave?”

“Yes, Brandon, just go. I don’t want you to get in trouble.” Val struggled in her attempt to push him towards the front door; he began leaning back, allowing his weight to fall back onto her as they went.

“Will you be alright alone with her?”

Val stopped. She hadn’t exactly put much thought towards the prospect. She thought they’d be fine, they had been so far that morning, save for a few mishaps out back with the plants and inside with the oven. Val still hadn’t thought of how she would explain that to her parents. A power surge, maybe? That was believable, right?

And the star could talk now! At least, a few more words than she had before, and she seemed to be picking them up fast. By the end of the day, she’d probably be speaking in full sentences! They’d be fine, they had to be. To Val, the star seemed to understand a lot more than she led on, and Val couldn’t lie to herself in saying that she wasn’t worried or scared at all, because on some level she was. She didn’t like being home alone, much less home alone with a stranger. The star had acted out a bit that morning, but a part of Val argued that the star hadn’t known she couldn’t take energy or whatever that light source was from her mom’s plants; And how were she and Brandon supposed to know that she’d kill the power and the oven with a single touch? The other part of Val, a louder more

84 rational side, argued that Brandon was right and that his worry was completely validated.

Neither of them knew what the star was capable of; Val almost believed that the star herself probably doesn’t know the full extent of her powers either. But what else were they supposed to do with her other than watch her around Val’s house? They couldn’t just shoot her back into space, Val didn’t think it would be that easy, even if the star wanted to go back. Either way, they didn’t have the time to figure that out right now.

Val shoved at Brandon’s back again.

“I’ll be fine, we’ll probably just talk, or something.”

“Are you sure?” Brandon turned to face her before she could shove at him again. She rolled her eyes, hoping that he wouldn’t see how his worry made her worry more.

“Yes, I’m sure. Anything happens, I’ll call you. That sound good?”

A wide grin spread on his face.

“I’ll keep my ringer on.”

She rolled her eyes at him again as he left through the front door and bounded down the porch back to his car. She leaned against the door frame and watched him pull away.

He waved to her just before he turned, holding his hand up in a telephone sign, mouthing

“Call me.” Val couldn’t help but laugh as she waved to him, shaking her head at his antics. Then he was gone.

Val walked back through her house to find the star where she had left her: atop a stool at the kitchen counter, happily munching on the few remaining apple slices Brandon had cut up for her before he left.

Val couldn't take her eyes off the sight: sunlight streaming in through the sheer slider glass, a backlight to illuminate the star, shining so bright before her, drawing her nearer.

It was a feeling Val had felt before, one she hadn't quite put a name to just yet, but it made her wonder about the star, more so than her own natural curiosity. No, if anything,

Val just found herself wanting to be closer.

The star perked up when she noticed Val in the doorway. The sudden attention made

Val jump. Her eyes dropped to the floor, knowing she had been caught staring for too long.

"So, Brandon's gone," she said, noting the silence between them. It was awkward, wasn't it? Or maybe it was only Val who felt it as she moved to stand facing the star on the opposite side of the counter. The star had smiled at her when she walked closer, and

Val knew the star-eyes were watching her. She could feel them.

"So it's just the two of us now,” Val found herself saying, feeling stupid doing so.

“What do you want to do?”

The words even tasted vile coming out of her mouth. She felt as though she were a kid again over at a not-so-close friend’s house that she never got invited back to because the two could never think of anything to do during their playdate. Even at 17 now, Val still couldn’t think of anything fun to do.

Those girls had ended up not really being her friends, as Val came to find out in her later years. She was nothing more than convenience to them. Come high school, Val didn’t have anyone she found herself close to. She’d call them friends, sure, in the plainest sense of the word; someone to sit with at lunch, to partner with on a class project, or just to say “hi” to in the hallway; but never anyone that she’d invite over just for fun.

She only became as close as she had with Brandon when they were assigned as lab partners the spring of freshman year. As Val would describe it, much to the boy’s dismay,

Brandon had bulldozed his way into Val’s life and made her become friends with him.

She’d been annoyed with him at first when he asked such personal questions like “What’s your favorite animal?” or “How do you feel about peanut butter?” or “Do you think stars smell like farts?” At first, Val had thought he only talked to her as another convenience thing, they were lab partners after all, and that he would turn around and ignore her the next day when they weren’t; but Brandon had been different. He was genuine, and he didn’t mind that Val wasn’t always up for a night to the movies or a day at the mall.

“I’ll bring the movies to you,” he had replied to her on a night when she told him that she was too tired to go out. 40 minutes later, he showed up at her door with the movies

Love Actually and Inception in one hand, and a bag of un-popped popcorn and various movie box style candy in the other. When Val asked about the movies, he simply said,

“To cater to both our tastes. Now, where’s your microwave.” And they had been friends ever since. With as much capacity Brandon took up as Val’s friend, she never felt the need to try to make any more at school, they’d determined their cliques long ago. With that, Val was left with little to no experience when it came to getting to know someone,

87 let alone becoming friends with them. And although Val had questions she wanted to ask the star, so many things that she wanted to know, she didn’t know how to ask.

Val looked back up at the star, who had kept her small smile. She shook her head.

The star-

“Do you have a name?” Val blurted the words before she could even think, and she wanted to slap herself. This was a star, a being. Of course she had a name, she had to.

“What?” The star asked, her smile faded into the flat-line of her mouth.

“A name? Like, something to call yourself?”

“A…star?” she tried, a furrow coming into her brow. Val stood back, aghast. She really didn’t know.

“Yes, that is what you are, but a name is who you are. Like, I’m a human, that’s what

I am, but my name is Val, that’s who I am.”

“Who. I. Am?”

“Yes, exactly. Did the other stars have a name that they would call you? Or something that they would refer to you as?”

For once, the star was not looking at Val, but instead down at the counter, deep in concentration. This was it, the first thing that Val would find out from the star. Only, she sat in silence, thinking. Was she struggling to come up with the word? Was it a language thing? Val wondered to herself. The star was only just picking up the language and even with the energy she had accumulated thus far that morning, it couldn’t possibly make her 88 instantly fluent; maybe she couldn’t translate it, or maybe she just didn’t know how to pronounce it. But she was a star, Val thought to herself; if she had come from – then maybe, maybe Val could help her find out her name.

They needed something to call her, a name, an identity; "the star" was not enough.

"I have an idea. C'mon," Val said, waving for the star to follow. They trudged back up the stairs to Val's room. Val gathered up the bundle of blankets still on the floor and threw them onto her bed to make more room on the floor. She then went to her desk, openning the longest drawer, the one right above where the chair sits. From there, she pulled out paper after paper, folded over on one another. Most of the papers were the lined, notebook paper kind with the perforated edge still attached; these were covered in fast, scribbled writing that covered both sides and often bled into the margins. Other papers were black construction paper with white penciled lines of plotted paths and dots of varying sides with neater scribble beside each one. Some were loose and came out by themselves, some came out taped at corners and sides in bunches of three and four, and others stapled. Val took them to the floor and laid them all out.

"I haven't looked at these for years," Val said, pulling out the last few pages, the ones crumpled and shoved to the back of the drawer.

Val's hands almost felt numb as she brushed them over the papers. Memories of late nights, hot drinks, and sandy beaches flooded back to her. She could almost hear her dad's laughter, faint and a ghost of who he was now. Val shook her head, shoving the memories away as she brushed out each crease of the papers before her.

There were differences on each one, from their age and Val's gained experience, but also the change of the stars in the sky. They were star maps that Val and her father had made before - everything.

"I made these with my dad. We tried mapping everything out - or what we could see, at least. I don't know how much help they'll be, I don't even know if they're recognizable, to you, but maybe they could help us figure out a name for you.”

Val stepped back. She had moved fast, and in a matter of minutes, with all the papers lined up together her floor was almost completely covered in an amateur’s attempt to map out the sky. The star stared down at the maps, the plots and notes; the stars of her own eyes shining bright. Val leaned back against her bed to allow the star to have a closer look as she began to walk around the accumulated pages, a silent rotation. She watched the star move slowly, taking the time to look at each and every plotted point carefully.

Often, she would backtrack to a particular spot and stare off at the other papers before it as though she were trying to picture herself there amongst them.

On her third time around the room, she stopped. It was a spot she’d been in and had often gone back to before, a piece of the map at the far-off corner, the one nearest her closet door. It was one of the more recently made pages; the ink was darker, the points more precise, and the handwriting neater. If Val thought about it for long enough, she would have said it was the last one she had worked on. Val thought nothing of her stopping there again, thinking the star would continue as she had before. At this point,

Val had grown tired of sitting and watching as she started to believe that maybe this

90 exercise was just a waste of time. She had begun to stand up when the star squatted and pointed down to the page in front of her.

“Me,” she said.

“You? Aare you sure?” Val slid from her bed and joined the star on the floor. She followed the hand pointed down and found it placed by a star with the name “Cassiopeia” next to it, surrounded by a small cluster of stars. “That’s you? You’re apart of a constellation!”

“Con-stell?”

“It’s like a formation of stars,” Val explained. “If that’s you,” Val said, gesturing to where the star’s finger was, “Then you’re the gamma star of the Cassiopeia constellation.”

“Cas?”

“Yea, I suppose your name could be Cassiopeia if you want, or Gamma-“

“Cas!” the star exclaimed. “That’s me!”

Cas grabbed ahold of Val in her excitement and Val found herself mesmerized by the star’s eyes.

“Alright. Cas it is, then.” Val tore her eyes away, the star’s – Cas’s – excitement becoming too much, almost intoxicating, to her. It was a name – a name – they found out.

It was small, but it was a star. Val had to check herself before she became too enthralled.

There was still so much more that she didn’t know about Cas; so much that she wasn’t sure if the star would, or even could, tell her. But Val was about to find out.

“Now tell me,” Val began. Cas looked up at her with a quizzical stare. “Why did you come to Earth?”