Chapter 27: Shooting Star

“Wait,” a voice called out after me.

It was Eli.

“Wait for me! Where are you going?”

“Leave me alone. I need to think things over,” I answered quickly without stopping.

She grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the river.

August was coming to an end, yet the cold would not let go, the long night either. Many fires were lit along the river, serving both as small lighthouses and warming stations for the workers. The pathway they created was exquisite, as the dancing light of the fires reflected off the large, delicate, crystals of snow, falling endlessly from the sky. The biggest of these fires, was directly in front of the main hall where it acted as both a gathering place and cooking pit. We walked quietly down the riverbank, hand in hand until we reached the last firepit marking the limit of Centrum Agricultio. There was not a soul in sight.

“Do you think it is safe to be here right now?” I said worried.

“Do you think it is safe for us to be anywhere right now?” Eli said dismissively.

She had a point.

“I screwed up earlier,” I mumbled.

“Yeah… yeah, you did. But then again, you have a history of screwing things up… you know… Mr. Jump-out-of-a-car…”

“Oh! Really? Miss Let-go-of-a-ladder! Besides, it’s not like I knew I was going to do that. It happened so fast.”

“It’s ok, in the end it all worked out…”

“Not for Hana.”

“Hana wanted to die. Hana was dying,” she said with a lack of empathy.

“Evian said I could have saved her.”

“It is probable…”

An awkward silence fell between us.

Thoughts swirled in my mind before I could find a suitable answer.

“I don’t know…” I finally said.

“You need to find out Fenn. You need to figure out how to use your Heighten Characteristic.”

I could hear the impatience in her voice. Or, was it resentment?

“You can’t just sit around and wait for it to happen!” she added.

“It’s not like I’m not trying Eli, I just have no idea of what to do or how to do it.”

“Well! Figure it out! Use your brain. Try things. Anything! You’re a smart person. We all depend on you.”

“Well, you shouldn’t! Don’t depend on me. Then you won’t be disappointed.”

“Argh! You can be so frustrating… and in the end things always just work out for you.”

There definitively was resentment in her voice.

She hates me, I cried internally.

She went on.

“It’s great. Absolutely perfect. You sit there and enjoy the ride while we do all the work. I mean what have you achieved so far? Everything is always handed to you. You found out Hana was your sister. GREAT! You get reunited with your brother. So lucky! Meyer too. Meyer is with his dad. It really is great! Just perfect! Perfect, perfect, perfect. I am happy for you. I am happy for Meyer.” The pitch of her voice was gradually becoming higher. It was painful to watch her. “I just wish… you know, I just wish I had a family too. Someone. Anyone.” Her voice had crackled.

So that’s what this is all about…

“You have us.” I said to cheer her up.

“It’s not the same.”

“Sorry. I should know.”

“Maybe… somewhere out there I have a mom and a dad that are waiting for me. Or maybe even another sibling. One that isn’t dead!”

She sighed. A big heavy sigh.

“I’ll probably never know though… I will never know, if I don’t stay alive.”

I squeezed her hand. I wanted to hug her, but I didn’t know if that was something I could do. I didn’t know if she wanted to be hugged. So, I just squeezed her hand in support.

“You know, finding your family isn’t necessarily all that great. I’m sure Meyer would agree.”

She softened up a bit.

“Yeah… I kind of noticed. It doesn’t look like Meyer has a good relationship with his father. I wonder why?”

I had to bite my tongue, the conversation between Hardi and Evian still fresh in my mind.

“Meyer knows a lot,” I answered. “I wish he would trust us more.”

“I’m sure he’s got good reasons. He’s a good friend. He will tell us what we need to know when the time comes,” she said wisely.

“Are you not bothered by that? I mean not knowing. People keeping secrets. It’s like Fiori, and Evian too… they know things, they make plans, but always they leave us in the dark. And that’s fine with you?”

“I guess I’m ok with it.”

“We just bombed a city, Eli! We killed thousands of people. And I still don’t know why!”

“We did. It was inevitable. We are Aethereusians. Is that not enough of a reason? Did you want to grovel in fear for the rest of your life?”

“There were other ways!” I snapped.

“And you really believe that?” she said aghast.

“Yes. Yes, I do! We didn’t have to kill thousands of innocent people!”

“But it’s ok for them to do it! We should just sit and watch them murder Aethereusians for no reason. Is that what you’re saying?”

“NO! Of course not. I am just saying that the end didn’t justify the means. We shouldn’t just blindly follow their orders.”

“It’s not like we are in a position to disagree or confront them. We owe them our lives. Why wouldn’t we trust them.”

“I just don’t see much of a future for us if we keep…”

“A future? No! No… You are wrong. For once, I can finally look forward to a future.”

“You can?”

“I have to, otherwise what’s the point of living! What’s the point of being free!” she said.

“I just don’t see how anything good will come out of this. Look at us…”

Eli sighed and let go of my hand. She turned and grabbed my face between her hands. “Look at us. Tonight, we are the luckiest people alive! We are free and we are together. If there is even just the faintest chance that we can have another evening like this, in the future, then life is worth living. Then it is worth fighting for.”

Her face was so close to mine. This intense feeling filled my stomach, butterflies dancing. My hands got sweaty. A million thoughts swirled around in my mind.

She finally let go of my face. She scratched her forehead. She was waiting for me to say something. But I couldn’t come up with anything smart to say. I couldn’t think of the words. I was lost. Lost in her eyes. Lost in her presence.

Say something!

C’mon, anything!

“I… I…” I tried, to no avail.

She shook her head as though defeated and smiled.

“It’s ok,” she said cheerfully. “It’s not like I was going to kiss you or anything…”

Is she serious?

“…I just wanted to give you a reason to look forward to your future.”

Damn! She kills me.

My heart was stuck in a frenzy. I wanted to feel her hand on my face again. I wanted to be with her.

Say something… Anything… No! Not anything… Make it good, make it count…

“I…”

But just as I was going to speak, she put her finger over my lips and shushed me.

“Time’s up!” she said with a laugh. “Today is not your day. But one day… I promise… Ah! Look a shooting star!”

I looked. There wasn’t any shooting star. That was her way out of the conversation. Still, I pretended to see one. It made her smile. That was good enough for me.

“It’s pretty isn’t it. I wish I could study stars. Learn everything about them. I wish I could touch them; Fly for all of eternity, lost in space. A long time ago, humans use to go into space. We still have the technologies to do it, Doran told me, but it seems like our civilisation has lost interest in what is out there.”

“I am going to miss the stars when the sun finally comes up,” I whispered.

“You don’t have to. The sun is a star.”

“Oh yah, I forgot.”

“Its ok,” she said patting me on the head.

We both laughed.

“Eli, there is something I have been meaning to ask you.”

“Sure, what is it?”

“The book. The picturebook I borrowed from you. Who gave it to you?”

“Lianna’s book? Hmm… I guess it was Hana’s all along.”

“Actually, it was Evian’s,” I said absentmindedly.

“Evian? But it says Lianna on the book.”

“I know, but Evian gave it to her. It was his.”

“So that’s how it was. Evian gave it to Lianna.”

“Yes, but who gave it to you?”

“No one, the day I arrived from the orphanage, it was on my bed, waiting for me. I guess Hana must have put it there for me.”

“Did you ever look at it?”

“Of course, I have! Do you know how excited I was to have a book of my own! With colors too! Every night before going to bed, I looked at it. It made me happy. All the pretty pictures. So many things I had never seen; an alpacas, a chandelier, an elephants…”

“Never seen? Not even in dreams?”

“Who’s got time for dreams! Sleep is for rest!” she said laughing, before turning serious again. “I loved that book….”

“I didn’t know. I am sorry I took it from you.”

She smiled.

“It’s ok! You can keep it. It was your sister’s after all… though, I guess it must have stayed behind at the hotel. I’m sorry.

“It’s alright,” I said. “It was nothing.”

I wasn’t ready to tell her that the book was under my mattress, or about the letter and the reports it contained.

“Look! A shooting star!” I exclaimed.

“Dumbass,” she said as she nudged me on the shoulder.

Of course, there was no shooting star, but I couldn’t resist. It was my turn to conveniently change the subject.

We both laughed again. It felt so good. It felt so normal.

“You know, if we stay here long enough, we might actually see a shooting star!

I wasn’t done my sentence when she pulled me away from the fire and led me to a cozy place by the river where the sky was unobstructed. We laid down on the cold hard ground and snuggled there.

“I don’t know about being free, but if I could just watch the night sky with you by my side, for the rest of my life, then that would be enough.”

She giggled.

“Now you’re talking…” she said with a sweet voice.

“Shush,” I said, putting my finger over her lips. “A night like tonight may never come again…”

In the moonlight I saw a sad smile spread across her face. I didn’t mean to make her sad. But I also wasn’t naïve enough to think that peaceful times like this would be many. I remembered that night I found Hana and Fiori chatting by the window. I wondered if they too, knew this would be their last time. I brushed a stray hair from her cheek but couldn’t find the courage to tell her what I really wanted to tell her.

I laid back down beside her and said instead: “Will you always tell me the truth?”

She didn’t answer. She had fallen asleep.

That night, I saw no shooting stars.

It’s ok. It just wasn’t meant to be.