55

A Break and Breakthrough

As they puzzled over the age-old mysteries of the lifestones, Lottica tried to stay focused. She studied the documents Weirhamatt had brought. She listened to Heidein’s explanations. But, she still sensed they were all missing something vital.

She finally told her grandmother she needed a break and excused herself from the parlor. Heading straight for the large cloakroom off the main entry hall, Lottica gingerly opened the door and groped around for a light switch. She found a pull string dangling to the side and gave it a tug. And then yelped.

Inches away a furry face eyed her. Her heart thumped as she lurched back from the glassy eyes. On a second look, Lottica realized it was a fox fur shawl. In disgust, she pushed the stole aside, searching for the thing she hadn’t been willing to leave behind in America: her telescope.

She carefully hefted the telescope out of the closet and up the staircase. She’d been wanting to do this since Bopei had shown them the constellation of Hawk the night before. After visiting Heidein's hilltop observatory and then watching the constellation Hawk rise for a second time this evening, the need to reconnect with her telescope tugged at her. She needed it badly at the moment.

She missed the stars. Missed them dearly. Missed looking quietly into the heavens. For her, the stars seemed to magnify the future and all possibilities. And at the same time, provide a doorway to the past. For, in the purest sense, starlight was borrowed time: traveling myriad years to reach our eyes. Lottica, more than ever, needed the reassurance, the timeless perspective, the steadfast stars provided.

Lugging the telescope down the tall shadowy hallway past Hawk’s empty pedestal and the brooding portraits lining the passage, Lottica kept a wary eye on Beilla’s, whose presence, even on canvas, seemed to menace the entire hall.

She hurried into her grandparents’ room and onto their spacious balcony. The cold night air stung her. After setting the telescope down, she retreated inside to find something warmer to wear. She considered dashing to her room, but decided she could borrow one of her grandmother's sweaters and opened the large armoire beside the balcony’s French doors.

Amid the neat piles of sweaters, blouses and skirts stood an entire shelf of ornately framed photographs. Pictures of her and Nick and her parents. Most of the photographs were older, before her grandparents had moved to America. They were arranged lovingly among sprays of delicate dried flowers. It was if Lottica had stumbled upon a private shrine. It made her wonder how she ever doubted that her grandparents loved her.

She let herself feast on the photos for a moment longer, then selected a heavy wool cardigan and shut the doors. She put the sweater on, the arms spilling over her hands. Lottica giggled and pushed up the sleeves.

Back out on the balcony, she quickly got her telescope set up and aligned. From there it was easy to spot Hawk. The constellation had risen above the horizon, hovering above distant peaks. Lottica assumed they were the same mountains she’d seen at Heidein's observatory.

Through her viewfinder she examined the stars that comprised Hawk, slowly tracing the connect-the-dot points of starlight. It calmed her. Totally absorbed her. Like she was in her backyard in America, long before anything bad had happened. Before she’d become part of a dead-parent story. It seemed lightyears ago. How fast her life had changed. Was changing. Every moment.

But Lottica knew she couldn’t dwell on that. That’s why she’d come out here. To look up. To look forward.

She continued studying the unfamiliar constellation. In particular, a cluster of stars in the center of Hawk’s stylized chest drew her attention. There were three stars: red, blue, and white. They shown brilliantly like the three corners of a box. Though, the lower right corner of the box was empty.

Lottica zoomed out to provide a broader view of the constellation. Now she saw the entire figure of Hawk floating above a towering peak backlit by the rising moon. A most impressive sight, which stirred something in Lottica. Backing away from the telescope, she framed the Hawk constellation and the peaks just below it with her naked eye. Her heart beat faster, as if to help her brain catch up with her intuition.

She had seen this view before.

She adjusted her telescope, reducing the magnification even further. When she looked back through the eyepiece, a more familiar picture emerged. She held her breath as much to steady the view as to stifle her excitement. Was she really seeing this?

The subject was the same she’d seen that morning in Kreistia. At the fountain in front of the City Hall, and in the stained glass of the Breima Library, and at Heidein's observatory. Before her in Lebreima’s clear night sky, the constellation of Hawk was perched above the craggy hands of le Breima.

A shiver ran through her. Mount Breima. The three lifestones of the Tireima. The Astreima was the Starstone. Starstone.

Something was starting to make sense to her. She zoomed in once again on the cluster of stars at the center of the Hawk constellation. Three of the four corners were defined by three stars. The fourth, the lower right, was empty. She had seen this image before, too. She squeezed her eyes tight to think. Gazing back through the eyepiece, Lottica focused hard on that empty corner, willing herself to remember.

In a blinding flash, the telescope frame filled with two blinking red lights. Lottica was astonished. The lights were huge. They could not be stars. She reduced the magnification and then understood. A small airplane had flown into the path of the telescope. The two blinking lights were heading straight at the Hawk constellation, filling the lower right corner of what Lottica was now thinking of as its heart.

It clicked.

It was like the drawing Weirhamatt had shown them with the three stones of the Tireima and the two children in the lower right corner with the empty hearts.

It was clear to her now as she watched the airplane's receding lights. Her parents were on that airplane. She knew in her heart of hearts that Beilla was taking them to Mount Breima where he believed her parents would lead him to the Astreima.