the humiliation of being stuck in a closet because she was afraid of the light.
Silence played for a moment. Then the outer door was opened, and she could barely hear the footsteps coming towards her.
He stopped outside the closet door. “Come out, Bright Star.”
Slowly the door began to creep open and a small hand slipped around it. The hand was snatched, engulfed in his and she was pulled out and up. Cradled in his arms, she could see the room had dimmed with his presence. Then the darkness followed them out like a great cape that hung from Rush’s shoulders.
* * * *
“Your brother,” Bright Star asked as she curled up in a soft chair and sipped her cocoa. “Where is he now?”
Rush looked back at her. He was sitting in front of the fire with an arm resting on a raised knee. “Bright Star?”
“Yeah?” She forgot her own question as she felt her skin prickle under his scrutiny.
Rush remained silent for a long moment, but his face with its soft curves and hard lines was turned towards Bright Star. His gaze roamed over her features then fell to the floor and then the fire again. He was still and yet, not still. “My brother’s up north for the moment.”
“Vacation?”
He shook his head, closed his dark brown eyes and leaned back with his arms braced behind him, stretching out his, long, lean body. So strong and exotic. Bright Star noticed how his dark, curling hair caught autumn streaks in the firelight and how his previously dark, dark gold skin glowed hot bronze. She shifted her gaze to the flames that seemed to be dying. Again, she had a fleeting thought that they were shrinking away from him. She continued her scrutiny. With his dark eyes closed, and his head tilted back she found that his ebony lashes were long, curling, and that he had a scar above his left eye. He suddenly seemed so exhausted.
She remembered the way he carried her from that room at the end of the hall. He had pulled her into his arms and lifted her with impossible ease. He had borne her away as if he knew she hadn’t the strength to move through the room to the door. She remembered that he didn’t even look at her until the door had been closed safely behind them. She remembered thinking of him as her hero, her champion. And yet somehow, something was wrong. She could see it when he looked at her.
“Jacob,” she called. Slowly he gave his gaze to her, though he didn’t respond. “Rush? In your brother’s room…”
“Don’t ask me,” he warned in a menacing whisper. Bright Star drew her legs up closer to her chest and studied her chocolate for a long moment. Her guess had been on the money: Jacob thought she was weak. When she glanced up at him, his features had softened as if he hadn’t been able to sustain the frightening visage. He shook his head. “Just put it all out of your head for now. Just bury it.”
The fear within her manifested itself in a trembling of slender fingers, a deep swallow of nothing, and a heart that felt too big for its chest. She usually talked too much when she was nervous, but now she found she could say nothing. In her own defense, she tried to retreat into herself as she had so many times in the ceaseless disquiet of the fair. Setting her mug down beside the chair, she slowly let her eyes roll back as her lids lowered. She breathed in the deep aromatic smokiness of the room. She leaned her head back expecting to feel the plush padding of the chair softly greet her head. Instead, her body continued falling back and back, and her lids became too heavy to lift. She was falling, her whole body feverish and damp with sweat as she descended. She was falling, and then, she was burning again.
“Bright Star!” The sound was loud in her ears, pulling her back. And his arms were around her, pressing her head into his chest and he was soothing her in barely more than a whisper, “Bright Star.”
Abruptly, her blue, blue eyes opened, and she began to shiver. She didn’t understand anything. She drew back and looked into Jacob’s face. She saw something angelic there but she also saw a darkness—a shadow that was so protective and honest in the way it shielded her from the hot light of the fireplace. And she saw it when she looked at Jacob Rush. She didn’t speak but held onto his arms as he anchored her. She found her voice. “Jacob? Jacob, what’s happening to me? I don’t know what’s happening to me.” He stretched long fingers over her face then, and held her with his gaze for moments. Bright Star felt his touch not only on her skin but also in her mind. She had wondered for so many years, what it was like to have someone journey through her mind the way she had with strangers for longer than she could remember. She noticed a blue glow on his nose and cheeks.
He was close enough for her to feel his breath on her face, and, all of a sudden, the light was gone from the fireplace and the house was as dark as it had been the first moment she’d come inside, save for the blue light.
“So you perform? That’s what the flyers said,” Jacob inquired softly. He stroked her hair.
“Psychic readings,” she offered with agitation.
“Psychic readings,” he repeated.
“Don’t you watch TV, you know, like the hotlines? I tell you stuff about your life: past, present, future—all that crap. Except I had lights and music.”
“Is that all?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Were you always right?”
“Of course, I was always right,” she answered impulsively. Then with eyes cast down, she added, “It’s all rigged anyway.”
“Bright Star,” he whispered. Had his face not remained so emotionless, she would have thought he said the name in horror.
“Why do you call me that?” she asked. He didn’t answer. She wished he would say something else, wished he would offer her something to make everything real and normal again. But he offered her nothing.
Bright Star leaned closer to him and began to listen. She listened for his heartbeat, and then she listened to the very flow of his blood. Like a strong river, it sounded, strong enough for rapids. He was tense. And then, slowly, it came: I don’t know why you are as you are today, but I know you are mine, and whether I like it or not I am yours. Do you hear me, Bright Star? Her eyes snapped upward, glistening, she watched him. He was angry, very angry.
“Jacob,” Bright Star pleaded, “What are you?”
“Better question,” his gaze was accusing. In that moment, Bright Star knew he hated her. “What are you?”
It was then that Jacob stood and clutched his hands to either side of her head. For a moment, there was a ringing in her ears so powerful that it snapped to silence as she felt hot blood trickling down either side of her neck. Her knees buckled and her body became weightless, nothing. The word curse repeated as an accusation in her mind. And then nothing. She was gone.
Chapter 2
The Precocial
On the morning before Jackson Rush met Bright Star, the two occupants of the small apartment on Kolter Avenue found themselves in the same room. That was a rare occurrence. Unsurprisingly, the silence between the brothers was at once intimate and awkward. Jackson, the always-favored son, leaned on one arm against the counter watching his brother Jacob eat and grunt messages. “Ronald called five million times last night.”
“Randall?” Jackson corrected his brother, rolling his eyes.
“Yeah, Ronald. I was surprised you didn’t answer. Oh, and once this morning.”
“Huh,” was all Jackson said. He pressed a button on his cell phone. He’d had it on silent all night.
His brother glanced up at him, then back down. “Glad you can be so nonchalant about it. I didn’t get you up this morning because I heard you up and walking around all night. I know you didn’t sleep.”
“No.” Jackson sighed. He closed his eyes and subtly shook his head.