The Stars Will Guide Us Back Read online

  The Stars Will Guide Us Back

  Rue Sparks

  The Stars Will Guide Us Back

  Copyright © 2021 by Rue Sparks

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Content Warnings

  Apocalypse/End of the World Scenario

  Brief Mentions of Toxic Masculinity

  Depression & Anxiety

  Cosmic Events

  Domestic Violence (Off-screen/Implied)

  Gaslighting

  Grief & Loss

  Homophobia (Verbal)

  Mentions of Unsupportive Parenting

  Terminal Illness

  I remember the pinpricks of light,

  breaking apart the dark abyss

  that breathed cold air down our necks

  from the car’s sunroof.

  * * *

  We called out our joys and sorrows to the stars,

  fingers clasped like knitted wool.

  The road stretching ahead with possibilities,

  the night filled with music from our lungs and hearts.

  * * *

  The memory is a haloed echo, the phantom of light

  of an incandescent bulb as I close my eyes.

  Trying to remember your face

  like it is in the photograph on my desk.

  * * *

  Sometimes it feels like the memories and photos

  are all that I have left of you.

  Other days, as my fingers tap the keys

  I remember the gifts you gave me to survive your absence.

  * * *

  With the road stretching a lifetime ahead

  only the ghost of a touch on my fingertips.

  You remind me the night has its own music,

  and the stars will guide us back to where we belong.

  * * *

  For my wife

  1987-2017

  Contents

  1. A New Color of Sunrise

  2. Fear Not the Gods

  3. Follow the Sun

  4. The Wild

  5. Watch As I Fly

  6. Firefly Soul

  7. Transdifferentiate

  8. Sleeping Dogs Don’t Lie

  9. As for the Bees

  10. Fire Starter

  11. Weather the Storm

  12. Ghost in the Machine

  13. Reset

  Hello Reader!

  The Fable of Wren

  The Dragon Warden

  A Thank You

  About the Author

  1

  A New Color of Sunrise

  I’ve been staring at my account for half an hour, but it doesn’t change. No matter how much I will it, no money magically appears.

  There’s a new color. They say it is best viewed during sunset, though the sunrise is a close second. Like nothing anyone has seen before, they say.

  “They said that about the last color too,” I say to no one. It echoes off the rusted metal walls of my workshop, taking detours around crowbars and hammers, finding its end in the heat of the furnace.

  They also said it about the last smell. The last touch. A few colors before were described as ‘life-changing’ and ‘the greatest discovery of the millennia.’

  Isolated in my shop, pounding away at wares for the fortunate and famous to decorate their lavish homes, I’d missed all of them.

  The last color I missed because I got sick and lost several weeks of pay.

  The new smell before that I missed when my brother broke his arm and needed a cast.

  Before that, it was a leaky roof.

  Before that, my bike needed repairs.

  I blink three times in quick succession to close my account window, pull the NuSight glasses from my face, set them on the table.

  No point in dreaming today.

  Clients come and go, their chatter an abrasive staccato.

  “Did you see the new color?” one asks. “Breathtaking, isn’t it?”

  “Can you paint it the new color?” is met with an unsatisfactory ‘No,’ costing me a consignment.

  “Why ever not?” she asks, and I don’t have it in me to explain about copyright and proprietary data.

  When the bevy of clients evens out, I’m able to forget about the new color for the next several hours. It’s a hot day, hotter still near the furnace. The sweat creeps down my face, my neck. I’m sure I’m covered in soot and dirt by the time the sun sets.

  I allow myself to watch it, cooling myself off in the now-frigid air. I watch my normal sunset with the normal colors and try to not feel bitter.

  New color or no, it’s still beautiful.

  I feel wrung out and sore when my alarm goes off the next morning, the sound grating. I’m brushing my teeth, still in a daze when I hear the high-pitched beeping of the glasses. I figure it may be a new client. I spit out the foamy toothpaste, go back to the bedroom where I’d left them.

  It’s from an address I don’t recognize but takes up the whole screen. The message is one line, a sans serif font in red: “See What They See.”

  My head tells me to swipe it away, but my gut tells me to click on it.

  I notice nothing new at first until I turn towards where the curtains block the window. There is a sliver of color, a halo around the reds and oranges peeking through the curtains.

  I move quickly, nearly tripping over last nights’ clothes in my hurry. I pull the curtains back. The sun is just making its way into the sky, surrounded by pinks, oranges — and whatever it was they called the new color.

  For a moment, I only breathe. My thoughts become dim, muted in the sight. There are no words to describe it.

  They said the sunrise was a close second?

  I can’t imagine a more beautiful sight than this.

  When the hack is finally caught by the manufacturers, long after the sun has risen, the color leaves my sight. There is still a smile on my face.

  “Did you see the new color?” a client asks later that day, and I shake my head with a crooked smile, the secret a precious thing reserved for only me.

  The memory of the color will fade. But for a moment, I owned the world.

  2

  Fear Not the Gods

  I often wonder what the gods thought would happen upon their return. Maybe they thought we needed guidance, that their magnanimous but firm hand would turn the human race into a thing of universal beauty.

  They probably didn’t expect a war. I wonder how omnipotent beings didn’t see it coming. If there’s one universal human trait, it’s that we don’t like to be told what we can and cannot be. Even by our creators.

  But it’s not the gods I fear. It’s men.

  “You cannot be serious?” I say through clenched teeth. My compatriot grimaces at my tone, baring his teeth in his annoyance. He turns away and continues setting the charge.

  We’re three hundred feet below street level in one of the gods’ free cities. They’re utopias where humanity enjoys equanimity and safety … provided they worship the hands that feed them.

  “You think I got time to joke?” he says, straightening when the last one is ready and grabbing the roll of wire by the dowels on either side of the plastic base. He lets it loose as he walks backward. I follow behind him at a clip.

  “I was told this was a reckon mission, not that we were going to blow up part of a city and all the citizens in it!” I rush forward, grab either side of the roll by the dowels so he can’t keep moving away from me. “I did not agree to this.”

  “Of course you d
id,” he says with a sneer, face smudged with dirt and grease from our trip into the undercity. “What, you think those people up there are innocent? They chose their side; now they can pay for it.”

  He tries to yank the roll back, but I hold tight. My voice is steel. “I. Did. Not. Agree. To. This.”

  He jerks the roll out of my hands, glaring daggers at me. “You didn’t have to.” The tone holds no room for argument. “You can do your duty or die with them.”

  He continues moving back, and after a moment I follow him.

  I wait until we’re out of sight of the charge, nearly out of the undercity, when in a moment of trust, he turns his back to me to pick up the pack we’d abandoned.

  The shot from my pistol is muffled by the silencer. No echo to sound my betrayal, to sound the alarm for our troops nearby. The shot through his neck is an instant kill.

  His body drops. I catch it, wary of setting off the still active charge. I’m debating my next move when I first hear, then feel the rumbling ground beneath my feet. There’s a white-hot shot of fear in my chest as I remember the still active bomb in the undercity. I’m debating whether I have time to deactivate it before the earthquake sets it off, when the ground above my head is suddenly peeled back, as if the crust of the city were nothing but a thin layer of wrapping paper around me. I dodge rocks and bits of steel as debris falls.

  When the sunlight strikes my eyes, I turn my face upward and face the God I knew had found me.

  3

  Follow the Sun

  “Place the items on the cloth,” the witch instructs. “Align them with the heart in the center, the rest in a circle around. Let yourself feel where each piece belongs; they’ll let you know.”

  Cienna is not so sure but does as she’s told. The heart is the gold-plated fountain pen she had been gifted by her father long before he died. The other supplies she spreads around it: a rosebud from her family’s garden where she grew up; her favorite childhood book, the pages yellowed, tattered, and spine creased; the last letter she received from her father; the obituary from her sister’s death when she was a child.

  With every item placed she closes her eyes and does as instructed, feeling where they belong in the circle. She places the remaining knick-knacks before letting out a drained sigh, surprised at how much effort it has taken to complete.

  “Good,” the witch whispers near her ear. “Now, remember, I told you this part requires sacrifice.”

  “The blood,” Cienna says with a nod. “I’m willing to do what has to be done.”

  The witch’s mouth twitches in a slight smile, her crow’s feet crinkling in amusement at Cienna’s eagerness. “Yes, that too. But remember, these items will be sacrificed as well. As will a part of you. Nothing comes from nothing, you understand? Are you certain of your path?”

  Cienna breathes in the scent of mugwort and rose that wafts from the nearby incense, gaze hazy on the circle of items.

  “Yes,” she says. “My path is clear. This is what I was meant to do.”

  The witch nods and picks up a dagger from a table next to the altar. She gently takes Cienna’s hand and makes a delicate slice along her finger. Cienna winces at the pain; for all that it’s not deep, it bleeds quickly. The witch draws the finger along her own palm, a streak of blood remaining on the witch’s hand.

  The deed done, Cienna watches with horrified curiosity as the witch turns towards the altar and wraps the cloth over the items, one side then another, folding it inward over and over again as if there is nothing in the cloth at all. Until all that remains on the table is a small square of folded fabric.

  There is a static hum in the room when the witch places her hand on the cloth and begins to speak.

  “Where once there was pain, now there is lucidity. Where there was love, now is laid bare. Where shadow and light collide, there is truth.”

  The witch places her bloodied hand palm down on the altar cloth, and though nothing outwardly changes, Cienna feels a crushing in her chest that takes her breath away. The witch unfolds the cloth, and with each unfolding a jolt of pain runs through Cienna’s veins like lightning. It isn’t until the final unfolding that she’s able to again breathe, ragged but with big gulps of blessed oxygen.

  On the altar cloth now sits a leather-bound book.

  “Is that it?” Cienna’s asks breathlessly. “Did it really work?”

  The witch picks up the book and brings it to Cienna. It’s heavy in her hands, the volume thick. There’s no title, but on the bottom of the cover, she sees the name of the author.

  Cienna Eaton.

  “It worked.” Her words come out as a breath. “This book is mine.”

  “Of course it worked,” the witch says as she straightens the altar cloth, smoothing it with her hands. “A book is made of all your loves, your hates, your pain, your joys. Whether you write it or magic it into being.”

  “I can’t believe it.” Cienna traces the book with her fingertips. “I can become published now. Like father always wanted.”

  The witch sighs, startling Cienna out of her awe. She looks up to meet the witch’s gaze. The witch is looking at her with a furrowed brow, mouth in a thin line.

  “What?” Cienna asks, but the witch only shakes her head.

  It’s when the witch is leading her to the threshold and Cienna is closing the door behind her that the witch does speak, holding the door open a fraction and whispering so Cienna has to lean forward to hear.

  “A word of advice?”

  “Yes?” Cienna asks.

  “If you only ever follow the sun, you’re going to get burned.”

  4

  The Wild

  The dress is decorated with fine embroidery and small, glittering gems along the edges, all tulle and fine silk, billowing up in the skirt and fitted on the waist, torso, and quarter sleeves. It’s a jeweled sapphire, sure to stand out in the finest of courts, even the stylized drawing a jaw-dropping testament to the finest royal fashion can be.

  He instantly hates it.

  “You can’t be serious,” Clay says. “That’s going to cost a fortune. And for what, a weekend? That’s ridiculous, Kim. Don’t do it.”

  Kim grabs the color copy from where Clay is wrinkling it between his fingers in clear exasperation. She sets it on the table to lay it flat and smooth out the wrinkles with her fingers.

  “This isn’t just any weekend, Clay. It’s the biggest cosplaying event in the country! All the big names will be there. It’s my chance to stand out as a seamstress, to make a name for myself. If I pull this off, I could double my follower count easily, maybe even triple!”

  Clay rubs fingers into his eye sockets and lets out a loud exhale. “Kim. Do you even have the money for this?”

  There is a telling pause where Kim taps her fingers against the table and avoids Clay’s gaze.

  “Well. It could be worse. But I’ll have to borrow money from my parents. And well … that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  Clay straightens. “Absolutely not.”

  “But Clay—”

  He stands from the kitchen table quickly enough to send his chair squealing against the floor. “No. I am not funding a dress you’re going to wear for three nights so you can run around pretending to be a princess when you could, I don’t know, spend that money on replacing that junker you drive or save the money for the next time your heater blows.”

  “One.” Kim says, arms crossed.

  “What?”

  “One night. I can’t wear the same costume more than one day. It’s not done.”

  Clay’s mouth opens and closes as he stares at his brown-eyed auburn-haired girlfriend before he shakes his head.

  “Are you crazy?! You’re acting completely ridiculous. Stop trying to relive some childhood fantasy and grow up.”

  It is the wrong thing to say. Kim gathers up her papers and her bag, avoiding Clay’s gaze as her mouth sets firm. Clay considers apologizing, but he meant everything he said.

  Cl
ay throws up his arms as the echo of the side door banging shut ends the conversation. His fingers grip his tawny hair, pulls at the sides until his eyes ache with it.

  Letting go, he scratches through his hair, shaking his head. He drags his feet towards the hallway. He can still feel the anger tight in his chest, a confined lion pacing, itching for a fight, a meal.

  As he steps into the beige nineties carpet of the hallway, he can see the rough bark and silky, vibrant green leaves of trees bursting through the stained fibers. It masks the awful egg-white walls he swears he is going to paint over someday — they disappear behind the canvas of his own personal jungle.

  By the time he makes his way into his man-cave, the second-to-last door on the right, he is pushing through the stringy undergrowth that clings to his ankles. That is okay, though. He knows the way well.

  He pulls off a few brave vines that have tried to reclaim his office chair as their own, stubbornly gripping the small pieces that have gotten into the casters of the wheels.

  He rolls it a couple of times, making sure nothing remains in the creases, then sits into his plush, lumbar-supporting chair and pulls up to his kingdom. A click of the mouse and the sun rises into his domain when the monitor comes to life.

  He no longer jumps at the first feelings of the cold, briny water touching his toes. He digs in his heels and sits in his chair until the first mast and sail rise behind him. The sand under his toes is soon replaced by the splintered and worn wood of a ship long-loved, having sailed to distant shores and back many times.