Father to son
by Russell Taylor
Copyright © 2013 Russell Taylor
All Rights Reserved
Contents
Prologue: Falling Stars
Father to Son
Epilogue
This book contains the first two shorts of Russell Taylors book Falling Stars.
The full book with all 10 short stories can be found on Amazon.
Prologue: Falling Stars
“Wait for me!”
He stopped running, put his hands on his hips and gulped mouthfuls of the cold night air in painful gasps that burned his throat. The salt wind roaring in from the sea shook him, ruffling his hair and scorching his skin while he stood staring into the distance.
He strained to make out any sign of movement in the gloom, but saw nothing. Turning his head, he looked over his shoulder to where he had come from. The carnival was just visible through the trees, the loop of the Big Dipper spilling coloured light over the horizon. He could still smell the hot dogs and cotton candy imploring him to re-join them.
He looked back towards the sea. His feet were sinking into the sand and the moon sent flickering shadows creeping around him. He was beginning to wonder about the wisdom of following the girl he’d met at the coconut shy down to the beach. But she had promised to show him something he’d never seen before and she had the kind of green eyes that looked as if they’d seen things that others hadn’t. When he had hesitated she had taken him by the hand and led him through the stalls and between the rides, stepping over ropes and the discarded candy wrappers, the long grass becoming sparser until it had faded into the sand. Without warning, she slipped her fingers from his and ran on ahead, leaving her laughter dancing around him on the swirling breeze, giving the impression that she was still with him. But she was gone.
He took a step backwards and looked behind him at the carnival again. It seemed further away that it had before, as if it were floating away and casting him adrift with the mysterious girl. He took another step back. Perhaps it was time to return before the bright lights faded altogether.
Suddenly he saw her emerging out of the darkness in a streak of moonlight, flying across the incoming tide. A second later the light was gone and so was she. “Wait for me!” he cried.
He scrambled over the dunes, any doubt he had abandoned in the kicked up sand where he’d been standing.
Moments later he had cleared the grassy mounds and landed on the beach. A hundred yards to his right a ribbon of arylide yellow fluttered in the moonlight, a feather of blonde hair flying above it. The girl was skipping towards the disused pier at the point, the destination she had talked about at the carnival.
The rotting wooden structure jutted up out of the sea like the half-buried jawbone of a colossal sea monster. This then was where she said, for this one night only, he would be able to see people’s lives painted in the sky. He put his head down and galloped towards her.
By the time he reached the steps she was out of sight again, dancing somewhere up above him along the pier. He took hold of a decaying wooden rail and paused for breath, her promise still stoking his imagination. She’d asked him if he knew that people were trapped in the sky. He’d had to confess that he did not. Well, tonight, she had assured him, a meteor shower was forecast in the trail of Levy’s Comet and it would set them all free from their celestial cages again to live their lives once more. Would he like to see that? He couldn’t possibly say no. Even when the alternative was the carousel and the big dipper and the house of mirrors and the ghost train and more popcorn that he could ever hope to eat, he could not say no.
The clip of her heals fading off towards the sea snapped him out of the past. He clambered up the steps, gouging the flaking wood with his nails as he dragged himself onto the walkway. He cleared the ladder just in time to see her disappear into the remains of the summerhouse at the head of the pier.
A big red, rusting sign stood next to him, telling him to GO BACK! Go back to the beach and keep off the fragile pier, it meant, but it was easy at that moment to believe it was telling him to return to the carnival and forget his ridiculous mission. He ignored it and began to pick his way along the weathered platform. The struts creaked beneath his feet like the boards of a haunted house. He tried to ignore the sounds and measured each step carefully until he reached a jagged hole that blocked his way. He peered forward and looked in. The creeping tide was licking at the sand some thirty feet below him. He thought that if he fell down there he would almost certainly break his legs and maybe break his back too. He would certainly drown before he was discovered. GO BACK! the sign screamed at him again from the safety of the shore. But the night breeze was a cold hand in his back ushering him forward. Without even giving himself a second to consider the jump, he leapt from his fragile perch. For a moment he could not tell if he was travelling across the abyss or plummeting into it, but the sudden slap of the wet wood on his body told him he had breached the gap. He picked himself up and continued on in pursuit of the girl.
There was little of the summerhouse left that had not been eaten away by the teeth of the surf over the years. Now it was just a patchwork shell that looked more like a decomposed body than a place to relax in the sun. He approached what had been the door, but was in truth no more than a ragged space in what remained of the wall. There was a plaque hanging limply on the broken door post proclaiming the opening of the summerhouse in eighteen seventy three. That was about a year before Levy’s Comet had last been round. Looking at the state of the place, it was hardly surprising that it hadn't’ bothered to return until now. He stepped inside and saw the girl just beyond.
She was lying on her back at the tip of the pier, her arms behind her head, staring up at the sky. She didn’t look round when he walked over. He dropped down and stretched out next to her.
“I thought I’d lost you.”
“Don’t look at me,” she said, “look up there.”
He tilted his face to the huge black velvet canopy overhead. It was a clear sky and the stars glittered across the firmament like the eyes of a thousand locusts.
“I don’t know your name,” he said.
“That’s alright, I don’t know yours either.”
“Do you need to know?”
“Not yet.”
“Why are we here?” he asked
“I told you. To see the stories in the sky.”
“But why here? Why tonight?”
“The end of the pier is the only place you can see them. Certainly the only place around here. Maybe the only place in the world. Have you ever heard of Gloria Everheart?”
“No,” he replied.
“She saw the sky come to life the last time the comet was over. She was lying out here at the end of the pier looking up at the sky on a night just like this when the meteor passed overhead, shedding falling stars in its wake. As each star fell she said that it lit up people hidden in the constellations, people no astronomer had ever seen before. She said that when they were lit up they came alive.”
“People in the constellations?” he said. “Alive?”
“As alive as you and I, and each told a story – their story of how they came to be there.”
“And you believe Gloria’s yarn?”
“I’m here at the pier, aren’t I?” she replied. “And so are you for that matter.”
“Yes, that’s true,” he said. “But I don’t see anyone else here.”
“That’s not because no one believed her, that’s because they thought that it was Gloria who had made the sky come to life, not the stars. She was tried as a witch at a secret court of dignitaries and then drowned in a quarry hole back up behind the orchard. After that the whole thing was hushed up. It was years after the Salem trials. It wasn??
?t the sort of thing that you could let the people from the city know about.”
“But you know about it.”
“Word always gets out,” she said. “No matter how far down a person’s mouth you cut out their tongue, word always gets out.”
He shivered at the thought and wrapped his arms across his chest. “I can’t see any faces.”
“You need to wait for the comet.”
“When is that likely to…”
“There!” she said, jabbing a pale arm upwards.
He followed her guide and saw a spot of light racing out of the corner of the sky.
“It’s so small.”
“It’s bright when it’s overhead,” she said. “It won’t be long now.”
He hadn’t blinked in an age for fear of missing a miracle and his eyes burned, but he had no intention of blinking now. “Is no one else looking out for the comet tonight?”
“Oh yes, they’ll all be watching from their observatories and the hills and from the tops of trees, but they won’t see what Gloria saw and they won’t see what we’ll see either.”
“The comet’s getting closer,” he said. He adjusted his gaze to follow the arc of light as it carved through the sky. The tail showered sparks over the sea as if it were cutting the night open.
The girl brought a finger to her lips. “Shhhh. It’s almost here.”
They watched in silence as the comet grew fat and bright and the stars seemed to grow with it.
“Now look for a life!” she shouted.
He searched the sky wildly, jerking his head back and forth not wanting to miss the promised miracle. “I can’t see anything!” he shouted back.
“You’re trying too hard to find them. You just have to focus and they will find you. Here, let me pick out the first one.” She laughed. It was a bright, gentle sound like a mouse skipping along the keys of a piano. “Kick off your shoes like I have and look at the tips of your toes.”
He levered his sneakers off and lowered his eyes.
“Good,” she said. “Now look beyond your toes at the cluster of stars gathered on the horizon. What do you see?”
“Just stars,” he replied. “Just a set of bright lights. Just…wait, I can see a man! I think he just moved!”
“He certainly did. Can you tell me anything else about him?”
“He seems to be unhappy.”
“Yes. And?”
“I’m not sure,” he said.
The girl smiled. “Here, let me help you. He looks as if he’s sitting in an office. And that cluster of stars to his right looks rather like an envelope, don’t you think?”
“Yes!”
“And that band of stars looks as if it might be something that was enclosed in the envelope...”