My own parents had been chosen for Earth because of their great skill in battle, and their relatively human-esque looks. It was important for a Star raised in the human world to look like a human, meaning her hair color needed to be one of the natural colors of Earth and the same with eyes. Since I had blonde hair and blue eyes, I fit the qualifications perfectly; pair my looks with the genealogy of battle-success in my family and I was an obvious choice for Earth.
Not that I wasn’t still a little freaked out by my future…. but at least the Elders had faith in me.
I knew Seth was chosen for the same reason, but his parents had been killed when he was still young, probably in battle. Celina and Micah still had responsibilities to their battalions, and although they were allowed to fight together, they could not stay on Earth for long periods of time without being called back to fight. That was something Seth and I would never experience, we would never be called from this planet, never fight amongst our fellow Stars, never feel the emptiness of space or the thrill of battle formations.
But we did have hope. Hope that the forces of heaven would stand against the evil of hell and win; that our fellow Stars would light up the universe and keep the Darkness at bay and that the Fallen would not get the chance to turn this planet into a desolate feeding ground like every other planet that once inhabited the expanse of space. Only Earth remained. And only Seth and I had been charged to protect it on the frontlines of battle.
“What are you thinking about?” my mom interrupted my thoughts and pulled me back to the kitchen.
“What it will be like to be the Protector,” I mumbled truthfully.
“Sit down, we need to talk about that,” my dad directed, putting a strong hand on my shoulder. I sat down next to my mom, while my dad took his seat at the head of the table. Seth and Jupiter sat silently across from us, waiting patiently for the conversation to begin. “Seth, it’s good to meet you by the way,” my dad reached out a hand to Seth and the two Warriors met with hands clasped tightly against each other’s forearms. “I’m Micah, and this is my wife, Celina.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” Seth replied respectfully.
“We were just talking about your futures,” my dad confessed, looking at Jupiter before continuing. “What happened with Nisroc and Sidra was unexpected. The Elders are…. concerned that there is a spy in their midst. Besides the Elders themselves and Jupiter, no other Warrior or Star knew the whereabouts of their hideout, not even the Stars closest to Earth.”
“Callisto,” Jupiter spat and it sounded very much like a curse word. “Then it is what we suspected, a spy is the only reasonable explanation,” Jupiter growled.
“We cannot be for sure, but yes, it does look like that. It would explain how they found Stella too,” my dad finished gravely, glancing at me with the regret only a father could hold.
“So, what is the plan?” Seth asked, more meekly than I had ever heard him talk. He lifted his eyes to meet mine and they were etched with concern. This wasn’t how things were supposed to happen, or how the Elders planned our purpose on Earth.
“To stay put,” Micah said firmly, which caused every eye to turn to him. “The Elders have decided that to move Stella now would be a sign of weakness. She has not received the fullness of her powers yet, but she is still a threat to the Darkness. If we move now, there is no guarantee they won’t follow us and we have built lives here, this is the fulfillment of the plan, we cannot give up on it now. Seth, you and Jupiter will move here too and we will finish your training together. You might have already guessed this part, but it’s more crucial than ever that you two stay together and learn to fight together and protect each other. Until Stella and Seth turn eighteen, the Elders have sent a replacement Star, Serena and her Warrior, Nathaniel. They will carry out your duties until you two finish high school and Stella receives the last of her abilities at eighteen.”
“But what about-“I jumped in impatiently.
“We’ll keep them safe,” my father comforted me, knowing I was asking about the people living near us. “The Darkness knows where you live now, but you will be protected. Serena and Nathaniel will always be near, and your mother and I have been relieved from our posts for now. We aren’t going to leave you anymore.” My dad’s eyes darkened with determination and I knew better than to argue with him.
I worried about my friends, about the innocent people living in this area, but my father was right. They would be protected, possibly more so now than they ever were before.
“And we will start training right away,” Jupiter offered, but I didn’t think he was trying to comfort me. “Of course, we will have to figure out living arrangements. Surely there is something around here for us to procure. Maybe even in town?” he continued, the word “town” coming out of his mouth dripping in heavy sarcasm.
“Absolutely,” my dad agreed, “although you will probably do better to find a place out here. You could use several acres of property to train on. In fact, I know of a place that is for rent not that far from here. I’ll call the owner now, and see if it’s still available.”
My dad and Jupiter stood up from the table to follow the lead on possible housing. I looked at Seth who was deep in thought and wondered what life would be like now.
“Seth, have you ever been to public school before?” my mom asked, breaking the settled silence.
“Not properly,” Seth admitted, shrugging his shoulders. “Jupiter taught me at home.”
“Well, you’ll do fine,” she reassured him. “Mead has a small high school and it’s easy to navigate. I’m sure you’ll have no trouble fitting in. Don’t you think, Stella?”
“Nope, no trouble at all,” I laughed, appraising Seth’s perfect features again and thinking about the poor female population at Mead who would have to put up with an Angel among them on a daily basis.
“And Stella knows everybody, she can help you make friends,” my mom continued, a small smile playing at the corner of her lips as her thoughts went in the same direction as mine.
“That’s because everybody knows everybody,” I reminded my mother dryly. Small town life did not exactly grant anonymity and in a town with little more than five hundred people, it was hard to not get to know everybody.
“That’s true,” she sighed as she stood up from the table. “And that reminds me, I’m in charge of the bake sale for this Friday night’s games.”
“We just got back from a mission,” my dad reminded her as he and Jupiter reentered the kitchen. “Why don’t you take tonight off from Booster Club duties? At least wash the blood off your hands before you attempt an apple pie,” he joked.
“I don’t have any blood on my hands,” my mom swatted at her husband, laughing along with him. “And you know they stopped letting me bake a long time ago! I just have to make sure everyone else is bringing something homemade.”
“From fighting to organizing farm-wives, are you sure you’re ready for this kind of life, Seth?” My dad turned his twinkling blue eyes on my Counterpart, more worried about him dealing with human life than the forces of Darkness.
“I’m not going to have to organize bake sales, am I?” Seth choked out, half panicked.
“Only if you want to,” I laughed.
“I won’t. I won’t want to,” Seth assured me, a slow smiling turning his lips upward as he realized my dad was joking.
“Well, if you change your mind, just let us know,” I winked at him, the second wink in my life ever. What was wrong with me! Why did Seth being around make my eyes all twitchy? “Ok, I need a shower!” I announced, stretching my arms over my head.
“And we are going to go look at this property,” My dad announced, concluding that their meeting was over. “Do you want to come Seth?”
“Do I have time for a shower?” he asked.
“A quick one,” Jupiter offered, sounding very parental. “And Stella, you should know, training starts tomorrow morning. You need to be down here by 6:30 and we’ll make good use of your fath
er’s fields.”
“Sounds fun,” I replied, not really sure if I was excited or terrified. A part of me longed to learn how to wield weapons and answer the innate call inside of me to fight, but the other part of me, the part that was raised in a human world and was already wary of Jupiter’s gruff demeanor, wondered exactly what I was about to get myself into.
“It will be fun,” Seth encouraged me, noticing the apprehension work its way across my forehead. “Weapons are the best part of this whole thing.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” I smiled down at him, feeling relieved that Seth would be there with me.
I walked upstairs putting aside my fears for tomorrow and sent a quick text to Tristan telling him he could come over after all. I had expected more information to be covered in our meeting, but I wondered if my parents and Jupiter kept it short because there wasn’t much more information than what we covered.
A spy had worked their way inside the Council of Elders before, but not in a very long time, several dead planets ago if I remembered right. It was hard to imagine now though, with all of the security precautions and the way the Elders kept tabs on their current army, how a spy could slip past their wall of defenses. It would have had to be someone embedded deep inside their ranks for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. And they would have had to be very patient to wait all this time.
I wondered why now though? Why would they attack Sidra now? And if they killed her, why hadn’t they gone after me the same way? Even if they were unsure if I was the next Protector, a human life meant nothing to them, why hadn’t they just killed me to be safe?
There were more questions than there were answers, and I had to trust the Elders to get to the bottom of this quickly, even working with a spy amongst them. I shuddered at the thought of not feeling safe anymore. Could I trust a compromised board of elderly Angels? I didn’t have much of a choice, but suddenly their lack of interest in how I was raised became a concern. Maybe it wasn’t so much that my parents were doing things right after all, but a concentrated effort by the spy among the Elders to keep me unprepared.
A few deep breaths later, I decided there was nothing I could do about my past training, but there was something I could do tomorrow and that was to get caught up as quickly as possible. I trusted Seth and Jupiter was growing on me, so all that was left was for me to throw herself into my training and trust the God-given genes and instincts I had been born with.
Shutting my mind off from my Star duties for the night, I showered quickly, relishing in the heat of the water and blow-dried my hair. I had just thrown baggy sweatpants and a red long-sleeved volleyball t-shirt courtesy of Mead High on when there was a tap on my window. I finished getting dressed by pulling on some long wool socks, some hard-soled slippers and some mittens before climbing out my bedroom window on to the flat roof and sitting down next to Tristan.
“Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight,” he teased softly, as we snuggled up next to each other for warmth.
“Stop it right now,” I warned, unable to keep the smile off my face.
“What?” Tristan asked innocently. He was dressed almost identically to me in baggy sweatpants and a red, Mead hooded-sweatshirt. He had a black stocking cap pulled over his shaved head and thick gloves that he used when he went snowboarding on trips to Colorado.
“At least it wasn’t Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” I admitted, warming us both up with my inner heat that radiated softly from me, even when I wasn’t glowing.
“Everything’s going to change now isn’t it?” Tristan asked, the tone of his voice changing dramatically. He was rarely serious except on his respective sports fields and I couldn’t stop myself from looking up into his forest green eyes and wanting to falsely reassure him.
But I couldn’t. I could never lie to him.
“Yes, everything is going to change,” I recalled my own thoughts only a few minutes ago and settled deeper next to him. “The Darkness has never launched an attack like that before, at least on Earth. We are suddenly playing with a different rulebook; I’m not sure what will happen next.”
“I meant, between us,” Tristan sighed. I glanced over at him and the lines of his forehead at tightened. I knew it stressed him out when I talked about my future, he worried too much. But now he was stressing me out talking about our present.
“Why would things change between us?” I asked, pinpricks of anxiety lifting the hairs on the back of my neck.
“Stella, we can’t stay best friends forever. You have bad guys to fight, and I have farms to…. farm,” he laughed at the way his life sounded stacked next to mine.
“We can stay best friends forever,” I replied seriously. “Or are you unclear with what “BFF” means?” I nudged him with my shoulder and he laughed. “Obviously we need those necklaces.”
“What necklaces?” Tristan asked.
“You know those ones you give to your friends in elementary? Like it’s usually a heart broken in two and one side says “best” and the other side says “friend.” And you give it to your best friend so that everyone knows where you stand.” I explained.
“No, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t think guys are ever supposed to give each other necklaces.” Tristan grunted.
“Well, you don’t just give them. You also give them back when you decide you don’t want to be best friends with that person anymore. It’s a very emotionally involved process,” I joked, remembering how serious elementary life was once upon a time. I wondered if I would feel the same way about high school in a few years.
“That sounds mean,” Tristan observed playfully.
“Well, girls can sometimes be mean,” I admitted.
“I would never give your necklace back,” Tristan assured me with mock-seriousness.
“That’s because you’re not a girl,” I agreed.
“True,” Tristan laughed. “So nothing’s going to change?”
“Nothing,” I promised. “We will always be best friends.”
A pause hung in the air between us. There was both promise and prophecy in that statement and I took the moment to reflect. We sat huddled next to each other, I was trying to keep Tristan as warm as possible without lighting completely up. We sat staring at the wide open sky, like we had on so many other nights. I could name all the constellations, even though I referred to them as battle formations and I could name almost all the closest Stars by name.
Tristan could sit by me for hours listening to the mystery of the heavens being revealed to him. I wondered if he was the only human on Earth with this secret knowledge and then wondered if he was crazy for taking me seriously. But he would never doubt me; he cared about me way too much.
As a friend.
The world stood gazing at the sky, naming age-old constellations and seeing only balls of gas and light spread across the expanse of the universe. I saw fellow fighters, protecting the last remaining vestige of life. Stars were spread across the universe in endless beacons of life, warding off the Darkness that crowded every remaining space. Where the light could not or did not touch there was Darkness. Humanity saw the physical properties of space, and I saw the metaphysical, a completely different, separate but the same, spiritual world. The blackness of space was not all emptiness, but an ancient evil that would annihilate Earth as willingly as it had all the other planets and claim victory over the solar systems.
As long as there was life, there would be Darkness. And as long as there was Darkness, the Light would protect that life with everything it possessed. The life on Earth would never be left to fight the Darkness alone.
“Ok, so tell me more about the Darkness,” Tristan broke into my thoughts, pulling me out of myself. “Tell me what to expect.”
“What to expect?” I thought about his question, how to explain it to a human for a minute before responding. “It’s everywhere. Not just in the night, but everywhere. The Darkness is the evil that invades mankind and tries to consume the last of life f
rom this universe,” I explained ominously and Tristan swallowed the rising lump in his throat. “You understand the concept of evil, well that is the Darkness. They are synonymous. I don’t know a better way of explaining it to you.”
“So that’s what you fought last night, like pure unadulterated evil?” Tristan asked and I nodded. “So those Shadow-things, that’s what the Darkness is?” he tried to understand. No…. he tried to comprehend.
“Well, yes, they are part of the Darkness. When I say that, I mean it more as a concept I guess. So there are the Shadows, they are literally…. shadows…. and they are what influences mankind. They can do small amounts of destruction and what not, but they aren’t super dangerous unless they arrive in flocks like they did last night. They weren’t enough to really harm me, but if there would have been humans around then the Shadows could have hurt them. And then there are the Fallen. They are Angels, or were once Angels…. It’s like, Ok, you know the story of Lucifer, and how he was cast out of Heaven and a third of the Angels were sent with him, right?”
“Like, from the Bible?” Tristan clarified.
“Yes, right, from the Bible,” I agreed, glad I didn’t’ have to go over that. Tristan went to church with Annabelle most of the time, but I didn’t know how close he listened. “Ok, so those Angles that make up his followers were the original Fallen. Lucifer is obviously the main bad guy, but over time he has added a lot more to his following.”
“You mean Angels still fall from heaven?” Tristan asked, deciding he couldn’t take any more of this seriously. He trusted me, but I knew this was weird.
“Yes, absolutely. Like you, we have free will. Even if we’re born as an Angel, it doesn’t mean we can’t become part of the Fallen,” I said solemnly. I had heard too many stories of Angels being brought over to the evil side of the war to know better than believe it couldn’t happen. “My dad says that every species is called to both the light and the dark, to goodness and to evil, it’s how we live our lives that decide who our hearts choose to follow.”