The Will Of Star, Part 2

           Star is fuming.
           Her mouth is tight as she returns to us, the chaperone safely out of sight.
           “Come on, Lourdes.”
           I glance back longingly at Miles and apologize to Star simultaneously.
           My ambivalence is more irksome to her than simple devotion to Miles would be.
           She still pretends that nothing happened.
           But her face is like a red-letter grade on a final exam.
           Evidently, I’ve just flunked.

           I go for a walk. By myself, for once.
           For reflection.
           Or whatever.
           The wind begins to bite at this time of year. The air hardens. Like burnt toast. Like ice.
           November. 
           The cold soaks into my limbs deliciously. I’m steeped in it.
           It feels good.
           It’s one of those gray days. Clouds. Probable precipitation.
           But you can always be optimistic on days like this. You can peer at the peak of sunshine, tainting the clouds’ unyielding bleakness, hope it will triumph.
           On perfect days, things can only get worse.
           A week until the holidays.
           Thanksgiving.
           Last week I was so myopic, melancholy; now I can’t stand to not look forward, for all the things I anticipate.
           My feet move me forward, robotically, effortlessly.
           But my mind swirls in the ungainly manner of a reluctant amateur, dancing awkwardly with Miles on the gym floor.
           The inevitable questions present themselves.
           Did it mean anything?
           Does it mean anything?
           May I die now, to avoid finding out the solutions to the previous?
           I am not a sleuth. Star had a Nancy Drew phase, as she goes through an absurd amount of sundry and assorted phases, but I believe that is the closest proximity I have come to a mystery that I wanted to actively solve. Or that I didn’t.
           Clueless is what I am and rather what I wish to remain.
           There are stars twinkling in a soft gray sky. Where there should be none.
           I wink at them. We are friends, we share secrets. We are buoyant with our ignorance, like peanut-butter pie, milk chocolate, raspberry cheesecake.
           Petit fours.

           Star’s lips are tight, identical thin ribbons of disapproval.
            I fear them.
           Do I value Miles more?
           This may be unfair. It’s comparing the color blue to the Beatles.
           I try not to think of the answer.
           And all this philosophizing is superfluous, as it is. It would be pure folly for me to make any sort of liaison with the infamous Miles, for Star’s ears are as keen as any, and romantic secrets are never secrets for long.
           The walls of high schools, I’m quite confident, have some distinct acoustic talents.
            I hope, though, that Miles does not approach me. Cataclysmic events rivaling the apocalypse would be likely to ensue.
           As for now, I can only hope that Star’s wrath begins to ebb.
           It will.
           If I pray faithfully.
           (The suspense lies in whose clemency I will trust.)

           Other than me, usually the most reliably amenable detail in her inconstant life, everything is going extraordinarily to plan.
           Our second meeting has arrived.
           Raspberry Park, I do hope your charms assuage Star’s troubled mind.
           Since I don’t have the courage to rectify the situation myself.
           The crowd is larger this time. Girls like birch trees, lips the color of budding foxgloves, like fickle orchid vines, swaying to Star’s opinion, like hand-painted porcelain, like wispy swan’s feathers.
           Today Star lays out the commandments of our beloved doctrine.
           She is glitzy, but sober.
           A delicate precipice between political and adorable and diva-esque.
           “Skadi is in all of us. She is everywhere, always watching.”
           This is a comfort I have come to trust in, since losing that of Star herself.
           I nod blissfully, along with everyone else.
           Bliss is unexpectedly addictive.
           Like sugar.
           Like love.
           Like heroin.
           “Knowing this, we must always be aware of her, and what she wants us to do.” Star pauses, waiting expectantly for us to agree again. We do. There’s a faint flash of what could be complacency on her face.
           But I don’t presume to know Star, despite our years of commiseration, any better than I know Miles. Or Gandhi. Or God. Nor do I presume to possess any great amount of insight. Intuition.
           I blame this interpretation on my own lack of talent.
           “The rules of Skadi are simple. Explicit, and not to be broken, under any circumstances.” She eyes us dramatically.
           “They are as follows:
             No defiling of any Skadi member.
             No doubting the prophetesses of Skadi – their word is the word of Skadi, and therefore unquestionable.
             No indecision as to which god you will place your faith in – Skadi is the one you must follow, and she alone.
             And the final tenet – No consorting with men.”
           I could swear she’s looking at me.
           There’s a chill in me deeper than any that the bitter north wind could effect.
           Star continues blithely, amidst dubious whispers. “These are only the preliminary commandments, my sisters – the only gifts Skadi has thus far granted me. Obey them and she will surely grace us with more. For we are eager to do her will.”
           She closes her eyes.
           She is oblivious to the widespread flouting of Rule Number Two.
           “Pray with me, sisters, for Skadi to come to us.”
           Several girls leave in disgust.
           I am too numb to notice.
           I repeat Star’s joyful words automatically.
           There are two kinds of prayer, just as there is a deep end of the ocean, and a shallow shoreline.
           There is deep prayer, and there is shallow prayer.
           I am praying shallowly, if ever there was a shallow prayer.
           My mind is locked in fierce combat with itself, a wrestling stalemate that I don’t have the mental capacity or conviction to escape.
           I believe in Skadi.
           I believe in God.
           I believe in Star.
           But I can’t believe in coincidences.

           Star has always had a mission, if undeclared. She has always been striving towards something, even if the rest of us didn’t know what yet.
           Skadi is, apparently, the manifestation of all our premonitions.
           In weeks, Skadi and her earthly herald have become a raging success. As devastating as wildfire.
           The newspaper suddenly has a designated page for the deity. She occupies the crannies of everyone’s minds, ready to spring out at an opportune moment.
           Of which there can be many, in an idle psyche.
           Her parents know.
           She spent the night at her renegade cousin’s house.
           For five days.
           I think her parents aren’t horribly worried.
           Star’s always been obsessed with religions of suspicious origins after all. Just last month she devoured three volumes of Norse mythology.
           On the other hand, I could be wrong.
           Skadi’s the biggest thing to hit this town since the sixties.
           Rather distressing, I suppose.
           My parents haven’t caught on.
           Not yet.
           But they are aware that my best friend is a nascent evangelist.
           So to speak.
           Naïve of them, really, to believe I wouldn’t follow her in a way akin to a desperate lemming.
           And you would think that they would have taken note of the fact that I haven’t gone to Mass in four weeks. Five, actually.
           Lead me into temptation.

           I haven’t seen Miles since the dance.
           I have the feeling my best friend who could want nothing but the best for me has something to do with it.
           But he walks up to me now; he is confident, he is self-assured, so alive.
           I shrink into myself, garb myself in the guise of someone not deathly afraid, someone not clutching their books to their fast-beating heart like some kind of lifeline.
           Someone strong.
           Someone I’m not.
           And to conjugate my verb properly, someone I never have been and never will be.
           The psychiatrist that always takes up residence in my head with impeccably malapropos timing peers at me clinically over his glasses. Diagnoses me.
           Lack of self-esteem in the first degree, my dear.
           You’re going to have to do something about that one of these days.
           Why hasn’t anyone invented a drug for this yet?
           Miles is so smooth, like kerosene. Arsenic and vermouth.
           “I’ve missed you, Lourdes.” A mask of authenticity, that’s painfully transparent. He lets me decide if he’s being sincere or not.
           My customary indecision doesn’t fail me.
           “You’ve all but disappeared. Where’ve you been?”
           A place to which I should return, apparently.
           I ignore him. Better to avoid the occasion of sin, as my mother would say.
           As Star would say?
           “Oh, don’t be a stranger, Lourdes.” He strokes my cheek with a cool second finger, without permission and without resistance. “Come on. Where’ve you been?”
           “Go away, Miles.” Go on, Miles.
           “Now you don’t really mean that, do you honey?” He pretends to look distressed.
           “I told you to go away.” Of course not, Miles. Did you just call me “honey”?
           I realize that during this regrettable exchange the bell has rung; Miles and I are alone in the hall.
           My heart pounds harder than a sledgehammer. I could split concrete with the magnitude of force it’s putting out.
           Miles nods, as if accepting graciously that he’s been defeated. Although it’s more like he’s won. “Of course. I’m sorry.”
           He turns to leave.
           I can almost hear him counting down.
           He expects me to follow.
           He expects me to chase him.
           He expects me to make him turn around.
           You would think the boy was a born meteorologist – able to predict practically anything on a moment’s notice.
           Am I a rain shower?
           If so, Star was a hurricane.
           Star is a hurricane.
           “Wait! Miles, I…”
           “Yes?” he whirls around, perfectly on cue. Practically before I said anything.
           “I…” I drop my eyes. Flush a magnificent red, as if a kindergartner had gone wild with a brick-colored crayon. “I’m sorry, but I can’t…”
           “You can’t what?” His voice is seductively husky.
           He’s also an inch away from me. Suddenly. If that.
           I find it hard to exist and breathe at the same time.
           Thinking isn’t even in the picture.
           And before I can get an ounce of oxygen in, he’s kissing me, kissing me with such strength, such gentleness, such…
           My body is definitively against the lockers when he backs off. I feel as though I should feel violated, possibly used.
           But I don’t feel that at all.
           Miles smiles easily, scarcely acknowledging his victory. To be triumphant would be admitting that he doubted he would triumph in the first place.
           “Don’t be a stranger, Lourdes.”
           He smiles, walks away.
           Ready to charm the tardy mark off his record.

           Star doesn’t know.
           She doesn’t know, oh, she doesn’t know.
           I’m exultant, I’m proud, so, so guilty.
           Star chatters on like a garrulous songbird, for once a step behind.
           “I’m getting calls every night – I put out Kira’s number of course, my parents would never stand for it…” She names her erratic cousin thoughtlessly, with no emphasis.
           I wonder if she’s grateful at all.
           Then again, is this a sacrifice for an already disowned nestling?
           “It’s looking as though we’re going to have three hundred at our next gathering!”
           I try languidly to look excited.
           I don’t succeed.
           And Star notices.
           “What’s the matter, Lourdes?” All solicitude. “Did your parents find out?”
           “No,” I reply, too quickly. “I haven’t told them.”
           There’s an odd expression on Star’s face; I want to say she’s displeased.
           A horrible coldness surges up in my stomach. Maybe she knows. Has she seen Miles?
           I’m condemned to the gallows anyway, as it is. Even if she doesn’t know now, she will find out.
           If kissing-and-telling were a mortal offense, Miles would be one damned soul.
           Especially in all-seeing Skadi’s eyes.
           “You should tell them, Lourdes.”
           It’s an execution sentence. Tomorrow at dawn says she of the crystalline eyes.
           I not-so-tactfully and not-so-subtly change the subject.
           “Thanksgiving break’s next week, huh?” I stammer. “Can’t wait for the big holiday!”
           Star gives me a very ugly smile. Quite a feat for someone who is the epitome of all gorgeousness.
           “Yes of course. Friends, family.”
           “Oh!” My savoir-faire is a little bit rusty, evidently. “I’m sorry Star. I forgot that your parents…that you…”
           “It’s quite all right,” she interrupts, all-forgiving and utterly superior. “You didn’t mean to.”
           “Star,” I begin, humbly. “You…well, I mean, if my parents don’t object…” They will. How can I ask this of them? “You could come to my house for Thanksgiving.”
           Her countenance purports complete delight and surprise.
           But I have the distinct feeling of having been manipulated.
           “That would be great!” She shrugs, with a smile as broad and white as the expanse of Antarctica.
           And as cold.
           “If I can’t get with the traditional bunch, this is the next best thing, right?” Her enthusiasm is effusive. Stifling.
           Has she always been this insincere or is this a new development due to her sudden discovery of morality?
           Is it just that I have finally opened my own eyes?

           He is biting His lip, and pretending as though He isn’t.
           She is running Her fingers distractedly through Her hair, pretending as though She isn’t.
           They are pretending as though They don’t know what’s going on.
           I realize now, with my usual lack of punctuality, that they’ve known all along. About Star. And Skadi.
           And my role in this nightmare.
           Their Catholic minds are offended; Their parental sensibilities object with every fiber they possess.
           But They also love me, as it seems parents of only children do to a foolish extent, and They are also human. Prone to too much compassion like virulent strains of airborne bacteria.
           “Of course Star can come.” It’s not a statement She shakily utters, but a question. She knows the truth but She still wants me to prove Her wrong.
           Hope is the last thing to die.
           I expect it endures death, and probably much of the afterlife as well.
           This isn’t necessarily a comforting idea.
           “Thanks, Mom.” I leave her in doubt.
           She probably says to Herself every night before she falls asleep:
           Lourdes was a such nice girl once.
           What happened?

           The third official gathering of the Skadi clan is held Sunday afternoon, four days before Thanksgiving.
           Star has obtained a goddessly red dress. Wearing it, she makes us feel as though we are thistles, at best.
           She is a blooming rose in scarlet rayon.
           We have abandoned Raspberry Park for a more private location; namely, the chill, grassy foothills a mile out of town.
           The city is a gray, half-finished jigsaw nestled between two adoring slopes, leaning suggestively toward one another. The grass looks like velvet, vivid as Star’s yellow hair. It ripples pleasurably in the whispered charms of the seductive east wind, beguiled by every deceptive syllable.
           And here the aforementioned three hundred of us stand, equally entranced.   
           “Sisters!” Her ecstatic face plainly tells us that she loves us each, separately, devotedly, as if we were her literal and not just figurative children.
           I think nasty, vicious thoughts to myself that would make my mother’s face go green.
           “Before we begin today,” says Star, “I would like to just say that I realize not all of you are able to accept what I’m telling you, what I’m going to tell you. All I ask is that you listen.”
           I look up sharply – I’ve been intensely focusing on my feet inside their safe brown shoes. I don’t know why her words startle me, but they do.
           I’m forced to pay attention.
           “You might want to hate me. You might call what I’m trying to do a cry for attention, with not one ounce of truth in any word I say.
           “But that is simply a lie.
           “I come here to give you the word of Skadi. I am not here for myself, but for you, for your lives that will be enriched by the spirit of the Great Goddess.”
           She smiles benevolently. I can’t find even a shred of condescension.
           I feel little rivers trickling down my cheeks.
           Little pearly rivers.
            “Skadi has revealed more commandments to me, sisters!” She raises her arms dramatically. She is exalting the Goddess, calling up a tempest, demanding our worship.
           And we hand it to her, on a diamond-encrusted platter.
           “First – she wishes all of us to be beautiful. We all have the potential. We must respect what Skadi has given us.
           “I urge you all to lose that ten pounds, try that hair color. It’s important that we truly utilize what Skadi has given us.”
           This pronouncement is so bizarre that I feel no surprise when she continues in a similar vein with the next commandment.
           “Skadi appears to me as a great bird – though more fantastic than any earthly bird, naturally. Still, she asks us to respect her chosen species.
           “The practice of eating poultry is barbaric, and contrary to the will of Skadi. It is henceforth disallowed to anyone who truly believes.”
           I think of Thanksgiving, of the look my mother will give me when I refuse turkey.
           I swallow, and move on. I am willing to do this, to sacrifice it all for Skadi.
           “And the last commandment she has given me is that we should monthly give some sort of pledge to her, to show more deeply our reverence.
           “In order to do this, we will once a month ritually sacrifice an animal – whatever we are able to scrape up.” She gives an amused smile that tells us we should not have any problems. “Anything but a bird, of course.
           “And now I must ask you to pray with me – pray for Skadi’s love to come upon you.”
           Her sonorous voice, like the ringing of the heavy bells in the old churches, the cathedrals of Europe, coats us all in a sticky sweetness from which we cannot hope to extricate ourselves.
           We murmur to ourselves, repeating her words meekly, having no hope of ever capturing the glamour and emotion she could.
           We remain here with Star for approaching three hours, not one of us ever for a moment escaping from the enchantment. We are spellbound, just as if Star brandished a magic wand.
           I vow arduously that I will henceforth obey Skadi’s law. To the letter.
           Repercussions are something I will think of only later.
           After we pray, some depart, realizing too late that they’ve missed an appointment. Or something important.
           Most, however, stay.
           We sit in a wide, asymmetrical circle.
           We sit still in the rustling grass, glancing peacefully around at everyone else.
           There is silence, the cool, musky breath of the east wind on our skin.
           We are intimate friends, in a moment.
           Suddenly, one girl speaks up. “I am Johanna!” she warbles. Her voice is gossamer, melodious, with the beauty and delicacy of a butterfly’s wing.
           We all look up dazedly, having long been lost in the indulgent phantasmagoria even a weak winter sun can effect.
           But then the next girl professes proudly, “I am Charlotte!”
           And a dozen, a hundred other voices rise up like fragrant wisps of smoke from the earth then:
           “I am Elizabeth!”
           “Lilliana!”
           “Jessica!”
           “Violet!”
           Cheetah print gloves, purple-tinted contacts. “Oracene!”
           My head snaps toward this Oracene, for her voice is low, with malicious undertones, subtle, threatening.
           The rumble of a distant supercell.
           Approaching.
           This girl has shocking red hair, a tight, gaunt face, thin lips. Eyes the color of winter irises.
           They are contact lenses.
           They are fake.
           The cries continue; no one has noticed anything, not even Star.
           But I keep my eyes on this Oracene.
           Where this astuteness has come from I don’t know. I despise it.
           Every disaster, every great catastrophe has a catalyst, something that sets off the fatal row of dominos.
           I feel Oracene shifting into this role, tangibly.
           My sense of content is blackened, ink into clear water.
           And Star is golden, immaculate.
           Ignorant.
           How can this be, that we’ve switched parts midway through the production?
           My head feels pressurized, as if it’s being squeezed between two great hands, palms shoved rudely against my temple.
           I don’t want this knowledge.
           I don’t want it, I don’t want it.
 
           “Who?” Star is adorably perplexed. She is so cute, like a five-year-old with a dimpled smile, her perfect eyebrows furrowing, shallow lines of bewilderment appearing on her smooth forehead.
           I feel idiotic.
           I feel guilty.
           I feel distinctly as though I want to run.
           “Oracene. You saw her. She was in the circle at the end. The one with the cheetah gloves.”
           She hesitates a moment. “Yes, I remember her.” She betrays no opinion of the purple-eyed one in question.
           “Aren’t you…worried?”
           She blinks at me, wide-eyed. “Why should I be?” Then she gives me a reproving glance. “Innocent until proven guilty, Lourdes.”
           “Of course, but…”
           “You’re concerned because you had a bad feeling about this girl?” Star shakes her head. “Is your faith in Skadi so weak that you don’t believe she would protect her most zealous followers?”
           “Oh, no, I mean…”
           “Why are you so worried then?” She smiles complacently.
           I can’t refute that.

           “How big of a turkey do you think I should get, dear?” She asks, distractedly.
           She pulls bags of stuffing down from the grocery store shelves, instant gravy mix, canned cranberry sauce.
           Frozen pie crusts, three packages of dinner rolls.
           I wonder if Star’s beauty routine entails only one helping of mashed potatoes.
 
           Star arrives promptly at seven-thirty, Thanksgiving morning, done up in a flowered apron and pink holiday dress. She looks brand-new, fresh out of the package.
           From the kitchen, She glances at Star, almost surprised that she doesn’t have horns sprouting from her temples.
           “I brought stuff for macaroni salad,” says Star congenially. “I just love macaroni salad, don’t you?”
           A stammer, a nervous “of course”, and a false smile.
           Well, at least I can blame my timidity on hereditary misfortune.
           I preclude the impending disaster of conversation by nudging my mother, saying, “We better get those pies baking. They have to finish before the turkey goes in.”
           “Of course.” Her lips twitch. “You and S-Star get going on that macaroni salad, all right?”
           Later, noontime, She shoos us away.
           The pretext is that she wants to give us a break.
           She’s never been afraid of Star before.
           It’s funny how a reputation can taint an opinion, an entire mentality. You love the shirt, you look at the price tag, swear to yourself that you never liked it anyway.
           Star, to my Wal-Mart patronizing mother, is a designer sweater.
           It is raining heavily, an unforgiving curtain of squalor, liquid smog.
           And Star wants to go for a walk.
           “I just need to get a little fresh air,” she explains, as if it were elementary level addition.
           Two plus two.
           “Kira’s house is only two blocks from here you know,” she tells me as she heads calmly out into the deluge. I follow reluctantly. “You’ve probably seen her cat. He’s always running off.”
           “Maybe.” Noncommittally. “What does he look like?”
           “He’s all black. Named Lucky.” She winks.
           I giggle obediently.
           We walk down the yellow line in the center of the road. Cars are scarce today.
           Everyone’s cooking.
           Having fun.
           Right?
           The gloom is antithetical, or it should be. I, however, feel empathetic.
           “Lucky!” shrieks Star suddenly.
           She deviates from our course, to pursue an elusive feline figure. She dashes around the corner in her purple platform shoes, her hair the last thing to disappear.
           I pause and then jog after my friend.
           I don’t trust myself to sprint on these wet streets, not even in tennis shoes.
           Is Star more secure in her own abilities or just stupid?
           “Star?”
           I’ve lost her; I’m inexplicably frightened, standing here cold and wet in the rain.
           There’s silence for a long moment, just my echoing breath and the resounding constancy of the rain. Then, Star’s voice, pure and sharp as ice water, reaches me.
           “Lourdes? I’m – I’m over here!”
           I run towards her voice, forgetting my inhibitions.
           I’m strangely relieved.
           Why am I so dependent all of a sudden?
           I find Star, cuddling a very wet Lucky. The cat looks disgruntled, to say the least.
           But Star’s eyes are not on her cousin’s recovered pet.
           “Hold Lucky,” she orders me abruptly.
           I manage not to fumble her awkward hand-off.
           Quite an accomplishment considering taking your eyes off the ball usually precedes general catastrophe.
           There’s a huddled figure sitting at the end of the alleyway, as dark as the cat I’m clutching in unsoiled black garments.
           Star’s sense of generosity has been appealed to. She’ll give up the poultry dinner if she has to.
           Which probably means I will to.
           Still, it’s kind of comforting to see a glimmer of Star’s old goodwill.
           She used to volunteer at the animal shelter.
           Now she organizes pagan rituals.
           As Star approaches, the figure straightens.
           Lucky yowls indignantly as my grip tightens.
           It’s a boy, twenty at most. Dark hair, darker eyes.
           Star stops short. Her charity case has turned out to be a young healthy male. Of the type she characteristically and now religiously loathes.
           “Hi.” She’s peculiarly graceless.
           “Hello.” His voice is low, amused. “Did you want something?”
            “Oh no, I just…”
           She’s lost her eloquence entirely.
           I’m dumbfounded.
           “Is that your cat?” he interrupts mercifully, nodding his head at me.
           Star nods dumbly.
           I begin to believe for one of the first times in my life that Star is indeed mortal.
           This discovery is astounding, and rather disquieting.
           “He’s always following me around,” remarks the boy coolly. He flips his hair out of his eyes lazily, in a way that reminds me forcefully of Miles.
           “Oh.” Star, breathlessly.
           The feeling I had borne in Oracene’s presence returns, though Star rightly convinced me I was being ridiculous.
           Am I being ridiculous now?
           I’ve never seen Star this vulnerable.
           She seems to settle herself now, however, though she’s violently red against the drab ambience.
           Until she opens her mouth.
           “Do you have somewhere to go for dinner?”
           “Milady,” says the boy, sweeping a chivalrous bow in true knight-in-shining-armor style, “I am spectacularly unoccupied.”
                                         
           His name is Elif.
           Star is smitten.
           I am terrified.
           So are She and He.
           I’ve never endured anything so tense. It’s off the meter.
           The good news is She didn’t even notice that Star and I didn’t eat any turkey.
           The bad news is everything else.

           Miles calls me on Saturday, two days after Elif’s entrance onto the world stage.
           I haven’t talked to Star since then.
           And it isn’t that I haven’t tried.
           Kira doesn’t know where she is.
           “Lourdes! How’ve you been? I haven’t heard from you for a good long time!”
           You mean since you attacked me in the hall?
           I don’t answer.
           I don’t trust myself to.
           I will obey Skadi’s law. I will not get involved with Miles.
           Anyway, it wouldn’t be advisable, even if I weren’t a follower of Skadi.
           But something eats at my insides when he says, sounding genuinely disconcerted, “Lourdes? Are you there?”
           It occurs to me that there is a possibility that he really does like me. Improbable, perhaps.
           But why would he have carried all this out in relative secrecy if he intended to show up Star?
           That is not something I am going to contemplate, or something that I should, in respect to my psychological well-being.
           Forgetting my spiritual health entirely.
           In fact, Miles is the least salubrious character that I can think of.
           He’s a slab of milk chocolate, not tofu or yogurt.
           I hate tofu.
           “Lourdes? Are you still there? Can you hear me?”
           I find it much easier to be an ice queen when I’m not face to face with my opposition.
           “Unfortunately yes. But I don’t have to be if you don’t want me to be. Can I go now?”
           “Lourdes?” He’s astonished. Even if this is a ploy to get Star back, he’s astonished.
           “Leave me alone, Miles. I really don’t have the patience to deal with you.”
           Click. Goodbye, Miles.
           I’m overtaken sequentially by Shakespearean spite, triumph, and guilt.
           From whence did my dramatic talents suddenly appear?
           There’s a dull pain in my abdomen, not unlike a cramp. I accept it grimly as due punishment from God – until I remember I don’t believe in him.
           I should feel vindication, that I’ve obeyed Skadi. Justification.
           I don’t.
           And what is right, while Star succumbs to Elif’s poison?
           Like oleanders and the seeds of peaches.

           I take a walk on Sunday morning, to avoid attending church.
           It has stopped raining, but the world remains dark, saturnine.
           Bleak.
           Melancholy.
           It is one of those gray days, one of those days upon which you can harbor no hope. The steely quality of the sky dulls all positive emotion, grinding the purity of the blade away.
           My stride is quick, hurried, as if I am going somewhere.
           As if I have purpose.
           I don’t trust many things, many people, but I am numb enough to trust my feet’s sense of direction.
           Crunched candy canes litter the sidewalk. There’s a lingering scent of peppermint.
           Peppermint and sewage.
           I’ve taken an ill-advised turn, apparently. I’m not in one of the better regions of town.
           I don’t care.
           My feet move swiftly onward, ships sighting land. There’s a feeble stirring of excitement in my stomach, but I quell it. Anticipation inevitably leads to disappointment.
           I become aware, albeit vaguely, that I’m deathly tired and likely that cold as well.
           But it doesn’t matter.
           Nothing matters except the continuing rhythm of my feet on the pavement.
           One, two. One, two, three. A waltz, perhaps.
           The blood throbs in my ears, it’s all building up to something, something climactic, something…
           And suddenly my feet, by now very much their own, sentient entity, halt spontaneously.
           Or for a reason maybe.
           I glance around, figuring that I might as well enjoy the scenery while I am stationary. While my feet let me be.
           And then, through a frosty, illuminated window, I see Star.
           A pale lily in creamy yellow light, she’s enfolded in long white arms. She opens her mouth; she laughs, an angel, devoid of any superfluous attitudes.
           The arms are Elif’s.
           She is not trying to escape.
           My feet will not let me move, though I’m sick, I have to leave, I need to leave…
           I am as rooted to the spot as if my skin were bark and my hair green as the grass. And I can’t help thinking, what have you done to me Star, what have you done?

           I’m not talking to Miles.
           Or is he not talking to me?
 
           Star is not at school on Monday.
           Or Tuesday. Or Wednesday.
           Kira, if she weren’t so idiosyncratic, would be out of her mind by now.
           Worrying, that is.
           But Thursday she is there, wearing a loose orange dress and a scowl, the manifested wrath of Zeus.
           Or someone similarly eminent.
           I don’t ask where she’s been.
           Anyway, I know, even if she’s not aware of it.
           Besides, she is quite obviously in an atrocious mood.
           “I hate life,” announces Star, slamming her locker door shut vengefully.
           What do I say to that?
           She looks down at the books in her arms. “Screw math,” she mutters.
           Last week I thought she was a goddess worthy of Greek idolatry.
           I hesitate, then say, tentatively, “Are you all right?”
           She whirls on me, her eyes black as magic, her face disfigured with fury. “If you say one more word to me, I swear I’ll break your fingers.”
           She storms off, out of the school. I watch, oddly phlegmatic about it all. Maybe I’m watching a movie; maybe this isn’t reality.
           This apparition is certainly a departure from the girl I liked to think I knew.
           Toronto to Timbuktu.

           Friday Star is out of slouch-mode, and back to en vogue. She’s crisp and natty in perfectly pleated pants and runway-worthy white blouse.
           If you didn’t know better, you would have said it was two different people.
           Two different planets more likely.
           I hazard a few questions. “What happened to you yesterday?”
           She’s flighty, bright as clear winter morning. “Oh, nothing, darling. Just had an off day. Nothing special. You know what I mean?”
           “Of course.” Right, Star. Anything you say.
           “By the way, there’s a meeting tomorrow. In the foothills. You’re coming of course.”
           It’s not a question, not even a request. It’s a law, an imperative.
           A commandment.
           “Of course.”
           “And you won’t falsely accuse anyone this time, I hope?” She wears an amused, superior smirk.
           I swallow. “No.”
           “Good.” She puts on her sunglasses, rose-colored, and looks at her watch. “Is it time for math class already?” She sighs. “God, I love math.”
           Then she giggles. “I guess I can’t say that.”
           And skips off, down the hall, to go cavort in the meadow with the square roots. The decimals.
           All of whom she abhorred yesterday.
           She abhorred everything yesterday.
           Now malice and catastrophe may as well be sunshine and daisies.

           Oracene’s malevolent form floats to the writhing surface of bodies, in wispy purple tulle, to match the artificiality of her eyes.
           She hovers, an intense, piercing vibration, completely, undeniably conspicuous among the ranks of blind worship.
           She’s a fire.
           A three thousand acre blaze.
           Star is radiant today. Her light drowns out the threat of Oracene.
           For everyone else, anyway.
           She’s glaringly red in my view.
           “Skadi promises us a resting place after we die, a place unsurpassed by this world – and by the after-worlds of any other religion.”
           “So what really happens?” demands Oracene. Her voice is like the shattering of glass, hideously bare and inexorable. There’s no weakness in it, no self-doubt.
           Star stumbles on her words.
           There is a resounding silence.
           It is a movie scene, scripted down to the last extra. Every head turns, in perfect, practiced synchronization.
           “Are you doubting my word?” Star’s voice is adamantine, terrible and formidable. She is an insurmountable skyscraper, one which no one can hope to replicate or surpass, grown fierce with the meek support of the second-rate sun.
           But Oracene is not intimidated, not at all. Her purple eyes are cool, confident, condescending.
           “O Wise Star!” she cries, scornfully. “I could never presume to doubt you!”
           It is as if Oracene and Star are just two standing on this hill, as if the hundreds of others here did not exist.
           They stare each other down, each with equal strength of will and vehemence, engaged in a mental duel that neither can hope to win.
           Not here.
           Oracene has no power of persuasion here; here Star’s voice is all the wisdom, all the morality we have the capacity for, all that we can desire. All that we do.
           But Star does not want to silence her – doubt will be cast on her previously blameless personality, as it is. To antagonize Oracene too harshly here is to exacerbate her own reputation.
           And she already possesses the aforementioned price tag.
           After a moment, the two stop baring their teeth, realizing, for the moment, they have a stalemate.
           Oracene abruptly absorbs into the mob.
           And Star continues her preaching, blithely, just as though nothing of consequence has even occurred.