And just like that, it was done. That’s the last chapter of A Sea of Stars. I’m not perfectly happy with it–I know that I’m not so great at endings. But I think it works out well enough. And looking back on A Sea of Stars, I can see how much more solid my writing has gotten in the months since I finished it. If I were to go back to it now, it might be an entirely different story. We’ll see how much of that comes through when I edit it.
the
only
real reward for a job well
done is another job
worse than
the first
the
only
escape is to never finish.
but in the end, even
that is
not really
an option
Lillian awoke and was immediately struck by a strong sense of déjà vu. She was lying on her back in a hospital bed, just like the one she had woken up in–hours? days? years?–ago. Once again, she was strapped down, but more loosely than before. There was a little give at the arms and legs, although the band around her middle was just as tight as before.
There was no pain, which was curious. She wondered about that until she spied any IV with an innocent enough looking bag dispensing some sort of clear liquid into her arm. Must be some sort of pain killer.
SEVERAL YEARS AGO According to the medic, Amira was bleeding internally. He thought that he could go in and fix her up, but the problem was that she was just losing too much blood. She was going to need a transfusion or nothing that he could do was going to be able to save her life. Unfortunately, he had no idea what her blood type was, so what they needed was someone with O negative blood–a universal donor.
SEVERAL WEEKS AGO
Staring down the barrel of the gun in Mrs. Claire’s hands, I let go of the man and slowly raised my hands. “Let’s not do anything hasty now, shall we?”
Her eyes flicked from the other man to me and back. “Why don’t you tell him that.”
PRESENT DAY
The tensions finally peaked once we’d all had a chance to sit down and–at Father Antonio’s insistence–have a cup of coffee. To her credit, Amira made an American variety, not the jet fuel that we’d had down at the cafe, but Father Antonio at least took it in stride.
Finally, he was the one to break the silence. “So, you said that the two of you were old friends? Where did you meet?”
trust
is a
double
edged sword; razor sharp and
capable of harming both
he who trusts and he
who is trusted
one and the same
likewise
it
is he
who is trusted who will
cause the most harm
when every
thing goes
wrong
The flight back was uneventful. Lillian and Jacobs took some time to talk about Watkins. It had almost certainly been Adrian, but why Watkins? He had to have been close enough to take a shot at either Lillian or Jacobs, why hadn’t he taken it? And where was he? There was still no sign of him anywhere–not a blip on either the shuttle’s sensors or on Borealis’. Well before they reached the shuttle bay, their conversation started looping back on itself and gradually faded into silence. But it was the kind of silence between good friends–the kind of silence that they’d used to share back before Lillian had gone off on the Daedalus. It was nice to finally find it again.
SEVERAL WEEKS AGO
Mrs. Claire’s was everything that I expected it to be. A dimly lit front room with all manner of New Agey crystals and talismans on every available surface. A beaded curtain in lieu of a door, leading back into the shadows. The only thing missing was the eponymous shopkeeper herself.
“So?” I asked, turning to the man who’d brought me here.
Note: Somehow I managed to mix a Chicago section and a Baghdad section at the end of 23 yesterday. I’ve gone back and rewritten it to fit better and reposted the entire chapter here:
SEVERAL WEEKS AGO
His story went on for a few minutes, detailing how he and his friends had arrived at Mrs. Claire’s, how’d they’d been granted not only an audience but a chance to participate in a real life seance session. And finally, to the old woman calling forward the spirits of the dead–one spirit in particular.
PRESENT DAY
“Raise the dead you say?” There was more than a trace of disbelief in Father Antonio’s voice. Honestly, I didn’t blame him. He hadn’t seen even a fraction of the crazy things that I’d seen.
SEVERAL YEARS AGO
Whatever answer Amira had been about to give was swallowed up by the sudden chatter of gunfire coming from somewhere entirely too close by. It had been several days since I’d heard anything hear this close; although the sound had never gone away entirely.
I turned to back to Amira, intending to get her to safety before rejoining my unit–if the fighting were picking up again, they were going to need a priest. But when I turned to her, the first thing that I noticed was that she was too pale, her face gone an almost chalky white, lighter even than my own.