Star Mother (Star Mother #1)(21)

I thought back to how I’d likened myself to an old cow in the backyard, before becoming a star mother. The irony was not lost on me.

Father Aedan and Shila walked close to me, as though their bodies could give me some privacy. I smiled and nodded at those we passed, igniting whispers like fire in my wake.

At the cathedral, I returned to the cemetery, taking my time with the tombstones. The Aedans didn’t leave me, but they did give me some space, watching over me from a distance as though I were a bird that might flit away at any moment. But where would I go? Although I had a growing feeling the Aedans saw me more as a scriptural phenomenon than a living and breathing person, I did not know of any other who would have me. Every last human being I had known was long dead.

A comment in an unfamiliar voice marked the arrival of a third party.

“How did she survive?” the man asked, as though I could not hear him.

I glanced over my shoulder to a man of about forty, wearing worn but well-made clothes and a hearty jacket. Father Aedan gestured for him to follow, and the two came out to meet me.

“Ceris, this is Toder, the stonemason who carves all the tombstones. We thought he could help.”

I glanced at the man, then back to the weathered grave markers before me. “Did he carve them seven hundred years ago as well?” I couldn’t help the bitterness in my voice, but I did regret it instantly.

“No,” Toder replied, crouching beside me, “but my father and his father before him worked this place. I know it well.”

Hope sparked within me. “You have records?”

He looked abashed. “N-No. Not records that old, my lady.”

“Ceris,” I corrected him. Turning back to the tombstone, I ran my hand down its length. I could make out a few letters of Wenden. Had my family still gone to the paradisiacal hereafter Sun had promised me, even though I had not been there to greet them? “And I don’t know why I survived, to answer your question.” That more or less denied what had been written in scripture about me.

Behind us, Father Aedan said, “Perhaps many have, only to come back in a different time—”

“No.” I corrected him, firm. “They all perished with their stars.”

Silence fell around us like snow.

Clearing his throat, Toder stood and moved to the next row of graves. “These ones are from the 3800s,” he explained, and I followed him, light-headed from crouching so long. He walked a little farther. “These are more recent.”

I could tell, for they were still legible. I read the one he stood beside. “I don’t think the Parros family will help me here.”

Toder shook his head. “The placement . . . most likely a Wenden woman married into the Parros family. That’s why the Wenden graves dwindle in number.”

That ember of hope reignited, and I read the names on the Parros family tombstones. “Are they still here? Their descendants?” I might have family after all, just not family I’ve met yet. One of my sisters, at the very least, had married. She’d had children, too, if there were tombstones on the Wenden plot from the 3800s.

Father Aedan worried his hands. “I-I’m afraid not.”

Toder said, “Let us ask Jon. He might know.”

They took me to Jon Ellis, who was the oldest man in Endwever at seventy-four. A crowd traveled with me when I departed for his home, but the glimmer of hope in my belly softened my disposition, and I grasped hands with many of the bystanders, nodding when they said my name or asked if my story was true. Many acted like I was some holy demigod. A few looked at me skeptically. Fortunately, I had no desire to prove anything to anyone.

To my surprise, we went to my cottage. Caen’s cottage. The cottage where I would have birthed mortal babes, had my life progressed as expected.

“Is this a family home?” I whispered to Father Aedan. “Or did the previous owners move on?”

“The Ellis family has been here longer than mine has, certainly,” the father replied. Caen’s last name had been Allyr. Perhaps the name had evolved over time? I wondered at it, suddenly eager to check the graves for a possible change of name by marriage.

I took in the doorway as I passed through it, the fireplace, the kitchen, and the backrooms, trying to imagine myself the woman of the household. I found it very difficult to do so.

Jon sat in a rocking chair near the dying fire, his hair thin and white, his face narrow except for his cheekbones. It took a bit of explaining, and a bit of remembering, before he could answer our questions, but his eyes lit up, and he tapped his index finger on the chair’s armrest.

“I remember. Parros . . . He was in metal trade. Blacksmith. Married that skinny girl and moved on for an apprenticeship, wasn’t it?” He nodded. “Headed to . . . Nediah.”

Nediah. I clung to the familiar name. Nediah was a city northwest of Endwever. The merchants who traveled by Endwever were always either coming from or going to Nediah. It was said they had a library and their roads were all cobbled with stone.

“Do you remember how long ago?” I asked.

Jon shrugged. “I was but a lad. Younger than you.” He waved at me.

Some fifty years, then. But that was not too long ago. Two or three generations. The young man who’d left might no longer be alive, but his family would be.

“Then I must go to Nediah,” I said.