Beautiful Darkness(76)

But we weren't. Gatlin's very own Galileo was awake, too. When I turned the corner onto Marian's street, I could see the light on in her spare room. As I got closer, I saw a second light flicker from the front porch.

“Liv.” I jogged up the steps and heard a clatter in the darkness.

“Bloody hell!” The lens of an enormous telescope swung toward my head, and I ducked. Liv grabbed the end of the lens, her messy braids swinging behind her. “Don't sneak up on me like that!” She twisted a knob, and the telescope locked back into place on the tall aluminum tripod.

“It's not exactly sneaking when you walk up the front steps.” I tried not to stare at her pajamas — some kind of girly boxers under a T-shirt with a picture of Pluto and the caption DWARF PLANET SAYS: PICK ON SOMEONE YOUR OWN SIZE.

“I didn't see you.” Liv adjusted the eyepiece and stared into the telescope. “What are you doing up, anyway? Are you mental?”

“That's what I'm trying to figure out.”

“Let me save you some time. The answer is yes.”

“I'm not joking.”

She studied me, then picked up her red notebook and started scribbling. “I'm listening. I just have to write down a few things.”

I looked over her shoulder. “What are you looking at?”

“The sky.” She looked back into the scope and then at her selenometer. She wrote another set of numbers.

“I know that.”

“Here.” She stepped aside, motioning me closer. I looked through the lens. The sky exploded into light and stars and the dust of a galaxy that didn't remotely resemble the Gatlin sky. “What do you see?”

“The sky. Stars. The moon. It's pretty amazing.”

“Now look.” She pulled me away from the lens, and I looked up at the sky. Though it was still dark, I couldn't make out nearly half the stars I had seen through the telescope.

“The lights aren't as bright.” I looked back to the telescope. Once again, the sky burst into sparkling stars. I pulled back from the lens and stared out into the night. The real sky was darker, dimmer, like lost, lonely space. “It's weird. The stars look so different through your telescope.”

“That's because they're not all there.”

“What are you talking about? The sky's the sky.”

Liv looked up at the moon. “Except when it's not.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nobody really knows. There are Caster constellations, and there are Mortal constellations. They aren't the same. At least, they don't look the same to the Mortal eye. Which unfortunately is all you and I have.” She smiled and switched one of the settings. “And I've been told the Mortal constellations can't be seen by Casters.”

“How is that possible?”

“How is anything possible?”

“Is our sky real? Or does it only look real?” I felt like a carpenter bee the moment he found out he'd been tricked into thinking a coat of blue paint on the ceiling was the sky.

“Is there a difference?” She pointed up at the dark sky. “See that? The Big Dipper. You know that one, right?” I nodded.

“If you look straight down, two stars from the handle, you see that bright star?”

“It's the North Star.” Any former Boy Scout in Gatlin could tell you that.

“Exactly. Polaris. Now see where the bottom of the cup ends, the lowest point? Do you see anything there?” I shook my head.

She looked into her scope, turning first one dial, then a second. “Now look.” She stepped back.

Through the lens, I could see the Big Dipper, exactly as it looked in the regular sky, only shining more brightly. “It's the same. Mostly.”

“Now look at the bottom of the cup. Same place. What do you see?”

I looked. “Nothing.”

Liv sounded annoyed. “Look again.”

“Why? There's nothing there.”

“What do you mean?” Liv leaned down and looked through the lens. “That's not possible. There's supposed to be a seven-pointed star, what Mortals call a faery star.”

A seven-pointed star. Lena had one on her necklace.

“It's the Caster equivalent of the North Star. It marks due south, not north, which has a mystical importance in the Caster world. They call it the Southern Star. Hold on. I'll find it for you.” She bent over the scope again. “But keep talking. I'm sure you aren't here for a lecture on faery stars. What's going on?”

There was no point in putting it off any longer. “Lena ran away with John and Ridley. They're down in the Tunnels somewhere.”

Now I had her attention. “What? How do you know?”

“It's hard to explain. I saw them in this weird vision that wasn't a vision.”

“Like when you touched the journal in Macon's study?”

I shook my head. “I didn't touch anything. One minute I was staring at my reflection in the mirror, and a second later all I could see was stuff flying past me like I was running. When I stopped, they were standing in an alley a few feet away, but they couldn't see or hear me.” I was rambling.

“What were they doing?” Liv asked.