Star Mother (Star Mother #1)(20)

The face was undeniably mine.

Gaping, I dragged my feet forward, moving closer. I touched the ends of the stone dress, which were smooth from the passing of a million fingers. I studied my face—it was reverent and wise, chiseled into an expression I don’t think I’ve ever actually worn, but it was lovely and inspiring, nonetheless.

No wonder Father Aedan had recognized me.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he whispered.

I nodded. “Who carved it?”

“Alas, I do not know.”

My gaze dropped back to the hem of the skirt. The sculptor must have made quick work of it, to capture my likeness so perfectly, to have it put in the cathedral already. How could anyone who worked here not know his name?

Why was the stone so worn, like it was . . . old? Just like those tombstones . . .

“Father Aedan”—I enunciated every syllable of his name—“how long have I been gone?”

He swallowed and looked around, searching for something. I now realize he might have been searching for a place for me to sit.

“Our scripture says you left in 3404, Star Mother.” He gestured weakly to the pedestal, and I saw the same four numbers etched there.

When he didn’t continue, I pushed another question through my tight throat. “And what year is it now?” My thoughts cried, 3405.

Please say 3405.

His blunt answer was, “4105.”

I reeled back from the statue as though it had stung me. My breath rasped. Not enough air. For a moment, I was back beneath the torch of Sun, burning in its light, crawling across stones like embers.

Then I blinked, and everything was cold and gray. The stone, the air, the rising light filtering through the windows. My feet, still bare, were ice. “4105?”

Father Aedan nodded.

I gripped the hem of the statue’s skirt, lowering myself to the floor. “Seven hundred years? I’ve been gone seven hundred years?”

He reached toward me. “Star Mother—”

I shied away, uncaring that my skirt rose halfway up my calf. “I was just there. Ten months, the same as it would be with any mortal child. I wasn’t supposed to live, but I did. I lived.” My volume raised with each word. “I lived, and He sent me back. How could seven hundred years have passed?”

The poor father looked ready to weep. “I-I don’t know the ways of the gods, Star Mother. Not beyond what They’ve revealed to me.

Please . . . let me get you some water and bread. Something to settle your stomach.”

But I was on my feet again, shaking my head as though I could dispel the truths he spoke. I ran through the cathedral, past the eye, down the nave, to the heavy double doors of its entrance. I rammed my shoulder into the one on the right, forcing it open.

Spring air engulfed me, and for a heartbeat, Endwever was exactly how I remembered it. But small wrongs ticked in my vision one by one. That house, and the one behind it, hadn’t been there when I left. The Farntons hadn’t had a fence, and their vegetable garden was missing.

I walked, cutting across the village, stepping around a stray sheep. People were rising to start their chores and their day. A man hooked his plow to an ox. A woman carried a laden bucket in each hand. A girl tied her apron tight around her small waist. All of them, strangers.

Panic rose in my breast, and I moved faster, as though the exercise could burn away all the unfamiliarity of this familiar place.

The path wound toward my own home, but as I neared it, I noticed an addition had been put onto it, and a plump woman nursing a babe sat in the window, glancing up at me with unfamiliar eyes. I changed direction, running toward the tree line. Passing a man who called after me, another who stared at me the way Father Aedan had. All of them wore strange fashions, the women with lower necklines and fuller sleeves, bright aprons over their skirts. The men had heavy folded cuffs and sharp collars. My dress alone made me stand out among them, a blue jay in a flock of cardinals.

I ran until I came to the cottage Caen had been building for us.

It was entirely finished, with a fenced-in vegetable garden beside it.

There was no thatching on the roof, but dark tiles. Bird droppings highlighted the walls. A new walking path cut a rivet in the Earth, heading toward the village square. And the village . . . it was much too large. Far larger than it had been . . .



I stopped, staring, trying to catch my breath. With each exhale, my thoughts screamed, Seven hundred years. Seven hundred years.

Seven hundred years.

This was not the Endwever I had left behind.

These were not my friends, my neighbors, my family. No, they were all long dead, and I was the only one left. The only one left.

Alone.

I sat by the fireplace, sipping yarrow tea, clasping the cup to warm my fingers. I was inside Father Aedan’s house. He had found me in my despair and, with the help of his wife, coaxed me inside. The house was centuries old, but it had not stood in Endwever during my time.

My time. I took another sip of tea, feeling the warmth drag down my throat, and peered out the window at the afternoon sky. At the Sun. Did He know what He had sent me back to?

The ring on my finger was lined amber. Would He try to find me?

A face appeared in the window and startled me. An adolescent boy, peering in, going wide-eyed at the sight of me.

Shila, my hostess, noticed as well. Clucking her tongue, she strode to the window and shut its thin curtain. “She’s not a show hen.”