Between the Stars and Sky Read online

  I don’t want to remember, but I don’t want to forget.

  I set my mug carefully down on the arm of an Adirondack chair near the place where the deck meets stairs, and I sit. There is no wind, but the air is laced with a coolness only found when summer is just beginning, when the lake is breathing too cold in the direction of the house. Looking out, I can see beyond the crisscrossed prison of trees to the lake, its blue and white and green surface choppy and unruly; it moves without the wind.

  I want to be the lake.

  My fingers drum on the armrest, the sun warm against my skin. I pull my shirt over my head, run a hand through my thick hair as wild as the lake.

  Close my eyes-

  to the memories.

  This place has held my secrets since I was three; the house holds our family, though I’m positive I’m the only one who really appreciates it for the escape that it is. The sanctuary. The place between heaven and hell and reality and dreams. Outside of everything.

  And yet-

  everything is here.

  Everyone.

  Every dream starts here, every reality ends here. It is a place that holds things like the stars hold wishes. I cannot escape from a place like that, and I don’t want to

  I just want to begin.

  My eyes burst open and I begin to cry as the light punches them hard and fast, but I don’t blink; this is a beginning, and I refuse to let that go.

  So, I look.

  I try again.

  The forest is entwined with dark and light, green and brown. Trees tower above while some are not even living but stretched out on the floor dead. In front of me, the path from the stairs to the beach is wrapped in golden sand, outlined by birch logs. The sand looks warm, but because of the shadows I know it will be cold if I step on it. A rabbit jumps from one side of the path to the other, but I hear a bird chirping loudly instead.

  Everything is something else.

  I came here to find myself, and yet this place doesn’t even know what it should be.

  “Fuck!” A noise. I scream. I die.

  A bird threw itself against the glass door in a wild mess of loose feathers. It stays on the deck for a second, stunned. Twitching. Its stick-legs bend up toward the sky, before they right themselves and its wings take over.

  My heart hurts.

  Cold and hot and cold fight for claim over my skin, and I can feel sweat beginning to crawl from my brow.

  But I cannot stop laughing.

  It bubbles up my throat and out and I cannot control the way it consumes me even worse than my thoughts. I fall against the back of the chair, my face close to a rogue feather stuck to the wood, and I die again. My stomach is a punching bag against this. Lungs deflated. My throat burns, raw, and I swore again I swore again I swore again and the bird heard me and it almost died but I am alive I am alive I am so alive.

  I cannot see through the tears running wet down my face. Everything hurts and I am almost dead and tired and on the floor and I love it.

  I don’t stop all morning.

  Smiling.

  * * *

  Huntington is part of its own forever; it moves through time with seasons, but never truly changes beyond what it always will be. It is a sleepy, quiet place filled with friendly people and idealistic steps. Festivals and celebrations; Huntington is filled with many thing. But for now, for me, it is a safe haven; the wall of mountains in the distance keeps my shattered world away. This is a place outside of a place where I can be a person outside of myself.

  I love this new chance, this beginning, but hate that I have no idea who I want to be now that I have a choice. And because love and hate are nearly the same thing, I’m not sure which I feel more about this sweet little town outside of time.

  Walking through it, I am lost in a different way than before. My mom used to love this time of year, when the air is more warm than cool but still crisp. She would walk down the main street of Huntington with nothing to do but look in the shop windows and smile at the people, as though she were the sky and everyone merely stars woven tightly around her.

  She and Dad fell in love at the Firelight Festival.

  The entire street is filled with bright orange flyers that say the festival is one week away. One week before everything changes again. In the distance, I see Gypsum, the quiet mechanic, hanging strands of golden bulbs around the trees in the front yard of her shop at the edge of mainstreet where the streets come together in the town square. Trailing from the gazebo, lights try and twinkle on buildings and streetlights, red and yellow and white, but fail in the sunshine. The eyes of Huntington’s people twinkle instead.

  I smile when I see this: Jameson’s Hardware and Coffee Shop. A tiny, cozy little place that looks as though it is trapped in a different, easier corner of the world. The windows are cracked at the edges, and the paint is always chipping so if you look closely enough, the tan walls are a hundred brilliant colors mixed together.

  No one knows who Jameson was or is. Some say he was the founder of Huntington and the first person to build a life here. Some say he was really a woman. Some refuse to say his name at all and claim even thinking about it will give you five years bad luck. Some even say he didn’t exist at all, that he’s just a dream an adult came up with to be more like a child, to gossip.

  I like to say he’s still alive, living in the caves beneath the Point. Alone but not. Waiting for the perfect cup of coffee to find its way down past the bluffs to his hands.

  Because coffee really is that important and Jameson’s always has the best.

  But even so, Jameson will forever be a part of Huntington, and a secret part of the infamous Firelight Festival; the Firelight Fall is something no one ever talks about but everyone knows. The truth of it is a secret known only between teenagers above the age of sixteen. A lie between adults. A game, a dare played during the last night of the Firelight Festival at midnight. As the cool winds of autumn begin to pull summer down, we fall with them and meet Jameson at the bottom of the Point, the place where he met his love and died with her.

  The Firelight Fall is an end and a beginning.

  “Is that little Jackson Grant?” a voice questions as an arm grabs mine. The strong smell of nail polish hits my nose and I choke. “How old are you now? Eighteen? You must be. You certainly aren’t little anymore. Look at those arms! My goodness, if I weren’t married I tell you I’d have you against the gazebo before you knew what was happening.”

  I try to smile, but fail. I would have run the other way if I knew this would happen. “Morning, Mrs. Porter. Can I have my arm back?”

  “Of course,” she says, but doesn’t let go. I can feel the pink of her nail etching itself into my skin; she’s stronger than I remember. Or maybe I was just too young to notice. She smiles, her lips the same abusive red shade as her shirt, as the pieces of gloss stuck to her teeth. “I haven’t seen you in years! Since before your mother - well, anyway. I hope you’re doing okay. You look well. And. Oh. My. Lord. Have you heard about the Blakes? What happened with Samantha, my goodness. I don’t think that family will ever be the same. And they were such a prominent part of this town.”

  She pauses, waits. For me? Am I supposed to say something?

  “I hadn’t heard,” I tell her. Simple. I don’t want to know anything from Mrs. Porter; nothing from her is ever as true as it sounds. I haven’t seen the Blake family in such a long time, I’m not sure what they look like anymore. Not sure I want to know anything bad about the family of the girl who changed my life so long ago.

  “Well, it is a secret.” Mrs. Porter’s face flushes a fake red that nearly matches her lips, and her voice falls to a low, dark whisper. “I won’t tell you. Divorce is such an ugly thing, isn’t it? Oh my, I’ve said too much! Just be watching that family, you hear me?”

  “I hear ya.” I don’t.

  Mrs. Porter has her secrets about the Blakes.

  I have mine.

  “Now, where are you off to this morning, Jackson?”r />
  “Headed to Jameson’s.”

  “Where?” She blinks and gold glitter jumps from her lashes.

  I grin. She’s one of those, so I say the name again just to push a button. “Jameson’s. Just need some coffee and they have the best.”

  Her fingers squeeze me. “Did you just work out?”

  “Uh, no.” “Your arm is so hard. Do you play football?”

  Is this happening? I say, “Thanks, and no. I really have to get going.”

  But she isn’t listening. “Did I ever tell you about the time I slept with Mayor Rowell under the gazebo during a Firelight Festival?” She moans and squeezes my arm. I die. “He had the best arms. All hard and big and strong and-”

  “Oh, Miles!” I wave to no one over her shoulder, pulling my arm free. “Sorry, Mrs. Porter, but Miles is waiting for me. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Until next time.” She waggles her fingers at me.

  I smile. I run and I don’t look back. And even though I feel a little sick, a little like I need a shower, it’s nice to know some people never change. It’s nice to know that no one knows what I do, why I’m here when I haven’t been in years. Not since I was thirteen.

  A gentle bell dings when I open the door to Jameson’s, and I lift my head and take in the memories, the stories. Dark, rich coffee smells hit my nose first, followed by the tang of metal and dirt and age. Voices whisper and rise from tables in the center of the place, laughter hits the empty paint cans and coffee mugs sitting on shelves around the room, lining the way down two hallways; one to a room filled with tools and paint and lumber, the other filled with kitchen overstock and cleaning supplies.

  “Look who it is,” a voice calls. “Jackson Grant, home for the summer.”

  I turn to see Miles walking out from behind the bar at the very end of the room. Even in this noise, his voice is quiet enough to be heard, loud enough to be noticed.

  “Hey, Miles,” I say, grinning. I throw one arm around him and the smell of bacon and coffee and sweat hit me at once. For some reason, a memory takes hold of me, sticks in my throat, and I feel like I am home; I haven’t seen Miles in so long but he still feels like my best friend. It’s amazing how home is rarely a place but a person. “Long time.”

  “How’ve you been?” he asks, gripping my shoulder even after we pull away. “Apparently at the gym five days a week. Can’t call you Little Jackson anymore, huh?”

  I groan, smiling. “I just survived a brutal Mrs. Porter attack. I thought she was going to throw me down right there in the middle of mainstreet.”

  Miles nearly falls over laughing. “Oh, man. She almost got Sean the other day! Refuses to believe she can’t turn him.”

  “Mrs. Porter for you,” I say. “I’m pretty sure she flirts with anything with arms and legs. How are you and Sean, anyway?”

  His teeth flash white against his dark skin, and before he speaks I am almost jealous of his happiness because I remember my own, before. “Better than okay. We moved in together a few months ago and haven’t looked back.”

  I lift one eyebrow, one side of my lips. “That’s new. I don’t remember you being a relationship kind of guy. The opposite, in fact.”

  “People change,” he tells me with a shrug. “Or maybe I’ve been the same all along and I just needed Sean to see it. Maybe there are two kinds of people in the world: those who are complete without love, and those who need love to see they are complete. We actually left Huntington a few summers ago on a road trip.” He pauses, blinks. “Right after you left. It was incredible and scary and I realized I need him, Jackson. To be me, I need him in my life. And I don’t care what anyone thinks, I’ve never felt stronger than I do with him. Love is strength, I think.”

  “Told you.”

  His hand hits my shoulder. “Did not.”

  “I was the one who told you to go out with him.”

  “You were not! That was all me.”

  Please.” My eyes roll and I feel like I’m in high school again. “I made you give him your number during the Firelight Festival that year. I’ve been cheering for you two since the beginning! You were so afraid to even talk to him that you puked behind the ferris wheel.”

  “Ass. I did not!”

  Ignoring him, I say, “I’m still cheering for you. Even though you hurled on my shoes.”

  “I know that,” he says, the dark greens of his eyes a summer storm before nightfall. “I’ve always known.” Three seconds, three words, pause the world. Make me miss having a friend like Miles. Having one person to count on through anything. One person who understands what you mean even when you don’t say it. A brother. And in his eyes, I see that we don’t need to say anything to go back to that place. I don’t need to explain where I’ve been or what has happen. I will, in time. But not now, not like this.

  Instead, I whisper, “I’m going to do it this year, Miles.”

  “Yeah?” he says like he understands what I’m talking about. And then, “Oh. You are? Are you sure? You know no one would blame you if you didn’t.”

  I shake my head. “I want to. I have to.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I do. I want to feel alive, Miles.”

  “Are you sure this is the way to do it?”

  “Are you doing it?”

  He nods. “Yes. I’ve done it every year since I could. Three times now.”

  “Then so am I.”

  He swallows. And after a moment says, “Okay.”

  “Same place?” I ask.

  “Same place as always. But get it later; too many people here now. We like tradition in Huntington.”

  I almost laugh. “I’ve noticed.”

  And then he says, “You cheated that year you won the trophy, just so you know. No way you actually won the Firelight Marathon without help.”

  “Did not!” I punch his arm.

  “You were like three feet shorter than everyone else and you couldn’t keep your eyes off Alice Marvel’s chest. I’m surprised you could run in a straight line. Alice helped you, didn’t she. Admit it.”

  “Never,” I say. “I never cheated! Alice and I were just friends. Besides, I was always faster than you.”

  “Were not.”

  “Was too.”

  “I’ll race you to the coffee bar to prove you wrong.”

  I laugh, shake my head. “You are five.”

  “I’m a year older than you and don’t forget it.” He smiles. “Let’s go get a coffee, anyway. I want you to meet my new girl. She’s pretty cool. An artist. I think you’ll like her. And she lives right by you just across the lake.”

  My eyebrows bend. “In the Blake house?”

  “Well, she kind of has to. She is a Blake.”

  I don’t mention what Mrs. Porter said. I don’t tell him that I’ve known the Blake house all my life, from a distance. The people across the lake in the house that rises and rises and rises forever, the family who built most of this town and own most everything else in sight, are more a myth to me than Jameson.

  I wasn’t sure they existed-

  after my summer with her.

  I never saw her again.

  And yet, I have caught myself stealing moments from them even though I haven’t seen Sarah since I was thirteen; sitting on the beach, my eyes fixed on the light bending fog at the end of their dock. Like moonlight, only a mysterious purple, the color of fog against rain at sunset, in the wake of untouchable fortune. Of misery, maybe. Of life, perhaps.

  “This is Sarah Blake,” he says as we stop in front of the coffee bar. Miles leans against the old wooden counter, moving his hands over the dips and groves in it.

  “Please keep your eyes above my neck,” is the first thing she says to me, her face completely serious. Her eyes like raindrops against clouds. “I’m no Alice Marvels but I appreciate some good eye contact just the same.”

  A laugh bursts from my mouth. I’m not sure what to say to a girl who is, in fact, nothing like Alice Marvels, so I don’t
say anything. I smile. I wait.

  I see if she remembers.

  Miles says, “Sarah is our newest barista and fortune teller. Don’t ask her anything about horoscopes if you want to live.”

  Sarah says, “I tell fortunes for the Firelight Festival, but I can read you now, if you’d like.”

  “Pass,” I tell her.

  She asks, “Afraid?”

  “Maybe.” And I am, because of her.

  “Honest?”

  I grin. “Mostly.”

  “That’s more than most can say.” She smiles, though not as much as me; it’s a half smile, tilted up at the sides almost barely. And for the first time, I notice tiny, dark smudges of purple and blue just near her nose; paint she forgot to wash away.

  She’s still painting her stories and thoughts on canvas. Creating life on paper. Remembering. So quietly in my mind, I wonder if her heart is still broken.

  Like mine.

  I wonder if she remembers me.

  Miles clears his throat. “Sarah, this is Jackson, home in Huntington for the summer. Couldn’t stay away from me.” He smiles as though he just saved the world, and I roll my eyes.

  “Nice to see you, Jackson,” she says.

  She doesn’t remember-

  me.

  “You, too,” I lie. I don’t know why her words almost kill me, almost make me wish I had never met her before today.

  Miles is still smiling. “I need to finish up inventory but I’ll talk to you later, Jackson. I’ll stop by the house.”

  “Sounds good. And nice to see you, Sarah,” I say. I wonder if her heart is beating as oddly as mine is. Kind of a beat every other second, missing a few between. But from the storms in her eyes, her heart is cold and collected and calm.

  She says, “You, too. Coffee?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  “Room?”

  “No, black is fine.”

  “A man’s drink,” she tells me.

  I laugh, thinking this is a compliment, but when I find her eyes they are hard and cold. “I guess so.”

  “It takes more than a cup of black coffee to make a man, just so you know.”

  “Thanks for the fortune.”