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“ARE WE THERE YET?”
I gritted my teeth as I pulled off the highway exit, heading toward Lake County.
“We’re almost there,” I barked back at Lucas, who had asked if we were there yet about forty million times already.
“You said we were almost there ten minutes ago,” Lyra pointed out.
“And we’re still technically almost there,” I argued. “We’re actually even closer than ‘almost’ there.”
“But—”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I yelled. “Find a new topic, please.”
They were both quiet for a long moment. I preemptively rejoiced, hoping against all hope they would both just shut up and leave me alone.
“Alex?”
Alas, silence was not to be had.
“What?” I gripped onto the steering wheel more tightly, preparing myself to be annoyed.
“Is your name really actually ‘Hamilton?’” Lyra asked.
“Yes,” I said. “It was my mother’s idea, not mine, let me assure you.”
“That’s Lucas’ middle name.”
“Is it?” I frowned. I didn’t know of any other fallen Stars who were living on the earth. Not any that introduced themselves to me with that label, anyway.
“It is,” Lucas agreed.
“So you really are Wingdinger then, aren’t you?” Lyra asked.
“I was,” I told her. “I wasn’t lying when I said he died. SWORD put that in the newspapers.”
“Do you know all about Starry Knight then?”
I nearly swerved off the road at her question. “I don’t want to talk about her,” I said as evenly as I could.
“Why not?”
“Because. It’s too painful,” I told her honestly. It was even more painful now, on some levels, because I was going to have to sneak into a SWORD black site, recover her likely-decaying body, and bury it properly myself. And I had to do this, of course, while trying to stop myself from jumping into the grave after her. It was going to be trying, harrowing, and likely expensive.
There goes that Christmas bonus of mine. If the Wilsons didn’t take it first.
“I wish Aeolian was here,” Lucas said. In the rearview mirror, I could see he was doodling in the condensation on my car windows.
“Who’s Aeolian?” I asked.
“He’s my pet.” Lucas sighed. “He’s funny. He’d be all up for an adventure. He gets bored easily.”
I remembered him saying things about his pet earlier. “You said he was a lizard, right?”
“Most of the time.”
“Most of the time?” I frowned. “That’s weird. What do you mean—” I stopped.
These kids were Stars. Surely they didn’t have ...
“He’s a changeling dragon,” Lyra explained. “But he’s too small. He’s not very old yet. We just tell our friends he’s a rare lizard because reptiles are the easiest forms for him to take.”
“He’s still cool though,” Lucas said. “He can move his tongue like this.” He stuck out his tongue and pointed it upward, almost like he was trying to lick his eyes.
Which, I remembered clearly from when Elysian would do just that to annoy me, was probably what he was doing.
I was feeling increasingly uncomfortable with the conversation.
“Well, okay then,” I said. “New subject. Who wants to stop for dinner? I highly recommend we do, since I wasn’t able to get a hold of my mom, and she’s probably got a weird chef or two running around the house.”
As the two of them began to battle it out over dinner options (“Pizza!” and “No, spaghetti!”), I wondered to myself all over again.
What am I doing?
I’d spent the greater portion of the last decade of my life fighting to get away from my past. I’d moved, made new friends, graduated college, graduated law school, and did a lot of other stuff, too.
Yeah, I didn’t have any real “peace,” but you lose your girlfriend and the love of your life the way I did, and you probably wouldn’t have peace either.
The only semi-logical coherent thought I had about it was that this was a way to move on. Running from the past didn’t make it easier to lose. Maybe if I confronted it, maybe if I saw her body, and maybe if I stopped SWORD from devolving further into a power-hungry organization bent on controlling power around the world, I would feel better about living through her loss.
That made more sense.
This is only a way to appease my survivor’s guilt, I told myself.
*☼*
Seemingly hours later, with a bag full of Italian goodies, we arrived at my parents’ house.
It was strange, seeing the old place. In the winter sunshine, I could tell the house itself was more worn than it used to be. Cheryl and Mark, for all their meticulous—well, Cheryl’s anyway—caring, could not stop the passage of time when it came to aging houses. Even the gardens seemed to be more untamed than I remembered.
“This is where you live?” Lucas asked. “It’s huge!”
“This is where I lived,” I corrected. “It’s my parents’ house.”
“Cool!”
Even Lyra, the pickier of the two, seemed happy. “This seems nicer than your apartment,” she said.
“You didn’t like my apartment?” I arched an eyebrow at her.
“It was okay. This is bigger. I like bigger.”
Damning with faint praise, this one, I thought, even as I smiled. “Come on, let’s get inside.” I glanced out the window at the sky; it was filled with gloomy-looking clouds, serving as a welcoming committee of sorts. “It looks like rain’s coming soon.”
Since it was near dark, the lights were on, and I felt a rush of feeling at home as I recalled walking into the house late at night, likely past curfew, hundreds of times.
I was surprised to see my key still worked. Some days I didn’t know why I had even kept it, but I supposed it was for days just like this one.
Lyra and Lucas shuffled in after me as I walked into the house of my childhood, already dropping my backpack and briefcase by the door.
“Those need to go up to your room, Hamilton,” Cheryl called from her office.
“This is the first time I’ve been home in years, and you’re already yelling at me?” I called back.
She came out to see us, a smile on her nearly unchanged face. In all the years I’d been gone, my mother had remained largely the same. Her suit, still on from her hours at her law firm, was impeccable, and her hair was still tightly secured, not a hair out of place. But just like the house, there was little to be done about things that insisted on aging.
There were small lines by her cheeks, and the bags under her eyes seemed larger than the ones she had the last time I saw her. Her hair, while it was perfect in style, had a few strands of gray sticking out against the brown and blond highlights.
She leaned forward and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “I was happy to get your call,” she said. “And I’d be happy to help with your project. I even took off half a day from work tomorrow.”
A rarity, indeed—or perhaps another change.
“Well, that’s good,” I said. “I have some things to do, so I’ll need your help with the other stuff.”
“Hamilton,” she snapped. “Don’t talk about children like that. No need to call them ‘stuff.’”
“We’re not children,” Lucas insisted. “We’re almost adults.”
“If you’re not an adult, you’re a child,” I told him. “Whether you like it or not.”
“Am not,” Lucas said, sticking his tongue out at me.
“I’m almost a teenager,” Lyra insisted, joining in on the arguing.
Cheryl, in her typical mom way, waved the matter aside. “Well, if you’re all adults, you’ll be able to eat the dinner I had Louis prepare.”
“Louis?” I asked.
“He’s my new chef,” Cheryl said. “He’s an expert in French food.”
“You’re eating French food?”
“Exclusively. French women don’t get fat, you know,” she said, already turning toward the house. “Now, let me notify him we’re about ready, and then I’ll take these two and make sure the guest bedrooms are ready. Hamilton, I assume you can handle setting up your own room?”
“My room’s still here, right?” I was suddenly feeling worried.
“Yes, but your brother has been looting through your stuff more often than I think you’d like.”
“I don’t know why he would be bothered by it,” Adam said from the top of the stairs. “He’s rich now. He can buy more stuff anytime he wants, and he can go eat out anytime he wants.”
I turned to see my little brother as he came sauntering down the stairs.
I barely recognized him as the little boy who’d go running up to Raiya, calling her his “angel” when he was younger. His black hair was a lot like mine had been at his age, sticking up in different places, trying to be “cool.” His brown eyes were a replica of Mark’s, and he seemed to have the same sense of ennui I’d managed to present to the world when I was a teen.
Of course, the French food probably helped with that, I thought with a grin. “Hey, Adam.”
“Hey, Hammy,” he said, his voice clearly teasing in a welcoming way as he waved at me. “Thanks for the check last month. I think I forgot to tell you. I used it to buy some new sports gear. Coach Shinal said he’s going to be running me for the junior varsity next year.”
“Good choice,” I said, leaning over and giving him a hug.
Despite the “cool dude” attitude, I felt the familiar rush of pleasure and contentment I’d always associated with him as he hugged me back.
Cheryl beamed. “Adam, these are our guests,” she said, gesturing toward Lyra and Lucas. “I trust you’ll help me make them feel welcome here this week?”
“Sure, Mom,” he said. He sent me an eye roll when she wasn’t looking.
“I’m Lyra, and this is my brother, Lucas.”
“Cool,” Adam said. He frowned. “You seem familiar to me.”
“Are you a Star, too?” Lyra asked.
“Of course he is,” Cheryl interrupted. “He’s already skipped a grade and he’s going to be on junior varsity football team. And that’ll help him get a scholarship to Pitt, just like Hamilton.”
Adam and I grimaced at the same time, most likely for different reasons.
“How are things here, beside that?” I asked Adam as Cheryl hurried Lucas and Lyra up the stairs.
“Good,” he said. “I’m heading out to go hang at a friend’s house. Be a pal and tell Cheryl for me, will you?”
I grinned. “You know you’re not supposed to call her that.”
He rolled his eyes. “You did the same thing when you were my age, Dinger.”
“I prefer Alex now, actually,” I said.
He shook his head slowly. “You keep doing that,” he said. “It’s never worked, you know. You’re still Hamilton to the rest of us here.”
“Of course I am,” I said. “But if you’re going to call mom Cheryl, then at least change my name, too.”
“I still prefer Wingdinger, believe it or not,” he said.
I groaned, this time angry. “Don’t call me that.”
“Why not? I always liked it. And your dragon did, too. He’s the one who called into the news station for that contest, you know.”
“What?”
My memory of my teen years was intentionally foggy, but it always amazed me how anger could easily clarify a lot of it.
Adam laughed. “I was home with my old lady nanny, and she was sleeping as she was watching me and the news. I saw him come down, dial the phone, and ask for the same news channel we were watching. He then told them that he wanted to enter your name into the ‘Name our City Super’ contest. It was only years later that I managed to put it together.”
“That’s how I got stuck with ‘Wingdinger?’” I clenched my fists. “It’s a terrible shame Elysian’s dead, or I’d kill him all over again.”
“He’s not dead,” Adam said. “Or at least, not anymore.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I dream about him sometimes,” Adam said. “And Angel, too.”
“You mean Raiya?” My heart stopped.
“Oh, yeah. I guess that’s her real name.” At the look on my face, he began to shuffle away from me. “Anyway, I gotta go, man. Nice seeing you. Remember to tell Mom I’ll be back soon, okay?”
Before I could ask him anything further, he sped away.
The little schmuck.
I realized a moment later why he had left, as Mark came into the room. “Hamilton. You’re home.”
“Dad.”
I was shocked to see him. If my mother had managed to defy the odds against aging, my dad must’ve picked up her slack.
His hair was nearly all gray, and he was wearing glasses. I had to remind myself that staring was rude.
But I wasn’t the only who needed to be reminded of that. He stared back at me.
“How are you?” I asked, my voice almost cracking.
He shook his head. “I have to go,” he said, backing away. “I’ll see you later.”
I finally started to see what Mikey was saying about me moping around. Suddenly, I wanted to scream, “It’s been over seven years! You can stop acting weird now!” at Mark.
That’s what I wanted to say. I think it would have been better than what I did say, which was, “Okay, bye.” Even it if was a bit harsher.
I glanced at the grandfather clock in the living room. Despite the long drive, I had to go. Dante had made arrangements for me to meet with him. I glanced down at the piece of paper he’d passed to me, with the address on it.
If I was going to uphold my end of his bargain, I had to leave.
☼7☼