Star Crossed

Chapter 1-2

“I’m here!” I called out as I entered. Saying “I’m home” didn’t feel quite right. This wasn’t my home anymore. I wasn’t sure whether my one-bedroom apartment in Flagstaff felt like home, either, but at least it was the place I went to every night — or morning, depending on which shift I was working.

“In the kitchen!” my mother called back, so I headed in that direction. I supposed I should have known she’d be in the kitchen, what with all the food prep she had coming up for the next few days. My mother took Christmas seriously.

When I entered the room, the kitchen did smell amazing, of sugar and cinnamon and warm bread. Two loaves were sitting on racks and cooling, and my mother was just pulling a sheet of cookies from the oven as I inquired, “So, what army are you planning on feeding?”

She set down the cookies and smiled at me, even as she shook her head. You’d think with all the cooking and baking, she might have gotten rounder with age, but she really hadn’t. Not much, anyway. Her hair was so fair that you couldn’t really see the strands of gray running through it, not unless it caught the light at exactly the right angle, and in a lot of ways she didn’t look that different from the woman in an old picture she’d had taken with me when I was barely a year old, my dark hair a startling contrast to her bright blonde locks. No wonder it had been so easy to convince people I was adopted.

“Not an army,” she said, “but the Olivers are coming over, since they’re not going to California for the holidays this year, and then your Aunt Kirsten and Uncle Martin and Callista, and, well” —she waved a hand— “you know how quickly things can turn into a crowd.”

“We’re a crowd right in this family,” I told her, whereupon she gave me a reproving look before coming over and taking me in her arms for a quick hug. I didn’t bother to protest, although generally I wasn’t what you would call the huggy type.

“Grace — ” she began. I could tell the quips about the size of our family had worn thin over the years.

“I know, I know,” I broke in, then added, “Where is everyone?”

“Your father and Kevin are doing a tour, and Kelsey is working. Melissa is over at her friend Brian’s house down the creek.”

Your father. That was always how my mother referred to Lance to me, even though he wasn’t my father. Not really. Yes, he’d helped raise me, had never shown his biological children preferential treatment over me…and yet there was always this distance. It wasn’t even something I could really put my finger on, except that I somehow knew he did all those things not for my sake, exactly, but more because of how much he loved my mother. I couldn’t even blame him for that. What it did do was make me stop thinking of him as my father a long time ago. In my mind, he was always my stepfather, had never crossed the intangible line that would have made him something more than that.

I shook my head and said, “I’m surprised you’re not enjoying the peace and quiet by taking a bath or at least reading a book and having a glass of wine.”

“Not with everything I still have to do.” But then she smiled and tilted her head toward a stemless wine glass sitting on the counter. I hadn’t noticed it amongst the mixing bowls and containers of spices and flour and whatnot. “But I did pour myself a little pinot noir. Care for some?”

“Not right now, thanks,” I said. “I’m just popping in to get the key for the cottage.”

She was disappointed by my reply, I could tell, but she only nodded and went to the key rack by the back door, then fetched the key I’d used many times before, the one with the silver fob inlaid with turquoise in the shape of a thunderbird. “Here you go,” she said, pressing it into my hand. “Are you coming back up for dinner?”

“I’m not sure,” I lied. Actually, I’d had no intention of eating here tonight, since I figured Christmas Eve and Christmas Day back to back were about as much family togetherness as I could handle in a short amount of time. Instead, I’d set up some tentative plans with a friend of mine. “I think I’m having dinner with Noelle. We haven’t seen each other since I came down over Labor Day weekend.”

“Well, then,” she said, and paused. I could tell she wanted me here, but that she also wasn’t going to interfere with my plans, not when they involved seeing my best friend from high school, who still lived here in town. “You say hi to Noelle for me, and we’ll see you tomorrow night for Christmas Eve dinner.”

“What time do you want me to come over?” I asked. “I’ll help with whatever you need.”

My mother made an off-hand wave with one hand. “Don’t worry about that. Kelsey and Melissa will be here all day. You might as well take some time to relax — I know you’ve been working very hard lately.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I said simply, but I meant it. I’d been lucky to get the spot at Lowell after the National Weather Service decided they wanted a set of eyes up on Mars Hill in addition to the regular station over in Bellemont, but it meant long hours and not a lot of relief. That was why I’d worked Thanksgiving this year, and Christmas the year before that. I had Dave Aguirre, one of the meteorologists at the Bellemont NWS station, spotting for me over the holidays on this go-’round. Since he was in the middle of a protracted divorce, I got the impression that he was only too glad to be able to work during Christmas and not have to think about the breakup of his family.

“So, say, five-thirty or thereabouts,” she went on. “If you want to come earlier, that would be wonderful, but not to help in the kitchen — your sisters and brother can take care of that.”

“We’ll see,” I said, my standard noncommittal reply when I didn’t really want to do something but also didn’t want to say no outright. My mother knew that as well, so she just gave an almost imperceptible sigh before turning back to her bowl piled high with cookie dough.

“Have a good time tonight,” she replied, her expression a little sad. By that point, she was used to the distance I continued to put between myself and the rest of my family, but I knew she didn’t like it.

“I will,” I told her, managing to smile. And it would be good to see Noelle — she had a fifteen-month-old daughter and didn’t get out much, but this time she’d promised she had a babysitter lined up, and the two of us could just have a girls’ night out. That sounded fun, and normal.

I thought I could do with a little normal for a change.

It was not to be, however; my phone buzzed as the car was creeping its way down the crowded two-lane road into Sedona — the first manned flight to Mars was due to land in five days, but they still couldn’t figure out how to widen that damn road — and Noelle was on the line, apologizing profusely, but her babysitter had canceled at the last minute and her husband was working that night.

“And I tried and tried to find someone else, but everyone’s booked. All these holiday parties,” she said. In the background, I could hear the baby crying and tried not to wince. That was a sound I did not miss. I’d heard enough of it while growing up.

“It’s fine.” The response was automatic, not really reflective of my feelings. It wasn’t fine, but on the other hand, it wasn’t Noelle’s fault. “I’m feeling kind of tired anyway — it’s been sixty-hour weeks lately. So I think I’ll just hang at the cottage with a fire and a bottle of wine.”

“That sounds relaxing,” she said, not bothering to hide the envy in her voice. It had probably been a while since she’d been able to relax.

I made what I hoped sounded like a sympathetic noise, but actually, I still couldn’t quite figure out why Noelle had had her daughter Becca when she herself was barely twenty-three. These days, most people waited until their early thirties until they started families. But she was madly in love and wanted a child with Pablo, her new husband, who was a chef at one of Sedona’s higher-end restaurants, and that’s how Becca happened.

“Well, I’m here until the thirtieth, so maybe we can figure something else out.”

“Oh, great,” she said. “Maybe right after Christmas would work. I’ll be in touch — but I’ve gotta go now. Becca’s pitching a fuss about something or other.”

“No problem,” I replied. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas to you, too,” she said, then hung up.

And that was that. So much for my girls’ night out. A bottle of pity wine sounded like a good idea, though, so on the way to the cottage, I stopped at the supermarket and bought a couple of bottles — hey, I was going to be in town for almost a week — and a few staples, like a box of croissants and some tea and fruit. I probably wouldn’t be on my own too much, but it never hurt to have some noshing fodder around, just in case.

The store was packed with people getting last-minute items for their feasts on the following two days. I stood in the express line and tried not to look as out of place as I felt. Just a sad-sack singleton with her wine and her croissants, looking as if she was going to end up being the neighborhood cat lady at the rate she was going.

No, that was stupid of me. For one thing, most crazy cat ladies weren’t part alien…and I didn’t even have a cat.

I checked out and had the car take me the rest of the way to the cottage, then pulled up in the drive, belatedly realizing that I hadn’t gotten the remote for the garage from my mother. Oh, well. The car was already dirty, and if the snow in Flagstaff turned into a good rainstorm down here, as I was thinking it probably would unless the temperatures dropped some more, then I might get a free wash.

After retrieving my meager luggage from the trunk, I took it and my grocery store purchases and let myself into the house. It was cold, so I said, “Set temperature, seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit,” and went on into the master bedroom as the furnace quietly turned itself on and started blowing warm air through the vents. The living room did have a good fireplace, of local stone with a lovely carved juniper mantel, and Lance always made sure there was a handy stack of wood in the bin at the back of the house. In fact, there were logs already laid in the fire, just waiting for me to get settled.

Which didn’t take very long. I hung up the clothes that needed it, set out my toiletries in the bathroom, and headed to the kitchen, where I’d left my groceries on the counter. All right, it was barely four in the afternoon, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t pour myself a glass of wine. I felt as if I’d earned it.

But even as I began to reach up toward the cabinet that held the wine glasses, I found myself pausing. Something about this didn’t feel right. For some reason, I felt as if I should be doing something else.

Maybe it was just guilt over coming here instead of staying at the house. I could tell my mother wanted to talk more, but what would we have even talked about? “Hey, Mom, I’m thinking about sleeping with my boss, but I just haven’t decided yet”?

Which was not just melodramatic, but also not true. Nate wasn’t my boss. The situation might have been mildly weird, but it wasn’t that weird.

No, something was pricking in me to get out, and I couldn’t even say why. Unlike my mother’s friend Persephone and her equally psychic daughter Taryn, I didn’t get flashes of precognition or strange insight. There were a lot of things about me that might not be exactly normal, but that wasn’t one of them.

Restless, I went to the window and looked out. The skies were growing darker as clouds continued to move in from the north and east, but the rain wasn’t here yet. My best prediction had put the real arrival of the front sometime around ten o’clock tonight, maybe as late as eleven if the winds stalled or shifted. And it wouldn’t be fully dark until a little before six. I had some time.

Time for what? I asked myself, but I didn’t have an answer. Instead, I picked up the remote for my car from where I’d dropped it on the kitchen counter, shrugged back into my coat, and headed out the front door, intent on something.

I just didn’t know what it was. Not yet.