Grounded Goddesses

Chapter Four: The Library

POV: Sola

The last couple hours at the diner passed quickly, even when it slowed down after the lunch rush.  Star was incredible, somehow always having fun and making the other waitress, Ellie, and I laugh while always keeping us busy. 

Abner, while kind and an incredible cook, didn’t have a whole lot of management skills.  I secretly wondered what he had done before Star.  And despite her natural talent, Star had been taking online business classes since she graduated high school three years ago and had done so well that she had managed to secure her current internship at an advertising firm in a town that was the closest thing they had to a big city within an hour of her little village of Angel's Landing. 

“Sola, finish what you’re doing, then we have to go!” Star called from behind the counter where she had been taking inventory of all the condiments. 

I quickly wiped up the last table then followed her into the back room to hang up my apron.  Abner was waiting with Luna and an envelope with my name on it.

“Here’s your pay for today.  Star says you and Luna will possibly be sticking around for a bit.  If you want to work here for real, I can start you at a higher rate since you both did so well today.  I truly hope to see you back,” Abner handed me the envelope along with a job application.

“Thanks, Abner!  I’d like to come back; we’ll make sure to figure that out tonight,” I promised.  Luna hugged the old man then followed Star and I back out to her truck.  She took the backseat again, letting me take shotgun.

“So, any type of music you like listening- wait sorry, that’s probably a bad question isn’t it?” Star asked fidgeting nervously with the aux chord.

“No, not at all, it just means I am truly all ears, happy to listen to anything with no preconceived notions and prepared to fall in love with all the songs you love,” I reached over to lay my hand on Stars.  She looked up at me with a wide, dazzling smile.

“I like that, that’s a good outlook Sola.  Luna, are you alright with my hijacking the aux for my personal preferences?”

“As you and Sola already brought up, we have none of our own,” my sister mumbled distractedly. I glanced back and noticed that she was frowning at the job application. 

The music began playing at a deafening volume with absolutely no warning, scaring Luna and I out of our skin.

“Sorry!  Sorry…” Star spun the dial until the music was only just loud enough to be heard clearly over the roar of the truck’s engine.  “I tend to crank it up when I’m frustrated, and I was very frustrated last night.”

“Why were you so frustrated?” I wondered, watching as Star spun the truck out of the lot with the ease that only came from doing something every day for years and years. 

“Well, I had my first monthly review at my internship, then I had to run a few errands, things we can’t get around here, then before I could finish that, I got a call from one of my full time waitresses telling me she wouldn’t be able to make it today because of some made up disease and of course no one could come in and cover.”

“Made up disease?”

“Yeah, she has a new affliction every month.  But help is sorta in short supply, so I have to take what I can get.  Lucky for me, you two showed up like some sort of gifts from God.”

                “More like lucky that my sister is completely insane,” Luna reached up to pinch my arm, I swatted her hand away.

                “We needed help, she needed help, what I’m hearing is that maybe all of this was meant to be.”

                “Losing our memories was meant to be?”

                “You know what I meant.”

                The song changed and we both shut up to listen.  Something about the haunting melody was almost hypnotic.

                Star seemed to read our minds, “this is a song my mom always sings to me.  Beautiful isn’t it?”

                “Beautiful… but also sad,” Luna whispered.

                “Hopeful!” I argued, “I think it’s beautifully hopeful.”

                Star smiled, “it’s a little of both.  Missing a loved one may be sad, but the strength of their love gives them both hope that they will find each other again.”

                The song ended quietly and I almost wanted to turn off the radio, unable to imagine enjoying anything after those aching notes of love and hope.

                “And your mom sang you this?”

                “Well, she has to go away a lot, I think she related to the message and the emotion in it.”

                “But” I gestured at the radio, “isn’t she talking about her lover?”

                “Yeah, it’s not really a perfect metaphor.”

                Perfect or not, the song had felt powerful enough just listening to it.  I couldn’t imagine having it sung directly to me. 

The next song seemed to be much more upbeat, I tried to start following the words in this one, but the man sang super fast.  It was fun music, but he didn’t seem to care quite as much about conveying some deep meaning.

A little while later, glancing between the road and her rearview mirror, Star whispered, “look at your sister.”

I turned around in my seat and found Luna practically curled up amongst the clothes, dead asleep.

“I guess it has been a busy day.”

“Yeah, if you want to sleep too, that’s fine with me.  We won’t be there for another half hour.”

“Thanks, but I’m not quite that tired.  And with the sun out like this, I’m amazed Luna isn’t bothered by how bright it is.”

Star shrugged, “my mom is like that, she can sleep anywhere, anytime. Apparently, she got that from my Grandma.  It skipped me though.”

“Sounds like you must be more like your dad.”

“Um, maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“Well, I’ve sorta never met my dad.  And I don’t think my mom really knew a whole lot about him.  As far as I know, he was just a random guy passing through town that she hooked up with after serving him in the diner.  And she’s always been so independent, almost opposed to anything tying her down, she didn’t even bother tracking him down.”

“Oh.”

“The only thing I definitely got from him was my hair.  My mom has always preferred my curls to her straight hair, even if it is a pretty golden color.  She says that’s the best gift he could have given me, unfortunately he didn’t wait to find out if I liked it, and as it turns out, curls are really difficult to manage.”

I laughed, tugging at my own curls, “I can relate to that, though something tells me I’ve never really cared about trying to keep them perfectly managed.”

“That works for you though, wild curls make you look, uh, sexy!  I just look unkempt.”

“I doubt that, you managed to look good covered in grease stains earlier, I’m sure you could pull off any look you try.”

“Very funny, Sola.”

“I mean it!  You have a good face, high cheekbones, pretty big eyes-“

“Says the girl whose eyes could literally be described as golden.  I’m pretty sure your eye color isn’t even possible.  Are you sure you aren’t wearing contacts?”

“Pretty sure.  I think I’d know that, right?”

“I’ve never worn them, so I’m not really sure.  Oh, this song is one of my favorites!”

Star seemed to have pretty diverse music tastes, not that I was really the best judge of that kind of thing.  The drive felt almost too quick and I was a little disappointed when she left Luna and I at the library.

“Alright, we have a lot to research, let’s not waste any time!” Luna grabbed the handle of my backpack and pulled me towards the ugly concrete building.

“I could move faster if you let me walk upright!”

“You weren’t walking at all.”

“I was waving goodbye!”

Luna let go, “you really don’t care about finding out who we are, do you?  One cute girl and you have everything you need to start a new life, is that it?”

“Luna!”  I couldn’t believe she thought I didn’t care, “she’s cute yeah, but that doesn’t mean I’m happy never knowing who we are and how we ended up on that beach.”

“Good-“

“But, at the same time…”

“At the same time what?  Sola?”                                                              

I pulled Luna over to a bench a little out of the way of those coming in and out of the library, knowing she would not like what I had to say. “Maybe this isn't entirely a bad thing.  How many people get a chance to completely recreate themselves? Truly be whoever they want to be?  Maybe we should just be grateful we survived whatever we survived and take this chance to live.

“But those are our memories!  Our whole lives!” Tears threatened at the edge of my sister’s pale, silver eyes.  But I couldn’t help sharing everything I was thinking.

“What if they're bad memories, Luna?  What if we went through something really horrible?  Do you really want to remember that?”

“Yes!  Abner spent all morning telling me story after story, he remembers everything and it is so beautiful. I want that.  I want to be able to tell endless stories about my life.”

“Then let's do something worth telling about. Let's make some new stories.  With no roots we're free to do something really interesting, something people will really want to hear about.”

“I can't just give up, Sola.  I have to know.”

I nodded, I hadn’t really expected to change her mind, I wasn’t sure I wanted to.  But I couldn’t help being scared that we wouldn’t like what we found.

“Then let’s go.”

Luna headed right for the nonfiction section while I found a free computer.  Star hadn’t found anything about either of our names, but that wasn’t the only information on our IDs.  I decided to go on google maps and look up the address first. 

2 Celeste Lane in Mary’s Village

Strangely, google couldn’t find it, I was growing more and more convinced these IDs were fake, but I tried one more time with just the street.  This time it did find something.  A tiny two track right between Mary’s Village and Angel’s landing leading into a large state park.  The two-track led to a trail head and nothing else.  I used satellite view to check but there really was nothing unless it was well hidden beneath the trees. 

The trailhead, however, did have a link attached and not having any better ideas I followed it.  It took me to a page on the park’s website dedicated to a description of the trail.

Celeste’s trail starts at the end of a two track on the west side of the park.  The trail begins as an easy stroll through the forest before climbing up the back side of Mary’s peak.  Many choose to stop at the first lookout which offers a beautiful view Westward of the lakes and several nearby towns.  Experienced hikers can continue another mile over a difficult rock scramble to the second lookout near the peak with a view almost all the way around the mountain.  This point has been named Celeste’s Alter after the oddly flat, square like top to the mountain.  Some have said that laying gifts such as flowers or jewels has resulted in their prayers being answered, regardless of who they pray too.  The namesake of the trail, Celeste, is a mystery to this day.  However, some locals believe she may have been the angel that created the alter and when the park tried to change the name in the 1930’s the locals wouldn’t hear of it. 

I shuddered involuntarily, something about the description felt wrong.  But at the same time, I was fascinated and decided to try and continue my investigation.  Maybe there was more to the myth.  Maybe something about girls appearing by a lake with no memories.

“Why are you on a hiking website?  I thought you agreed to help find out who we are,” Luna interrupted.

“I know this looks strange, but I think it might be related-“

“Wait,” Luna pointed to a small blue mark on a map of the trail, “is that the lake we woke up by?”

“Is it?  I wasn’t sure.”

“Definitely, see,” Luna moved her finger away from the lake to a highway passing alongside the park, “here’s the road we ended up finding.”

“Huh, maybe I was more gullible than I realized.  Or maybe there’s actually something to that myth.”

“What myth?”

I took her through my research into the legend of Celeste and her alter. 

“Sola, remember how there were no footprints…”

I nodded, “maybe someone hid them though.  You don’t really think there’s something behind all this do you?”

“We were at the base of a mountain that is supposedly an angel’s alter and we were wearing those white- what did you call them?  Ritual dresses?”

“Are you trying to say you think we were angels?  And we took a human form or something?”

“Of course not.  Don’t be ridiculous, but maybe we were worshipping one and asking for some sort of miracle.”

“And that involved losing our memories?”

“Well…”

“Luna, this is crazy, I don’t know why I even spent so long looking at this crap-“

“I know!  What if that was the price?  What if that’s what we offered in exchange for our miracle?  Or maybe it’s like what you were saying earlier and our wish was for a second chance at life.”

“Come on Luna, stop being ridiculous.  What did you find?”

“Well, uh, it seems whatever happened to us might as well have been impossible.  Memory loss can be induced by certain drugs, but usually only to a certain extent and not so completely all of a sudden.  Other types of memory loss either require injuries or come with confusion way beyond what we’ve been experiencing.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Most people that have just lost all their memories wouldn’t be able to go work for eight hours with a level head.” 

“Oh, so…?”

“So, maybe it’s not entirely helpful for you to be treating everything so cynically right now.  Maybe there was something… supernatural about how we got here.”

“You really think an angel took our memories?”

Luna turned back to my computer screen and gazed at a picture of the mountain.  It was pretty, but it didn’t seem like anything particularly extraordinary to me. 

“I think we shouldn’t rule it out.”