Starling, p.15
Starling, page 15
“This is something that humans do?”
“Well, yeah,” Delta replied. “We read, we write, we dance, we cook, we listen to music, we sing… There’s thousands of things that humans do; no one thing to sum everyone up. There’s no one way to be human. That’s sort of the beauty of it, you know? That’s sort of the point.”
“The point?”
“Of living. We’re all just here, doing our own things, and those things collectively are the human thing. I know you say we’re all just tiny and stupid, but we’re not. We’re really not.” She thought of the suspicious townspeople, of her flip-flopping feelings for Tag, of Bee pouting and narrowing her eyes, of everyone in the world who lived and made mistakes but not always. No, not always. Starling was, of course, a little bit right—compared to the universe, humans were insignificant. Silly little creatures. But they could also be magnificent.
And that’s the point, Delta thought. She just had to find a way to make Starling realize it too.
She waited for the derision, the stupid humans, but when she looked at him, Starling met her gaze, his starry eyes fully bright, full of galaxies.
“Will you show me?”
“W-what?”
“Show me something the humans do.”
“I thought you don’t like humans.”
“I… I don’t,” Starling said immediately, but his voice rose as though he wasn’t sure.
There was a pause, and then Delta gave a hesitant smile. “Okay, then.” She got off the bed and crossed to the bookshelf, crouching down to examine the books there, a collection of classics and favorites, a few nonfiction books on UFO sightings, and a pile of old school textbooks. “This shelf is all my books…” She ran her finger over the spines, then glanced back at him to see his reaction. “They’re all written by other people. Other humans. They tell all kinds of stories.”
He’d come over to kneel beside her. “I can try them?” he asked.
Her heart pounded. The alien wanted to read her books—surely there had never been anyone in the world who had been in the same position. “ ’Course you can,” she said. “You can look at whatever you like.”
He mimicked her movement and dragged a long finger over the spines of the books.
Delta pushed herself up and grabbed her phone dock from beside her bed, holding it under her arm. She felt almost giddy at the prospect of showing Starling human things, despite the fact that it wouldn’t do much good. He thought he was better than humans, that much was clear. Looking at books or listening to music wouldn’t change his mind.
But she could try.
“Come with me,” she said, cocking her head toward the door. He followed silently behind her as she walked downstairs; she kept pausing to check he was still there.
She got down to the hallway and then hesitated. There was the closet door, glaring at her, waiting to be opened and checked. She hadn’t looked inside since they’d rescued Starling from the woods. It called to her; it dragged her eyes toward it.
“What is in there?” she heard Starling ask quietly from near her shoulder.
She whirled around; he was close to her, and she watched as his eyes flicked up and down the door, then came to rest back on her. There was a strange look on his face as he stared at the door, as if he could see something she could not. Very deliberately, he stepped away.
“Not much now,” she said. Should she tell him? Immediately another thought hit her: Could he help? After all, he was from the stars. If anyone knew how to find disappearing fathers, wouldn’t it be the alien who fell from the sky? “But once… once it was a portal.”
Starling’s gaze sharpened; it was like being caught in a snare. Delta couldn’t look away.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“My father disappeared,” she said simply, gesturing to the closed closet. “He walked into this closet and never came out again.”
“When did this occur?”
“Two and a half months ago, now.”
“Hmm.” One of Starling’s sharp teeth descended over his lower lip in concentration; Delta stared at it until he smiled a saber-toothed smile at her. She wasn’t sure if it was meant to shock her, but she found herself fascinated, not scared, by the teeth inside those lips.
“I still check,” she continued. “I still check all the time, but nothing is ever there.” She brought her hand to the doorknob and was just about to turn it and open the door when Starling flung out a hand.
His eyes were wider than usual, his mouth in a frown. “No—no, do not.”
“Why?” Delta asked, although she dropped her fingers from the cold bronze knob. When Starling didn’t reply, she pressed, “Why not? Can you tell me anything about where he may have gone?”
“Your house,” he said in a vague non-reply, “is very strange.”
“I know,” Delta whispered, trying to keep her hopes from rising.
“You are very strange.”
She was used to being called strange: she heard it hissed from behind fences and across the grocery store aisle. She’d grown up having notes tossed onto her desk or shoved into her backpack at school: freak and weird wilding and, yes, strange. But somehow it sounded very different coming from Starling. He said the word almost reverently, cradling it and offering it out to her. Strange. Like it was something special.
A part of her wanted to ask him what he meant by it, if anything. His gaze had drifted back to the door.
“So?” she whispered.
Starling’s brow was furrowed, something like indecision twisting his features. Then his face abruptly cleared and he stepped back. “No. I do not know.”
Delta sighed, her hope deflating. “I guess it was a long shot.” Swallowing back the rising disappointment inside, she led the way to the living room, where the early-morning light was streaming through the old windowpanes, illuminating the dust motes that swirled through the air. Delta had half expected to see her sister curled on the couch, but the room was empty; Bee must still be in her room. Delta couldn’t help but be the tiniest bit relieved—this morning, she had Starling to herself.
Delta perched one of the speakers on the edge of the side table and pushed the battered wooden coffee table out of the way. Abby looked up from her spot on the couch, to survey the situation, then immediately settled her head back down onto the soft cushion.
“This is, uh, music,” she said, feeling silly for announcing something so basic, so obvious, but as soon as she put on a playlist and turned the volume up loud enough that the sound vibrated through the wooden floorboards, she saw Starling’s face change, and that was everything.
The playlist was full of songs that her dad used to play; he would turn the speakers up loud and blast his favorite classic rock anthems. He’d make them all dance with abandon until they were on the floor, out of breath and wheezing with laughter.
Starling was staring back and forth between the speakers and Delta as if she’d grabbed the moon out of the sky and held it out to him. “Music?” he repeated.
“And if you want, you can dance. It’s something humans do.” She regretted it as soon as she spoke; Starling’s eyes got brighter and he demanded, “Dance? Show me.”
“No,” she said quickly. Dancing with her dad and Bee was one thing; dancing alone in front of an alien was another.
The alien crossed his arms and waited.
“No,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m embarrassed.”
“Why?” he asked again.
Delta considered it. “I… don’t know. Because people don’t just start dancing, usually, especially when others are watching.”
“If all music is like this,” Starling said seriously, “then they should.”
“Fine, fine,” Delta said. “You sort of just… move.” She started dancing, awkwardly stepping side to side and giving her arms a little wave. Her face was flaming, but Starling wasn’t laughing. He watched her, entranced, and then mimicked her side-to-side step. The song ended and changed, and Delta turned up the volume knob even higher; she closed her eyes as the music swelled over her, and the familiar giddy feeling rose within her. Song after song burst through the speakers. She was just moving, letting her body move to the beat, and Starling was mimicking her every motion, every flick of her wrist or tilt of her head. A bright burst of laughter escaped from her lips—the kind of laugh she hadn’t done in months, since her dad left—and then, so suddenly she thought she imagined it, Starling laughed too. He stopped immediately, his lips pressed tightly together and his eyes wide, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just done.
“You can laugh, you know,” she said breathlessly as she twirled. “You don’t have to pretend you’re not having fun.”
“I am not having fun,” Starling replied automatically, sneering.
She rolled her eyes at him; he rolled his eyes back.
“What is that?” he asked.
“It means I think you’re being a little bit stupid,” she said.
“Humans are stupid,” he said.
She just rolled her eyes at him again in response. He opened his mouth—she was sure he was about to snap back something snarky about how he was from the universe and so much better, when the song changed. Slower, synthy, a little sultry. It might’ve been that the dreamy music was so loud, it was crawling inside her brain, or maybe she just wasn’t thinking straight, but Delta grabbed Starling’s hand. His fingers folded around hers; his skin was very warm.
“What are you doing?” he asked immediately, standing still like he was cut from stone.
“Dancing,” Delta said shortly.
“You are holding on to my hand.”
Delta moved back and forth, dragging his hand around with her, ducking under it in an approximation of a twirl. “I’m aware.” She gave him a quick smile. “You said you wanted to see what humans did. Come on, dance with me.” When she pulled on his hand again, he stepped forward, taking her other hand in his, following her movements around the room. She could feel his breath on the top of her head, and as the song slowed, so did he, until his movements were sinuous. He slid one of his hands around her waist and she stepped closer, her heart thudding in time to the snapping of the drum.
“Delta?”
The music clicked off; Bee stood by the speakers, her hand hovering above the on/off button.
Delta and Starling broke apart; she realized too late, as Bee’s eyes zeroed in on their hands, that their fingers were still intertwined. Delta dropped Starling’s hand like it had suddenly burst into flames, and stepped away.
The sisters stared at each other as silence swept through the room.
Delta clenched her fingers nervously; she didn’t like the way Bee was looking at her.
“We need to go to the grocery store. We’ll need more food soon. And alcohol, although I have no idea how you’re going to swing that.”
“I’ll figure something out,” Delta said.
“Let’s go,” Bee said sternly. “Now.”
“All right, fine,” Delta agreed, if only to get Bee to stop staring at her like she’d just done some ultimate betrayal. She crossed to the mantel and opened the money box, a heaviness filling in her stomach as she saw how little money was left. A couple hundred dollars. That was it. That was everything. How long would that sustain them? She would have to get a job, but if she got a job in Darling, the truth about her father’s disappearance would finally come out….
She just didn’t know what to do.
“Everything okay?” Bee asked, eyeing the money box.
Delta grabbed a couple of twenties and stuffed them into her back pocket. She attempted a smile. “Everything’s fine.” She crossed the room, glancing at Starling as she went. “We won’t be too long, hopefully,” she told him, then wavered in the doorway. “Feel free to read any of the books or listen to more music.” She took a step into the hallway, only to hear Starling make a strange noise that might’ve been a throat clear. She paused, looked back.
His tall, gangly body looked oddly diminutive standing alone in the living room. “I thank you, Delta Wilding,” Starling said, and Delta’s heart clenched, her stomach filling with so many fluttering wings, she thought she might rise up and away.
And then, as Delta watched from the doorway, he turned the music back on and closed his eyes, his lashes thick and dark against his pale, gently glowing skin, and started to sway.
16
DELTA AND BEE drove into town without speaking a word, the leaves of the tree-lined Main Street trembling in the breeze. Delta stared out the passenger-side window, reliving Starling’s graceful movements and his hand on her waist. For a moment the memory morphed into another memory, of another’s hand on her waist, and whirling around a grand room with another.
Worthless.
Whore.
Tag, walking away, not looking back.
Delta bit down on her lip, forcing away the memory and trying to get her mind to think of the exact weight of Starling’s hand in hers. The way his body glimmered with light. The sheer impossibility of it all.
Bee’s fingers were tight on the steering wheel, and she pulled into the tiny parking lot of the grocery store with a venomous spin of the wheel. There were three other cars already there, and Delta groaned as she saw the most ostentatious car in Darling parked in the weed-filled lot. Just as everyone in town knew the Wildings’ truck—and stayed as far away from it as possible—everyone knew Tag’s car as well.
Delta better than anyone.
Was Darling pulling strings? Did simply thinking of Tag make him suddenly appear wherever she went?
Not cool, Darling, she thought. The light outside the grocery store flickered, went out, and then flooded back to full brightness.
“Can I wait in the truck?”
“No,” said Bee shortly, already halfway out. She clocked the Porsche and narrowed her eyes at Delta. “You’re an adult, Del. Come on.”
I’m not, Delta thought desperately. I’m really, really not.
She’d give anything to not be the older sister right now. She’d give anything to not have to talk to Tag, not when she was so confused.
She frowned at Bee. Her sister frowned back.
“We’ll go in there and you will talk to Tag like a nice, normal person. That’s your boyfriend. Your real boyfriend.”
Bee’s eyes were still narrow and angry; Delta narrowed hers to match. What did Bee mean, your real boyfriend? Delta clenched her jaw, a flush creeping up her cheeks.
Bee continued, “You two can talk about what you’ll be wearing to the Mayor’s Ball.”
Delta groaned. She’d completely forgotten about the Mayor’s Ball and the fact that she’d agreed to be Tag’s date. Although surely nothing could be worse than last year’s events. Okay, you can do this. She slowly got out of the truck and faced Bee.
“I don’t understand why you don’t like him,” Bee said.
“I do like him,” Delta muttered.
“Then why aren’t you dating him?”
“Because,” Delta replied.
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s my business.”
“I’m your sister.”
“That doesn’t mean I have to tell you about my relationships in the grocery store parking lot,” Delta snapped, but the real reason was that she didn’t know why she wasn’t dating Tag again, and that was the problem. They’d just always been this way: up and down, back and forth. Tag was Darling in a boy’s body, just without any of the magic that she knew was there. Tag was Main Street and the Diner; he was fluorescent lights and fancy wine and nights sitting on the hoods of cars in dark fields. He was late nights by the Wishing Well, and he was a song she’d heard from the time she was young. She knew the lyrics by heart. Tag was safe and unadventurous.
Not like Starling.
“He’s nice.” Bee sounded defensive on Tag’s behalf.
“I didn’t say he wasn’t nice, I just…”
“Then why?”
“I don’t know, okay?” Delta cried. Her voice echoed around the empty parking lot, and she bit back her next words, instead letting out a soft and clipped, “I won’t talk about this anymore here. Let’s just get this shopping over with.”
Bee wasn’t done. “He’s cute,” she insisted. “And he’s nice, and he has a good heart…”
“A good heart? Jesus, Bee, maybe you should date him, then,” huffed Delta, crossing her arms. Bee knew nothing of Tag’s heart. And do you? The voice was small but insistent. Yes, she did. Of course she did. “Then you could stay in Darling forever and be the mayor’s wife.”
“I don’t want to be the mayor’s wife,” Bee replied witheringly, but she smirked as she walked toward the smudged doors of the entrance to Darling Grocery. “I’d be the mayor.”
Delta allowed a grin, but said, “Why are you suddenly so Team Tag?”
Bee shrugged. “I’m not Team Anyone.” She smiled then, suddenly, and for a moment she was back to the normal, chipper Bee. Her smile was bright, but Delta was sure if she looked close enough, she could find the bite within it. “Team Delta, maybe.”
“Well, Delta doesn’t want to go to the Mayor’s Ball with Tag,” Delta grumbled, but followed Bee inside all the same.
Darling Grocery had black-and-white checked linoleum floors and harsh white paneled lighting that made blond hair glow with a green tint, and brown hair look grayish and dull. So Bee and Delta walked in looking peculiar, as if they were aliens themselves.
Judging from the sudden collective inhale from the few other shoppers, they were. The woman closest to them gripped the handle of her cart tightly, as though Delta might unexpectedly leap upon her, wild and untethered. From the nearest aisle, somewhere hidden behind stacks of off-brand cereal and loaves of plastic-wrapped bread, came a loud, sharp whisper, “The Wildings are here, Mom.” And then there was the sound of a shopping cart trundling away.
Which of you were in my house last night? Delta glared around at the lot of them. They glared back, sharp and suspicious, and then glanced away as if they couldn’t bear to look at the strange Wilding girls for long. A lump rose in her throat, and she swallowed it back down. This was how it had always been—her father said even before they’d been born, the town hadn’t liked the strange Wilding couple holed up in their mysterious house.
