National Novel Writing Month FAIL

Key to the Stars

The wheels spun in a blur, so fast that she could only see the light they reflected and the shape when she moved her eyes away. To her they were mesmerizing, shining metal objects of no value other than covering up the true design of the machine. Turning wheels, she wondered, why do they look like they’re going backwards? But they’re not, they’re going forward, over and over, she conceded. Her thoughts were always incomprehensible when in the twilight between consciousness and sub-consciousness.

The other car then sped past her, and its hubcaps disappeared toward the horizon. Esther exhaled and moved her gaze back to the blurring highway, relishing the numbness the cold air gave to the hand that hung out the window. Erica drove fast, but not faster than the guy with the chrome hubcaps. In retrospect, Esther hated people like that, ostentatious people. She glanced at Erica. They had known each other since they were kids, but the cigarette held between black-painted fingernails proved how different they both were from the old days. Erica held a persistent metaphorical middle finger up to the world, while Esther simply hid within herself.

They were going to the beach to watch the sunset. Erica called it “dykey” but appeared enthusiastic regardless. Esther figured there was still some sentimentalism left in her friend, despite her nihilistic approach to life.

Really, though, Esther wanted to escape. The whole world felt wrong to her, even her best friend. She could only sit in silence while some little part of her clawed at the inside of her mind; life wasn’t meant to be so mundane, so repetitive. All of it was so tedious and so petty. What do we live for? She asked herself. All my life I get to sit in a chair and listen to them teach me the system, and then when I’m done with that, I’ll have to pay more to do the same thing over again. If I finish there, I’ll be paid to sit in a chair and become part of the system.

“Life’s not supposed to go like this,” she said aloud.

“What?” Erica fumbled with her cigarette and reached for the volume on the dashboard. Only when she had turned down the music did Esther realize her ears were ringing.

“I said life’s not supposed to be this way,” Esther said louder, over the rush of the wind from the highway.

“Yeah,” her friend took a drag of what she called a ‘cancer-stick’ and tipped ash out her open window. “We all know that, Ess.”

“It makes me wish there was something more. You know, something behind all of it.” Esther felt her perception move away from her, hearing herself talk as a foreign entity.

The other girl hazarded a reproachful glance at Esther. “Don’t start about God or whatever. You must be really tired from school.”

That quieted her. Erica had a way of cutting her off before she could divulge any other ideas that her friend didn’t like. Instead, she clenched and flexed her numb hand and receded back to silence.

The surrounding mountains had gained the long, lazy shadows of early evening by the time they reached the winding road to their favorite beach. It was the farthest one from home, stretching all the way to the spit, but it had tide pools. Erica’s clunky Volvo took the turns about as smoothly as a choking dog, but she was quick to excuse it with her inadequate skill at stick-shifts.

Both girls inhaled in awe of the view once they passed through the forested hills. The ocean was cerulean, and the sun’s descent was turning the land a rosy pink. Only the simplest things give pleasure in life, Esther thought as her spirits lifted from where it had been sitting at her feet.

Everything felt stagnant, from world politics to her parents’ relationship. The sun’s movement gave reassurance that time had not stopped, yet simultaneously the moment seemed frozen for much longer than it should have been.

They were on a cliff face overlooking the beach only a hundred feet below, as the car descended the other side of the hill, with Erica’s foot hard on the brakes. When they took a sharp turn, Esther blinked. At first she thought she had stared too long at the sun, causing a blotch to form in front of her eyes. Then it coalesced into a cloaked figure in the middle of the road.

“Watch out!” Esther yelled, and gripped the car door in fright.

Esther didn’t hear anything Erica might have said, but apparently Erica had heard over the music. The Volvo came out of the turn she had taken too fast, then there was the screeching of brakes, but the car didn’t stop. Instead it swerved out of the way of the figure and over the edge of the cliff.

In the rolling chaos, Esther couldn’t help but wonder why there wasn’t a guard rail on many mountainous roads, and more importantly, whether Erica had seen anything at all. The dizzying topsy-turvy motion down the side of the cliff was worse than any plummet, and alongside the screams of Erica it was an unbearable hell. The ocean bounced in and out of view, the horizon so far from where it should have been that Esther closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see her own death, her destiny at the hands of the rocks below.

Darkness came.

A moment later, or hours, perhaps, by the algid air and black night, Esther opened her eyes. The car had by some miracle landed on its tires near one of the many tide pools. The driver’s door was flung open and Erica was nowhere in sight, though little could be seen. The only possible light came from the stars; the moon was absent from the sky. The waves crashed in somewhere nearby.

It took awhile before Esther could move, having almost forgotten her own body. With shaking hands she unbuckled her seat belt and blindly reached for the door handle. The door was jammed, she realized, after a few weak shoves against it. She drew her legs up and clambered over the stick shift to the driver’s seat and out the open door. Esther nearly collapsed when she tried to stand on her feet, but managed to straighten up with a hand on the door frame. Another minute passed as she regained a sense of balance. The rocks they had landed on were sharp, a kind of sedimentary stone stacked up like stairs. She took a step forward in her sandals, afraid to tear open her foot. For that matter, she had no inkling of her injuries, or whether she had any.

"Erica?" she called in a feeble voice while she hobbled in an indeterminate direction. The waves were the only answer.
She's gone to get help, she assured herself. Esther rubbed her hands over her arms from the cold, then stopped when she felt blood. It frightened her, she didn't know if it was hers. She didn't know anything. Who was that man she saw in the middle of the road? Why hadn't he gotten out of the way? Where -- ?
Plop.
Esther gasped as her foot missed rock and sunk into a tide pool, which then seemed to light up.
It's only a reflection, Esther rationalized, until she blinked again and focused on the surface of the water. She retracted her foot and leaned over the pool, bemused. It was, by all laws of the world, utterly incorrect. The reflection showed a gorgeous violet twilight, with streaks of royal blue. The rocks and many creatures within were near invisible underneath its brilliance.
Esther craned her neck up. It was a black night, with few stars out. But in the reflection, one star shone as bright as a full moon. The light drew her in, and such was the detail of the sky that she put her fingers forward to touch the tide pool's surface.

It rippled at the contact. The reflection faded. Esther would have expressed regret but before she could do anything she was swept up in a tumble of water and limbs.

Never turn your back to the waves, she remembered.

All was a swirl of dark liquid. The panic in her chest made her reach upward to find the surface. Up and up she went, kicking her legs for pure survival. Her throat convulsed, ready to drown from the water she'd already swallowed and choked on. Somehow she didn't hit the pointed shelves of rock that were all around her, and she still kicked and pushed through the water, pushed upward. Where was the surface?

There.

The water finally broke, but not in the expected way. Rather, it became shallower until there was sand beneath her feet, then the force of the water sprawled her forward.

Esther lay face down as she spluttered and coughed, amazed when the air finally went to her lungs. A smaller wave brushed over her, and that was when she felt the sand beneath her hands. After all the coughing finished, Esther dragged herself farther away from the lapping water, and turned onto her back. The sky was a rich (azure), with many stars, but one was bright than the rest. It pulsed as she watched. It grew larger, and then, as she lay there, it disappeared. The way it vanished wasn’t like what a satellite or a plan might do. It was merely gone.

“This may be the strangest night of my life,” Esther spoke aloud to herself, perhaps in affirmation that she wasn’t dead. She stayed on the sand for awhile longer, and then pushed herself up. She was completely drenched, and covered in fine white sand. Her arm had suffered a minor wound, but from the crash or the riptide she didn’t know. It stung, she noticed, thanks more to the ocean.

Esther looked to the land, and nearly had the wind knocked out of her in surprise and confusion. The landscape was entirely foreign to her. There were no dunes, or grasslands, or hills, or oak trees. A small strip of white sand led toward a wooded area of birch or aspen, some kind of tree with a thin white trunk.

How far could that wave have taken me? She wondered. Now she was beyond desperate. Esther believed she handled her trip down the cliff rather well, but now she was wary of her surroundings, unsure if her date with death had not, in fact, been avoided. To add to this, she was completely alone.

“Hello? Is anyone there?” She called, and clumsily walked over the sand toward the thin forest. The sand mingled with yellow leaves and eventually dirt. She stopped and looked over her shoulder, then thought how foolish it was. There was no reason to worry about finding the beach again because there was nothing there for her.

No one answered her calls, so her mind, so like any mundane mind, began to wonder how Esther would have time to work on her essays when she had no inkling of which direction her home lay. She then pondered, with some more anxiety, how Erica was, and she felt a pang of guilt for somehow abandoning her friend.

Esther stopped again. It hadn’t occurred to her until now that she might be dreaming. She touched the nearest tree in the dim light to feel its papery surface. The gash on her arm felt real and irritated at her touch as well. The wet clothes clung to her body, heavy and cold. If only it were a dream.

She was busy staring at her hands when a draft passed her ear and there was a noise like wood snapping. Esther saw the thin streak after it had hit the tree. An arrow shivered against the trunk.

Either someone was a very good shot trying to hit a tree trunk so small, or someone had narrowly missed her neck.

Who would be practicing archery at an hour like this?

She heard a twig snap under someone’s foot and took an instinctive step backward.

“Stay where you are, or I’ll fire m’arrow straight at your ‘eart,” said a man’s voice. It was more of a croak.

“Who’s there?” Esther trailed her eyes across the expanse of dark stalks that was the forest.

Feet scuffled through dirt and dry leaves, no longer constrained to stealthy movement.

“Don’t matter who we are,” the gruff voice replied, closer than it was before. More pairs of feet echoed in the darkened wood. Esther wished that bright star was still out, but she had watched it disappear.

“Look, she en’t wearin’ proper clothes.”

The new voice was younger and cheeky. She gasped and flinched away when a man’s fingers plucked at her damp sleeve.

“An’ she’s been swimmin’, too.”

“Don’t touch me!” She fumbled over her pockets, searching for any weapon. All she found was her wallet.

“I says don’t move!” The gruff voice bellowed.

Two pairs of hands wrapped themselves around her arms.

They were grimy and sweaty. Esther screamed.

“Ey now. Everyone calm down, now. We just want yer coin.”

“My coin?”

The men stepped close enough for her to see. There were about five. They were all about as dirty as their hands. Each one wore mismatched leather jerkin, belts, and boots, with torn pants and padded shirts. Esther doubted any one of them had bathed in a month.

She gave them all a curious look, but underneath her chest was a frantic heartbeat. Coin, they said. What the hell would anyone want with quarters? I’m not here, really. Just accept, it damn it! And don’t die now because of muggers!

Esther reached into her jeans’ back pocket where her wallet was. It had survived the madness like she had. From it she retrieved a soppy dollar bill. The splotchy and water stained ink made its origins and value meaningless.

“Here,” she held it out.

“That en’t no coin,” the youngest man hesitated.

The gruff man twiddled a steel tipped arrow in his filthy fingers as she watched the girl.

“It’s the only money I have.”

“But it’s parchment!” the youngest protested.

“We ought to take you instead, fer such lies!” another spoke from behind her right ear.

“I don’t reckon she has any silver or gold on ‘er,” the gruff man finally spoke. He rubbed his beard and continued, “She en’t from here. An’ ‘e’s right. Yer comin’ with us.”

He whistled and the men grabbed Esther again.

“Might I add, m’lady, if’n ye protest, we can easily do worse.”

“She en’t even got any jewels!” a man to her left complained as they dragged her back the way they had come.

The walk was not difficult but she hadn’t slept since before school that day, and she tripped often. On the way, she had overheard that “Baron” and his gang of four had left the camp to hunt for deer but had only found the girl. They were brigands, and unsophisticated people. Yet Baron told them all not to touch the girl, so as not to spoil her. By the time they all arrived at camp, Esther was exhausted. She was left to sleep by the dying fire, too tired to escape from the bonds they’d put around her hands and feet.

They woke her at dawn. The forest, unlike the men, was yellow-white, serene, and smelled of damp soil. The morning sun caught the spade shaped leaves and glittered on the dewdrops. Instead of basking in the beauty of it, Esther’s feet were untied and her hands’ bonds were tied to a long rope which Baron held onto like he would the reins of a horse. They began a march after a cold breakfast of stale bread and jerky, and the men jeered at her strange “money” and appearance.

“Where are we?” she asked as they trudged onward. The men had taken her much farther into forested areas. Long gone was the open sky and the distant horizon at the end of the ocean.

“In Aeon, what a question. No more daft questions!”

The four brigands behind Baron then spoke of the market.

“They’n always be looking fer more girls at bride auctions,” said one.

Another chortled, “an’ who in their right mind would bid on the likes of this one? She en’t come out of the Scepters.”

“She come out o’ the sea, bless me pentacles!” exclaimed the youngest.

Esther only frowned in confusion.

Baron growled and told them to keep their fancies quiet.

“This one en’t going to any bride auction.”

“My name is Esther!”

“What else can ye do with foreigners, Baron?”

“I said quiet! No more talkin’!”