It was nearly dawn, and it looked it looked like rain again. Freya could look forward to either a cold and wet bicycle ride to school or another insufferable cab ride. Neither was appealing, but staying home was no better. She would just dwell on everything worrying her and slowly go insane.
Freya kept drifting off as she got dressed. She found herself sitting on the edge of her bed with one sock on and the other balled up in her hand. She had no idea how long she’d there. She was spent and couldn’t find the energy to go on.
Her eyes fell on her guitar case. She’d gotten home so late last night there hadn’t been time to practice. Just one more thing to feel guilty about.
If you’re not going to bother practicing, I’m not going to bother coming.
Freya would never forget the way Mr. Mathis had said that. It was like a hornet caught in her head that stung her again and again. She took the Ovation out of its case, running her fingers along the edge of the fretboard, lingering on the pearl leaves. She plucked each string and listened. The G string was slightly out of tune.
She turned the peg until it sounded right, then she loaded the tuner app on her phone and checked each string. They were all spot on. She didn’t really need the tuner, but Mr. Mathis had insisted she was to use one every time she picked up a guitar. It was like Randall advising her to chalk her cue before every shot; consistency was everything.
Mr. Mathis had perfect pitch, but he’d warned her a head cold or feeling low down could mess her up, that she might wind up playing an entire show flat if she was careless. He didn’t trust her phone app. He had a battered old Korg WT-12A Chromatic Tuner in his case that was older than she was.
Freya spent a few minutes working on the standard chord and note warmup routine she did every practice. Her fingers were stiff after all the action earlier, but she worked it out of them. Then she noodled a bit on a song she’d been trying to compose, but she could tell she wasn’t in the right place to find the next part of it.
Next, Freya tried playing something relaxing, picking through “Greensleeves,” but she couldn’t feel the music, just going through the motions. She kept drifting off, thinking about the torrid dream, and messing up the notes.
It was 6 AM. Sunbeams spilled through her curtains and onto Yggdrasil’s leaves, scattering throughout the room. She walked over and parted the curtains, feeling the dawn on her skin. What did she really want to play?
On impulse, she played “Wild Horses,” one of her favorite songs. She’d wanted to buy a twelve-string so she could do the Nashville tuning for the Mick Taylor part, but Mr. Mathis had told her not to get ahead of herself. He said she should learn six-string first, then nylon, then electric before bothering with a twelve-string. She couldn’t get the same sound on the Ovation, but she enjoyed it anyway.
As the sun rose, the ball of tension in her chest unknotted. She thought about breakfast at the diner, summoning her courage to talk with the manager. She saw Dan, standing tensed with his fists raised at Malcolm. The river flowing past them as they sat on the bench, spilling themselves out to each other. Most of all, she thought about the long embrace at the end of the night. The chords were just flowing out of the guitar. She didn’t have to think, she didn’t have to try.
The feeling went on for the whole song. When it was done, she sat looking out the window, watching motes of dust dancing in the sunbeams. All her sorrows fled. Nothing could cling to her in this place.
Freya wiped her fingerprints off the Ovation with the special cloth and set it back in its case. Then she picked up the Starball and held it up. The sunlight flared around it like a violet corona. The orb was warm beneath her fingertips. She felt at peace for the first time she could remember. That was all that mattered.
* * *
Freya finally accepted it was late fall and picked out warmer gloves and a thick sweatshirt to wear under her windbreaker. Now when she shot down the hill on Elliot Road, the wind couldn’t touch her. All the soreness in her legs from yesterday was gone, and she felt strong. She planned to run again tonight after guitar practice. She hoped the dreams might not be so vivid if she ran the excess energy out of herself.
Fog rolled up the Sillas River as she crossed Thoreau Bridge. Freya was thrust back into the dream of the impossible causeway, the rising water that had swallowed everything. She pedaled faster, trying to get ahead of the feeling.
The three long bike racks at the side entrance were empty. Freya was the only one still riding to school. Inside Grayson, the halls were nearly empty. Not many people had arrived yet. The few teachers who saw Freya only nodded at her and sipped their coffee. They hadn’t summoned the energy to speak yet.
Freya could relate. She hadn’t slept nearly enough. Fragments of dream kept digging into her, tendrils writhing in the river, black water cascading down the auditorium steps. Nothing faded anymore. She tried to put the frantic morning behind her, but it was impossible to forget. She was still a little tender with every step she took.
The way she’d felt playing guitar was new, too. Was that what she’d been practicing towards for so many years? To feel effortless? She worried she might never recapture it, that she’d spent everything in a moment no one else would ever hear.
Freya stashed her coat and gloves in her locker, returning the Trigonometry and World History books she’d needed for homework over the weekend. Then she picked up the English Literature and Earth Science books she’d need for first and second period. She closed her locker and glanced around the hall. There was something unsettled and unspoken in the air, but she couldn’t quite place it. It was probably just lack of sleep.
Freya had The Void Captain’s Tale in her backpack. On a normal day, Freya would head to her favorite secluded corner in the library to read until first period. Today, she decided to sit on the benches inside the main entrance instead. She hoped someone from the party last night would see her as they arrived and chat with her. Maybe that would be enough to knock her out of this strange orbit.
The urge to talk with others was novel, something that had been absent from Freya for a long time. Of course, she hoped to see him, and she couldn’t help but smile at the idea.
It won’t last.
The thought struck like an intruder kicking in a door, and she knew at once it was true. What business did she have smiling like an idiot at nothing in a hallway? Perching on a bench, hoping to catch a glimpse of a boy who only felt sorry for her?
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
It hadn’t even been a year, and here she was thinking about hooking up like nothing had happened. Lusting after the exact same thing she’d thrown in Lassa’s face. Freya had been pushing her mother out of her mind for days. Now, Lassa was center stage, demanding her attention.
What if she never came back? What if she’d killed herself out there in the woods? It would all be on Freya, her ugly words, her feeble apology. She would never escape the guilt.
The bottom fell out. Freya didn’t want to be on this bench or even hidden away in the library. She didn’t want to be here at all. She wished there was a button to erase herself, a delete key for her entire life.
All the weight came back at once, and it was so much worse for its absence. Her vision narrowed, everything closing in. Freya set her book on the bench and reached into her pocket for the Starball. She needed something to hold on to.
When her fingers brushed against the sphere, the heaviness felt less crushing, the tightness relaxed. She removed her hand from her pocket, and the feeling began to creep back in.
It’s doing something to me, Freya thought. It wasn’t a realization, more of an acknowledgement, something she couldn’t ignore any longer. The Starball was changing her. She took it out and held it in her palm, feeling a glimmer of worry Malcolm might pop out of nowhere and snatch it from her again.
The Starball was hot. It had to expend energy to do this. There was an unformed urge running underneath her conscious thought. Freya kept her mind blank, trying to keep it from fully emerging. The awful feeling was retreating as she held the sphere, serenity taking hold. She knew once she felt calm, the unformed thought would die.
Freya performed the Broken-Breath exercise from The Fragile Phoenix. When a thought sprang up, she exhaled and imagined her breath breaking it apart into tiny pieces. As she inhaled, she visualized the fragments tumbling down, and then reforming into another thought, and she would breathe out and shatter it. The cycle went on and on in her mind, turning like a wheel. She left her book and backpack behind and walked down the hall, feeling pangs in her stomach with every step.
As Freya turned the combination dial of her padlock, a bolt of nausea struck, but she was ready for it. She got the locker open and shoved her fist inside with the Starball clutched in her palm. She tried to let go, but she couldn’t release. Her fingers cramped shut and would not unlock.
With her other hand, she reached in and pried her fist open. The Starball clacked against the metal shelf and rolled to the back of the locker, rattling against the wire spine of a spiral-bound notebook. Freya clapped the locker door shut, and all the panic she’d been pushing back rushed in. She clasped the lock.
The Starball tried to control her! It was inside of her head somehow. The sudden headache when she’d tried to book a flight to Paris, the nausea she’d felt outside the science lab, it was mind control. She thought of the bead of blood on her palm.
Had it put something inside of her?
Freya’s steps were unsteady as she moved away from the locker. She returned to the bench where she’d left her things. She fumbled with the zipper as she stuffed The Void Captain’s Tale back into her backpack. Her hands trembled. Now, she had to tell someone about this.
Freya had a keen feeling she was missing something. The Starball had occupied more than space in her pocket. How much of what had happened since the night at the river had been her and how much had been the alien? The word sunk in deep. ALIEN.
The Starball was an alien intelligence. There was no denying what she’d seen beneath the microscope. She’d carried the orb in her pocket like a favorite aggie and ignored every single warning. She’d missed a hundred chances to tell someone else.
The thoughts went on and on, screaming in her mind as her pulse pounded in her ears. As the drumming faded, indifferent fog rolled in to take its place. With muted dread, Freya felt the obliviating weight, the burden that would grind her insides to powder. Everything that had happened since the river had been an illusion. She was seeing things as they were.
She needed to get off this bench and away from this place. People would arrive soon. They would try to talk to her. She would be unable to respond. She had a clawing feeling in her chest like she’d swallowed something jagged.
Get up, get up, get up!
Freya couldn’t move. All those miles she’d run and the chances she’d taken weren’t hers. The willpower was on loan and the interest had come due. Locked to the bench, she shut her eyes tightly. People filtered in through the main doors. They each noticed Freya and scoured her with their gazes. They saw a loser, the crazy girl with the dead dad. She finally managed to stand. She needed to go home right away.
“OH, HEYY, Freya!” a familiar voice called out. She winced when she recognized it.
It was Jane Yang. Freya had to escape. She couldn’t possibly deal right now. She wanted to run, but her legs refused. They would only plod one foot in front of the other, moving in the wrong direction.
“What’s wrong with you?” Jane asked, darting around in front of Freya. She had an ugly look on her face. “Can’t even look at me, huh?”
Other people looked at them. Freya needed to tell Jane to fuck off and leave her alone, but she couldn’t make the words.
“You ruined everything for me!” Jane accused, jabbing her finger in Freya’s face. “You knew I was into him, so you turned everyone against me. Did you at least get a pity fuck out of it?” Jane’s voice had risen to a near shout, and more people were attracted to the commotion. Freya could only shake her head and keep moving.
“Don’t walk away from me! I’m talking to you!” Jane howled, and a whole group of people moved along with them, anxious to see a fight.
“Look at me!”
Jane moved into Freya’s way. Freya tried to step around, but Jane blocked her. Freya stared. She knew there were ways to fix this, words she could say to diffuse the situation, but there was no traction. Everything was sinking into the mire.
Jane was working herself up, shouting more abuse, but Freya couldn’t even understand the words anymore. All she could see was old Jane. The girl who’d cried and cried at The Notebook. The girl who’d once been Freya’s friend, one of the Flock. The girl who’d been so terrified to bring home a C from her first semester of 8th grade English she threw up in Lassa’s car as they gave her a ride home.
Freya looked from Jane to all the faces that had gathered around them. There was no sympathy, only hunger, eagerness to see them tear each other apart. Freya just wanted to lie down again and let them trample her.
There was a familiar face in the haze. Radomir was on the border of the crowd, trying to figure out what was happening. When he recognized Freya, he slipped through to the front. Radomir’s eyes met Freya’s, and it gave her the strength to speak.
“Leave me alone,” Freya said. The words were just empty wind. They had no force.
“I will! Everyone will! No one wants you around! Everyone just feels sorry for you! Why don’t you just get it over with? Fucking kill yourself.”
The crowd gasped. Radomir stepped forward and slapped Jane so hard he knocked her to the ground. The hall fell silent.
“Idiot. Do not speak,” Radomir said.
Everyone found their voices at once, and there was chaos. Two boys rushed forward and grabbed Radomir’s arms. In a second, he was going to get beaten up. Jane was on the ground, shocked and holding the side of her face. She cried as a teacher’s voice shouted to break it up. It was Mrs. Struthers. Her voice cut right through the commotion.
“What in the world is going on here?” she asked.
“He hit me!” Jane cried, and voices echoed agreement.
“I struck her. I will take the punishment,” Radomir said. The two boys still held him. Someone helped Jane up. She sobbed now.
“Why on earth did you do that?” Mrs. Struthers asked, and a dozen voices clamored to answer her at once. “Pipe down! I’m not asking you!” she addressed the mob. She pointed at Radomir.
“She said stupid things that cannot be allowed. Let go of me, I will not fight.”
“Well, let’s all go to the office. What a dumb way to start the week,” Mrs. Struthers said, shaking her head. “You too, Miss Jokela.” Freya was caught in the fog. She lowered her head and followed them to Mr. Evers’ office.
Chapter 41 - STARBALL
All is lost...