Star Mother (Star Mother #1)(10)

The very thought of standing in His presence made my bones shake.

Terrible anxiety punctuated by halved and quartered memories made me sick in my mind and my core, yet I felt as if He were some sort of lost limb, one I kept trying desperately to find and flex, only to discover it gone.

And yet my concerns about conceiving quickly abated. It seemed where there was a god, there was a way. By the end of my first week, I felt something unlike anything I’d ever experienced. A warmth inside me that wasn’t my own, a glowing I couldn’t see. I knew immediately, in all my ignorance, that I was pregnant, and that a star had budded to life inside of me. And with that budding came wonder, which turned into purpose, which shifted to hope. And that hope helped illuminate the darkness that had crept over my soul. It helped me return to myself, and I pulled the canopy from my bed so I could see the stars and remember why I was here.

I startled my first attendant when she came in with breakfast, serving me food that was entirely mortal but had a crystalline sheen to it as I did. Perhaps it was a sort of magic that let us exist in a world not meant for our kind. Perhaps this was how we really looked, away from the body of the Earth Mother. The attendant eyed me and set down my tray. Before she could depart, I asked, “What is your name?”



My words had astonished her.

She was an interesting creature, mostly humanoid.

Predominantly pink in color, she had the body of a human, but there was no distinct separation between her long, thick neck and her head. Almost like a large thumb extended up from her shoulders, and her eyes, nose, and mouth were painted onto its pad.

It took her a moment before she answered, “Elta.” Her voice harmonized with itself in a way that was mesmerizing.

I smiled. “How long have you been here, Elta?”

She eyed the not-door longingly, obviously eager to escape. But I was insistent.

She sighed. “Far longer than you can remember.”

“I can count very high.”

She tsked. “Five hundred and twenty-three years.”

I whistled. Godlings were not immortal, but they were very long-lived; such was the benefit of having one godly parent. Or, I supposed, two parents who were both godlings. Still, I wasn’t sure what that meant in terms of life expectancy, but I didn’t think it appropriate to ask Elta when she expected to die.

She started for the not-door.

“I’m pregnant,” I blurted, desperate for her to stay.

She turned toward me, compassion etching her features for the first time. “I know. It always takes. It is the way of the universe.”

I placed a hand on my stomach. “How long?”

She understood my question. “Nine months, of course.”

“Will it hurt?”

She tilted her elongated head to the right. “Not yet, my dear. Not yet.”

My other attendant, Fosii, was not so willing to speak with me. I only knew her name because Elta told me. Fosii was short and wide, with skin darker than the space between stars. When she came to bring me food or water, she did not open her mouth once, and she avoided meeting my eyes, as though I were some hapless creature from the depths of Tereth’s seas. I tried multiple times to befriend her, but each attempt seemed to push her further away. I felt myself mirroring her actions, withdrawing to make her comfortable, and I hated it.

Hated feeling more lonely when she was in the room.

Two weeks into my pregnancy, I asked Elta why Fosii hated me so.

She shook her pink head. “She doesn’t hate you, dear. But she is unused to mortals.”

I picked at the bread Elta had given me—supposedly left on a shrine to the Sun—my legs folded under me, my room ever constant and never changing. “I thought all godlings were familiar with mankind.”

Elta’s smile was nothing if not maternal. “That’s because the godlings you are familiar with are those who inhabit the Earth Mother. But there are others who dwell in realms beyond that. Like myself. I come from a space far away from here, but took up work in His palace.”

“Far away?” Looking up, I took in the endless clusters of stars and space overhead. “Beyond where the Sun’s light reaches?”

“His light reaches very far,” Elta said. “So not as far as that.”

Feeling bold, I asked, “Who were your parents?”

She blinked at me, and I wondered if I’d offended her. “You would not know them.”

“I want to.”

She fluffed the blanket atop my bed before answering. “My mother was a godling like myself. My father was the upward wind of the Broken Emerald.”

“Broken Emerald?” Such a name fascinated me.

Elta merely offered me that same maternal smile. “I told you you would not know them.”

Setting down my half-eaten meal, I leaned back onto my hands, watching the stars, my eyes drawn to the tiny gap where one had died. I stared at it, feeling as though I could fall into the open space and never return.



Elta opened my door, leaving. Hurriedly, I asked, “What about the children of the stars?”

But the godling shook her head. “Stars cannot have children.”

Then, before I could ask, she shrugged and added, “It is the way of the universe.”

It was easy to grow bored in a place so far away from home, where only one creature was willing to speak to you. There were no books, no trees to climb, no music. Only me and my growing babe. I grew restless.