All the Stars in Her Hand

Chapter One

Chapter One

Memories are living snapshots: transient in the manner of life, without the permanent stillness of photos, unless we freeze them in our heads at a moment which defines our own specific iconography. No physical image we create can capture the mood imbuing those moments — the serenity or triumph, for example — so perfectly as we could wish. A piece of art with varying degrees of quality, that”s what photos are; they can be a poor mirror of their circumstances, unless they awaken something within us with one look.

The iconic moments from our trip to Petra were captured in black and white, in vivid digital color, and in one or two whitewashed images where someone switched on the flash by mistake. A video or two spanning the view from a Jordanian hotel window, and the winding canyon journey that ends with an abandoned city embedded in stone awaiting us.

The best photos from that day would stand out for a lifetime in memory. The first glimpse of the city unfolding behind us, three faces — me, Dean, Sidney — framed in the image foreground. Sidney sitting on the steps of the treasury, gazing off somewhere in thought, preserved in black and white on my phone.

I sat on the threshold of a house vacated centuries ago, looking at this photo on my screen. I thought of Egypt, watching him sit on the stones of an ancient pyramid from Djoser the day some friends on the restoration crew let us come up the repair scaffold to see the world from the upper tiers of a faded empire.

I closed my photo album as Sidney joined me, resting on the same step. ”Feeling bored?” he teased.

”Not even close,” I laughed. My phone was folded between both hands as I straightened my shoulders, gazing out from the shelter of the doorway. ”Imagine the life of whoever last lived here, doing ordinary things,” I said. ”Never realizing this dwelling would become an attraction people flocked from all over the world to see.”

”Do you think anywhere we live will ever be a potential UNESCO site?” he replied. ”A thousand years from now, people pilgrimage to the vicarage shed, or your old flat in London.”

”Youhave, potentially,” I pointed out. Lewiston house was probably on the small end of the scale of grandeur, but I couldn”t tell the difference. To me, it was the shadow of intimidation, a long history of well-heeled gentry with portraits from celebrated painters, behind those walls.

He didn”t smile, keeping it hidden. He didn”t want to think about a past which he was leaving behind in the near future, so he wouldn”t carry the joke about tourists on the grounds of his childhood home. I didn”t blame him for leaving it aside; it didn”t really belong here, our moment in the sun far from home.

His arm slid around me, drawing me close. ”Dean looks happy,” he said, looking across the way. Dean was in the shade of a travel umbrella, in his wheelchair, his working finger attached to the sketching pencil above his pad, which was braced to the arm of the chair as well.

”He does.” I propped my chin on my hands. ”Do you think he”s sketching us?”

”Maybe. Somewhere he has a sketch of me sitting near the river. It was only a sketch of the bridge, I had thought, until I looked closer. He always says he prefers landscapes, but it”s the small details he really prefers. Like people caught unawares in the moment.”

I had caught the wonder in his face when we came through the canyon to the ruins of the city. Laying eyes on the famous treasury could draw reactions of awe from even lifetime travelers. Watching him make sketches in Egypt, I had seen the same look deep in his eyes when he preserved his impressions in something more significant than a photo.

I tried remembering the sketches hanging in Dean”s cottage, and how many of them had people or animals, or other insignificant but unique features populating an otherwise-pastoral scene, for instance. I had never looked closely enough to see, which was my own fault. I took his word about landscapes, and the views of church towers and old barns as exactly what they were, despite knowing that he tended to obfuscate.

”Will this end up in a story, I wonder?” I mused aloud. ”Yours or mine?”

He glanced at me. ”Yours, obviously,” he said. ”The road for mine to follow was already predestined. For the most part, anyway.”

”You don”t see it changing into something surprising?” I asked, although it was more of a joke. He and I both knew that once the die is cast for a story on its pages, it tends to stay that way, unless there”s more to be gained by the changes than in the first version.

”Not for any frivolous surprises, as you”re suggesting,” he answered, with a hint of humor. ”It would be something much more interesting worth thwarting the story”s original destiny. Probably it would be darker, although not always. We remember the adages about sun parting storm clouds for a reason.”

Life”s surprises had a way of being unfrivolous. Mine was prone to it, anyway. I located Sidney”s hand beside me on the step, laying mine over it.

In the heat of the desert, in air that reminded me of mirages in films, tourists walked by in clusters, reading city diagrams on their phones or taking selfies. This was the climactic moment of our trip, but reminded me of Luxor in the setting, where we had milled between ancient pillars.

Egypt never far removed from my thoughts, even in the perfect contentment of this moment. Once, I had known something very much like this happiness, in another place in time, which was why. I was catching hold of it, holding on, so this time would be the best as well as the last.

Dean had glanced up from his work, smiling at us across the distance, in the same manner of watching that we were engaged in. We waved to him, me smiling back.

Just once, the world was as it should be.

________________________

The trip to the ruins of Petra was by minibus, with a camping stop in the desert. It was my first, and probably last time to sit by a campfire under the stars in sand that was not washed ashore by either the Atlantic or the Pacific. Sparks flew upwards as the guide tossed on another log, and I thought of shooting stars — comets and constellation in the night sky.

I scrolled through my photos a second time at leisure just before Sidney was due to take Dean back to the tent for his nightly care routine. We shared our favorites before my battery faded — I switched it off, to conserve a little power in case of emergencies, and to appreciate the night sky without further distraction.

The next morning we were back at the Jordan Excelsior Resort Hotel, where we freshened up before brunch downstairs, and I shed my sweaty desert clothes from yesterday”s walk, and the light cardigan I had worn in the evening, in case the night was cooler. As of yet, I hadn”t bought Molly a postcard, or my mom, but today was the day I planned to choose for them, including one with Petra”s treasury building, and one of the river and the rocks at sunset.

There were plenty of compelling images on the revolving rack, but those two were my favorites. I was looking for one for Arnold, when I noticed the rack of newspapers and magazines, some in Arabic, with unfamiliar publications like an art guide calledPersiawith Farsi lettering,Legacyon modern and traditional Jordanian lifestyles, and theTreasure in Our Midstdigest on the museums and galleries of Middle Eastern antiquities.

I browsed the section for tourists, with English-language copies and overseas publications on display. The new copy ofPeoplemagazine next to an English-language copy of a Jordanian tourist magazine, and a fresh issue of theDaily Maildated for today, grouped with other newspapers of its kind. A teaser for an inside scoop was on the front of another daily journal, below the headline story about peace talks.

”Mystery Solved? One Journalist Claims to Know the Identity of Elusive Writer.” Below a picture — most familiar — of the first edition ofA Dark and Glorious House.

My body became frozen in one place, as if locked by a magnetic force. Only for a second, until my hand reached for the paper.Not again. It couldn”t be.Hadn”t I read this headline in the papers only last spring? But maybe it wasn”t anything more. Maybe it was only more about Megs — more about the pretender to the name —

With shaking hands, I lifted the front copy down from its place on the newsstand, and thumbed to the reveal”s article.”Weekend readers of our entertainment news journal were teased with details by a journalist”s expose on the real — and unbelievable — double life of the true author of best-selling novels A DARK AND GLORIOUS HOUSE and the former Pulitzer-honored UNINVITED HAUNTINGS....”

I folded the paper down to the lower half.”Details are coy, but readers take away the following facts: the real-life Alistair has known both privilege and rough living during the span of scarcely thirty years of living, and he is anything but well-seasoned in the game of life. Shockers continue, as the exposure unfolds.

The paper lay between us at the breakfast table, open to the page with the book”s first edition pictured, and a breakdown of the secret story”s revelation in the details. There were enough of them that I knew that whoever the journalist was, they had discovered the truth somehow. They didn”t guess the details — not with references to Port Hewer, and to the hotel Penmarrow. They knew that the real author had used it as a contact hub with the pretender Megs.

Sidney”s forehead had crinkled during the first paragraph; by the end, when he laid it down, I could see the groove had deepened. ”They have a psychic journalist at the journal, apparently,” he said.

”Someone must have stumbled upon some legal proof, probably,” I said, quietly. ”Put two and two together somehow.” It was nearly impossible to fathom, but that was the only way it could have happened. ”No one who knew would have told them.” Not Adele, certainly. Not me or Dean— or even the head of Saxx and Brighton, who supposedly knew — nor Mr. Trelawney, who kept his secrets under lock and key.

”I know.” He reached for his egg, but didn”t look happy. ”These things happen. It was bound to come out at some point, wasn”t it?” His smile was pretending.

I glanced at Dean, who had said nothing, either. I heard his exhale.

”Well,” he said, at last. ”It”s over. That”s one thing to be glad of. It”s done now, and there”s no more worry nor hiding now that it”s been outed — there”s obviously no stopping it at this point. You”ve made decent progress on book four, so the timing could be far worse for the revelation of the real Alistair Davies.”

”True.” Sidney picked at the egg”s shell. Dean”s gaze cut my direction. I spoke up.

”Dean”s right,” I said. ”If it was going to happen, at least this is a better time than before. Like Megs says, you deserve to be the real Alistair. If you want to finish confessing.”

”No, I don”t,” he answered, a touch more emphatically than I expected, but with a rueful smile. ”But I understand what you mean.”

”There”s no need for it to spoil things, really,” said Dean. ”Either life at home or this holiday. The story will drop after a few curiosity seekers read that Alistair Davies is an ordinary person who did a few unconventional things. Perhaps your mother won”t even notice the story.” A touch of mean humor in Dean”s voice for this last remark. ”Don”t let your thoughts dwell on it, since we are a thousand miles from the source. We can run away at will if we have to.”

Sidney”s lips quirked, but the laugh remained beneath the seriousness. ”I won”t let it spoil things,” he said, gently. ”I promise.” He shrugged. ”Nothing to be done now, so it”s better to forget it. We have things to do today, besides.”

He set an open jar of marmalade on the newspaper, over the teaser for the reveal. He spread some on his toast, saying nothing else. I glanced at Dean again, who offered me a tiny smile of reassurance. I took the paper from underneath the jar and folded it small, sticking it in my bag.

”Already forgotten,” I said, after this. Sidney laughed.

”All right,” he said. ”Let”s be off.” He sandwiched the egg between the marmalade bread, folding it like a half sandwich as he gathered up his jacket. Our mood began to lift again as we set off for the day. On the way out, I tossed the paper into the rubbish bin. It would be better off there, and I hoped that the rest of the details would soon be forgotten by readers as well. Maybe they, like me, had moved on from the fantasy of the elusive author”s past.

We spent the day at a museum, then a tour of Ajloun Castlebefore our late dinner at the hotel. Flushed and tired, we reviewed the highlights again, and debated which dish was the best from the ones we ordered. We remembered spicy recipes from past episodes, separate in our lives — me with Indian chicken and rice from a little restaurant in New York, with yogurt sauce to cut through the heat from the peppers and curry, Sidney remembering a heavy paprika stew from a kitchen restaurant in Hungary. Dean deflected, reminding us that his idea of a well-seasoned dish was goat cheese pie at the bistro near his old flat.

Upstairs, as twilight deepened, I tossed my clothes into the suitcase, pulling on clean nightclothes. The window was open, but the night still felt warm to me, even though the summer heat was waning. Curling up on the chair in my room, I made notes in my journal — not about the next book I intended to write, but about today”s events, which I logged faithfully before the details could slip into the past.

I wished I could sketch like Dean could, and could draw the view in my mind”s eye of the three of us standing by the river, watching sunlight dazzle on the water”s ripples. Sidney skipped small rocks, and Dean explained to me a legend he had heard our guide sharing about the river”s waters, rooted in the ancient traditions from the days of Biblical times and Roman conquests.

”Think they still have healing properties?” I asked. I had splashed my hand in the current a moment before, as if I was picking up shell bits along the shores of Port Hewer again. I could think of jokes about it curing my paper cut, but I was pondering more serious thoughts about the stories.

”I think apart from the hands of the aforementioned Deity, the water is ordinary,” he answered. ”Its only remarkable property now being that it”s far from our home. The waters of a history we cannot begin to rival, flowing at our feet.”

He smiled. ”It is remarkable, though,” he said, softly. ”That we are here at all. The past left me without the ability to picture anything like this.” He didn”t say which stage of the past, but I knew there was more than one.

I had come through my own, the period of time I had spent believing that Sidney would be a friend fading out of my world, and that nothing like this would ever be possible again. I had believed that starting over again was my only option, and had nearly embraced it. That was before being gifted with the chance to start again with him, which had left no other options on the table for me.

Carefully, I scooped some of the water into my hands, cupped tight to prevent it from leaking out. I lifted it up within reach of Dean”s working fingers, which had slipped from the controls.

I let the tips of his fingers dip into the water, touching the stream of legend, fed by foreign wellsprings and the precious rains of a desert land. If the ancient wisdom and sacred text was true, I thought it was worth a try.

I met his gaze with a shy smile. He gazed back, with only a soft touch of amusement, a deeper kindness filling those dark eyes in an exchange of human understanding without words.

As with the excursions before, this event was chronicled in my journals” pages, like the trip to the museum of Middle Eastern antiquities and the afternoon of relaxation spent arguing about chess moves.

I closed the book and tucked it underneath a paperback copy ofPicnic at Hanging Rockborrowed from Sidney”s collection, and some brochures from the Jordanian attraction we were visiting tomorrow. I switched off the light, and curled up in tranquility beneath the cotton sheet, closing my eyes after a long day.

The sound of pounding footsteps in the corridor outside pulled me into a conscious state without warning. Urgent voices speaking in English and Arabic. I reached for the phone on my table and checked the time. Three eighteen in the morning.

With concern, I shoved back my bed linens and opened the door to my room, which was next to Dean”s. The door to his room was standing open. My heart was pounding as I reached his doorway.

Sidney was kneeling by the bed, bending over Dean, who was struggling to breathe. Someone brushed past me — a porter from the hotel, running for a doctor.

”Hold on.” Sidney”s tone was soft, but intense. ”It”s all right, the doctor”s on his way. He”ll be here any minute.” He had Dean”s working hand in his, holding onto it tightly, as if the sheer force of that and eye contact — the power of the human will — would keep him fixed here. ”Everything will be fine. Just hold on.”

I could hear other voices, confusion down the hall, but my eyes were locked on the situation in the room, my feet frozen.

Dean”s gaze broke from Sidney”s, finding mine over his shoulder. The intensity and deep humanity — so many emotions in those dark orbs that I could not read them all, even if my own hadn”t been blurring with tears. My heart was pounding so hard that it felt as if it would burst through my chest. It knew what was coming and was racing away from it as hard as it could.

His gaze grew blank and glassy. His eyes closed. What part of Dean still had movement had stopped struggling; no movement at all was perceptible. I could tell by the change in Sidney”s face, and I knew the hand in his hold no longer had fingers gripping him back.

My feet managed to move, bringing me closer to Sidney. My hand touched his shoulder, feeling his body shaking as he knelt there. Silent and powerless, as the footsteps came running back again.