Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“I’ve been thinking a lot about that, um, problem of yours.”
I stop chewing my cheese cracker and glance over at Marty, who's sidled up to the snack table beside me in the library's basement. I don't like him referring to Star as a problem.
Star was never a problem. Star was the solution.
“Yeah? And what'd you come up with?” I ask, the question mostly sarcasm, which is probably a rude thing to do, but I haven't exactly been feeling generous toward anyone lately.
I feel angry all the time. Angry at life, angry at the universe. Trying to understand why this town and the ley lines and whatever magic exists here brought Star to me only to rip him away.
“Well, I was thinking about the fact that you said he didn't eat.”
“Right, because he wasn't human. His body worked differently.”
“Exactly.”
He steps a little closer, until I can see every hair in the beard he’s grown out in the last few weeks, and lowers his voice even more, even though there's no way anybody else in the room can hear us. There's a hefty discussion going on about whether or not ghosts are related to ley lines.
“What if he needed something else to sustain him? Something that wasn't food but that acted like food.”
I look down at the half-eaten cheese cracker in my hand. I can't swallow what's in my mouth. It tastes like it’s turned to wet sand. “Like what?”
“Like electromagnetic energy.”
I scowl at him. “How would that make any sense?”
Marty shrugs and straighten, his eyes still full of mirth despite my bad attitude.
I feel bad for being kind of a dick to him. Not only did he save Star's life, but he's been mostly kind to me since then. I started coming back to the paranormal meetings, and he's always here, being friendly.
Once Star was back in the sky, I told him everything, the whole story, not just what I told him that night so that I could get his help.
I should be nicer to him. I'm generally a nice person. I'm just so fucking sad.
Marty is still rambling on, trying to make me understand his theory. “You said that he was mostly fine at your house. That he was just having little pains. But then, once you got far out of town, all the way in Denver, that's when he had his episode.”
Things are starting to make sense, what he's saying.
“Right.” My mind is already whirring through the possibilities.
“So, his body needs a high amount of electromagnetic energy. If it took a shock of electromagnetic energy to get him down here, it's possible that that was what was sustaining his human body. And the further you got away from the apex of that energy, the more his body was suffering.”
“But…” I stutter. I can't even find words. What he's saying could actually make sense. But if that's the case, then, at my house, far enough away from the waypoint to be an issue, the pain still would have gotten worse. He just suffered more and quicker by being pulled all the way to Denver.
“He was depleted of the energy because he was so far away from the intersection of the lines. So, what if he was here, and every day, you gave him a little jolt?”
I think of the two electromagnets I used to send him back into the sky, if that's where he is. I don't actually know. He's just gone.
“But wouldn't that cause him to, you know, shift back and forth between his human body and the sky, or whatever the fuck was going on?”
“Not necessarily. It took a huge electromagnetic storm, and some kind of willpower on his end from what you told me, to get him down here, to get him into a human body to begin with. And you said you used two electromagnets to get him back. There should be an in-between somewhere. You could give him a boost of electromagnetic energy to sustain his body without interference.”
I sigh and toss the rest of my cracker into the trash. I couldn’t possibly eat anything else now. “I mean, this is all interesting stuff, and I appreciate you taking the time to consider all of it, but it doesn't matter. Star's gone.”
Marty crosses his arms and squints at me. His face, his countenance, is so familiar. He wore the same expression that night, when he was trying to sort through all the facts. He's trying to do it now.
“You said that Starlight reached for you. That when he saw you, he was observing humans from his spot in the sky.”
“Okay?”
He throws his hands up. “So go out there and ask him to come back.”
I blink at him. I’m suddenly very aware of my arms, hanging uselessly at my sides. “I can't do that.”
“Why not?” He asks the question so loudly that the group on the other side of the room startles, falling halfway silent and looking over at us. “Sorry,” he says to them and turns back to me.
“Listen,” Marty says, dipping his head. He's so much taller than me that he basically has to in order to meet me eye to eye.
“I don't want to get into your personal business.
I know we don't know each other very well.
But from what you've told me, I think Star wants to come back. I think he wanted to stay. I think that he would want you to ask him to come back if you wanted him to.”
“You weren't there,” I tell him, as if that changes anything. As if I didn’t tell him how many times Star said he didn’t want to go.
He straightens up, pulling his shoulders back. “You're absolutely right. I wasn't. And I don't mean to overstep. I just... I think you're a cool guy. And I think it would be fucking cool to be friends with, you know, sky. Plus, Mackenzie is worried about you.”
I scrub my hands over my face roughly. “What the fuck are you talking to Mackenzie for?”
He shrugs. “She's nice. And she's interested in the ley lines, I think. And, you know, she's hot.”
I groan and turn away from him. “Stay away from my sister, Marty.”
“Thanks, but no thanks, Mason.”