Our Child of the Stars Read online

  Our Child of the Stars

  Title

  Copyright

  This ebook edition first published in 2018 by

  Jo Fletcher Books

  an imprint of

  Quercus Editions Ltd

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © 2018 Stephen Cox

  The moral right of Stephen Cox to be

  identified as the author of this work has been

  asserted in accordance with the Copyright,

  Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication

  may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

  or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

  including photocopy, recording, or any

  information storage and retrieval system,

  without permission in writing from the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available

  from the British Library

  HB ISBN 978 1 78648 995 1

  TPB ISBN 978 1 78648 997 5

  EBOOK ISBN 978 1 78648 994 4

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,

  businesses, organizations, places and events are

  either the product of the author’s imagination

  or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to

  actual persons, living or dead, events or

  locales is entirely coincidental.

  Ebook by CC Book Production

  Cover design © 2018 Leo Nickolls Design Ltd

  www.quercusbooks.co.uk

  Dedication

  To my awesome parents, Peter and Jenny, for everything

  Contents

  Fall, Year Two

  Some years earlier

  Two cursed years

  Meteor Day

  The day after Meteor Day

  Dr Pfeiffer

  May

  The day she told him

  Making plans

  The escape

  Under the lake

  The Sheriff

  Motherhood

  The week school broke up

  Summer

  The outing

  The day of the Moon landing

  A trip to Bradleyburg

  Two Mile Lake

  Indian summer

  His first Halloween

  His first Christmas

  Spring, Cory’s second year on Earth

  October

  Halloween

  The aftermath

  Sheriff Olsen’s plan

  Siberia

  The flight

  Disguises

  The flight to the border

  A decision

  Christmas Eve at Fort Fife

  Christmas Eve at the cabin

  Cory’s second Christmas Day

  Witness

  Noises in the night

  The bigger picture

  The President

  Molly’s revelation

  Into New Year

  The First Amendment

  When the President calls . . .

  Ship

  The day of the press conference

  Cory’s third Halloween

  Acknowledgements

  CHAPTER 1

  Fall, Year Two

  Molly sat by her bedroom window, sewing Cory’s Halloween costume. Looking out, Crooked Street was warm in the soft sunlight. Soon the old porches would shine with pumpkin lanterns, heads of orange fire with their savage grins. Long ragged witches and skeletons hung from the gutters and swayed as the wind ruffled the leaves of yellow, red and brown. She loved the sad beauty of fall, the possibilities as summer left and winter came.

  The Myers house had been full of Halloween for days. The three of them carved pumpkins while sugar girls wooed their candy boys on the radio. Cory rescued his first brave attempt and now it sat in his bedroom with its quirky, jagged smile. The second magnificent globe would be shown off tonight. Gene and Molly had enjoyed days of Cory’s endless chatter, and making things from painted leaves, and Molly’s attempts to bake new things from her old Joy of Cooking book. Cory couldn’t decide between a pirate and a sorcerer, so Molly said at last, ‘Be both.’ He flailed his arms in excitement. Then he saw how much gold braid she brought back from the shop – two double fistfuls – and he ‘want it all-all Mom’. Red and gold – Cory never did half-measures. There was so much small print in being a mother, like racing to finish the costume because not disappointing him mattered.

  Molly’s stitches were firm, rather than neat. Cory got so antsy and up close, she couldn’t sew straight around him. She retreated to the bedroom, with the chair propped under the handle. Gene thought that when he found time he’d mend the lock, but it never quite happened. She smiled, remembering last night, the signal that passed between husband and wife, the chair jamming the door in case Cory came wandering in, as he still did now and then. Last night he’d slept, and it was just Gene and Molly. They made the old moves under the patchwork quilt, with its wild pattern like leaves in fall.

  As a child, the jack-o’-lantern was a familiar friend, and yet it still brought a shiver as night fell. Little Molly had loved dressing up as someone else, staying up late to hear scary stories, eating more candy than was good for her and running through the back streets at dusk, kicking up dry papery leaves. She could pretend twisting shadows were real horrors. The years passed and for a while it became more knowing, a game between friends who were hovering at the doors of adulthood. Then Molly put Halloween away, like a favourite toy in an attic box, though she still loved fall when the year ran downhill to the dark. In time, adult joys and adult fears came instead: her first job, a wedding song, the house. And a death.

  She shook off a cold shudder. There were things to do.

  Childhood was a lost country, something well known but now too distant – but then Cory came: their son, their miracle, and Gene and Molly had found so many things again. Snow angels and Christmas stockings, birthday surprises and fireworks on the Fourth of July. Cory would squat to look at some tiny green flower or stand entranced by the song of a single bird. He adored the day of disguises; he was made for Halloween and it was made for him.

  As she sewed, Molly heard him outside in the hallway. That eerie creak could only be Cory swinging from the fold-down attic ladder and the little pad pad pad was him running along the corridor and back. You could never mistake that tread for anyone else. Sometimes all went quiet, which might mean Cory was hanging off the stair rail, upside down, to see how long he could do it. Or he might just be rearranging his treasure table in his neat little room. He might be out of the attic window and up onto the roof with his telescope, like some pirate up the mast. Cory often looked out across Amber Grove, official population 18,053 and proud of it, gazing north to the forest with its strange scar.

  ‘Safe Mom, look. Cory too clever to fall.’

  But she didn’t think he’d fall. It wasn’t falling that frightened her.

  Stitch stitch stitch, the red cloth against her dark slacks. Only a truly formal occasion or the most burning summer could get her in a skirt nowadays.

  Their doorbell rang.

  At once Molly put down the sewing and moved the chair from the door. She heard Cory scurry up the ladder into the attic and as she entered the corridor, the hatch shut. Cory had heard the bell; he would stay out of sight.

  She walked
down the stairs, taking care to look for any signs: a left-behind toy, a roller skate. On the walls hung her best photo of Gene’s parents, her nursing qualifications, the poster War is not good for children and other living things and the smiling portrait of Dr King. What would the Reverend have thought of Cory?

  The door had a peephole now, and a thick chain. A lanky werewolf lurked on the porch with his sister, a teenage witch, and a friend, an Egyptian princess . . . These older kids were from down the zig-zag road, good kids, and they did not know Cory existed.

  Molly adopted her public face: polite, not unfriendly, but not welcoming either. She picked up the bowl of candy and opened the door. ‘You’re a little old for this,’ she said, a little tarter than she’d intended.

  The werewolf looked hungry, but the girls frowned at his outstretched paw.

  The princess spoke. ‘Oh no, Mrs Myers. We’re going to a party. It’s just . . . Isaac has run off again. He’s a mutt, kind of brown and white, about so big.’ She held her hand about two feet off the ground. ‘Have you seen him?’

  ‘Sorry, I haven’t,’ Molly said, pleasant but distant. She knew the dog; she’d seen them walking it.

  ‘He keeps running off,’ the witch tried to explain, ‘and someone must find him ’cos they keep taking his collar off – do you think any of the kids around here might be doing it?’

  ‘No kids in this house,’ Molly said. ‘I’ll keep an eye out, though.’

  The teenagers looked at each other. Far from here, boys and girls not much older than these were marching against the war, protesting the horrors of Vietnam, and dancing in the sun.

  Molly’s stomach twisted in knots. She’d bet it was Cory ‘helping’ the dog, and that could expose him. The last thing she wanted was these teens hunting around the back of these houses. This was how it might start, like a spark on dry leaves.

  Soft as milk, she said, ‘Oh, maybe it’s the ghost. Years back, there were three trick-or-treaters who came to a strange old house at the end of the road . . .’

  They looked at her, too well brought up to be rude, but still teenagers enough not to laugh.

  ‘Hope you find him soon,’ she said, proffering the bowl. The werewolf took a big paw of candies. She shut the door, half hearing a low joke, and some protest from one of the girls.

  Up the stairs, back to her bedroom, to finish the job. Cory was nowhere to be seen, and that gave her a moment to shut the door and finish her work.

  Stitch stitch stitch. Molly shook out the Space-Admiral-Wizard ballgown or whatever it was. You could spot it wasn’t even, with bits finished too fast, like it was a race. She needed to check the supper, and this’d have to do.

  Pad pad pad. When she opened her door, Cory squatted there. He sprang up from the floor like an unfolding frog to his full height. Violet eyes widened as he saw the red sack with arms. He made the tick-tick-tick of excitement. His ears went up to ten to two. That was full marks enthusiasm.

  ‘Best costume EVER Mom! Thank-you-thank-you-thank-you!’ and he grabbed her in a skinny hug. She put her face down to his and he stroked her cheek with his outer face tentacles, seven-inch fingers the colour of red plums. He popped a sweet little kiss with the inner feelers. ‘Very special,’ he said. By the end of the day his scent was crushed lemon balm, horses and rain. ‘Try-on-now-now-now.’

  ‘Cory, you need to stop bothering the Robertsons’ dog. And don’t take his collar off – that tells them someone with hands is involved.’

  He met her gaze and said, ‘Playing not-bothering. Poor dog hate collar, Cory only helping . . .’

  ‘Do we have a deal?’ as she held out the costume like a prize.

  Cory nodded and grabbed it, his rope-like tail swishing. Molly smiled. He didn’t care one sleeve was too long, and he must-must find the toy sword, although he’d never hit anyone, it was just for waving. He must practise his casting-spells game, all fierce frowns and nonsense words and fluting noises. She remembered little Molly dressing up in a sheet, her joy at running between dark trees, and the taste of strange candy. Since Cory fell into her life, he’d opened Molly up to live the fun of it all over again. His joy made all that time sewing worth it.

  ‘Where is big pirate hat? When-when we light Pumpkin Jack? Do Russians have Halloweeen? Do Russians have pumpkins? What China people do Halloweeen? Different from us?’

  Gene would hate the risk, but she would take a Polaroid, just one, and hide it in their secret place. You couldn’t expect a keen photographer not to want snaps of her son.

  She walked towards the stairs – but there was Gene’s brisk knock on the front door: shave and a haircut, two bits. Her tall, dark, bearded librarian was home early, as promised.

  ‘Dad-Dad-Dad!’ cried Cory, and holding up his robe with both hands, he was round Molly and down the stairs two at a time. Cory’s skin was the colour of lavender milk, the colour of vigour and health. How Molly loved to stroke his long, hairless skull.

  On Halloween, he could be hidden. With the gigantic fake beard and the hooded costume and the robes a bit too big . . . he could pass. He’d go out with his only two friends and no one would pay any attention to the child at the back. This was his second Halloween; how special that felt for him, to be out in it, to be part of it this time.

  The family embraced, Molly standing on tiptoe to kiss Gene.

  Farewell Angelina went on the record-player, the LP worn from years of enjoyment. Joan Baez filled the house with music, that extraordinary voice making mournful love to the air so the whole house became sad and beautiful. There were many great singers but she was a family favourite; every time Molly played her records, Cory would sit and sway in time, cooing along, and, maybe later, Gene would reach for his guitar.

  Gene pulled on his faded Yankees sweatshirt and grinning, slipping on his glasses, he wove one of his tall tales about a borrower in the library and what sinister thing was under his hat. The story only ended when Cory jumped in his seat and went, ‘Ooo ooo Dad teeesing. Dad big liar.’

  They ate soup and hot sandwiches, Cory in the costume; he’d probably wear it for days now, even sleep in it. From time to time, Gene rubbed Cory behind one ear, purple with lighter stripes. In shape, his ears were half a piglet’s and half some strange shell.

  ‘Light lantern now-now,’ Cory pleaded as Gene finished his soup.

  Pretend-serious, Gene said, ‘Not yet. The sun needs to be further down, so we can see.’

  Every family inherits odd rules. Gene, who would listen to some arguments so easily, even change his mind when necessary, insisted that the pumpkin carved with such love could not be lit until today, the day.

  Cory hopped up and down, flapping long arms and saying, ‘Can’t-wait-can’t-wait!’ Molly raised her eyebrows and Gene made a show of checking first his watch, then the window. When these passed some mysterious male test, Gene opened the front door and looked both ways to check the coast was clear. Mr Forster’s flag flew across the road; it wouldn’t tell. Only a bird or two looked on.

  The strange shelf in the porch was perfect for Pumpkin Jack. The adults went first, looking and listening, and then Gene gestured for Cory to come. He helped him stand on a chair, a little stooped, with his hood up, Gene close, in case Cory fell – Cory, their son, who went over rain-slicked roofs and up high trees without fear. They were the last house in the last turn of six, but from habit, Molly kept her eyes fixed on the road, in case someone came.

  ‘Cory big-big, can do it, Dad,’ he said with his funny little crease of a frown. Gene lit the foot-long match and handed it over, and solemnly, carefully, Cory did the duty. The candle flickered, and then the pumpkin glowed orange from within. Cory must have grown two inches since the Fourth of July, Molly thought; she should mark the doorway in the hall, with him craning to stand as upright as he could.

  There were moments you could live in for ever, too full to speak. Molly rested her hea
d against Gene’s shoulder and remembered how they had brought Cory home from the hospital, a secret in the night, without a clue if it would even work.

  Cory was a secret. So few people knew and those friends held his life in their hands.

  The attic window and the roof looked to the north. You could still see where the Meteor fell, the flaming stone from space that had turned miles of State Forest to flame and smoke, and then to mud and ash. The Meteor brought destruction, it brought Cory, and it changed everything.

  CHAPTER 2

  Some years earlier

  Winter held Amber Grove in talons of ice, sketching fairy-wings on every tree. Molly and Gene came out of the cinema, where she’d sniggered throughout the space film he’d chosen, his feelings be damned. He’d snorted and sighed.

  Cold air burned her throat now, but his familiar arm was warm around her shoulders. ‘I’ve seen kids in the road make up a better story than that,’ she said, smiling.

  ‘Okay, sorry, that was garbage. Let’s go skating,’ Gene said. They walked the length of Main Street, past City Hall, past shops closed for the evening and one heaving bar, until they came to the park. The pond had frozen deep and solid and many people had thought of skating too. They lined up to hire the skates from the wooden hut that sold ice-creams in summer.

  They’d been Gene-and-Molly for six months. They’d first met in a basement, painting signs for the demonstration. Gene, walking into a room of people, moved like he’d just rented his body and didn’t quite have the hang of it. He was handsome, though the faded clothes were behind the times, and he looked away when their eyes met. But throughout that afternoon, she’d often caught him gazing at her. Maybe he thought that her mouth was too wide. Maybe he’d spotted her only vanity: the popular bottle which kept her hair the golden blonde she had been at five.

  She’d discovered Gene was quiet, never the first to speak in the group’s discussions, but what he said struck a chord with her. Imagine the impossible, but keep your feet on the ground. She contrived to sit near him.