Andrea Höst - And All the Stars

Eyes streaming from suppressed coughing, Madeleine peered up through dense leaves, trying to track the source of the noise. Was there – yes. Floating lightly over the roof of the building opposite was a ball of light. She pressed down into the dirt and leaf litter, sure she could hear an echo of the thing’s song. More than one of them.

The memory of the lightest touch stopped her breath, and she guessed, knew, that it was the same one, the bright, rich blue one which had been so close. It had followed her, and no amount of branch or leaf could hide her.

The song died down as the star moved further into the school, giving no sign it was aware of three Blue girls. Madeleine lifted her head cautiously, but across the car park Noi immediately made a lowering gesture. They would wait.

Boys began appearing. Three Greens, running straight through the gates without even glancing around. One of the younger Blues who’d been at the beach, slipping into the back seat of the white hatchback and crouching down into the foot well, sitting his bag on top of him as partial camouflage. Another group, all Greens, piling into a four wheel drive and gunning the engine, waiting for a final friend before roaring off, swerving around Tyler’s empty car.

Pan and Nash emerged from Madeleine’s side of the car park, crossed without seeing her and paused beside the two driverless cars until Noi beckoned them over for a hasty, whispered conference. Then, as Shaun, Gavin and Fisher appeared among a large clump of Greens, she signalled a dash for the car.

Tensed for the return of the oscillating song, Madeleine was unprepared for a sudden chorus, louder and yet more distant than the encounter at the beach. It wasn’t coming from anything in the school, was strangely pervasive, overwhelming. Ahead of her the group of boys stopped and turned, orienting toward it.

"That’s the Spire," Emily said, as Madeleine reached the car.

Noi didn’t pause, leaping into the driver’s seat and starting the engine. "Care later. Leave now."

Madeleine obediently climbed in back as Pan and Nash headed for the white hatchback.

"Shaun?" Gavin, about to join them, darted back. "C’mon man, we’ve got to move."

Shaun didn’t react, listening intently to the wordless, fluctuating noise.

"He’s got the keys," Pan said

With a swift, comprehensive glance at a dozen boys, all Greens, all standing motionless staring in the same direction, Nash reversed course, he and Pan climbing into the sports car. Fisher, who had stowed his bag in the boot, took the front seat and a lap full of Emily.

"Gav! Come on!"

Trying to shake some response out of Shaun, Gavin glanced back and that was the worst of timing because he saw their horrified reaction but not the deep blue kite shape which flowed down from the roof and settled in an embrace around him.

Noi let the clutch out, then stamped immediately on the brakes as the hidden boy erupted from the white hatchback and threw himself across the sports car’s back seat, heavy bag thumping against the car door until Pan dragged it in.

The car leaped forward, engine rising from a purr to a roar, and they left the school and a dozen unmoving boys behind them.

Staring back, Madeleine could see the lone strawberry blonde boy who walked to the gate. Watching them go.

"Gav! Bastard things! We’ll get them for this!" Pan writhed under the weight of bags and the boy lying across all three back seat occupants. "Shit. Fuck them all! Shit, shit, shit. Damn it, I need better words."

He took a deep breath, and boiled out with:

" I will do such things, what they are yet I know not, but they shall be the terrors of the Earth! You think I’ll weep. No, I’ll not weep. "

He was shouting, eyes bright and wet, punctuating the sentences with thumps on the legs of the boy lying on top of him.

" I have full cause of weeping, but this heart will break into a hundred thousand fragments before I’ll weep! Oh Fool, I shall go mad! "

Noi darted a glance back at him, then at Emily’s gasp swore herself and swerved around the three Greens who had left first, standing just around a bend in the road. The boy lying on top, a spiky-haired Asian kid, slid dangerously sideways, and Madeleine and Nash grabbed to stop him zipping over the side.

"Be Shakespearian later," Nash told Pan. "Focus on the fact that he’s not dead. For all we know these things hop from person to person, and there’s a chance we can get Gav back."

Pan punched the inside of the nearest door, a thump to make them all wince, but he stopped talking.

"We’ve been terraformed," said the boy in Madeleine’s lap, his lightly-accented voice edged with a kind of disbelieving, acid delight. "They made us habitable."

"It’s what they’ve done to the Greens which concerns me," Nash said. "There are so many more Greens than Blues, and they seem to have all been impacted at once. We had best not spend long at the Wharf getting those cars."

"Get out of the city as soon as possible," Emily muttered.

"No." "Perhaps not."

Noi and Fisher, speaking together.

"Why not?" Madeleine asked, startled. "Even if we get locked up, it’s better than…that."

"Because of the Greens. Because we don’t know nearly enough about what’s going on. How far does that sound carry? Is it going to tell them to do anything more than stand gaping?" Noi roared down a wider road. "There’re Greens in every direction, in all the surrounding towns."

"We need a solid plan on where to go, and how to get there unseen," Fisher said. He had been very quiet, uncertain, but now seemed to have rediscovered his drive. "The problem is finding a place where we can wait safely and gather information."

"That’s taken care of," Noi said. "We had a Plan B."

After the swiftest of trips they hurried up to Tyler’s apartment, squashing into one elevator, tensely searching for any sign of other people, straining for an individual voice over the song of the Spire.

"Someone pack the edibles while we grab our stuff," Noi said, scooping up a line of keys.

The TV went on while Madeleine was in Tyler’s wardrobe, and when she emerged the screen showed a couple of hundred people, all staring in the same direction.

"All of the world," Nash said. "A simultaneous attack."

Madeleine turned to stick a large note on the fridge: " T – Don’t stay here. They know it. – M " She printed her mobile number at the bottom, in case he’d lost it, then did a quick tour of the room, collecting stray brushes and the bag of pads and pencils she’d put together while hunting nappies and baby formula. Most of her supplies were already in the bolthole, a piece of forethought she owed to Emily.

"Right." Noi emerged, two bags hooked over her shoulders. "We don’t have far to go, but it’s critical we go quick, quiet and unseen. Let’s head down to the central hall."

They accomplished this without much difficulty, the cloak-and-dagger peering about not even comical when they were all so sick and nervous.

"Good," Noi said, as they emerged from the elevator. "Now–"

"Girls! Wait there!"

Madeleine was not the only one who gasped at the sudden voice from above. The elevator’s doors closed behind them and, exchanging glances, they watched it go up.

"Wait," Noi murmured. "If it’s an attack, run out to the visitor parking – through the big entryway on the driveway side. I’ve a key to one of those cars."

"But who is it?" Pan asked, eyeing the descending figure.

"Not a clue," Noi said, as a beautifully-dressed woman – all silk and pearls, her platinum hair perfectly coiffed – stepped out.

She was holding a gift-wrapped box, complete with extravagant, curling bow. "Girls," she said, her voice cultured and assured, "I wanted to give you a small thank you before I left." Smiling, she held out the box, which Noi accepted blankly. "Take care of yourselves."