Virginia Macgregor - As Far as the Stars

His head snaps up.

‘I could take you part of the way to Atlanta,’ I suggest. ‘I’m heading in that direction. Sort of.’

Leda jumps up and starts thumping her tail on the tarmac, like she’s totally up for taking Christopher with us.

He bites the side of his lip and looks back at the door to the arrivals lounge.

‘As soon as there’s any news, it will be all over the TV and the internet,’ I say. ‘It’s not like you’ll find out more by staying here. And you’ll go crazy waiting. Come with me – you can charge your phone in my car and I’ll drive you to Knoxville. There’ll be a bus to Atlanta from there.’

He doesn’t say anything.

‘I could do with the company,’ I say.

Leda starts licking Christopher’s arm.

‘And it looks like she wants you to come too.’

Then, very slowly, he nods. ‘If you’re sure.’

‘I’m sure.’

I shove the dresses and the suit to one side on the back seat to make room for his backpack and lift the binder from my summer internship at the Air & Space Museum off the passenger seat.

Leda jumps into the back.

And then Christopher gets in beside me.

Chapter Ten

20.45 EST 1-66

It takes us ages to get out of DC because of the traffic. When we finally do, I relax for a bit and look up at the sky. It’s dark. And now that we’ve left the city, it’s clearer; there are billions of stars. The moon. A pale, round disc in the sky. Tomorrow night, it won’t be there at all, not the night before the eclipse. Well, it will be there – it’s always there, like the stars – we just won’t see it.

I wonder what it would be like to see the eclipse from the moon; to watch a long, dark shadow slicing the earth while the rest of the world stays bright. Now that would be even more amazing than being in Oregon.

One day I’ll live somewhere where it’s so clear it’ll be like living in the sky itself. When Mom was a kid she spent her summer holidays way up in the north of Scotland, and she says that there are islands there where you can see more stars than you ever thought existed.

The warm, night air brushes against my arms and my face, cool against my eyes.

It feels good to let my body go numb, not to have to think.

The only sound comes from the engine, a low hum, the tyres clicking over ridges in the road and Leda, who keeps letting out her random yelps in her sleep.

I still don’t know where Blake is, and the news of what happened to the plane and Christopher’s dad is hanging over us like this horrible black cloud. But it feels good to have left the airport behind and to just be driving.

I look over at Christopher. After he plugged his cell into the lighter socket, he sat back and stared out of the windscreen. And he hasn’t stopped staring. Like he’s hoping that the night sky will give him an answer.

As the wind rushes past us, the smell of his skin and his clothes drifts over to me: pines needles and rainwet earth, like he lives deep in a forest somewhere.

Besides Dad and Blake and a couple of boys in my Physics class at school, I don’t really hang around guys much. Which means that, if he were here now, Blake would totally be giving me a hard time about this.

And then it comes back to me: the reason I’m in this weird situation – driving my brother’s Buick through the night with a strange guy from England – is because Blake’s missing.

Christopher hasn’t said anything since we left Dulles, which is kind of a relief; my brain’s been on overdrive ever since I got to the airport and I don’t have the energy to talk or process any more information.

So, I keep my eyes on the road, let the warm air wash over me and push the CD player into its slot.

The sound system’s the only concession Blake made to updating the car. He wants the Buick to be true to its 1970s spirit. Yeah, the car has a spirit. For Blake, everything’s got a spirit.

The CD spins and then music starts coming out, and it takes a second to sink in. The singer’s voice.

Suddenly, I can’t breathe.

My hands go numb on the steering wheel and the car starts swerving to the middle of the road.

‘Hey! Watch out!’ a voice yells beside me.

I hear Leda barking from the back seat – loud, strong barks, way louder than her usual whining.

Then I hear her scramble down into the footwell, like she does when she’s scared.

The next thing I see are headlights, huge, beaming in through the windscreen: a truck is coming towards us, head on.

My heart’s hammering.

A hand reaches past me and pulls the steering wheel hard until the car swerves to the side of the road.

Then I lose control of the wheel and I’m thrown against the door.

The tyres screech.

Leda yelps from the footwell.

The car spins and, for a second, I think this is it, this is where it ends.

And then everything stops.

We’re on the hard shoulder, facing the wrong way. The side of my body feels bruised from the impact against the door. My head’s spinning. Blood’s pounding in my ears.

Outside my body, the only sound is the tick, ticking of the engine. And the whoosh of cars driving past us.

My throat’s dry and my heart’s knocking so hard I think it’s going to push out of my ribs.

And I’m wondering why the airbag didn’t detonate. The only way Mom agreed for Blake to drive this museum piece of a car was if he got it totally safety-checked. He said he did.

Of course, he said he did.

He probably decided that airbags weren’t true to the car’s spirit. I should have taken it to the garage myself.

I try to steady my breathing.

The weird thing is that the music’s still playing. Blake’s cover of Johnny Cash’s ‘Flesh and Blood’.

I reach out for the CD player and thump my palm against all the buttons, trying to make it stop.

‘Damn it!’ I yell, still thumping at the CD player.

‘It’s okay,’ a voice says beside me. ‘It’s okay.’

And then I remember I’m not alone. That Christopher’s sitting beside me, a guy who, a few hours ago, I didn’t even know existed. A guy who, more likely than not, just saved my life.

He reaches past me, pushes on the eject button and the CD slips out.

I sit back, my whole body shaking.

Neither of us says anything.

Then, his voice low and gentle, he asks, ‘What just happened?’

My eyes are closed now.

‘That was him.’ My words come out jagged, like my mouth has forgotten how to form words. ‘That was Blake, singing.’

I open my eyes and look back at the road. Everything looks normal: cars drive past us on either side. Headlights. Tail lights. No sign of the truck that we swerved to avoid.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say, my voice shaking. ‘It’s all been too much. And then hearing Blake’s voice.’

From the corner of my eye I see Christopher nod. And then he looks down at the CD player. My eyes follow his and I see Blake’s handwriting scrawled in Sharpie across the top: For Air.

I’ve listened to the CD he made for me so many times it should be worn out by now.

‘Your brother’s a musician?’

I feel blood in my mouth; I must have bitten my cheek as we swerved away from truck.

I can’t believe I haven’t told him this about Blake yet. It’s like you can’t mention my brother’s name without mentioning his music in the same breath. Blake is his music. And I assume that the world knows him already, which is stupid, I know. But then if you’ve lived with Blake, you’d understand: he was born with Destined to be famous stamped on his forehead.

‘Yeah. He’s a musician. He writes songs. Plays the guitar – has a band. He was on tour in England.’ I pause. ‘He’s even more successful over there than he is here.’ I stare out of the windscreen. ‘He loves London, especially.’