Maureen Johnson - The Name of the Star

“You dropped your phone,” Charlotte said. “Really, are you all right?”

“Shut up, Charlotte,” Boo said, not taking her eyes off of me or Newman.

Charlotte turned around in her seat to see what was going on. She could make no sense of it, me standing so stiffly, Boo throwing her phone around. She got up and reached for the phone, which caused Newman to lurch forward. He grabbed a lamp from the side table and smacked it against Charlotte’s head as she bent over. She made a little cry of surprise, and then he hit her again, and again, until she fell to the floor and was still. He gingerly took the terminus from her hand.

“There,” I said. “You have it. I told you.”

“So you did,” he said.

I had no idea what came next, and I’m not sure he did either. He stared at the terminus in shock. There was blood coming out of a gash on Charlotte’s head. I had no idea if she was alive. Newman watched the news for a moment, mesmerized by the footage of the police cars trolling the streets, still looking for him.

“We’re left with a situation, aren’t we?” he said. “Our agreement was I got the terminus, and your friend Stephen was allowed to live. I’ve honored that. But I’ve started a project—a great project—and that project needs to be completed. Saucy Jack must finish his work.”

“But . . .”

“Aurora,” he said patiently, “it’s much too good a show to end. And really, you always knew. You didn’t run from me—you faced me. We were always going to finish this.”

This didn’t upset me as much as it should have. It felt more like a dream. I knew precisely what he meant. Maybe we were always going to finish this. Maybe he was the person I’d always imagined by my side in England—a star-crossed pair, the slayer and the victim, tied together by fate. Or maybe I was just tired of running from him, tired of feeling that knife.

“Why?” Boo said.

“Why?” Newman said. “Because I can.”

“But what will it do?”

Newman pointed to the television behind him.

“This story,” he said, “it’s captured imaginations. I chose Jack the Ripper for a very specific reason. Fear. Jack the Ripper is one of the most feared figures in history. Look at all of these people obsessed with him. It’s been over a hundred years, and people are still trying to figure out who he is. He’s every figure in the dark. He’s every killer that got away. He’s the one who kills and never explains why. In the grand scheme of things, he didn’t even kill that many people. You know what I think it is? I think it’s the name. And he didn’t even come up with it—a newspaper did, based on a fake letter.”

“The name of the Star ,” I said.

He smiled and nodded, looking genuinely pleased.

“The name of the Star ,” he repeated. “Very good! The Star newspaper. Of course now, there are much more effective means of delivering news—constant news, instantly updated. I am the story. I am the star. I am in control.”

Newman had never seemed crazy to me before that moment, but something had peeled away, revealing the raw energy underneath. He had what he wanted, and he had nothing left to fear.

He was going to kill me.

I experienced a kind of tunnel vision, a hollow sound in my ears. I could see only him. He was flicking the knife, casually slicing into the top of one of the chairs.

“Will you at least leave Wexford?” I asked.

“It’s a reasonable request.” He shrugged.

“Rory!” Boo said. She tried to wheel over to me, but I put up my hand.

“Not here,” I said. “Please. Not in front of her.”

“Where then?”

“There’s a bathroom down the hall.”

I was saying these words as though they made sense.

“As good a place as any,” he said. “I’ll follow you this time.”

There was no point in saying good-bye to Boo. I just nodded and walked out of the room and into the hall. I couldn’t hear Newman behind me, but I could feel his presence. I opened the bathroom door and stepped inside. He followed and locked it behind us.

The slash came as soon as I turned around to face him. It was so fast that I didn’t even have time enough to look down and see what the knife was doing to me. My shirt instantly filled with blood. I didn’t feel anything. I just stared at the increasingly large red stain all over my front. I watched it lengthen and widen. I couldn’t feel any pain, which seemed odd.

Standing up was suddenly an issue. My body was cold all over and my legs shook. I started to slide down the wall. As I sank down, my new angle provided me with a very good view of the blood pooling in my clothes, so I resolved not to look at that ever again. I focused on Newman, on the studious calm of his face.

“I’ll tell you something interesting,” he said, tapping the tip of the knife against the sink. “You changed my plan. What I wanted was to draw out the squad, to spot one of them. Instead, I found you. It was so much easier having a target, someone to speak to, someone for the Shades to focus on. So I’m going to reward you. I was holding a terminus when I died. My fingers were on the buttons. I suspect—I have no proof, but I suspect—that it had something to do with the way I am. I not only returned, I returned quite strong. And I was the only person in that station to return. I’ve always wanted to know if these things are connected. I’ve cut you, and now you’ll bleed out. I had to do the abdomen. You would have lost consciousness and died within moments of my slashing the neck. I avoided the femoral artery as well. That’s a good cut.”

He backed up to the far wall and bent down and slid the terminus across the floor to me.

“Go on,” he said. “Pick it up. Use it on yourself. Hold it as long as you can.”

I took my hand off my abdomen and grabbed for it. I tried to find the one and nine, but there were spots in front of my eyes, and my fingers were slippery. Maybe I could get up. I decided to try. My hands, however, were too slick with blood. They skidded over the tiles. I had no grip—and moving made it worse. Moving made it hurt, a lot.

“Don’t struggle,” he said. “You’ll bleed faster. Just rest and press the buttons. It’s your best chance, Aurora. Let’s find out what it can do. Let’s see if we can make you into a ghost.”

Something was happening to the door. The door was moving. No, the door was growing—the door was growing inward . . .

I had to be hallucinating.

No, the door was growing inward, in strange lumps. Then the lumps became things I recognized. The top of a head, with a hat. A knee, then a leg, a foot, a face. It was Jo, forcing herself through.

Even Newman didn’t appear to expect this—some World War II woman soldier to come through the door.

“How the hell did you do that?” he asked. “It would have taken me ages to get through a door like that.”

“Experience,” she said. “And willpower. It’s not pleasant.”

Jo was closer to me than Newman was. She got to my side at once and plucked the terminus from my hand.

“I believe you took this from a friend of mine,” she said, holding it up. “I understand you also threw her in the path of a car.”

Newman stepped back toward the stall. He was trying to remain calm, but his composure was slipping.

“Who are you?” he said.

“Flight Sergeant Josephine Bell of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force.”

“I don’t think you know what that does,” he said. “You should be careful.”

“Oh, I think I know precisely what it does,” Jo said.

There was no hesitation in her movement—it was swift and even in a way that no living person could manage. In the next moment, she was in the corner with Newman. I remember the light. Something like a tornado formed in the middle of the bathroom, and the stall door flew open. The floor shook from the force. There was a noise too—a rushing sound that was soon drowned out by the shattering of the mirrors above me. They blew out powdered glass in one massive cloud. It seemed to hold itself in the air for a moment before falling. And the smell—that sweet, burning smell—it filled the room. Then the light faded, and they were gone. Both of them.