Welcome to Bordertown (37 page)

“You gotta be kidding me,” Allie said.

“You’d rather ride bitch? You can, but I bolted on the sidecar knowing I’d have a passenger. There’s room for your guitar if you wrap your arms around it.” Psyche put on a black helmet and a pair of aviator goggles. Then she passed over a helmet with a big daisy painted on top. Allie swallowed her mortification and put it on. At least nobody knew who she was, so she didn’t have to worry about any of her friends seeing her. She got into the sidecar, strapped herself in as much as possible, got her stuff arranged, and held on to her guitar as the motorcycle lurched and growled and nosed its way out of the alley and along a bizarrely circuitous route that seemed to involve a lot of doubling back.

“We’re driving in circles!” she yelled, and Psyche yelled back, “We’re avoiding gang territory!” and then they both gave up because yelling over the sound of the engine was too difficult. And even when the engine quit and a funny box strapped by the seat started humming and emitting blue light, the sound of the rushing wind—yeah, the bike kept going, engine or not, must be magic—was still too loud for easy conversation.

The bike wove through neighborhood after neighborhood as they crossed the city from south to north, and then, Allie noted with alarm, they seemed to be leaving the city altogether. She wondered if she’d misjudged Psyche, if she was going to become a ritual sacrifice or something. They bumped up a rutted road that climbed a hill, and then she saw a little house on a ridge, looking over the city lights below. It was dark—there wasn’t much of a moon—but the motorcycle’s headlight beam revealed enough of the house to give Allie a sense of ramshackle disrepair barely held in check.

“Okay,” Psyche said, climbing off the bike. “Let’s go in.”

“You don’t live in the city?” Captain Obvious kind of question, but Allie wondered why.

“The Nevernever is better for my work. It’s useful living this close to the Wall.”

Allie didn’t know what Psyche was talking about, but confusion was probably a geographical hazard on the Border. “Thanks for taking me in.”

“Of course. I don’t believe
everything
happens for a reason—but our meeting did. Come along. And welcome to Stargazer House.”

*   *   *

The inside of the house was just as ramshackle as the outside, with shelves on every available bit of wall, sometimes in the
form of planks simply nailed to the paneling, all crammed with books and sheaves of paper. A drafting table covered in oversized sheets of paper dominated the center of the room, and a lamp with a multijointed neck clipped to the side of the table provided the room’s only illumination—its electrical cord was wired into one of those weird spellboxes, and the light was weak and yellowish but probably better than candles for writing under. Copper charms and crystals and feathers dangled from the lamp’s neck in such profusion that you probably couldn’t even adjust it without making a huge clanking, rattling noise. The only other objects of note were a futon in couch form, covered in a dark blue blanket dotted with yellow crescent moons and stars; a dark wooden table, with the legs carved in a similar night-sky motif; a wood stove, currently unlit; and a black iron spiral staircase that must lead to an attic room or something. Little model solar systems hung down from the ceiling, lightweight planets swaying from mysterious breezes or maybe just the vibrations of their footsteps. There was a tiny galley kitchen, a short hallway to what must be a bedroom, and a door that Allie devoutly hoped led to a bathroom. Psyche confirmed it and told Allie to feel free to freshen up.

The bathroom was cramped, and there didn’t seem to be any hot water—if that was life in Bordertown, Allie would have to make some mental adjustments—but she was able to pee and wash her face and rinse the yuck out of her mouth. Her stomach complained—she hadn’t eaten since a gas station sandwich in the morning—and she hoped Psyche’s hospitality would extend to dinnertime. She didn’t think Psyche would trade food for pills; she seemed more like the natural-high-or-nothing type.

When Allie came out, Psyche was nowhere to be found, so she strolled over to the bookshelves. Thick and serious-looking science
books—some of which even had
titles
Allie couldn’t make sense of—mingled with more comprehensible popular science books by Neil deGrasse Tyson and Michio Kaku, along with astrology books and new age–looking stuff with titles like
Unlocking Your Star Power and Overcoming Astrological Adversity and Cosmic Compatibility.

“Allie?” Psyche’s voice came from above. “I’m up here. Sorry, I have to do a little work, but you can join me if you like.”

Allie spiraled up the staircase, lifting a trapdoor at the top and climbing up, expecting to find an office, a bedroom with a desk in it, something like that.

Instead she found herself on the roof: an open-air platform with a big telescope mounted in the center and a couple of deck chairs, and Psyche lying flat on her back on a yoga mat, staring up at the sky. “Look with me,” she said.

Allie hadn’t looked at the stars in … hmm. She’d gone camping upstate the year before, but she’d gone with this girl she liked at the time, and they hadn’t seen much besides the inside of the tent after nightfall. And in Brooklyn it never got really dark, certainly not so dark you could see the stars like this. She lay down on her back beside Psyche and looked up. With the trapdoor closed, the blackness was nearly total, which was weird, since Bordertown
was
right down the hill and should have been filling the sky with light pollution, but maybe this unnatural blackness was a Nevernever thing.

The stars were almost overpowering in their density, their profusion, their clarity: The sky was less a sheet of black scattered with stars and more a sheet of light webbed by darkness. The scope was unimaginable, and Allie—who had no greater ambition than to be a truly huge star of a different sort—felt an uncharacteristic sense of smallness, and humbleness, and proportion, and
a sense of the unfillable vastness of the universe. “Wow,” she said.

“Do you see it?” Psyche said.

Allie scanned the sky, expecting a shooting star or something, but there was nothing new. “See what?”

“Do you know much about stars? Constellations?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Ah,” Psyche said. “Then you wouldn’t notice. This sky … is not our sky. Not our constellations. No Sagittarius, no Capricorn, no Orion’s Belt, no Big Dipper. No North Star. No
moon.
Down in the city, there’s a moon, but here? Not tonight. Sometimes, yes—but it’s not
our
moon.”

Allie shivered, though it wasn’t all that cold. “So you’re saying this is, what, the sky over Elfland? Or whatever they call it, the Realm?”

“I’ve had Truebloods up here to look, and they say it’s not their sky, either, though it’s hard to be sure, since passing through the Wall does strange things to your memory, apparently. But I think it’s an entirely different sky. Perhaps a mingling of ours and theirs. Perhaps something else, a sky just for the Borderlands. Whatever it is, wherever these stars are from, they have powers.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was an astronomy teacher back in the World. Fresh out of school, working at a community college. After my first semester, I stopped being surprised when students dropped the class after realizing I wasn’t teaching
astrology
, showing them how to do horoscopes. Astrology! It’s so absurd. The idea that the orientation of the stars in the heavens can somehow affect your personality, or the shape of your life, it’s so ridiculous. Aren’t stars amazing enough without applying that kind of softheaded thinking to them? So I started doing a lecture, asking people when they were born … and telling them what their
real
signs of the zodiac were.”

Allie, who was a Sagittarius—which giant rock star Jim Morrison himself had said was “the most philosophical of all the signs,” though he’d followed that up by saying he didn’t believe in any of that bullshit—said, “What do you mean, real signs?”

“The sun signs of the zodiac—Capricorn, Taurus, and so on—are based on ancient observations of the sky, from thousands of years ago. But the stars
move
, or rather, the precession of the equinox makes them appear to move, relative to the Earth. Someone born on, say, January fifth this year isn’t being born under the same configuration of stars as a person born on January fifth two millennia ago. The sun isn’t in the constellation Capricorn on January fifth these days, so even if being a Capricorn
meant
something, it wouldn’t apply anymore. I explained all that to my classes, and people burst into tears sometimes, because their whole fundamental concept of who they were got overthrown. Girls broke up with their boyfriends because they believed their star signs were no longer compatible. I was horrified. I’d meant to teach them to
think
, to understand why astrology was pseudoscience, but so many of them completely missed the point.” She sighed. “And now here I am. I’ve become what I hated—an astrologer.”

“No shit?” Allie said.

“Oh, yes. A very successful one. Rich mortals and Truebloods alike come to me so I can do their charts. I make a very comfortable living. There’s not much call for astronomy anymore, but everyone wants insight into the future or their own character. And the worst thing is … it works.”

Now Allie sat up. “But you said yourself, it’s dumb to think stars can affect your life.”

Psyche continued gazing skyward, and Allie wasn’t sure, but she thought tears were leaking from the corners of the stargazer’s
eyes. Her voice was unchanged, though: “But a lot of people
believe
in astrology, and on the Border, belief is a potent force. This is a hard place to be a scientist. And under this strange sky, when I examine the movement and interrelationship of these strange stars, I do see patterns, and my predictions and insights do come true. I even predicted the closing of the Way, though not early enough to do much good, and the Trueblood politician I told refused to believe me … though he sent me a note of apology later, and he’s had a basket of fresh fruit delivered every week since the Borderlands reopened. He’s a client for life now.”

“Huh. So you want to do my chart? See how long it’ll take me to get famous?”

“You can’t afford me yet.” Allie thought she detected a smile in Psyche’s voice. “Once you become a rock star, of course, you’ll be welcome to my services.”

“So, what, your stars told you to come save me from a halfie gang?”

“Not exactly. They told me to find you and show you … that.” She pointed, and Allie looked. Now there
was
something new in the sky: a bright star, straight above, sapphire-tinted, bigger than the rest, surrounded by a ring of black sky, as if it had crowded the other stars out of its way. “That’s your star, Allie Land.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means you get a wish. The star will appear to you every night, until you wish on it, and then it’s gone forever. So choose your wish carefully.”

“Are you messing with me?”

“Why don’t you go downstairs and find yourself something to eat? I need to do a chart for a Trueblood lord, and it will take me most of the night. You can sleep on the futon—just go to bed whenever you’re tired.”

“Hold up. You can’t just drop this thing on my head about me having a
wish
and not expect some follow-up questions!”

“Haven’t you ever read a fairy tale, Allie? If you haven’t, there are a few books on my shelves. They’ll tell you everything you need to know about wishes, and how careful you should be with them. Now, please, I need to work.”

Feeling well and truly dismissed, Allie went downstairs and scrounged around until she found oily peanut butter and some homemade bread she could slice, and made herself a couple of sandwiches. She sat on the futon reading stories about how profoundly ill-thought-out wishes screwed up people’s lives.

But assuming this was all for real, her wish was simple, and obvious, and she’d make it the first chance she got:

She’d wish to be the biggest and best rock star in the past and future history of the world.

*   *   *

Allie woke up in a beautiful white bedroom where all the furniture seemed to glow, as if carved from frozen moonlight. A window stood open, gauzy curtains fluttering, and Allie stepped out of bed and looked out the window. There was nothing out there but darkness and a vast and shining sea lapping at the base of the tower she was in. She caught sight of herself in the vanity mirror—an oval of shimmering reflective glass—and saw a sparkling, beautiful, flawless, plastic version of herself, dressed in the sort of beribboned lacy nightgown old ladies who read romance novels probably dreamed about.

Dreamed. Of course. “Whoo. Glad this isn’t real. What’s the deal, subconscious?”

“I’m glad to see at least
this
still works.” Alaunus stepped from the shadows, dressed in gorgeous silver-white costume drama clothes, and bowed low. “I have come to you in your dream,
Allie, to show you how I might make your dreams come true.”

“See, this is usually the part of my dream where Katee Sackhoff comes in wearing nothing but a tank top and starts taking my pants off. Except I’m usually not dressed like an extra in an eight-year-old girl’s unicorn princess fantasy. Why am I dreaming about
you
?”

Alaunus sat on the edge of the bed. “Really? You feel no attraction for me, no adoration, no sense that you are blessed to be in my presence? No, to be crude, sexual excitement?”

“Wait, is this a magic thing?” Allie crossed her arms over her chest and noticed with annoyance that her boobs were bigger here. “You, the real you, is like on
purpose
inserting himself into my dream? Which is the only inserting you’ll be doing, let’s make that clear.”

Alaunus put his head in his hands. “I don’t understand this. I am a lovetalker, a gancanagh! Adored by men, irresistible to women … except for you.”

“What do you do with all those women you attract?”

“I love them.”

“
All
of them? How’s that working out?”
And why are you bothering me?