Starstruck

By Aliyaa Pathan and Jasmine Ali

IngramSpark - Title Details

“The memories will destroy you. The visions will kill you. And the dreams will become your prison.”

In the year 3103, the world has been divided between the m

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dream Higher Publishing, LLC
• Release date: Feb 9, 2017
• ISBN: 9780998657912

Book preview

Chapter 1

Daydream or nightmare?

The thought ricocheted around my head and blew up like a wad of fireworks. Consensus never seemed possible between the two. Life was breezy and suffocating all at once, to the point where I wasn’t sure whether I was the space between the two or I stood in it. Awake or asleep? Daydream or nightmare?

I stood in front of a mirror, and around that were a great many more. Each one showed me a different version of myself. I walked past them, studying each. They looked like me, but they couldn’t have been. They called me, beckoned me, but I ignored them.

When I moved, the air around me rippled and wavered, as if I was trapped in a bubble. Curiosity usually took hold of me at moments like these, but not this time. I glanced at the reflections, just making them out. I was slightly bored, even.

Then, I heard a crack and whipped around. Another mirror, a different reflection.

It wasn’t me.

I squinted at the image, unable to make out who it was or what it looked like. My eyes were unable to grasp it. Either it was changing, or this was a trick. Maybe a trick of the light?

People say that when something shocking happens, you gasp. Well, that’s not always true. Sometimes all you can do is stare, the gasp frozen on your lips.

That was me, completely frozen, with no smart words to describe my fear.

The mirrors fell forward, shattering into millions of glass shards. The sound was deafening. I ducked my head, my hair falling around my shoulders. The floor beneath me shook like an earthquake, flipping my stomach and twisting my heartbeat into a chain of aftershocks inside me. I wanted to run but I lacked the will. I was completely limited. Controlled even.

When everything was silent and still again, I looked up and the mirrors had vanished. The shards of glass connected to make an enormous mirror beneath my feet. I trembled and looked around, uncertain of where to step. Tentatively, I reached down to touch the floor, my hand shaking, my breath held.

Daydream or nightmare?

As my fingers grazed the smooth glass, the floor gave a shudder and it rippled inward, shattering once again, the sound deafening and drowning my voice. I couldn’t see over the light, so blinding it was, like I wasn’t there at all. Then, just like that, there was nothing under my feet and I was falling.

I scrambled for something to hold onto but found nothing but black, empty, darkness. A thin sliver of life was the only thing that bound me to reality. A hollow, empty scream filled me and slowly slipped away, silent, unheard, yet so sharp. I was falling, my breath escaping my lungs in shallow wisps, another scream enveloped in the emptiness.

Then I awoke, gasping for breath as if I had emerged from water, my limbs lagging behind.

Just a dream. A bad dream. A nightmare.

***

Mrs. Grey’s screechy voice rapped on my door, making me grimace as I sat up on my bed. In solace, I flipped on the table lamp and eyed my favorite book, which was lying on the table. Unable to resist, I picked it up from the bedside table and flipped to page 105.

Some say that reading is an escape from life, while others describe it as a plunge deeper into life. I say that reading is living another life. As I lost myself in what followed page 105, the whole world, along with Mrs. Grey’s cruel voice, blurred away until it was just an insignificant, faraway land.

I looked out the bedroom window. The sun would be rising soon enough, setting the sky aglow with honey gold. The cool autumn morning would bring along with it the aspirations of millions all over the world, to include my stepsisters. For a week, the air in the house had been dense and still with hope and tension, like a stretched rubber band. I found the feeling distinctive, mysterious, and somehow, I even liked it. Too bad I had no reason to be optimistic.

Mrs. Grey’s clamoring ceased, signaling an end to the morning drama, so I closed my book and made a mental note to start sleeping with a pillow over my ears. Her voice was nails on chalkboard, scraping away incessantly. I looked up at the round clock, ancient thing. I took the book and squeezed it between the bed and the wall. It would be hidden from the twins.

My room looked as utilitarian and as vacant as ever. A stack of to-return books sat in the corner. There was an old oak wardrobe with more spiders inhabiting it than clothes. The old alarm clock continued to tick away on my bedside table. In the silence, all I could hear was the clock’s fervent, determined ticking and my own sigh as I stood up.

I stumbled out of bed and grabbed comfortable clothes from the dusty, old wardrobe, struggling to get the drawer to close. After scraping my finger on the edge of the drawer, I hurried to the bathroom to run my finger under the tap, as well as to take a shower and change my clothes. It’s funny how normal everything was.

Twenty minutes later, I looked at a neat and fresh reflection of myself. My long, dark brown hair was parted on the side, pin straight down to my waist. My cocoa brown eyes and soft features went well with my light skin and pink lips. I examined my thin nose and thin face, and I smiled, letting my vampire teeth poke out. I thought I looked good at the age of fourteen. I didn’t call myself ugly, like other girls did. If I’d ever call myself ugly, it was because I was looking at a muddy reflection. A scary reflection. I looked away from the mirror, afraid it might shatter, like the dream. It was a dream, wasn’t it?

Of course it was, but a bit too real for my taste.

I checked in on Ivy, the twelve-year-old who resembled me as only a blood sister could. I considered waking her up, then tiptoed down the stairs.

The first thing I saw in the kitchen light was a bundle of frizzy hair in a ponytail, startling yellowish eyes and a sneer. Great.

Good morning, I said, smiling hard. My cheeks hurt. I made another mental note to at least try to avoid Mrs. Grey and her stuck up nose so early in the morning. Especially today, from the way it looked.

"Morning, Jessica. And what are you doing down here?!" Mrs. Grey asked, raising an eyebrow.

What? I asked, confused by the question.

I said, what are you doing down here?

I’m here to eat breakfast and start the day. Like every day. Sometimes I wondered who this woman really was.

Well, then. I suggest you hurry. I don’t want you messing up my daughters’ Red Letter Day.

Yes, of course. My voice was tenser than I’d intended.

Once a year, the people of Fey, wide-eyed and hopeful, stood outside their homes alongside their children, anticipating a red flaming Phoenix to appear in the sky. Sometimes, it would stop by a home, its talons releasing a Red Letter for a lucky recipient. A cheer would go up in that home, and families would rejoice. The fourteen-year-old child who received the letter would almost faint from happiness overload. In that letter would be a message that confirmed the admittance of a magic-learning student to the most prestigious school in the world. The student would have to be gifted, hard-working, and willing to leave his or her family to travel to the Academy of Crescential Magic, the Fey Castellum’s pride and honor. They would go, as no one ever refused, then the rest of the Fey world would wait hopefully till the next year, for the next round of students willing to work their backsides off to become one of the Fey elite.

This year it was my time, as well as the twins,’ to hope that a letter might just drop by. Except there wasn’t any hope for me.

I was special. A different special. I was cursed.

No one knew why I was cursed or when I became cursed, but the fact was common knowledge. I grew up like any other child of the Fey—taught little bits of magic and watched over for any signs of Tech. It was rare that a child of the Fey ended up being magic-less Tech, but it did happen. Since I didn’t show any signs of magic, naturally, my parents were concerned. They took me to Tech and Magic specialists who ruled out Tech. Throwing up their hands in frustration, they sent a letter to Celestia Crescent, asking her about my case. She revealed that I was cursed.

I remembered skipping down the hallway in our old house, oblivious to the fact that a certain phrase would change my life for the long-term. I didn’t understand the fear in my mother’s glimmering eyes at that moment or what it meant to be cursed. Being just six-years-old, I never understood why it was such a big deal, but I learned as I grew up: equity is the casualty of a curse.

Not only couldn’t I do magic, but I didn’t have friends either, certainly not from the magical world. Ivy and my books were my only friends. I often longed for adventure, for another chance at life, to be someone. But those hopes were crushed daily.

For me, Red Letter Day was the worst, every year reminding me of the future I couldn’t have. Unfair, but inevitable. I sneered at Mrs. Grey, grabbed some bread and cheese and sprinted up the stairs. Just as I reached the top, Ivy’s sweet voice called me.

Jessica! Wait! she called, and followed me into my room. Her curly black hair was tied back in a messy ponytail. Except for her hair, she resembled me completely.

Hey, Ivy, I answered, and plopped down on my bed with a sigh. The bed protested with a groan. Older than I was, that bed. Old and surly enough to survive the Surge and live to tell me the tale with its whiny creaks. Ivy took a seat next to me and took the bread from my hand.

Hey. I know what’s wrong. We’ll get through it. It did not escape me that she said we, not you.

Yeah, I said, smiling. I know. It’s just sad to see that this could have been my chance.

Maybe it still is. I mean, maybe Edna and Addie will finally leave us! That’d be great, wouldn’t it!

I laughed. Definitely!

Edna and Addie. I figured that they’d take on the job of telling me what to do just as easily as Mrs. Grey did. They were her daughters in every way, and I was glad they were only my stepsisters. They’d been that way ever since the beginning, but perhaps in the beginning, Mrs. Grey was a kinder soul.

A sudden memory crossed my mind. A memory of a young girl huddled in the back of a taxi car. A young girl whose name was Jessica Rosefrost. Another girl, younger, sat beside her. Ivy. Freezing rain pitter-pattered at the window, frost somehow replacing the layer of ice on the outside window in the pattern of a rose. Rosefrost. Neither of the girls spoke or questioned the unusual sight, perhaps afraid that words would break the small amount of calm. Unexpected beautiful calm.

A large figure appeared through the frosted window, gliding over the cobblestone streets outside. As he grew closer, both girls tried to identify him through the frosty glass and almost fell out of the taxi as the man, their father, opened the cab door. We’re here, he said, in a voice softer than silk. A voice to warm the girls with comfort.

They hesitated to step out of the car. Jessica stepped out first, holding Ivy’s hand, somehow understanding the need to protect her baby sister. The car door swung closed behind them with finality. Jessica watched the frost change to ice as the taxi pulled away. I watched and I remember to this day.

The rain was cold and sharp against their skin, and they hugged themselves tight. Their father turned to the girls and motioned them forward. They walked up the path and time seemed to slow. One knock on the door and life would change forever. Jessica wondered of a new adventure, or a new story, her optimism soon to end in reality.

The scene faded as the memory fought to adjust itself. Like a new picture that doesn’t line up right with the original. I closed my eyes, knowing what happened only a few weeks later. My father would join my mother. Life would change with finality. And it would be just Ivy and me, stepping out of the taxi after the funeral. Walking up the path alone, hand in hand, opening that door, having unwittingly signed an invisible contract to years of pain and sadness and longing.

You’ll be okay? Ivy asked, snapping me out of my thoughts.

Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be okay, I answered, grabbing my bread from her.

Of course I’d be okay. We both would be. Perhaps in our younger years, we’d been deceived. Mrs. Diane Grey, who managed to keep my father together for as long as possible, chin high, standing when my father couldn’t.

I don’t know how, I told her once when she asked me to make tea.

I’ll show you, she said and led me to the kitchen. When I’d finished making my first cup of tea, she said, Well done. I expect you to do the same each and every time. Her lips were thin and straight as a stick. But her eyes crinkled at the corners.

And then, Father was gone, and so was Diane, the stern lady with soft eyes and a sense of humor. Nothing remained but stick-lipped Mrs. Grey, proud, but not in the respectable way she’d been before. Her leadership had soured, and everything had been so since.

I turned toward the window. The same gray cobblestone street and line of houses curled into a court. The trees were set on fire with autumn colors. A lady with graying hair in a bun slammed her car door. She walked up to the front door of her house, tugged it open and disappeared within. The street was silent and still again, and it stayed that way for a moment before a flash of red and orange whizzed past the window.

Ivy! The phoenixes are here! She rushed to the window with a grin. Unlike me, Ivy loved this day. At least she’d have a chance one day, and the vision of the birds streaking through the air was stunning.

Dozens of phoenixes flew past our window, their wings leaving a fiery trail in the cloudless blue sky. I leaned back, scared that one might just bump into our window like last year. It had crashed into the window, melting the glass. The poor bird was badly hurt, and so was my hand, which suffered from a terrible burn. I didn’t want that happening again.

Look! Ivy exclaimed, pointing outside. A phoenix had landed on the roof by my window.

I frowned. There’s only one. There was always one phoenix per letter. Edna or Addie. This is bad. I could only imagine the tantrum one of the two would put up. And besides, Edna and Addie were inseparable. The thought of them split was a horror in itself.

The phoenix tilted its head and blinked curiously. It clutched a Red Letter in its golden-brown talons. I suppressed the urge to reach out and take it for myself. Then, one moment it was there, the next it was not. I raised my eyebrow and turned to Ivy. So much for the letter. I waited then, half-expecting the phoenix to reappear and drop a letter bearing my name. But it never happened. I think that somewhere in my long lost dreams, a flaming phoenix did drop a letter, and I did go and show everyone who I was. But reality had different ideas. Instead, I watched the rest of them fly by my window, knowing that none of them had a letter for me.

***

I flipped through my last library book, skimming each page, reliving another finished story. My ink-stained fingers left blue smudges on the edges. Oh well, I thought, and cast it aside. The book was a historical fiction novel on the Surge. That had been only seven years ago, so naturally, this topic was all the hype. However, it was tedious and irritating to be reminded repeatedly about what so many of us lost. At that moment, I wanted to forget, and I knew the perfect solution.

I tugged on a thin jacket for the autumn chill, hurried outside and mounted Edna’s old bike. The bike was perfect for me, having been used by Edna twice and then rejected as old and ew. I kicked off with my foot and rode. The chilly wind picked up as I accelerated, throwing my hair back as I zoomed downhill. My shadow blazed a path through the sunlight, and everything gradually became a blur. My eyes watered, and I laughed. The feeling was like flying, soaring above clouds with an occasional blast of a chilly breeze. I could only imagine what life would be like if every moment was this exhilarating.

I breathed a sigh of relief as the bike slowed and reached flat sidewalk of a rolling park. I pedaled along slowly, passing under the dappled light and towering pine trees. It was one of the quieter days in the park, surprisingly, considering that it was Red Letter Day.

I smiled at a blonde and purple-haired girl walking toward me. I estimated her to be in her late teens or early twenties. Her eyes were a brilliant blue, the type I often wished for. She gave off an aura of confidence and optimism, with a smile that made you feel like her best friend, and I was struck by an odd feeling of déjà vu. I steered off the sidewalk to let her pass, but regardless, she managed to bump into my shoulder. The girl stumbled and grabbed my arm for support.

I’m so sorry! I said, steadying her. Are you ok?

Yes, she answered. She straightened her shirt and ran a quick hand through her hair—which had turned a light shade of green. I held her steady for a moment, and while I internally debated as to whether it would be polite to ask a complete stranger about her fascinating hair, she said, Thank you! She flashed me a sincere smile, and I moved my hand away. Before I knew it, she was jogging away, and soon she disappeared around the corner. I regretted not asking about her hair. That color-changing hair was a strange trait for a Fey to have. Maybe she was Half-Hidden. Then again, you could buy novelties that changed your hair. I permitted myself a moment to speculate.

When I looked down to adjust my foot on the pedals, I noticed a thin piece of metal encasing lying on the ground. It was about the size of my fist and as thin as paper. I picked up the curious object, wondering whether the strange girl had dropped it when she fell. I hurried, following the footsteps she’d taken around the corner. The sidewalk around the corner went on for quite a distance, so I found it strange that she’d vanished—unless, of course, she lived in one of the houses. I found that unlikely, however, because I’d been through these streets hundreds of times and would’ve recognized her. I hated having to be responsible for something that wasn’t meant to be mine. I turned it over in my hands, rubbing my thumb across its cool, metal surface. It didn’t look Fey at all. From what I could tell, it was a Tech object. Whatever did she want with something like that? Most Fey stayed away from all things Tech as much as possible.

I held the object up in the sunlight, squinting. Something was engraved on the metal. I squinted harder, trying to make out the miniature lettering. So far, all I could decipher was an abbreviation at the bottom right corner: PH. I rubbed my finger over the other inscription in the object’s center. Blue ink stained the gray metal. Great, I thought, annoyed, until I observed that the ink made the engraving legible.

It read:

Jessica Rosefrost, Sixth Possessor of Keys

My eyes widened with shock. She’d given it to me—this object that bore my name! I was struck with thrill and panic all at once. What in Fey and Tech was a Possessor of Keys? I took a quick look around, contemplating whether I should try to open the encasing. I decided against it, and instead pocketed the object safely. With a shaky hand, I mounted my bike and rode the way home in panicky silence.

Once alone in my room, I dared to open the encasing. There was no one around to see since Mrs. Grey and the twins had left. Ivy and I were home alone, and I would trust Ivy with anything. It was perfect timing, almost as if it had all been planned. Maybe it was, I thought curiously, weaving far-fetched stories in my mind.

I wedged my nail inside a gap in the side of the encasing and pulled it open. It opened easily as a gold-colored sheet of paper fell into my lap. It was a delicate looking paper, most likely Fey—but why would Fey and Tech objects be combined? I raised my eyebrows in amusement and unfolded the paper.

At first glance, it looked like a wedding invitation because of its intricate design. The borders were edged with silver, and the lettering was in silver as well. The paper itself was creamy, tinged with a glimmer of gold. I admired the craftsmanship for a moment before proceeding to reading the content.

Jessica Rosefrost,

Congratulations on being chosen as one of the Seven Possessors of Keys of the InterKindNet, otherwise known as the KindNet. As you well know, the KindNet serves as a worldwide Tech and Fey network. However, only now have we decided to create a security structure for it—seven guardians of seven keys that are essential in the KindNet function. Because the KindNet uses both Fey’s magic and Technology, you have been chosen as one of four Fey Possessors of Keys.

You are allowed to let your guardian know about this honor and no one else. If you wish to join, travel to your area’s meeting point by the 2nd day of September. There, a personal guard will escort you to the Possessors’ Headquarters.

You will receive a high level education and learn how to protect the key. This is an honor only given to seven students. We hope to see you accept it and become the Sixth Possessor of Keys.

If you plan on joining, look out for more messages from Possessor Headquarters for instructions on getting to your region’s pickup