The Falling Stars of Mooncrest Bay, By Makaila Odoom, Part 6

The Falling Stars of Mooncrest Bay, By Makaila Odoom

Part 6

The next morning, I woke up to absolute chaos. Apparently, Freaya had thought it would be funny for everyone to start their morning with a faceful of pillows. She was the only one who thought that. 

Once everyone was awake, they started hitting each other with their pillows, causing a major pillow war. Great way to start the morning.

After Chrystie had gone bananas on me last night, I’d returned upstairs only to be bombarded with questions from my friends. Chrystie’s yelling apparently hadn’t been subtle.

Thankfully, they didn’t seem to hear any of the important stuff.

I told them that I didn’t want to talk about it, and surprisingly, they had listened.

Like I had figured, I barely got any sleep last night. Instead, I’d lain awake watching the stars streak across the sky, my mind replaying everything Orion had said to me over and over. I’d finally fallen asleep when I saw the first light of dawn. No more falling stars had appeared. Good. I had seen enough weird for one night.

I looked down to inspect my hand once again, for what had to be the hundredth time.

Still nothing.

Part of me had started to wonder if I’d imagined the whole thing. Another part of me was relieved that my palm looked normal.

“Lila! Watch out!” Esme yelled, pillow in hand, slamming it into Jasmine’s face.

I was sitting on my sleeping bag, no interest in joining the war. However, Madelynne had other plans. From behind me, she swung her pillow, nailing me right in the face.

“Ha! Got you,” she laughed. I gave her a death stare.

Her smile faded. 

She scurried off to go attack Mila.

That was when Chrystie came upstairs. Never in my life had I been happier to see her.

“Girls! Your parents are here to pick you up!” she called, her voice immediately ending the pandemonium.

There was a collective, “Aww!” that filled the room as the girls packed up their things.

I finally got up from my sleeping bag, only to give the girls goodbye hugs and tell them thanks for coming. They all trickled out one by one, until Esme was the only one left.

She smiled. “Talk later? You better call and tell me everything that happens when you get home.”

“If my mom doesn’t ground me and take my phone, then I promise I’ll call.”

Esme laughed. “Good luck,” she said, before turning to walk down the stairs.

She disappeared, leaving Chrystie and me alone. I started to roll up my sleeping bag.

Neither one of us spoke.

I gathered up my stuff and caught her staring at me.

Her face was expressionless. 

“Grandma’s waiting downstairs.”

“Okay.”

I started to make my way to the stairs.

“…Lila.”

I turned around. 

Was she finally going to tell me what was happening?

“Don’t tell Mom or Grandma what happened,” she said.

Of course she wasn’t.

I crossed my arms. “I thought you were already planning on doing that if I went to the beach.”

Chrystie frowned.

“I changed my mind.”

Her tone told me not to ask any more questions. I was so tired and not in the mood to argue that for once, I listened. At least I wasn’t getting grounded.

We descended the stairs in silence, making our way to Nana’s car.

“Hey girls!” she said as I climbed in the backseat, Chrystie claiming the front. “How was the party?”

I groaned internally, knowing that I needed to play it cool. “It was great, Nana! We had so much fun. Chrystie even joined us for the makeover!” I lied.

My grandma’s eyes widened in surprise. “Wow…look at you Chrystie, hanging out with your little sister. How sweet!”

Chrystie forced a smile that looked more like a grimace. “Yup. It was so fun,” she said, unenthusiastically.

When we got home, my mom greeted us, asking the same question as our grandma. I gave the same answer.

“I’m glad you had a good time, honey,” she replied, walking over to the kitchen, across from the garage door we had just entered through. Chrystie went up to her room, while Nana made her way to the living room to sit on the couch. “Listen, Lila. Your Nana and I have to take Chrystie to her scholarship ceremony this evening. I figured you’d probably want to get some rest… Are you okay staying home by yourself?” she asked.

YES! I wanted to scream. This was the perfect opportunity to find some answers. Instead, I said, “Yeah, that’s fine.”

I was internally screaming.

My mom smiled. “Good,” she said, kissing me on the forehead. “We leave at 5 and probably won’t be back until around 8.”

I nodded before heading upstairs to my room. I only had to wait six hours.

I passed the time by calling Esme and letting her know I wasn’t grounded for life, staring intently at my palm, thinking about Orion, and eating the stash of candy I had hidden under my bed.

Somehow, five o’clock seemed to come around fast.

I went downstairs to say goodbye to my family, then make sure all the windows were closed and doors were locked, before creeping back upstairs to Chrystie’s room, across from mine.

Her room was fairly simple. She had a queen-sized bed in the middle of the room, with two small wooden nightstands on either side, a wooden dresser at the front of her room, a bookshelf on one side of it, and a desk next to the bookshelf. Her room was super clean. Not a thing looked out of place. 

I scanned everything for something that might’ve looked out of the ordinary, but there was nothing. The weirdest thing I found was a dirty sock in her desk drawer. But that was before I went to her gigantic walk-in closet.

Her closet…was the definition of a pig pen.

It seriously looked like a hurricane had reached landfall in that closet.

There were clothes, books, magazines, paper, pencils, makeup, hair products and accessories strewn everywhere.

It was so unlike my sister to leave a mess that I wondered if someone had broken into our house just to destroy her closet. That idea sounded ridiculous when I really thought about it though.

I dug through everything.

I was about to give up when something caught my eye on one of Chrystie’s closet shelves.

It was a book. By far the fanciest book I’d ever seen.

The cover was a deep midnight blue with intricate gold outlining around the edges. Just looking at it gave me the feeling that it was important.

The title was embossed on the cover, the words seeming to dance across the page.

THe ASTRABORN: A Complete Guide to the People of the Stars

There was a symbol on the front. At the center there was a star surrounded by four symbols: a human figure, a deer, a leaf, and a curling wave.

I stared at it. It seemed familiar somehow.

Suddenly, the palm of my right hand started tingling. At first, I ignored it, focusing on inspecting the symbol on the book, but the sensation grew stronger until it felt like my hand was burning.

I glanced down at it. 

The symbol that was on the book was now etched into my hand.

And it was glowing bright blue.

My jaw dropped.

I looked from my palm to the book.

They were identical.

Slowly, I hovered my hand over the cover of the book.

This is so going to end badly.

I pressed my palm against the symbol.

Light exploded all around me.

I was thrown backward.