Flight Across Stars

By Anna Augustine

The stars are alive.

I tip my head back, gazing at the constellations as they spin their stories across the endless blue-black of the night sky. Tonight, Lupus is being hunted by Orion. The spear of the warrior twinkles as he stalks toward his prey. The Ursas are drumming a beat, the low pulse of it reaching me on the ground as Centaurus dashes after the Draco.

My breath fogs my glasses, obscuring my vision. I pull them off, wiping them against my shirt. The cool autumn evening awakens a wave of gooseflesh across my arms. I tighten my grip on my stardust lasso, waiting and watching.

“You’re never gonna see one, Estelle.” My sister, Elena, sits on the ground by my feet, twisting one of her curls around her finger. “Tonight’s not going to be any different than the last solstice. Or the one before that. The Starbird’s never going to come, and you’ll be disappointed all over again.”

“I’ll see one tonight, I know it. I’ll catch it and be the first of our tribe to ride it.”

Elena rolls her eyes, turning her gaze toward the endless stretch of prairie. “It’ll take a miracle.”

“The stars are known for miracles.”

“A miracle would be if Orion ever caught Lupus. Or if Hercules defeated the hydra. But they never have. Thousands of years of history are held in the stars, Estelle. Why do you think you’ll be the one to change it?”

The words burn across my mind. Elena is right, of course. But it grates on my pride. I want to ride a Starbird—the shooting star that few catch sight of, and even fewer dare to hunt. I continue to scour the skies as the constellations continue their nightly journeys. Hunt, dance, play, laugh, sing. They echo across the earth, a song so part of our world that few care to listen anymore.

“What’s that?”

I follow Elena’s finger, a dim outline in the moonlight, before I catch sight of it. A blazing trail of fire flying toward us.

“This is it!” I swing my shimmering lasso over my head with a shout, running forward to meet the bird. Sweat trickles down my forehead, my breathing erratic as I pause, watching the fire as I take aim. Praying to all the stars for success, I fling the rope forward. It sails farther than gravity should allow. But it’s been crafted from the dust of a hundred fallen stars. It longs to rise again. As it does so, it snags against something, tugging me off my feet for the barest of moments before I dig in my heels and pull.

A screech splits the darkness before the sight I’ve longed to see lands before me.

The Starbird. She gleams a silvery white. Her hooked beak looks like pearls, her eyes glittering amethysts. She towers over me and I have to crane my neck back to take her all in.

“That’s not possible,” Elena sputters behind me. Her eyes widen as she stumbles away, falling onto her backside. Her gaze flicks between the creature and me.

I hold my hand out to the Starbird. She tosses her head, her eyes blazing.

“May I ride you? Please?” I whisper. The Starbird blinks, lowering her head and pressing her beak into my palm. After a moment, she raises her eyes to meet mine. An invitation lies there. I smile, unhooking the lasso before swinging onto her back. Her feathers are warm and sleek beneath my palm.

“Are you insane?” Elena asks. I turn to reply, but before I can, the Starbird takes to the sky.

It’s not merely a flight, but a dance. The Starbird screeches, catching the attention of the constellations as higher and higher we soar. We pass Orion, who abandons his pursuit of Lupus to follow after us. Hercules seems to laugh, his wild expression sharpening as we soar past. He, too, follows after my mount. The Ursas, Leo, Pegasus, Sagittarius, Lupus, Hydra—all the constellations converge on us, following us as the sun chases the moon from the sky. I laugh, throwing my hands out as the Starbird dips and dives after the twilight.

Orion and Hercules come to my side, their silent grins sending shivers across my arms.

I slide a hand across the Starbird’s neck, memorizing every feather, every shimmer. I’ll never have another chance to dance among the stars.

“Run with us, human.”

I choke, turning to Orion who laughs boisterously.

“You can… speak?”

“Of course.” He laughs again. “You rode the Starbird. Now you are written in the stars.”

“I’m… what?”

“You’re a constellation like the rest of us.” Hercules smiles.

“We all once dreamed of the sky,” Orion explains. “Of the stars, of the bird you now ride upon. Each of us allowed it to fly us away. You are now immortalized in the stars above.”

Something in my chest pinches, a tightening of loss. I turn to look over my shoulder. “My sister.”

Orion’s strong hand turns my face forward. “Better to face the horizon. Each night you shall ride the Starbird, painting our stories. Change them, if you will, human.”

“Rewrite the stories?”

“Tell them anew.” Hercules nods.

I dash at the tears on my cheek. You wanted a miracle, Elena. Now watch the stars.

So every night, when the stars tell their tales, I am the narrator. Hercules has vanquished the hydra, Orion has captured Lupus, the Ursas tap a new melody every so often. Some nights I ride the Starbird, others Pegasus carries me, dancing and spinning across my canvas to rewrite the narrative.

But it’s a melancholy task. For each night, I can see her. Elena, sitting with a lasso in her hand. She watches for the Starbird, the monster who snatched her sister. She doesn’t understand the joy I have found. Maybe someday she will learn what happens to those who join the Starbird on a flight across the stars.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Anna Augustine lives with her family of eight in a small, midwestern town with two dogs and a whole lot of crazy. Anna is the author of romantic fantasy When You Found Me and is a part of a couple upcoming anthologies. When she’s not writing, Anna is either working as a teacher’s aide in her local elementary school, taking photos for her bookstagram, or trying to put a dent in her never ending tbr.

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