Bright Star Page 5

  Jackson shuddered and rocked. He had to focus. The average age for someone to be able to manifest a Shift was thirteen and a half months. The phrase, Permanent Shift, was derived from a permanent magnet. A permanent magnet retained its magnetism after removal of the magnetizing force. Perma-Shift was what happened when the High Energy used to create a Shift was out of balance with the High Energy required for the Shift. When there was too little Energy, the strain started to tear the Shifter apart, inside out. When the High Energy was more than required and left unrestrained, it had nowhere to apply itself but back to its source. The average time it took to recover from minor Perma-Shift was 176 seconds. The average time it took to recover from major Perma-Shift was never. He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve and turned around.

  Bright Star breathed normally beside him. There was no deep rush of air, no coughing as if she had drowned. Nothing. She simply started to breathe. The blood that had pooled around her slowly turned clear then evaporated up into the air in transparent flakes. Even her skin began to grow thick, opalescent. The veins disappeared, turning her skin from alabaster to porcelain. Bright Star had not been healed, she had been returned.

  The Shifter sat up. Her shiny, copper hair fell just behind her ears. She blinked. Her eyes were slowly returning to a natural, earthly blue as she pinned them to Jackson. Her first words in this rewound life were accusatory. “You didn’t save me.”

  Jackson felt the shame but was not sure if he showed it. He had been trained to hide such things, and his training had come back to him once she was safe. Her gaze fluttered to the ground at his feet and he knew she had seen.

  “It was my brother,” Jackson offered, scratching the back of his head. His brother. Funny. Jackson had not known before those moments that his brother possessed Talent, yet he had known to reach out to him. He hadn’t been the least surprised at the strength his brother had exhibited. He shook his head.

  “Is he dead?” she asked, her eyes coming to his again, startlingly clear. He was beginning to recognize the incandescence as a signal of her High Energy. Brighter than a Christmas tree light.

  “No. No, he’s not. I would know if he were.” Though he hadn’t once thought about it before, Jackson knew his words to be true. “To be honest, I’m not sure he can experience it.” Jackson pushed off from the wall and took a step toward her. Not another. He was too cautious for that. He shook his head. “I’m not sure of anything.”

  “Is he here?” Her Bright Star eyes searched around the dark recesses of the rooftops. A faint blue tint illuminated any and every thing she studied.

  “No.” Jackson replied.

  “But he is close?” she persisted.

  “No,” Jackson answered warily. He knew her next question.

  “Then how could he have—”

  Impulsively, Jackson told her, “I can Shift from ten miles away.”

  The blue gaze fell on him and stilled. Her eyes seemed to dim. “So can I.” In a soft voice she added, “I brought you here.”

  Jackson said nothing. Five minutes ago, he had been the One, the Precocial. He had broken records. He was the most Talented, most special of anyone on Earth. And yet, here was a Shifter who claimed to match his Talent. He had a brother somewhere whose power he had not known before that night. It was a power, a High Energy, he felt that could not be measured or weighed.

  In a swift and graceful roll, Bright Star came up to her feet and stood before him. She was rounder and shorter than she had looked lying down. The top of her head just barely reached his chin and he was less than six feet tall. Her face was a perfect pale apple with defined cheekbones, a broad brow, and with a shallow indention in her chin. Her lips were pink and her lashes russet.

  “You nearly killed yourself bringing me here,” Jackson mumbled.

  “Well, if you were who and what I believed you to be, that wasn’t much of a risk. You would have saved me. I realize, however, you are not who we thought you to be at all. It’s your brother we need.” Her eyes rolled upward and Jackson could almost see twin blue ribbons of light reach toward the moonless sky.

  Jackson did not deny her conclusion. He knew at that moment, and had maybe always known, that his power was nothing when compared to that of his big brother Rush. Now he wasn’t the only one who suspected his brother’s deific skill. He was nothing, and Bright Star knew it.

  Without thought, he reached out to her, his hand leaving his side like metal drawn to a magnetic force. For a moment, she studied it then allowed him to take her hand.

  “We have to get out of here.” His words seemed late. Maybe the threat was gone; maybe it wasn’t. He was doing this all wrong.

  She asked him, “Where do you live?”

  “Not far from here,” he answered. His voice had been quick, high, and wavering. He sounded eager even to his own ears. Maybe there was a chance.

  She tilted her head up a little and their eyes met. Her rod-straight red locks hung back. Dark pink lips parted slightly before she licked them. The move had been natural, without artifice. Bright Star had nearly died. Of course, she was not trying to seduce him. Still, Jackson felt a sharp pressure on his sternum. Jackson couldn’t breathe for a heartbeat, and then when he could, he noticed she smelled like freesia. She stepped closer to him. Her body radiated heat. Her scent was even stronger and seemed to wend its way inside of him. Though she didn’t touch him, he knew her body was soft. “Does your brother live there, too?”

  I Know You

  When the couple came through the door, Jacob Rush raised his head from the kitchen table where he’d been waiting for his brother. Before Rush had heard the call, Jackson had been overdue by at least half an hour. His brother, the consummate good boy, rarely got home late unless he was going out with friends on the weekends. This was a Wednesday, and even if it hadn’t been, Jackson always told Rush where he would be and generally for how long. On those rare occasions Jackson was delayed unexpectedly, he called to let Rush know he wasn’t coming home. Jackson was forever conscientious. Sensitive. Righteous. But he’d been late. Tawny, short-cropped hair, tanned skin, and a giant white smile coupled with an eagerness to please bordering on compulsive made Jackson a star. He was golden.

  But he was also Rush’s little brother, and he was late.

  Then the call had come like a thin piercing hum. It was a Shift. Nothing more than manipulated waves, frequencies, moving demi-atoms. His brother’s distressed and frantic state contacted him even before Jackson consciously thought to reach out. It had started out as a tickling buzz in his ears then graduated to a grating in his teeth. Then it had traveled, the current, through his body. Rush had felt the urgency, and then… Well then… Well, no one ever had a choice really, did they?

  Rush, of course, knew before the door opened that Jackson was not alone. Another first. Rush knew his brother to be quite successful with women. A Serviceman would have to try very hard not to be. They were physically perfect specimens, mysterious by nature and necessity. And then, there was that damned sensitivity.

  Boy Scouts without the saccharine and the pre-pubescent bodies—Jackson was the epitome of them, the mould. Still, he never brought women home. Rush discerned long ago that this wasn’t out of deference, not even respect. No. It was that Shifter sensitivity. Jackson didn’t want Rush to feel bad. The sincere and wholly unnecessary discretion never ceased to bring a wry smile to Rush’s lips. Just because he didn’t bring them home, didn’t make Rush any less aware of the number of women by whom his brother had become irrevocably yet temporarily fascinated. With a rising of gooseflesh on his arms, Rush grew painfully aware that this woman would be more than a strong but passing fancy. She was going to be the death of him.

  At first, just before he saved her, Rush didn’t know who she was. For a split second—he had to calculate it—his world was safe from her. He could breathe. He could see. He could eat, drink, walk, piss, spit and grin. He could go about his solitary business. But, Rush reasoned, that had been less than a
second, and he had never really been safe.

  “Bright Star,” he breathed.

  She had made herself into a fantasy. His fantasy. When he’d first seen her so long ago, she’d been skinny, bearing no womanly curves. Elizabeth’s chest had been flat. Elizabeth’s lips had been thin and cracked and pale, making her look nothing less than dead. Elizabeth’s dingy white skin had had the same effect. Her smiles had been toothless and unsure. Her hair had been limp, brown and unhealthy, nearly always covering her eyes. Elizabeth had possessed no features worth remarking on, save for those eyes. They were so blue and startling he had seen the end of the earth in them.

  Now, as Bright Star walked through his door, her skin was creamy peach all over. Bright Star’s lips were full and a light, earthen red. Silken copper strands of her thick hair fell over her forehead into those amazing eyes. Bright Star’s body was all that was soft, rounded and womanly. She had none of the skinny angles and points of before. Her waist was narrow but her breasts were full as were her hips and bottom. He could tell Bright Star’s legs were long and shapely.

  Rush’s first thought was that she looked like everything he had ever imagined he wanted in a woman. His next thought was that there had never been a crueler illusion.

  When she saw him, her mouth fell open in a smile so brilliant he had to look away from it. Her bright blue eyes sparkled and beamed. Her joy caused blood to pound behind his eyes. So much pain. Her voice slipped like a slow snake into his ears and into his brain as she uttered his name reverently. He ignored her, but her arms came open as if she waited for him to embrace her. When he did not, she shook her head as if to castigate herself then dropped to her knees in a dejected wilt. She didn’t look at him. She just quietly admitted her surprise. “You know me.” Then, twisting her hands in her lap, she muttered, “Of course you know me.”

  Rush remained silent. There was nothing to say. For nearly four years, he had managed to escape her. He had known the situation wouldn’t be permanent when he sent her away. Now he knew he would never be rid of her again. “What happened to Elizabeth?” he asked more to himself than any other.

  “I don’t know who you mean. It is Bright Star you saved,” was the damning answer.

  “You two have met?” Jackson questioned, then bit his lip.

  Silly question.

  “You have to go,” Rush told her through clenched teeth.

  “You know I won’t.” Bright Star shook her head slowly with a determined set to her jaw. She appeared proud, regal even, as she remained on her knees before him, kneeling and defiant at once. “I’ve spent the last four years looking for you.”

  “Where have you been?” Rush breathed automatically. He hadn’t wanted to ask, but couldn’t seem to help it. He’d sent her to the other side of the earth. She’d been on a remote, nearly deserted island that had been occupied by a violent indigenous tribe that believed white flesh to be a sign of evil and women to be the bane of man, constantly trying to hold him from heaven. The nearest occupied land mass was three days away by boat. He’d left her there with nothing, not even clothing. She should have died. Yet here she was.

  She offered her hand to him. “See where I’ve been. See how I’ve come to be here.” she dared solemnly. Rush didn’t take it. Instead, he turned his back on her and worked to control a shudder.

  “Jackson, we need to talk,” Rush urged his brother.

  “But, Rush—”

  “Now.”

  Jackson knew the shock showed on his face. His quiet, introverted, sallow brother rarely spoke to him let alone commanded him to do something. But that voice, that voice had been forceful and brooked no argument. He turned a tight smile on Bright Star silently begging her forgiveness. She continued to sit broken on the floor. Jackson followed Rush out of the living room and into the small, half-bathroom in the hall. Rush closed the door behind them, locked it, and started to run water in the sink—as if to stop her from listening.

  Jackson prepared himself for the lecture from his brother on why the girl couldn’t stay. She hadn’t asked and Jackson hadn’t offered, but anyone who could breathe could sense the path her mind had taken. Jackson knew she had nowhere to go. He also knew there was something compelling about her, something that almost forced him to help her. Something that would make him argue just as strongly to keep her as his brother would argue to make her leave.

  To Jackson’s surprise though, Rush did not wage a verbal argument up front. Instead, his brother tilted his head and studied him pensively for a moment. Then, Rush stepped close and laid a cool, wet hand against his forehead. The blow from the power in that hand nearly knocked Jackson off his feet. He stumbled then caught himself against the sink.

  Instantaneously, painlessly, without the usual pomp and circumstance that accompanies life-changing events, Jackson had all of his long-suppressed memories back. Everything.

  *

  Jackson vaulted from his very birth into the future through a tight bundle of memories. He remembered catching Rush holding thunderclouds in his hands when they were boys in the backyard. He remembered Rush touching his own broken leg after a nasty fall from his bike and standing up to ride again. More Shifts came to him, and more. He saw the seven Shifts in the last seven months he’d managed to witness and Rush had taken away from him.

  In a matter of seconds, Jackson Rush discovered his brother Jacob Rush.

  His throat tightened, his tongue thickened. He knew his brother, and suddenly life made sense. It frightened him, but finally made so much sense. One expects for the day the sun finally shines light on all of life’s mysteries to be a good day.

  “You…” Jackson rasped as he searched his brother’s face. He knew this face, had always known it. But now…

  Rush didn’t say anything right off. Instead, he started to sit down on the edge of roof. He ran a hand over his face. In seconds, the brothers had been transported. They were standing on the roof of their building. Rush stared out at the night sky still illuminated by a giant moon.

  “You do this so effortlessly. How have you managed to keep this a secret for so long?” Jackson intoned astonishment in his voice.

  Rush frowned and closed his eyes. It was as if he was concentrating on an answer. Nothing came.

  “How did you manage to avoid the Service? No. Forget the Service for now. Mom… Dad?” Rush didn’t answer. “And what is it Rush? Where does it end? How much High Energy do you have? What you’ve done… what I’ve seen you do… Rush, no one can do that. No one. Not even me. No one.”

  Rush still seemed unable to find the words to answer. Instead, he looked at his brother and stated plainly, with fatigue, “I gave you back your memories for one reason and one reason only.”

  “Why?” Jackson was barely audible. His brother sat on the ledge, the electrified sky behind him.

  “So you will believe what I have to tell you about her.”

  Jackson didn’t understand, but he certainly knew who “her” was. “Bright Star?”

  “That name,” Rush mumbled, shaking his head. He rubbed hard at his eyes.

  “I know. Isn’t it a little funny?”

  “No, Jackson, it isn’t. She… she…” Rush’s face crumpled. He appeared to struggle for an adequate explanation but ended completely inarticulate. “She’s bad. I mean, not bad. But… bad.”

  Jackson chuckled for a moment. Then he sobered. Rush wasn’t kidding. “You mean like the Devil bad?”

  “No,” Rush answered.

  “You mean like she sleeps around bad?”

  “No,” Rush repeated.

  “What? I mean, she cheats on her taxes, she steals, she murdered someone? What kind of bad?”

  “None of those things. All of those things. Worse.” Rush returned.

  “Or did she do something as fucked up as spend her whole life stealing the memories from those closest to her?”

  Rush did not respond, but neither did he cower or apologize. He just seemed to wait for Jackson to reign in his anger. />
  “How could you do this to me?” Jackson’s voice quaked.

  “I had to.” Rush told him.

  “You didn’t. I know now. I know everything now, and the world hasn’t come to an end. You could have told me. You could have left my head alone. I would never have done this to you.”

  “I know,” Rush dipped his chin and spoke quietly, “You are a good person, Jackson. I know you wouldn’t do what I did, but I only wanted to protect you.”

  “From what?”

  “From me,” Rush responded, his voice so quiet.

  “Show me.” Jackson breathed. When Rush only shook his head, he made a new request. “Then show me Bright Star.” If Rush wanted him to know exactly what it was that made Bright Star bad, he could use his power to show him.

  “No,” Rush shook his head again. “You don’t need to see what I see.”

  “Rush, you’ve done this to me since I was a kid. I’m an adult. I’m a member of the Service. I’m precocial. What could you possibly be protecting me from?”

  Rush gave a lopsided smile. It was at once benevolent, sad and condescending. Jackson knew then that his brother would still try to protect him. Rush was stubborn to the end and would never allow Jackson to know what he knew.

  Suddenly, another memory burrowed its way back inside his mind. It was of his mother. Jackson paused. He’d thought that none of those were left. She stood in the kitchen carefully cutting through a foam board. Rush was sitting at the kitchen table drawing. Jackson had been standing next to her studiously taking direction but leaning in too close. His full-scale model of the solar system was due the next day. Janie hummed and laughed, telling him stories about the planets, as she worked with the knife until it slipped and nearly sliced Jackson on the arm. At first, he didn’t understand why Rush would have bothered to take away that memory. Then, comprehension dawned on him. Rush hadn’t taken it, only given it back.