She Breathes the Stars

Chapter Two

The boy is shivering.

I sit on the wooden floor next to the couch, my legs pushed up to my chest and my chin resting on my knees. Widget sits next to me, carefully observing the boy just as I am, and tilts her head to the side every time he exhales a breath. His chest moves slowly up and down with each of these labored breathes, and I find myself watching them too, just to make sure that they don't stop.

He's been unconscious for nearly three hours now.

During this time, I've drug his surprisingly light body to my couch and pushed a wool blanket up to his chin to slow his frantic shivering. I've also put on a fire and placed a wet washcloth on his forehead in case he had a fever. Other than that, I've just been studying him.

You see, this is the first actual person I've had in my house for nearly two years. And quite a beautiful one, at that.

He seems to be around my age. His skin is pale but healthy, not yet riddled with scars or freckles like mine. His hair is dark and curls slightly at his ears, and is longer at the top where it brushes against his well-shaped eyebrows. I even admire his fingers; long and slender like a pianist's, which twitch slightly against his chest every now and then. He's scrawny, but there are also hints of muscle at his broad shoulders and arms. I didn't quite catch the color of his eyes before he passed out, but I'm sure they're colorful and warm.

He makes a small humming noise through parted lips, making me widen my eyes a bit, but his body still doesn't move other than the uncanny shivering. I'm thinking about going to get him another blanket, but there are beads of sweat beginning to form at his hair line so I decide against it. Perhaps he's having a bad dream.

I sigh and sit back on my hands, my back cramped after perching in front of him for so long. Widget sees my relaxed stance as a chance to curl up in my lap and shut her eyes, purring contently after a long night of hardly sleeping a wink.

Due to the warmth of the fire, the comfort of having another human being in the house, and the moonlight still shining through the window, I find my eyelids growing heavy as well. But I want to stay awake until the boy wakes up.

I have to...

...

I'm in the black dress again. It's a little shorter on me now, almost too short for comfort, and I'm finding it quite hard to breath due to the tightness in my stomach area. But it smells like my sister, whom I haven't seen for so long, and it makes me so nostalgic that my eyes start to fog up. It's not a happy memory, so I don't know why my heart feels so light.

Ah, yes. This was the dress she lent me for the funeral...

My bare feet make scuffing noises as I tiptoe my way over to the white balcony railing, my tears leaving wet drops on the wooden floor beneath me. I feel so light, like I could throw myself off this edge and fly into the night sky like a bird. I could leave this place behind and feel the cool night wind in my hair as I watch the town below. To them; I'd just be a shooting star.

They never really knew me anyway.

My fingers reach for the railing, pushing myself up to view the scenery below me. There's no grass, or trees or dirt; just an endless sparkling ocean that goes on for miles. The stars are reflected in the water, making patterns and constellations in the waves that I've never seen before, and I'd give anything just to get a better look.

Carefully, starting with my knee on the railing, I push myself up until I'm standing just millimeters from falling off the edge. I already feel less lonely up here; closer to the moon. And the wind fluttering around my legs feels so refreshing.

"Wash, rinse, repeat..."

I wonder if my parents can hear me; so far up in the sky. If they can feel my need to be with them; see the loneliness that they've left behind in my soul for so long. And I wonder if they want me to join them.

I spread my arms, smiling as the wind ruffles my sleeves and sends them flowing behind me as if I were a majestic bird. Warm tears streak my temples, but they are bland rather than sour, and they dampen the slightly curled hair above my ears. The water below my feet seems to glisten brighter than ever before as I lean forwards and-

"I came back, you know."

I gasp and wave my arms in circles in a horrid attempt to keep myself upright. My dress tangles around my legs and sends me tumbling into the dark ocean that doesn't look so inviting anymore. The wind soars through my tear soaked hair, cold and brittle, and makes me gasp as my breath becomes frozen fog before my eyes. I'm falling, screaming, watching the darkness get closer; but there's someone else's frozen breath falling next to me as well. Their breath is glittering.

And then skinny, invisible arms wrap their way around my stomach and stop me in midair, like a spider dangling from a web, but I feel no warmth in the touch. I am still very, very cold. But the air around me is shimmering.

"I finished the last few stars for you." A voice tickles my ear from above. "You're too important to disappear, so I'm here."

My fingers grip for the invisible arms, feeling and seeing nothing, and only end up grasping empty air. There is no form of reassurance; no body to match the voice holding me above the darkness. But I am curious.

"Where are you?" I gasp, too afraid to turn around and see nobody behind me.

"With you." Glistening air puffs by my ear. "So hold on."

And then I fall.

...

The dress is gone, so is the invisible pressure of someone's arms around my stomach and the tempting black abyss below. Instead I am greeted with a purring cat on my chest, the imprint of my arm on my cheek, and crusty sleep forming in the corners of my eyes.

I had fallen asleep in front of the warm fireplace; yet my skin is riddled with goosebumps.

Yawning, I sit up and try not to think about the contents of my dream, but those thoughts are almost immediately blocked out when a voice whispers hoarsely; "Who are you?"

And the voice is identical to the one in my dream.