Falling Stars (Shooting Stars 5)

For a long moment, my heart was pounding so hard. I didn't think my legs would support me. I rose slowly and, after taking a deep breath, walked to the window. My hands were clenched into small fists at my side. My stomach felt as tight as a drum.

Inching myself to the glass. I looked out at the fire escape. There was no one there.

Breathing with relief. I stepped back. Had it been a shadow cast by the moonlight and the clouds sliding across the inky night sky? I waited to see if there was any sign of anyone and then, satisfied, returned to my table, finished my hair, and went to bed.

After I turned out the lights. I listened keenly for the sounds in the house. Back home, I had long ago become acquainted with every moan in our pipes, every whistle of the wind through loose shingles or over a shutter. I had expected we would hear the city traffic, but we wer

e so isolated on these grounds, there were no sounds of cars and trucks. How would I have known without having been here before, of course? Occasionally, the scream of police, ambulance, or fire sirens did find its way over the iron gates, up the grounds, and into my room, but it was so muffled, it sounded like something coming from someone's television set.

No, I thought, it was far quieter than I had anticipated. The house was so firm, so solid, almost as if it had to obey the rules of etiquette. too. Every groan or burp in the pipes had to be subdued. Respect for the inhabitants required silence, or at least keeping noises to little more than a rustle and a swish.

I concentrated. Was that someone whispering, or was that part of my ever-growing imagination?

My eves shifted toward the window again. The shadow had returned, resembling someone in a hood and a cape. I stared at it and waited. It's only the moon and the clouds, I told myself. I didn't move. I didn't breathe. After a while the shadow was gone again. The whispering ended. too. Darkness fell even thicker around the fire escape. Clouds had joined above like a curtain closing. The moon was shut away. Night had taken full control of the stage.

I closed my eyes.

For a while, despite my deep fatigue, sleep seemed impossible. I was simply overtired. nervous. I had underestimated how tiring and how much of an emotional strain the day had been for me. When sleep finally came, it was like a welcomed surprise, drifting in and washing over me, resembling another blanket.

But soon I tossed and turned, fretting in and out of shadows and tunnels, hearing voices, footsteps, and strange childlike singing. I woke once or twice but immediately fell back to sleep, and finally slept so well that when the sunlight opened my eyes again, it was early in the morning.

I quickly turned to my window. The sunshine glittered on the metal fire escape that had been the platform for the dance of those strange, dark shadows.

Surely what I had seen the night before. thought I had heard outside my door and windows, and my parade of distorted dreams were products of my overworked imagination. I thought. Be happy, I told myself. Be hopeful. Be as proud as Mommy and Daddy were for me.

Today is truly the beginning of the rest of your life.

4 A Shadow at the Window

"She did it deliberately!" Howard exclaimed as soon as he came through the dining room door to have breakfast. "Just because I expressed some

unhappiness about it."

"Who did what?" I asked. The rest of us were long since there.

"Dracula's daughter gave yours truly the first work detail. And it's a week at a time!" he added.

"What do you actually have to do?" I asked.

Steven was sipping his coffee, his eyes barely open. Ice and Rose had bowls of cereal and Cinnamon had toast and jam. I was the only one eating eggs and a bagel.

"For one thing, clean off this table, so don't make any more mess than necessary, and then I have to set the table for dinner. Lunch is more or less staggered, depending on our personal schedules, so we're all individually responsible for that. and I'm to look after the parlor and be the last one up at night to be sure none of us has left it untidy. Next thing you know, I'll be running a vacuum cleaner."

"What of it? I have," Ice said.

"So have I," I said.

"Guilty." Cinnamon added, raising her hand.

"You're all used to that sort of menial labor. I'm not!"

"Why don't you put an ad in the newspaper and see if you can hire a part-time worker?" Steven asked facetiously.

Howard considered the suggestion. "You think they would let me do that?"

"Of course not." Cinnamon said. "You heard Lady Fairchild expound on Madame Senetsky's opinions of ostentatious wealth yesterday, didn't you?"

Howard stared quietly a moment and then nodded.