Starcrossed (Starcrossed 1)

much as she could. It seemed like every page was filled with the

gods meddling in the world of men. Helen could see why her ancestors

had eventually decided that praying for divine intervention

wasn?t such a good idea.

She was up to the part where Achilles, who struck Helen as the

world?s most celebrated psychopath, started sulking in his tent

over a girl when she heard a definite footstep overhead. And then

another. Relying on the extrasensory hearing she?d always known

she had, but only recently begun to let herself use, she zeroed in on

her father, listening to his rib cage moving against his chair as he

breathed in and out. He was watching the late news on the TV

downstairs and he sounded perfectly normal to Helen. The widow?s

walk above her, however, was now suspiciously silent.

Helen slipped out of bed and grabbed the old baseball bat she

kept in her closet. Holding her slugger at the ready she walked

sideways, foot over foot, out her bedroom door and to the steps

that led to the widow?s walk. She paused for a moment on the landing

between the stairs that led down to the first floor and the stairs

that led up to the roof, listening again for her father. After a few

moments of tense indecision, she heard him cluck his tongue at the

antics of some camera-greedy congresswoman on TV and she relaxed.

He was still okay, so she knew that whatever she had heard

had not made it downstairs yet. With the intention of keeping it

that way, she ascended the stairs to the widow?s walk.

As soon as she stepped outside, Helen felt the cool fall air soak

through the thin cotton of her nightshirt, rendering it useless

against the elements. A flickering shadow in the starlight caught

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the corner of her eye and she swung at it, but the top of her bat was

stopped before it came around in a full arc. She heard the chunky