If The Stars Align

by Corrine Kenner | Mar 25, 2015 | Wizards Magazine

She was altogether indisputably untouchable. Not because of the way she dressed, or the way she sat, perhaps not even the way she talked, but because of the way she saw. Because of the way her enigmatic eyes shone with a dead light that indiscernibly read one’s soul. She was lovely to behold, distantly Egyptian in her style. Cat-like eyeliner framed her eyes as the velvet sky in constellations contoured her frame.

Yes, Illeana was beautiful. But she was of the stars and skies: beautiful, but cold.

She unraveled the scroll given to her, crackled parchment rustling softly. So. It was to be as thus. She scraped a painted nail against the inky runes, thoughtful. She was to create a lover for a man, made painstakingly out of stars and space dust, because he had honored the wishes of the gods. Even her customary indifference could not wrap its cold fingers entirely around her heart; it had been some time since she last was able to carry out Fate’s duties and she could not deny the small flicker of excitement within her. Her creation would be exquisite, modeled after Illeana’s own likeness and blessed with brightness of the stars.

She set into motion the plan, constellation maps and compasses aside, askew and strewn all over her marble balcony. Illeana worked painstakingly throughout the night, until it at last it was complete. She looked over her work, and allowed herself the slightest of smiles, slipping silently to her feet as her starry dress glimmered. The tall, olive figure required only a few tweaks to perfection. Illeana tugged here and there, brushing a stray lock of chestnut hair back, straightening out the clenched fingers.

And then she took a step back. She would make her enchanting, witty, coy. Her name? Marianna. And she would be boundless.

But life was a cruel lover of fate. And so it wasn’t until she had sent the stardust woman off that she noted the woman had been planted in the pathway of a certain Mr. Crawford. No. Illeana’s blood ran cold.

. . .

Marianna Eaton was a woman without a purpose. It wasn’t so much that she hadn’t yet acquired one, more so that she had gone without the twenty-odd years most people had to figure out at least in part what they wished to do with their lives. She had merely been created. But she wasn’t ignorant, no. She would not label herself that. Perhaps naïve, unaware, but apparently with enough knowledge to acquire a position as a bookshop keeper.

She had acquiesced the life she led without much complaint, contenting herself to the quiet, mundane lifestyle of an everyday peddler. But it was certain instances that she found her longing all the more unbearable. She was not one to be a bookshop owner, or a merchant at all, for that matter. She longed to travel, to roam, to seek, even if she was uncertain of what she sought for.

Everything, every last thing had been stripped away from her in the numbingly stagnant lifestyle. Her heart she had kept, though. Or, she thought with bitter amusement, what was left of it. She had always been careful, careful to be aloof and detached, lest the anchorage of her devotion to someone been too much for her to bear when time at last decided to wrest them from her grasp.

But then Isaac had come. It had all been in good fun to begin with. His love was not something Marianna took seriously; after all, she had been created in the likeness of a star, and what was a star, but evanescent? She laughed and spun soft sugary tales around him, wheedled with those large doe eyes of hers, teased with the soft, yellowed pages of her books. She enchanted him with knowledge and stories, lured him in with the smell of apple cinnamon tea and the musty scent of sunshine through warmed, afternoon windowpanes. She had courted him with feathers, with ink stained quills and an oaken desk.

But Isaac meant to stay. And by the time she realized it, she was in far too deep. She tried, oh, how she tried. But it seemed the harder she tried, the closer he clung. He was patient with her, no doubt, but persistent to stay as well. And now it was he who courted her, he who brought her hazelnut scented coffee and woven basketfuls of russet apples (she did love her apples). It was he who pursued her relentlessly, pushing her back almost as far as she had pushed him, almost as if desirous to even the score.

Please, she begged. Please. She shut her eyes. Don’t make me love him, too.

. . .

Isaac Crawford was a judge. Things were, or weren’t, and all the wheedling in the world could not alter that truth. They could not be more different.

Her eyes were the color of a storm and his of a tranquil forest. She was flighty, terribly afraid to be bound, and he was solidly ground, anchored by a steel contraption of his own design, built of facts and proof. But Illeana had no doubt that they would fit – not as puzzle pieces might, but as stained glass shards, perfectly imperfect.

Don’t. Don’t.

Illeana knew they would fit. Heaven knows she and Isaac had made it out together. It worked, in some odd science, like two planets, as different as night and day, aligning. Marianna was like her, too much like her. She was coy and fickle, fleeting as the light, unsteady as the waves that rocked with the coming of the moon every night. And Isaac? He was constant and secure, stable as the lighthouse, patient as the rock bearing every wave.

She watched. They were speaking now, silently mediated by Aster, the Northern Star. Illeana knew her well, and though they didn’t always see eye to eye on issues, they often worked together to carry out Fate. It was in instances like these, that Illeana was grateful for her aid. Isaac. She would not have been able to let go. Illeana instead turned her focus to the couple. They were talking now.

He was contemplative, Illeana could see, but not absolutely certain. And that bit of uncertainty was enough to rattle even her usually poignant demeanor. If he said no? She had hope he would refuse. But it faded faster than the fleeting, bright twinkle of the night sky.

He would not say no. Fate would ensure it, as would Aster. They would Touch him, prompt him to turn around, if he left, prompt her to bump into him as she walked. They were destined to be together. But that did not make it hurt any less, Illeana thought. She left.

. . .

“Fate was unkind this time.” That was Aster, soft bell chimes breaking the silence.

Illeana said nothing. She had once more returned to her balcony, but this time with Aster trailing behind her. Her presence was a welcome one, a soft golden glow on this overcast day. And Aster knew. Aster knew of Illeana’s relationship with Isaac, Aster knew of their forbidden romance, a dalliance that had happened so long ago, a rendezvous destined to never be complete.

“What was it like to love him?” Aster was the one to break the silence.

It was a while for Illeana to find her voice. “It was like being freed, freed from the weight of freedom and anchored to solid earth. It was like being heard, after eons of deafening silence. I adored him,” her voice grew soft, “as if he were the one that put the stars in the sky.”

“And what was it like to lose him?”

Illeana was silent. Then she spoke, “It was nothing.” Her voice rose slightly at the end, astonished. She had felt nothing. Perhaps some mortal sentiment, brought to life within her under the smoggy spell of allure. But she had felt empty. And that was the worst of all. To feel pain would have been welcome, but to feel nothing? She felt as if that were the ultimate betrayal, the final act of murder against a relationship gone wrong, a final stab.

Had they loved each other? Had she loved him? She’d like to think so. She so desperately did. Perhaps. Perhaps not. But she was not his intended, and that was all that mattered.

Fate had not been so kind to her. And she herself? Why, she had been an accomplice in her own heartbreak. For that she could not forgive herself. And yet, between the constellations and galaxies, in the smoky space that separated the universe, there was peace, and there was closure.

That would do. Yes, Illeana thought, that would simply have to do.

— ©Evelynn Lee

Image: The Star card from the Wizards Tarot by Corrine Kenner and John Blumen