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All the stars point me to you and lately they just drive me crazy
A universe can be so cruel so baby, baby be my lady
Now here I come
To dance around the sun
I've been oh so blue
Stuck behind the moon
Now let me in
Back where we begin
And let me hold you like the way
I used to do
Matt Costa - Behind The Moon
The first time they live and die, it’s in the desert. The dust does nothing for her lungs. Her throat burns like the sun and everything is dry, dry, dry.
He wears his heritage broad on his shoulders and people avoid him, dropping glances and voices as he passes, hissing words that scald the back of his neck like chili powder. This is still his land, his blood in the soil. They hate him as their reminder.
Her name is Star. She comes into town on the back of a wagon with death in her chest and dirt on her feet. The locals laugh at her name. She has no mother nor father, only the rag skirt and corset she calls her clothes. Her arms and shoulders and ankles are exposed like a child's and the women sneer and the men leer.
He doesn't. He looks at her sun baked hands, the twisted mats in her hair. He wrangles horses at the corner of the dirt town. Star sleeps in the back of the wagon, threadbare blanket and the cover of her namesake. She stares as he rides bareback, his black hair like the run of coal in the new steam trains, as moonlight cuts into the curves of his chest, back, his serious, watching face.
A man tries to steal his cattle. She watches the horseman kill, fingers clamped tight around the white man's throat, blade choking blood. She does not know his name. No-one does. When she tells him hers, he does not laugh, just seems to ponder if she is mocking him.
The local Madame offers her a room above the inn, as long as she kisses nobody and eats nothing. Star looks out the square wood window at the downing sun and wonders if she should start walking again. Lie in a coffin of bracken among his horses and pass, slowly, sweetly, like a maiden should.
He carries a fowl in earth arms. It stands, struggles, skips over to its mother and suckles beneath her hanging belly. Star never wanted children, for they died young and took womenfolk with them, but her eyes still water at the sight.
A silver faced man comes to town as the sun sets. Baby faced beautiful suicide blond, half hidden beneath the brim of his hat, a white horse between his leather chapped legs. He is shadowed by his companion, a curly haired cowboy with eyes green as a desert mirage, and lips swollen and pretty. The women powder their chests and mill out from between the swinging doors of the salon, but Star watches ashen as the blond leads his horse into the waiting hands of the wrangler. Their fingers touch and the traveller smiles.
Star hurls up blood in her chamber pot. Saliva glistens in silver trails from her mouth like the starlight on the traveller's skin. She is sick of beautiful men. Sick of, and sick by.
But she can still be pretty, pretty for them, even if the spiteful devil inside her head whispers for her to kiss death into them all.
Star sits downstairs, if only to see how charming the nomads are - David and Michael, biblical names - and Michael, the man with the mirage eyes, watches her close, as if seeing her mortality sweat through her skin. They all smoke and the air is heavy with it. A man sees the blush on her breasts, her neck, and thinks it is comely. His chin is craggy with stubble that combs her cheek as he leans in to embrace her, but the hand of the horse wrangler is on him, hurling him away, across the room and through the window.
She has not seen such strength, but she has seen blood before, even as it splatters her shawl, for the two wanderers and her horse wrangler tear through the salon. The blond Lucifer spits out a bullet, and smiles at their Sheriff, and Star sees his face is contorted, wild, like a bull's.
She flees to her room, dropping her shawl, and looks at the horses on the pasture, peaceful and quiet and quaint, and from the window she jumps, for blood is bubbling in her throat and the sweat from the smoke and noise has yet to leave her skin, and she wants to lie down among the horses, be cradled by the hay and bracken, and die, finally die.
The horses ignore her, parting as she wades through, even as her death knell rattles in her throat, and she find the remains of the Madame, slung inside the barn, neck torn and body tossed asunder. And the jacket, the jacket of the horse wrangler, caked in blood, and she ignores the Madame's knitted shawl for his coat, for it covers her completely, and hides her frail bitten bones.
And there he is, trailing her, discarded shawl in hand. The salon is ablaze. In its wake stand the two cowboys, holding each other as she has seen men and women do, watching her watching them, her and her horseman.
Star is not afraid, even as she sees his teeth, and his eyes, crisping citron pupils. They stand, barely an inch, a breath from each other, and she closes her mouth, for her air carries death borne plaque, but he prises her lips open with his tongue, and her mouth is hot with his warm, warm blood.
The next night, she is sated, high on a horse of her own with lace at her throat and filth on her feet, and as they escape the ghost town, the freed horses scatter, kicking up dust, running fresh on their moon licked trail.
The second time they lived and died, it was 1906, and the earth rumbled as he drove the horses over the sands to the docks just south of Santa Carla, a resort that glitters a cruel promise they can neither afford or aspire. At the docks, she sells her hair for rope, and they cut it short, curls hiked snug above her ears. The money she carries back to him, and he smiles at her, in his crooked half way, a smile her mother said was stupid and inbred but to her, is beautiful.
She thought he wouldn't want her that night with her hair like a boy's and her body showing the first visible signs of pregnancy, but the room they rent with her hair money is set alight by his hunger, and she kisses him, and he promises, a promise more shining then Santa Carla, that he will find work at the docks. He is a strong worker.
Star finds her way in the pale morning to the washer women. They see her hair and think she is a whore. She describes in detail her husband (lover, husband in heart) and gestures to her stomach, and says she is a good woman, a Christian woman, trying to make an honest living. She is not honest, nor Christian, but she is young enough to still look like a girl who became a woman too soon, and the forewoman takes pity (and says she fully expects to see her in church that Sunday. Sunday is when they have sex.)
He arrives with rope burns on his hands and Star fingers them, feeling the swathe of skin, and wonders if it was her hair that tore him asunder so, and he tells her, deep and breathy, that he imagined it so, and it made his back stronger, his pull greater than the other men's, and that already he has been noticed and called back, that it was her hair and her skin and heart that made him fierce, made him work.
She pulls out the coins from her cloth purse, drops the pieces on the bed, and his eyes light yet he looks at her belly, and frowns, and says he is enough, she should rest. And Star laughs, and says there is plenty of time to go yet, and a non-working woman is a starving one.
The weeks pass. Her hair grows in straggles and she hides it beneath a cloth cap. Her stomach rounds fully, and the Pastor in the church promises a baptism, and Star does not tell the father, who eyes all the churchmen with suspicion (especially the Pastor.)
One night, her heart husband does not come home. Star (only he calls her that. The others take on the name Edith, a stout and hard name. It makes her shrivel, not shine) ventures out, comforter tugged on her shoulders. The only dress she owns is her work uniform. White shirt, black skirt, navy apron. She hates to be walking in it for the forewoman is strict about Christian pleasantries (scrubbed and harsh, clean cattle) but she has to find him, for the night is dragging in bit by bit and the sunset burns the sea alive.
He does not drink. The taverns are full yet empty of him. The baby kicks, and she doubles, staring up and out into the sky.
The next day, the bed is empty. The covers are folded neatly, sheets pulled up and tucked under. Star did not sleep. But the morning is cruel, for there is work, and he has not bought his wage. Star clocks in, works the entire day and extra, in the hope that the further the hours stretch the closer it will bring him to the box space of their life together.
She comes back at night. There are no boots at the end of the bed. Star lies on the bed and weeps. He is a ghost ship on the sea now. He is a man of no consequence. There shall be no search. She sobs until she realises the bed is wet with more than her tears. The landlady fetches not the doctor, but one of the local whores, in whose hollowed face Star sees her future, now.
A girl. Squashed, mewling, strong, like her papa. Star calls her Awendela. It is not a Christian name. Awendela is no more than a form of flesh and fat warped from the two of them. She cannot unpick herself, or her heart husband, from that tiny body, with veins running like lilac beneath her skin. Star kisses the head, feels the sponge skull beneath the blunt rise of her teeth, and she is too weak to cry.
And there he is, in the doorway, a faraway look on his face, clothes soaked in sea water and tar, and as he passes through, the whore and the landlady exchange glances and flee. Star wants to scream at him. She would claw his chest, if not for Awendela in her arms, but he stares, lopsided, at her and the baby, as if he cannot place them.
Star holds out the baby. He goes on one knee, and cradles Awendela in hands suddenly too big, with nails too long. There is no apology, but he kisses the baby's forehead where Star's own lips lingered moments before. He asks if Star would wish for their baby to be in a world where she would sell her beautiful hair to survive. Star says, no, of course not, but that is not going to happen because he is here, with her, they are going to make a life together and be prosperous. It will be difficult, but life is difficult. He smiles at her then, his crooked half pulled smile, and Star sees his teeth are pushing over his lips, impossibly sharp.
No, he says. No, it doesn't have to be.
As a child, Star had been struck by a snake. It bit her ankle to the bone and she had been sick in bed for three days. The memory wastes away in her mind as he is attached to her neck, teeth forged with her skin, as if it had always meant to be.
The baby screams as the earthquake of 1906 splits the world in half.
The next time they live and die, it is 1986. Dwayne is a Lost Boy, luring victims from the boardwalk, youth and vitality demonstrated in open jackets and shark teeth. Predator, protector, provider.
Star is a lure. Cream lace and white chemise, curls fanned on broad tanned shoulders. They never look at each other. Dwayne believes she is David's before he sees David chase the local boys as usual, and Paul is too skittish, and Marko too private, and so he has no real idea what she is for, except the fact she is attractive at the back of David's bike and prey comes sniffing around her too easy and swift. He kills whatever men she brings, intentional or unintentional, and that is when she looks at him, eyes wide and confused, and he looks back, bloodied and expressionless and just as confounded.
One night, he brings Laddie back, feeds the boy the bottle, and has no reference to why and how he does it. A little boy can be another lure, he suggests quickly, feeling the swell of emptiness inside him subside at the tiny hands clung to his jacket. David says only if they want to lure aging grandmothers or paedophiles. Paul is excited and Marko is indifferent and David just looks, deep into Dwayne, and Dwayne is sick of everyone looking at him all the time, especially Star, who peers between the wrecked curtains of her bed, sad and sweet and fascinated. Not just by the child, but by him.
Dwayne kills extra-long and slow that night, tearing jugulars and playing nerve endings like piano strings. He feels angry and sick and terribly sad, and knows nothing about the reason why.
Star takes to the kid. Typical girl, says Marko, who knits and reads Agatha Christie novels in his spare time, pigeons forever his devoted audience. But Star is a cool older sister, far more fun and engaged then she ever is with them (minus Paul, on occasion) and they skip through arcades and comic stores and rollercoasters as if they are happy to spend an eternity doing so.
Dwayne trails on his bike, cigarette lit and hanging from his lips (he knows it lights his eyes like a cat's, makes him predatory, but Laddie drops Star's hand to rush over to him, and clamour on his bike, and Star stands, like a spectre.)
Feelings cloud them like shadows from a forgotten sun and as Dwayne rides, laughter and catcalls high on the air between the boys, Star has her head flown back, curls whipping in the wind, and the flash of David's headlight catches the gleam of her eyes, her teeth, and Dwayne roars his engine high, draws tantalising close to David's bike, a challenge and a question, and Star watches him, wanting, giggling.
David has that damn knowing twinkle in his eye but Dwayne doesn't care, not anymore, for Star's throat is familiar, as is her hands and hair, and he wants her tonight. He does pull back however, to resist overstepping the boundaries (David is leader, after all) and to protect the tiny body latched onto his back, even as Laddie begs him to go faster (he wants Star just as much.)
He takes Laddie out the next night, away from the boys and Star, and he repels a smirk at the possessive twist in her muscles as he vanishes into the crowds with a thrilled Laddie at his side. Paul laughs, swinging his legs and tapping his palm on his bike handles, and Marko exchanges one of his old fashioned looks with David, and already the dynamics of the pack is falling sweetly into place, but there is nothing to say it won't be a messy overhaul. David does not stop Star as she too disappears into the crowds.
Dwayne wins a stuffed bear for Laddie at the stalls (he cheats, of course. The spotty teenager sees rats at his feet and jumps, screeching, and Laddie is perfecting his cruel, childish crackle.) Dwayne takes the hammer to the strong man challenge (he removes his jacket, knows Star is watching, as he feels her taut female fury as people stop and stare.) Star is hiding herself, discreet for a half, but he can smell her, lilac and cool blood, on the breeze.
Laddie is sleepy (he is hungry. Dwayne squeezes blood from his wrist into a strawberry slushy and leaves Laddie sucking the straw in contentment as Paul looks on.)
Star is in the alley. Her military jacket is hard on her frilled tank top, as is the faux softness of claws ghosting down his bare chest, and she is hungry, too.
It's a terrible kind of young love. They fuck in the alleyway. He shows her his true face, and she does not balk, even as her half human heart speeds in her chest, but she attacks his face with kisses. It is ridiculous and a bit cliché, but Star has always thrown softness in the way of thorns, has always hidden bestiality behind vintage net and lace.
Dwayne holds her up by sheer force alone, and like a cliché, she scratches his back, but she has damn claws instead of pink oval nails, and he feels the blood, cold on his skin, and the lukewarm heat of hers, between his teeth, and he howls like a wolf and Star hits his back, once, flustered, as they can be heard, you idiot.
Don't you want people to hear? He growls, nipping her chest bone.
I don't want them to hear, or see. There is a rumble in her throat that may or may not be a snarl. You're mine. You're mine and I don't want to share you.
He barks laughter. Show me your game face, he teases. What will they see? What will they see as you tear them apart?
You were never this vocal before. Star shifts, struggling to pull the vampire out in her. Or demanding.
That's before I got to know you. Despite the crimson in and on his face, it’s tender, and Star shivers, her face falling into ridged brow and black shot eyes, and oh, it's the first time, and it's for him.
Fuck, you're beautiful. Marko is going to be jealous.
Star wears her predator face like a love letter and she doesn't seem ashamed, for once, and would kiss her again if not for the familiar shapes of Marko and Paul whooping above, like a pair of schoolgirls in a locker room, and Dwayne gives them both thumbs up and Star hits him again, but she smiles at Paul, still dressed in fang and claw, and oh, he'll have to teach her to switch it off, but for now, he can admire it, admire her.
Star has her face buried in Dwayne's back as they ride back, Laddie propped on Paul's, who watches them both curiously. Paul makes a joke about the Munsters and Marko almost drives him off the road.
Dwayne sleeps with his brothers, dreams of dust and horse beats. Star sleeps with Laddie, dreams of rope and her belly opening like a cloth purse. They both taste the blood, the pulse of each other, and Star wakes with a burning between her legs and the night alive in her.
The men she lures he kills, and all and any regret she has is numbed by a love, a short and painful love, maybe one of youth, maybe one that will live forever.
Weeks later, as the summer moon holds the heat of the day, there is a curly haired man with eyes as green as a desert mirage. He stares at her, both innocent and lustful, and Star is accidental bait, for he follows her and Laddie through the crowds to where the boys wait. David looks at him, then looks again, and his smile is rich with bemusement, tragic and joyful both. Dwayne is expressionless, as if daring the newcomer to say anything, do anything, but Star leans her head on his shoulder and smiles at the boy. Star's smiles are warnings now.
It does not stop David seeking Star out that evening, as they surround themselves with comics stolen from their kills. Star has yet to make a kill. She sits with Laddie, now in the circle of the boys, no longer huddled away in her weeping boudoir. Her skirt has fallen back to reveal the kick of her calves as Laddie and her laugh at the retro cartoons.
David rarely gives orders, if only to Marko, but Marko and David have this weird thing that Dwayne doesn't want to know about. But he calls Star over, says she's to track the boy, bring him to David. Star flinches, but David says no, it isn't for feeding. Dwayne's growing fury eats up the air in the room, even as he binds it down to a crawl in his gut, a bloodlust that for a moment wears David's face, but Marko's hand is on Dwayne's shoulder.
Marko smiles, bitter.
"He's for David." Marko scoffs. "For the first time in decades, he's got a fancy."
A fancy. Dwayne sees firelight bounce off the bone dents of Star's shoulder blades and knows that what he has, what he will forever have, is more than that. Star comes to him, calms him with her hands, circling the callouses on his palms, and it is a rehearsal of another time.
The next night, Star plays at love and brings the boy to David. Dwayne is certain to bring his bike closer to the pair, his wheel wedged against Michael's, Laddie on his back, a reminder and a promise, and Star is sure not to catch his eye. And David, the big bad boyfriend, intimidating her onto his bike, and Paul snickers, obnoxiously slapping his bike handles, but Marko looks down, wets his lip, but David does not look at him once, just at Michael.
The ruse works. Dwayne hears the crunch of David's jaw on Michael's knuckles across the ride of gasoline and crash of salt water, and the sag in Michael's shoulders as David smiles, and tells him, how far is he willing to go? And Michael is confused despite himself, and so is David, although he hides it well, beneath his silver skin as he sleeps, and Dwayne understands.
In the time when Awendela lives and dies, she is eighty five in a ghost town. The year is 1986.
She was born in the docks at Santa Carla. She never knew her parents, never knew who birthed the curl in her hair or the heavy lids of her root earth eyes or her bull knuckled hands.
Awendela always meant to go back, one day, eventually. It was what she had first saved for, when she was young and troublingly beautiful. But instead she bought horses, and rode them, all the way to Canada, where she had her sons and her husband. A friend told her Awendela meant "morning" but they weren't sure, because the original source for that name was lost, much like her parents.
Awendela had no time to mourn that fact. She had her sons, although one died in the war, fighting for a friend. Her grandchildren moved away. Her husband they found among the horses, stiff yet peaceful, as if he was sleeping.
The horses Awendela keeps now are old mares, retired racers, which nuzzle grass and meander from one field to another. She pays a man with mirage green eyes to muck the stables.
There is no dust. It’s a fresh, lush place. At eighty five, in 1986, she coughs blood into a napkin and wonders if she could lay down among her horses, hay and bracken her bed, and sleep, finally sleep.
She never once had to sell her hair.