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“Oh!” Shou Yuing was jolted out of her thoughts, stepping back from the person she’d just run right into. “Shit, I’m sorry -”
“That’s alright,” a warm voice answered. Shou Yuing looked up, and struggled to keep a hold on her thoughts for a moment.
When she was younger, she’d seen a picture of the Veiled Virgin in a magazine. She didn’t remember anything about it, but that she had been so enraptured she’d spent hours on the computer, looking up pictures and art websites, devouring everything she could find.
She hadn’t considered the woman - or, well, the façade of a woman - attractive by itself, but the sheer skill required to render her so lifelike had awed her, and she found her beautiful in that way.
The woman she was watching was gorgeous in that same way.
Shou Yuing very rapidly remembered that she was in the middle of the pavement, and there were people going past on either side, but she couldn’t quite look away.
“Can I ask you something?”
Shou Yuing thought she really should be getting on.
“Okay.”
“If you knew you were going to die at midnight, what would your last day be?”
Shou Yuing should have walked away then and there. But there was something so genuine about the question that she didn’t. “I’d call my family. Tell them I love them. My brother lives closest to me, so I’d probably go to him. I don’t think he’d believe me, but I’d really make sure he knew it, before I… passed.”
She smiled. Her smile was radiant, quasar-bright. “Forgive me. I think I phrased my question wrong. I forgot about all that, for a moment. If you knew you were going to die at midnight, and every worldly affair had been sorted - your will, your family, everything - and all you had left to do was enjoy yourself, what would you do?”
“I don’t think I’d be going in to work, then.”
“Alright.” The woman extended her hand. “What next?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never thought about it.”
“Have you ever been to the Science Museum?”
“Once or twice. I’m a chemist, see.”
“Then have you ever been to the sections about space?
“No.”
The woman extended her hand. “Then what do you say, Shou Yuing?”
When did I tell you my name? Shou Yuing thought. But she didn’t say that. Instead, she stretched out a hand, and the woman took it happily in her own.
They walked to the museum together. The woman seemed to be able to talk forever. She could’ve been talking in Greek for all Shou Yuing knew; she was just lulled by the sound of her voice.
She was reminded, once more, of statues. The beauty was not in the appearance itself, but in the skill required to create one.
“Do you have a name?” Shou Yuing asked, as the building came into sight.
“No,” she answered, but again, she was so genuine that Shou Yuing had no chance but to believe her.
They entered together, the woman paying, and wandered up and down exhibits. Space was first, and the woman talked endlessly about each detail.
“Are you a physicist?” Shou Yuing asked.
“No,” she said, “but I have experience. I’m something of an ace.” She grinned. “Call me Ace, in fact, if you do want a name for me.”
So Ace it was.
They left the museum only when Shou Yuing realised she hadn’t eaten lunch. They got pizza and sat outside.
“Look,” said Shou Yuing. “You can see the moon.”
“It’s beautiful. Have you ever seen something more beautiful than the stars?”
Shou Yuing thought about the Veiled Virgin. Then she looked at Ace.
“I have.”
They walked around London for hours more, barely interested in the sights, only in each other. Then Ace leaned in close. “Drive out into the country with me,” she said.
She should run, she thought, and didn’t.
“Alright,” she said. “I’ll give you the keys.
They drove for hours, till the sky had gone dark. Ace parked at the foot of a hill and got out, looking back at Shou Yuing with sun-bright eyes. “Catch me if you can.” She took off running.
“Slow down!” Shou Yuing sprinted after Ace, but no matter her speed Ace was always just ahead, hopping out of reach. She was grinning, her smile sun-bright, even in the shrouding darkness of midwinter. She walked backwards up the hill, goading Shou Yuing on and up, till finally they had reached the top.
“You are impossible,” gasped Shou Yuing, as Ace headed over. “How does anyone keep up with you?”
“No one does,” she said, and looked through it. There was a smile curling into the corner of her mouth. “Except for you.”
“What, me?” Shou Yuing looked up from where she’d been leaning on her hips. “It’s not even been a day since we met!”
“Exactly,” said Ace. “That’s why I spent it with you.”
Shou Yuing tilted her head. “I don’t understand you.”
Ace shrugged. She was fidgeting with the settings on the telescope. “Do you believe in an afterlife, Shou Yuing?”
“Why?”
“Humour me.”
“I suppose I do, a bit. I believe in heaven - tiān - and ancestors, but I’ve never put too much thought to where I’ll go.”
“Alright.” She turned a final cog and leant back. “Come look.”
Shou Yuing blinked, but obeyed, getting on her knees and staring through it. “There’s nothing.”
“Not yet. But there will be.”
Shou Yuing searched the empty sky for a few moments longer, then pulled back. “Ace, I don’t understand what you’re playing at. Why have you brought me out here? Why did you convince me to skive work only to run around London together and do… fuck-all?” It occurred to her that they were very alone out here. “Are you a serial killer?” She wasn’t sure, if Ace said yes, if she would run.
“No,” said Ace. Shou Yuing turned to look at her. She was looking up at the stars again, and her eyes… They had changed. There was light seeping from them. Shou Yuing thought of statues again. “It’s time.”
“Time?”
Ace looked down at her. Her face hadn’t changed a bit in appearance, but it was suddenly apparent that it wasn’t human. Statues. Not made beautiful by their features, but by the sheer skill of their creation.
“Time for me to go.” She saw Shou Yuing’s expression, and knelt to get to her level. “It’s time for me to leave Earth and become my true form, among the stars. As one of them.”
She couldn’t be serious - couldn’t be telling the truth. But Ace herself was impossible, wasn’t she? And Shou Yuing was drawn right into her orbit.
“I don’t want you to leave,” she admitted. A day, and she felt like Ace was part of her already. “Why do I feel like this?”
“It’s destiny,” Ace said. “When you die, you’re going to come up and join me, and we’ll orbit around each other for the rest of our lives.” She smiled. “But that won’t be soon, trust me.” Gold obscured her expression. “I had a day to spend before I became myself, Shou Yuing, and I know it’s going to be alright now, when you do join me. I’m not quite leaving. I’ll always be there. You’ll just have to look up.” She reached out to stroke her cheek.
“But how far will you be? There are stars that are so far away from Earth the version of them we see is hundreds of years in the past.”
“I know,” she said. “So I’ll leave you some light on Earth. So you can always see where I am.” She leant in, but Shou Yuing was there before she was, kissing her. Before she knew it, Ace was lifting into the air, into the sky. She kept hold, and for a short, glorious moment, her feet were off the ground, and she was flying, but Ace pressed her back down.
“It’s not your time yet,” she said. The light was all over her now. “But I’ll be waiting for you, when it is.” And then she rose, and she was her true form, and nothing had ever been so beautiful.
Shou Yuing stood, for a second, in the sudden darkness, then she stumbled over the telescope, pressing her eye into it.
And there. There.
A new star.