Shadows Cast by Stars by Catherine Knutsson Page A

heavens. When we were little, Paul wanted to be a star. I don’t know where he got that idea, but stars were the one thing he never tired of learning of at school. He learned all the myths, of Andromeda, of Calliope, and, especially, of Orion. The stars of Orion’s belt have always been his favorite. My father says his father told him those three stars were once three ravens, crossing the heavens. To go where? I wonder. To do what?
    A branch breaks in the forest behind me, as if inanswer to my questions. I whirl around, but there’s nothing there.
    My movement rouses Paul. “What’s the matter?” he asks, rubbing his eyes.
    “I heard something behind us.” A shiver slithers up my arm. “Probably just a deer.”
    “Probably,” he says, yawning, but I see the worried wrinkle of his brow as he turns his gaze back to the fire.
    What does he see in the embers? I wish I knew, but I must wait until he’s ready to tell me. And I hate waiting.
    He knows this and lies down, leaving room for me. When we were little, our family would spend nights under the stars, lying with our heads together to create a star of our own. The top of my head touches Paul’s, and my arms stretch out at my sides, filling the space our parents would have claimed. Satellites swoop through the heavens, as bright as fireflies.
    “Do you think they’re watching us?” Paul asks.
    “I don’t know,” I say. “I hope not.” But I get up and head for the house anyhow.
    I bolt awake.
    Moonlight spills into my room, painting the floor a milky white. The grumble and roar of my father’s snoring rises from downstairs.
    Paul isn’t in the house. I can feel it. Something is wrong. Altered.
    I slip from my sleeping bag and tiptoe downstairs. Sure enough, Paul’s sleeping bag is empty again.
    Outside, the lake stretches out like a silver gauntlet, beckoning me.
    I step over the threshold, out into a night full of frog song. But then, the frogs stop singing. The night goes silent. I stand completely still. Paul is out there somewhere. I want to search for him, but fear grips me and all I can do is stare into the depths of the forest.
    A rock bounces out of the shadows, nearly hitting my leg.
    “Paul?”
    “Go back inside.” His voice drifts up from somewhere down the hill. There’s no way he could have thrown that rock.
    “Paul, what’s wrong?”
    “Cass, go back inside.”
    “But …”
    “GO NOW!”
    I flee, tripping over the threshold and falling into the house.
    My father wakes up and stumbles from his room to stare at me. “What’s going on?” he rasps.
    I don’t answer. I don’t have an answer. Sparks of spiritfloat around my head, trying to warn me of something I don’t understand. My father draws me into his arms, but I can’t see him. The sparks press in on me, droning like a swarming hive, so thick I might drown.
    And then I feel it, way down in the bottom of my gut: only a tickle at first, but then it grows, crescendoing to a rumble, forcing me to my feet as I drag my father after me.
    The world is about to change.
    The floor shudders and suddenly my father understands. “Up to the road!” he shouts.
    Stones bite into my bare feet. I slip, fall, skin my knee, my hands, as I try to stand. My father hauls me up. The sparks coat my eyes, my ears. I feel like I’ll retch, but I can’t. Not yet.
    We fall on the old, broken asphalt.
    My father wheezes, “Paulie?”
    In reply, the world begins to sway.
    When the earthquake finally stops, I scramble down the hill to search the lakeshore while my father scours the woods that flank the house. No Paul. The look on my father’s face when I meet him halfway up the hill mirrors my own. We are panic-stricken.
    “Back up to the road,” my father says. “He’s probably waiting for us up there.”
    But the road is no longer a road. Asphalt lies in heaves and gullies, and trees are strewn about like spent match-sticks. An earthquake is always a reminder that we humans are as expendable