Dark Stars by Danielle Rollins (most read books of all time .txt) 📗

doors, and she struggled a moment with the heavy wood, hinges screeching when she finally managed to haul it open. Inside, the air was thick with dust and the smell of incense. She could hear music playing in another room, something with strings. A cello, maybe, or a violin. Funny, she had no memory of anyone arranging for a cellist or a violinist to play at her wedding.

“Hello?” she called, turning in place. Her footsteps were impossibly loud, and her voice echoed off the stone walls, but that was okay, she wanted to be heard. “Charles—”

The church door thudded heavily behind her, drowning her out.

“Can I help you?” came a voice. Dorothy spun in place, heart hammering as her eyes landed on the petite, impeccably dressed older woman who was just descending the stone staircase.

And now Dorothy pressed her teeth together so tightly that her jaw began to ache. The woman had thick dark hair piled on top of her head in an intricate-looking bun and she studied Dorothy with her head slightly tilted, her black eyes narrowed in confusion.

“I’m terribly sorry, but this is a closed service.” She spoke in the sort of coldly polite voice someone might use with an annoying, distant relative. She gestured toward the door. “I’m going to have to ask you to—”

“Mother,” Dorothy interrupted, nearly choking on the word. Her mouth felt dry and sticky. She wet her lips and added, attempting a smile, “Don’t you recognize me?”

The woman turned her body toward Dorothy and looked at her fully, starting to speak before she registered what she was seeing. “I do not wish to call the authorities, miss, but you see, this is . . .”

She blinked, trailing off. The skin between her brows pinched together. “What . . .”

She took a step closer to Dorothy, her eyes narrowing even further. Her thin lips parted, but she did not speak. For a long, terrible moment, there was only silence.

Dorothy sucked a breath in through her teeth and allowed herself to be scrutinized. She tried to imagine how she must look right now, with her white hair and scarred face, the dirt and blood smudged across her skin, her trousers.

Her mother finally released a huff of air through her lips and said only, “I—I don’t understand.”

How could you? Dorothy thought. But she didn’t say that out loud. Her mother deserved an explanation, but she couldn’t think of where she might even begin. With her hair? Her scar? The fact that time travel was real?

And that was if she had time to get into any of this, which she most certainly did not.

“Mother,” Dorothy said, as calmly as she could manage, “I know this must be a terrible shock for you, but I’m afraid there’s no time to explain what’s going on. I need to find Charles at once.”

“Charles,” her mother repeated, looking dazed. She shook her head, half turning back toward the staircase. “I just saw—”

“Charles, Mother,” Dorothy cut in, frustrated now. “Where is he?”

But her mother didn’t seem to be in contact with the part of her brain capable of answering that question just now. She opened her mouth and closed it again, the lines on her forehead deepening.

Dorothy pinched her nose between two fingers. Think, she told herself. It was only a few minutes before the wedding. She was meant to be upstairs, sitting very still in her dressing room, so as not to mess up her hair or her dress as she waited for the bridal party to come fetch her.

So Charles would be . . .

Dorothy lifted her head, finding her gaze drawn down a short hallway that ended in a pair of heavy doors. Those doors led to the chapel, she knew. They’d been open while the guests were arriving, but they were closed now, which could only mean that all the guests were already here. And if the guests were all here, then Avery was . . .

Oh no, Dorothy thought, understanding crashing over her. Avery was standing at the front of the chapel next to a bleeding priest, with his entire family and all his friends seated in the pews before him. She felt her heart thrumming inside her chest and, for a moment, she thought she might be sick. If she was going to convince him to help Ash, she’d first have to walk down the aisle and fetch him. How horribly ironic.

Her mother suddenly grabbed her by the wrist. “Miss, I don’t know what sort of game you’re playing, but if you don’t leave at once, I’m afraid that I’ll have to call the authorities.”

“Oh please, Mother, you and I both know that you’ll do no such thing.” Dorothy twisted her hand out of her mother’s grip. “You have a rap sheet longer than my arm. You don’t want the police showing up any more than I do.”

“But, how did . . .” Loretta was clearly trying to sound calm, but her breath caught, making her voice hitch. Her gaze was on Dorothy’s face again, and she seemed to be having some internal struggle with herself over what she was seeing.

She muttered, under her breath, “This just isn’t possible.”

Dorothy took a step toward the chapel. Loretta shifted in front of her, blocking her path, and Dorothy said, with an exasperated sigh, “Mother, please—”

“Stop calling me that,” Loretta snapped.

“Then, please, just get out of my way.” Dorothy sidestepped her mother and hurried forward, throwing the chapel doors open. Music swelled, not just violins and cellos but a full string quartet.

How lovely, Dorothy thought. Avery certainly went all out.

And then the music was drowned out by the sound of wood creaking and bodies shifting as seventy-five people swiveled around in their seats to stare at her.

22Ash

And, sometimes, the pain faded for longer stretches, leaving Ash alone in the nothingness.

Or, not so much nothingness as darkness. Like night layered over more night layered over even more night and on and on forever.

And then, after what seemed like a very long time . . . something that wasn’t darkness. The black looked different, somehow.