The Girl Who Read the Stars by Skylar Dorset

Author:Skylar Dorset
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy, Young Adult, Fairies, Paranormal, Short Stories
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2014-10-15T18:55:24+00:00

CHAPTER 12

I don’t know why the bells should fill me with such immediate terror, but they do. “Get them out,” I say to Trow immediately.

“What?” asks Trow, a question that’s echoed by the older girls.

“Get all of them out,” I say. “Now.” And I give him a little shove to get him moving.

Trow gestures, and babies are grabbed and stuck into arms and everyone scurries out of the room, toward the front of the apartment. I assume there is another exit that way, which is good, so I throw open the back door and recklessly fling myself out onto the staircase.

Which puts me immediately face-to-face with…creatures I have never seen before. I can’t describe them. They look like humans. But I know unerringly that they’re not. They are taller than humans, lithe and slender, and they are all very pale, with white-blond hair and eyes that have no color to them. They look astonished to see me, just as astonished as I am to see them.

My instinct is apparently to turn into some kind of wry spy chick, like in a movie. “Hi,” I say like this is perfectly normal and we’re all going to chat.

And then my brain catches up and says, What the hell are you doing, idiot? and I leap backward into the apartment, slamming the door shut and reaching out to turn the deadbolt. Oh, good, I tell myself hysterically. That’ll definitely keep whatever those things are out. Good job.

I turn and run as the bells seem to knock right up against the door, just as Trow appears in the kitchen doorway.

“Merrow, what—” he begins.

I grab his hand as I rush past him. “Let’s go,” I say, tugging him, and then suddenly we are flying through the air.

Not in a good way.

I scramble for the ground. You know what’s not awesome? Losing gravity. Gravity really is one of those things you don’t appreciate until it’s gone.

I dimly register that Trow is thrown against the wall. I am not so lucky. I go straight through the window, splintering glass all around me, and then I wheel desperately, clutching for the windowsill before there’s no hope left and I go plummeting to the ground and die.

Trow suddenly leans over the windowsill, grabbing my hand at the very last second.

I stare up at him, wide-eyed, and he starts to pull me up and gets me halfway over the windowsill before he’s flung backward again. The creatures are in the room—they’re in the room—and Trow, having somersaulted into the far wall, has cracked his head against the mirror there. The mirror breaks, and it’s smeared with blood when Trow slides down to sit on the floor.

The creatures move fast. One is on Trow before I can blink, and the others seem to be flooding out the apartment’s front entrance after Trow’s sisters.

I do the only thing I can think of to do, since no one seems to be paying attention to me. I finish clawing my way into the apartment,

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