The Star-Fire Prophecy Read online

  The other girl was in the kitchen. “Hi,” Danica said. “I guess we’re going to be housemates. Do you mind?”

  Lydia’s blue eyes flashed at her. “No. It’s lonesome out here, I’m glad to have you in the house with me. But—are you sure?”

  “Galt—Mr. Anders—said so.”

  “Oh, we all call him Galt. Well, then you’re in. Good.”

  “Thanks. But did you think I might not stay?” Lydia glanced around as though afraid of being overheard. None of the children were in the kitchen, except Maxwell under the table.

  “Last night she told Evan he had no business asking you here. Dave overheard them talking and told me.” Lydia’s voice was a half whisper.

  “Who was talking?”

  “Melantha and Evan. She told him she’d make sure you didn’t stay.”

  Chapter Six

  After lunch, Danica watched Evan with his group of children. He made a game of the energy transmission, moving with confidence among the children, sure of their reactions. They obviously trusted him. He drew her into the game by forming a circle where everyone held hands. “Cosmic Father,” he said to her, and pointed to a picture hanging on the wall of a gold crown.

  “This is the picture,” he told the children. “Now we join hands and close our eyes and think about the picture.”

  “Hands first.”

  “Eyes closed? Come on there, Jodie, shut yours tight. That’s the girl.”

  “Now remember the picture inside your head. The gold crown with all the points, the seven points.”

  Danica shut her own eyes, gathering awareness.

  “One,” Evan chanted and the children joined in. “One, one, one…”

  Over and over, Danica chanted, too, thinking the golden stream of energy through her hands into those of the children she held, imagining Evan doing the same, their energies flowing toward each other, through the children.

  Slowly she found herself moving counterclockwise, the entire circle moving. “Widdershins,” her instructor at the university had said. “The ancient witch cult called it widdershins, this movement against the sun, the undoing movement. All the old religions knew something of the energy.”

  After a time the movement slowed, stopped.

  “Two,” Evan intoned, changing the chant. “Two, two…”

  All the voices followed his lead, then they began moving again, now deasil, with the sun. Clockwise, the way of bringing energy in.

  Later three was chanted while they all sat on the floor, still in a circle, but with hands over the solar plexus, left hand under, right hand on top. All eyes were open now and Danica was surprised how many of the seven children knew their right from their left hand.

  Four, five, six, and seven each involved a different position, mostly ones Danica recognized from her own instruction.

  Then Evan said, “Okay. Very good. Now what?”

  “Color,” a child said. “Color now.”

  Then all the children were on their feet talking, surrounding Evan. The girl he’d called Jodie turned back and caught at Danica’s hand. “You color,” she said, the words blurred but intelligible. “Lady color.”

  “You’re Jodie, aren’t you?”

  The girl’s face brightened into a wide smile. “Jodie,” she said.

  “My name is Danica.”

  Jody looked at her, mouth open.

  “You may call me Danny. Danny—you can say that name.”

  “Danny,” Jodie said quite clearly, then grinned again. “Danny,” she repeated jumping up and down. “Danny, Danny.”

  Danica helped Evan hand out the crayons, kept locked because some of the children liked to eat them. Everyone was given a gold crayon with the picture of a crown to color.

  “Does Amy enter into these groups?” Danica asked when the children were busy coloring.

  “Not yet,” he said. “Melantha tries to work with her individually, but Amy’s progress has been slow.”

  Danica had a quick vision of the little girl swooped up into Melantha’s dark cloak. “I’d like to work with Amy,” she said. “Do you think anyone would mind?”

  Evan shrugged. “Ask Melantha,” he said. Not Galt? she wondered. Galt had told her he’d see she worked with Amy. Would it be that simple, or was there a permanent power struggle between Melantha and Galt?

  Danica looked sideways at Evan, remembering Lydia’s words at lunch. “What’s Melantha like?” she asked.

  “She’s extremely talented,” Evan said. “An unbelievable person. Much of the success of Star-Fire is due to her. She has a feel for what will work with each individual child. And many of these game-like lessons were her idea.” He paused, then went on. “Being a show-off Gemini, I have to confess the one we just did was my own invention.”

  Danica smiled at him. “I had fun playing it and the children obviously love it. And they love you, too.”

  His smile turned mocking. “You’re forgetting the jargon. We relate well to one another. Love’s too imprecise a word.”

  “They love you,” she repeated stubbornly.

  His aquamarine eyes slid away from hers. I’ve made him uncomfortable, she thought. Is he embarrassed by love?

  “This is the last lesson for today,” he said. “I’m planning to take my group outside to play catch when they tire of coloring. You’re welcome to join us.”

  Danica felt this was a dismissal. “I think I’ll look in on Lydia,” she said.

  “I’d like to talk to you later this evening,” he said. “Maybe you could come by after the children are in bed?”

  “Maybe,” she said. “I don’t know what Lydia has planned.”

  I won’t be hasty, she reminded herself silently. She let herself out of Evan’s house and took a deep breath of the clear, crisp air. She liked the foothill country. There had been hills around Santa Barbara where she’d grown up, hills closing off the city from the east and north, the ocean to the west and Los Angeles to the south. Here the Sierras stood between her and the eastern desert, the Tehachapi Mountains to the south and the flat bed of the San Joaquin Valley to the north and west.

  The Sierras were snow peaked already; perhaps the crispness of the air came from that not-so-distant snow. A bird circled in the sky far above her head. A hawk, she thought. Almost beneath her feet a ground squirrel popped his head out of a burrow, then scampered across the path and up the hill to disappear into the bushes.

  “That’s right,” she said aloud. “Stay hidden.”

  “Who are you talking to?” Galt’s voice came from behind her. She whirled around.

  “No one. That is, well, this ground squirrel,” she said.

  “They don’t need advice to stay hidden,” he said. “They’re very crafty little animals. Fast, too. A wonder they ever get caught.”

  “There’s a hawk up there,” Danica said, pointing.

  Galt watched the bird for several minutes. “Hawks are magnificent fliers,” he said. “And eagles—have you ever seen an eagle in flight?”

  “No.”

  “There are some left in the mountains. Golden eagles, a rarity now.”

  She nodded and smiled, thinking she didn’t care to see a golden eagle. Magnificent maybe, but pitiless—a killer by nature.

  “How do you like Star-Fire so far?”

  “The children respond so happily. That’s quite an accomplishment. Evan’s group really enjoys being with him. I hope I’ll be able to do half as well.”

  He smiled, but Danica thought the smile was forced.

  “You do want me here?” she asked directly.

  “You are a forthright Sagittarius,” he said. “I haven’t changed my mind about you, but I would like to talk to you.” He glanced around. “Do you ride?”

  “Horses? Yes, some.”

  “Then we’ll take a horseback ride into the hills.” He looked her up and down. “You ought to be able to go as you are.”

  The horses were kept behind the hill in a corral shaded by oaks.

 
; “Who looks after them?” she asked.

  “Usually Dave. We all try to pitch in, but I’m afraid Dave does most of the work.”

  “I haven’t met him yet.”

  “We’re having a staff meeting soon; you’ll meet everyone then. You’ll like Dave—he claims he’s a frustrated cowboy. He’s taught most of the children to ride.”

  “That’s remarkable.”

  “They haven’t much fear and they love animals.”

  “Amy’s afraid,” Danica said.

  Galt frowned. They had reached the corral and he busied himself with saddling two horses and didn’t speak again until they were both atop their mounts.

  “That’s why you’re staying here,” he said. “Amy.”

  Danica tugged on the reins, convincing her horse that she knew what she was doing so that he settled down to accept her. When she had him in line she urged him up to where Galt waited.

  “Do you mean you wouldn’t hire me otherwise?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I dislike interfering with Melantha. She has these intuitive feelings that are right more often than not.”

  “Then you think she’s right about me: I’m a danger to Star-Fire?”

  He was silent, then urged his horse forward. Danica followed.

  “Not a danger,” he told her when she came even with him. “But anything that disturbs the harmony of the group as a whole affects the children. Melantha knows this and she has agreed to accept you.” He sighed. “She says she has an inseeing about you.”

  “Inseeing?”

  “She calls it that. When you came into her house and sat with her there, she foresaw death and destruction by fire.”

  “Of Star-Fire?”

  “She doesn’t know. But she says it surrounds you like an aura.”

  “Do you believe…?”

  “In what Melantha sees in this way?” Galt paused. “Yes and no. I think she sees something, or senses something. I don’t know if I agree with her interpretations of these inseeings. I can’t imagine you as a danger, for example. And then there’s Amy. She hasn’t been successful with Amy. Melantha refuses to admit it, but the child’s worse than when she first arrived.”

  “You do plan to have me work with Amy, then?”

  “Starting tomorrow. Eventually I may have her live in your house, but I’d like to come to that gradually. Melantha is very attached to Amy.”

  “And Amy?”

  Galt shrugged. “I don’t know. I think she trusts me a little. She comes to my house voluntarily, though she hides from me while she’s there. As I told you, she’s never touched any of us until you came. Of course, your red hair…” He paused, then went on. “But Amy seems no more afraid of Melantha than anyone else. I wish I knew what keeps her so fearful.”

  “Have you seen my horoscope?” Danica asked.

  “Yes. I didn’t feel it showed you were wrong for Star-Fire.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Galt laughed. “We’ll have to convert you to astrology,” he said. “I never heard such a grudging thanks.”

  “Evan told me it was a part of the Star-Fire philosophy,” Danica said. “I’ve had a minimal exposure to astrology and so I don’t understand, I suppose. The energy you use is different. I’ve seen what it can do, so I believe in it whether I understand or not.”

  “Well, since you’re a Sagittarius you have an open mind and are versatile. We should be able to show you why we use astrology and how it works to our advantage.”

  “I’m willing to learn,” she said.

  “This next year should be an important one for you.”

  “Why?”

  “Your planet is Jupiter. So you should have had at least one milestone in your life at age twelve. This month you’ll be twenty-four—twice twelve. Since Jupiter…” He stopped talking to peer closely at her. “What’s the matter?”

  “My twelfth year was unusual. You surprised me. What sign are you?”

  “Cancer.”

  “And Amy?”

  “She’s a Sagittarius, like you. Oddly enough, you two are the only ones born under that sign here at Star-Fire.”

  “Why is that unusual?”

  “With some sixty-odd of us here, the signs should be more evenly represented.”

  Shadows had begun to creep from between the hills and the mountains had changed color; they were now darkening into a purple-brown. Danica saw smoke curling up into the reddening sky. She pointed. “A ranch?”

  Galt nodded. “Our nearest neighbor.”

  Danica could feel her muscles beginning to protest. She hadn’t ridden a horse in years. She glanced at Galt, wondering when he would turn back. He was not looking at her and she studied the dark high-cheekboned face. What kind of man was he? She’d thought kind, but now she knew he was also ruthless when he wanted his way, when he believed he was right. She was here at Star-Fire because he had overruled a woman whose decisions he trusted. Certainly Melantha would never accept her easily.

  Danica looked away from Galt and stared at the darkening mountains. From the direction of the ranch she heard a dog howl. What if Melantha was right? Fire and destruction. Would her being here harm Star-Fire? She caught her breath. Amy? Dare she stay?

  “Danica.”

  She faced Galt, meeting his eyes. They seemed to reflect the last rays of the sun. “I want you here,” he said.

  She couldn’t breathe. He reached over and touched her face gently and her skin burned where his fingers had rested.

  “I’m selfish. I think you’ll be good for Amy.”

  Did he see the doubt and fear in her mind? And did he know how she felt when he touched her? She stared into his dark, slanting eyes.

  “Please stay,” he said.

  She felt she’d do anything he asked right at that moment. He didn’t have Evan’s blond handsomeness, but she could sense something between them: thin and fragile as a silk thread, but there, a bond.

  He took a deep breath, looked away, and drew up his horse. “We’d better go back,” he said. “I didn’t realize it was getting so late.”

  The sun was gone and there was a night chill to the air. She shivered. It was too late for her to go back. She was committed here to a strange, frightened child. And? She shook her head. No point in being foolishly romantic. Galt hadn’t meant anything by his touch, he was concerned about the child, wanted her here to help. Don’t build a fantasy castle on such a tenuous foundation, she warned herself. Don’t be what Melantha accuses you of being.

  A shooting star streaked across the sky, leaving a fiery trail that glowed as an afterimage in her mind. An omen?

  “November’s a good month for meteor showers,” Galt said.

  I know, she thought, I was born during one. I was born during a night of falling flame. And the fire has come to haunt me. Will it follow me here? Have I brought it already? Amy—please don’t let me hurt Amy.

  “Did you make a wish?” Galt asked.

  “Wish?”

  “On the falling star.”

  Chapter Seven

  Danica hurried into the house. Lydia and the children were cleaning up the kitchen.

  “Oh, Lydia,” Danica said, “I haven’t been much help, have I? I’m sorry, but we were horseback riding, and Galt…”

  “You were out with Galt?” Lydia turned from the sink. “Wow.”

  “He was just showing me around.”

  “You’re the first one, then. He didn’t take any of the rest of us horseback riding our first day here.” A pleased expression spread over Lydia’s face. “Melantha didn’t foresee that, I’ll bet. She must be furious.”

  “Melantha?”

  “Yeah. No wonder she wanted to get rid of you. Competition.”

  Did that explain Melantha’s dislike of her?

  “She and Galt are sort of a thing. None of the rest of us goes into his house without knocking. And she’s very possessive.” Lydia eyed Danica speculatively. “You wouldn’t be the first girl she�
�s gotten rid of.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re the first pretty girl that’s been hired here since I came. There’ve been applicants—but with Melantha as the entire personnel department…”

  “You’re certainly attractive enough, Lydia.”

  “Oh, I know I’m okay, but I’m really not outstanding. Neither are any of the other women here. Except Melantha. And now you. Of course, there was Colleen Connelly. She used to have this house and I shared it with her when I came. Real Irish-type beauty, freckles and all.”

  “But she left?”

  “Melantha accused her of mistreating one of the children.”

  “Oh no. Was it true?”

  Lydia frowned. “I never did make up my mind. It looked like Colleen had done what Melantha said—slapped the kid, locked him in a dark room. And he was scared to death of Colleen. But…” Lydia paused and shook her head. “I just don’t know. Colleen wasn’t like that. She might yell at someone if she lost her temper, but I never saw her hit any of the kids. As for the locked room—no way. She wouldn’t have done that, ever.”

  “What reason would Melantha have for…”

  “Galt liked Colleen. She was always laughing, a happy person, and she made him laugh, too.”

  “If Colleen hadn’t abused the boy, why was she asked to leave?”

  “Galt believes Melantha. And, besides, I told you there was the kid himself. He’s changed houses since; he lives with Dave. But he used to live here and I knew him quite well. Why would he be terrified of Colleen if something hadn’t happened?”

  “Does he talk at all? Did he say anything?”

  “Just one word. Bad. ‘Bad, bad,’ he kept repeating as he clung to Melantha. He literally shrank away from Colleen. It frightened her, too. I think she was glad to leave Star-Fire.”

  Danica helped the children get ready for bed, then shared in the storytelling. Finally she and Lydia were alone in the living room.

  “Do you want to take turns with meals?” Danica asked.

  “How about switching off so we each get away from the kitchen for a day or so at a time?”