Page 19 of Until the Stars Fall

Hannah dove right in, grabbing things and smelling them.

“How about you shop for what you want? No spells or anything on them. Just good smells and pretty colors.” She left me and Hannah to peruse and went back to put the bundled leaves away.

I surveyed the selection, a myriad of colors and shapes, some even stacked in colors visible through their glass jars. A little yellow one in a baby food jar drew my attention first. It was sharp and citrusy, like a popsicle on a summer day.

“Ooh smell this one,” Hannah said, holding a purple one under my nose that smelled of lavender and some sort of woodsy note.

We took candle after candle from the shelf, sniffing them, replacing them. A blue candle in a painted flowered jar caught my eye. I lifted it from the shelf and inhaled. It reminded me of a yoga studio I used to go to, when I first got to San Francisco, that always smelled so peaceful. It brought to mind a brave, happy memory of starting over.

“I’ll take this one if you’re sure you can spare it.”

Zola put down the bandage she’d been wrapping and cocked her head. “Now you see? Your amygdala knows what you need. The blue ones are excellent: frankincense for peace, myrrh for clarity, and palo santo—sustainably harvested by Summer’s extended family in Ecuador and included with her blessing—helps you heal from emotional pain.”

I inhaled it again, and I felt a soft peace settle onto my shoulders like a cozy shawl.

“Those sound like just what I need. Thanks, Zola.”

“Anytime.”

CHAPTER SIX

A week after takeoff, my headache was nearly gone, and I’d finished organizing the box of papers according to spell. I was even almost finished copying them over into my notebook, leaving spaces for the components that weren’t in the box or that I couldn’t divine by looking at the physical spells themselves.

The ship was running smoothly, and the smile-less man and I were minding our own business, both in and out of the engine room. He hadn’t mentioned my magic since the day I’d asked him to get the model number off the evaporator. And even though he held the secret of my magic in his hands, he wasn’t holding it over me. He was quick to offer help if he saw me struggling, and once or twice he walked past me to drop just the tool I needed on my worktable.

Was I starting to see him less as an adversary and maybe more as a potential ally? My head said I should avoid him because of what he knew, but I was drawn to him. I couldn’t deny that my magic quieted when he was near. His presence calmed me, and his offer grew more tempting with every day that passed.

Even though the past week had been uneventful, and it was easier to contain my magic when life was even-keeled, the pressure of it built deep in my bones. During the day I kept my mind busy enough to quell my magic’s siren song. But almost every night I’d wake up sweating from a nightmare that I’d blasted a hole in the side of the ship or wrecked the engine room, spiraling all of us into the abyss of space. I’d wake up with my magic practically crawling out of my skin, with such an unbearable restlessness that I’d throw my running shoes on and do laps around level B1 where I didn’t think I’d disturb anyone.

I didn’t know what haunted Beck, but on my middle-of-the-night runs I’d often see him through the window of the ship’s gym, lifting weights or bare chested on the salmon ladder. I’m not too proud to admit that I went past the gym twice that night.

Sitting at the drafting table this morning, I almost felt as if things were normal, and that I wasn’t hurtling through space on a deathtrap with barely contained, destructive magic in my body. This pressure spell had taken me days to transcribe and pull together, but I almost had the whole thing written down—

An alarm blared, and Beck sprinted past me to an open terminal on the wall, typing and tapping his way through the ship’s systems.

I pushed my chair out and jogged up to him. “What’s wrong?”

“Feed system on the antimatter drive.” He slammed the terminal shut. “Help me?”

I shut the drive down, and he started taking apart the feed assembly.

“Here.” He passed me an old rag and held another beneath the panel, pulling it open. When he pulled a gasket out, sludgy gunk and oil glopped out onto the floor. “Damn filter must be busted. I hope we have another one.”

“I saw a screen filter in a box earlier,” I said, sprinting down to the work area. I hunted through boxes and shelves, grabbed the filter, and ran back.

He was already cleaning off the second gasket, so I pulled the pieces of the old filter out, the slimy mess getting all over my hands. Lucky I’d worn leggings and a T-shirt today instead of something nice. After cleaning out the assembly the best I could, I slid the new filter in.

“It isn’t quite right, but it’s better than nothing,” I said. “We’ll just have to remember to clean it out every few days.”

“Whatever works. We can figure out a spell backup for the filter if we need it.”

“We won’t need it,” I said firmly, hastily wiping my hands off on a rag and switching the alarm off on the panel.

He closed up the assembly, locking each of the two closures with a zipdriver. “That ought to do it. Fire it up.”

I reset the parameters and switched the drive back on. He stood back, his hands and shirt covered in gunk, and I held my breath.

The drive lumbered back into play, whirring smoothly. Beck breathed out heavily. “Bam,” he said, sticking his fist out at me.

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