Starcrossed - By Josephine Angelini Page 0,164
tiredly and meeting her father’s eyes.
“I’ve been through this before, you know,” Jerry said quietly. “I’ve spent a lot of nights waiting right here on this couch for someone to come home. And she never did. I won’t do it anymore, Helen.”
“Good,” Helen said, seeing a spark in her father that she had never seen before. “I don’t want you to waste one more second of your life waiting for anyone. Not even me. My life is crazy right now and I can’t promise that I’ll never disappear again, but I can promise that I will always come back to you. I’m not going to leave you, Dad. Ever.”
“I know you won’t,” he said as if he was just realizing that it was true. He took a deep breath and sat quietly for a moment, thinking. “Well, I always knew you were different, and I also knew that someday you were going to realize it. That’s all the explanation I’m going to get out of you right now, isn’t it?”
“For now.” Helen said smiling warmly at what had to be the best father ever.
“Would it do any good to ground you?” he asked with a humorous glint in his eyes as he stood up and stretched.
“Probably not,” Helen laughed.
She stood up and gave her father a hug. He hugged her back with more than forgiveness. He hugged her to let her know he accepted her exactly as she was—sleepless nights and all. As they walked to the stairs together a happy thought occurred to Helen.
“You’re going to bed?” she asked, glancing over at him with a sly look in her eyes. He nodded. “I saw Kate’s car outside. Is she in your room?”
“She is,” he said with narrowed eyes and pursed lips. “That’s why I was on the couch.”
“You’re not on the couch anymore,” Helen observed innocently. Jerry paused at his bedroom door and turned to face her.
“Are you going to be okay with this?” he asked seriously.
Helen knew that if she said it bothered her he would turn right around and spend the rest of the night alone.
“Dad. I’ve never been more okay with anything in my life,” Helen said honestly. She went into her room and closed the door firmly behind her to let him know that she was going to give him some privacy.
Helen heard her dad wake Kate up and let her know that everything was okay, and then turned to tear up the note she had left on her desk. She flew out her window to meet Lucas on the widow’s walk.
“Did you hear all that?” she asked when she saw the sympathetic look on his face.
“Does it bother you?” He took the sleeping bag from the chest and spread it out for both of them to sit on.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I would have told you, anyway. Somehow, it’s like whatever I’m going through hasn’t happened to me until you know about it.”
“I know what you mean,” he whispered.
They sat down next to each other on the edge of the widow’s walk, their thighs threaded between the bars of the railing and their feet dangling off the side of the house.
“It’s Monday. We’ve got school in a few hours,” Helen said. “I suppose if we all stayed home it would look suspicious, huh?”
“Very suspicious,” Lucas replied. “Besides, you’re safer in a public place. The Hundred won’t attack you in front of human witnesses.”
“And what about you?” Helen asked, looking at her hands. “Are the Hundred going to come after you and your family now?”
“I don’t know,” Lucas replied with a tired shake of his head. “But whatever they do, they know that if they kill one of their own kin they’ll become Outcasts, and the more Outcasts there are, the farther they are from attaining Atlantis. I think they’ll focus their energy on Daphne and Hector. And you.”
Helen nodded, and debated whether or not she should keep asking questions.
“And tomorrow—what should I say about Hector if anyone asks? Or Pandora?” Helen asked gently, knowing that every time she said their names it hurt Lucas a little more.
“Pandora went back to Europe to study art in Paris,” Lucas said in a hushed tone. “And Hector is home with a nasty case of the flu for the next few days until we can coordinate a plan with your mother.”
“I don’t trust my mother,” Helen said as she stared out at the rising sun.
“Neither does Cassandra,” Lucas replied without looking over at her. “She thinks Daphne is hiding something.”
“Do you think my mother is dangerous?” Helen asked. She turned to Lucas with worried eyes.
“I think she’s entirely committed to freeing the Rogues and the Outcasts,” he answered, choosing his words carefully. “As long as we remember that, I don’t think there’s any reason not to trust her. She hasn’t lied.”
Helen nodded, accepting Lucas’s interpretation. “I’ve got too much baggage to think rationally about my mother.”
“That’s the funny thing about being a Scion,” Lucas said, smiling in the petal-colored air of the chilly dawn. “Our fights tear the whole world apart, but for us, they’re really just family feuds. And no one ever acts rationally when it comes to their family.”
Helen smiled back at him, struck yet again by how perceptive he was. Then she caught herself, and remembered how important it was to keep her distance from him. She turned her face away and forced herself to stand.
“Are you going to be okay?” she asked him. He didn’t answer, but just smiled up her and nodded before turning his face back to the horizon.
“Good morning, Lucas,” she said, her voice soft and sad as she walked away.
“Good morning, Helen,” he replied, not allowing himself to turn and look at her as she left him.
Helen, beloved of the goddess of love, went downstairs to crawl into her empty bed as Lucas, the son of the sun, leaned back on his elbows and watched his father-god brighten the bare wooden planks of her widow’s walk.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Robyn Shwer, my dear friend and guardian angel, for giving me over a decade of her big hugs and unswerving faith. A million thanks to my manager, Rachel Miller, who probably deserves some kind of medal for champion handholding, as does her partner, Jesse Hara. I’d also like to thank my fantastic agent, Mollie Glick, as well as Hannah Gordon and the rest of the Foundry gang for their guidance; Tara “the Dope Show” Kole; my editor Laura Arnold; and every one at HarperTeen for helping me make my story better and better with every rewrite. Special thanks go to Dr. Rey “Cookie” Perez, Stephanie Aoki, and Liz York for all their support. A special shout-out to the termites in my desk—bon appétit, bitches! Finally, all my love and gratitude go to my husband, Juan Alberto, and my big, crazy, beautiful family.
About the Author
JOSEPHINE ANGELINI is a Massachusetts native and the youngest of eight siblings. A real-live farmer’s daughter, Josie graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in theater, with a focus on the classics. She now lives in Los Angeles with her screenwriter husband . . . and she can still drive a tractor.
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Credits
Jacket photo © 2011 by Lara Jade Photography
Jacket design by Hilary Zarycky and
Erin Fitzsimmons
Copyright
Starcrossed
Copyright © 2011 by Josephine Angelini
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Angelini, Josephine.
Starcrossed / by Josephine Angelini. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: When shy sixteen-year-old Helen Hamilton starts having vivid dreams about three ancient, hideous women and suddenly tries to kill a new student at her Nantucket high school, she discovers that she is playing out some version of an old tale involving Helen of Troy, the Three Furies, and a mythic battle.
ISBN 978-0-06-201199-2
[1. Supernatural—Fiction. 2. Mythology, Greek—Fiction.
3. Nantucket Island (Mass.)—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.A58239St 2011
[Fic]—dc22
2010040425
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EPub Edition © 2011 ISBN: 9780062080165
Typography by Erin Fitzsimmons
11 12 13 14 15 LP/RRDB 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First Edition
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher