We had a long list of ideas for Kestrel, but nothing we wrote down seemed to fit. One morning, a man stopped by and said he’d noticed my feeder and the little lark sitting on the ledge. He was from the Audubon society and asked if he could wait in the yard and take pictures. Your dad was ready to run him off,” she laughed. “He thought the man was a burglar. But his eyes were kind and he had an enormous camera. Beyond that, he wore a beret. Burglars do not wear berets,” she said adamantly. “So I told him he was welcome to photograph the birds in the yard. When I came home that evening from work, he was gone, but he stopped by a few weeks later to show me some of the pictures and bring me a special print. In it, a kestrel was swooping down toward the feeder when the lark caught sight of him and rose, puffing her tiny chest out. She looked like she would tear him to shreds if he bothered her food. In that moment I knew… that was what your names had to be.”
It seemed fitting. Kestrel and I had always seemed like opponents, even if I didn’t understand why.
“Thanks for telling me that, Mom.”
“Well, I know I don’t need to give you advice on how to handle yourself, but if you ever see that Libra bitch again, you should grab her and fly as high as you can and drop her.”
My mouth gaped. “Language!” I laughed, playfully chastising her.
Mom shrugged. “It’s just my two cents.”
I didn’t know how Kestrel’s grave became a meeting place, but I was glad it was. It may have seemed morbid to others, but he was the hinge that connected our family. So many people, once dead, were forgotten. We would never forget Kestrel. We would see his grave often, and remember.
When they heard our footsteps on the grass, Dad and Kes turned around.
They both looked handsome in black suits with crisp white shirts and black bowties. Dad couldn’t tear his eyes off Mom, which made her blush like a schoolgirl. I imagined him with cartoonish, bulging heart eyes and a tongue that unfurled like a red carpet.
Kes held his elbow out for Mom. She took it, still staring at Dad as I offered him my arm. “It’s the other way around,” he corrected, holding his elbow out for me.
I threaded my arm through it and laid my head on his shoulder for a second, thankful beyond words for them. My family didn’t treat me differently. They weren’t afraid. They accepted the changes in me as part of the package and went on like they didn’t exist.
“Ready?” Kes asked.
I nodded, seeking the cord that felt like gold, and pulled us to Aquarius. We appeared in the entrance to a grand ballroom with a ceiling painted like a star-studded sky, bracketed by trees that boasted gilded leaves. The walls were gold filigree, while the floors were solid gold tiles. The room was filled with women draped in gold with gold leaf applied to their hands and arms like gloves. Some had even added golden glitter to their hair and shimmer to their skin.
Aquarius rose from his seat at the head of a table situated across the room on a raised dais. On each side of the room, two twin streams flowed from the dais, each bisected by small, golden bridges that arched across the stream. We crossed over one of the bridges and stepped into the room.
The musicians stopped playing their soft strains and every eye turned from Aquarius to us.
“Larken,” he greeted. Then he balled his fist and banged his chest. I let go of my father and prepared to greet him the same way, when Scorpio entered the room and approached us. His obsidian body was like a shadow amongst the sunny décor. He banged his fist on his chest as Capricorn appeared beside him. She approached, rearing her head back like she was going to head-butt me, but landed the softest brush of her forehead against mine. She pounded her chest once before stepping away to reveal Aries, resplendent in a tunic of midnight blue, with my star sign threaded across his chest.
His breath hitched when his eyes raked over the blood-like slashes over my eyes. Then his fingers stretched out and curled in on themselves again. The muscle in his jaw began to tick. Suddenly, I didn’t care who was in the