“Where have you been?” my brother said.
“Oh, here and there,” Chris said. “Trying to sort some things. You know how this world can be. One minute you’ve got it all figured out, the next you feel all wrong.”
He craned his neck to the sky and sighed. And now? my brother said. What was Chris up to now?
“Just looking at the stars, my man. I like to come out when it’s clear like this, check out the constellations. Look.” He put his arm around my brother and pointed at the sky. “There’s the Little Dipper. Ursa Major. There’s Orion. And look at that, he’s doing the Gainer.”
Chris laughed a little, but his laugh sounded fake too. I looked at the stars, but couldn’t see any of the things he pointed to.
“I’m just kidding,” Chris said. “But did you know that Orion is the Hunter? He was a famous hunter who got stung by a scorpion … like this!” Chris turned his hand into a stinger and stung the back of my brother’s neck. “And he died. But the gods really liked him, so they brought him and the scorpion up to the sky. See, there’s Scorpio.” He drew another line with his fingers.
“That’s cool,” my brother said. “What else is out there?”
“Well … oh, I know. You’ll like this.” He tilted his head into my brother’s, so their faces were nearly touching, their eyes set on the same spot. “You can’t see them this time of the year, but to the right of Orion there are two super-big stars. Brothers.” He planted two fingers in the sky, where the brothers should have been. “See? Those are their heads. And you can’t tell, but they’re always holding hands. Playing, having a good time. Always by each other’s side.”
He wiggled his fingers in the sky, made the brothers jump around.
“What are their names?” my brother said.
“Hmm,” Chris said. “Good question. I forget.”
“Is Orion their dad?”
Chris shook his head. “No. It’s just the brothers. No stupid parents around, telling you what to do, where to go. Isn’t that nice?”
Chris dropped his fingers and leaned back on his hands, and the three of us sat there like that, staring at the stars. I tried to make figures of my own out of the brightest dots, and stories to go with their shapes. Here was my mother, broke down by the van. Here was my father, fired by the Chief. Here was Rick. Here was Sandy. Here was Chris. I picked a star for everyone I knew.
“The cool thing,” Chris said, “is that the stars are the same everywhere you go. That’s what I like. No matter how you feel, no matter if you’re up or down, they won’t change.”
How many things can you say that about? he said. He lay flat on the concrete, his hands resting behind his head. My brother and I did the same, until all we could see was the vast night, a blanket of black pocked with white.
“Chris,” my brother said. “Are you OK?”
“Oh sure, Sir Knight. Sure I am. It’s just…” His words trailed off. “Never mind.”
A wisp of a cloud drifted into frame, pushed by a wind I couldn’t feel. A few minutes passed and more wisps moved in, covering up the brother stars, tucking them in.
“See, that’s the thing,” Chris said. “The stars don’t change, but you can’t say the same about the world around them.” He sat up quickly, as if struck by lightning, or some brilliant idea. “But,” he said, “there are certain places clouds never touch. Places that … that … Why, in my travels, I’ve witnessed constellations few have ever seen.”
He ran his hand across the sky, like a magician preparing his audience for the trick’s final reveal. When he spoke again, he spoke like a shiny knight, not some sorcerer, and all his gloom had disappeared.
“I wonder,” Chris said, “if these wonders interest any of you. I wonder — who amongst you is daring enough to face the most dastardly dangers? Who will look fear in the face and say, Not today, fiend, new worlds await.” His hand dropped and he leaned back on his elbows, his voice crouching into a whisper. “Only the bravest will I lead, only the strongest of hearts may endure what is in store. Ask yourself, is that me? Am I ready to follow Chris to the ends of the earth? Am I ready to give my life, if asked? Weigh these questions heavily, dear friends, and do not reply until your soul is firmly resolved.”
My brother was the first to stand up. “I am,” he said. “I’m ready, Sir Chris.”
“Bravo!” Chris said, abandoning his whisper. “But wait: Are you certain? Think long and hard. After all, you’re not just going someplace new, you’re leaving behind the old. You’re abandoning the familiar for the strange. All your friends, all your valuables. Is that what you want?”
I looked at my brother, his weighing face. I thought of the list of valuables I made weeks ago, the treasured possessions I never wanted my mom to hock. I thought of the ones she’d already taken, the ones I’d crossed off the list and were gone forever.
“I have no more valuables,” my brother said.
“Ah,” Chris said. “I see. But what about your stableboy? Who will look after him, make sure he doesn’t stray from his duties? Or worse yet, that he doesn’t tell the world our secret whereabouts.”
“He won’t,” my brother said. “He’s sworn an oath of his own, haven’t you?”
I didn’t answer. I stared at the water, neon in the light. I wished it really were magical, some sort of potion or elixir, something that would give me the strength to do what I knew was right.
“Hey, stableboy,” my brother said, “your knight is talking to you.” He nudged me in the ribs with his foot. “You won’t betray me again, will you?”
“No,” I said. “I won’t tell.”
Good, my brother said. He said otherwise it would be off with my head. And in case I didn’t know what that meant, he ran his finger across his throat: Svvvt!
“Then it’s settled,” Chris said, and he stood up to shake my brother’s hand. “Now you better get back to your castle, before the queen realizes you’re missing.”
My brother agreed, and I started toward the gate, but Chris called my brother back to him. He said hold on, he forgot to tell my brother something. He waved him close and said something louder than a whisper, but I couldn’t hear it over the pool’s cleaning pump, which had kicked on. My brother nodded to whatever Chris said, and Chris high-fived him and for a moment held on to his hand, swinging it by his side.
eleven
STORMS CAME AND WENT, threatened with rain and hail. Tornadoes dodged north and south of our city, biding their time, and we didn’t see Chris, though every night I looked for him. We camped out in the living room and I lay facing the sliding glass door, waiting for Chris to climb in and finish the story. There were moments when I allowed myself to wonder if he and the Stranger were the same person. Chris snuck in and dragged his loved one out of her house, killed her in front of a camera, for the whole world to watch. This seemed beyond Chris, what he was capable of, but I couldn’t stop myself from imagining them. Too many movies, any adult would say. Now go back to bed. Now shut your eyes.
During the day I busied myself hunting roaches. I did not tell my brother this, but I called myself Orion, only instead of scorpions it was something less scary. And instead of killing them, I used the old coffee can as a temporary holding cell. This time, however, I didn’t show them to my brother. I kept my collection to myself, and released the roaches into the woods alone, waiting until my brother had completed his push-up circuit and was in the shower, rinsing off his sweat.