The Stars Between Us

Beneath the rubble of a ruined town, a child bride gazed up at the stars.

She wasn’t dead, but she wanted to be. She’d prayed for release ever since her parents had been deemed unsuitable and she’d been sent to live with her Uncle, who’d been planning her wedding to his forty-year-old business partner, a man named Shraga Levi.

Shraga Levi wasn’t a bad man. He promised he pay for her schooling, that she’d have stables filled with stallions, and that she’d be able to indulge in her favourite hobby – swordsmanship. He would have given her more love and affection than her Uncle had once offered. But he was expecting nine children.

Now, Minerva Edri did not mind children. She had yet to mature herself and she found babies to be both wise and hilarious. But each time she thought of that man taking her to bed, with his caramelised gut, a part of her shrivelled.

So now she lay beneath the rubble and wondered what to do.

Shraga Levi, her fiancé, was still alive. Or at least, she thought so. Her Uncle, however, was dead. Along with her parents, who’d arrived on the doorstep not two hours ago, begging her Uncle to let her leave his custody so they could flee to a place called Cornwall. Minerva had no idea where this Cornwall was, but she liked the sound of it.

“A lot of rolling fields. Big open spaces,” her Father had promised. She wasn’t entirely sure how she’d been removed from their care in the first place. Her Father was a shoemaker, while her Mother taught English at the University. But her Uncle was a Banker and he’d been friends with the Judge. It came as a surprise to no one when he won the case.  

Minerva had been ripped from her parents when she was five years old. Now, at thirteen, she lay under the stars. Her head was bleeding, but the flow was slowing. She’d broken her ankle – she could feel the bone daring to rip through her flesh. But she didn’t care. She fixed her gaze on the stars – the North Star a blister in the sky. She said nothing. Absently, she licked her lip. It was torn, but the damage would soon heal.

In the distance – her Uncle’s house was on the outskirts of the city – she could hear shouts, screams, helicopters. Glancing to the side, Minerva caught sight of her Uncle’s pale hand, protruding from beneath the fallen plasterwork. It was cold and dead, and it had curled up like a leaf. The dead man’s hand did not unnerve her. Nor did the way her bones screamed as she began to wriggle out from the bricks, the wooden beams, the granite, the marble.

No one could see her yet, so she crawled on her hands and knees to the back of the house. At the side of the road there was a rag; she wrapped it around her head, covering her face. But her eyes... Minerva sent them to the stars. And the stars stared back in kind. Why they’d saved her, why they’d decided it wasn’t her time, she didn’t know. She couldn’t begin to fathom.

With a limp, more pronounced that her husband-to-be’s, Minerva scaled the debris. The house was in ruins. Her Uncle’s three-story monstrosity was a pile of bricks and mortar now. Minerva laughed to herself. Her Uncle used to build house out of cards, out of pots filled with coins. She laughed even harder when she realised the truth. Her family was dead and soon her husband would come looking.

Minerva panicked. He wouldn’t find a body. She looked around, selfishly hoping to find another corpse she could mutilate so her fiancé would not realise the deception. But her hands shook, and she knew she couldn’t do it. Instead, she took off at a run. Her steps were jagged and every second she ran, pain flared up her ankle.

But she was smiling. The authorities would arrive. So would Shraga and his bodyguards and they would find only dust and rubble. They wouldn’t find her. She could go anywhere, do anything. Of course, she would cry later. She would weep into a meagre bowl of soup, she would cry out for her Mum in her sleep. She would see Shraga’s silhouette in every shop window. But she was alive.

Due to what Minerva would learn to be a missile strike, aimed at a suspected terrorist base, the nearby town was also in ruins. Children who still clung to small limbless bears were shrieking in the streets. Minerva vomited when she saw a bundle of rags and, when she’d slipped over to scavenge them, found a dead infant, barely a month old. Its eyes had been closed, as if merely sleeping. One woman, who was leaning over her dead sister, lashed out and grabbed Minerva’s arm.

“Please!” she begged in rushed Israeli. Minerva tried to explain that she was not a doctor, but she could find help, but the woman shook her head.

“Please,” she whispered. “Kill me. I cannot live without her”. Minerva frowned. She didn’t think anyone else would beg to die. She thought she’d been the only person in the world to wish for death with open arms, as if greeting an old friend. But as the woman leant over her dead sister, there was pure resolve in her eyes.

“Please,” she said again. “Kill me”.

Minerva looked up at the stars, as if they held the answer.

Even over thirty years later, when her hair had undergone dye job after dye job and was now an alarming shade of sunflower yellow, Minerva found herself poised by the veranda of Dr. River’s house, yearning for the night sky.

He hadn’t come home yet. He was at UCL, giving a Lecture with another guest speaker. She smiled to herself. She hadn’t exactly called ahead.

They’d had dinner a few weeks ago, after she’d killed a woman in Japan who’d lost her twin girls in a tsunami. She’d had three weeks to re-consider, as all her customers did, but this time, to Minerva’s surprise, she had not moved on. Even when the day came, where Minerva would push her target in front of the bullet train, seemingly by accident, she asked the woman,

“Are you sure you want to do this?” It wasn’t like buying a pair of jeans.

“There is medication. Doctors. Specialists you can see. I have a few drugstore coupons”.

The woman had only smiled and whispered,

“I have always looked at the stars for my answers. Last night, I couldn’t see the North Star. I couldn’t see my way through the darkness. That’s how I know my journey has come to an end.”

Minerva hadn’t argued with her. Arguing with clients wasn’t good for business. And business had been good lately – a little too good. She’d almost considered having her services removed from the dark web for a month or two. But working was good. Working distracted. But this week she was in London and she wanted to give Edward Rivers a surprise.

She’d met him – the first time, under a different name – at a dig in Africa. She’d killed his Assistant, who’d wanted his death to become a link on Wikipedia. He’d had a brain tumor. Inoperable. She’d tried explaining all this to Edward when he’d discovered her, under another alias, at the airport few days later. And she’d known right there: she wanted to know more. She wanted to know why this man was drawn to places where history called with its head held high. She wanted to know why he sought sordid truths which were better forgotten. And she wanted to know how he’d realised what she was, not long after they’d met. And why he hadn’t mentioned her to the Detectives on his Assistant’s case. Of course, they never would have caught her, but she’d always wondered. Why?  

The front door opened, and a weary sigh washed over her ears. Minerva hid her grin. She couldn’t wait to surprise him. Footsteps, long and heavy. Bags being set down on the staircase. He was coming to the kitchen, to the veranda.

“Jesus!” Dr. Edward Rivers clutched a hand to his chest. Minerva scowled, but it sank into a smile. He wasn’t scared at all.

“You knew I was here. How?” she asked. He smiled.

“You have your secrets, I have mine”. She smiled back.

“How was your week?” he asked as his slipped of his coat. She beamed when she realised it was the black Superdry she’d bought him from Japan before she’d killed the Mother who’d lost everything. Her next target, or client as she preferred to call them, lived in Oxford University. A student with Cancer who’d had their bursary taken from them. They’d been orphaned at eighteen – a car accident – and they had no friends. She’d also been assaulted by one of her Professors. She didn’t see a way out. None except Minerva Edri.   

“Please,” Minerva had explained when they’d met in person at a café which had sold the best cream buns in town. “Take your time. Think about this. Here is the number of a good therapist I know and here is the number of a lawyer. I’ll help you pay your way.” The girl had smiled wearily, but she’d taken the number and paid her deposit.

Minerva hoped that the girl would change her mind.

Dr. Edward Rivers smiled and returned to the kitchen counter where he held up a red kettle as if it were a trophy.

“Tea? Coffee?”

“Neither thank you,” she smiled and turned back to the veranda. The stars were out. Edward Rivers set the kettle down. He reached into his cupboards – teal with a silver trim – to take out a cup.

‘World’s Best Dad’. Minerva used to laugh at that mug, but now she only smiled sadly. Edward Rivers could not have children. The mug had been a cruel joke from a jilted student who had received a 2:2 degree. As if pulled on a string, Minerva turned back to the veranda. To the sky.

The London skyline was a purpled gash, the stars little flecks of milk. She turned to find Edward at her elbow. Another reason they’d stayed in touch: he was the only person who could surprise her.

“I’m not an idiot you know. I have a PHD,” he said. She rolled her eyes.

“That doesn’t mean anything to me. If you weren’t an idiot, you’d know that”. She had three degrees herself: one in Art History, one in Nursing, the other in Horticulture. To calm herself after a particularly difficult job, she kept a book of dried plants, flowers, and leaves, documenting each species in extravagant calligraphy. The Latin Name, the Common name, the location. She had at least ten plants for every country she’d visited.

“You want go outside? It’s a lovely night. A little cold”. Minerva smiled.

“Yes. I saw you wearing the coat I bought”. Edward led her onto the veranda; he knew better to ask about work these days. She didn’t like to talk about it, unless it was to prove a point. It had taken him years to understand what she did for a living – ending other people’s lives because they could not afford euthanasia – and it had taken him even longer to accept it. But now, they were in the calm waters of this ocean. Friends. They met for coffee or dinner every few weeks, mostly at Edward’s terraced home or at a restaurant in town. Perhaps because he lived alone, he was a brilliant cook. He made the greatest Frittatas; she’d taken one in a Tupperware to a job in Wales – potentially killing a man who was paralysed from the neck down. His husband had died. He was Christian and he wanted to see his husband again.

“Don’t your Church have rules about suicide?” The man had laughed.

“Isn’t that why you’re here?” In the end, Minerva had tracked down the man’s estranged son, who was working for the National Crime Agency. She’d sent him an anonymous letter containing his Father’s new home address and phone number. A week later the man had called and cancelled their transaction, but he’d thanked her. For everything. It still warmed her chest to think of it.

Tentatively, Edward guided her through the garden. It was only small and was dominated by a weather-beaten greenhouse on the far-left side. But it was enough. Minerva lived out of rented apartments she abandoned before the lease was up and hotel rooms which she would use under a different name.

Sighing, Minerva looked up at the sky.

“It’s so polluted,” she said sadly. Edward’s smile wilted.

“I suppose it is. I’ve never really looked at a sky outside of London, despite of everywhere I’ve been”.

“Next time you’re on an excavation, you should try it”.

“Oh, I think my excavation days are long behind me,” said Edward. She punched him lightly on the arm.

“Shut up. You’re too young to sound so old”. He laughed. But he followed her gaze. Up to the stars.

They were obscured by the London smog, but when they caught the moon, they shone like uncaught dreams.