The Star and the Ocean (Book 1 in the Starborn Series)

Chapter Fourteen

"May?"

The following Wednesday, May was at Ora's house and completely distracted.

"May, are you listening to me?"

She wasn't.

May was going back and forth, trying to decide whether or not she should have turned down Em's offer to feel what it was like to float. She had a small fear of heights ("How can that be?" Em had laughed. "You live in a tree!") and the idea of being held aloft by a hovering half-human hadn't struck her as a good idea at the time, but now she was regretting saying no.

I'll bet she'd let me try again if I asked, May thought.

"May!"

After two failed attempts at getting her sister's attention, Ora resorted to raising her voice, breaking May from her reverie.

May gave her head a shake with a small sound of surprise. "I'm sorry, what were you saying? I was miles away."

"Apparently!" Ora laughed but May was all too familiar with the many ways her sister masked annoyance. From the breakfast table, Omi looked up to watch their exchange; he clearly recognized it too. "I asked if you were still planning on coming to dinner on Saturday. We missed you last weekend."

May tensed. She and her siblings usually gathered at the family home for dinner with their parents every weekend. The tradition had started after Ora–the eldest of the three–first moved out. It was a rare thing to miss it, and the fact that she was now going to have to cancel two in a row made May's insides squirm.

"I don't know," she cringed, unable to look Ora in the eyes as she lied. "The show is taking up more time than I was expecting. They might call me in early for rehearsals again."

May hated lying to her sister, but what else could she do? She didn't want to leave Em alone more than she already had to, and she couldn't tell anyone about her either; at least not yet. Many people in Omaea were still wary about mainlanders. If her family knew May had opened her home to some unknown woman? She shuddered just thinking about it.

The first day after Em's confession had been a tense one. Still, May had been willing to try and understand. When she removed Star-powered magic from the equation, Em was still the charming stranger May found herself so inexplicably drawn to. That certainly made it easier to suspend her disbelief.

Not that it was fair to call either of them strangers now. Opening up to May brought out a whole new side of Em – a side that was more confident and talkative than before. After a brief warming period, she won May over with her eagerness to share anything and everything.

Many of the days following Em's big reveal involved sharing from both sides. Em had watched with genuine admiration as May showed her the conveyance system she had developed for harvesting and moving fresh water around her tree-top home. She had been just as impressed when May offhandedly mentioned that she knew how to surf.

"That is so cool," Em had marvelled. "You're so damn talented, May!"

"No, I'm not," May demurred, acting humble despite being thoroughly flattered. "This is an island – you either learn to live with water or you drown."

For her part, Em demonstrated the scope of her otherworldly abilities with the zeal of a stage performer.

"What other magic tricks can you do?" May had asked, watching in awe as Em twisted gracefully mid-air for what had to be the dozenth time. It was a mesmerizing thing to behold; almost like dancing.

Em pulled a face. "Calling it magic makes me sound like some kind of hokey birthday party magician."

"What do you call it then?" May laughed, waving a hand in the space beneath Em's feet as she hovered.