The Rebel Star Part 2 (Five Valleys Shopping Centre)

Her hair was dark and her face was dark and her silken dress was black as night, but she glowed with gold and brightened the dark shapes of the trees.

I opened the door. She angled her head, and stared at me.

“Are you Human?” she asked. She got up, and brushed the grass off her dress. “Am I on Earth? No! Really? Do you have baked beans?”

Before I could think about responding, she pushed into my house, made a beeline for the kitchen.

“I’m from up there,” she said, “up in the sky, a Shepherd of the Stars, I’m called. What’s your name?”

“Stella.”

The woman cracked open a can of baked beans and tipped them down her throat. A moment later, she spat them into the sink.

“Blegh! And beans looked so good from up there! Well, Stella, not all those millions of lights in the sky are stars. Some of them are guardians.”

I frowned. “But there aren’t millions of lights.”

“You lot have so many lights down here that you can’t see them. But there are.” She brandished a jar. “Marmite! Anyway, the Constellations, they’re at war. I serve Orion. Or I did. I think…” She paused, a spoon in the jar of marmite. “I think I might have been thrown out. Asked too many questions, I suppose.”

“That just gets you into trouble,” I said. “And you don’t eat marmite like that.”

“Hmm…” she murmured. “Where are your parents?”

I shrugged. “Working. I’m fine on my own.”

A dazzling smile. “‘Course you are!”

A boom set the walls shuddering, and my front door shattered.

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