Star of Wonder

Star of Wonder

Christmas in the greater galaxy:

Holidays with Anne, Special Edition

Anne B. Walsh

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2016 Anne B. Walsh

Cover picture: Mirfak by Egres73 - own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30248438

Please note: All stories in this collection have been previously published as part of the Holidays with Anne series. As such, this unitary edition is being made available to readers for free.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite e-book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Foreword

Glorious Song of Old

Enough

The Tenth Lady

Sun and Moon and Stars of Light

Also by Anne B. Walsh

Dedication

For my brother Dominic.

One of the bravest people I know.

Foreword

Raise your hand if you hate it when authors re-release old writing in new editions, seemingly without rhyme or reason, just to make more money.

Pretty much everybody’s hand is up, am I right? Which is why this e-book, Star of Wonder, is the very first collection of my original writing that I am publishing 100% permanently FREE. (You’re welcome.)

The four stories in this volume, Glorious Song of Old, Enough, The Tenth Lady, and Sun and Moon and Stars of Light, have all been previously published in my holiday collections, each in a different year. In order of appearance: Sing We Now of Christmas (2012), In the Bleak Midwinter (2013), Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day (2014), and Masters in This Hall (2015).

Who, me? Know a lot of Christmas carols? No idea what you’re talking about.

In any case, these four stories are much more closely linked than that. They all come from the same universe, the greater galaxy as it’s known to the characters, or "Killdeer-verse" as some of my readers call it, after my 2013 soft science fiction novel. The Christmas stories mentioned above are sequels to Killdeer, and to one another, in the order of their writing, so technically this book does contain spoilers if you’re minded to care about such things. Fair warning.

Why put out a collection like this now? Well, it struck me as I was finishing up this year’s holiday collection, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, that anyone who happened across it might find the greater-galaxy tale contained within rather difficult to follow without the backstory. But was it really fair to expect new readers to go out and buy four different holiday collections, some of which (let’s be honest) have certain other less-than-fantastic pieces in them, just to brush up on what happened before?

So, here they are, together for the first time! (I’ve always wanted to say that.) The four earliest Killdeer-verse Christmas stories, all yours! Please enjoy, whether you’ve read them many times before or this is your first visit to the greater galaxy, and as always, O readers, happy holidays!

Anne B. Walsh

Glorious Song of Old

Settle down, now, Albina, Queen Mother of the planet of Buonarroti, told her seven-year-old granddaughters over the applause from the rest of the royal family. It’s rude to the musicians to make noise all through the beautiful music they bring us for Christmas!

"Si, Nonna," the little girls said in unison, Elena settling into her red plush seat and tucking a strand of ash blonde hair back into its braided crown while Gabriela leaned forward to watch the singers filing off the stage, her glossy brunette curls threatening to fall out of their elaborate knot high on her head.

Just look at what’s coming next! Albina’s finger, gnarled with age, pointed at a line on the program she held open on her lap. Such a special treat—a song by the twin princesses!

Gabriela gasped, and Elena’s soft hazel eyes went very wide. Twin princesses? she repeated. "I thought we were the only twin princesses!"

We can’t be, silly, said Gabriela, regaining her composure in the face of this entirely foolish remark by her sister. There are hundreds of planets in the galaxy, and thousands of countries on the planets, and I don’t know how many of them are mon… She trailed off, giving her grandmother an imploring look from deep brown eyes. Have kings and queens? she ventured.

Monarchies, Albina supplied, smiling.

Monarchies, Gabriela recited carefully. "Grazie, Nonna. She peered back at the stage, onto which had just emerged two dark-haired figures gowned in flowing white, a few years older than herself and her sister but still shy of their young womanhood. Are those the princesses?"

Yes, the princesses Sundance and Starsong. Albina’s voice made music of the two names. Watch and see what they do, now, how they draw all the eyes to themselves before they even begin. Someday you will have to speak to many people, and you will need to know these things.

Fascinated, Elena and Gabriela leaned forward to watch as one princess seated herself at the side of the stage with her harp in her lap, as the other stepped forward into the cool white spotlight which gave the impression that the moon was shining through the ceiling of the royal theater. A brief, flowing introduction by the harp, intricately plucked by slender fingers, and the standing princess began to sing, her voice trembling slightly but true and pure as her sister’s playing.

"It came upon the midnight clear,

That glorious song of old…

* * * * *

As you can see, the guide intoned, sweeping a hand towards the manicured greenery beyond the safety shield, this species of anthrofelinoid spends its time mainly in sleep, social grooming, and play. The upright posture, rather than being a step forward as is most often seen in evolutionary progression, is thought to be a genetic dead-end within this particular subspecies, slated to die out within the next few dozen generations at most. And now if you’ll follow me, we’ll take a look inside a typical dwelling…

Carol hung back, edging as close as the shield would allow to the small group of creatures the guide had been describing. Her older cousin Layna and her friends were all busy tagging after the guide himself, tripads in their hands, but instead of following along in the interactive program the exhibit-ship offered, no doubt they were texting back and forth gushy words like sleepy chocolate eyes and hair kissed by the sun and skin like coffee with cream. The guide’s good looks, unusual in both type and quality for Moria and accentuated rather than marred by the slight limp with which he walked, were the reason the Layn Gang (Carol’s own coinage, kept carefully inside her head but liberating nonetheless) had taken this tour every afternoon since their Christmas semi-vacation began, three days ago on the eighteenth of December, and were planning two more, which was all the longer the ship would be in orbit around their world.

It’s all the longer anyone spends here, once they find out what kind of a place this is. Eleven years of experience in living on Moria, and six and a half in her aunt and uncle’s household, kept Carol from venting her snarl of frustration, but enough of a muffled growl escaped her that one of the children, cubs, kittens, whatever they were called looked up from its concentration on the small hole it was digging. Golden-brown, slit-pupiled eyes regarded her curiously through the shimmer of the safety shield, and pointed ears covered with a coat of soft tan fuzz pricked forward, then back, barely disturbing the fall of thick dark hair through which they poked. One clawed hand reached up to scratch under the top of the cobbled-together furs which covered a no-less-furry torso from shoulder to knee.

In all other respects, Carol estimated, she and the young female anthrofelinoid on the other side of the shield could have been one another’s twins.

I wish I was you, she breathed, her own unclawed hands locked around the railing that edged the shielded walkthrough of the creatures’ shipborne habitat (she knew they had a proper species name, but it never quite settled into her ears as the guide slurred past it at the start of every tour). "We’re both locked up, but nobody keeps telling you that you ought to be grateful for it all the time. Nobody keeps saying you should be happy that you’re in a prison and you’re going to be there forever and ever. Maybe it does mean that you have a bed and food and clothes and nobody hitting you, but maybe there are other ways of getting hurt than hitting. She looked away for a moment, not wanting even a cat-girl to see her eyes well up. And maybe some of them hurt more. Especially at this time of year."

This time of year was a misnomer on the mining world of Moria, which had no tilt to the axis on which it rotated and therefore no seasons (or rather, only one season, hot and dry and thoroughly unpleasant, with plains and mountains alike devoid of life and skies endlessly choked with dust). Nonetheless, like most settled worlds, Moria followed the calendar which had come to the stars with humankind, and its people dutifully festooned their underground towns with bits of artificial greenery, sprayed with artificial scent, and strings of twinkling lights every December. Their children had a few half-days’ freedom from school around the twenty-fifth of the month and a full day off on Christmas itself, and some families even saved pennies and dimes out of their wages or allowances to buy one another gifts for the holiday.

Or that’s what they do if they like each other, anyway. Carol looked up, measuring the distance to the ceiling hidden behind an illusion of endless blue sky, then out, to the compartment walls she knew were there, cloaked in the appearance of rolling grassy hills. But even if my aunt and uncle liked me, they couldn’t buy me the only things I want. Things like room to breathe and run, and nights filled with fresh air and stars. Things like sunrises and sunsets, rivers and trees, chances to dance in the rain or play in the snow, and people to share all of that with, people who would love it as much as I would…

The cat-girl tilted her head to one side, her eyes exploring Carol’s face, then chirruped once, softly, sliding the sound upwards at the end as though asking a question.

I don’t know. Carol leaned against the railing, letting her eyes go unfocused. If she did it just right, she could imagine that the safety shield wasn’t there at all, that the hills and sky really did go on to forever, that in just a moment she would dart forward past this silly little barrier to join her friend. Together, hand in hand, they would race into the distance, laughing with the simple joy of speed and health and youth, matching their paces and refusing to stop until they were ready. Or perhaps they would run only far enough to find the homes that lay hidden beyond those hills, the places where warmth and happiness and cheer all waited, given as freely as gifts always ought to be at Christmas time…

I don’t know, she repeated, pulling herself unwillingly out of the illusion. But I’ll try and come back tomorrow, all right? Tomorrow, and the day after that.

And then the day after that, you’ll be gone, and I’ll never see you again. The thought tasted sour in her mouth, but she swallowed it down nonetheless. You didn’t live to be eleven years old on Moria without learning to swallow lots of things you didn’t like.

The cat-girl chirruped again, brightly, and one furred hand rose as if she were waving goodbye. Which, of course, Carol knew, she wasn’t. No matter how human these creatures looked, they weren’t. The guide, the one Layna and her friends spent all their time mooning over, said so clearly every day.

And if Carol was going to be there when that same guide returned his tour group to the shuttle which would carry them back to the planet where their parents, guardians, and other responsible adults were waiting, she was going to have to run.

Spinning on her heel, she dashed off, crossing her fingers that she hadn’t been missed. Wandering off by herself was on her aunt and uncle’s long, very long, list of ways Carol Fuhrman is just like her no-good fools of parents, and she wasn’t exactly panting with eagerness to sit through that lecture again.

My parents weren’t no-good, and they weren’t fools. They were just a little…unsettled. And very unlucky.

But being unsettled, on staid, down-to-earth, no-nonsense Moria, was tantamount to blasphemy and heresy combined, and being unlucky was seen as a clear sign that you hadn’t been respectful enough of the proprieties. It had taken all of ten minutes for the I-told-you-so’s to start after her father had crashed the small sealed flyer he’d bought used and lovingly refurbished. It had only been intended for one rider, but he had recalculated everything for two, so that he and his wife, Carol’s mother, could take an occasional outing by themselves, rather than waiting for their scheduled turn with the shared flyer of the cave-neighborhood where they lived.

And because they couldn’t wait, because they wanted to be just that little bit different, that tiny bit free, they died. And I went to live with Uncle Frank and Aunt Taisha, and with Layna, and I’ve been hearing about what a burden I am to them ever since…

There were days, many of them, when Carol wanted to cry, when she wanted to beat her fists against the invisible bars of her cage and scream until someone came to let her out. But she knew it would do her no good. The only way out of the prison called Moria was the way her parents had taken.

Or no, there’s one other way. You have to learn something that people want in the greater galaxy. To study some specialty that has applications beyond mining and processing ore. But no one around here believes any of that is important. Especially not…

Even her mind’s voice dropped to a hush before thinking the word, the single most offensive word on Moria.

Music.

She knew what music was rather as she knew about stories, or rain and snow, though water falling out of the sky was only impossible on Moria, not forbidden the way music was, or carefully regulated like stories. Things that manipulated a human being’s emotional state without any true reason, teachers told kids in school, were dangerous to experience, even under what seemed like controlled conditions. Humans had only so much ability to feel things, and wasting it on recreation was practically a crime, to say nothing of how badly it could affect the other real people in the world around you if you were busy thinking about fake people.

And as for music, what right does noise without any connection to reality have to take up space in a person’s head? You should be concentrating on your work, on the things you need to see and hear and notice and do, not on some