Force Majeure by Daniel O'Mahoney Page B

lights from Candida – and the stars glistened naked and undisturbed in the black overhead – so Kay presumed she’d been led out of sight of the house and the city.
    ‘It’s a beautiful night.’ she remarked, breaking a long silence. The words reverberated back at her as if this was a part of the world that had never heard human voice before and was savouring the novelty. She wished she’d chosen something more portentous; her echo sounded shrill and sentimental. She hadn’t paid attention to the stars for a long while.
    ‘Can you name any constellations?’
    ‘Not in this hemisphere.’ She wasn’t joking. The sky was truly beautiful, she realised, in a raw and pagan way, and Luna’s frivolous question seemed to demand an earnest reply. ‘Orion. I always knew him by his belt.’
    Flower-of-the-Lady’s back was to them, and she spoke evenly without breaking her pace. ‘Just imagine how massive the stars must be that you can see them from this distance, and how old they must be that some have been dead for millions of years but are still alive to us. This is where you need to be.’
    A larger star with a bluish tinge was welling on the horizon, too small to be the sun or to shed more than a little light on the mountainside. On the ridge ahead of them was a tent, more of a pavilion, its walls a livid red like a raw hunk of meat in the bloodless grey landscape. The-Lady dampened her lamp, and the tent glowed from within, low firelight revealing the veins and creases of the walls and promising a real warmth that the chatelaine’s cold fusion couldn’t.
    ‘Go in,’ said the-Lady, ‘she’s waiting for you.’
    Kay peeled back the folds of the tent with both hands.
    A few days earlier – Kay had lost count – Azure had popped the question. She pranced on the spot and all the appendages of her insect suit jangled.
    ‘The-Lady says, the-Lady says, the-Lady says I’m going to be made a voladora now I’ve got my bike back. This is – I can’t put it any other way – the big one. This is my life, this is my everything, and I need someone to be there. I need a second to catch me if I fall. I’m asking you, Kay. If I believed in God, I’d say she put you here for a reason. You Appeared to me to do this.’
    Kay had been sceptical. ‘What do I have to do?’ She had also been on the brink of a bad temper, which Azure’s bubbly good humour hadn’t registered and had done nothing to assuage.
    ‘Just stay with me for as long as it takes. Ah, you have to bring me a present. Nothing big or special. Seriously , I don’t want you to think I’m trying to cadge a freebie ...’ (Kay shook her head and watched the relief blossom out of her cellmate.) ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you so much. I just need a pole star, someone who’ll guide me back down to Earth.’
    Kay already knew she would say yes but still – ‘I don’t understand. I’ll be there if you want, but I don’t know – what happens to you?’
    The pause. And then:
    ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted.
    Azure was becoming a bird.
    Kay squinted. Everything was cast in red light, from the fire and the reflection of the flames on the hide of the tent. The fire burned in a hollow bowl at its heart, and Azure was embryo-curled on a blanket by its side. Kay assumed she was asleep, but her head twitched up and her face was a red blank.
    Azure was naked and her skin was scored and ridged like a nut. She sniffed at the air suspiciously, then rolled back from the fire towards the back of the tent. Her body settled into a new and defensive poise, crouched on her haunches with her knees drawn in front of her chest and stomach. There was something new at her neck; a thick braid, dangling.
    Kay drew out her dragon-stick and stepped cautiously forward. Azure hissed.
    ‘Who’s that?’ She was hostile. She sounded almost vicious. Her arms came forward warily, fingers formed into digging points. Her skin was mottled and discoloured. Kay’s eyes sharpened;