At present, it’s the mortal year, 1860. The cusp of war brews in this southern land, yet on a remote prairie hill, it seems far away.
Or perhaps this moment drowns out everything else.
On the outskirts of a ranch, she had been picking lupines when she’d spotted his golden hair. Dropping the stems, she’d plummeted and then crawled through the underbrush, dirt streaking her elbows and pants.
Now she stashes herself in the shrubbery. But really, she’s too old for this.
And really, she doesn’t have to hide. Humans cannot see or hear her.
However, this unknown figure might be an immortal spy who’s caught up to Wonder. She’d thought herself alone, sequestered in this vacant setting. So she nudges the bushes aside, careful since that’s something a mortal can detect.
What she sees causes her mouth to part.
It’s a young man.
Resting atop a checkered blanket, he gazes at the night sky, at the stars, at her home. He wears black pants speckled in dust. Unkempt blond waves drape around his profile, which is cut like a square and hints at a pair of wiry lips.
It’s a kindly face, a human countenance mesmerized by the heavens—skeptical of them, too. He tilts his head, asking a silent question, his brows furrowing with interrogation.
Wonder likes his speculative expression. She likes the book resting on his chest even better. If she were capable, she’d plop beside him, take delight in his shock, and promptly ask what he’s reading. She would be impolite and snatch the book to see the title.
She doesn’t need to. The gilded spine reveals that it’s a mythology text.
Oh, and there’s more. This young man is less of the escapist sort, more of the investigative sort. Resting beside a saddlebag, a stack of nonfiction hardcovers awaits his attention. It’s an ambitious collection. Is he planning to read all of them in a single evening?
Kinship unfurls in Wonder’s belly.
The incense of pomegranates wafts from him. As he resumes reading, he thumbs through the pages, his fingernails filed longer than any mortal male she’s observed during her field trips.
In the pasture, a piebald horse grazes, and a trio of hounds give chase around the young man. One of the animals chomps on the boy’s book, clamping it between the jowls and darting off.
“Hey!” the mortal chuckles as he lurches to his feet and races after the dog.
Wonder plants a hand over her mouth to quell a laugh before remembering he cannot hear her. Because of that, a pebble of disappointment skitters down her chest, and her shoulders collapse. An inexplicable loss consumes Wonder as she witnesses the scene.
He snatches the book, then kneels to pat the hounds who happily gather at his feet and slobber his cheeks. But it isn’t until he hums to the animals that Wonder’s palm falls from her lips.
His tenor is beautiful. It’s spectral, made of starlight and something buried underground.
That’s when she feels an impossible sensation. That’s when her heart changes shape. That’s when it gives a tight, permanent clench.
***
The human archive is so quaint!
Wonder prances behind the young man, who attends to the local library. It must be the center of activity in this prairie landscape, considering the town’s modest size. The repository stands no bigger than a humble house, with shingles and a pitched roof, the vicinity surrounded by pomegranate trees.
It’s nearly closing time, the sun dipping behind the hills. Hints of starlight sprinkle the area, making some of the green-bound books glow like a trail.
Like a trail to an answer, a revelation to an unknown inquiry.
Wonder puzzles at the sight. Is it a mere trick of illumination? Is she projecting? Or is it a prediction? Some type of foreshadowing or sign?
Best guess, it’s due to her nomadic tendencies. She blinks out of the trance.
It has taken Wonder a half dozen visits to learn that he’s a librarian, a connoisseur like her. And he’s good at his job, smiling at patrons, talking with them about the war and about enlisting, blushing at fashionable girls who flaunt their parasols and shimmy their shawls as they pass by.
He’s handsome, like a ray of sunshine, and they know it.
One of them has a nose like a peg. Wonder wants to jam it deep into the girl’s face, so that it forms a crater. But the young man doesn’t indulge the debutante beyond a cute flash of sharp teeth.
The canines startle the peg-nosed girl, and she bustles off. His face slackens, pink slicing across his jaw. And now Wonder really wants to retaliate against the female who has made him feel self-conscious.
Instead, Wonder shadows him.
Over time, she returns, making a habit of it, peeling back layers. He’s a respected local who kneels in church pews, tutors children living on the ranch where she first saw him, and rents a room beneath the library. He owns a telescope that peers out the repository’s front window. He rides that piebald horse and scratches three sets of floppy hound ears.
He loves knowing secrets, and mysteries, and loopholes. He loves books. He loves reading.
And Wonder loves him.
***
Isn’t that what this is? Isn’t it love? Isn’t it?
She may be uneducated about this emotion, and it may be nonexistent between deities, but with a human?
Surely, this is what mortals feel. Surely, this is love.
Yes, it must be. So, there. That’s that.
But wanting a human is forbidden. It’s risky and against celestial law.
Wonder is far too besotted to care. The sentiment is soft, and gentle, and dear. It’s a second skin, a private lining stitched under her flesh, insulated from the rules.
After several months of researching methods to contact him, she finds a scroll in the Chamber’s restricted section. It says that if a human and a deity fall in love, they’ll be bound to each other, and that deity will become mortal, which means they can be together.
Together.
She’s never enjoyed the concept of together with someone. What is that like? Is it worth it?
Again, how can she communicate with him? Maybe it’s simple.
She uses mortal ink and paper to compose a letter. Drafting what’s supposed to be a perfectly structured declaration, she deviates into a stream of consciousness.
He has a name, one that had revealed itself when an elderly schoolmarm and her husband—who’s too old to fight in the war—had tipped their bonnet and hat to him.
But Wonder doesn’t address the young man that way. She has a lovelier moniker in mind.
Dearest Wayward Star…
Pulse thumping, she smuggles the letter from the Peaks and packs it into his saddlebag.
***
His reception is not what she hopes for.
At sunset, orange slashes through clouds. Sitting on the library stoop after closing time, he discovers the envelope in his saddlebag. Beneath a pomegranate tree, Wonder fidgets and watches him scan the contents.
A flush creeps along his throat, which should be a good sign.
It isn’t. He glances around, his normally sweet expression crinkling into a glower, as if he thinks somebody’s playing a joke on him. His irises flash, resembling scythes. “Very funny,” he calls out to the panorama. Crumbling the note, he jams it into his pocket and stomps indoors.
Wonder’s heart dries like a flower. She tries to console herself, because at least he hadn’t destroyed the note, even if he’d been tempted to.