The Stars Never Rise

“Maddock keeps trying to apply science to a situation where it clearly doesn’t belong,” Devi said thinly.

“Of course it belongs,” he insisted. “Finn can’t just wish himself across town. He actually has to go there, just like the rest of us. Only, we can’t see or hear him walking unless he borrows someone’s body.”

“Wait, how can he walk without—”

A familiar three-note fanfare from the television stole the words from my tongue and the thought from my head. My heart started pounding the minute the national news anchor, Brother Jonathan Sayers, took his position behind the news desk, shuffling the papers in front of him so we could all see the gold embroidery on his purple cassock sleeve and the sacred flames branded on his right hand. Sayers was a national icon. I’d seen him nearly every day of my life.

My foot tapped nervously on the carpet as he said his usual “good morning” to the nation, and then I sat up straight, my pulse racing at his next words. “And now we go live to Sister Pamela Williams, who is on location for us today in New Temperance, where I understand there was a bit of trouble overnight?”

“That’s right, Brother Jonathan.” The anchorman disappeared from the screen, and I gasped when Sister Pamela came into focus in her purple robe, holding a microphone in her branded right hand. I recognized the building behind her. It was the administration building for the New Temperance Day School.

My school.

“Overnight, the citizens of New Temperance slept peacefully in their homes, unaware that the biggest threat to their safety lay not outside the town walls, in the badlands, but within the town itself. Within, in fact, one of their own children.”

“Oh, the melodrama!” Devi rolled her eyes, but her jaw was tense and her forehead furrowed. She was almost as nervous as I was.

“Last night, police and other Church officials responding to an emergency on the east side of New Temperance found sixteen-year-old Nina Kane—a local high school senior—strangling her own mother with her bare hands.”

“Oh no…,” I whispered.

My junior-year school picture appeared on the screen, in front of a national audience of millions, and though I was safe and hidden—at least temporarily—I suddenly felt more exposed and vulnerable than I ever had in my life.

As I stared at my own image, my heart pounding against my sternum, I wondered how it was possible that I’d looked so young less than a year before.

“Responding officers report that Kane seemed—quote—‘gleeful and remorseless’ as she stood over her mother’s body. She refused to surrender to the authorities, and when they tried to arrest her, Kane produced a handgun and shot the lead officer in the chest. He was pronounced dead upon arrival at New Temperance General Hospital.”

“They weren’t police, they were exorcists!” I snapped at the television. “Fake exorcists, who were pointing guns at me! And I’ve never even held a gun!”

“They can’t tell the truth,” Grayson whispered, still staring at the screen. “I think they’re allergic.”

“They’re scripting the news. That’s what the Church does.” Reese shrugged as if it were no big deal, but he looked just as angry as I was. “My dad said they recruit their reporters from college theater programs.”

Devi huffed. “Well, that would certainly explain the melodrama.”

I heard them, but none of it truly sank in. After years of hiding my home life from all forms of authority, I was wanted by the Church. Millions of people thought I’d strangled my mother and killed a cop, and now they all knew exactly what I looked like.

I couldn’t turn away from the screen until my picture disappeared and Sister Pamela was back.

“Officers returned fire, but Kane fled the scene, and now the Church is asking for your help finding her.”

My picture appeared again, this time in a little window next to Sister Pamela’s head.

“Nina Elizabeth Kane has brown hair and light blue eyes. She is five feet six, approximately one hundred and twenty pounds.” Which they knew from my latest physical. “Kane was last seen fleeing her east New Temperance neighborhood on foot, but police believe she is still in the area. If you see or hear from her, please call the number at the bottom of your screen, but do not attempt to contact her. Nina Kane is considered armed and dangerous, and Church officials have confirmed that she is, in fact, a victim of demonic possession.”

I groaned, and the camera zoomed in on Sister Pamela’s serious expression. “She may look and act like the girl many of you in New Temperance knew before yesterday, but the truth is that Nina Kane is dead, and the demon in control of her body will not hesitate to kill anyone in her path.”