A Sliver of Stardust Read Online Free Page A

crackling fire. Next to it stood racks covered with glass jars and bottles, bunches of herbs and dried flowers hanging between them. In the corners of the room, candlelight flickered from wax-covered sconces, bathing everything in an orange glow.
    â€œWhat—?” Wren found her voice.
    â€œHow did you do that?” Simon asked, his pencil, for once, frozen in his hand.
    â€œStardust is an element found in all living things, yet it is invisible to most of the world,” Mary said. She looked taller somehow, now that the maelstrom around her had stilled. As she continued, she pulled a basket from the collection on the top shelf. “Those who can see the stardust can manipulate it to their own ends.Here, among ordinary people, I use it to hide my house from those who would ask bothersome questions.” She set the basket down on the table with a thump. When she opened the lid, more of the dust drifted out. “But Fiddlers see things as they really are.”
    Wren couldn’t help herself. She drew near the table, one wavering hand reaching for the stardust. Aqua sparkles winked among the ashes. More than anything, Wren wanted to gather it, to run it through her fingers, to toss it up in the air like a smattering of miniature constellations.
    â€œYou feel its pull, don’t you?” Mary was watching Wren.
    Wren nodded wordlessly.
    â€œTwo new apprentices from the wild.” Mary looked at Wren and Simon fondly, as if they were long-lost relatives. “I can hardly believe my good fortune.” Mary reached into the basket and pulled out a bundle of cloth. “You will have many questions, and, when it is right, you will find your answers. All lambs need time. This”—she shook ordinary dust out of a black and gray garment—“is your apprentice uniform. Put it on while I tell you what you need to know.”
    Wren glanced at Simon, who had tucked hisnotebook into his vest pocket and was already wrapping the fabric around his shoulders. The dark folds fell almost to the floor, making it look like Simon belonged on the set of a sci-fi movie. Or in a monastery. He began fastening the long row of buttons that ran up the center of the cloak.
    Mary loaded the basket with a collection of bottles and flasks. When she spoke, her voice was so low that the words themselves sounded like secrets. “Since the beginning of time, the world has been full of the unseen. The sun lights the Earth by day, and the moon watches over all like a diamond in the night sky, but it’s in the twilight—the moment when the first new stars are born—that all living things are bathed in stardust. And magic.”
    The fire covered half of Mary’s face in shadow. “For a time, we who could work the magic lived in peace with the people around us. They would come to us for small favors: to ease the birth of a baby or enhance a fruitful harvest. Ordinary people called us Fiddlers, because the way we coaxed life from stardust reminded them of the lesser magic of their musicians.” She waved one graceful arm through the air, and Wren thought of the spiral of stardust and how itlooked like some otherworldly dance.
    â€œBut as time passed, people became less accepting of the Fiddlers and more suspicious of things they could not explain.” Mary’s voice hardened, and she leaned toward Wren. “Their hearts grew cold, and they saw evil in our good gifts. They began to despise and shun the Fiddlers, and soon any record of the good we had done was lost. The world fell into ignorance, and most people forgot there had been any such thing as Fiddler magic.” Mary’s falcon fluttered from her shoulder to a ledge on the wall that must have been crafted especially for it. “Scraps of the Fiddler story are still found in children’s rhymes, and hints of our powers are woven into legends of other lands. What many consider nonsense is really a garbled version of the