Seeker of Stars: A Novel Read Online Free

surveyed the skies. Tentatively she pointed out the patterns she had read about in our book. Reta did not come often—could not, I supposed—but when she did, she drank in the stars.
    One evening our class swelled to include a fourth—my uncle Taz. Reta retired to her room after Taz joined us. Taz indicated his pipe after her. “That one, Melchi—that one is a treasure.”
    I laughed and shook my head.
    “I’m serious. She’s fed you and that father of yours with his temperamental stomach. She knows her place, and she likes stars. What more could you ask, Melchi?”
    I laughed again. Taz was an incurable romantic, a bachelor always trying to marry us off.
    “She honestly is interested in the stars. Not like some.” I told him about the girls who had ignored the stars in their attempts to reveal their own beauties.
    Taz threw back his head and laughed. “Melchior! Melchior!” he gasped when he finally caught his breath. “Here you are at home with your out-of-the-world hobby, being propositioned left and right, and there’s your big brother traveling the world—and I have to pay the dancing girls to play with him a little. I knew you were the smart one, Melchi!” He laughed again, and soon we descended the stairs to sleep.
    Another night, Taz asked about Reta. I shrugged my shoulders, but Omar filled in details. An orphan of Jewish exiles, Reta had a large family in Israel but was not sure where or how she could find them. I was startled by how much Omar knew and wondered when he had learned it.
    “While you were looking at the stars,” Omar explained. “You shut everything else out then, Melchi.”

~ 4 ~
    D arkness
    One day, my world broke apart again. I was setting the strings of the loom when the bobbin crashed down, crushing my right hand and nearly severing my thumb. Threads wrapped around my mangled hand. I screamed at the sight. Manu sprang to my side. He began cutting the threads. My father stepped into the workshop.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Melchi’s hand,” Manu explained, not stopping.
    My father ran to me. My hand was bleeding freely. I felt faint as they untangled the web about my fingers. I willed myself to stay awake: if I fell, the threads would shred my hand. In my pain, I pictured the unmoving star, and, as in my dreams, I imagined myself grasping it and spinning about it. The stars were brighter than any I had ever seen. I wept for pain and for beauty. My arm tingled. Garta was back with the healer. She bound my hand with herbs. I was a child again, wrapped and carried. I was in my bed. Someone gave me bitter tea to drink. I fell into a starless darkness.
    Throbbing pain woke me. I was shaky, thirsty, frightened. When I saw a figure sitting next to my bed, I knew I must be sick if I was being attended at night. I assumed it was the healer, my aunt, or even Reta, but it was my father. He sat in the shadows, his eyes intent upon me. As I stirred, he rose and sat beside me. His tone was still gruff, but his manner was gentle as he spooned water into my parched mouth. For six days, until the risk of infection had waned, my father sat beside my bed at night. I am not certain he slept at all, but those days were hazy and confused.
    Still, I enjoyed the sensation of being cared for. As my father’s attention was devoted to me, I began to sense that the bitter absence that had filled him since my mother’s death had somehow eased, though I knew he had still never seen our sister, Daria, who was now seven years old.
    On the seventh day, the healer returned and changed the cloths on my hand herself. She looked intently at my thumb joint and nodded to herself.
    My father was watching her face with a matching intensity. When she nodded, he leaned forward. “Yes? Yes? He is recovering? He will work again soon?”
    At this, my stomach churned. I had not presumed much of my father, but I had assumed his concern for me was more paternal than proprietary.
    The healer was speaking. “It’s far