loving you is a losing game - avery x jameson

chapter 13 - starry nights

JAMESON SWUNG HIMSELF over the edge of the balcony. 

We were absorbed in a new clue that he had found, since Libby and Alisa were obviously occupado, and Xander had his hands full with Nash. Grayson seemed to be MIA most of the time, but we let him be. 

Jamie and I were in one of the many libraries, talking about the new clue that we had. I wasn't quite sure what we were looking for, but in Hawthorne House, when one door closed, another twelve opened, and there was always something new to look for. 

This clue was a single piece of paper with some coordinates on it, and he found it... well, I wasn't quite sure, but you never knew with Hawthornes. He'd probably been searching around while we had our own dramas going on, in true Jameson fashion. 

We quickly Googled the coordinates and found that they led to a house on the other side of America; another Hawthorne estate, unsurprisingly. I never got used to how many houses I was about to own. 

"So, you ready ?" Jamie asked. I looked at him with disapproval. 

"It's a school night." I retaliated. 

"Consider it research." he said with a smirk.

That was the story of how I ended up on the other side of the continent on a school night, but now we had to figure out the story behind these coordinates. Using a map, we tracked the exact location to a structure behind the house, which turned out to be a huge telescope - like "climb inside" large. 

We climbed inside and started walking around - yes, it was that big - and started searching all the little nooks and crannies. After a couple minutes of searching, I found a small piece of card with only one line on writing on it - in distinctive Hawthorne print.

"The stars will guide you where you need to go."

Well, that was helpful. 

"Of course it's the fucking stars." Jameson started, but I stopped him. 

"Hold on, this could mean something. A lot of the mystery so far has been based around births and birthdays- like Toby being there for my birth, and my birthday lining up with, well..." 

I trailed off. "Emily." Jameson whispered. I didn't dare say her name, in case it triggered some switch in him, but he was slowly getting over the tragedy, and I was there to help him. 

"Yes. But what relation do the stars have to births?" He paused for a second, but then looked at me with a glint in his eyes. 

He had the same thought pattern as me; one of the many things I had adopted from the past 9 months. "Astrology." 

The Hawthorne way of thinking clicked in mysterious ways, but this clue had us aligned. 

"Exactly. What if this has something to do with zodiac signs?" It seemed right; crazy enough to be a Tobias Hawthorne original idea, but direct enough to be where we were meant to follow.

That night, when we were on the way back to the Hawthorne Estate, I started researching astrology, and the different aspects of it. There weren't just the regular zodiac signs, there were different moons, rising signs, and so many combinations that it would take forever to find a match; unless the match was between two people that we already knew. 

Tobias wouldn't have sent us on a wild goose chase, would he?

As I was settling into bed, a thought struck me. 

To find all the birth information about everyone living in this house, I would have to get their birth date and time, which seemed pretty impossible - at least for some. 

I would be able to find mine, and there was a chance that the Laughlins knew theirs, but only one person would know the birth charts of the four walking hurricanes that inhabited Hawthorne House.

None other than Skye Hawthorne herself.