Star

Chapter 8- Hellbent

Star's father opened the door and Star barrelled past without saying a word.

"Are you hungry?" He asked meekly. "I can call that nice restaurant..."

But had gone to her room without a word.

There was plotting and planning to do. She removed her phone from her pocket, tossing it on the bed as she got into her house clothes.

She checked her watch and saw it would soon be six in the evening, she had texted him on the way as Coal grudgingly dropped her home muttering about not being a taxi driver. He would soon be here, she knew, he was never late.

As if on cue, there were three knocks on the door, no more, no less and Star's father opened it.

From her room, she heard a curt greeting and opened her door to look at the small bespectacled boy in a polo shirt and shorts looking up at her shaken father through his thick lenses. As Star's father was thinking of a suitable reply to, "Good evening, sir, how was your day? There's a stain on your shirt, is that wine? It looks like wine. My mummy says that people who drink before 7pm are chronic alcoholics," Star ran up to them and dragged the boy to her room. Star's father moved to say something but paused and thought better of it, deciding that, really, the further Bolu was away from him, the better.

Star slammed the door behind them and looked at him.

She'd known Bolu since she had saved him in primary one from a bully who thought that 'grotesque,' while not knowing what the word meant, was somehow an insult, especially when used to describe his mother.

They had been friends ever since.

Star was grinning at him now as he looked in vain for a place to sit in her scattered room and decided to perch carefully on the corner of her bed. Her battered guitar was laid on the floor near her bed. He winced as he sat, but friendship, he had learnt, was about sacrifices. He just hoped her bed was at least clean.

"I'm going to get my mother back," Star blurted.

Bolu wasn't one for shock but his eyebrows were up. "Star..." he said carefully, "what do you mean?"

"I mean," Star said, pacing, "I'm going to get her back—I'm going to bring her back to life."

Bolu removed his glasses and cleaned them with his shirt. They weren't dirty—he did this when he was nervous. He did this for a while. "I'm sorry about what happened..." he said quietly as he put his glasses back on.

"Stop." Star said, anger following her words.

"But you can't bring people back from the dead," he continued. "It's a scientific impossibility."

"Scientific," Star said pointedly.

Bolu's eyebrow's crinkled. "What are you trying to say?"

"Guy," Star said, pacing faster, "the world is bigger than what we thought, that what anyone thinks. There's a whole underground world with men that have lights for eyes and witches and...." She looked at Bolu who was staring levelly at her.

"You don't believe me," she said, her shoulders sagging.

"I believe that you've been through a lot," he said slowly, "and that you're still going through a lot."

"You think I'm lying." Star said. "You think I'm having some kind of crisis because my mummy—"

Bolu didn't answer.

An idea sparked in Star's mind as she furiously searched her bag for something, fishing it out and showing it to Bolu. "Look," she said triumphantly, holding the parchment Doreen had given her with the list of all the ingredients for the spell, "the main witch gave this to me, it's all we need for the spell."