Chapter 1
All That’s Left
Sometimes, the world is too loud.
As Nova Harris climbed out the window of the old two-story house she currently lived in, she left behind a cacophony of sounds: slamming doors from downstairs, loud music from the room next to hers, crying from a kid out in the hall, and, loudest of all, the screaming voices of her foster parents as they entered the second hour of their latest fight.
It was a big one, this fight. Nova hadn’t heard what had started it, but they’d already touched on the most popular talking points. There were too many kids in this house, and Stephanie hadn’t wanted to take the most recent addition, but Todd felt like they’d had no choice, so Stephanie ‘needed to get over herself’ and do her job anyway. Stephanie wondered if Todd would feel that way if he had to spend all day taking care of ‘snot-nosed brats,’ which launched Todd into a tirade about how he slaved away all day at work to put food on the table and all he got at home was complaints that he was gone too much.
Nova had heard it all before and would hear it all again, but that didn’t make listening any easier.
It had been going in circles like this for a while, but it had been when they’d brought up Nova herself, and started listing all the problems she caused, that she’d finally decided to make her escape. She already knew her grades weren’t as high as they could be, thanks. She was aware that she had an attitude problem. And if Stephanie and Todd didn’t want her to break their rules, maybe they shouldn’t make such stupid rules! She was sixteen—she didn’t need a 9PM curfew! She was more than capable of existing outside after dark; she’d done it before and she’d do it again—in fact, that’s what she was doing now. She slipped out onto the roof and turned, closing the window most of the way behind her before crossing to the corner of the gable. Outside the view of the living room windows, she lowered herself over the edge until her feet found the banister of the back porch steps. She climbed down the porch easily, as she often did, and left the house behind, stepping out of the light flooding the area from the windows and porch lamp, into the darkness of the nearby woods.
The warm, mild breeze of winter in South Florida was comforting compared to the hot, stuffy house. The silence of the night, accompanied only by the chirping of crickets and katydids and the occasional hoot of an owl, seemed to Nova like a sort of lullaby after leaving the noises of the foster home. It was almost like a completely different world, and it was only when Nova was out here in the woods at night that she felt truly at peace—or, at least, as close to ‘at peace’ as she could likely manage.
She sighed as she walked, adjusting her light jacket and the backpack she’d slung over her shoulders before leaving. It wasn’t packed or anything, as she didn’t really intend to run away. Not yet. But she liked to keep it with her at all times, just in case, as it contained most everything she could call her own. A couple of books, some headphones, small trinkets she’d collected over the years, and an old sweater and a change of clothes, as well as her wallet and a few keys from old foster homes that she’d never bothered to fish out of the bag.
As Nova walked, she felt a brief twinge of panic and put her hand to her neck to check for a leather cord attached to a pendant, breathing a sigh of relief upon finding it. She hadn’t felt it for a moment and had thought she might have left it in her room—despite the fact that she never took it off. But it had simply shifted under the collar of her jacket, so she adjusted it carefully, looking it over for the hundredth time. The pendant was unique, made of a silvery sort of metal and streaked with colors of green and amber. She didn’t know what kind of material the triangular pendant was carved from, but it was pretty, and it had a dragon etched on the front and ‘NOVA’ carved into the back.
Her thoughts were interrupted as she heard a few branches snap behind her. She didn’t have to turn around to know who was following her, just pausing in her walk and waiting for the girl behind her to catch up. Zephyr, one of her foster siblings and her best friend, appeared beside her after a moment, giving Nova a knowing look as they walked on together.
“Thought I heard you leave,” Zephyr said. “Sorry I’m late, but I had to sneak out the back door like a normal person.”
Nova chuckled a little. “Thanks. I definitely don’t mind the company.”
Despite them being the same age, the two girls contrasted each other in nearly every way, from their appearances—Nova being taller and leaner, with darker skin and dark brown curly hair, while Zephyr was shorter, curvier, and pale, with straight blonde hair—to their personalities. Nova was stubborn, prone to anger, and got into trouble for talking back too much, while Zephyr was more shy and didn’t like to cause trouble, and kept her head down because of it. Not that Zephyr’s shyness kept her from speaking her mind, though, especially to Nova. She seemed to tell Nova everything while Nova preferred to keep to herself. She didn’t like the idea of being vulnerable, of having someone else know the things she thought or the things she felt. She honestly didn’t understand how Zephyr could be so honest about things. She was only leaving herself open to being hurt.
“I thought you wouldn’t,” Zephyr said, speaking quietly, as if trying not to disturb the peace of the swamp woods. “Though, we can’t stay out all night. Again.”
“I know.”
“After all, you’re on thin ice with them already,” Zephyr continued. “If you get in trouble again, well… I don’t want to lose you.”
Nova scoffed a bit. “It’s not like they care what happens to us anyway,” she grumbled, shoving her hands into her pockets. “They’re too busy fighting with each other to even notice we’re gone.”
“But if they do notice, they might send you back,” Zephyr told her bluntly. “And where would that leave me? I don’t want to end up on my own again, wondering if I’ll see you in school or if you’re gone for good, hoping it won’t be too long before we maybe end up in the same house again.”
“I know,” Nova said again, softer this time. She and Zephyr had been in the same house once before, when they’d been younger, and they’d been friends ever since. Nova still remembered when she’d first met Zephyr. They’d both been nine, and it had been Zephyr’s first foster home after losing her parents. The girl had been scared and confused, emotional and vulnerable, with no idea how to handle what was going on or what had happened to her folks, and somehow it had fallen to Nova to protect her and help her get used to her new life. They’d been together in that house for about two years before Nova had gotten moved to a new one, and although they’d still gone to school together, it had been hard for Zephyr at home without her. They’d both been shuffled around for a few years after that, and then, when they’d ended up at Stephanie and Todd’s a year ago, together at last, Zephyr had made Nova promise not to get into trouble and leave her again.
Honestly, it was the only reason Nova had lasted this long.
They reached their destination, which was Nova’s favorite place in the woods—at least, in this area. She had to find a new favorite place after every move, which was another reason to avoid being sent away, albeit a less important one. This space was a large clearing, maybe more like a rather small field around thirty feet from one end to the other, the foundations of an unfinished or mostly dismantled old cabin lying half-buried in the dry ground. Here, they could lie down without having to worry about getting muddy or finding unexpected bugs crawling on them most of the time, and from the center of the ‘house,’ on nights like this, they had a perfect view of the stars above them. They got settled, Nova using her backpack as a pillow while Zephyr took off her jacket, wadding it up for her own pillow, and for a while, they just watched the sky.