The man didn’t answer, so I turned to look at him. Sadness dipped his eyes and confusion thickened his brow. I straightened, waiting for an explanation, but all he said was “You really are Ceris Wenden of Endwever.”
He spoke like he was announcing a queen. I nodded.
He wrung his hands together. “Come.” He headed back into the cathedral.
I jogged to catch up with him. “What is it you’re not telling me?” I asked. “What is your name?”
“I’m Father Aedan, Your Highness.” He covered his mouth to cough. “Star Mother. Forgive me, I don’t know what to call you.”
“Ceris is fine,” I assured him, but he shook his head as though he didn’t agree. We stepped back into the cathedral, Father Aedan leading me closer to the eye, but I stopped in my tracks, spying a sculpture that had not been there on my last visit, standing directly across from the apse. It was life-sized, made of marble, and stood atop a three-foot-high pedestal. A woman draped in billowing clothing, skirt running past her toes, a crown of Sun spokes gracing her brow, a five-pointed star in her outstretched hand.
The face was undeniably mine.
Gaping, I dragged my feet forward, moving closer. I touched the ends of the stone dress, which were smooth from the passing of a million fingers. I studied my face—it was reverent and wise, chiseled into an expression I don’t think I’ve ever actually worn, but it was lovely and inspiring, nonetheless.
No wonder Father Aedan had recognized me.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he whispered.
I nodded. “Who carved it?”
“Alas, I do not know.”
My gaze dropped back to the hem of the skirt. The sculptor must have made quick work of it, to capture my likeness so perfectly, to have it put in the cathedral already. How could anyone who worked here not know his name?
Why was the stone so worn, like it was . . . old? Just like those tombstones . . .
“Father Aedan”—I enunciated every syllable of his name—“how long have I been gone?”
He swallowed and looked around, searching for something. I now realize he might have been searching for a place for me to sit. “Our scripture says you left in 3404, Star Mother.” He gestured weakly to the pedestal, and I saw the same four numbers etched there.
When he didn’t continue, I pushed another question through my tight throat. “And what year is it now?” My thoughts cried, 3405. Please say 3405.
His blunt answer was, “4105.”
I reeled back from the statue as though it had stung me. My breath rasped. Not enough air. For a moment, I was back beneath the torch of Sun, burning in its light, crawling across stones like embers.
Then I blinked, and everything was cold and gray. The stone, the air, the rising light filtering through the windows. My feet, still bare, were ice. “4105?”
Father Aedan nodded.
I gripped the hem of the statue’s skirt, lowering myself to the floor. “Seven hundred years? I’ve been gone seven hundred years?”
He reached toward me. “Star Mother—”
I shied away, uncaring that my skirt rose halfway up my calf. “I was just there. Ten months, the same as it would be with any mortal child. I wasn’t supposed to live, but I did. I lived.” My volume raised with each word. “I lived, and He sent me back. How could seven hundred years have passed?”
The poor father looked ready to weep. “I-I don’t know the ways of the gods, Star Mother. Not beyond what They’ve revealed to me. Please . . . let me get you some water and bread. Something to settle your stomach.”
But I was on my feet again, shaking my head as though I could dispel the truths he spoke. I ran through the cathedral, past the eye, down the nave, to the heavy double doors of its entrance. I rammed my shoulder into the one on the right, forcing it open.
Spring air engulfed me, and for a heartbeat, Endwever was exactly how I remembered it. But small wrongs ticked in my vision one by one. That house, and the one behind it, hadn’t been there when I left. The Farntons hadn’t had a fence, and their vegetable garden was missing.
I walked, cutting across the village, stepping around a stray sheep. People were rising to start their chores and their day. A man hooked his plow to an ox. A woman carried a laden bucket in each hand. A girl tied her apron tight around her small waist. All of them, strangers.
Panic rose in my breast, and I moved faster, as though the exercise could burn away all the unfamiliarity of this familiar place. The path wound toward my own home, but as I neared it, I noticed an addition had been put onto it, and a plump woman nursing a babe sat in the window, glancing up at me with unfamiliar eyes. I changed direction, running toward the tree line. Passing a man who called after me, another who stared at me the way Father Aedan had. All of them wore strange fashions, the women with lower necklines and fuller sleeves, bright aprons over their skirts. The men had heavy folded cuffs and sharp collars. My dress alone made me stand out among them, a blue jay in a flock of cardinals.