Valentina Starr's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Valentina Starr came to the rainforest to become a legend, but a legend needs a stage, and she had only mud. She stood six feet tall in her heels, her wig piled high, her makeup bright enough to frighten the birds. She had dragged three trunks of costumes through the wet green dark. Now she gripped a fistful of vines and turned in a slow circle. No lights. No stage. No crowd. Only trees dripping on her sequins. "A legend cannot begin in a swamp," she said aloud. Her voice vanished into the leaves. That was the problem. There was nothing here to carry her name. She found a hollow between two enormous trees, floored with flat stone. Water pooled at the edges. It would do. She stacked her trunks into a low riser. She hung a mirror from a branch and tied glowing insects into jars for footlights. Her hands moved fast. Sweat cut lines through her makeup. When she finished, she had a stage. But a stage without an audience is just furniture. So she climbed onto her riser, threw back her head, and sang. Her voice rolled out huge and fearless across the trees. The first to arrive was a small woman in muddy boots, a camera swinging from her neck. She crept from the ferns and crouched, snapping photos of Valentina like a rare beast. "Incredible," the woman whispered. "I track things that hide. I have never seen one that wanted to be found." "Sit down and clap, darling," Valentina told her. "Legends require witnesses." The woman lowered her camera and, against her own training, obeyed. Then the light changed. A tall blue figure stepped onto the stone, thin and smooth-skinned, with black eyes that swallowed the glow of the jars. She moved without sound. The photographer scrambled backward, hand over her mouth. Valentina did not flinch. She had wanted the strange, and the strange had come to her. "You called something out of the dark," the blue one said. Her voice buzzed at the edges. "We heard it above the clouds." "I called an audience," Valentina said. She spread her arms. "You'll do." She performed for the two of them. She strutted the narrow stone. She snarled and spun and commanded, and the jungle went quiet to listen. The photographer clapped until her palms stung. The blue visitor watched, unblinking, and did not leave. When Valentina finished, she stood breathing hard, triumphant. She had her stage. She had her first witnesses. The legend had begun. Then the blue one rose. "You will come with us," she said. "Others must see this. Many others. Far from here." Behind her, more shapes stepped from the trees. The photographer grabbed Valentina's wrist and hissed, "Whatever you do, do not agree." Valentina looked at the crowd she had summoned and understood. She had wanted an audience. Now the audience wanted to take her.