Sold to the Stars

I was ten years old when Ezra and I stumbled upon the rusted husk of a spaceship in the woods behind our house. He scrambled inside. A second later, the metal hatch slammed shut.

I yanked and pounded on the heavy door, but it wouldn't budge. My breath trapped in my throat, hot and shallow.

I tore back down the dirt trail, tears blurring my vision, screaming for Mom and Dad until my throat tasted like copper. Dad finally pried the heavy metal open with a crowbar.

I pushed past him, my stomach dropping. Nothing. Just an empty, hollow shell. Ezra was gone. Chapter 1 The night my brother, Ezra, vanished, the whole neighborhood turned out.

They combed every dirt trail and scoured every inch of the woods behind our house. Nothing.

A few of the dads squeezed into the "spaceship." It was pitchblack and suffocatingly tight inside, coated in thick dust.

They crawled back out, coughing and wiping grime from their faces. "It's just an old industrial cement mixer," one of them rasped. "Empty.

There's nothing in there." No hidden hatches. No trapdoors. No holes in the rusted steel. Ezra was just… gone. Two cops showed up later that night.

The heavy thud of their boots on our porch made my stomach twist. They fired question after question at me.

With every word, my nails dug deeper into my palms. "Why did your brother climb into the mixer?" "Why didn't you stop him?" "Are you making this up, kid?" I screamed the truth until my voice went hoarse, but the adults just exchanged those heavy, loaded glances.

A sevenyearold boy missing. No witnesses. No clues. No proof. It wasn't the first time, and it wouldn't be the last. Every summer, kids wandered too deep into the woods.

Some stumbled back out. Some didn't. The cops wrote it off as a standard runaway case. Nobody yelled at me. But nobody believed me, either.

The search dragged on for two weeks before the police packed up their gear. Ezra became just another face on a missing persons flyer. The house turned into a tomb after that.

Mom locked herself in her bedroom. I'd press my ear against the door, listening to her muffled, wet gasps. Dad stopped coming straight home after work.

He'd hike up the trail, pop open a case of cheap beer, and sit by that rusted steel shell until the sun came up.

You don't just accept your son evaporating inside an industrial mixer. No blood. No body. Just air. The neighbors whispered whenever I walked past their porches.

Some swore Ezra was snatched by the boogeyman out in the woods. Ezra was always a sickly kid, and local legends said the monsters out there liked the weak ones.

Others pointed their fingers right at me. "Kids these days," an old woman muttered loudly as I walked by. "They'll do anything to get their parents' undivided attention." The rumors clung to me like cheap perfume.

But the days kept bleeding into one another. Mom and Dad struck up a silent, ironclad pact. They never said Ezra's name again.

Mom gathered up his tiny shirts, his action figures, and every photo in the house. She shoved them all into a heavy wooden trunk and snapped a padlock through the latch.

Galactic Knights was the biggest show on TV back then. Ezra had the whole sticker collection. He plastered them over his headboard and slapped them onto his pencil cases.

He used to point at the screen, declaring he'd become a Galactic Knight and blast off into the stars.

Now, all those spacebound dreams, along with the name Ezra, were suffocating at the bottom of a locked box. Dad dragged us to the local portrait studio.

Mom and Dad forced stiff, brittle smiles for the flash, determined to wipe the slate clean. It wasn't long before Mom's belly started to swell again.

A fresh start, the neighbors called it. Or maybe it was just God tossing them a bone. She spent her days resting on the couch.

Her eyes stared blankly at the wall, caught somewhere between a funeral and a baby shower. Dad picked up extra shifts, pouring all his nervous energy into welcoming the new arrival.

That left me. I swallowed the poison from the neighbors and kept my head down. But I never stopped searching the tree line. I never stopped waiting for him to walk back out.

I refused to accept that a sixyearold boy could just evaporate into thin air. I chose to believe the rusted metal box really was a ship.

I chose to believe Ezra had finally blasted off, carving his way through the endless, inkblack universe.

Chapter 2 Night after night, I'd wake up in a cold sweat, the phantom echo of Ezra's voice ringing in my ears as he disappeared into that metal husk. "I'm leaving, Cora." "I'm going to space.

I'm going to be a real Galactic Knight." "Wait for me, Cora. I'll write to you." I believed him. Ezra never lied to me. Never. And then, the letter actually arrived.

It was a painfully ordinary evening. I trudged home from school and glanced at the rusted milk box by the porch. A dirty envelope was wedged in the hinge. No stamp.

No return address. Just a single word scrawled in jagged, uneven letters: Cora. My lungs seized. I knew that handwriting. Ezra. I ripped the flap open.

Inside was a piece of lined paper torn violently from a school notebook, crammed edgetoedge with messy graphite. [Cora, the ship took off.] [I'm in space.

I can see the stars through the window. There are so many buttons in the ship. I pressed a red one and the ship sped up.

It went so fast, I almost fell over.] [I'm going on a space adventure just like the Galactic Knights.] [I'm doing great here. I have food and drinks, and a puppy is with me.

The puppy's name is Bandit. He can talk. He tells jokes, but they aren't funny.] [Cora, do you miss me?] [I'm fine, don't worry.] [And don't tell Mom and Dad. This is our secret.

If they find out, they'll ruin it.] [If you miss me, go to the secret base. My telescope is still there. Keep it safe for me.] [I'll keep writing.] [Ezra] I finished reading.

My thumb brushed against a hard, circular lump at the bottom of the envelope. I tipped it upside down. A small, plastic rabbit button clattered onto the floorboards.

The plastic dug into my palm. My fingers locked up, shaking so hard the button rattled against the floorboards. It was the button from Ezra's collar.

The exact shirt he was wearing the night he vanished. Ezra was alive. He wrote to me. A sudden realization hit me like a freight train.

I bolted out the door, my sneakers tearing up the dirt path toward the woods. That rusted industrial mixer was still sitting there, a dead, empty carcass in the clearing.

His final words echoed in my skull: "I'm going on a space trip, Cora." But the "spaceship" in his letter obviously wasn't this hunk of junk.

Did this thing actually harbor some twisted, unseen force that ripped him out of our world and into the cosmos? I didn't know. But one thing was an absolute, ironclad fact.

The letter was real. Ezra was still out there. He explicitly warned me not to show the letter to anyone.

Mom and Dad were already drowning in the sterile joy of the new baby, aggressively slamming the door on anything related to Ezra.

If I ran to the neighbors or the cops, they'd lock me up in a psych ward. A kid who evaporated inside a cement mixer doesn't just start mailing letters from orbit.

They'd accuse me of forging it. They'd say I was a desperate, attentionstarved brat clawing open old wounds. At ten years old, I already knew how to read the adults' twisted games.

The search parties were dead and gone. If I wanted to find him, I was entirely on my own.

I folded the jagged paper with trembling fingers and shoved it deep between the pages of my heavy dictionary. While Dad was distracted in the kitchen, I slipped out the back door.

I headed straight for the secret base. Chapter 3 Our socalled "secret base" was the junkyard behind the apartment complex.

Before Ezra vanished, we spent hours digging through the rusted scrap, hoarding our treasures. Marbles, busted action figures, weird holographic trading cards.

I yanked open the drawer of a rotting desk we'd claimed as our command center. I shoved aside the junk and wrapped my fingers around Ezra's most prized possession: his telescope.

His "Interstellar Observation Deck," he used to call it.

If Ezra could figure out how to bounce a letter from deep space straight into our rusted milk box, he could definitely receive one.

That night, I hunched over my desk, gripping a pencil until my knuckles turned white. [Ezra,] [I got your letter.] [Are you feeling sick anymore?

Space must look so cool.] [I won't tell anyone our secret. Promise.] [Be careful up there by yourself.

Galactic Knights is dropping a whole new set of stickers soon.] [You need to come home soon to take your medicine.] [Please come back.] [Cora] I sucked at writing.

I erased the graphite until the paper nearly tore, but that was all I could manage. First thing the next morning, I sneaked out to the porch.

I shoved the folded letter and the heavy telescope into the milk box, slammed the lid shut, and took off for school. I spent the entire day vibrating with anxiety.

My teachers' voices faded into white noise. When the final bell finally rang, I sprinted all the way home, my lungs burning. I ripped open the milk box lid. Empty.

Both the letter and the telescope were gone. For weeks, I checked that box religiously. The second letter didn't show up for an entire month. Same dirty envelope.

Same jagged handwriting. Still no stamp. [Cora,] [The ship flew past Mars today.

It's red, kind of like Mom's hot sauce.] [Bandit says there are volcanoes on Mars taller than Mount Everest. Cora, how tall is Mount Everest?] [Are Mom and Dad okay?

Are you eating enough?] [I haven't had Mom's meatloaf in forever.

Eat an extra slice for me.] [Ezra] I flattened the crumpled paper against my desk, reading the words three times over. "I haven't had Mom's meatloaf in forever." Mom made meatloaf last night.

How the hell did he know that? Was he using the telescope to spy on our dining room window? That meant he had to be close. Right here in the neighborhood.

A frantic surge of adrenaline spiked in my chest.

I scribbled a desperate reply and crept back down to the porch, wedging myself behind the overgrown bushes to stake out the milk box. But Dad stepped out to toss the trash.

He spotted me immediately. He cursed, his heavy hand clamping down on my ear. He twisted my ear hard, dragging me toward the sidewalk to force me to school. My scalp burned.

Panic suffocated me. I blurted it out, ready to spill everything about the letters. The second the name "Ezra" left my lips, his palm cracked across my cheek. The world rang.

The metallic taste of blood flooded my mouth.

Dad pointed a thick, calloused finger right between my eyes. "There is no Ezra in this house anymore." His voice was a dead, flat rumble. "You say that name again, and I'll beat you blind.

You skip school, I'll beat you blind." My stomach knotted into a tight ball of ice. I swallowed the blood and kept my head down all the way to school.

When I trudged back up the driveway that afternoon, my fresh letter was gone from the box. A tiny, twisted knot of relief loosened in my chest.

After that, waiting for Ezra's jagged handwriting became the only thing keeping me breathing. The letters didn't follow a schedule. Sometimes I'd get two in a week.

Sometimes the box stayed empty for months. They always seemed to vanish and appear exactly when I was stuck in a classroom taking a math test. But they never stopped completely.

The updates were always the same scattered braindump. He was still on the ship. He flew past another planet. He saw a weird asteroid. Bandit cracked another terrible joke.

Chapter 4 Sometimes, the urge to talk about Ezra clawed up my throat like swallowed glass. I watched Mom's belly swell larger with every passing day.

She started knitting tiny, pastel sweaters for the new baby. Her hands moved on pure autopilot.

She was carrying a new life, but her own skin hung off her bones like a deflated balloon.

One afternoon, the words simply burst out. "Mom." I swallowed hard. "Do you think he's still alive?" The knitting needles froze midstitch.

The silence in the living room thickened, suffocating the air out of my lungs. A long, rattling breath finally escaped her cracked lips. "Cora.

I know you miss Ezra." She didn't look up from the yarn. "But we have to move forward.

We have to leave the past where it belongs." She shoved the tangled wool into a wicker basket and pushed herself up from the couch. She walked to the window, turning her back to me.

Her bony shoulders hitched in rapid, jerky spasms. I snapped my mouth shut. The cold, metallic truth settled in my gut: they had completely surrendered. Ezra was a closed chapter.

I retreated to my bedroom. By the pale slivers of streetlight bleeding through the blinds, I dug the letters out of my heavy dictionary.

I traced the jagged graphite lines with my thumb, mouthing the words I already knew by heart.

When I finished, I pressed my forehead against the cool glass of the window, staring out at the inkblack sky and the glowing amber grid of the neighborhood.

Then, my eyes snapped downward. The neighborhood playground. Holden stood deadcenter in the dirt lot. He held a heavy metal telescope clamped to his eye.

Aimed directly at my bedroom window. He lowered the lens. Our eyes locked. The air left the room. I kicked back, my chair tipping backward. I crashed hard onto the floorboards.

I scrambled frantically to my feet, throwing the window open and leaning out into the biting night air. Gone. I rubbed my eyes until sparks danced in my vision.

The playground was completely deserted. Just an empty rubber swing swaying in the wind, the rusted chains grinding out a slow, agonizing squeak.

My pulse hammered against my ribs, choking me. Holden's face burned into the back of my eyelids.

He was older than Ezra, maybe eight or nine, with a harsh buzz cut and a faded blue Tshirt. He wasn't Ezra. And he didn't look like some lost kid looking for his mom.

He looked like he was confirming a target. Sleep never came that night. Every time I blinked, Holden flashed in the dark. Why the hell was he staking out my window at midnight?

And that telescope in his grip… the metallic glare looked sickeningly familiar. I spent the next few days scouring the bushes and the concrete alleys around the park. Nothing.

Holden was a ghost. I finally gave up, shifting my desperate focus back to the rusted milk box on the porch. The next letter arrived faster than usual. Barely two weeks later.

The envelope held the same jagged, manic scrawl. [Cora,] [I looked through the telescope and saw Earth today. It's blue and perfectly round.] [I even saw our apartment building.

I saw Mom hanging laundry on the balcony. I saw Dad smoking down by the street.

I saw you hunched over your desk, looking miserable.] [Are you stuck on your math homework again, Cora? Don't stress out. Take your time.

You always used to help me when I got stuck.] [If you get bored, I hid a treasure map behind the TV.

You should dig it out and take a look.] [Ezra] I lowered the paper, my fingernails digging halfmoons into my palms. What the hell was Ezra playing at? A treasure map behind the TV?

Chapter 5 I crouched by the heavy CRT TV. Sure enough, there was a narrow gap between the bulky plastic casing and the wall. Just wide enough for my arm.

I flattened myself against the floorboards and shoved my arm into the dark crevice, scraping my shoulder until my fingertips brushed against cold metal. I dragged it out.

A rusted tin Mickey Mouse box. Ezra's old candy stash. I pried the stiff lid off. Inside lay a piece of paper, folded into a tight, precise square. I smoothed it out over the floor.

It was a glossy promotional flyer from the corner bodega. The front displayed the newest Galactic Knights model kit: the Earth One cruiser.

The back was blank, except for a chaotic tangle of jagged crayon lines. I squinted at the mess. It was a space navigation chart.

Trajectories and star systems slashed across the paper, a nearperfect replica of the charts from the show. Except the starting point wasn't the Knight's Homeworld.

It was the exact street address of our apartment building. Two crude stickfigure faces were scribbled next to it. Him and me. I snatched up Ezra's letter and flipped it over.

More jagged graphite dug into the back of the page. [Cora,] [If you found the map, keep it safe.] [I have a secret. The ship is malfunctioning.

The navigation module is busted.] [Don't freak out. The map on the back of the flyer is the flight chart. Send it back to me with your next letter.

It will help me find my way home.] [Ezra] My stomach dropped into my shoes. If the ship was broken, he was stranded. A cold sweat broke out across the back of my neck.

I didn't waste a second.

I grabbed a pencil and aggressively scribbled a reply, demanding to know if he was feeling sick, and ordering him to abort the mission and come home for his meds immediately.

I shoved the crayon map into the envelope. Once the heavy snores echoed from Mom and Dad's bedroom, I crept downstairs and fed it to the rusted milk box.

For a week, I paced my bedroom like a caged animal, gnawing my fingernails down to the raw quick. I obsessively checked the porch every single day.

Five days later, the hinge creaked. A new letter. [Cora,] [I got the map. Thank you. The ship is recalibrated.] [But we have a massive problem.

The cockpit's comms unit is dead, and Bandit can't fix it. We need a replacement immediately.] [The new comms module is inside the brandnew Galactic Knights Earth One model kit.

Can you get it for us? If you do, send it as fast as you can.] [Watch out for the adults. Keep our secret safe.] [Ezra] I stared at the jagged letters, grinding my teeth.

How the hell could a real spaceship's comms unit be a plastic toy? But Ezra's instructions were absolute. He never messed around with his ship's specs.

The thought of him suffocating in the dark out there hijacked my lungs. I ripped my room apart, yanked my ceramic piggy bank off the shelf, and smashed it against the floorboards.

I scooped up every scattered coin and crumpled bill, sprinting three blocks to the corner bodega.

Galactic Knights merch dominated the window displays, glossy posters plastered against the glass. I slammed my hands on the counter and demanded the Earth One cruiser kit.

The old man behind the register pushed his reading glasses up his nose and pointed a thick finger at the top shelf. The bright red price sticker screamed at me: $50.00.

I dumped my pockets onto the linoleum counter. Nickels, dimes, and a few crumpled onedollar bills.

Eighteen bucks and change. "Can you lower the price?" I gripped the edge of the counter until my knuckles turned white. "My brother needs it." He let out a raspy chuckle and shook his head. "Hot item, kid." He tapped the glass display case. "And that's the last box.

Backordered until next month." Chapter 6 I begged him. "Can you hold it for me? I'll get the rest of the cash." The old man sighed. "I can give you one week.

Get the money and come back fast." I sank onto the concrete curb outside the bodega, pressing my forehead against my knees. One week. Where the hell was I going to get the money?

Mom wouldn't give me a dime. My classmates were dead ends. That left only one option: scavenging bottles. The dumpsters around the apartment complex were overflowing with them.

Green glass bottles with sticky orange soda labels netted five cents a pop at the recycling yard. If I got lucky, I'd score beer bottles. Those were worth ten cents.

The dads in our building practically lived on cheap beer. I just needed to haul in over three hundred of them. I spent every free second hunting.

The moment the school bell rang, I lugged my heavy backpack through the alleys, diving shoulderdeep into every rusted dumpster I could find. It was brutal.

I wasn't the only scavenger in the complex. A couple of grown men worked the same route. They were bigger, stronger, and had no problem ripping the glass right out of my hands.

Once, I fished three orange soda bottles out of the bin behind the boiler room. A bald guy shoved me hard. "Back off, kid!

I saw 'em first!" My knees slammed into the asphalt, tearing the skin raw. I watched him scoop up my glass and disappear around the corner toward the scrap yard.

I didn't shed a tear. Crying wasted time. I just brushed the grit off my bleeding knees, pushed myself up, and limped to the next dumpster.

Mom's belly was massive now, and her temper ran violently hot.

When I dragged myself through the front door, covered in dumpster grime and stinking of stale beer, her face darkened. "Cora. The school called.

Your test scores are tanking again." She slammed her hand on the counter. "Can't you give me a break? How am I supposed to focus on the baby with you acting like this?

Keep it up, and I'm telling your dad to handle you!" The threat of Dad's heavy hands made my stomach churn. But I needed that comms unit.

If I bought the ship, Ezra could finally come home. I tore through every neighboring apartment block like a stray dog. It took five agonizing evenings to hit the target.

I dragged the bulging, clinking trash bags to the recycling yard.

The guy at the scale counted the glass for what felt like hours before slapping a pile of crumpled bills and heavy coins into my dirty palm. Thirtythree dollars and fifty cents.

I didn't even bother wiping the sweat stinging my eyes.

I sprinted straight to the bodega, clutching the wad of cash to my chest. "I'm here for the Earth One!" But the words died in my throat. I stared at the top shelf.

The spot where the box used to sit was completely empty. "Sold out," the old man rasped. "The last box went this morning.

Won't get a restock until next week." My legs turned to lead. A jagged lump lodged in my throat, cutting off my air.

I stumbled out of the bodega, dragging my feet toward the neighborhood park. The playground was mostly dead, completely drained of the usual dinnertime crowd.

Just a small cluster of boys huddled together, buzzing with excitement. "Look! I finished the cockpit!" "Earth One! Ignition! Blast off!" The blood roared in my ears.

They were building the Earth One.

I bolted across the dirt lot, skidding to a halt right in front of them. "Is that… your Earth One?" Connor sideeyed me, puffing out his chest. "Yeah. I bought the last box.

What's it to you?" I swallowed hard, my mouth tasting like ash. "Can you sell it to me?

I really, really need it." Chapter 7 The boys traded glances before erupting into loud, mocking laughter. "Girls don't play with spaceships," one of them sneered. "Earth One is for guys.

Look at you. You're filthy.

Beat it." I stood my ground. "I'll give you everything in my pockets." I shoved my hand in and pulled out the crumpled bills and heavy coins I'd scraped together from the recycling yard, holding them out. "Please.

I really need it." Connor, the boy with the short hair, smirked. He eyed the cash. "You really want it?" My heart hammered against my ribs.

I grabbed Connor's sleeve. "Please sell it to me. Take all of it." He frowned, staring at the money. "Why do you want my ship?" I swallowed hard. "My brother is in danger in space.

I need it to save him." Connor stared at me like I had just grown a second head. Then, a nasty grin split his face. He snatched the wad of cash right out of my hand.

I reached for the plastic hull. He shoved me hard in the chest and pivoted. I hit the dirt, skinning my palms on the gravel. "Go, go!

She's a total psycho!" I scrambled forward, my fingers locking around his ankle like a vise.

He tripped, crashing into the dust. "Give it to me!" I threw my weight onto his leg, clawing at the plastic model in his hands. Connor's eyes darted wildly.

He rained messy punches down on my back and shoulders. I didn't flinch. My grip only tightened. He let out a highpitched wail. "Get off me, freak!

Let go of my ship!" The other boys swarmed. Sneakers slammed into my ribs and shins. Dust flew into my mouth and eyes.

The sharp sting of kicking tore through my body, but they had my money. That ship was mine. I locked my jaw, burying my face against my arm, and refused to let go.

A sharp scream sliced through the chaos. "Connor!

What is going on here?" A woman in a floral blouse sprinted across the playground. "Mom!" Connor sobbed, pointing at me. "This psycho is trying to steal my toy!" The commotion drew a crowd.

Neighbors stepped out from the shadows, bathed in the sickly yellow glow of the streetlights. I stayed curled in the dirt.

I watched Mom waddle into the clearing, clutching her swollen belly. "How the hell are you raising this kid? Mugging boys for toys in broad daylight!

Absolute trash!" Connor's mother screamed right in Mom's face. Mom shrank back, her head bowed. She mumbled desperate apologies, her hands shaking.

Connor buried his tearstreaked face in his mother's hip, playing the ultimate victim. I pushed myself up from the dirt.

The playground was spinning, but I locked my eyes straight onto Connor's. "Give me the ship." A hand cracked hard across my cheek. The sound echoed off the metal slide.

My head snapped to the side. The metallic taste of blood flooded my mouth. Mom stood over me. Her eyes were dead. Hollow. "Not another word.

Go home." Connor's mother took a step back, startled by the violence. She grabbed Connor's arm. "Try this again, and I'm calling the cops. Let's go, Connor.

We're going home." She shot Mom a look of pure disgust. Connor stared at the plastic hull in his hands. The plastic was snapped clean in half from the struggle. "It's broken!

Are you happy now?" he shrieked. "Take it! Take the whole stupid thing!" He hurled the shattered plastic pieces directly at my face.

They bounced off my cheek and clattered into the dirt. The crowd quickly dispersed, dissolving back into the dark apartments. The playground fell dead silent