windy

Originally published in Chicago After Dark Anthology, 2014

God rushes down the alleyways here, pulling stenches off rusting train tracks elevated high above flickering street lamps, funneling gaseous ice up reddening nostrils, sweeping the putrid odor of city over brittle cheeks, seeping the grime of unshowered humanity into pores.  And bodies plummet down concrete sidewalks under her reign.  Their feet scoot along, giving in to her immense power.  Shuffling, feet gliding faster than knees can bend, citizens move forward, the bottoms of coats pressing against knees, clothing suctioning onto skin.  Citizens move forward.  Sometimes advancing in opposition to her force.  They wish to release their tension, to give in, to close their eyes and allow her arms to sweep them backward– to suspend them weightlessly in the air – but citizens move forward here.  They plow onward.  They squint eyes as ice encrusts in their tear ducts, as she rips open unbuttoned coats, pulling tight at the fabric like a fishing reel.  She spins scarfs into nooses here, pelting tiny knives at exposed skin until it is split, until eyes are veined until water streams, burning hot tracks down tender cheeks.  But citizens move forward.  Because God does not say no here.  When she speaks she simply says try harder and when she speaks she roars – screams and engulfs eardrums, pounding hearts, pumping blood, reopening scars.  

Then sometimes she whispers, hums a gentle lullaby, lightly combs baby hairs across foreheads, nudges clouds out of the sun’s way and bathes the black and gray city with gold.  She lets it sparkle in the water – the multitudes of windows climbing up the skyscrapers and the shine of the river bounce off each other’s reflection.  The city glimmers in the light.  On these days citizens move slowly.  Or don’t move at all.  Lying in the sparse grass, eating lunch on sidewalk patios.  No one goes inside.  On these days they don’t wear jackets, no matter the temperature.  They refuse.  And they don’t sit still for long.  Citizens move forward.  They bask in their city’s glory momentarily and then they rise.  They get on bikes and put on gym shoes, they strap tape on sore muscles and helmets over sweating heads.  And they race.  Sprint along the lakefront, feet pounding on the concrete, eyes pretending to watch the blue-green lake as they survey their surroundings, feel the heat of others.  Everyone’s perspiration evaporates and blends together in the air and they don’t care.  They love the density it creates.  Humidity prods at them – pushes them forward.  

Citizens move forward.  They do not remove suit jackets nor do they loosen ties.  They wear heels until feet go numb, until moisture builds within and skin slips and sticks to leather.  And they face onward, never up or down, to the left or right side.  Yet they feel everything, each presence surrounding them, each step of each sole of each shoe.  They hear each bum’s cry and each word of each phone call of each passerby.  They march to work – to skyscrapers filled with rooms filled with white.  And some wash the glass that scales the outside.  Some wear jeans in 100-degree weather, hardhats glued to wet foreheads, sweating profusely – the accumulating oil on their skin a badge of honor, a source of pride.  And they build this city.  They dig deep, plant the roots and then let the steel and metal rise until it’s taller than the last building that was closest to the sky.  

People don’t trust here.  Because a God rules this city who would let it snow in May.  Shorts could be worn all weekend then a full winter coat needed by Monday.  So citizens move forward.  They check their heart rate daily, skeptical of its constant beating.  They know it will stop at some point but doubt the organ will let the rest of the body know on that fateful day.  So they check as they move forward.  They feel the beat followed by beat followed by beat by beat by beat by beat by beat.  Beat beat.  Beat beat. Beat beat.

And sometimes a woman feels two beats. Beats beats. Beats beats.  And a kick and a squirm and then her legs open and there’s a cry.

Another baby cried and pierced the night sky.  

Daniella Rossi cried and pierced the night sky.  

I

They said the Lake would never be warm enough to swim in that summer.  Said the winter had been so harsh there’d still be ice melting in that filthy blue mass in August.  So Marisela figured that’d be a good way to die.  Wading out into ice cold water and never coming back.  Let the temperature choke her all up under a purple night sky.  She rested her hand on her back, her pregnant belly gorging like a balloon.  She was ready to pop.  Panting and breathing like they did on TV since she’d never taken a Lamaze class.  Heehee-hooo Heehee-hooo. Dragging her feet against the sand.  Limping towards the water – stretching and retracting across the beach.  Heehee-hooo Heehee-hooo. Cars were buzzing down Lake Shore Drive behind her when she just collapsed, her legs flailing apart, pushing so hard she thought her head might pop. Marisela’s body opening so another could depart.

Daniella Rossi was born that night with her eyes open and no one knew. 

Her full head of hair was as dark as dried blood, matted against her viscous skin, still decorated by motherly excrements, and she was screaming.  In a tone and at a decibel as piercing as her violet eyes, already heavily lined by thick pillows of lashes.  Her mother’s lids were closed and her chest was rising more than it was falling.  She did not make a sound.  She did not look at her daughter.  Instead Marisela bled.  Red trailing through the sand like snakes slithering to the water.  

Daniella Rossi was born with her eyes open and no one knew.  

Because her mother’s were closed and her mother was sinking further into the sand, her body sighing as her breath slowed. Letting the warmth engulf her trembling flesh. No more heehee’s but just hoooooooos. Daniella screaming and shrieking.  Marisela making a fist so tight the grasp exploded.  Went limp.  Like her body.  Still warm but turning cold in the sand.  The baby crying. The mother lying on the beach feeling nothing at all.  

II

Missy knew the baby had burned her, but she also knew that wasn’t possible. 

Then again, that baby wasn’t possible to begin with.  Had apparently spent her first night on earth lying next to her dead mother on North Avenue beach.  Just didn’t add up.  Found her five hours later, rushed her to the hospital, some civilian who found her was still clenching these dog tag’s he’d found at the baby’s feet like it was a clue to her origin.  At least something dumb like that.  But Missy knew the universe didn’t just drop around pieces of the puzzle of existence.  Things just didn’t get tied up in forty-seven minutes like a Law & Order: SVU.  Still, the tag said Daniel Ross so they added a la to make it feminine.  Figured Daniella Rossi had a nice ring to it. 

Missy worked the 11 PM to 11 AM shift at the hospital stationed in the nursery where babies never slept like babies.  She was fresh out of UIC and had only been working three weeks – her cheeks sore from forcing smiles and hiding gritted teeth.  Missy was rolling in a fresh cart of formula bottles around 3 AM when she noticed the little Rossi girl’s cradle was empty.  A breeze pricked up the goose hairs on her skin and she could hear a distant whirring like someone had left a window open.  All the other babies were still, their breathing soothing and almost in sync.  The quiet was excruciatingly loud.  So Missy spun around, her heart racing fast.  Wondering where Daniella could be, if someone could have taken her, if maybe she had fallen ill, if maybe her journey had caught up to her.  Slipped away and died. Missy even thought hey at least she didn’t have a family and hey at least it’d be one less lonely orphan.  The honest thoughts haunting her before she’d even finished speaking them when the light above her fell dark.  A shadow covered the fluorescent light.  Missy’s armpits instinctively moistened, reactivating her deodorant’s fresh scent.  She looked up.

Baby Daniella Rossi was in silhouette and spinning in somersaults just below the popcorn ceiling – her raven black hair already long enough to hang when turned upside down then flop back to her scalp when right-side up.  She was smiling like she’d just soiled herself and got satisfaction out of making adults wipe her bum. 

Missy went to scream but there was no air to sustain her breath. The nursery was suddenly arid.  All the room’s oxygen concentrated into the small bubble surrounding the tumbling baby girl – audibly giggling now, enjoying the breeze of her own personal wind tunnel.  And Missy was sweating so natural instinct worked faster than the need to comprehend. She reached up on her tiptoes and grabbed for the baby, swatting her hands.  

The moment Missy’s fingertips broke through Daniella’s bubble, a cool burst popped into the room like the ahh! on a spearmint gum commercial.  But the nursery’s previous heat had to go somewhere and heat tends to go up.  Up and transferred to Daniella.  So the baby was boiling hot like fire and her eyes just got brighter and narrowed like she was real ticked off and then, the baby, she just got even hotter and Missy was holding Daniella over her head Simba style, looking right into the baby’s daggers and she wasn’t sure which was more painful, Daniella’s violet lasers or the pure scorching heat of her body temperature, prickling at Missy’s palms bubbling with blisters.  Then Missy’s fingers lost their function. Gave way. Dropping the baby as Missy let out a howl and braced for impact. Throwing her hands over her head and ducking and waiting for a screeching baby-falling-to-death sound.  When none came Missy parted her forearms to see Daniella suspended.  Flopping round from her stomach to her back like a log and then gracefully, gracefully, the baby rocked and cradled herself down, swaying in the air as if in a mother’s arms.  Down from the ceiling – rocking back and forth gently, gently to her original bed. 

All the babies were crying now.  Missy was staring at her red inflating hands.  Other nurses were running in, tracing the sound.  Almost all the babies shrieking now.  Mouths wide open and trembling, baby spit flying, nurses sneakers squeaking asking Missy what was wrong.  Daniella smiling with her eyes wide and bright, basking in the scene of chaos surrounding her own serenity.  Beautiful.  Looking like she should be on a billboard.  Not making a sound.  

III

All of Mrs. P’s kids were the worst in their own unique way.  Reid Calloway never got why they all looked so different with varying shades of skin from pink freckled to dark brown.  His dad said that’s because they’re foster kids.  So they weren’t related.  But Reid didn’t buy it though.  They were all too awful not to come from the same place. 

“Dad can we move?” Reid had asked one day after The Worst of the crew had punched him in the gut so The Worster could grab his bag of Oreo minis while The Worstest rolled on the ground in agony so the other neighbors would think Reid had kicked him in the shin first.  

“You have to face bullies head on.  Can’t run away from them.” His dad had adjusted his glasses and looked long and hard at his son before returning to the book reports he was grading. 

Reid figured they could at least runaway up one more floor.  Maybe two flights of stairs would prove enough of a no-man’s land to keep his sanity.  Anything more than the thin laminate that separated his room from the pack of wolves in the apartment below.  Always nudging broom handles at their ceiling to shake Reid’s bed frame while he attempted sleep.  

Reid was ten and average sized at the time.  Had this thick auburn hair and a prettyboy face that would later accrue him spoils.  At ten it just subjected him to ass kickings.  Him looking so angelic and pretty and small just made him seem like a girl. But Reid was strong in mind.  Shied away from the barbaric physical violence the other kids on the block founded their hierarchies on.  Reid knew this was an immature system of government and therefore decided to follow his father’s advice.  Marched right down the front steps of their four-story apartment building.  Had his Bulls pullover sweatshirt on figuring he’d be making Michael Jordan proud, palms grasping his new shiny basketball.  

Mrs. P’s clan was shooting hoops in the alleyway next to their building.  The red white and blue net fraying at the edges from overuse, the whole backboard shaking every time an L train passed overhead – the monster’s growling shaking down dying leaves from all the overgrown sickly city trees.  Reid knew there were five boys in the clan but it always seemed like they were multiplying.  This time there appeared to be a little girl Reid’s age sitting on the sidelines hugging her knees watching the oldest and The Worsterest of the boys conducting the younger ones, all of them with their gym shoes scuffing against the pavement faded to gray.  

“Hey! It’s the little guy from upstairs!” One yelled.

Reid tried not to look over at the boys.  Just kept his steady feet pushing forward, eyes locked on the little girl with the pools of violet for eyes.  

“Yeah, yeah look at that little guy! What? He think he’s gonna play with us?” 

Reid ignored them and kept moving forward.  Shuddered a bit and maybe it was from the wind circulating around that mystifying little girl – flinging her long black hair around in chunks.  But the breeze didn’t even come near to touching Reid.  Only swam around her purple corduroy skirt and flitted about her frame making her look like she was dancing in that vacuum of wind even though she was sitting on the curb.  Head down now, picking at a scab on her knee. 

“Hey! Little guy! What do you think you’re doing, huh?” 

Reid was on the court, the clan surrounding him, still staring straight ahead at the newcomer.  She smiled at him and Reid’s previous shudder warmed like butter melting in his belly like he’d watch it do on his morning toast.

“I’m here to play basketball.” He pronounced pointedly, still not turning to the boys. 

“Yeah right you are!” The Worst pushed him.

“This is our court!” The Worster threw in a shove. 

“Yeah, maybe you should go back inside and read a book, crapbrain!” The Worstest cackled. 

“Ha! Yeah! Read! Like your name! Reid! Ha!” The Just-OK scrawny one giggled uncontrollably. 

The Worsterest stepped forward and slapped the ball out of Reid’s hands – a smirk curling on his massive hulk face, two heads taller than Reid.  

Reid couldn’t even open his mouth.  Just stared as the giant lumbered away with his ball, each of his Godzilla steps shaking the earth as he headed to the chain link fence separating the alley from the abandoned grassy lot next door.  He paused at a bended stick on the pavement serving as a makeshift three-point line. He started to dribble. 

“Hey Samuel,” A new fiery voice spoke up from the curb, “why don’t you see what he’s got?” 

The little girl was standing up now and walking towards the cluster of boys all spinning around to her voice.  She glided when she walked, that hair still blowing behind her but not graceful. It was a mess.  She was a mess. Cuts and bruises. Dirt on her knees. Tangled hair. Wrinkled skirt. Most beautiful thing Reid ever seen.  

“He’s got nothing.” Samuel laughed and the boys followed with a chorus of she don’t even know and new girl and yeah yeah she’ll see.  

“How do you know?” 

“Look at him!” 

“What’re you scared? Just ‘cause he’s younger doesn’t mean he can’t shoot. Go ahead. Show them.” Reid was frozen on Samuel the whole time and didn’t even realize the last was directed toward him.  “Go on!” 

Reid’s face was all dumb, mouth open, but the little girl’s eyes scared him they were so direct.  She pushed him forward.  Samuel just shaking his head and handing the ball over.  The other boys parting like the sea to either side.  The girl leaning on the brick wall besides the basket, neck up and eyes fixed on the hoop.  

Samuel chucked the ball at Reid and he twitched a little on impact but managed to catch it.  Swirled the thing a couple times in his hands as he stepped up to the stick. 

“Let’s go!” The girl sighed heavily leaning further into the brick and a couple of the guys laughed in an appreciative hey she’s alright kind of way.  

So Reid sighed, dribbled one two three and swirl and lifted his head up and just as he was about to let the ball leave his hands a gust of wind pushed his back but his body remained still and the ball went sailing, spinning and swoosh right through the basket. Nothing but net.  Reid’s mouth agape.  Samuel scrunching his face in disbelief. The clan all looking around at each other for some explanation. The girl smiling to herself.  Wind still blowing around her.  

“Looks like the little guy can shoot.” She said and started to walk back towards the apartment building. 

Reid ran after her. 

“Hey… uh. Wait!” 

She spun around.

“Yeah?” She shoved her neck out like a challenge.

“You’re, uh… new?” 

“Yeah Mrs. P just acquired me.” 

Reid thought how his dad would like that word. Acquired. 

“Well, yeah. Cool. Well… I’m Reid.” He stumbled. 

“I’m Daniella.” She nodded suspiciously then turned away.

“Daniella!” He ran up to her side to whisper. She kept walking as he spoke. “That uh basket… I uh… I don’t usually… I can’t usually shoot… it seemed like you… I know it’s weird but… did you do something?” 

Daniella stopped. 

“What? You think I can control the wind or some shit?” Her wide eyes and tilted head mocked him and her vulgarity made his neck twinge. 

“No, I just… it seemed… weird.” 

Daniella didn’t talk for a minute, staring at the sweating, nervous little boy. 

“You’re welcome.” She smirked and walked up the front steps. 

Reid later told his dad, the History Channel murmuring in the background, but just as he was about to speak his theory of her mystical magical supernatural whatever power thingy she must have, Reid remembered that the History Channel was on and figured maybe he’d just keep his superhero fantasy to himself.  Just like he’d later keep the times he saw objects flying in the backyard to himself.  Just like he’d never tell anyone about the ballet of various plastic lawn chairs he’d once witnessed or how when he looked down into the lawn Daniella was there lying on her back with her curls cascading into the grass, hands up conducting the whole thing like an orchestra.  Reid assumed he had to be crazy.  Especially when he saw her fly.  Launch right off the sidewalk zooming higher and higher with that trail of violet light until she dissipated into the clouds.  The exhaust she’d leave behind making a negative degree winter feel as hot and humid as summer next to a bus.

After a couple years of Daniella Rossi, Reid wasn’t sure he knew the difference between love and fear. So he mostly shied away from her. Though the breeze always seemed to pull him closer.  

IV

For Daniella Rossi life seemed to pass in flashes.  Flashes of foster homes always ending with some mishap or some hospital visit or some chair getting thrown threw some wall.  

“Now Daniella do you want to talk about the heat?” 

After an incident involving a broken leg Samuel insisted was caused by little Daniella somehow tossing massive Samuel up in the air and letting him drop on concrete, Mrs. P was starting to think it was time Daniella got some counseling.  When Daniella said she’d rather move on, since four years at one home was her longest stint anyway, the agency let Daniella know Mrs. P was basically her dead end at the bottom of a long list of foster parents too starched white for kids like Daniella. So at fourteen Daniella finally saw a shrink.   

“Daniella? Did you hear the question?” 

“Yeah I can hear.” Daniella forced a quick closed mouth smile then went back to cracking her knuckles on the coffee table.  She was in her track uniform so her bare legs were sticking to the leather sofa.  JustcallmeDave was sitting across from her leaning forward on his knees.  Squinting his eyes at her so his thick-rimmed glasses squished further up his round face.  His light blue polo looked too big. 

“You said sometimes things happen and you get hot? What makes you hot?” 

Daniella almost laughed. What makes you hot? Perv.  

“When I lose control.” Daniella blurted out and didn’t intend to answer anymore stupid questions. 

And she didn’t.  After a half hour of fluff Daniella ran home and let the wind guide her like always.  Daniella could run so fast she’d blur but she was smart enough to convert her superhuman powers into talents. Ran fast enough to be a prodigy but slow enough to avoid inquiries.  She wanted to be in the Olympics not locked up for scientific experimentation. But sometimes when Daniella ran, she let her feet get away from her.  Usually only at night and usually only when no one was looking. 

On those nights when Daniella ran, she felt control despite her lack of it.  She felt her mind latch on to an entity that was not her own and she could close her eyes and still end the race exactly where she needed to be.  And when Daniella ran, it was not her feet guiding but her core propelling her through space, her bones and muscles extending and contracting in response to the pull, all rippling as a product of the energy radiating in her center, heat streaming through her veins, power bubbling in her blood and expelling through her pores.  And when Daniella ran, matter could not describe her form so much as mass.  She existed but could not be seen.  She could hear but could not be heard.  Like she could hear yoga-pantsed women gabbing in boutiques as they searched through sliding clothes hangers.  She could hear the sweat dripping down a chef’s neck over the roaring fire and flamboyant profanities spewing in an upscale restaurant.  She could hear a whispered lullaby from a studio apartment and the quiet dribbles and coos of a baby drifting to sleep in a mother’s arms.  She could hear the horns of taxis and the charging L train, she could hear the bass from a car radio, the cry of the newspaper salesman “Streetwise! Streetwise!”  And she could hear street performers.  She could hear their drums.  And when Daniella ran, she could fly.  A trail of violet zigzagging behind as she burst through clouds and twirled and twirled and twirled until teetering out of control as if spinning in a field of daisies.  And down on the street the people kept their eyes forward, moving forward, not looking around.  And then every once in a while one eye would stray a glance to the sky but the color was so fleeting the image was dismissed after a double take.  And when Daniella ran, she grew.  She absorbed the stories the city told as if living in fast forward and felt all those surrounding her, felt their hearts beat with her own, accelerating and she accelerated and accelerated until she felt she might implode and so when Daniella ran, she always had to stop.

“I’ve seen you fly.” 

Daniella was catching her breath on the front steps to her building when she noticed Reid Calloway leaning against the door like he’d been waiting.  High school had taught him pretty faces meant popularity so his old nervousness was quickly slipping away, now that he was used to girls hanging on his arms.  Apparently girls thought he was some Adonis these days.  Like some artist had taken a chisel to him.  Daniella still thought he looked dumb. Leaning there, wearing a gray cardigan and looking like he thought he was classy like his dad. 

Hours had passed since Daniella left JustcallmeDave and it was dark outside.  A little nippy out with Chicago September.  Streets empty except for flickering streetlamps. 

“What?” She asked more like a warning than like she hadn’t heard.  

“I’ve seen you…” His glance up to the sky finished his sentence, “ever since you moved in here. I’ve seen you…” Reid was smiling then. Excited and eyes gleaming like the stars.  “You talk to the wind or something? I see you whispering sometimes.  How do you do it? I mean where did you come from? Are you like… I don’t know… you a superhero or something?” He was almost out of breath like a little kid talking about Legos.  

Daniella felt her palms sweating and she wished she could answer him.  Sometimes she’d try to remember where she came from but when she reached far back all she could remember was the sound of rushing cars and lapping water and someone breathing slow like it was their last.  

“Why do you care?” She stepped closer and felt her body heat rising. Reid felt it to and backed into the door with a thud. 

“It’s just… not… usual? And I don’t know it just seems like you could… well like the basketball. You know when you made me score.”

“What like four years ago?”

“Yeah. I don’t know. Guess I was just thinking and if you can do all that… you could help people?” 

“With great power comes great responsibility and all that dumb Spiderman crap?”  

“Yeah.” Reid saying it all easy like it was simple math. “Or Batman. Superman. The X-Men. Whoever.” 

 “No.” Daniella laughed. 

“But you have to!” 

Daniella’s heat was escalating now, her eyes darting between Reid’s and Reid pushing harder and harder against the door he was so scared and trying not to look it. 

“Don’t tell anyone or I’ll eat your family.” She spat and hissed after for effect then walked in the door. 

That night like most nights Daniella sat on the roof.  Closed her eyes and felt and heard the entire city beating inside her.  Calling to her like drums so she took off.  Flew up, up and high.  The breeze conquered her eardrums, created a hum, a roar.  Her eyes remained closed but the flashes came next.  Flashes of life flying past her line of vision.  A police officer riding on a horse.  A pigeon nibbling on bread. An old woman rattling up the stairs, leaning on the railing for support.  

And then she was there.  Daniella dropped from the sky right beside the old woman.  Gave her back a nudge and let the Wind do the rest, gently propelling the old woman effortlessly up the stairs.  When she turned for an explanation Daniella was already gone.

Daniella never allowed herself to be seen.  She hid around corners and on balconies.  Sometimes threw burglars through glass windows.  They’d be pleading and shrieking to an invisible god as they flailed down the street.  The storeowners would run out next and search down the street and up the skyscrapers, looking for an angel.  

Such covert adventures were games to Daniella – a way to pass the time when no book or movie could satisfy her, when giggling over boys could not distract her, when her legs could not take her far enough away. But that didn’t mean she wanted to make a difference.  Always figured that’d make too much of a mess. 

Until the sometimes that Daniella saw death.  

Saw an innocent boy take his last breath, his heart pierced by a bullet intended for someone else.  Blood painted the pavement.  The whites of the young boy’s eyes flickered light into the night sky as his lids fluttered and then settled and the street was quiet except for the feet of the last gang member’s escape, a distant patter against the wet asphalt.  One last puff of air released from the boy’s lips – a small mushroom of water vapor visible in the freezing air.  Daniella watched the boy transition into the world of stillness, watched his dark skin dull.  Her heart raced as did her brain, the drums pounding through her entire body.  One silent word to the wind and she could return air to his lungs, fill them until his chest rose, until it pushed the blood back through his veins.  She could open his mouth and his nasal cavity and let the wind move through him, like it moved through her.  Daniella could bring him back.  Easily.  She clenched her fists and closed her eyes and imagined the glow that would result if his eyes flickered open again.  But instead she opened her own.  She shivered and took off, the wind engulfing her body and transporting her back to the roof. Plopped on the tiling and looked out at her city.  Her ears opened to more screams and more ambulances and she saw more senseless blood and even more lingering mushrooms of undeserved last breaths and that was when she cried. 

Reid awoke to tapping at his window.  Jolted right up.  He had slept light ever since the broomstick incidents of his childhood.  When he noticed the sound was coming from his window he turned to see Daniella hovering, her hair flapping more than usual and she was crying. 

“I let someone die.” She said as he sat her on his bed, trying to figure out where your hands were supposed to go when you comforted someone. 

“I’m sure you did all you could.”  Reid placed his hand robotically on her back. 

“But I didn’t. I let him die. I watched him.” She was sniffling hard and looking ugly and thinking how gross and puffy her eyes were gonna be in the morning. 

“It’s not you fault.” 

The wind howled outside, high pitched like a bird.  Both kids felt goose bumps. Daniella shoved her fists to her sockets trying to dull her tears with pain.  Wanted the open wound to hurry up and become a scar so she could move on and grow hard.  But Reid’s hand felt warm through her t-shirt.  

“It is my fault. You were right. I’m not gonna let anyone else die.” 

Daniella Rossi looked up and her violet eyes pierced the night sky.