Immortal Light: Wide Awake (5 page)

Lucy just glared at him. She was absolutely
incredulous that he dared make a joke at her misfortune. The more
she looked at him the wider his smile got before he finally started
laughing. Incredulity turned to fury. She couldn’t believe what she
was seeing. How did she misjudge him so badly?

“
What are you laughing at? Do you
think this is funny? How do I explain this?”

Benjamin immediately suppressed his amusement,
and Lucy couldn’t believe he would be such a jerk. Benjamin finally
relaxed.

“
Why don’t you tell him the
truth?”

“
What, that I
was out driving the dark coastline ten miles from home when I told
him I would be at a party? Yeah, that’ll go over really well. It
wouldn’t
matter
that the car is totaled.”

“
Well, it’s not totaled,” Benjamin
began.

“
What are you talking about?
There’s steam or smoke or something pouring out all over the place;
I’ve probably got that green stuff or gas or oil or something
draining all over the ground getting ready to explode or something
and—”

“
Alright,
alright, I can see you’re a little hysterical—
”

“
Hysterical! You want to see
hysterical? This all your fault! Standing out there, in the road,
at midnight in the rain!”

“
Ok, ok, calm down. I’ll tell you
what. Let me call my brother, Jack. We live just up the road and
we’ll see what he can do for your car.”

“
What’s he going to do at
midnight? I have to be home before ten tomorrow morning. How’s he
going to fix this by then?” She forcefully gestured to the remains
of her precious automobile. “No, I just have to call my dad and
he’ll take care of it,” she resolved.

“
Wait,” he said in a serious tone.
“Just let me call Jack. If he says he can’t fix it, then we’ll call
your dad, okay? Just sit and relax, I’ll call him.”

It was difficult to get her heart rate down.
Of all the places to be, she did not want to be where she was. She
tried to relax in her seat, but it was little use. She needed a
distraction.

Flipping on the dome light, she
examined the mess of books on the passenger side of the car. They
had all slid to the floor like fallen dominoes in the crash. She
reached down and picked up a copy of a fantasy fiction book about
mythical creatures living in the United States. She tried to read
it but couldn’t, so she rested her head back and closed her eyes
with the book open across her lap. She tried not to think about her
fate and instead focused on the blackness. She thought of Sunset
Bay in the summer time, how she would try and stray away from her
parents down the beach, but her mother would inevitably call her
back. For a moment, she felt as though she could feel the warmth of
the sun and the sand of the beach, when her repose was suddenly
interrupted by a knock on the glass.

Opening her eyes, she looked up at Benjamin
again outside her window. With frustration she opened the door just
enough for him to peak his face in.

“
Jack’s coming with the truck and
trailer. I described what happened and he says he can fix it. He
should be here in about ten minutes.”

Lucy just shook her head. “There’s no way. How
can he fix that?”

Benjamin stared back for a long silent
moment.

“
He’s got some magic in
him.”

Lucy just rolled her eyes. “Okay, I’m dead
anyway. Might as well give it a shot.”

Benjamin nodded and Lucy looked into his
fantastically green eyes.

“
May I join you?” he
asked.

After a moment’s hesitation, Lucy leaned over
and unlocked the passenger door to let him in.

“
Thanks for your help. I don’t
know what Jack can do, but I appreciate the help.”

“
Not a problem,” Benjamin replied
as he turned to walk around the car.

After getting situated in the passenger seat,
Benjamin examined the books at his feet. Lucy could feel her heart
rate return to normal.

“
Don’t look at those, they’re just
for fun. I don’t really read that stuff.” The selection of fantasy
and science fiction novels sprawled on the floor embarrassed
her.

“
No, they’re great; I’ve read
almost all of these.”

He sorted through the spines. Lucy
watched him and was intrigued by his interest in the stack of
mediocre literature.

“
Was that you I saw out there on
the beach?” Lucy had to say something to ignore her wracking
nerves.

Benjamin looked up from his sorting. “Yeah, I
was going for a walk.”

“
In the rain? At midnight?” Lucy
asked incredulously.

“
Why not? I love lightning
storms.” He just smiled at Lucy and went back to his
books.

“
You know, this is all your
fault,” she said to him.

“
Why do you say that?”

“
If you hadn’t been out there,
standing like a lightning rod on the beach, I wouldn’t have been
speeding down the hill.”

She wanted to blame him and be mad at him, but
the fight was pretty much gone.

Benjamin sat up and gave her his full
attention. “I’m sorry. I should have known it would look
weird.”

Lucy sat back in her seat. She crossed her
arms as Benjamin stared.

“
So, what happened with the deer,
was he really not that hurt?”

“
I think he may have had some
broken ribs or something, but he was well enough to run off. I just
sort of helped him up.”

Lucy shook her head as she looked at the hood
of her car again.

“
It’s amazing that he could do so
much damage to my car and still be alive.”

“
You’d be surprised at how
resilient animals can be.”

The words had barely finished reverberating
off the car’s interior when, from down the road, Lucy saw
headlights grow brighter and larger until the nose of a pickup
truck appeared. It pulled into the parking area and turned around.
In the light of her lone headlight, she could see that it was
pulling a long trailer with a car already on it. The whole rig came
to a stop and a tall figure emerged from the truck. Lucy could tell
already that Benjamin’s brother, Jack, was not a small person. He
stood almost as tall as the pickup next to which he
stood.

Jack released various straps from around the
bottom of the car and lowered two long ramps at the end of the
trailer. He then got into the car he had been towing and drove it
off the trailer. Having parked the car, he got back into the truck.
The red taillights shone bright as he pressed on the brake pedal.
Bright white lights snapped on at the back of the truck and the
long flat trailer pushed toward Lucy and Benjamin.

Lucy watched as her Cavalier was loaded up
onto the trailer. It would take a miracle to repair that car in one
night, but now that it was loaded, she didn’t see that she had much
of a choice about it.

Jack walked over to where Lucy and Benjamin
were standing.

“
I think I can have that fixed up
for you before ten.”

Jack was at least six-foot-five and sported a
pair of beige shorts and flip-flops. A sarcastic comment about it
being a family uniform crossed her mind, but she thought better of
starting a battle of wits at that particular moment. He looked
twenty-five, maybe younger, and his hair was lighter than
Benjamin’s, even in the dark. He had a strong visage with gentle
features, except for his eyes, which were a brilliant blue that
seemed to glow in the dim light. It wasn’t exactly obvious that he
and Benjamin were brothers, but from what she could see in the
truck’s bright headlights, they both had the same tanned
skin.

“
Please don’t
feel like you have to do anything to that thing tonight. I mean,
it’s totaled and it was my fault, so—
”

“
Oh, it’s not totaled, and don’t
be ridiculous. Benjamin told me it was his fault. He distracted
you.” Jack put a firm hand on her shoulder and it felt reassuring.
“She’ll be as good as new in the morning. I promise.”

“
No; I appreciate it, but I can’t
ask you to do that. I don’t really have enough to cover the cost
…”

“
I’ll take care of everything; it
won’t cost you a dime. I’ll just make this guy do all the work.” He
elbowed Benjamin and winked at Lucy. He then looked to Benjamin and
tossed him a set of keys. “Keep it under a hundred, will ya?” As he
turned to the truck he called back, “So, where do I take it when
I’m done?”

Realizing he was talking to
her, Lucy tried to remember Kat’s address. “Uh, yeah, the
Caldwell’s; it’s on …
”
She couldn
’
t think straight for a moment.

“
Is it the lawyer Caldwell on 6th
Street?” Jack asked, trying to help her out.

It seemed to clear her head. “Yes, 6th
street.”

“
Big blue house, right? I’ve been
there before. I helped him with a BMW about a year ago,” he said as
he climbed into the truck.

As Lucy turned to face Benjamin, she heard the
loud knocking of the diesel engine fire up, and Jack pulled
away.

Leading Lucy over to their new
ride, Benjamin pushed a button on the keychain and red taillights
lit up. Jealousy overwhelmed Lucy as she sat down in the passenger
seat of what she was told by Benjamin was a brand new
Camaro.

“
Is this what you normally drive?”
Lucy asked.

Benjamin glanced at Lucy as he turned the key.
The engine roared to life and the dashboard lights glowed a
bluish-green.

“
No,” he said with a mild chuckle.
“This is Jack’s car.”

“
Then, what do you
drive?”

Benjamin looked over at Lucy and just smiled
without answering her question as he pushed the accelerator and
Lucy was gently pulled back into her seat. There was silence as
they crossed the bridge from Charleston back into Coos
Bay.

“
Thanks for helping me out,” Lucy
said, still feeling defeated.

“
You’re welcome,” Benjamin
responded.

Lucy wasn’t sure what she
expected as a response, but the one and true response to
thank you
was actually
quite disarming. There was not a hint of the sarcasm, arrogance, or
stuffiness found too frequently in so-called
charity.

“
How much is he
going to spend on that car? I really want to pay him back … if I
can.
”

“
He would be more insulted if you
tried to pay him back; and to answer your question, I doubt he
spends a dollar.”

“
How is that
possible? The thing is—
”

“
It’s not totaled,” Benjamin
interrupted. “Like I said before, Jack is magical.”

He glanced over at Lucy and nodded as if to
put a period on the end of his sentence. Lucy turned back to the
road coming at them and sat silently for the rest of the
trip.

Kat’s house was still well lit inside and out,
in spite of the time, as Benjamin pulled the black Camaro into the
driveway. Lucy thanked him again as she got out of the car and shut
the door. Before Lucy could knock on Kat’s front door, Kat pulled
it open with her usual large smile.

“
Where have you been? I called you
and called you, and sent like twenty texts.”

She halted as she noticed the strange black
car sitting in the driveway. Her smile turned to
inquisition.

“
Where’s your car, and who is
that?”

Her curiosity radar was turning on so Lucy
pushed her in the house in an attempt to diffuse her.

“
His name’s Benjamin, but I’d
rather not go into it all right now. I need to get some
sleep.”

Chapter
3

Taking a deep breath, Lucy felt
the damp warm air fill her lungs—tasting clean, like a freshwater
spring. Though she had grown up in Oregon and was familiar with the
flora and fauna there, she realized that she didn’t recognize any
of what she was seeing. She was standing in a strange forest in a
small clearing that was the size of a basketball court. The opening
in the canopy of trees revealed a golden-yellow sky dotted with
wispy white clouds. It could have been a sunset or a sunrise, but
it was beautiful either way.

To her right there were beams of light sifting
through the branches and she felt an urge to follow them. As she
began to move forward into the thick of the trees, she noticed that
her feet were bare. The ground felt soft beneath them, not like the
forests of the Pacific Northwest, where prickly evergreen needles
covered every square inch of the forest floor.

Walking through the underbrush,
while having to move an occasional long, stringy vine out of her
way, Lucy noticed that the trees began to thin just a little bit.
The yellow light from above was getting so intense that she had to
shield her eyes from the increasing glare. Ahead of her she saw
that the forest ended abruptly, revealing a magnificent orange
colored sky. The clouds on the horizon seemed to be on fire, and
Lucy was completely awestruck as she walked out into the
open.