Light of the Moon (11 page)

And then words I couldn’t stop escaped: “You should have seen the way he looked, Tyler.” I was shaking now. “His eyes so sunken-in like he was nearly dead. He was so pale. But he was so
excited
to see me. It was like he was possessed by someone that wanted me dead.”

Tyler just smiled. “I don’t know what’s going on,” he said and patted my shoulder, “but I do know that at least for tonight we should forget this. Like you said, let’s not think about it right now. We’re as safe as we can be here; there are like twenty cops walking around. Forget Kate. Forget your Dad. Forget everything that has ever made us anything less. Maybe it’s what we both need. It’ll be like magic. Tonight will solve everything if we just let it.”

“Yeah,” I said, though my entire body shivered. Even so, I thought of the night before, of Dad. With so many people around, surely one more night couldn’t hurt anything. “Maybe you’re right. Let’s just have fun.”

“And tomorrow we can figure everything out.”

Tyler shouted at his friends and we walked back over to where they were standing, waiting for magic to happen.

Charlie grunted.

“Whoa! You’re right, Charlie,” Justin said. “Check it out guys. Across the fire. Smokin’!”

The three of them grunted back as Tyler elbowed me in the shoulder. “It’s her. It’s Kate.”

She was standing across the fire, the flames flickering across her face, sheltering her from me. Sparks seemed to fall from the sky, reminding me of the single red leaf that fell the day before, burned like the ash from the fire.

“Go talk to her,” Tyler said, pushing me forward. “Maybe this is the sign you were waiting for. Go confront her and ask her what the hell is going on.”

But I couldn’t. I was frozen. “No.”

“Do it,” he urged. “Ask her what she meant when she told you ‘three days’. You deserve an answer.”

I didn’t even realize I was moving until I was right in front of her, beyond the fire. Had I walked through the flames, or around them?

I stood there, unsure, hands in my pockets.

“What?” she asked, arms crossed, a frown etched deep in her face. The light from the fire made the tattoo on her finger blaze like a tiny flame itself. Her eyes were locked on the fire, looking a beautiful shade of yellow-purple.

Talk.

“Hi,” I said.

Like lightning she turned to face me, her hand reaching forward, finger poking me in the chest. So close, her face glowed, the firelight shining like a hundred soft candles. I almost fell backwards.     

“I don’t know how you hide it so well. You think you’re so great, so in control of everything but you have no idea.” Her lips bent and she shook her head.

“Uh. Okay,” I started, ignoring the way her touch made me dizzy. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Kate. I’ve done nothing to you. I barely even know you.
You’re
the one who threatened me. Tell me what’s happening in a few days. Tell me what’s going on!”

She crossed her arms again and spat, “Oh, shut up. You know exactly what’s going on and who I am. You are sick and pathetic going around like you are trying to blend in. All these innocent people missing and you don’t even blink!”

Cold.

“What? I have nothing to do with the missing people. Do you know anything about what’s going on?”

“I know more than you think.” She scowled. “The Bloodletter is the least of your worries. The Orieno is gaining strength and you sit in school and do nothing like you have no idea what’s been happening all around you. That you don’t know
you’re
the one they want and all these people would be alive if not for you.” She shook her head. “Marcus warned me that this would happen, that you would play the fool, but don’t think your little act here tricked me for one second. I’ll give you tonight; there are too many cops. But if you leave I
will
kill you no matter what the Order says. No matter what the consequence.”

I felt so cold.

My entire body felt dead, as cold and lifeless as a corpse. Still, my heart beat fast, so rapidly it seemed to stop. My vision tilted and, my lips dry and crack, I whispered, “Kate. What are you talking about?”

Her eyes met mine for the first time all night and I could have sworn the fire burned brighter, more blue and purple and angry. The other world faded to black around us and it was just her and I.

One moment lasted forever.

One dark, infinite inferno.

“Oh my god,” she breathed, bringing a hand to her mouth. She took a step back. “Why do you look... How... You have no idea do you?”

Fear burned in her eyes, and I found myself being more afraid because of it.

“Kate,” I said stepping forward. “Explain this to me so I can understand. What are you talking about?”

“Don't,” she said, and moved further back. “Don’t you dare come near me!”

She reached out and punched me in the stomach. It was like nothing else I’d ever felt; not even Tyler could punch that hard. I fell to the ground in a heap just as rain began to fall from blackness. The world burned around me. Rain poured down, for a moment looking like mirrored droplets of tiny flames, reflecting the fire before killing it. Smoke lifted into the dark sky.

From across the extinguished fire I could see Kate, running away through the crowd. I was sure she had made it rain. Who else but a beautiful monster could have killed such a beautiful night?

Chapter Seven

Hearts on Fire

-Calum-

Hearts falling from the sky,

Twisting like bodies in the air.

Burning.

Hearts on fire.

Red and orange and green turned black.

Life falling all around me,

My world burning.

Cruel hands, black and gray,

Moving toward me.

Wanting.

Needing.

Branches of autumn’s rage,

Spiked daggers of decay.

Moving closer.

Everything moving closer.

Always closer.

Then, in the second before I drifted back to the real world and away from the cruel dream, I heard a voice; the same lyrical timbre I’d heard in the parking lot two days before. Though perhaps it was me, my mind, dreaming a warning I couldn’t understand.

“Walk away from trouble.

Rise with your brother moon.

Follow the light of it, a road.

Listen.

It is time, for darkness is close.

Become who you will always be, Caeles,

Who you have been born to be

One thousand times before, and always.”

The voice played over and over in my mind, but it made no sense. Nothing did. Like razor blades stuck deep underneath my tongue, my world felt uncomfortable to live in. Last night’s dream left me in disarray. Only when I woke did I realize the hearts had been
real
hearts, burning bright as they fell as madly as torn leaves. Realizing that made my own shake with fury.

And as I lay listening to my heartbeat, barely breathing, I could only think of Kate.

Today is the day,
I thought, sucking in air through my nose. Sunday had come and gone without a thought, and I still smelled like fire, dark and smoky.
Last Friday I met Kate and Dad tried to kill me. Today must bring something, some kind of truth to help me understand.

As much as I feared what was to come, one thought, bright as the sun rising red outside, raced through my mind:
Today I will have an answer.
One way or another I knew today was a day that would bleed truth. I could feel it.

I kept my eyes closed. Time went by so slowly when you were half asleep and half awake; it was the perfect time to daydream. Hoping, of course, that you didn’t actually fall back into a nightmare. My alarm was still safely set though, so I didn’t worry. No way did I want to be at school early. Not today.

I rolled over so that I could see out the window, resting both hands, as if praying, under my cheek. The sun was already high in the sky and its rays beat down, warming my room and making it too hot to be under the comforter. It was such a strange sight to see first thing in the early morning, before school, before my world actually started. Lately, the darkness of autumn had become prominent, overflowing the atmosphere with its feeling of chilled comings. But today was different. Today was light.

Maybe it won’t be so bad.

With a big sigh, I ripped off my comforter and felt a breath of relief as the cool bedroom air hit my naked calves, skipped over my boxers, and ran up my stomach and chest. I rolled out of bed. My feet crunched on crumpled pieces of paper inked black and blue with words. I bent down and picked up a piece so scratched with ink, scars ran up and down where I had crossed through words.

This I
wonder
can feel:

I am
nothing
my dreams.

I am
afraid of
haunted by them.

They tell me secrets.
They are whispers   of truths.

I can feel my soul screaming at me  
to open up and believe
.

Still,
there isn’t
I can’t find a truth to   believe in.

I am
nothing without truth
someone   more than this.

I am someone.

Am I even alive?
Who am I?

The words shook in my hand, tiny letters shattering me. I had written this months ago. My dreams then were so haunted and real. I remembered the mist taking me each night. I remembered the light, my savage, saving grace. I remembered so much about my dreams, but I still didn’t know the truth about my reality.

Still my dreams were like that.

Still I had no truth.

I threw the paper to the floor and pushed my shoulders back. Today would be different than my dreams; it would be real. Answers were powerful things. That was enough.

I walked to the mirror on the back of my door and  locked eyes with my reflection. Even if I didn’t know who I was today, I knew who I wouldn’t be.

I remembered his words:
I’m doing this for you...

“I am not my father,” I whispered.

For a moment, he was all I could see. His eyes looked back. His hair lay matted on mine. His lips smiled as he drank me in.

I closed my eyes, willing that singing voice to fill my head again. I knew it wasn’t anything real, but lately, aside from Tyler, it was the only thing that believed in me.

Then, like the light in my dreams:
Become who you will always be...

When I opened them, my eyes shone as bright as the moon, ever blue, and I was me.

I was
me
.

I had black bags under my eyes, and my hair, looking more messy than normal, was thrown every which way. I still had on my hoodie from yesterday and somehow it was half on and half off, one arm in and one arm exposed.

But I was me.

I was not my father’s son today.

I smiled-

let him fade to dust.

~

The hot water felt so good, soothing my muscles and burning my skin red; and within ten minutes I was showered and back in my room. I grabbed a clean pair of dark jeans from my dresser, almost fell over into a pile of paper as I was putting them on, and tugged a gray sweater over my head. I rubbed my eyes a little, trying to get the blackness out of them, but it was no use.

I made my way over to my desk. Sat, clicking the keys of my computer, searching. Somehow, I found myself looking at pictures in my photo album. I was amazed at how much I had grown over the past year, into someone more than the scrawny guy I had been when I started high school. I surfed through pictures and came to one of me and Tyler at our kindergarten graduation. His mom had forwarded it to me years ago. In it we were small, tiny compared to everything else. We were smiling. I didn’t remember that day, but I remembered being that age. That’s when the problems had started. Funny, how some people change and some stay the same.

My eyes drifted toward the bottom of the screen. The clock blinked neon: 10:02 AM.

I froze.

My breath caught in my throat.

School started two hours ago.

I moved so quickly that I knocked over my desk chair and fell onto the floor.

Why didn’t my alarm go off?

With a thud of regret washing over me, I realized I had fallen asleep without setting the clock. I must have.

Where’s Mom?

10:03 AM.

No time to think. Time was rushing forward without me, not waiting.

I grabbed my phone off the dresser, my backpack from the floor, and flung my door open, making it hit the wall, probably leaving a dent in the soft frame.

Mom would have my head for that one.

My legs couldn’t carry me fast enough as I flew down the hallway and then down the stairs, only touching three of them. In a crash I landed, fell to my knees on the floor, and looked around.

“Mom?” I called, hoping she had just fallen asleep on the couch. “Mom? Where are you?” I tried to shout, but my words came out as a cry. “I need a ride to school.”

I ran into the living room, found it empty and shouted, “Mom! You here?”

No answer.

No Mom.

It was as if the world had slowed and died, and silence upon silence was living inside the house; I knew something was wrong. I could feel it everywhere; in the quiet, thick air of unease around me. I could see it in the pictures nailed to the walls, hanging crooked and dreadful and wrong.