Authors: Kathy-Lynn Cross
Well, no better time than the present to look at my gift. I was clean and warm again. The earlier thoughts about Michael and the box were just a dirty memory. I glanced from Rae-Lynn to Blakely. The action gave me an idea. One of them could hold the box while I opened it. I feared the chill no longer. I had it covered.
“Mom, can I look at the flowers now?” I held up both hands as if to say
please
.
She leaned toward me from her chair and played with a tie on the gown. Maybe hoping one of the cats from the fabric pattern would bat at it. “Why now, I thought you wanted to eat after cleaning up. And your father is on his way. He’ll be here any minute.”
Blakely jumped off the bed, briefly looking at her watch, “Oh wow. Look at the time. Well, I gotta jet for now. But I’ll be back tomorrow to add to the picture on your arm.” She grabbed her warmed up coffee off the table and reached for her car keys to the Lady, her salsa red, 2009 Volkswagen Beetle two point five convertible. Blakely has always had an obsession with Sharpies.
She decorates everything with them. She is a great artist. I’ve even had her draw on a few of my book covers.
Anyway, she used about five, thick black Sharpies to attack her car. It has big, huge, black spots, making it look like a real ladybug.
I was so envious that she could drive, but aside from that, she was leaving awfully fast. Max has always scared her to death. I knew the minute she heard he was on his way she would bolt.
“Mom was just going to let me open the present. Please stay, I promise he’ll be on his best behavior.” I was trying to give those big, wide Puss-in-Boots eyes. Batting my lashes, she giggled.
“I really should get going. I have a paper due and TV shows can’t watch themselves, ya know.”
Scooting closer, I whined. She caved. I clapped. “Yay.”
“Okay, let’s open the box. Then I gotta go.” She sat on the edge of her chair. Mom hesitantly handed the box to us. I signaled for Blakely to take it from her. Then urged her to go ahead and remove the tissue paper from whatever was underneath.
I never saw a bouquet of flowers so beautiful. They rendered me speechless. Two conflicting impulses kept me still. Anxiousness and longing battled for the right to control me—touch or don’t touch—left me from advancing further. The coolness was wrapping around the right hand, but I was holding my own at the moment.
The flowers were similar to a rose but with thinner petals. I counted seven partially bloomed buds as they glistened and sparkled, resembling the sun hitting snow. Eureka. The flowers really did look like snow. Each one was sculpted out of a substance which looked like the winter white stuff but held their form like ice. It would explain why the box was so cold until Blakely commented on the bouquet.
“Oh, my gosh, Lex-Cee. They are gorgeous. I’ve never seen such a pretty color of yellow. How much would seven pale yellow long-stemmed roses cost with buds the size of your fist? These are amazing. I think the florist goofed though because there are seven instead of six. You still think they were delivered by mistake?”
I looked back into the box again. No, they were white. Their brightness made the dark hunter green stems appear almost black. Something surreal had happened as I watched the bottoms of the petals turn a light azure and got darker. The new color began to move up the petals, marbling in delicate swirls.
Someone swat the flies from my unhinged jaw. Hadn’t anyone else seen this happening?
Catching Rae-Lynn’s hard gaze, she was clearly unhappy with the gift and had no problem showing it. Slipping a single finger up to her lips, she made a silent
Shhh as
I was thrown into a world called
not now
. I tried to lick my lips to keep from saying something I might regret.
A deep voice clipped from behind me, “So, I see you let her open them anyway? What were you thinking, Rae-Lynn?” Max loomed over my shoulder.
Can we say, I need a bath again?
And from the looks of it, Blakely needed to change her panties too. She sat still, ramrod straight. Her chance to scurry unnoticed was moot, but it didn’t matter because she was too scared to leave anyway.
When we first became friends, Max had become terse with us over coloring on the walls in the playroom. His voice had a tendency to boom, and I guess it was too much for Blakely. She burst into tears and rocked while clutching the marker to her chest. Ever since then, she has been afraid of him. If I was in a confrontation with him while she was there, I was S.O.M.O,
so on my own
as far as she was concerned.
“I can’t believe his audacity. He gave her Remembrance Roses? Are the two of you trying to speed up the upcoming events in her life?” He appeared confused, which was against his character. “How in flames creation did he manage to bring these to this side? You realize what will happen if she touches them?” Using two of his fingers he lifted my chin. “Where is her pendant?” His voice had almost hit the booming level. Why was he angry over my missing necklace?
Willow was crying again. Blake looked like she wanted too. Mom stood there with furious eyes. She was determined to not show him she had already been crying. I sat silent and in bewilderment.
Mom narrowed her eyes. “It is the least of our worries. And as you can see, she hasn’t touched them yet. Max, can I talk to you over here… in my, ah, office?” She gestured over to the bathroom.
Max had a disconcerted look on his face. “Rae-Lynn, that’s the bloody bathroom.”
She stomped and pointed. He cleared his throat and obeyed. She then briskly walked over to the bed. “If you’re wondering, these flowers are called the Rose of Remembrance. They are very special. I also read in an article, you should never touch them, especially the thorns because some people are highly allergic to them. Excuse me, girls, for a moment. Alexcia, I need these for a few minutes.” She took the flowers, and my heart melted.
Why couldn’t I touch them? They were only flowers. And I’d never had an allergic reaction to anything, not even pollen. Those flowers changed in appearance… I know what I saw, even if Blakely hadn’t seen it. I knew it was the reason Mom took them. But I wasn’t going to tell Blake because she was freaked out enough already with Max there. The door made a hissing sound as she tried to slam it, but the pressurized hinge at the top was stopping her dramatic exit.
Willow was clearly upset by the outburst, and I felt it was my duty to calm her down before she called the nurses to complain. “I’m truly sorry for Max’s behavior, Willow. He’s really worried about his company and having me laid up adds to his frustration.”
She sniffed and bit her lip, displaying the weight of whether she wanted to tell us what was really bothering her.
Blakely could clearly see Willow was as upset as her. Getting up and walking over to her bedside, she rested a hand on the elderly lady’s shoulder. “It will be okay, Ms. Glasston. Honestly, her dad freaks the hell out of me too. I’m sure he won’t be staying long.”
“Mr. Stasis does make a tornado sound like a breeze, but he is not the reason I’m scared.” Her lip trembled, “That boy, the one who delivered your package, he knew my name.” She mumbled, “He knew my birth name… Willamina. No one has called me by my name for over fifty years, not even my husband, rest his soul. He wouldn’t dare call me Willamina if he knew what was good for him. But, that boy, he knew it. And I didn’t like how he looked at me… I didn’t like it.” She glanced back at the door. “When he spoke to me, I experienced piercing pain, and I thought I was going to have a heart attack right then and there. The pain was not gas. That’s the excuse the doctors have been brushing me off with. He isn’t really coming back to see me, is he?” Her last question held fear in it. I wasn’t the only one having the creeps about Michael.
My parents’ voices were rising in the small bathroom. I was concerned the door was going to burst from the built up anger between them.
Then…
SLAP.
Never heard that one before between the two of them, and it left me holding in a sob. Silence seeped from under the door and filled the room.
Blakely’s eyes were bursting with horror, and I knew she didn’t want to be around for the outcome. I signaled, with my good hand, for her to get the hell out of there. She patted Willow’s shoulder, waved to me, then pointed at her watch, reminding me Jake and Dee were supposed to be there shortly. Great, they were going to walk into an ongoing war between the roses.
She was gone in a blink and the door to the bathroom opened slowly. The first to come out was Rae-Lynn, rubbing the inside of her right hand as her reddish blond hair veiled her face. Father sported a four-finger welt on his left check as he stepped from the doorway. He walked over to Mom’s laptop case and pulled out her cell phone, then walked back into Rae-Lynn’s temporary office and closed the door.
Max’s voice was an octave above booming again, and I hoped whoever was on the other end didn’t have the receiver up to their ear. I turned to Rae-Lynn, silently pleading for her to explain why they were so hostile to each other over a dumb cluster of frozen flowers. She was right, though. If I didn’t have questions before, they were on my tongue now. Mom walked over to the window… refusing to look at me.
“Mom,” my voice wavered.
She turned to face me, slowly pushing up a long, weak smile. “Things will get worse before they get better, baby. You’ll have to trust me. Okay?”
Max opened the door while hanging up her cell phone. He briskly walked over to me without saying a word to Rae-Lynn. Placing the cell on the small table, he spoke under his breath. I couldn’t quite make out the words, but their soft hush made me feel safe. He bent over and hugged me tight, so tight I wanted to cry because I thought it was his way of telling me goodbye. The coldness was back when he broke our embrace. Max stared in pause, then turned to leave the room. My heart filled with panic.
“Where are you going? You just got here.”
Father’s deadlock stare with Mom said it all. He was leaving because of her, or so I thought. Then his voice filled the room. “Don’t worry, honey. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He shifted his eyes to Rae-Lynn. “I just realized I almost missed my appointment with death.” Max abruptly turned on his heel and stormed out.
Now, that was enigmatic.
His tongue was sharp even through the cell phone. My ear still burned from the onslaught of my name being used with a colorful adjective afterward. Alexcia’s father was on his way to meet me. Uncorking a huge breath, I turned off the phone and shoved it into the back jean pocket. I raised both shoulders in a half shrug and spoke out into the wind around me. “Time to discuss a new Bond-Rite.” It was a matter of time before they found out who sent the flowers.
Damn.
I told Michael to only give them to Alexcia, not Rae-Lynn, and definitely not leave them out in the open for her father to find. Why was he causing him so much trouble? First was the botched up job from the party, and now this.
Michael needs to get it through his thick, Ashen head that she is a part of our world whether he likes it or not. A Child-of-Balance is needed to maintain order to the Constants we govern and between the Houses of Light, Space, and Time.
The power must remain equal for creation to thrive. We agreed as a clan to make sure she remained safe in her world until she was of age. Why trip up now when her time to choose was near? He did not need to keep rubbing what I did in my face. We still had to work together for the same goal, to keep the waters of creation flowing.
The snow was piled high for this time of year with icicles hanging from the upper rim of our dwelling, reminding me of serrated teeth in the dual moonlight. I had a desire to run a finger down the length of one, and it drew me in. I’ve always been amazed at how something so delicate and fragile could otherwise have another side to it, strong and stubborn, determined to not let go or bend no matter how hard the winds tried to wear it down. I frowned, realizing they reminded me of her.
Alexcia needed direction. I presumed if she could remember the accident ten years ago, she might understand her importance to both of our worlds. I wear a cloak because it is part of what I am. All the while, she has been forced to wear hers over her eyes.
Time was ticking, not only her, but for all of us. So many lines had been drawn in the sand, and all the players seemed to be surrounded by them. As usual, Alexcia stood in the middle. Shrouded and completely clueless, she needed someone to cross first. I decided it was time for all of us to choose power or protect. In an attempt to be forthright, the clan was divided about the
protecting
part. In my opinion, they all needed to wake up and face our reality because eventually her eyes will unlock. I tried to help the process along.
May the House of Constants protect us when she does figure it out.
Maybe I could move us to work at one of the earth’s poles by then? Colder was better instead of the possibly of our own reaping and recopying, I believed.
Speaking of frostier pastures, our domain was located on the side of a snow-capped mountain in the dimension of the Unseen. No one could tell from the outside, but our cave was gigantic. In the back, buried deep within the cavern, the Cauldron of Ending was located.
All Ashen clans have had one assigned to them and each one linked to the other. It was filled with the waters from our creator, the River Styx. When we ventured near the cauldron, the water would boil. That was how the River spoke to us, whispering the names of the damned through the steam, and it was how we obtained the time frame and learned where to retrieve them.
By definition, Ashens have always been bound to specific harvesting areas. Therefore, they stay close to it, by mirroring their same location with the earth’s present state. That way, crossing between both plains was as simple as a thought. We were mirrored to a particular part of Sin City. It was a fitting nickname for a city full of tasty, tainted souls. Death was never without a job because the unique mixture of Vessels trying to coexist together was delicious. One drawback, though, was during summer solstice because it was brutally hot. Winter was never cold enough for our kind, another reason we remained tethered to our own dimension.
In our world, we could summon our cloaks or stretch out our wings as Smolders and soar without being detected by the living. To an Ashen, it was the closest feeling to what the Vessels call being free, although we never were. Our bond to the River was the price for eternity.
Our existence is mostly mundane. We fill our time coexisting between both worlds and find ways to kill time between harvestings. One of our past times is sampling what the vessels call fast food. Ashens do not need to consume this food to exist but snacking on it gives us a quick fix between jobs. The Bond-Rite between the River Styx and all Ashens requires payment for performing the severing process. Our power is sustained by siphoning a portion of the Vessel’s energy before their life force can be obtained. When we sever the spirit from the body, it is when we truly feed. A Vessel’s last emotion is our sustenance.
The empty soul is then given to the Bridge Crosser. That particular daemon’s job is designed to take the soul to the Ever After where the gondoliers ferry them back across the River Styx. In short, we recycle creation. It’s not a glamorous occupation being a Grim Reaper. Our only purpose for existence can be summed up in one sentence; we kill so creation can continue.
I looked up at the sky and wished for the wind to carry me anywhere, as long as it was not here. Ashens were damned to remain between both plains for however long our eternity lasted. Death walked among Vessels for so long that some of us tried to find a way to take out our own being.
Even a daemon can lose its own way when facing the never ending unknown.
Screeching from above alerted the Smolder within me. My attention fixed on the trees above the entrance, and I watched a Callcry take flight, its wing span becoming smaller until it was a speck on the horizon. The wind whipping through the canyon had not altered its flight path.
Like all daemonic creatures, Callcrys, or the River Styx’s soul cages, were attracted to negative emotions and malicious dreams. These beasts were similar to a raven but larger, about the size of a three-year-old Vessel, with the same length of wing span. Their most impressive feature was to disappear from sight, blending into the cover of night. Feathers were painted a dull, abyss black accented by the two orbs of burning gold. In the presence of another daemon, their eyes would die out and fill with blood to shed tears for the damned. If a soul was beyond the evils of darkness, the River it would send the Callcrys to collect, contain, and destroy the container and what was left of its essence. I thought of them as the River’s filtration system.
Michael had once told me that a small flock of Callcrys found refuge on our mountain. That was fine by me because they would take care of our Snip and Snap problem. Humans have always believed that they were mythical creatures called pixies or fairies.
It is laughable since they take on more daemonic nuance characteristics than anything else. Snaps, or fairies, create diseases and poisons. Snips, or pixies, breathe life into lies and steal emotions from nightmares. Six hundred years and I still cannot figure out their purpose.
My chest was heavy with so many uncertainties. The biggest one was how I really did not want to deal with Max. He was an unreasonable daemon. No one could if you valued your existence. I had taken a gamble sending Alexcia those roses, and this rat was going to pay the piper. I chuckled at the thought. Oh well, it was worth the risk.
The elementals were getting bolder by trying to attack her with a chance of leaving witnesses behind. I was impressed by their tenacious manner, not much, but enough to make me have second thoughts about picturing her in a coffin. Plus, something had to change with our duties watching over her. Seven Ashens made up our clan, and it was our job to handle about one-fourth of the harvesting in this area. The River’s demand for more souls was increasing. With Alexcia upping her chances to become one of them, we needed a new strategy.
Grudgingly, I had to admit that I might have misjudged the outcome of this last attack. Regardless, extreme measures were necessary. Alexcia’s body was having a negative reaction, especially if we were working next to her. That sometimes affected our work with the dying. The risk was becoming a problem and a damaged soul could turn into a Caster, or what the Vessels call a Ghost.
In my opinion, we do not need any more ghosts.
I looked up where the dual moons were rising. Max was running late, must have been gathering up more power to knock me into the next plain. I was getting anxious. If he really wanted to snuff me out, he could have ported himself from somewhere in the hospital. This was his way of playing the older daemon teaching the younger one a lesson by making me sweat it out in the deep freeze.
This mixture of sour emotions was pissing me off, as well. I knew he did not have to go along with Rae’s Bond-Rite with me. Max could have made it nonexistent if he really wanted to. Our House’s ruler, Lucifer, had given him so much power in his human state, it seeped from his pores when certain emotions heightened. In most cases, Max exited in haste because he did not want Alexcia to detect it, and it made me wonder how long he could perform the duties of Doom Guard and keep the charade going. When he transformed into that physical state, he would have scared her to death… literally. Inevitability had a way of eventually helping out those who were clueless. It was only a matter of time until she figured it out.
Uncontrollably, both feet began to pace from the current of thoughts. Still entertaining the idea… if we could jog her memory enough to crack the door, maybe she would allow us to teach her how to use such powers. Then the clan and I would get some confirmation that we were actually protecting the Chosen Child. I understood what Rae-Lynn wanted us to believe, but the clan was getting restless protecting a Vessel that may or may not be the River’s chosen one. Another question borne from thought made its way out, “If there are special children born every three hundred and thirty-three years, what makes her so different from the others?”
“Good question, daemon snot. But what makes you think I would enlighten you after the stunt you pulled?” He had answered my thoughts with words, and his voice sounded like gravel sliding down the mountain, growing louder until it was directly above me.
Max landed on the cliff at the top of the entrance, causing the Callcrys to stain the sky in streaks of ink. In his present form as Doom Guard, the daemon straightened to his actual height of ten, maybe twelve, feet. He roared out of annoyance while swatting with open claws at the swirling mass of inky feathers. Swishing in erratic patterns, his black horns reflected small specks of the moon’s glow off the snow. The forest was lit up, but we were missing the thumping music to go along with it. I felt something dark, yet humorous, as I watched the spectacle play out in front of me.
The Doom Guard opened and closed his massive wings to give himself space in the middle of the encircling birds. He must have been about fifty feet up. The whirlwind of Callcrys fluttered, and then became a frantic warning of dread. Max set his sights on me, both eyes expressing he wished I would spontaneously combust and disappear from his existence. I sighed. “Here we go.”
The cloak’s mist began to dissipate, leaving a feeling of apprehension and tension as a shield. My own minion was bailing on me, how in the
Hell of Creation’s Tomb
did it come to this? I made myself more corporeal to ground both feet into the rocks below. Narrowing both eyes, I prepared for a verbal confrontation and decided to go first. “So, old daemon, care to give Death an answer? The clan and I have grown tired of Vessel sitting. Maybe it’s high time she finds out what she really is?” Threatening me with his wingspan, he slowly opened both sides. Maybe it was his way of processing. His tongue danced across his teeth, indicating he anticipated me as his next meal.
I felt like a suicidal jumper, the ones who think halfway down that it might not be a good idea. Whenever I had the opportunity to show up next to them before they landed, I would answer their thought with an actual verbal question. “Really, that is going to be your last thought?” Unfortunately, I was never given an articulate reply. Screaming normally came last.
A blast, louder than standing on the edge of a cloud after it gives birth to a lightning strike, filled the canyon with its memory. The mountain shuddered from the shock wave of Max’s presence. In his Doom Guard form, he became a force to be reckoned with. I did not even have a chance to snap for my cloak before he was on top of me. I tasted blood and knew the familiar slow moving tar was oozing from other areas.
The predicament I was in did not really matter. I was more astonished to find I had unsheathed my scythe. Before realizing what had happened, the blade was under his throat, curving through the chain, with the toe resting on his left horn. The only movement between us was our House symbol dangling in my face. I was in a permanent stalemate with the second-in-command of our house. It was difficult containing the shock, but I worked on it by locking the jaw muscles. I switched my focus to the blood trickling down the back of my throat. Swallowing forcefully, I used it as an offering to pacify my own daemonic, Smolder creature within.
Max was using one of his hooves to slice in between rib bone and sneering as he pushed his neck down the blade to fill the space before me. Raising his leather wings off the stones, his words scorched across skin. “Listen, you are not worthy of my time to explain myself. Nor are you one to ask anything of me. You are the lowest form of daemon. I would not even take the time to scrape you off my heels.” Molten, orange blood began to pool on the beard of the blade and drip down the snath. It hissed and popped the same way lava flow meets the sea. Brimstone and sulfur filled the air with an angered stench.