Authors: Lilian Carmine
I let him go and took two steps away from him, just to be on the safe side. A few guys stepped in, coming to Bradley’s aid, and Josh came over to my side, clapping my shoulder in greeting.
“That was impressive. It wasn’t very fair, though; you should be wearing your brown belt as a warning to the cocky ones in here!” he said, laughing.
“How did you know my belt color?” I asked, bewildered.
“Oh, us brown belts know how to recognize one another,” he said, winking at me.
Oooh, so he was an advance student too! That was so cool! “I didn’t know you were in this class! Hey! That was why Bradley backed off so fast that other day at the locker room when you showed up with Harry! He knew you’d kick his ass so bad!” I said with a chuckle.
“Well, yeah. But I see now it was totally unnecessary for me to intervene.” He shrugged.
“I told you I could take care of myself!” I said, still laughing.
Bradley was huddling with his buddies, giving me quite the evil glare from far away.
I was glad he was only glaring, but keeping our deal.
I actually enjoyed my first M.A. class. I had the opportunity to observe Sensei’s teaching techniques with close attention, and I got to study all the other students as well, see their flaws and best moves. Bradley kept his distance during the entire class, and I had Josh as my practice partner for the day.
Class ended and I said goodbye to Josh, hurrying to my room to tell Tristan and Seth about what happened in M.A. class today.
But I couldn’t find them. I guessed they were busy at activity classes of their own. I finally bumped into Tristan and Seth at dinner, and found out Tristan had chosen Music class and Basketball for the afternoon period. Tristan and Bradley bonding and being buddies at basketball practice gave me the shivers.
That night I had another strange dream.
I was in this wide, beautiful garden. There were huge, opulent trees and a lot of exotic flowers and vines curling and crawling up cast-iron frames. There were flowers I had never seen before; they looked alien and extraordinary, with vibrant colors. The light was soft and ethereal, that timeless light we have in dreams – not quite morning, afternoon, dusk or dawn. Everything was so lovely, quiet and peaceful. The place was deserted; there was only me sitting on an iron garden bench.
I was surveying the outstanding view when I noticed a boy about my age sitting on another iron bench very near me. He was so close, how could I not have seen him before? He was looking at me with a blank expression on his face. He had long locks of soft black hair falling over his face, and the whitest, palest face I have ever seen. His eyes were as black as mine and he had a thin face and nose, his features so pretty and delicate that he almost looked like a girl. Come to think of it, he did have this androgynous way about him.
And I couldn’t make out what he was wearing, only that it was something gray, a shirt, maybe some pants. He stood up and walked in my direction. Well, tried walking. Instead, he kind of half-lurched, half-staggered in my direction. It was like he was trying to imitate walking, but wasn’t getting it right, as if he wasn’t familiar with the mechanics of locomotion. So weird.
Then he sat on my bench, but not too close. He was trying to give me some space. When he spoke, his voice was soothing and soft, like a whisper.
“I did not mean to scare you,” he said, looking intently at me with those black eyes.
Something about him made me very uneasy.
“You didn’t,” I said suspiciously.
Not right up until now.
“I thought maybe you would feel more comfortable in this kind of place, with this relatable appearance of me. Is this young male avatar more acceptable to you?” he queried in genuine concern.
“You mean this is not what you really look like?” I asked, getting more suspicious by the second. I was sure I had never seen him before. But he sounded very, very familiar. “You were saying that you didn’t mean to scare me, but you weren’t talking about now, were you? You’re the cloaked figure of my dream. You sound like him.”
He tilted his head slightly to the left, just like he had done before. His eyes were always focusing, never blinking; it made him look even more like a bird of prey.
“Yep. That’s you, all right. Same head tilt there. You might try not to do that, it’s kind of creepy. Humans don’t do that. Well, normal ones, at least. And you might consider blinking once in a while too,” I said, shifting on my seat, moving an inch away from him.
He frowned just a fraction, absorbing my crazy speech, and then tried blinking. It was a train wreck. He sucked at mimicking human actions.
“Okay. That’s … good. But now you should try to blink a little less than that. Right. You’re getting the hang of it. So, what the hell do you want with me? It would be fantastic if you could stop gate-crashing my dreams, you know? It’s upsetting. And it’s making me grumpy during the day,” I said, moving another inch away from him. Soon the bench would end and then what would I do?
He wasn’t budging from his spot, though. Maybe he wasn’t thinking about attacking me again.
“I mean you no harm. I only want to do my job. I need to fix this. You must tell me where it is,” he said, sounding more anxious now.
“Right. What is your name?” I asked.
He flinched in surprise, not expecting that question. It was like I had slapped him in the face. He was a weird boy. Man. Being. Thingy. Ugh.
“What?” he asked, looking frightened.
“Your
name.
What is your name?”
“I don’t have a name. It is not necessary,” he said, annoyed now.
“Well, that is a bummer. I can’t call you ‘Psst, hey, you!’ Let’s see … you have quite the stare going on, don’t you? It’s like you’re always watching, silently observing, always vigilant. I shall call you Vigil,” I stated.
“
What?
No! I do not have a name!” he said, quite panicky now.
“Now you do. I just gave you one,” I said, satisfied with a job well done. “It suits you, don’t you think? Vigil.”
“I-I …” he mumbled. He looked confused and aggravated. I was glad I’d managed to take that blank stare off his face. “You just gave me one …” he repeated, astonished, and trailed off.
“So, Vigil, why do you need to find Tristan so badly? What do you want with him?” I asked. That was the big question. I tried to sound breezy, but I was all tensed up inside.
Vigil was staring at the ground, still shocked by the naming thing. He frowned and looked up as he realized I had just asked him a question. He stared at me in silence for the longest time, the blank expression back on his face. He had stopped blinking again. It was all so very creepy.
“Names have power. Great power. Why have you willingly handed that to me? I am now stronger than I ever was before. Now you have a name to fear. Fear is another powerful thing to yield,” he said slowly, like he was trying to put pieces of a puzzle together.
“I do not fear ‘
you
’, Vigil. I fear what you might do to someone really close to me. I fear your actions. What do you want with Tristan?” I repeated my question harshly.
“
Tristan
,” he said, selecting another piece of the puzzle in his head. “
Tristan
is a mistake. I fix mistakes; that is what I do. That is what I am. I watch. I observe. I put things back in their right places, in their right order. I need to fix
this
.”
So Tristan wasn’t supposed to be alive. That was what Vigil was talking about. Our spell had disturbed the natural order of things by bringing a ghost back to life. And Vigil was supposed to “fix it”. I was getting angry now. “So, when you do find Tristan, what are you going to do? Are you going to kill him?” I finally gathered the courage to ask the horrible question thundering in my mind.
“I am going to restore order. I’ll put him in his rightful place.”
“You’re going to kill him.”
“I will do what I am meant to do.”
“You will
kill him
.”
“If you prefer to put it in those terms.”
“But you need me in order to find him. You need my help. Without me, you won’t find him, you won’t ever touch him.” I stood up, really mad.
He stood up too, with a puzzled expression; he didn’t understand what I was so angry about, why I was trying to fight the natural order of things.
“So, listen up, Vigil. If fear is what makes you stronger, you won’t have any of it from me, you hear? I don’t fear you! I won’t ever fear you!” I said, walking towards him, seething with fury. Just the thought that he could take Tris away from me made me lose my mind. I didn’t know where all this anger was coming from; all I knew was that I had this instant gut-wrenching reflex reaction when Tristan’s life was threatened, and I just acted on it without thinking straight. Vigil simply stood there, watching me with those dead black eyes, no emotion showing on his pale cold face. He was a dead thing. A horrible cold thing.
“You will have to get past me first to get to him! And I won’t let you! I won’t EVER let you! Do you understand that? You might as well give up. Go fix something else!” I shouted at him.
“You are just a human girl. What makes you think you can stop me? I have lived for millions of years. You can do nothing to prevent this from happening, girl,” he said in a cold, detached voice.
I remembered what he had said in my last dream.
He would find him, no matter what.
It was only a matter of time.
“I HATE YOU!” I screamed at his face. I was beyond mad now.
He gave me a tiny smile. “Hate is a powerful thing,” he said, leaning closer, his eyes piercing with a blackness that engulfed all light. There was no hope. His eyes told me this. Nothing could escape him. Nothing ever could.
“NO!” I said, punching him in the chest.
A sharp, bright, painful light shone in the place where my fist connected with him. My whole body hurt badly with the impact, and a thundering noise filled my ears, deafening me. I was only a few inches from his face, so I could see the surprise flashing inside his eyes, the pain that he felt too, the shocking realization that I was capable of hurting him. I could read him well enough to know that no one had ever done that before. I saw fear taking him over, for the tiniest moment, and then he was gone.
And I woke up.
Chapter Seventeen
Lost Boys
My heart was pounding in my chest and my arm hurt like hell. It felt like it was dislocated or something, but gradually the pain subsided and after a few minutes the ache was completely gone. Yet another restless night for me. I was beginning to suspect it wasn’t going to be my last. I knew that sooner or later Vigil would return to haunt my dreams again. It was only a matter of time, as he had said himself …
I tried to get back to sleep but, wary of my dreams, I was unable to do more than cat-nap. In the morning, I was weary, but I tried to disguise it as best I could. I decided I wasn’t going to tell Tristan about Vigil. I needed to talk to Miss Violet first, to see if she knew anything more. I knew if Tristan sensed my worry, he would want to know what was wrong. He would make me tell him all about the dream. And then he would be the one worried and scared.
So I faked good cheer, plastered a smile on my face and went about my day.
After lunch we had Music class. The classroom was filled with instruments placed randomly on shelves, and there was a small stage at the far side of the room, directly opposite the door. Chairs circled the stage and a big piano was placed right in the middle of it.
I was immediately drawn to the piano. It had been such a long time since I’d last played on one like this! Piano lessons had been my mother’s idea. She’d said I would regret it if I passed my life without knowing how to play at least one musical instrument. But I think the truth was that she only wanted me to because my dad used to play too. He had a band once, and played professionally for some time. So I chose piano lessons first, because she liked it, and guitar lessons second, because I liked it. This was way before I fell in love with martial arts. There was also my photography addiction period, my drawing lessons enterprise and my dance classes disaster. Boy! Dance classes were a train wreck. I wasn’t meant to dance, for sure.
I walked over to the stage and studied the piano, passing my hands over its smooth, shining black surface, while Tristan and Seth were looking at the guitars. Seth handed a guitar to Tristan as they talked quietly to each other.
I sat on the piano bench and punched a few random keys.
“You better step away from the piano, Joe! Only Professor Rubick plays it. He’s rather possessive of the thing. He says we ‘murder sound’ when we try to play piano,” Seth said with a short laugh. “You should see his face when someone tries the violin! He looks like he’s about to die!”
Seth approached the stage and sat on a bench right in front of the piano, chuckling at fond memories of Professor Rubick’s despair. Tristan was right beside him, pulling another bench close to us. He had the black guitar still in his hands.
“You guys have violins lessons?” I asked, excited. “I always wanted to learn how to play the violin! It looks rather hard, though …”
“Yeah, well, that’s because it is. And no, you’ll probably have to learn the little drums first in the class … maybe later he may let you try the guitar. If you don’t attempt to ‘murder sound’, that is.” Seth laughed some more, but stopped abruptly when he heard Tristan playing the guitar at his side.
I raised my eyebrows too. I didn’t know Tristan could play the guitar! And he was good, too! But I guess it made sense, since he’d been a teen when rock ’n’ roll was born. I could even picture him in my mind, with his leather jacket, greased hair and a guitar on his lap. There was so much I still didn’t know about him … and I was even more surprised when I realized he was playing Seth’s song! The one I had helped put together in my first week at school. How on earth did he know that?
“I didn’t know you played guitar, man!” Seth said at the same time as I exclaimed, “How do you know this song, Tristan?”