The Rise of the Fourteen (4 page)

“Oh, of course,” Nuntios blurts, picking up the battered
copy of
King Lear
on his desk.
When did that get there?
He flips
through the pages, quickly finding his part.
I’m losing my mind
. After
he finishes the section, the teacher thanks him, and moves on to find the next
“volunteer.”

“Hey,” he whispers, instantly getting Fredrick’s attention.
“Thanks.”

Fredrick flashes him a winning smile. “Glad to be of
service.”

It is Fredrick who convinces Nuntios to return to the dining
hall for lunch as they depart from the stuffy math classroom. They had been
discussing geometry, a subject Nuntios had covered at his previous school and,
on multiple occasions, Nuntios had saved Fredrick from embarrassment.

 “I owe you, man,” Fredrick remarks, clapping Nuntios on the
shoulder. “Mr. Faust keeps threatening to fail me.”

 “It was worth it,” Nuntios replies, “if only to see the
look on his face.” They throw back their heads in laughter that echoes down the
hall, spiraling out into the throng. When they reach the grand doors to the
dining hall, Nuntios shudders, his shoulder suddenly jerking back. The
whispering had started again. His vision fuzzes up, threatening to remove him
from consciousness again. Fredrick puts a heavy hand on his shoulder, grounding
him in the present.

“Come on, let’s eat,” Fredrick insists. “We’ll sit at a
different table this time.” He steers Nuntios into the hall, his arm now fully
around Nuntios’s shoulders. Nuntios is grateful, because, despite how much he wants
to deny it, the voices still linger in the back of his mind, threatening to
make him collapse at any moment.

Fredrick forcefully plops Nuntios in a chair, worried by the
shakiness of his friend’s legs.

 “I'll get you some food, alright?” Fredrick’s concern is
evident, and Nuntios wonders how bad he really looks.

 “No green stuff, though.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Fredrick shoots him a glittering
smile as he heads down the aisle towards the table of food. He returns, bearing
heavy plates and Elis, Malone, and Lukas in tow. Nuntios chats amiably, this
time eager for conversation. As they converse and laugh over soup and
sandwiches, Nuntios is glad. The voices have gone
—
for
now.

 After lunch, it’s back to lessons. Nuntios groans inwardly
as he makes his way towards the history classroom.
What could possibly be
more boring?
He sits at one of the desks near the back, doing his best to
avoid attracting attention. Elias and Lukas sit in front of him and Fredrick takes
the seat beside him.

“Where’s Malone?” Nuntios asks.

“Sitting up there with Tara,” Fredrick replies, pointing
towards the front of the class. There Malone sits, chatting animatedly with a
petite blonde. Nuntios’s lip curls up in a slight grin.

“So, this Tara girl … does Malone have a thing for her?”
Fredrick shrugs his shoulders, but Nuntios gives him a meaningful look.

“Well yeah, but he won’t admit it.” Nuntios’s eyes widen. He
leans over to whisper something in Fredrick’s ear. Fredrick nods, liking what
he hears.

“Free period?” Fredrick asks.

“Free period.”

The chartreuse mob makes its way towards the open courtyard
after the final bell rings, pushing and running. The hallway is nearly empty a
mere two minutes after class ends. Only a few stragglers remain, chatting among
themselves. Tara and Malone linger by the lockers, discussing the merits of
“the classics.”

“Behemoth is just awful,” Tara insists. “Iron Maiden is so
much better.”

 “Behemoth isn’t all bad,” Malone says. “And, Iron Maiden?
Are you forgetting Led Zeppelin? Black Sabbath?” Tara purses her lips in a “not
bad” gesture. Malone laughs at her ambivalence. In response, she sticks her
tongue out.

It is in this moment of distraction that the plan is
initiated. Fredrick and Elias emerge from a nearby classroom, carrying a dining
table set with fine silverware and wine glasses. Lukas eases Tara and Malone into
chairs so that they sit across from each other. Nuntios appears with a pitcher
of water and a faux rose. He fills up their glasses and gives the rose to Tara,
who blushes. Last but not least, he places a tea light in the center of the
table and takes a moment to flash a grin at a livid Malone.

 “I told you it would be worth it to see his face,” Nuntios
whispers to Elias who smiles. Soon enough, they hear a familiar reedy voice,
echoing down the hallway. “We gotta run.” Nuntios, Elias, Lukas, and Fredrick
bolt for the nearest door, piling into the French classroom. Malone and Tara
are glued to the spot, frozen with confusion. Moments later, Malone
understands.

“What do you ruffians think you’re doing?” Sir Eric looms
over the pair, his leering face purpling. “Do you think this, this fine institution
can be treated as a free-for-all?” Malone stays silent, not trusting himself to
speak. Tara follows suit. “Take all of this stuff back to the drama
department!” They don't have to be told twice. They are soon inching down the
hall, carrying the table between them.

Meanwhile, in the French classroom, the perpetrators are
howling with laughter. High fives are being given all around to grinning faces.
Only Nuntios looks unwell, his face cradled in his hands, his eyes clenched
shut.

“Tomfoolery? This is whom we get?”

“Such a pathetic boy.”

“When will he learn?”

“Nuntios?” Lukas watches his face in concern.

Nuntios’s eyes fly open. “Voices Lukas. They keep talking to
me!”

“Nuntios, who are the voices?”

***

That question still echoes through his mind weeks later as
Nuntios trudges back to his dormitory after a long day. The first few weeks
were easy. His first fit had
made him wary, but he was still able to
pull all of his usual mischief. He settled into life here. He was happy. The
whispering begins, and Nuntios bows his head, tears leaking from his eyes.

With each passing day, the fits had become worse and worse.
Sometimes, he would just collapses in class, like a marionette with cut
strings. Some days he wouldn’t bother going out of his room. And he had long
since stopped apologizing for the screaming
—
the
screaming of a person drowning in terror and confusion, trapped in a twilight
wasteland with only cackling demons to keep him company. Only sometimes did he
try talking back. And when he did, it would never end well.

Nuntios walks into his room and closes the door behind him.
He flops onto his bed wearily. His sleep gives him no rest; the dark circles
beneath his eyes can attest to that. His eyes, once full of confidence and
strut are now little pools of ink, almost in danger of being wiped away. Today
was especially bad. Every class had brought on another round of “icy fever.”
His friends had long ago stopped trying to comfort him; they only tried to
catch him when he fell. Nuntios closes his eyes and drifts off, praying for a
dreamless sleep.

 Nuntios is running through a maze, a glass maze. Figures in
white race past him. He can see them gliding through the walls, passing through
them like gossamer curtains. He hears the usual sharp tones of his demonic
choir and runs faster, racing around corners, ramming through dead ends. The
broken glass stings his skin, but there is no blood. He can hear no coherent
words, only faint chatters. He sees chalky silhouettes in the periphery of his vision
and runs faster, not even looking where he’s going.

When he reaches the edge of the maze, he sees that it’s
dusk. Now outside, the sky is a deep plum, as he runs across the rocky terrain.
And he can smell something, just the faintest whiff of … salt? He stops dead in
his tracks. He realizes that this is no plain, but a sheer cliff. A few stories
down, churning inky waters crash against the jutting rocks, spraying mist in
his face. He turns his back to the sea and looks out onto a different sea, a sea
of white, shimmering faces.

“What are you?” he yells, gazing upon his tormenters
properly for the first time.

“Oh, now he wants to talk.”

“Quiet!”

“Have you not guessed?”

“Why do you talk to me?” Nuntios pleads.

“He doesn’t know.”

“Tsk tsk.”

“Why do you take so long?”

“What are you?” Nuntios asks again, his voice quavering.
“What are you? And what do you want from me?” An ethereal woman with a hard
face steps forward.

“
We guarded this fortress long before you came. We have
not seen one who speaks to spirits for many centuries. But you would not talk.
So, we tried to make you listen. You almost died.”
Her lip curls up into a
sneer.

Nuntios’s eyes widen as the last puzzle piece clicks into
place. “So you guys are like … ghosts?”

“How dare you degrade us as such!”
The stabbing
chills return, and Nuntios grips his temples to keep from blacking out.

“We are the shades of the fortress. Spirits. We can help.
We could have helped you. All you had to do was listen.”
The cliff vanishes
beneath his feet and Nuntios is falling into blackness.

 Nuntios wakes with a start, his forehead coated with a
sheen of sweat. He goes to the bathroom to splash cold water on his face. As he
looks in the mirror, he sees that the dark circles under his eyes have gone,
and his face has more color than it has in weeks.
Was it all a dream?

Nuntios makes his way to the dresser, refreshed and ready to
start the day.
Did any of those nightmares really happen?
Just as he is
buttoning his blazer, Nuntios notices something written in the dust on the
mirror above the dresser. He quickly grabs his bag and runs out the door,
slamming it shut behind him. Even in the dim morning light, the words are easy
to read.

We are real.

We will listen.

We are known.

The sun is shining on the turquoise waters. Arden can see
the birds, the birds that he knows and loves, flying around the tall palms,
pooping on unsuspecting cars. He should be at home, helping his dad open up the
family restaurant, but Arden isn’t. He’s headed to the airport, to a whole new
world he knows nothing about.

The trouble begins in the morning with Arden’s birthday
celebration. He wakes up to some homemade chocolate chip pancakes and a huge
grin on his father’s face. As they eat, they talk and joke.

“You’re practically a man now, Arden,” his dad teases, “I
guess that means I’ll have to give you more chores at the restaurant.”

“I don't know, Dad,” Arden says, “I think I might retire
soon.” His dad just reaches over and ruffles Arden’s hair.

“Just don’t eat too much,” his dad says. “I hear
old
people gain weight more easily.” Arden knows his dad is only joking, but still
makes a point of polishing off three helpings of pancakes before brushing his
teeth and getting dressed.

As they leave to go set up at the restaurant, there’s a
knock on the door. They look at each other in confusion. None of their
neighbors ever knocked, they just came in.
Whoever it is must be a stranger,
Arden thinks warily.

He looks over at his dad and feels a twisting in his gut.
There is a hollow resignation in his dad's face, as if he knew this day would
come. Another knock sounds, this one louder and with more force. Arden goes to
open the door, and suddenly his dad springs into action.

“Arden wait, don’t
—
”
Arden turns the handle and the door swings open. A woman in a crisp white
jacket and a matching pencil skirt steps across the threshold. Upon a second
inspection, Arden notices that her dark hair is pinned into a messy bun, her
shirt creases in numerous unflattering places, and smears of eyeliner dot her
face.

“Oh, Arden dear, you’ve grown so much! Now, is your bag
ready? We better get going,” the woman says in a rush. Her voice is high and
thin, and she speaks with a strange accent.

She could either use a coffee or has had too many
already,
Arden thinks. “Are you ... taking me somewhere?” Arden twists his
lip in confusion. “I’d love to come along, I just
—
don't
know who you are." Arden's dad lets out a weak laugh, but Arden can tell
the emotions behind it are strained. “Dad, what's going on?”

“Arden, meet your mother,” his father says, his eyes solemn.
“She’s come to take you to live with her.”

Arden becomes even more confused and begins spouting
questions. “I have a mother? Why do I have to go with her? Why has no one told
me?” His eyes burn, first with bewilderment, then with anger.

“James,” Arden’s mother says, “we agreed. You knew that you
would have to let him go.”

“I was hoping you would forget, my dear.”

“You wanted me to forget my own child? Oh, that is low,
James, even for you.” The woman turns to Arden and says, “When your father and
I got divorced, we agreed that you should be raised separately from your
sister. Then, on your fifteenth birthday, you would start living with me and
Luna.”

“Is that really the best custody plan you could come up
with?” Arden asks in disbelief. “You really should have fired your divorce
lawyer.” He laughs half-heartedly at his own quip, but it dies in his chest
before it properly begins.

Arden paces in circles for a few moments. “I have a sister,”
he remarks, his eyes beginning to water. “I’ve had a sister all this time? Is there
anything else you’re not telling me?” His voice begins to reach a fever pitch.
“Where do you guys all live? The moon? Is that why I’ve never heard you exist?”
Arden charges out of the room as his last furious words die in the air, leaving
the door open behind him.

“Only England, actually,” his father mutters.

“Our flight is in two hours so you best get a move on!” his
mother calls after him. She winces after the words leave her mouth. “That
wasn’t very tactful, was it?”

Arden’s father sighs. “It’s a bit late for that.”

Arden manages to stumble into his room and shuts the door
behind him. After his outburst in the living room, he finds himself breathing
heavily. The torrent of emotion in his mind is so strong that his thoughts are
barely coherent. He discovers he is sitting on the floor after a few minutes
and doesn't quite remember how he got there.
I’m panicking,
Arden thinks
miserably,
fantastic.
To make matters worse, there is a knock on his
door.

“Arden
,
sweetie, may I
come in?” his mom’s voice trembles as she asks the question. Her voice cracks
mid-sentence.
She’s just as unsure of this as I am. Why should I pack up my
life, everything that I have, to go off with my supposed mother? And a sister?
That is just too weird to think about. And where are they even going? “Mom’s”
strange accent is obviously not Hawaiian, so that rules out Oahu, and any of
the other islands. But, it’s certainly not American. I can’t quite place it,
but it seems … familiar.

He snorts in disgust. “Well if you're going to uproot my
entire life and take away everything that I love, I don't think you have to ask
to come into my room, as you've already invaded my privacy!” He bites his lip
as if it will stem the flow of his tears. As they make shining ridges on his
cheeks, they sting, like the seawater he so loves. He quickly wipes his face.

His mother takes a micro step into the room, and then a few
more after Arden doesn’t start screaming again. “Arden,” she says, her hands
raised in a placating gesture, “I understand that this is very difficult for
you to process all at once especially since
James
, I mean your father,
decided not to tell you.”

She scowls at the open door, in the general direction of her
ex-husband, “So, I wondered if I might pack for you. You seem like you could
use some time to just
…
sit.” She smiles,
but her lip quivers.

Arden politely pretends not to notice.
This is hard for
her too,
he realizes.
Maybe this wasn’t the divorce settlement
she wanted. Besides, whatever connection my parents once had was obviously
gone.

Arden slowly lifts his head and gazes up at his mother. He
sees love and tenderness in her eyes, but frankly, feels nothing in return. With
all the conflicting emotions, Arden was unsure how to talk to this woman, this
woman who obviously cares so much about him, but he has never even dreamed
existed. “Go ahead,” he whispers, “I need to get some water.”

She lets out a sigh of relief as Arden inches out the door.
He goes to the living room to question his father, but something told Arden
that his dad didn’t want to talk. So, Arden goes outside to the beach. The
breeze engulfs him in its warm embrace.
One last hug goodbye.

He looks out at the endless blue sea wondering what will
await him when he’s forced to cross it. Of course, he knows about the outside
world, but he has never left his home before. Only his island existed to him,
and he was okay with that. He
is
okay with that. He loves his
music,
singing to the starry angels, playing his ukulele to their silent hymns as the
sun begins to rise. That would soon become a distant memory. Arden lets tears
skate down his face. He looks out again, trying to take in as much of the
scenery and trying to preserve as much of it in his mind as possible.

A few hours later, he is at the British Airways check-in
desk. He hands his grungy, ancient suitcase to the woman at the desk. She
smiles at him and presses the button to get the conveyor belt moving.

“Here are your two boarding passes for non-stop Honolulu to
London Heathrow,” the woman says, far too brightly to be natural, kind of like
her lipstick. Arden’s mother takes their passports from the countertop and
thanks the woman.

“Come on,” she says. “We need to hurry through security if
we want to catch our flight.” She gestures for him to get a move on. “Come on,
Luna will have to wait even longer if we have to catch a different flight.”

He follows sluggishly.
Who is this Luna anyway? Of
course, we can guess who Mom’s favorite child is.

Arden tramps along behind his mother, his mind a soft-serve
swirl of emotion. Security and boarding pass by in a blur and, before he knows
it, Arden is on the plane. The metal walls feel confining, and Arden is
suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of claustrophobia. As there is no way of throwing
himself out a window and into the void, he decides to sleep away the hours.

“Do you mind if I take a nap?” he asks. He's not sure why he
feels the need to ask his mother's permission, but he does so just to be sure.
She doesn't even respond verbally, just giving him a vague nod over the
provided freebie magazine.

Thirty minutes later Arden is sleeping like a baby,
exhausted from the morning's troubles. His mother strokes his hair tenderly,
her lips pursed with a mixture of love and regret.
If only if he had known
before this morning,
she wonders
. Then he might of have taken it better.
But, it’s water under the bridge now.
She waves off the flight attendant
carting boxes of stale bread rolls. Arden has the right idea. She slumps
against the window and begins to drift off.

Across the aisle, a man and a woman peer over their
newspapers. The woman has long silver hair tucked up in a bun. The man watches
Arden closely, his golden eyes twinkling in the dimming airplane light.

“Excuse me, sir, your seat must be in the upright position
for landing.” Arden is shaken awake by a flight attendant in a crisp blue
uniform and a freshly powdered face. He nods noncommittally and adjusts
his seat. His mother is sluggishly stowing her laptop in her bag. When she
looks up, Arden notices her blood-shot eyes.

“Glad you've finally woken up,” she says. “We'll be landing
soon. I didn't want to wake you earlier because you look tired.” She gives him
a strained smile.

Arden rubs his eyes and peers out the window over his
mother’s shoulder. The sky is a pasty gray color, and Arden only wonders how
stepping out into the darkness of England will feel. He had never imagined it
would be so gloomy.
Will it also be spring there, or do they even have
regular seasons?
Arden blinks a few times, but the sky doesn’t go away, and
sadly, neither does he.

 After waiting for ages crammed behind other passengers, Arden
and his mother cross the threshold of the airport. People soon form a
fast-moving blob rushing towards customs. Arden's mother grabs his hand and
pushes through the crowd as if parting the Red Sea. Arden works through the
shifting flock of people before the swarm closes up again.

Many aggravating lines later, Arden finally steps out of the
airport doors. He looks skyward and notices the clouds thickening.
Looks
like rain is coming.
The cold proves too much for him, despite the
sweatshirt and jeans his mother gave him, and he leaps into the first cab that
he sees, thankful for the heat. His mother steps in after him and gives the
cabbie an address.

They soon begin to roll out of the airport.
Why is he
driving on the wrong side of the road?
Arden wonders.
Ugh, everything
about this place is weird. Spat. Spat. Spat
. The water droplets appear on
his window. The imminent downpour has just begun, and the windshield wipers are
in full swing.

I’m sure Luna is used to this. Luna. My sister. What is
she even like?
Arden tries to visualize her but fails. There were no
pictures around the house of the “other half” of the family, so Arden was, at
the moment, still in the dark, both figuratively and literally.

Arden loved the light and the sunny days he spent on the beach
on his island. He would rise with the sun, and go to sleep well after it set.
Here, he can’t even make out the sun through the cloak of clouds. Without his
light, his music, his everything, how is he supposed to manage? Arden curls up
into a ball and begins to shiver again, not from the cold, but from the
prospect of the days to come. The prospect of the fact he was about to be
thrown into an abyss of turmoil and trauma, and he had no idea what might be at
the bottom.

A few lanes over, a black Prius glides silently. The driver
watches the cab with great concentration, never shifting his gaze to watch the
road. A woman sits next to him in the shotgun seat, vigilant in her
observations.

“When should we act?” The woman asks impatiently, tapping
her manicured nails on the dashboard.

“When they’re both ready of course. He must meet his sister
before we can even think of initiation,” the driver replies.

“I suppose you’re right, but must we wait long?”

“Do not force powers you have no control of, Sorem. The right
time will come, you will see.”

The film of droplets makes it hard to see as Arden tries to
look out the window to get a grip on his new surroundings. The traffic is slow
as the water comes down in torrents. The cabbie says it will be at least
another thirty minutes till they reach the house.

Arden tenses. The house. The house where he and his sister,
and his mother too, have to all live together and act like some big happy
family. As if nothing ever happened. No one was ever separated, and his dad, the
one who had actually cared about him and raised him since birth, didn't even
exist.

House of delusions. House of secrets. House of lies. All
those things wait for him, and perhaps more horrors he can’t imagine. He takes
solace in the fact that he won't have to face that for at least a little while
longer, and stares out into the rain
—
the
tears of his starry angels, mourning his disappearance.