The Boy who Lit up the Sky (The Two Moons of Rehnor, Book 1)

by J. Naomi Ay

It was four in the morning. It had been raining all night, and Loman had been gone for most of it. I hadn’t slept. As much as I detested his snoring, I needed the noise to help me sleep. It drowned out all the other sounds and lulled me.

  Loman was never gone at night. Being Captain of the Palace Guards, his days of walking beats and patrolling were long over. He had the top position and reported directly to the Lord Chamberlain and sometimes even spoke with the king himself.

  I enjoyed Loman's position. It paid exceptionally well, and we got invited periodically to events and parties at the Palace. Though I had never met the King and Queen or even Prince Akan, I had mingled with their cousins and the lesser nobility. I liked to tell all the salesgirls about that when I went shopping for new dresses to wear to a Palace party.

  My sisters were jealous of me too. When I first met Loman he was very handsome. He was tall and big and his hair back then was very blonde. He was so fair skinned that people often thought he was a Lightie from the Northern Continent.

  I thought he was too at first, and I wouldn't talk to him, but then a girlfriend heard through someone else that he was high up in the guard ranks and worth considering. I let him take me out after that, and I liked him well enough. He seemed to like me too, well enough, but I could tell that someone else was on his mind. When he kissed me, and later when he loved me, he seemed far away as if he wasn't really loving me but someone else. I never asked who, but I figured it out. She was dead by then, and we had our own son, so it didn’t matter any way.

  I heard Berkie's footsteps outside my bedroom door and then heading down the stairs.

  “Berkie?” I called as I jumped from my bed and grabbed my robe. What could possess that child at this time of night to go downstairs?

  By the time I caught up with him, hurrying down and nearly slipping on the stairs myself, Berkie had opened the front door and gone out into the yard.

  “What in the name of the Saint are you doing?” I called after him. The sun was just beginning to rise, and the grass and walkway were soaked and puddled with rain. “Berkie, get in here,” I snapped as I followed him outside. There in the grass sat a big black dog most likely making a mess of it.

  “He needs to come in,” Berkie said.

  “No way,” I replied. “There is no way that monster is coming in this house. Where in the heavens did he come from?”

  “Old Mishnah,” Berkie said. “He needs a bath and a brush to his hair and some food too. He says he's hungry.”

  “The dog told you that? Berkie, you're nearly twelve now. You're too old for that kind of foolishness. Now come back in.”

  “Not the dog, Mama,” Berkie cried as I yanked on his arm. “Senya.”

  “Senya?” I gasped. “Where?”

  Berkie pointed at the large maple tree overhanging the street. In the dim light of dawn, I could see the outline of a boy perched on a limb high up.

  “I'm going to call your father,” I cried running back into the house.

  A short time later, Loman arrived with several of his men. Their speeders lit up our quiet street, and I could see the nasty old woman directly across from us lifting up her curtains to watch.

  “Berkie what are you doing out here?” Loman demanded as Berkie was sitting on the front stoop in his pajamas, his basketball slippers sopping wet. At least it was summer and warm outside.

  “Waiting for Senya to come out of the tree,” Berkie replied.

  “Senya!” Loman stormed down the walk. “Is he still outside?”

  “Yes, Papa,” Berkie said. “Mama doesn't want him to come in. He's sitting up in the big tree right there.”

  “I never said anything about him coming in!” I protested. “I haven't said a word. Berkie how can you say this?”

  “Senya?” A young detective called from the bottom of the tree.

  “What did you say to him, Rucia?” Loman hissed at me while watching the detective try to cajole the boy down.

  “Nothing, I swear.”

  Loman didn’t believe me. “Go inside and run a bath and when that's ready, get to the kitchen and make the child something to eat,” he ordered.

  In my fourteen years of marriage to Loman, there had been many trying times, and this most certainly was one of them. What did he think bringing that little Karut creature back to this house? The boy was filthy dirty, and stunk like he had been living in a cesspool. Besides that, he was evil. We all knew it then. I knew it now. He killed beautiful Princess Lydia.

  I stormed upstairs, ran the bathtub full of near boiling water and then went into the kitchen and began throwing eggs onto the counter. One of them rolled off and splattered on the floor.

  “Blessed Saint,” I nearly screamed and bent down to clean it up. “Why our house? Why did he have to bring that horrid creature here?”

  “Because,” Loman said, shocking me out of my wits as he came up behind me. “No one at the Palace can see this boy until I clean him up.” Loman sighed heavily and settled his bulk at the kitchen table. “Can you just be hospitable for a few hours? Let Berkan meet him. Perhaps they will become friends.”

  “And exactly why would I want my son to become friends with him?” I squared my shoulders and nearly brained my husband with the frying pan as I took it out of the cupboard. Secretly, I was relieved that the boy would not stay but a few hours. “You know damn well what's going to happen to him, as it should.”

  “Nothing is going to happen to him,” Loman declared.

  “Loman, have you been drinking at this hour?” I nearly laughed. “That boy shouldn't be alive. He should never have been allowed to grow as old as he is. He’s a freak! An abomination!”

  “Rucia,” he snapped. “That is enough.”

  “If he lives, the rest of us are doomed!” I slammed the pan down on the stove and proceeded to break eggs into it. “He'll be the death of this planet unless someone kills him first.”

  “Shut up, Rucia!” Loman shouted, his deep voice echoing across my small kitchen. “He is here now upstairs in our bathtub!”

  “No, he's not, Papa,” Berkie said quietly from the kitchen door. “He's right here.”

  Loman and I turned to find Berkie and the boy standing in the doorway, wearing a much too short terry cloth bathrobe and a pair of Berkie's old pajamas.

  The boy gazed at me with the strangest silver eyes, and my brain became fuzzy as if I were about to drift off to sleep. So help me, I dropped the entire pan of eggs upon the floor.

  “Rucia!” Loman scolded and jostled me out of my slumber.

  “Blessed Saint!” I cried, seeing what I had done. “Goodness me!” I knelt down and cleaned up the mess I had made.

  “I'll help you, Mama,” my little angel Berkie said and knelt down beside me.

  “Make some more eggs,” Loman ordered, but at this point I was fit to be tied. I had not slept all night, my kitchen was a mess, the Karut devil was watching me with his wicked eyes and Loman was sitting there as if he were king.

  “No,” I sobbed. “No, I will not. Take him away. If you don't, I will leave. So help me Loman, do not bring that creature to this house again or you will never see me again in this lifetime.”

  I stormed right past all of them and up the stairs into my room where I soundly slammed the door. I was at the moment perfectly willing to give up Loman's pay packet and all the beautiful gowns and Palace parties it would buy me.

  Chapter 4

  Taner