My Soul To Keep

by Jackie Sonnenberg

  Our ceremony will continue with the theme of the darkness, that while darkness may consume us on the outside it will never touch us on the inside. We ask that you also bring with you a change of clothes and they are to be all WHITE. At midnight on Halloween night, once it is officially over and November first, we will change from our Darkness costumes and into our white clothes to symbolize our casting away of it and revealing our inner lights. We will have a short tea ceremony for cleansing and then you will wear the same clothes during the day to further continue this theme.

  A costume, huh? I somehow knew the regular clothes I had around my closet wouldn’t do so well. But I would rather put the effort into something like this than in that popular kids club Deanna was obsessed with. I even shuddered a little. Either way, I decided that maybe I should head on over to The Manor to see if people were already there planning it.

  ***

  Seth greeted me at the door, and I was a little confused to see that he was wearing a blindfold.

  “Uh, Seth?”

  “Greetings, Sister Skyler.”

  “Whatever, why are you blindfolded?”

  “It’s perfect for Halloween. Darkness being something that blinds us, part of the outfit I want to put together.”

  “Well you’re not going to walk around like that all day, are you? How will you see?”

  I let myself in and he smiled. “I don’t need to. I feel around me. It’s like echolocation.”

  “Uh-huh.” I walked past him and noticed that he seemed to be watching me…as though he could actually see through the blindfold.

  I reached the kitchen area and some members were there having lemonade and chips and doing homework. I greeted everyone and got settled, and a minute later Damien came out of the bathroom in the hall. He seemed almost surprised to see me.

  “Hey Sky,”

  “Hi,” I answered. “Where have you been?”

  “Here, mostly. I started to work on my Scrabble skills.” He had a big smile that changed when he looked at Iris in the lounge room, sprawled on a sofa chair. She eyed him and then went back to the book she was reading. Without a word Damien walked over to the table and poured a large glass of lemonade. Instead of sitting down at the table, he walked right over to Iris and handed it over. She took it without even looking at him and he came back to the table.

  I looked from Iris to Damien, who grabbed a cookie and silently munched on it. No one else seemed to notice or care and continued talking.

  “What was that all about?”

  Damien looked at me. “Oh, nothing. Iris asked me to get her some lemonade, that’s all.”

  “No she didn’t.”

  “Well, yeah she did.”

  “Oh,” I thought, thinking that conversation took place before I got here.

  “So what are you going to do for Halloween?” he asked me.

  “I don’t know yet!” I replied. “I was hoping to get some ideas. Could be cool. I was hoping we were doing something here anyway, Deanna invited me to another popular people party.”

  “Really?” said Damien, and I could tell he was as disgusted as me.

  “I don’t get what is so unbelievably awesome about them anyway.”

  At this point of the girls at our tables looked at me, a junior I believe. “That’s why you belong here, Skyler,” she said with a smile. “You’re special and have a good mindset.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Mitchell walked in holding Ad Astra, whose eyes were closed in bliss while he rubbed behind her ears.

  “Hello, everyone.”

  Seth came in the room, but then stopped suddenly and started feeling his way down the other hallway. No one really noticed him; it seemed, except for me. Ad Astra purred loudly.

  “We are going to have a wonderful Halloween tradition,” Mitchell said to us at the table. Iris looked up a minute and grinned. “Some of the members are already making flyers to go around campus, and it’s so important for you all to pass them around and tell your friends about.”

  “We’ll do what we can,” said a girl at the table.

  Mitchell went in the kitchen to get a treat for Ad Astra and then left again. The girl looked at Damien and me curiously.

  “So are you guys 7th grade?”

  “Yeah,” Damien answered.

  “Oh. I thought you were higher since you seemed like you lived here.”

  Something warm spread in my stomach. I wasn’t sure if Damien had the same thought I did, but if he did he didn’t show it. “Live here? I actually forgot about that. I thought it was only for upperclassmen.” I said.

  “It’s mostly just for upperclassmen to live here. The rooms upstairs? I mean there’s not a huge amount of rooms or even spare rooms but older members take priority.”

  “That is awesome. What does it take to live here?”

  “Like I said, it’s mostly for high school level and there is usually a waiting list. It’s for dedicated members. But I hear it’s awesome.”

  ***

  My costume was kind of lame. But, it really didn’t matter as long as the point was across, even though I still didn’t really know what that was. I had a long black cape that I cut up a bit and distressed to make it look jagged and sharp. My theme was violence, and violence is in itself jagged and sharp, so there you go. The rest of my outfit was just black baggy Capri pants, and this wicked jacket-vest I found with a lot of buckles and zippers. I was impressed with what I found in the GOL clothing trunk. My makeup was another story. I actually admit I had too much fun practicing different looks in my room. I had some cheap Party City type black and white stuff and was practicing making sharp-blade type things on my face. Deanna at one point came home and peered at me curiously.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Trying different makeup stuff for Halloween.”

  “Oh, what are you going to be?”

  “Well, our theme is darkness and whatever we think is a symbol for darkness, and my theme is violence, so I’m going for anything sharp..ish.”

  She nodded like she was understanding instead of approving. I tried not to look at her as I wiped some of the black away from my eyes with my wet washcloth to fix it. I didn’t care really, I knew it was only a week away and I was still very excited. Even if a part of it was scaring me a little bit.

  Leaves fell on the ground that seemed to pick up in a mini tornado and follow us everywhere we went. That could have been one more reason people on campus stared at us, other than the fact they always did and that we all looked like offspring of The Adams Family. I got used to ignoring the stares by now. I was on the lookout for the random things we were supposed to collect during the day, even though I couldn’t see past how cheesy and downright fictional it was. Mitchell made the “official list” in an email to us earlier in the week to start looking for things we were going to use at our ceremony. The only thing I had that was of any significance was a never-burned candle, still in my pocket.

  “Personify that Darkness,” Mitchell had told us consistently. “Cast it out; believe that it is leaving you.”

  The forecast for Halloween was supposed to be partly cloudy, the picture even showed the little sun peeking out, but today was nowhere near a peeking sun. I could have sworn the sun never came up at all, and the only light we relied on to tell us it was daylight was the leftover cast from the moon. The sky was actually still gray.

  On campus I felt confident every time I saw fellow GOL members in their black ensembles and painted faces. We were a community, we were a team, a family, and it became an unspoken bond every time we did something to set us apart on campus. I was not the only Gothic fashion statement in my classes as I realized our number seemed to grow since I joined them at the beginning of the year. It was strange that I didn’t seem to notice any new members before.

  At one point I spotted Ad Astra stalking along the trees, a little white blob cast down from the clouds. She disappeared and reappeared between the trees without revealing a purpose or
objective, and it seemed like I was the only one who noticed her. She stopped in mid-step and stared, not at me, but what was whatever directly next to me with soft, focused eyes. Her paw was still slightly raised but she did not move and she did not blink. The fur on her body stood up and she scattered away. How that cat got around was beyond me, but she always made it back to the Manor.

  What little light we had, it did not last long. It was only my third period but it felt and looked like evening, and soon it was almost like it was completely night. Our windows led to nothing.

  “Is there going to be a tornado?” asked a paranoid girl in my class dressed like a zombie cheerleader. Or, I guess that was what she was supposed to be. I’m no expert, but I don’t think that zombies—even cheerleader zombies—have sparkly red blood daintily sprinkled their chins.

  “No, I don’t think so,” the teacher said, cautiously peering out the window and holding herself as though cold. “It’s just forecast, that’s all. Kind of spooky.”

  As though on cue the light bulbs above started to flicker, but that wasn’t the only thing. The set of computers near the front of the room hummed dangerously at a high pitch, and at the same time everything died out. The lights from the monitors and the lights above went out, and all across the hall we heard the cries of surprise, frustration, and small cheers.

  “Power outage,” said our teacher in annoyance. She left the room for whatever reason and everyone in my class either celebrated or cowered.

  “Oh my God, it is a storm,” Zombie Cheerleader said again.

  “No it’s not,” said another girl in a purple wig and leather jacket. “It means we get out of class!”

  “Yeah, maybe it’s ghosts telling us to screw the rest of the day,” said a guy in a plain t-shirt.

  It really was getting darker out, and I knew it was too soon for Daylight Savings, or anything to do with it. “It’s just a power outage,” our teacher said coming back into the room. “And there’s nothing really we can do about it right now. Just carry on until the lights come back on.”

  That was all right for an afternoon, when it was merely grayish outside, but that gray got darker and darker until it was almost black, and I knew nighttime had come early. An announcement came on over the PA, and I know the same one was being said over all the other buildings:

  “Attention teachers and students, due to the power outage that is affecting the whole campus, without finding a source or a solution to the problem we are going to cancel the rest of the day’s classes. Everyone go back to your dorms, find some flashlights and stay safe tonight.”

  There were some shouts of victory, but only some did not join in. Those selection of students looked out the window, knowing. We knew that something was happening, and we could all feel it. It was too strong and too weird to be happy about cancelled classes for Halloween night. We looked to one another, the GOL members and I. We said nothing.

  Everyone left their classrooms, and the first thought that popped into my head was to go to the Manor. It was my haven. We had flashlights and candles there, it would be good to get those ready before we had our Halloween celebration that night.

  I stepped outside and almost didn’t know where I was. The light from the sky was being sucked away slowly, and I actually thought we might have a tornado from the way that sky looked. It was a threatening maelstrom of grays and blacks. I couldn’t see the sun. I couldn’t even see the moon. It was the timeframe of when they were both on opposite ends of the earth with no hope of showing themselves, and we were stuck in the lightless in-between…for who knew how long? I adjusted my backpack on my shoulder and waved my own hand in front of me. I could still see that, but the buildings around me have downsized to silhouettes. I thought there were birds, but they turned out to be just trees. I looked down to my surprise to see that I couldn’t even see the sidewalk…it seemed like a part of the sky fell down here, too. I realized it was a thick fog that was rapidly taking over the ground.

  I got walking, carefully but quickly. If it got darker and the fog grew I would have no chance of finding my way out of there or anywhere. Students everywhere called out to each other as they disappeared in the misty masses. Some used their cell phones as lights. I was dumb enough to leave mine charging in my room. I reached my hand out and found a tree in the fog and used it to guide myself along the rest of the path. I had a horrible feeling that if this was bad, the path to the Manor in the heavily wooded area was going to be much worse.

  It swallowed me. The weird part was, I actually felt it. I felt it without feeling the teeth, lips or tongue of the fog creature, but I knew I was inside it. Not even our campus street lights were on. I could now barely make out the trees or the buildings. I saw nothing but dark, gray smoke.

  I couldn’t panic as my fingers idly groped for another tree, a lamppost, a car, anything. I managed to find a garbage bin my hip slammed into. I bent over to rub it, cringing in pain, forcing myself to keep going. I wasn’t alone out there and tried to listen to voices I knew. GOL members. Holly. Seth. Iris. Damien. Where was Damien? He was a bigger sissy about the dark than I was.

  I was right about not being alone, but it wasn’t what I thought. I saw something moving in the fog that was not supposed to be a part of it. It moved quickly towards me and I wasn’t sure if it was something I could touch or not. To my pleasant surprise, it meowed.

  “Ad Astra! Come here, girl!”

  The cat appeared out of the fog, a radiant white creature with eyes of gold. The fog lifted away from her immaculately as she appeared from behind the garbage bin and approached me, looking either bored or irritated or both.

  “Meow.”

  I reached down and petted her on the head. She understood.

  Turning around she lifted her tail in the air and stalked the fog swirls ahead of her. Then, she began to walk very slowly. I trailed behind her straining my eyes, her tail shifting poses from a question mark to a straight exclamation mark. She scuttled and bit and walked a little faster, before stopping completely and turning around to look at me.

  “Right behind ya.”

  Satisfied, she continued walking through the fog as a little white beacon piercing through the dark. I followed her the whole way to the Manor, and I knew we were getting close when I could no longer hear the shouts of students trying to find each other. I knew we were away from the most civilized parts of campus when I felt wood shavings under my shoes.

  Ad Astra stopped for a minute at the first solar lantern, very very dim, but still glowing. She sat down and began to clean the back of her leg.

  “Well, thanks,” I said.

  She ignored me and kept licking herself.

  “So, are you going to be a while? Or should I just take it from here, or…?”

  She looked up at me, and I swear, if she could roll her eyes she would have done so right then and there.

  Her head suddenly jerked to her left, her leg still in midair. She stared at something in the trees.

  I looked too, even though every time that cat stared out into space she was staring at nothing, but this time I did see something. It was something whitish hanging around the tree, and it had some sort of figure to it I couldn’t make out. But, it was there all right, and soon I saw it wasn’t the only thing there. There were actually about two or three near the tree…and they were hovering.

  Ad Astra was still frozen as she watched these things, not really scared of them, more like curious, or just aware of them in general. She wasn’t scared but I sure was. Soon those forms looked like they were taking human shape.

  The humanoid things moved around the tree. They moved about so much that they actually disappeared back into the fog. Ad Astra’s tail twitched and she got up. I started to walk, trying to see the dim lanterns. She walked as well as usual and did not look back. I kept looking back, but then decided that was dumb and only tried to walk faster. That was just the fog, that was just the fog, that was just the fog.

  We got to the house and I opened
the door, Ad Astra busting in through the door crack when it was barely a sliver and disappearing somewhere. The first thing that went through my mind was to feel for a light switch, but then about a hundred lit candles told me that was pointless. They were everywhere from tables to windowsills to nestled in people’s shoes. I could make out the rest of the hallway and even a little of the kitchen. I tried to listen for voices to find out where the other members were, but I didn’t need to do this either.

  Hands touched my elbows and made me jump a foot in the air. Seth’s voice was behind me.

  “Sorry Sky! Didn’t mean to startle you!”

  “Well, everything is startling right now!”

  “I know it is.”

  When Seth turned to be in front of me I saw that he was still wearing his blindfold.

  “Um, do you still think that’s necessary?” I blurted out. I pointed to the handkerchief without being sure of whether or not he could see me. By the way he walked and carried himself it was like he could see just fine.

  “Don’t worry about me, Sky.”

  “Is everyone here? Did you see outside and what’s going on?”

  “Power outage and darkness, yeah, I know. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  The tone in his voice started to creep me out, and only started to.

  “Let’s go downstairs,” he said.

  ***

  The path of candles on the stairs ensured we would find our way, but it was almost as though we didn’t even need them. We knew the way around the Manor by heart and not by sight. Everyone gathered together; their costumes were the same but relatively different. We all wore our costumes to represent the Darkness in us we were trying to banish away. They were all different forms of black in different outfits and accessories. Some wore veils and some painted various designs on their faces. With so much black from our clothing, and so much orange from the glow of thousands of candles surrounding us, we were walking presentations of Halloween.