by D. N. Hoxa
Face, Ray blinked. Three or four times in a row. I looked at Harley and saw she was blinking, too. Heart.
They both looked at me in expectation.
One face, one heart, one mind.
I blinked: mind. They both nodded.
It seemed to have been settled. We were going to do whatever it was that needed doing. Head north, wait for the full moon, give a face, a heart and a mind, and be back in the real world. The world where Morta Fox was waiting for me.
I couldn’t believe my luck. I was terrified. I felt superior to all the other creatures around me. I was going to get out and go back.
We walked and dragged when we could, when all three of us were in flames. I was the main problem, because they seemed to be in one condition for very long, while mine switched much more often. But they never said anything. They blinked face, heart, and I blinked mind. It was all going to work out.
When the cold hit me and Harley, Ray lay down in between us, and turned from one side to the other in pain. He was restless. I was, too, when they were frozen, and I on fire. I didn’t expect to be knocked down on the ground that second, but I was. If I ever thought I felt pain, I was wrong. What I felt that second while my backbone broke—nothing had ever come even close to it. And nothing would come close to the pain I’d feel when I caught fire again.
I couldn’t move. Whoever was on top of me was big, fat, and he wouldn’t stop hitting me. At some point he fell to the side, and his feet started to beat the side of my head, my neck, my temple. I looked up and saw Harley’s face, then Ray’s. They were both in flames, and they watched me with pity.
Late, Harley blinked while the fat man still kicked my head.
No! I blinked, but she shook her head. She shook her head and stepped back. So did Ray. He was going to leave me. Again.
I moved my hands, trying to hit whoever was kicking me. I broke them. I felt them break, and I lost it some more. It was so bad that I swore I could see the end in the endless darkness above us all. I almost surrendered to it. I almost surrendered to madness and forgetfulness. It was so easy to do that, all of a sudden. So painless to let it take me and never let me go.
But I couldn’t.
I loved Morta Fox beyond reason, more than I ever thought I could. I’d let her go to Manhattan, because she wanted to be among others so badly. Among humans. I was risking so much, doing that. I could lose her. She could lose herself in there. But she wanted it.
I thought she wanted to see Manhattan more than anything else in the world. So she went. And then she came back.
I was in the middle of contemplating when I would go in if she was late, when I saw her, coming to me, that perfect smile on her face. She’d come early to see me, because, it turned out, Manhattan wasn’t what she wanted most in the world. Even before she knew, I realized that it was me she wanted more.
Might sound ridiculous, but that was the best night of my life.
She came back to me when I least expected it. So I wasn’t going to give up or let go. I was going to go back to her.
I waited impatiently for the flames, even though I knew how much pain I was in for. Turned out I didn’t. I had no idea. A supernova has the power of ten octillion megatons. That’s what it felt like to be in my body the second flames took me, and my backbone and the rest of my broken bones healed themselves.
It hurt for a long, long time. But I kept her smile in my mind. All of it, all the pain and the anger and the darkness and the never-ending time, all of it was worth it. It was funny, actually. I never knew I could give myself so completely to someone before.
So I waited until I could move again. I stood up and I started heading north. If my calculations were right, I had another week to reach the farthest northern point in this place. I would make it. There was no other way.
***
I was wrong. I’d only had a few days, not a week left to get there. But I never stopped while I was in flames. When the vampires around me started to become fewer and fewer, hope picked me up. I was close, I could feel it. I never stopped no matter the pain and my screaming body. I went on and on until I could count the vampires around me on the fingers of one hand. And after them, there was just darkness. I heard nothing and saw nothing.
I knew they had to be there somewhere. I’d gone north and I’d reached that side of nowhere. If they went north, too, then they were there.
It felt like I’d seen Heaven when something moved ahead of me. I jumped forward, as much as my body would let me, when something pushed me back. Blue light, bright and blinding opened from a small circle ahead of me. It lightened the whole place, and I looked around to see…still nothing. But in front of that small, blue light, I saw three silhouettes. It had to be them. It had to.
I started again. There were three vampires in front of the light. It looked like Ray and Harley had replaced me, just like I knew they would. I fell on my stomach because my legs couldn’t hold against the wind that blew from the blue light.
I almost stopped existing when I heard.
I heard a voice…it was not my own. Not in my head. I actually heard a voice! It had been so goddamn long that I’d forgotten what it was like to hear.
I picked up on the dragging, closer and closer to the blue light. The voice was that of a woman. Though I could not make out her words, I could tell that much. I kept going, praying that I would make it in time.
The voice changed. It was that of a man now. And I heard the words he said clearly.
“I give one face,” Ray said. It was unmistakably him. I hadn’t heard him in more than two centuries, but I’d have known his voice anywhere.
The light changed from blue to green. Another dusty wind threatened to blow me away. I dragged closer. I didn’t know who the third person was, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t let myself care. I would reach him. Three more drags and I would reach him.
“I give one heart,” the woman said. I could only guess that it was Harley. The light changed again, from green to violet.
It was time. It was now or never. I grabbed an ankle. I didn’t know where I got the strength to pull so hard, but I did. Someone fell on top of me. I wouldn’t make it. It was impossible to get him off me, and stand up in time to speak.
So I spoke while under him.
“I give one mind.”
I heard my own voice as loud and as clear as when I lived. It hadn’t changed. It wasn’t scratchy. It was exactly the same. I could still make out the violet hue coming from the small circle, and it changed to bright white.
It worked. If the light changed, it could only mean that it worked. It worked and I was going to see Morta again. No matter what, it was all worth it. She was worth everything.
V
She stood behind the thickest tree in our backyard, and watched me. I always knew when she watched me. I felt her warm hazel eyes on the back of my head as I sat under the burning sun and cleaned the gold that Mr. Hernandez brought.
Mr. Hernandez was a friend of my father, one she—my mother—hated. Her hating him was reason enough for me to dislike him.
The money was good, though, and I couldn’t turn down the chance to clean up his dirty gold—the gold he got from God knew where—especially when there was always a chance to sneak a piece for Mama when night caught me cleaning.
I would sneak glances at her every now and then to make sure she couldn’t be seen by the others. She worried about me—always had. I was her only boy. My sisters, in that time, weren’t much help. If they were outside after nightfall, they’d be beaten, raped, murdered, or all three combined.
So she worried about me and I worried about her, worried someone might see her worrying about me. After all, the man she’d married was good for nothing other than ordering her around and beating us up. Thank God he never put his hands on her.
After night fell, Mr. Hernandez sent us all back home. I stayed behind intentionally until everyone left so I could walk close to Mama. It wasn’t safe for her to walk alone.
> “My boy,” she said with tears in her eyes. I never understood that. I was fifteen, more than capable of providing for her, but she always felt sorry for letting me work. Papa should’ve been keeping us alive, but we would have starved long ago if we’d waited for him to come around and do some actual work.
“I’m okay, Mama. I’m not even tired, and you shouldn’t be out here like this,” I said.
“I worry, Matias. Of course I do,” she whispered.
“Well, you shouldn’t. I’m fine. I’m a man now.”
At that, she smiled. It was so rare to see her smile that each one counted, and each had a special place in my mind.
“Have you thought about…it?”
She forbade me of speaking its name, like it was some kind of a bad omen.
“Yes,” she whispered, “and we can’t just—”
“Of course we can. I told you, I know the way. I’ve seen so many go through it. We just have to be brave.”
“We can’t just leave him behind!” she cried.
“Why wouldn’t we? What does he ever do for us?”
It was unfair to raise my voice at her but there was no way I could control my anger.
“He’s your father!” she said like that was supposed to mean something.
“I don’t care! There’s a better life for us in America, Mama. We can work. The girls can work, and we can have a better life than we do here. You just have to trust me,” I begged again.
She knew I was right. America was where everyone was moving to for a better life. And I knew exactly how to get there with Mama and my sisters. Papa would never come—he’d said as much. Besides, I didn’t want him with my sisters. They broke so easily under his hands and feet. If she would’ve just said yes…
She finally did. Six years passed, but at last she did.
It was on the night she told me that Papa wasn’t my real father. That my real father was someone whose name she never even knew. She’d met him one night, and that was it. The next month she’d married my father.
I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t want to know more. I understood now why Papa seemed mad every time he looked at me, and I felt sorry for him. But I couldn’t afford to think of my mama in that way.
What mattered was that she said yes. She said yes and packed our bags. We were going to leave at night, as soon as Papa went to sleep. We would walk for a few hours and then pay for a boat with a piece of gold I’d stolen from Mr. Hernandez. And then we were going to make our home in America.
Everything went as planned at first. We found the bags we’d hidden behind the trees in our backyard, and finally, we were on our way.
We were almost out the fence when someone grabbed my arm and pulled me back.
It was Papa. He’d heard us.
His eyes were red with madness. I shouted at my mama and sisters to run as fast as they could. I tried to hit Papa as hard as I could, but I could do no real damage. Though I was twenty-one years old, he was big and fat and I couldn’t even budge him. He kicked me to the ground, and he ran after them.
Mama was wise to shut the fence door and take the key, so he couldn’t follow them. He was too big to jump over, so he came back to me.
By the time he did, I was up and running. Anywhere, just to take him far away from them so they could be on their way.
Around the house and through the backyard, I ran to the village. When I was certain that my mother and sisters were far enough, I stopped and waited for him.
It was dark. No one was around to see the way he beat me. It was terrifying, yet I felt no pain at all. I kept my thoughts focused on Mama. She would be strong enough to take the girls and run while Papa wasted time with me. He was going to kill me. There was no stopping him.
But I was wrong, because he did. He did stop when I could barely breathe anymore and see even less. I smelled blood and dirt and my own sweat. Papa cursed like he always did before he turned around and ran back towards the house.
I tried to call out. No voice came out of me. I couldn’t move, either.
I looked up at the sky and begged God that he helped my family escape from him. I would do anything. Anything at all.
And then, someone answered. Someone said something, but I couldn’t understand. It was a language I’d never heard before. I tried to speak, ask whoever it was for help, but I had no idea if they understood.
Maybe he did because he grabbed me by my ankles and dragged me down the road.
That was the last thing I remembered from my life.
VI
That state of being when you’re not asleep, but not awake either, was the worst. I had no idea where the hell I was. The best I could do was focus on the sounds I could hear. Voices, yes, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying.
It took a while to open my eyes, but all I saw was darkness. I tried to move my hand and I did, but it felt heavy. Like I’d been beaten down for too long. Just like when Papa beat me for no reason.
And then, I remembered.
I remembered everything.
My mama and the girls, terrified, calling my name while Papa ran after them. I ran to the village to give them time to get away. Then I stopped and waited for Papa, because I was afraid he might tire of running and go back. I really had been beaten.
My head spun from sitting up too fast. I expected to see the small houses of our village.
Instead, I saw trees. I was surrounded by them. They weren’t the trees in our backyard. No. Those trees were green and full of life. I’d have recognized them, even in the dark. These trees, these dead looking ones, I didn’t.
As I stood up, panic grew in my chest. Had Papa taken me somewhere? Had he gone back and found Mama and the girls? I would kill him if he hurt them. I swore I would.
And what was the need that kept screaming in the back of my head?
Though I didn’t recognize the place, I couldn’t have been too far. He couldn’t have dragged me all the way to the next village, could he?
“Hello there,” someone said from behind me.
When I turned around, I couldn’t see through the darkness at first. The trees—not as many as I’d first thought—were as dark as the moonless sky. It smelled different than it did in my village, too. Not worse, just different. There was just something odd about the place, the air, everything. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, though when my eyes adjusted, I could see every little detail.
“Look at him, all lost like a little boy,” a woman said.
And when she did, I realized that she was speaking in English. And I could understand her.
More than that, even the thoughts in my head were in English. How the hell had I learned English?
“Hello?” It came so naturally to me to speak the word I’d never known the meaning of before.
“You look afraid, boy. And you should be,” the man said.
The sound of footsteps on broken pieces of wood gave me a sense of the direction they were coming from. When they came close enough that I could see them, I realized it was all just a dream.
Both the woman and man were unearthly beautiful. It was difficult to find another word to describe them, except unearthly. They could not be of this world.
“No talking to snacks, Ray,” the woman said, grinning.
“History repeats itself, see?” Ray said to her before he took another step closer to me.
“Stop!” I shouted. “Stop there. Who are you? What do you want from me?”
I hated that I sounded so weak.
“I’m Ray, and this is Harley, and she’s just kidding,” he said, his grin filled with mischief. His cold black eyes gleamed, and so did the green ones of the woman, who, with her rich sand-colored hair and heart-shaped face, was by far the most beautiful creature I’d ever laid eyes on.
“God, Ray. It’s Ignis,” Harley hissed.
“Right, sorry.” He turned to me again. “I’m Ray, and this is Ignis.”
I took a step back. “Where am I? And why am I speakin
g in English?” That seemed to be the most important thing. As if, if I knew the answer to that, the nightmare would go away.
“You’re in New York, boy,” Ray said.
It must’ve been some kind of a joke. He walked towards me again.
“Stop. Just stop, okay? Whatever joke this is, it’s over now.” I could only hope they couldn’t hear the fear in my voice.
“Joke? This isn’t a joke. This is everything but,” Ignis said, laughing. “You know what’d be even more fun? If we just left him here.”
“Nah,” Ray said, shaking his head. He didn’t sigh like I expected him to. In fact, he wasn’t…he wasn’t…
“You’re not breathing,” I whispered with a dumbfounded smile. He wasn’t fucking breathing. And neither was she.
“That’s right,” Ray said.
“And you wanna know something scary? You aren’t breathing either!” Ignis said, whispering in excitement as if this was the best day of her life, before she laughed again.
My hands went to my chest. She was right—I wasn’t breathing. And my heart…nothing moved inside of me.
“Let’s not drag this on any longer. I’ve got shit to do.” Ray stepped closer to me.
“Stop, please.” I raised my hands as if that was going to stop him.
This was real. Very real. I felt it. I saw them and heard them. It was real, no matter how impossible it seemed.
“I’m doing you a favor, boy. If I let you go without a little blood, you’ll be gone by tomorrow night,” Ray said.
“Stay away from me!” I shouted.
“Come on, Ray. Let’s just get out of here.” Ignis sounded bored now. “I’m hungry.”
“We’re not going to just leave him here. He won't last an hour. We owe it to him to at least prepare him,” Ray said. I had no idea who he was or what the hell he was talking about, but nothing good was going to come out of this if I didn’t wake up soon. So I pinched myself, long and hard until my skin was bloody.
Nothing happened.
“We don’t owe him shit, okay? We had that other guy, and he kicked him down and made the vow. I didn’t even see him coming,” Ignis said.
