Bright Star

by Grayson Reyes-Cole

  “We have a lot to do today,” she winked at him.

  “Bright Star,” Jackson entreated, “Whatever you’re planning… whatever it is, please tell me that it…” He didn’t finish.

  “I won’t tell you what it is at all. That, apparently, is the only way you will be able to sleep at night.” And with those words, she started after Point and Monk into the building.

  Before she made it inside, Jackson stopped her once more. “Then tell me who she is.”

  Bright Star turned back to him and she fixed him with a cold and ruthless stare. She had never looked at him that way. In fact, he had never seen that expression at all on her face before. “Who?” Her voice was like a scratch in his ear.

  Unfortunately, Jackson didn’t know who. All he had was the memory of his brother talking to a phantom girl once before and offhand references to someone by the Monk. There was nothing else. Bright Star narrowed her eyes just so, then turned and entered the building.

  Jackson sat for a moment, but found himself restless. After the train, there had been a growing tension in the house. The tension wasn’t just emotional or a “feeling.” It was pure unadulterated High Energy. It had shown up on the satellite images and sensors at SHQ. Jackson had not been able to cover the fact the Energy was directly from his home. But, amazingly, he hadn’t had to. Every scientist, doctor, military advisor at SHQ seemed to believe this Energy field was completely normal and unworthy of investigation. Jackson did not agree but did not want them storming his home. His home, which over six months ago had been a two bedroom and was now a veritable compound housing more people than when it had been a regular apartment complex.

  Bright Star was planning something huge. Something huge enough for her to expend Energy to put up a barrier for the minds of every one of the Followers living in their home. Jackson found it impossible, thus frustrating that he couldn’t break through the wall. He couldn’t stop something he couldn’t foresee.

  Rush had been around more than normal, too. As if he, too, knew it was coming. Of course, Jackson thought, Rush knew. Of course he did. Rush knew everything. Rush was the fucking all powerful! Jackson threw the tennis ball he’d been hitting against the side of the building. Rather than bouncing back, it wedged itself into the brick wall. Then the wall seemed to wobble and accept the ball into it. Jackson grunted in frustration. Nothing was normal anymore.

  “Ta dah!” Jackson heard from behind him. He turned to see the twins. His skin crawled at the very sight.

  Regardless of the fact that they shared a beautiful room with its own bathroom. Regardless of the fact that they had access to whatever they wanted including clothes. Destroy and Harm persisted in looking like thrown away children, like filthy panhandling street urchins.

  “What do you two want?” There was no love lost between them and Jackson.

  “We thought you wanted something, Cowboy,” they said in unison.

  “What could I possibly want from either of you?”

  “We thought you wanted the wall to go down.” Destroy smirked. A dimple creased her dirty cheek.

  “What wall?” Jackson asked glancing around. He felt like a criminal for just standing there with them. He also couldn’t deny the unease he felt at the High Energy that throbbed around them like an infected wound.

  “The Energy wall, of course, Cowboy,” Harm told him. He sidled close to Jackson and looked up at him. His gray eyes were already starting to churn in the way that made Jackson want to vomit.

  “Let’s forget about the wall,” he managed. “Why don’t you just tell me what they’re planning?”

  “Unh unh unh,” Destroy tsked, shaking her head. “There’s a way, Cowboy. You know that. A way these things get done.”

  Jackson didn’t say anything. He just stared at the two who were barely more than children. And yet, with their clammy skin and roiling mercury eyes, they were dangerous. He considered, was considering, what they were offering. The pair knew for certain what Bright Star was up to, but—as was now tradition when it came to Jackson—they wouldn’t tell him. They were going to make him use their Energy to infiltrate the wall. He would have to become a part of them. He looked around again. There was no one there to witness this. In the sky, stars winked at him.

  “Okay,” he muttered.

  “I’m sorry. We didn’t hear you,” Destroy prodded.

  “Come on. Let’s get this over with.” Then he started around to the back of the grounds. He couldn’t go inside. Rush and Bright Star would know what he was up to if he went into the house. They might know anyway, but he thought to lessen the chance. Destroy and Harm followed him, holding hands.

  They went into the utility shed. There was an old tub inside filled with landscaping supplies. Jackson considered briefly that five minutes ago they hadn’t had a utility shed. He didn’t remember anybody ever doing any landscaping.

  “We’ll need to use that,” Destroy said of the tub. She began to levitate boxes and containers out of the tub with a wave of her hand. Jackson tried not to be amazed. He hadn’t the kind of control she possessed at that age. Both she and her brother’s Talent had increased exponentially since coming to the compound. He wasn’t sure why, but he was sure it had something to do with Bright Star. Or his brother.

  “For what?” Jackson asked.

  “Guess, Service Man. You were trained in all of this anyway, weren’t you?” Harm stated with a surly curl to his lip. “We’re going to fill it with water, too.”

  Jackson did know what they were doing. Sometimes with certain Shifts, water sharpened the skill, heightened the Talent. The Shift would be more prone to work with at least one of them submerged in water.

  “That will be you, Jackson,” Destroy said.

  “You’ll need to be in the water. We don’t have anything to learn.” As she said it, she waved her hand again and the dingy tub started to fill with water.

  “We have something like this at the SHQ.” Jackson’s nervousness was making him chatter, “But this is a long way away from the Sense Dep tank.”

  “You won’t think that once you’re in it,” Harm grinned. “Now, get in the tub.” It was a harsh, dark command.

  Jackson did as instructed. He stepped into the tub and sat down.

  “Now lie back, relax.” Destroy gave him the instruction with a coy yet chillingly childlike smirk.

  “What are you going to do?” Jackson asked with his teeth clinking together. He was amazed at how cold the water was. Every inch of his skin felt hard. Ice formed in his veins. He started to shake. He started to convulse. He asked again, as best he could through an uncontrollable stutter, “W-w-w-what are you g-g-going t-to do?”

  “We’re already doing it,” the twins stated in unison, their eyes whirling.

  Jackson closed his eyes against the sickening image. His blindness amplified their voices which were sibilant, grating, just as terrifying. They chanted in words that were foreign, words that snaked into his ears and spread like acid vines through his skull. Forcing his eyes open again, Jackson found himself bound to a post, the islanders circling him and circling. He was accused and found guilty. He had interfered and he would be sacrificed. The chanting natives assured themselves of prosperity once the traitor was hurled from the mountain. And over the cliff he went, bracing himself to be dashed against jagged rocks.

  The world went black then, frosted and drowning. Under water, blue spheres shot past him. Jackson realized he wasn’t breathing. Instinctively trying to rectify that, he took a deep breath and all the water rushed in. It went down his throat into his lungs and stomach. It burned his insides and the blue souls became aggressive, swarming around him, stirring the waters and… bleeding.

  More than freezing, more than drowning. He thrashed and thrashed, but that sent the water deeper and deeper into his lungs. And inside, his chest was burning.

  Then everything became tart and metallic. Syrupy. He was covered in blood. Her blood. He tried to keep his mouth closed, but it clotted and for
ced its way into his mouth, thickly filling and stretching his lungs and stomach. Who was she? Who was she? Not Bright Star. Who?

  Then Rush was there. His hands were wrapped around Jackson’s arms, and he was pulling him up from the tub. Jackson sputtered and thrashed. He wiped at the blood that was now only water. When he could stand, he blinked water furiously from his eyes as he coughed and spit on the ground. “What the fuck did you do to me?” Jackson he yelled hoarsely at the two that were watching in horror.

  Jackson went over and grabbed them both by the hair. He lifted them from the ground.

  “Put them down, Jackson,” Rush ordered. “They didn’t know what they were doing.”

  “They knew exactly what they were doing, and you know it!”

  “They didn’t. But it doesn’t matter anyway,” Rush urged. “Just forget this and go back up to the house.”

  “How can I forget?” Jackson’s eyes were haunted.

  “I can help you,” Rush offered softly.

  “No!” Jackson barked. “There’s been enough fucking with my head for one day! I’m done!”

  Destroy and Harm laughed. They laughed so hard that their mouths distended and their jaws unhinged. Horrified, Jackson watched as they laughed more and dropped to the ground. They moved awkwardly. Destroy on her belly; Harm on his side. Jackson recoiled in horror.

  Rush walked over to them and dropped to the ground beside their writhing, unnaturally coiling bodies. Immediately, they stilled, and for the first time, their eyes stopped squirming. They swallowed in unison. Rush kissed his fingertip and pressed it to each of their foreheads.

  When he stood, they were both unconscious. Jackson noted that this was not a normal comatose state, either. No, their High Energy had been totally drained. They were complete vegetables, at least temporarily.

  “You know what she’s planning?” Jackson asked eyes riveted to the unconscious pair.

  “I do,” Rush answered. He looked back at the twins and they both disappeared into thin air. Then he walked to the house.

  “It’s ridiculous that after all this time, after everything, I need someone to save me,” Jackson yelled after him.

  “It’s ridiculous, Jackson, that you’re the only one who doesn’t understand that no one needs saving. Not you, not Bright Star,” Rush retorted. “No one.”

  He left his brother to think about that.

  Burning Mermaids

  Jackson noticed immediately that the house was empty. Impossible not to. There were at least seventy-five people living inside the house and another hundred that lived encamped around the premises. But today, no one. And he knew what that meant.

  He ran to the Monk’s room. The temple, they had started calling it. He knew better than to believe that there was anything special about the place, however, Jackson needed all the help he could get. He needed to focus and find them before they did something irreversible this time. They hadn’t seen Rush last night and Bright Star hadn’t listened. She never listened. Rush wasn’t going to save anyone this time. He’d said it and he meant it. They were all going to die.

  Jackson knelt down before a gleaming yellow ball at the altar. He breathed deeply. In and out. In and out. He held his hands up in the air and closed his eyes. Gingerly he began feeling around in the air. It was a trick he’d learned in the Service. He’d use his whole body as a divining rod. He would find the strongest wave of Energy and follow it like a raveling thread until it lead him to that pulsing surge that could only mean Bright Star and the energy of the Followers feeding into her.

  He worked at it and worked at it until everything went black. For a moment, he thought he was passing out, but no. There was a glimmer of wavering blue light, another and another. He had a faded sense of déjà vu.

  *

  Bright Star pressed a kiss to each of their foreheads. And when she did, a thin, golden bubble of light surrounded them. They rose and floated out over the ocean, then plunged below. One after the other. One after the other. This way they would easily be able to follow each other to the depths, to the underlying cave. The one of blues and grays. The one where the water periodically rose to the top, consuming all space, leaving none for air or topside life.

  Monk was the last to go. The first had been Point, of course. She could lead them anywhere, and she had refused to listen when he asked her to wait. But Monk, who had a charisma of his own, had waited. “This is the second time I’ve met you on the side of a cliff.”

  Bright Star smiled with a teasing dimple. “I know. But last time, I lost faith and you were there to restore it to me. This time, I will restore yours.”

  Monk swallowed. How did she know that he had been having doubts about their mission?

  Before Bright Star could kiss his forehead, he interrupted, “You know he won’t come this time.”

  Bright Star smiled and nodded. “He will.” She leaned towards Monk again.

  Monk backed away. “He won’t.”

  “Monk,” she intoned, focusing on him intently. “I won’t let you lose your faith now.”

  Almost hysterically, Monk took a step away from the slight mental push and piped, “I haven’t lost my faith, Bright Star. On the contrary, I believe more now than I ever have, because I know. I know. Do you understand? I know. He won’t save me or any of them. And you will barely escape with your own life.”

  “I don’t believe that,” Bright Star declared. Even as she argued, she pushed him harder. “He will save us. He will come to believe in himself. He will recognize his responsibility. It would destroy him to allow innocents to die this way. He will save us, and he will save us all.”

  “No he won’t,” Monk countered forcefully. He reached out his hands as if to shake her, but instead he fisted them at his sides. Touching her would be folly for sure. “And I’m not going to do this. I refuse to betray him with you again.”

  Bright Star recoiled. Her face crunched into an ugly and menacing visage. She rose into the air. Her fingers curled into claws. “You will go, Monk. If you don’t—”

  “If I don’t?” he challenged, finding the courage of certainty. She was stronger than he and the fear inside of him was palpable, but he found courage. “If you waste your Energy on me, who will say the Energy and Keep Time?”

  Time. It had become one of the most important tenets of the Followers from the first time he’d used it. Without someone to keep time, Bright Star would have burned that day in the ballroom. Yes, sardonically he thought, time was all-important when cheating death. If Rush was called into action too soon, he would save them before there was truly danger. There would be little effort and little Shift. If they called him too late, well, there would be no calling at all, they would all simply die. Keeping Time to ensure zero loss took all the Energy one could muster when dying. Bright Star knew it. Without him, she would have to be the Timekeeper, and she needed her strength.

  “You will not come?” she asked finally.

  “No,” Monk answered and blinked wildly in his own amazement. It was the first time he had ever openly defied her. He gave silent thanks that no one else had witnessed it. He didn’t know what she would do if she perceived that he threatened the faith of others. And, while his insolence was freeing, he knew it to be damning as well. His heart was still beating like bat wings in his chest. He stepped back from the edge of the cliff as she spun into a blue ball then lengthened like a spearhead and stabbed into the roiling gray waves. He turned his back to the ocean.

  As his legs pumped wildly beneath him, he reached out with his mind. He called to Rush, the only time outside of Keeping Time when he had dared. But there was no answer. Rush was not listening. He didn’t want to hear the sounds of their screams.

  Monk stopped short. He just… stopped. He had almost made it to the bus. Almost. But he stopped. It hadn’t even been a full-fledged vision. He didn’t know if it had been supernatural at all. All he knew was that while the Followers still would not be saved, Point would not be saved, Bright Star would be. Ma
ybe there was something he needed to do after all. Slowly, he turned around and headed back to the cliff, counting in his head.

  Bright Star’s Children Are Dying

  Directly, Rush had not interfered. Directly, he had left the entire order trapped below a half-mile stretch of craggy outcropping beneath the ocean. The protective bubbles Bright Star had given them burst with explosive force as she joined them in the water. But, Rush did not come. Instead, Monk had come. Monk, whose power was nothing in comparison to hers, thus inconsequential when compared to Rush’s, had come back to save them. He stood in the same place she’d occupied on the cliff with his arms outstretched. He harnessed his High Energy and focused it on everyone below. Wildly, the Energy traveled beneath the water, searching for those souls. Fish had come to the surface working their slick mouths in hopes that the Energy would find them, but Monk continued.

  One by one, the bodies started to emerge from the sea. One by one, they rose with their eyes closed and their hands folded over their chests. He had expected them to be bloated with water and grasping for life. Instead, they were surreal in their beauty, and they were all dead. Monk almost faltered, he did, as he saw them coming, one after the other, one after the other, and he realized that he had not saved anyone. A strange pain in his chest started, it pressed his lungs and his heart to the point where they were too small inside of him to support his life. But he didn’t stop. Monk continued to bring the dead from the depths. It was only when he brought Bright Star forth, that he realized he had at least one save. And then, he reached for the last of them, and they all came forward, injured, nearly dead, but alive.

  With Perma-Shift cracking his brain and organs into fifty million pieces, Monk brought all forty-seven back to the compound. The five survivors were sent to sleep in their rooms to recover. The forty-two that died lay face up, six feet in the air in a tidy six by seven levitating grid in the courtyard. A cloud hung over them and bathed them in cleansing waters. The ground opened up into forty-two plots beneath them and the grass lifted up to bind their bodies. Monk lowered them into the ground slowly and prayed as the earth sealed itself over them. Monk realized from his second ascent of that cliff that the only reason the Shift was not killing him was that Rush was sharing his burden. This was something he could never have achieved on his own. But only he knew that, and he would never, never tell the others.