Lumen

by Joseph Eastwood

“It’s a scandal,” Jac said without paying attention.

  “Seriously though, Jac. Last night a girl, I forgot her name, she started to ramble on about knowing something and not being able to tell me. It felt so real. And I’ve seen her before, and that didn’t start until I came here. I want to know what it’s all about. And I wouldn’t have met Mia if I never came here.”

  “Wait. What are you talking about? What happened?”

  Daniel explained to Jac about his dreams, and they talked again about blood. Jac usually humoured his abilities, he’d always been strong with his will, but something about knowing Reuben had a vial of Daniel’s blood made him nauseous.

  “Daniel, I think those stories were true. Daniel, I think you’re a—” before Jac could finished, Daniel disappeared.

  Daniel found himself standing in Reuben’s office, standing in front of all the teachers who stood behind Reuben’s desk. Reuben sat in his chair, his fingers interlocked and laid on his desk while the other teachers had their hands clasped against their chests, ready to start their prayers. Daniel scanned their faces; each teacher had the same look, the same teary red eyes, and inane grins and clenched teeth.

  “We knew it!” Reuben bellowed and all the teachers gasped in shock. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  Daniel took a step back. “I’m sorry,” he managed, after opening and closing his mouth several times. He glared up at them and a stream of light poked him in his eye, he took another step back and wobbled on the balls of his feet.

  “No!” Jac shouted. Daniel winced and clenched his jaw.

  “Is everything okay?” Reuben said, “take a seat, Daniel.”

  “You know?” Daniel asked. His heart lodged itself in his throat, and his face started to burn red.

  “I need to tell you something!” Jac shouted again, “you must hear it from me! Damn it, Daniel, I thought you said you knew!”

  “I know part of the Luminary codes states you shouldn’t give yourself away to none-luminary folk like us,” Reuben said.

  A drill of white noise touched Daniel’s core, and reverberated through each of his bones. “Myself?”

  “You’re a luminary,” Reuben said. “Right?”

  The white noise had a voice, Jac’s voice, and from it bled every curse word under the sun. It continued to pierce Daniel. His nose bled. He put a hand to his face and wiped away the blood, then stared out at the people behind Reuben’s desk, they were clapping but no sound came from the action.

  “We shouldn’t have confronted him.” Enek said.

  “Nonsense, he’s come to see his people, and we found out his secret,” Reuben chuckled.

  Everything went over Daniel’s head, but inside he could hear the synapses spark and pop, just as his pupils grew and shrunk, and his mouth dried and then gushed with saliva. He pressed his hand against his mouth, as hard as he could. “I need—I need to go.”

  “Of course, anything for a Luminary,” Reuben replied. “Be back soon.”

  He wanted to protest and as he stood from the settee to waver at the comment he disappeared and fell face flat on his bed.

  “How could they!” Jac said, grinding his teeth and flailing his hands in the air.

  Daniel sat up, he could barely open his eyes and when he opened his mouth a trickle of saliva dripped down his chin. “Jac,” he said, trying to stand but falling backward on his bed.

  “It incapacitates you, that is what it does. It’s in your genes, it’s in each of your little—” he acted his hands like pincers, “just snapping away and it hit a nerve. You should recover though, but I was supposed to tell you.” Jac sighed as he sat on the edge of Daniel’s bed, besides him.

  “I don’t know. I’m not what they said. They poisoned me. They lied.” Daniel said, sucking in deep breaths and clenching his jaw after speaking.

  “You need sleep, Dan. Please don’t forget,” Jac said, looking down at Daniel’s lifeless body. There was something red soaking the white t-shirt from his chest. Jac shook his head and bit his lip. “You won’t forget. Daniel, you are a luminary.”

  “Take me home,” Daniel said, trying to keep from sobbing but tears fell from his eyes, and his t-shirt was now almost pitied with his blood.

  “Go to sleep.” Jac placed his hands over Daniel’s eyes and within seconds he could feel their bond, and so he tugged at Daniel and pushed him into a deep sleep.

  Jac slowly lifted the damp cloth from Daniel’s chest, and as he did Daniel let out a huge moan. The cloth had reopened the wound and little streams of blood started to flow down the sides of his chest.

  “I’m sorry,” Jac said, glancing at the weird ‘h’ across Daniel’s chest, it was similar to the one that he’d got on his wrist.

  “Where am I?” Daniel asked, lifting his head and then wincing at the pain.

  “We’re still at school. When you can get up we’ll go home.”

  “No!” he frowned. “I need to see Reuben first. And what is that pain!”

  “It’s a scar on your chest. I’m really sorry you had to found out like this.”

  Daniel tried to open his eyes wider but it was still dark and the lamplight was dim. He pushed back on his neck to see it, but all he could feel was the pain of the skin stretching as he moved.

  “I guess it all really happened then, didn’t it? It’s all true, isn’t it?” Daniel said.

  “Yes, it’s true, you’re a Luminary, and you’re not meant to be on the island.”

  “I’m not—” Daniel said, trying to protest as hot prickles rose up the sides of his neck and poked him in his cheeks.

  “Don’t fight it, it will hurt you more. I know things about your family, that I didn’t know last week, I’m not from a bloodline like you are, I’m from something greater, I was chosen to be your guardian.”

  “Shush.” Daniel slowly pushed himself to sit up and then he pushed his back against the cold brick which he hissed at.

  Jac stood from his kneeling position beside Daniel’s bed. “Can you see it now?”

  Daniel glared at his chest for several moments, staring blankly as the open cuts started to bleed out again and roll down his abdomen and his sides.

  “Did they cut me?”

  “No, it’s your heritage, it’s your emblem.”

  “So, so, who did this?” Daniel threw a hand to his chest and clenched his skin between his fingers, letting the blood pour harder.

  Jac closed his eyes and shook his head. “It means that you’re one of them.”

  “No! You don’t know this.”

  Jac set a finger on Daniel’s forehead. “I know because the guardian’s before me knew. I am your guide, but this isn’t how it was supposed to start, nobody was supposed to start on this island.”

  Daniel choked on a breath as Jac removed his finger. He shook his head slowly and then turned to face Jac. “Okay, I know it’s true. It’s too right to be wrong.”

  Jac smiled. “Great. Now we just need to get you all healed up and we have to leave, if word gets out about you, they’ll do and try anything to keep you here.”

  “So what happened to me?” Daniel pulled his hand away from his chest; his fingers were now covered in blood. He glanced down to see the mark, now half-scabbed over and looking like someone had burnt him.

  “It happens when you find out. It’s to scar you so that you will never forget, and it’s that painful that you can’t,” Jac said, rubbing at the scar on his wrist.

  “Saturn,” Daniel said, tracing a finger around the sensitive ridges of the cut.

  “You’re one of seven, Dan.”

  “Why didn’t you say something earlier?”

  “I wanted to. I came here to tell you, but you had a lot of stuff going on and I wanted you to have a last few days of being a normal person before I dropped this on you. Well, before they did.”

  “When can we go? I don’t want to stay here, it all feels too wrong, when they all started speaking to me like I’d won something, and then I felt like I was about to die. W
e need to go.”

  “We can’t go yet, your dad knows about you giving your blood to Reuben and he told me that I had to get it back off him. Blood is sacred, you know that, right?”

  Daniel nodded. “Now I feel stupid for coming here. I should have stayed at home, and you should have taught me, like you wanted and then when you found out about all of this there wouldn’t be much drama and we could have left the island.”

  “But you met Mia here.”

  “And her life is bad enough without me in it. Why couldn’t my dad have told you before I left?”

  “He didn’t want to tell me at all, he never wanted you to find out, and your mum never knew either, she still doesn’t.”

  There was a knock at the door. “Dinner,” a woman said. Daniel and Jac exchanged wary glances for a moment, and then Daniel nodded for Jac to go get the food. Jac opened the door slightly so that only he was in view, she passed him a tray full of food through and before hurrying off she giggled and gave a curtsy.

  “Well, someone likes you,” Jac said, balancing the tray with one hand and then shutting the door and locking it with his other.

  He sat the tray down on Daniel’s bed, there were several bun rolls with a small pot of butter, and on a larger plate there were strips of thick crispy bacon, fat greasy sausages and two juicy chicken legs glazed with honey.

  “I made friends with the kitchen staff,” Daniel said, wiping his hands on his bed sheets.

  “No, use this!” Jac pushed a bowl of warm water in front of him. “Clean your hands properly.”

  Daniel raised an eyebrow. “It’s only a bit of blood.” He rinsed his hands with the warm water, and then wiped them on his bed sheets.

  “Just because you’re a Luminary it doesn’t mean that you can’t fall ill.”

  Daniel started shovelling the food into his mouth, “ooing” and “aahing” at the taste.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Daniel was put to sleep as soon as he’d finished eating. Jac had listened to the voices of the people who’d gone before him, and although they could see the past, present and future, they wouldn’t let him in on what the future had in store. They said, it’s something special, it’s something great! And then they told him to put Daniel to rest, he needed as much time as possible to heal, and he slept all weekend, stirring and slightly waking for water, then falling back to sleep.

  “Jac,” Daniel said, trying to cough. “You better stop doing that.”

  Jac spooned the last of the chocolate yoghurt into his mouth. He hummed as he licked the spoon. “I can now. You needed to rest and you couldn’t have done it on your own.”

  Daniel coughed into a fist. “Oh, I do feel better,” he said, pushing himself up in his bed.

  “See, I knew you needed it.” Jac smiled.

  “Oh, jeesh! I need a shower,” Daniel said, frowning at the smell from his armpits.

  “I wasn’t going to say anything,” Jac said, grinning. “How does the scar look?”

  Daniel peeled the duvet from his chest and glanced down at the symbol etched into his skin. He looked at Jac and then glanced back down to the scar, he gritted his teeth and furrowed his brow. “It’s scabbing over.”

  “It’s healed over by now, you should peel it in the shower or something. Oh, but before that, you need to eat something, you’ve been asleep since Saturday.”

  Daniel turned and squinted at Jac. His eyes turned glassy and his face flushed red. He puffed out his cheeks and threw his head over the side of his bed. There was a splash and then Daniel choked a couple of times as he threw up on the floor. Jac shunned his face away, he took a deep breath and held it.

  “You best shower first,” Jac said into a sigh.

  “I need to eat though.”

  Jac walked over to the closet and picked up a towel. He passed it to Daniel, trying not to look at the sick on the floor. “Just go have a shower, food should be here by the time you’ve finished.”

  Daniel nodded. “What day is it?”

  “Monday.”

  Jac tidied Daniel’s bedroom, whilst he showered, using a bit of excess energy he’d been storing for just the right moment, and that moment came when Daniel’s sick started to make the room smell.

  Daniel burst into his bedroom just as Jac performed his little vanishing spectacle. He was followed by two women carrying huge platters covered by silver lids. They placed the platters on the freshly made bed and hurried off, giggling to each other and going red in their faces.

  They pulled the lids off to find that this wasn’t their usual dinner time meal, this wasn’t at all like the foods they’d previously eaten. There was duck, glazed in a honey and orange coat with a crisp, well-cooked layer of skin. And as Jac pulled the other metal lids of the smaller dishes he revealed several steamed vegetables; broccoli, carrots, potatoes, green beans.

  Daniel picked up a plate and started spooning the vegetables on it, while Jac cut into the duck. He felt his mouth start to go numb with saliva as he watched the grease trickle down the side of the meat. Daniel held his plate out to Jac and he cut several thick slices of the meat off for him.

  Beside the duck there was a dark brown sauce. Daniel dipped his finger into it and stuck it in his mouth, he “ooed” and “aahed” as this new sauce touched his lips, at first there was vinegar, and then a spice, and it ended with a fruity kick.

  “People are so nice now,” Daniel said, dipping his finger back into the pot of sauce.

  “Don’t be fooled, especially by women, they’ll try and have your child, and then run away and blackmail you for money, telling you how they’ll kill the child if you don’t pay them. They’ll fail to do because your child will have Luminary blood coursing through its veins,” Jac blurted.

  “What?”

  “I don’t have a clue. Well, I do. It’s the store of all this knowledge about your family and heritage, and stuff. You also have a castle.”

  “We can’t leave the island though. You heard them, didn’t you. They’d kill anyone who left.”

  “And what part of, you cannot die, don’t you understand. And I won’t die until I’m of no use.” Jac grinned.

  Daniel hummed and took a bite of the duck. He was silent for a moment as he chewed and swallowed, and then he looked back up at Jac. “I think you’ll always have a use.”

  “Hah. That’s reassuring,” he said, “now, I can hunt big game without worrying about my health.”

  “Really? The biggest game that isn’t a shifter is an elk.”

  “Yeah, well we’re not staying here I’ve already packed your stuff, and we’re leaving, as soon as you’ve eaten.”

  “What? And where the hell are we even going?”

  “The castle? Apparently you have lots of money there. So why not.”

  Daniel eyed Jac. Everything was too surreal and he’d played it out like a sick dream which was now set in stone. Sometimes there wasn’t meant to be an answer to everything, sometime things had to play out on their own. He gulped at the build-up of stress in his throat.

  “I can’t leave without getting the blood from Reuben. And the food here’s delicious. I’ll get it off him tomorrow, I have class then.”

  Jac nodded; he didn’t want to be there when Daniel broke that news, and he knew that if he was there he’d end up fighting, especially knowing that he can’t die.

  “I still can’t shift though,” Jac thought aloud.

  “Most people can’t. You know that.”

  “Yeah, but. Luminary. Guardian. I should be able to at least shift a little.”

  Daniel chuckled. “Well when I learn how to use my Luminary power, I’ll give you an animal.”

  “That’s more like it!”

  There was something else going on behind the whites of Jac’s eyes, something that he just smiled and figured would pass, but this wasn’t going to pass. The inside of his mind had become a mess since becoming a guardian, it was like an abandoned library, the floors were scattered with stray papers, and every othe
r moment a gust of wind would throw something at him. The discoloured piece of paper slapped him. He read it word for word: a Luminary may not possess their ancestral power until the age of 18, when the development of their physical body should be complete. Luminaries should reach this age before being given any roles and responsibilities, or continuing the succession of a forefather’s title. The paper was torn at the bottom, and another hit him: a guardian may also experience lapses in their ability due to the information needed to survive being stored inside them.

  Daniel glared at Jac out of the corner of his eye. “What’s up?” Daniel asked.

  “I feel a little bit sick, and I guess cleaning yours didn’t help.”

  “Just eat something. This duck is amazing!” Daniel said, licking the tips of his fingers.

  Jac smiled back, rubbing at his wrist, rubbing at the mark where he’d been scarred. It slowly started to prickle his skin and itch. Jac tried not to touch it, but the scar was glowing and turning red. He blinked and glanced back down at it. There was no bubbling, or rippling, but the sensation had eaten into his skin now, and he could feel it long after it had disappeared.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Tuesday afternoon came quick enough, and Daniel made his way up to Reuben’s office. He’d prepared a speech, ready to tell Reuben that he was leaving and that he knew who he was now and that he couldn’t kill him or stop him from leaving the island. He also wanted his blood back, and he’d fight for it. He debated with himself as he walked up the steps and people walked out of his way.

  “Mr Satoria,” a woman said, bowing her head at Daniel as she rushed out of Reuben’s office. “Your class is waiting in the teaching room beneath the school.”

  “But I need to speak with Reuben privately,” he said, calling after her as she rushed passed him.

  She didn’t turn around to reply or even acknowledge that she’d heard him, she just continued running. Daniel rubbed his clammy hands against his pants. It meant he’d have to walk back down those 3 flights of stairs, and then down another flight to the room, all the while, debating with himself about how he was going to tell Reuben, the man who had a vile of his blood, that he was going to be leaving the school.