Love In Darkness

by E. M. Tippetts

  A Novel

  E.M. Tippetts

  Smashwords Edition

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Love in Darkness is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, business establishments or locales is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. All rights reserved.

  Cover design © 2013 Sarah Hansen, Okay Creations

  Copyright © 2013 by Emily Mah Tippetts

  For everyone

  who works with disability,

  be it your own or others’.

  You are too often ignored

  and always underpaid.

  But you light the way past our limitations

  and into new frontiers of the human experience.

  Table of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty One

  Twenty Two

  Twenty Three

  Twenty Four

  Twenty Five

  Twenty Six

  Epilogue

  Other Books by E.M. Tippetts

  Acknowledgements

  My name is Alex Katsumoto and I’m on a subway platform in Tokyo, Japan. This city is where I’m serving my mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, otherwise known as the Mormon Church. I’m twenty-one years old, have brown hair, brown eyes with a slight Asian tilt to them (I’m half Japanese), and am six feet, two inches tall. I state these facts because they seem important. Like I must repeat them or I’ll forget.

  The station is packed so that it’s hard to stand without touching anyone and the air is thick with the scent of exhaled moisture and bad breath. The man right next to me wears a surgical mask, ostensibly to protect against airborne disease, but also to afford a little extra privacy, to not have his face read by thousands of strangers on the course of his commute.

  In my hand is an unopened letter from one Hermana (Spanish for “Sister”) Lukas, a female missionary for our church serving in Lima, Peru. I know her as Madison Lukas and haven’t seen her for almost two years, but we write to each other every week. She’s got ice blue eyes and platinum blond hair and I sense this letter is dangerous. I don’t dare open it.

  Except, where is it? My hands are empty, and it’s not on the floor. A quick patdown of my pockets reveals only lint and my appointment notebook. I paw through the contents of my bag and a couple of copies of The Book of Mormon fall out and land with splayed pages. People shift around me as I jab them with my elbows.

  “You all right?” asks my companion. Elder Ito is his name, and like me, he’s an American. Both of his parents emigrated from Japan, but his posture and mannerisms are so unabashedly Western that people here startle when he speaks Japanese. They expect him to yell in English like they’re all deaf. “What are you looking for?” He shoulders people aside so he can lean down to pick up the books.

  And I still can’t find Madison’s letter. It’s not anywhere in my bag. I pat my pockets again, then claw at them, scrunching the fabric and willing it to be paper.

  “Elder Katsumoto,” says my companion. He draws my name out in a way that lets me know I’m acting weird and hands me my books. “Seriously, what’s with you? You give a two hour lecture during scripture study, say nothing for the rest of the day, and you need to take a shower tonight. I’m serious. You reek, man.”

  A cold fear pools at the base of my spine and I know, in my bones, that something very bad is going to happen. An earthquake. We’re in danger down here, walled in by the crowd.

  I force myself to stand as still as I can and reach out my awareness. Voices chatter on a higher plane and I eavesdrop, a trick I’ve taught myself painstakingly over the last few months. It used to be I could only hear the voices as whispers, but now, I hear them clearly. They’re breathy and genderless, but if I concentrate, it’s as if they speak softly right into my ear.

  “-doesn’t know what’ll happen to him.”

  “They’re standing there, sitting ducks. Standing ducks.”

  “The train is the way out.”

  “Unless you’re wrong.”

  The voices always speak in a kind of code and I do my best to piece together what’s going on. They’re plotting something, that’s clear. I bet they cause the earthquake, and the train might be the way out if I get on it, or they might be warning me to step in front of it. This might be their way of saying I’ll soon wish I were dead.

  “Never let him hear you.”

  “He’s Chosen. We may have no power to stop him.”

  I hate it when they say things like this. Any day, any minute, they’ll figure out I can hear them and then what? Will they stop talking altogether? Adopt another code? Kill me on the spot?

  “Take over the other one,” one of the louder voices says with a snarl.

  Oh no. That is not good. Not good at all.

  Elder Ito’s eyes change from brown to a swirling blue as a foreign consciousness jams itself into his brain. “Elder Katsumoto, calm down,” he orders me, his voice flat and off.

  The train is the only way out? No. There isn’t enough time to wait for it. I break away from him and shove my way through the crowd, on my way to the exit.

  “Hey,” he shouts. Only it isn’t him. I know it isn’t.

  The train arrives with a clatter and a screech and I change course to get aboard, shoving more people aside.

  “He’s getting on the train,” says one of the voices.

  “Then he goes with them.”

  “He’d better hang on.”

  I dive through the door of the carriage, grab the overhead rail, and hang on for dear life. The train shoots out of the station and I sense it picking up more and more speed. Only now it occurs to me to wonder, if I gave away that I could hear them.

  “Excuse me,” says a diminutive lady next to me. “Are you all right?”

  Now the voices are taking over the people around me to try to get me to talk, to admit that I know they exist and can overhear their conversations.

  “Sir,” says someone else.

  And then, I feel it coming like a shockwave. “Earthquake!” I shout. “It’s coming. We’re going to be crushed!”

  The crowd around me explodes with a cacophony of voices. I feel someone grab my wrist and I flail to get away. Someone’s dimmed the lights in the train and it’s hard to see. I fight my way towards the door, but a hundred unseen hands pull me down. I sense the train shoot through the next station, and the next. I sense that it’s building up enough speed to launch from the end of its tracks into space. At least I’ve managed to leave Elder Ito behind.

  A hand closes on the back of my neck, and the world goes dark.

  I come to on a narrow cot in a plain, white hospital room that smells like hand soap and detergent. The
re are voices out in the hallway, but I don’t bother to try to eavesdrop. I’m too wrung out for that. I’m not sure how I got here or which hospital this is, but for now I feel safe.

  The door opens inward like an explosion and a woman wearing scrubs strides in. At the sight of me alert, she pauses. “Can you tell me your name?” she asks.

  “Alexander Katsumoto.”

  “Do you know where you are?”

  “Yeah, this is a hospital.”

  “You’ve experienced some psychosis. Do you understand? What you see and hear isn’t all real. We’re keeping you here for your own safety. You won’t be hurt.”

  “Lies,” says one of the voices. “You see how they lie?”

  “Try to relax,” the nurse says. “You’ve been medicated.”

  Within hours, I can’t eavesdrop on the voices anymore. I’ve lost my special power.

  By the middle of the next day, I understand that there is something seriously wrong with me, and I need to stay in this facility. I am given pills which I take. It’s important to take pills. I know this.

  Lying alone in bed, without the company of those voices, my mind wanders back to two years ago, to the moment that tortures me to this day.

  “We have to break up,” I hear myself tell her. I’m standing on the rocky beach, my back to the crashing surf. In front of me is Madison, gazing up at me with pure pain in those ice blue eyes. Behind her is the rugged rock wall of the cliff face.

  Her hair is pulled back in a simple ponytail and the breeze stirs the wisps that frame her face. The air is cool, but not cold. “I know myself, all right?” I explain. “The moment you move on, I won’t be able to take it. So I’ve got to let you go.”

  “Don’t do this.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Take it back. Please. Alex, I don’t want to break up.” Her eyes are wide, like clear, crystal pools.

  “And I need you not to write to me,” I say.

  “Why?” Now she claps both her hands over her nose and mouth as if to hold back pain or tears, or whatever it is shining from her gaze.

  It takes every ounce of my control not to back down. I have to stop kidding myself and finish this. “Because, I don’t want to know the moment you move on. I just… I need you to give me space.”

  “You’re going to Japan. That’s not enough space for you?”

  “I’m sorry, all right.” I back away, stepping carefully on the rocky beach. “But it’s not like we were ever going to last.”

  “Why not?”

  That, I should think, is obvious. “Because the two of us together make no sense. You’re beautiful and popular and have guys lining up around the block for a chance to be with you. I’m a high school dropout with a criminal record and no future. You should be embarrassed to be with me. Eventually we’ll both have to grow up.” I turn away. At least I’ll have the memories.

  As I start to walk, I hear her scrabble behind me, then the rapid beat of her boots against the stony ground. “Alex, wait.” Her tone is anguished.

  I set my jaw against the pain, like I’ve stitched my own heart with a silk thread and am now yanking it hard enough to tear the organ. I keep walking.

  She grabs my hand, her supple fingers wrapping around my palm. “Stop.”

  I stop, but I don’t turn.

  It doesn’t matter because she darts around in front of me and puts one arm around my waist. The other hand she slides up my back to grasp my shoulder. Her soft curves fit against my body. It’s how she always holds me, and I can’t endure it this time. I bow my head and just let the tears fall.

  “Alex,” she whispers, touching her forehead to mine, that soft breath against my lips. “Don’t, okay? You promised you’d never hurt me.”

  At that I let out a sob. Forget saving face. She knows me for who I am anyway and now she’s wiping away my tears. “Listen,” she says, “you need me not to distract you from your mission, fine. But I’ll always be here for you, and when you come back, I’ll be waiting.” She strokes my cheek with the backs of her fingers and leans up to press her lips against mine.

  I don’t want to kiss back, but at the same time, I can’t resist. She runs her fingers through my hair and the kiss goes on and on until I’ve got both arms wrapped tight around her and I’m drinking in her essence, liquid fire that pools in my core. I have to stop this.

  But when I do, she doesn’t let me pull back. She leans in and looks me straight in the eye. “I’ll wait for you. I don’t care if you don’t believe me. Let’s not end things with a fight, okay? Let’s end it on a good note for now.”

  “Goodbye, Madison.”

  “Bye, Alex. For now.”

  “I love you.” I don’t mean to say it, but it slips out, my whisper barely loud enough for me to hear it myself.

  Madison’s chin snaps up. “What?”

  I shake my head, willing her not to press me.

  “Alex-”

  I start to pull away but she reels me back in, not by force, but with her gaze. Her eyes beg me not to leave. She puts one arm around my waist again and slides her other hand up my back. “It’ll be all right. Everything will be all right,” she says.

  It broke my heart to leave her on that beach. I was sure she’d be a stranger to me by the time I got home from my mission. She’d date someone else and move on, but six months later I got a letter from her with the Missionary Training Center in Provo as the return address. “So by the way, I got baptized after you left,” she wrote. “Once you were out of the picture, I could think more clearly about everything, and I decided I do believe in the Gospel, even if it means I have to be part of the same community as you and watch you move on. The Church also changed the age we sisters can serve missions,” she reminded me. “I’m able to go now that I’m nineteen and I’ve started my training. I’ll be going to Peru and have to become fluent in Spanish, which will take a miracle.”

  She didn’t talk about her love life or whether she’d dated anyone else. All she asked was, could we write to each other? “I miss you,” she said. “I’d love to hear from you again.” As a missionary, she wouldn’t date anyone for eighteen months.

  I sat down at once and wrote her a long letter to say that I missed her too. She replied and we formed a habit of writing regularly. I liked holding something that she’d held just weeks before and we really talked to each other in those letters. We wrote them throughout the week and mailed the latest installment every Friday.

  Through our writing, we’d achieved something that had eluded us back when we’d spent most of our time making out: friendship. Madison wasn’t just a beautiful blond with a fetching smile. She knew me now, better than anyone. We talked about our faith, our memories of growing up together in Pelican Bluffs, our mission experiences, and we kept things on strictly friendly terms this entire time, but I felt closer to her than ever. I dreamed of greeting her with a kiss rather than a handshake, and wondered if that was where we were headed. Right now, she’ll be reaching the end of her mission, and I wonder if there is any other guy she’s going home to. I don’t think she’d write so much or so often to me if there were, but I’ve never had the courage to ask.

  A week after I’m admitted to the hospital, Elder Ito and the mission president pay me a visit. We’re ushered into a little room with a utilitarian cloth couch and some chairs. It’s got the same sterile smell as the rest of this facility. I feel like a complete idiot now that I realize how insane my behavior was.

  “What do we do if he tries to strangle us?” Elder Ito asks, looking the place over. He doesn’t want to sit down, he’s so nervous.

  The mission president at least acts like he’s at ease. He sits down on one of the chairs and gestures for me to sit in the other. Elder Ito waits a moment, before sitting down on the couch.

  “Elder Katsumoto,” says the mission president. “How much do you understand about what’s happened to you?” He speaks English, as he’s originally from Utah. He’s got skin the color of cappuccino and
jet black hair - I’d guess his family’s from the South Pacific - and he talks as if this is the kind of thing he’s done before. Perhaps he has.

  “I had a psychotic break,” I say. “My mother’s a schizophrenic, and I inherited it.”

  “Yes, well, Elder Ito filled me in on some of your unusual behaviors and…” He glances at my companion. “We should have known what to look for and spotted it sooner. I’m sorry. Given your family health history, we should have sent you home once the symptoms started to show.”

  “So are you going to send me home now?”

  He shakes his head. “You need to be stable, and for that they recommend at least two weeks on your medications and some tests, because they don’t know if this is schizophrenia or something else yet. They’ve already ruled out a brain tumor but they’ll want to check for other psychiatric disorders. We’ll send you home once we’re sure you’ll be all right on the journey. You’re so close to the end of your mission, odds are you’ll go home the same time as planned, or maybe even a little after.”

  “Provided they don’t think I’ll get up and scream the plane is going to crash,” I say.

  “Right.”

  “Or,” says Elder Ito, “talk about overhearing angels talking.”

  I look down at my hands, which are still scabbed over around the nails. I’d been picking at the skin, making it bleed. “I know I can’t overhear spirits talking,” I say. “I know that I can’t predict earthquakes. I know that I should shower once a day. I know that I’m here on my mission and I screwed that up.”

  “You’re ill,” says the mission president. “This happens to people.”

  I look over at Elder Ito. “I’m sorry, all right? I’m sure it wasn’t fun to watch.”

  His smile is very clearly forced, and I can’t blame him. “Listen, right before you lost it, you were looking for something. Someone in the mission office said you’d dropped this.” He holds out a letter.

  I snatch it from his hands and sure enough, it’s Madison’s letter, the last letter she would have written before she finished her mission. It isn’t one of the usual, multi-page tomes we send each other. This one is short, as if she had very little left to say. I dread opening it, but I have to.