by Amy Saia
He held me and laid his head on top of mine. We stayed like that for what seemed like forever, until I stepped back, laughing sheepishly. “Well, let’s do this,” I said.
It was dark already with a clear sky above; a bright full moon hanging in suspense over our heads. We climbed into the Camaro, both clicking our seatbelts in loud unison, laughing at the absurdity of it all.
Jesse grabbed the key and made the engine roar with life. He paused for a moment before peeling out of the parking spot, heading toward Main. Our first stop was to be the Springvale Savings and Loan, one of the arteries in the heart of the Soul Seekers organization.
Parking a few blocks down from the bank, Jesse stepped out and came around to open the passenger side door for me. I got out, shivering, and let him hold my arm as we walked down the sidewalk in dark secrecy.
“What’s with all this gentlemen stuff?”
“Nothing, just thought I’d try it out for once.”
My whole body started to shake.
“Relax,” he said, jumping as a car sped by.
“Sure,” I replied, my lips drawn tight.
He stood back to eye the scene, then led me over to the side of the building through a patch of overgrown weeds. I squinted to see his dark frame as he felt along the stone walls, stopping for a moment to click open a low door. We crept in and made our way through a small hallway, which led to a narrow set of stairs.
We made a left at the top, stopping at a door at the end of the hall. “They’re in here,” he whispered.
“When you say they . . .” I barely croaked out.
He let out a small laugh. “I mean the coins. Geez, you’re seriously freaking out, Emma.”
I watched as he crept into the room and began combing a huge wall safe. I wondered how he could possibly know the combination, but it was Jesse. After a few missed searches and a few cuss words, he was able to undo the lock, releasing a wide, thick door. A cold breeze washed over my face.
“Coin number one,” he said, pulling out a little velvet bag. He ran his fingers down the wall and pulled out another box, hesitating for a long moment. He seemed conflicted—opening and closing different files—still not sure what to do. Finally, seeming to find what he was looking for, he spoke with resolution. “And coin number two. Let’s go.”
I was saying protection prayers the whole time, trying to imagine the two of us being surrounded by the brightest light. My neck sachet wafted a musky scent everywhere, helping me to calm down anytime I felt a panic attack edge on.
“Do they have a coin for everyone in Springvale?”
“Yep.” Jesse shoved them down into his back pocket.
“Are you sure you have the right ones for William and me?”
He didn’t respond. He seemed worried about correctly resetting the combination to its original position. Still consumed with its accuracy, he stood back to scrutinize the entire wall.
“What’s next?” I whispered.
“We go and find your friend in the caves. He’ll be happy to see us.”
I could barely wait. With anticipation, I clutched at Jesse’s arm as he led me back through the passage and back outside.
It was quiet in the car as we drove to the bluffs—Jesse didn’t bother to turn on the radio. It would only have been a distraction for our already frazzled minds. We were both so tense, concentrating on the task at hand. I saw that his hands were shaking on the steering wheel; I reached out to give a comforting squeeze.
“Okay?” I asked. “Why don’t you sing me a song while we drive?”
Jesse looked embarrassed. “Not without my guitar!”
“Come, on. Please? I want to hear you sing one more time.” Before I die, I finished in my head.
He gave me a long, strained look. “I can’t sing under these circumstances. Honest. It’s—”
“Please?” I asked, trying to keep my voice from breaking.
Jesse met my eyes and began. It was one that he had written for the soon-to-be recorded album, and my favorite. It was everything Jesse: warm, free-spirited, sensitive, sexy, joyful. I loved it. Not the kind of song you’re supposed to cry over, but I did anyway. I guess I had a good reason.
“Thank you.” I reached out and brushed a few pieces of hair from his forehead and cupped the side of his jaw in my palm. “Thank you, Jesse, for being here with me.”
His eyes closed for a second and then he grinned at me. “Does this mean you changed your mind and we can do it? I can pull over real quick if you want.”
He ducked before I could whack him in the shoulder.
“Jesse! I am trying to be serious! Why do you always have to ruin everything?”
“Hey, a man’s got to try, right? Anyway, what about that kiss I was supposed to get?” He raised his hands. “Remember? ‘Eat what I want, drink what I want, kiss a pretty girl’?”
“You’ve already kissed me.”
“Not lately.”
I gave up. If he wanted a stupid kiss that bad, then I would give it to him. He stopped the car and I leaned over. I closed my eyes and waited. Nothing.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, moving away to study his face.
“I can’t. If I kiss you now, I’ll want more and I can’t have it. God! It was stupid to even joke about it—to let myself pretend.”
I hid the little quiver that moved across my lips in sudden remorse. “I’m sorry Jesse. It’s my fault.”
“Let’s get this thing over with.”
He revved the engine and peeled back out onto the road, speeding toward the now visible bluffs.
Jesse turned off the paved road and onto a dirt path which dipped and turned down into the valley. He could only take it so far before he had to pull over and shut the engine off. From where we sat, the land seemed to drop below into nothingness—our vantage point was pure, star-studded night sky.
“We’ll have to walk now,” he muttered, pulling the hood over his head then jumping out of the car.
I got out slowly, feeling leaden. I walked around to his side, sliding my hood up. “I’m ready.”
Jesse grabbed my hand and led me down a rocky path into a world of tall, jutting rocks of granite. They stood up around us, illuminated like candles, with their tips reflecting the light of the full moon as we walked down among their shadowy bases.
We came to another bluff, and Jesse jumped down onto a small ridge, motioning for me to give him my hands.
“I can’t,” I muttered, suddenly afraid. If one of us were to slip, that would be the end—without the help of any Soul Seeker.
“Don’t be a chicken now, Emma. Think about Ghost-Man, he needs you.”
“His name is William.” I looked at the drop behind him one more time. “Promise not to let go?”
“I promise. You know you can trust me.”
Oh, Lord. Just like him to say that at a time like this. I gave him a look and reached over and let him pull me down to his side. It was over in a second and done so expertly that I had to stand for a moment and stare.
“That was good.” Where had he been hiding all that power? He reached in his back pocket to produce a small flashlight before pulling me into a small opening.
“We’re going to go in this way since they are thick as thieves down at the main entrance, plus I’m pretty sure they put him in a higher cave. With everyone excited about the ceremony, there’s bound to be some idiots trying to break in and get a glimpse of him before it all goes down.”
I stumbled over a rock in the tunnel. “I thought that nobody else could see him, just me and the men in the council.”
“Well, tonight’s different. Full eclipses do something weird to Soul Seekers, and he is half one in case you forgot. He’s completely visible for the freaks to ogle at. He’ll go back to
his normal, invisible weird self when the eclipse is over.”
I didn’t like the idea of hordes of lustfully curious people trying to see or touch my William. It made me more frantic than ever to find and free him from his prison. “Are we almost there?” I asked, breathing hard.
“Yeah. Just a little bit further. Calm down.” He squeezed my hand.
“Are you still mad at me, Jesse?”
He didn’t stop while giving his answer, just kept walking slightly ahead of me, with the flashlight beaming on the wet, limestone walls. “No. I’m not mad at you, Emma. I’m just mad.”
It was amazing how vast the structure was. No one would know, seeing it from the outside, how much it resembled some sort of underground compound. It reminded me of an ant hill, with hundreds of tunnels leading everywhere, running through the earth in different directions. A labyrinth.
Crystal-like stalagmites and stalactites glistened against our flashlight beams. They hung, curved, bubbled down from the ceiling in long, crystalline shafts.
Jesse turned us onto a long passage with a series of arched doors on each side, pulled a key out of one of his jacket pockets and headed for a crude door on the left. I saw his eyes widen at the sound of footsteps coming from the path we had just descended, and he wasted no time in shoving in the key to open the lock. He pushed me inside, quietly shutting the door behind our backs.
We listened, waiting in frozen silence for the steps to go past. I heard the sound of muffled talk, and a little later the footsteps came to our annex, halting outside the door. Pushing Jesse’s arm away from my waist, I turned to see if William was there in the dark. If this was the end, I wanted to have a moment with him before being seized.
I felt along the wall and found my way across the room to a wooden structure.
“Hi,” a familiar voice whispered.
“Hi,” I said squinting, trying to take in anything I could of his beautiful face. My shaking hands moved across the lying form, over his stomach to his chest and up toward his neck. When I felt a set of lips—those warm, inviting lips—I kept them in target with my fingertips and lowered my face to his. He reached up, grasping at me, opening his kiss to meet mine. The door opened, a wash of light spread across our fused bodies—a picture of love.
21: Peak
“Thank you, Jesse,” a guttural voice said from the doorway.
“No problem,” he replied in a snakelike voice I could barely stand to listen to. “She was an easy catch. We had a lot of fun.”
The robed man wandered over to William and me, stopping to hover over us in cold silence. I knew what would happen next. My body became paralyzed, falling down against William, who I could tell was crippled with the assault. Jesse stood in the doorway for a moment and lowered his head before disappearing off down the hall.
From the depths of the maze we were taken to the spire of the Seeker’s underground cathedral—a massive cave with a mountainous formation reaching up to the limestone roof. The paralysis had worn off, and we were allowed to walk on our own, with an army of cloaked men following behind. At some point in my mentally drugged state, my clothes had been ripped off and replaced with another one of their itchy potato-sack robes—the same kind William wore, though his was much bigger, and looked a lot better on his muscular frame than mine did on my thin, shivering body.
“I should have known you would surrender yourself to them,” I whispered, clutching at William’s hand as we walked.
“I should have known you wouldn’t go to New York,” he replied. “What happened to following my orders, no questions asked?”
“Sorry. You ask impossible things. And I’m very, very stubborn.”
“Yes, I can see that.” He held up my hand, kissing inside the palm, getting a jab from behind. “When did you start to remember?”
“A few days ago. I almost died realizing what you had done.” I turned to face him. “Don’t you know that I will love you no matter what you turn out to be, and that if you die, I die, too?”
He looked at me, eyes serious, but with a spark of humor. “You must have read my mind.”
We reached a set of winding steps at the base of the formation and were told to begin climbing. Hundreds of people stood around, all wearing black hooded jackets and masks over their faces. They were anonymous; we couldn’t know which Springvale resident gawked impatiently for the eclipse. They filled up the space of the cave floor, some up high on jutting bluffs along the domed walls.
I noticed a silvery light beaming down on us from above and dared to stop and look at its source; but I only had a second before someone pushed me forward. The light seemed to be coming from a hole in the top of the cave, but of course I remembered William telling me about that the day in the attic. I looked at him again, wishing there was more time and less people. If we were to die tonight and forever turn into hideous Soul Seekers, I wanted to at least have some real time being close, talking to him, being loved in the way he hadn’t allowed before. It had all been so stupid, our games of control. We should have just loved and never worried about tomorrow.
“I love you,” I whispered, reaching out again before stepping to the top of the limestone formation.
Hands separated us, throwing us onto two different cot-like structures. In front of us stood a low boulder adorned with a black granite bowl, which I knew held two small coins of engraved metal. Candles flickered through the entire cave, fighting the beautiful white light of the moon with their licking orange fire that jumped and danced. The scene would have been breathtaking if it weren’t for what was to come. I felt bad for the struggle William had kept up all these years, now wasted; his running and waiting and hoping only to come to this. I knew what he would say, that it was worth it. I turned my head to him and met a beautiful smile, in complete contrast to the masked faces that looked down over us in a nightmarish way. I closed my eyes, remembering my protection prayers.
A light humming noise began from far off in the cave. It sounded like a field of locusts. Keeping my eyes closed, I ignored the sound and went on with my chanting, only to be interrupted by a sound coming from inside my head.
Emma.
Yes?
Are you okay?
I’m still alive, so yeah. And you?
I’ve been better. Pause. I want to try something. It’s going to get bad soon and I think I can help you through the worst of it. Hold on.
A sucking sensation began in my chest, the same as when they tested me a few days ago, but stronger. It was a struggle to remember how to breathe again after the wave finally died down. William’s thoughts reached out to me again.
Still okay?
Yep.
They get worse. Take a big breath when you feel it coming. Do you remember that first time you came into the library?
I couldn’t keep my eyes off you, but was too shy to talk to you.
I took a deep breath as instructed, gripping at the sides of the bench in agony. This round was much worse than the other, something I didn’t think possible. I could only compare it to having an elephant stand on your chest or a hurricane blowing fiercely out of your lungs. My body writhed uncontrollably as the pain slowly waned into nothingness, leaving a sheen of perspiration on my skin.
My God, Emma! This is what I was trying to protect you from. They’re merciless.
The day I met you was the best day of my life. Every time I came to work I fell more in love.
Yes, I want to remember. Were you aware of the time I touched your hair?
Yes.
You were elusive, not showing any reaction. I didn’t know you could see me. You’re a good actress, Emma Shay.
Only because—
I gasped for air. My legs writhed up against their straps, pushing so hard that I was sure to have bruises along the tops of my thighs. This time I had
the grace of spirit to say my protection prayers and imagine William and I were covered with a brilliant light, more luminescent than that coming from the moon above us. Its beam slowly moved across the cave in a long shaft, nearly reaching the granite bowl between our stations. Almost by instruction, the low, steady chanting of the crowd built in volume.
My power became subservient to theirs. I felt the waves of pressure building inside my chest, pulling everything outward. I groaned loud, trying to be brave—still trying to protect the two of us. William was doing all he could, I knew, for he had prepared for this moment for decades, but even his strength was inferior. When he heard me react to the strain, he thrashed noisily against the fetters around his wrists. “Don’t,” I whispered out loud, hearing him groan an anguished reply.
Another wave of pressure hit my chest and the room grew darker. The eclipse was in its middle stages, casting a hellish red glow throughout the room. The voices became louder, seeking the eclipse that they craved. My body was humming, fighting against the pain now set on fast repetition, giving us no more time to talk. William looked at me again, and I gasped—the stark beauty of his soul cut through the darkness that enveloped us—more profound than any malevolence around us. Suddenly I was in a dream, receiving a vision as before.
I fade into a house and find myself standing in a room I’ve never been in before. Smudged wallpaper peels away from its seams, a wooden floor creaks under my swaying feet. A draft of cold air hits me, and I turn to the open window only to bump into another form. A tall form. William.
He smiles at me and holds out his arms. “It worked.”
Rushing to the purest thing I have known, I clasp my arms around a body that is warm, so very warm.
“Is this your room, William?”
