by David James
Calum’s eyes opened in a blur of brooding blue. His lips parted as his shoulders lifted and he turned to look out the window. In the glass, or maybe just because of the rain, I saw the wetness of his eyes. His voice was deep and quiet when he said, “Tell me your story.”
I felt my heart explode. “What?”
I remembered.
Adam.
Together we were under the apple tree in my backyard, our legs entangled, the wind whistling softly around us. His touches seemed to linger forever on my skin.
“I’m so glad I got to meet you today,” Adam said as he bit into a deep red apple. The juice stuck to his lips, and I couldn’t help but bring a hand up to touch my own.
I felt as red as the apple in his hand.
I whispered, “Me too.”
“Let’s hide here forever.”
My entire heart screamed: “I will if you will.”
He smiled and laced his fingers in mine.
“You know,” he breathed, “yesterday was my birthday.”
“Tell me about it. How old are you now?”
He grinned. “Mom says I’m thirteen going on thirty.”
I laughed. It felt good to laugh with Adam.
“I only just turned twelve last month.”
“Twelve is my favorite number.” He turned his face to me, still smiling. “You know what I wished for when I blew out my candles?”
I held my breath. “What?”
I felt his thumb rub against my palm. “You.”
My heart was beating too fast, but not fast enough.
I felt like running and crying and laughing all at once, but I could only smile.
“Me?” I asked.
We were all breaths and whispers, nothing more.
He nodded. “But now it’s your turn. I want to know all about the girl I met today, the girl in the pretty red dress who couldn’t stop twirling in the park as the world passed her by. You looked like you were about to fly away. I want to know about that girl. Tell me your story.”
Calum turned his head toward me, but all I could see was my lost boy: Adam, Adam, Adam. All I could see was his wild brown hair and pale blue eyes. All I saw was him.
I whispered, “What?” and the forgotten softness of my voice made me think of times gone by.
I am not that girl anymore, my mind screamed. She is dead.
“Tell me your story.” Calum’s voice was louder, and with the loss of those sweet whispers the image of Adam was gone. “Tell me why you took me, why you’d rather let me die than let me go. Why me? Why you?”
The thought invaded my mind in an instant, and then was gone: Because you remind me of someone I used to know.
And then, shocked: You remind me of me
“Tell me your story,” he said again, quieter than before.
“Okay,” I said. I reminded myself that I could kill Calum with just two fingers. Three, if I wanted to make the pain last.
Still, I’d lived nearly five years in the Order without questions, so this sudden avalanche of them was choking. It felt like I couldn’t breathe correctly. I didn’t know why, maybe because he reminded me of so much, but I had the urge to trust Calum.
I couldn’t.
I didn’t know where to begin. I didn’t want to begin. Somehow, that moment felt like the beginning would end everything. Could I trust myself to begin?
I had to.
“It starts with my family.” I forced my voice to relax, made myself calm, but it didn’t help; I could feel myself growing weak and pathetic as I remembered what once was. What would never be again. “My family is the reason I’m part of this war, and you’re the reason there is one. Our stories kind of intertwine.”
His face was tilted to the side. Softly, as if it were a reflex, he pulled his right hand up to his hair and brushed it behind his ear. I could hear him breathing and I tried to mimic mine to match his.
In and out and in.
I’d forgotten what it was like to breathe in time with someone else, almost as if we were one.
“Why are you smiling?” Calum asked.
I turned away. “I’m not!”
“Okay,” he agreed, eyebrow raised, and I found myself wishing he would have argued instead.
He was so human. Had so many emotions dance across his face. So not me. Yet he wasn’t human at all. How he didn’t realize it was beyond me. Even a fool could see if they looked in his eyes; it was like he could see your soul and nothing was safe. No secrets could hide. Surely, the Order was right. Calum Wade was a descedant of the Devil.
What was I getting myself into?
I looked straight ahead, eyeing the empty road. In my mind I pictured myself twisting a rope three times around Calum’s neck, then hanging him from a tree so his feet wiggled below. I wasn’t sure which part of the image I liked better; the part that he was powerless-
“Kate,” he urged.
or that he was close to death.
“Five years ago I thought family was forever,” I began, and walked into an old dream I could never make true. I choked against it. I felt the girl in the pretty red dress hug me, sad. “I remember Christmas as though it were yesterday: The feelings, the food, the warmth. I remember laughing all the time and playing with my sisters. Being free. Now everything is different; I know those feelings only exist when you’re alone. True freedom exists when you have no one but yourself.”
Calum’s lips puckered, and his eyes went still.
I didn’t care that he didn’t agree now.
He would, and that was enough.
“Five years ago, when I was twelve, we were having dinner together like always. Mom and Dad always made us eat together.” I shook my head. “I think I hated it sometimes. I know I did that night because I wanted to meet someone after.”
Calum breathed, “Who?”
“No one,” I said, but I remembered a photograph I kept secret under my pillow: Adam with ice cream dripping down his nose, a silly grin on his face. He had one of me, too. I laughed so hard that day I cried. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
Two days later, that photograph had burned to ash with the rest of my memories. With my life.
“I used to think my parents were perfect. Mom and Dad both had matching tattoos on their right hands, just big enough to fit under a dime,” I continued. “I always thought it was so romantic that they had matching ones, but now I know the truth.”
“Truth?” Calum asked. He looked nervous, as though my words were knives held against his flesh, puckering the skin but not drawing blood.
It was a nice thought.
“The tattoo, a circle with interconnecting lines like a net, is the symbol of the Order. My parents were members of the same group I’m in, the one that protects the world from all evil. Only, they betrayed us. They didn’t deserve...”
Calum leaned over, too close, and then back as if he didn’t really mean to. “What didn’t they deserve? Is that the same symbol you have on your finger.”
I shook my head. I frowned, thinking of what I believed, and what I didn’t. I choked, “No. For what they did, they didn’t deserve to live. They were spies.”
I thought he might object, or be shocked. But instead his eyes were wide, and I found that they were understanding. It made me wonder.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “My parents... I know what it’s like to love and hate a person the same.”
I nodded.
Inside, I cried.
“Mom was always smiling,” I said. “She was always laughing. Dad was like that, too, I suppose. And my sisters, I remember them being so small; Karen and Kelly were only five when it happened. That night, everyone had just sat down in the living room after dinner. Dad was about to read us a story, some grim fairy tale, when all of a sudden we heard a dish shatter in the kitchen. Karen screamed. I screamed.”
I felt myself lose control. Things too painful to push away crawled up and in a moment I was gone. “I looked at Dad and saw his eyes wide and alarmed. I remember his vo
ice shaking when he called Mom’s name, ‘Emaline?’ He kept calling but she didn’t answer. Kept saying her name until the sounds of it blurred together. His hands dug into the couch as he flung himself up to see if she was hurt, but he stopped. Froze there in the middle of the room as if he was waiting for something.
“Just as he was about to run into the kitchen, we heard Mom shout. I could hear the tension in her voice and she screamed out again, like blood had caught in her throat. I jumped up and was behind Dad. Karen and Kelly were yelling at him from the couch, but they stayed put. Dad pushed me back and told me to take them away, to go upstairs and hide. I didn’t know why. I should have stayed with him to help, but I took my sisters and ran.
“From the stairs I heard Mom shriek again and Dad yell in pain. I remember the gun shots, the weird slurping sounds coming from the kitchen, and I remember taking my sisters upstairs to their room, noiselessly, so that whoever was in our house would not hear.”
Irritation kindled behind both my eyes. I could feel tears forming, but Warriors did not cry and so I stopped. I let one hand brush through my hair, let it fall over my face.
“Karen, Kelly, and I hid in their closet,” I told Calum through strands of hair. “I didn’t know what to do. They were shaking. I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t understand why my Dad made us run away. My hands were over my sister’s mouths to stop them from screaming, and I prayed that they wouldn’t make a sound.”
The air in the Jeep seemed so thick I couldn’t breathe right. Now, unlike before, my breath was different than Calum’s. Mine was uneven, shaking with memories. His was still, or not at all.
I remembered this part clearly; I lived it every night, every morning, every moment in between: “That’s when they walked in. There were three of them, two men and a woman with black masks over their faces and dark gloves over their hands. They moved so quietly I was scared they were ghosts. Kelly’s hand was on my leg, grabbing it tightly, digging her nails into my skin, but I didn’t feel a thing.
“They ripped open the closet doors and threw thin bags over our heads. The woman told me they would kill my sisters if I screamed. I knew by her voice that she meant it. She warned that if I made any noise she would rip out my throat.
“Karen and Kelly were dragged down the stairs, their tiny heads bashing into the steps and I couldn’t do anything to help them. The people were too strong. One man kept repeating, ‘It’s your time. It’s your time to go.’ I only asked once, but once was not enough to get me an answer. I kicked and pulled at his hair, wishing for my parents the whole time but they didn’t answer my cries. No one answered. I clawed at his face, wanting him to bleed, but I was too weak.”
“Why would they do that?” Calum asked. “They didn’t tell you why they wanted you?”
I heard the unsaid words in his voice: You didn’t tell me either.
“No,” I said. I brushed my hair behind my ear, but let it fall again. “They didn’t say why. The man just kept holding me tighter. His hands... I felt like I was choking the whole time even though his hands were nowhere near my throat.”
Even now, I couldn’t breathe.
Calum’s eyes were unmoveable, focused on the rain as it fell against the windshield, but I suspected that, like me, he wasn’t really seeing rain at all.
My own hands moved to my throat. “It happened so fast. The other two pushed Karen and Kelly into a car. I was thrown into the back of a truck and hit with something heavy, a rock maybe. Everything went black. When I woke up, I couldn’t tell how much time had past. We must have driven for hours. They kept telling me I was going to be better, and that everything would be all right in time. That I was going to become just like them.”
I froze.
I breathed.
I knew what I had to do; this was the last I could remember, the last moment I could be so vulnerable.
I looked at Calum.
He was not Adam.
He never would be.
Whereas Adam’s eyes had been a pale, sweet blue, Calum’s were as blue as death, and looked as though they could suck out your soul.
I became a shell, unbreakable.
I said, “I had no idea where we were. No idea about anything. But I knew one thing; I would never be the same again. I heard whispers, and then the world went black again. When I woke up I was in a cave and a man was standing over me, dressed as black as night. The three that had wrecked my life were gone. This man’s skin was covered with glittering red tattoos and a red ruby glinted in the middle of his forehead. I remember thinking Marcus was the most terrifying man I’d ever seen. He told me that he was the leader of a group called the Order, a secret society of enchanters who continue to fight against all that is evil.”
For one brief moment, I wondered if I was revealing too much. If I was breaking the Code somehow. But the way Calum was looking at me, as though he was beginning to trust my words, made them fall faster.
“Marcus told me that he had taken action and saved me from my parents, that they were traitors to the cause. Marcus had been looking for my parents for years. Once he had located them, he said he couldn’t let them live. The crime they committed was too great. He said my parents had once been great Warriors in the Order, but that they had betrayed the group and gone rogue. They had been spies for the Orieno.”
Calum’s voice was hushed when he asked, “What did your parents do that was so bad?”
I laughed, loud and dry and short. “Aside from being spies against the one society in the world that can protect us? They killed people. A lot of good people. When they decided to go rogue, they went against the Warrior Code, the law we live by as Warriors, and killed nearly every one of the Warriors the Order had back then. No one knows why. No one is left from that time except Marcus. All the other Elders were killed and they had to create a new Council after.”
I shuddered. “Marcus is the only one that remembers exactly what happened that night. Even now we don’t talk about it if we can help it. I don’t talk about it. The Order doesn’t even tattoo their own symbol on themselves anymore. It’s forbidden. Only the Elders have the Order symbol on them, and the Warriors have something entirely different.”
Calum pointed at my finger. “Like yours?”
“Yes.” I raised my hand. “This tattoo is my leviti, or my death mark. It’s branded on all Warrior members so that we can keep track of our rankings, and we do that by showing how many we’ve killed by inking our death counts in red. It’s also kind of a rebel symbol against my parents.”
Calum’s eyes were wide. I noticed that his hand had moved slowly closer to the door handle.
He was counting my kills.
I smiled, rubbing my leviti. “We are going to my home, Lake Iris. The Order has small covens all over the world, but this is where the main coven is located. But what you need to understand, Calum, is that the Order is magic. They are enchanters. They use the energy around them to fight against evil. Each member of the Order has a small amount of power over the Earth’s life energy, over the five elements, but together they are a great force. The Elders, though, have each mastered one of the elements completely. Along with Marcus, there are four others. One for each element.”
“They have superpowers?” Calum asked, his voice cracking. And then, “Covens? As in witches?”
I shook my head. “No, they’re different than witches in the sense that their powers are completely natural. Magic from the elements is right and true. Really, everyone could use it if they had the knowledge; they use the natural life energy that is everywhere. Witch’s magic is more about blood and sacrifice; it’s unnatural.”
I gritted my teeth together. My fingers closed and I felt my nails dig into my palms. “The Orieno, however, are made up of groups of followers that are lead by the Orieno Siblings; the two brothers Morphis and Betor, and the sister Phantas. Together they are what the Order call dream demons. They feed off the humanity of people by going into dreams and corrupting human souls. Morph
is, we know, is the leader of the group. He’s mostly the one running from dream to dream, destroying the world’s people one by one. He likes to observe the person’s dream for a while, let it play out for a bit. Then, when the victim is completely entranced in their dream, he makes his move. He transforms some part of the dream into the dreamer’s worst nightmare, that thing they fear the most. When that happens, there’s no stopping him; people are too weak to fight him. That’s how the Orieno create their followers, normal people who have been thrown into a sickness, a phantom disease that controls them. They grow pale and lose the ability to think for themselves until they’re so far gone, they begin to lust for blood, for anything living they can kill and make their own. Blood begins to be the only thing that keeps them alive. It is what gives humans life, so it is what they take to sustain life. Toward the beginning of the change they can look more human, but as the disease grows stronger they become completely inhuman. They take instructions from the Siblings, feeding when they’re told, on who they’re told. They become the soulless who walk with the three damned Siblings. Once the change is made completely, a person’s humanity is lost forever.”
Calum was breathing heavy. “Is my Dad...?”
“He is,” I said. “But we don’t know exactly how. He’s too powerful to be the victim of an Orieno attack. We don’t know what makes him different than the others; why he moves so quickly and can walk through daylight when the others can’t.”
The way Calum’s face fell, the way his eyes grew wide so the blue was overpowered by white, made me wish things were different.
I almost felt sorry.
Calum’s mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. He was pale, white as if the moon were shining only on his face.
I continued, “If the Orieno got hold of you they would have the power they need to destroy the world. That’s why we can’t let them get you. Not yet.”
You don’t care about him.
Calum was silent for a few minutes. Then, “He’s not my father. He’s nothing.”
I kept silent.
I understood that much; how someone can be dead to you without even trying; how your world can shatter in the blink of an eye; how being powerless feels.
