by David James
Then, in the ghostly light that the moon cast as it rained in through the Jeep’s windows, light and dark filled Kate’s eyes: Shades of purple and sadness and cold, cold anger.
As if made of only bone and shadow, hollow and dark as night, she said, “Get out.”
I didn’t argue.
I didn’t say anything.
We had stopped in a field circled by tall trees, their tops hitting the sky like a halo of ominous hands clapping together. In front of us, beyond the field, the mountain reached a peak, its caps snowy and white a mile above just visible over the trees. A brown owl hooted, jumped from a covered place and flew into the moonlight. The glinting silver of the light reflected off its feathers, and in the night I could see its black eyes looking like pieces of a broken blue moon.
For a moment I felt peaceful. Normal, like I once thought I was. Familiar in the black and blue moment.
Then the owl flew to a tiny pond at the edge of the clearing near a thick grove of trees and landed on a jagged rock beside it. The scene was simple and pretty and filled with far too many shades of gray.
“Get out, Calum!” Kate said again as she slammed her door closed. She swore. “You don’t want to know what will happen if Marcus thinks we kept him waiting too long.”
I wasn’t used to seeing Kate look so shaken, nervous. Somehow it made everything worse. Real and not real at the same time. If Kate, the girl that had a tattoo to show the number of people she killed, was afraid of Marcus, what did that mean for me?
My heart wouldn’t stop thumping wildly in my chest, and I wondered if a person could die from that: A heart beating so fast it just stops.
I pushed open the door and stepped out into the field. A rush of mountain air hit my face. It hugged me, swirling a cool breeze from my feet to my hair. The thin air made my head light and, just for a second, I forgot who I was and smiled.
I said, “I can’t believe I’ve never come up here before.” I looked up at the stars. They were so close that, as I raised my hand above me, it felt like I could almost touch them. The moon was a giant. I brushed a finger over my birthmark and sighed.
Would I ever find answers?
Kate stood next to me. “I meant what I said early, Calum. We’re not exactly close to Lakewood Hollow anymore. That place is gone. Dead. Forget everything you left there if you can.” She pointed to the end of the clearing just over the pond. “Below us is the town of Ashfall where a lot of the lesser Order members used to live. It’s far, a few hours away, but close enough that we used to call it home. The Woman of Prophecy, who keeps the ancient scrolls of legends and psalms lives there, too. Ashfall was founded by Order members so that we would have a safe haven. Well, before the Orieno.”
I didn’t believe.
“There’s no town called Ashfall in Colorado. I’ve never heard of it.”
“You wouldn’t have. It’s protected by the Elder Council and is warded to be invisible and unchartable. No one knows it exists except members of the Order, or unless a member of the Order reveals its location.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Like you just did?”
She frowned. “Yes.”
“What other secrets do you have?”
“Everyone has secrets, Calum.”
I turned to face her. “You know what I meant. What other secrets do you have about the Order? Is there anything else I should know before we go meet this Marcus guy?”
Kate’s eyes flashed. “Show Marcus respect when you speak about him! He’s an Elder, Calum!”
I stayed silent and waited.
I thought, Tyler would have stood up for his dad like that.
A shiver ran through me and I realized this: I wouldn’t stand up for my father or my mother, but one was very different from the other. My mother I wanted to save. My father...
I wish my father had died instead of Annabelle and Jason and Chad.
I wish he was never my father.
My stomach dropped and I clung to a small sliver of hope that Tyler was still alive. When I blinked away tears I thought I saw a flash of bright white in the dark of my mind.
I was back to being lost, though this time it was different, as if the mountain air and the stars made me stronger. Since Kate had taken me away from Lakewood Hollow, that life seemed to be far away. Gone, like she said, but not forgotten. It felt like I was moving forward, and although the tears for Tyler and my Mom flowed freely, it was beginning to feel like the only way to fix the past was to look to the future.
Maybe I did believe.
Maybe, if I wanted to move forward, I didn’t have a choice.
After a while, Kate rolled her eyes, walked over to my side, grabbed my hand, and dragged me over to the side of the mountain past the edge of the clearing. Slowly, heat traced from my hand up my arm, making its way to my chest like a slow-creeping poison; Kate’s hand gripped my own as if she thought I’d run away. A faint, warm dizziness was filling my head, but I ignored it, pushing it back to nothing.
I was good at that.
“Look,” she told me, turning her head up toward the sky stained with stars.
I looked up, too. I thought of my dreams, of my skin that turned as black as the night above. The sky was bright with a million tiny suns, and a moon that shone like thousands. My hand moved again to my birthmark and for some reason the whole thing, the sky and the stars and the moon, felt familiar. I thought of the voice. If I was supposed to be Caeles, if that voice was right, I wished I knew what came next.
My hand tightened in Kate’s until she was crushing my fingers right back, until the warmth became too hot and the closeness became painful. Either she wouldn’t let go or I wouldn’t. With our tangle of fingers intertwined like they were, I couldn’t tell.
“Do you see it?” Kate asked, letting go of my hand.
I turned to her and then back to the sky. “It’s beautiful,” I said, the words stuck somewhere in my throat. I tried to pretend my hand didn’t feel cold away from hers. I tried not to think about my racing heart, or that I wanted to step closer to Kate as if she was more than the girl that stole me. I thought of the stars and the voice and Kate. I whispered, “If only it were real.”
Kate stared at me as though she were trying to read my mind, and then said, “Don’t you see it? How the stars are so much brighter here?”
“Sure, because we’re so high in the mountains like you said. I remember that whole you kidnapping me and driving for days thing pretty well.”
“No. That’s what people think, that the stars get brighter the higher you are, but the truth is that the stars are always brightest at places where the enchanters meet or have covens. And at Lake Iris the stars shine brightest of all.”
I didn’t answer. Looking up at the stars made me feel like I was closer to something. Home, maybe. Here, I felt so right that I could almost feel my body vibrating with the need to be something more. When I looked at the stars my eyes saw only them and the rest was gone. I wondered if there was any way I could climb the mountain even higher so I was closer to the world above.
I asked, “Why are the stars so bright wherever the Order is? It’s like a whole world up there, with the moon shining like a white sun on everything dark.”
“Yeah,” she said. “It is.” I could hear her breathing in the quiet night, and I turned to look at her so the stars disappeared and it was only her. “Look at the North Star. Do you see that it’s the brightest of them all?”
I tore my gaze away from Kate and looked up again to see the star she pointed at, bright and wild. I sounded like a child, so bewildered by the vastness of the sky, when I whispered, “Yes.”
“Here, the stars shine like beacons because they feed off the energy the Order emits. Remember how I told you that each member of the Elder council has control over one element? In order to keep their powers focused, they have spells woven by the Woman of Prophecy deep into bloodstones sewn on their bodies. You’ll see them. All of the Elders in each coven have them on their foreheads. Because the spells
focus their energy so much, the stars feed off the excess life energy that the Elders don’t use. Think of it like a cosmic form of photosynthesis; when the Elders use their elemental powers, they only use a fraction of the energy needed to control their element so the leftover energy is dissipated into the air, feeding the stars, making them glow. Marcus told me it’s life and death, what they can do. It’s give and take. And legend has it that because the Orieno are so much like living death, once the last demon is killed the stars will glow their brightest and shine new life on a world once dark.”
“Incredible,” I whispered.
Beside me, her voice steady as the mountain, dark and dangerous as the night around us, Kate said, “I know. I can’t wait for them to die.”
My eyes broke from the sky. Kate’s fists were white, balled tightly at her sides. In the mountains, where night was a dark void lit by moonlight, Kate’s eyes shone like daggers reflecting the burning stars. Once violet, they were now black as night. As death.
My mind screamed, It’s my fault! I am responsible.
But then, No. The Orieno and the Bloodletter are the ones who spilt the most blood. I can’t wait for them to die, either.
Kate breathed, “They all deserve death.”
I understood.
But death can’t be the answer to everything.
We would be no better than them.
I wanted to.
I wanted to believe so badly I could feel the want stick and burn in my chest like fire unwilling to die, felt it kindle in my heart until it dripped down my face in a single tear.
Kate’s voice echoed in my mind: You’re the key in this war we’re fighting, the one pawn everyone wants.
I didn’t trust myself to speak.
I want to believe I’m something more than this.
I didn’t trust myself to do anything.
“Follow me,” she barked.
I didn’t trust Kate either, but I didn’t have a choice.
She led me through an entrance, a small opening in the mountainside, and into shadows darker than night. Here, there were no stars to guide the way. No moon. Nothing but my hand in Kate’s and the shivery feeling that I was walking toward something treacherous.
I couldn’t see her anymore, and for some reason I felt the desperate need to remember what she looked like. I saw her eyes in my mind and, for now, it was enough.
Slowly, as Kate and I walked through a maze of hollow tunnels, my eyes adjusted to the darkness. The smell of rich earth filled my nostrils; it was the kind of earth you could taste. I could hear water dripping down from rocks above, sliding down the stone tunnel walls as tears had down my face. The slight drip drip drip was continuous. After a moment it was all I could hear.
As sounds from the outside world faded, and the tunnel air became so thick it choked, dread seeped into my heart. We had come to an end, a tunnel with no exit. It was either back the way we came, or nothing at all. “Kate, is this a joke? Really. Is this just the place you took me to kill me? Are you working for the Orieno?”
She stayed silent, but her hand gripped mine until I felt the blood slow in my veins. I thought of her leviti and knew she wanted to mark me in red.
She let go of my hand. I pushed myself against the stone wall and tried to blend into the shadows. I heard nothing but the thumping of my heart and the rapid, raspy breaths I stole.
I waited for her to attack, kill.
I waited to die.
But even before she moved, I realized it wasn’t Kate I was afraid of, not in this moment. Not really. She I understood. She was torn, broken like so many people were. Like me.
I was afraid of death.
I didn’t want to die. Not like this, pushed against a wet wall in a dark tunnel. Alone.
I’m something more than this.
I had to be.
This couldn’t be it.
I put my hands up to my face, guarding it. I didn’t know much about fighting, but I knew this: Those who gave up easily, lost more quickly.
I was afraid of death, and so I couldn’t be afraid to live.
I felt my entire body tense. The air was heavy against me, trapping me against the stone. I held my breath, but the wetness found its way into my lungs and stayed there, filling them up until I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Kate?” I whispered into the dark. I sounded small.
She sighed. “Put your hands down. Just watch what I do, okay? If you can see anything in the dark, that is; you shouldn’t be used to it just yet.”
But I almost was. Here, there was no sky to fill the darkness in the tunnel. No breeze came through the maze to push through light. There was nothing but dark shadows, thick as the air, moving like black liquid through the void. But even so, I was beginning to grow used to the dark. I was beginning to see. Not completely, but just enough so I could see Kate as if she were a ghost, outlined in gray, born of night with violet stars shining bright.
“I can kind of see you,” I said. “I can see your eyes.”
She paused and blinked. I could see the ghost of her shrug its shoulders. “Hmm. The binding spell must be wearing off more quickly than we thought. The wards here should have prevented you from seeing anything.” Her voice wasn’t as steady as it normally was. She sounded nervous. “Now stop talking and really look. Watch. I can’t get us in there if I’m not concentrating.”
I said, “In where?”
She was silent, the calm before the storm, quiet and still. Her stillness sent chills up my spine. I knew this: Before a belligerent storm hits, there is nothing to do but wait; wait for the loud screams of danger; wait for the illuminated brightness of panic; wait for death to come and end it all.
Before the storm there is only waiting-
and silence-
and space between-
a calm horror of unknown-
and silence, silence, silence.
I didn’t say anything, but watched her hands as she reached them slowly up to touch the wall. She muttered something but her voice was too quiet for me to hear. The second she touched the rocky surface, her leviti started to glow a faint pink, like blood mixed with water, before turning as red as a sky at sunrise. The light from it began to envelop her entire body, swirling in a fine pink mist around her. It moved as though alive, dancing on her exposed skin.
Fire felt like it burned in my chest. “Kate?”
She said, “Take my hand.” Her voice sounded distant. She didn’t look at me but focused on the wall, on her hand as it glowed as though she stole it from a fire, all embers and flames and skin. “Be quiet.”
I grabbed her hand and she started muttering again, letting words fall out as though they were her only hope to survive; her voice sounded desperate as it began to live in the shadows around me. “Praecipio vim virtutum luce. Sum fortitudine. Ego sum lux. Hac virtute lucis intus, aperta ianua mando secretum,” she said. She kept repeating it, her voice growing louder, crashing into the tunnel walls and off until her voice seemed to be more inside my head than out. Chills ravished my spine. She chanted, “Praecipio vim virtutum luce...”
I gasped as the wall in front of us began to shake and vibrate. After a few seconds, the entire tunnel was on the verge of exploding around us. Mist crawled over me, so thick I couldn’t breathe. I was only mist, and as it became my skin and my lungs and my veins, I felt it take my heart as well. I knew soon I would be nothing more.
I closed my eyes and, as Kate’s voice roared around me, I thought of my nightmare that had become alive in this moment:
The air was thick, wrapping itself around me and pushing into my lungs.
I opened my eyes and, for a moment, thought I saw a flash of purple.
A face in the mist.
I opened my eyes and Kate was all I could see; her violet, luminous eyes stole my breath and my world and I was gone.
I thought, This is the end.
Before the storm there is only waiting, but after there is only destruction. Death.
Then without fear or explanation, Kate walked through the stone wall she touched, as if it were made of nothing but colored air, and pulled me through.
Again, blackness erupted around me as though death had made me a friend.
Or an enemy.
~
My ears popped.
First, the sound hit me; water crashing so angrily it screamed. The sound was a hundred waterfalls falling at once. It must have been. It was nothing and everything, so loud it became quiet in an instant, shattering into something so beautiful I thought maybe I was actually dead.
But I breathed deeply-
and I was so, so alive.
I wrinkled my nose against the humidity and the cold breeze that cut through it. I closed my eyes for just a second, and gulped in the raw, clean air. It was sweet and frigid, filling my lungs with so much life they felt as icy as death inside me. This air reminded me of rain, of the way it fell from the tops of the Rocky Mountains down to towns below in sheets and storms.
Of rain so alive it killed.
When I opened my eyes I felt the breath I’d taken live and die on an exhale.
The cave was enormous, lit by a thousand tiny lanterns and filled with hundreds of people as if an entire city had been hidden in this hollow mountain. Jagged stone walls rose up toward a ceiling that wasn’t there, trapping the place in an angry cage of gray. Everything, including the floor, seemed to be made of stone. Four fast moving waterfalls, shimmering green and blue and white, ran quickly down the high walls as if pretending to be the four points of a compass. They jumped over misplaced stones and onto the tops of buildings and houses, draping them in curtains of blue-green water, frothing white where they hit gray, and flowed gently into a rapid river that circled the edge of the cave. The river must have drained out somewhere, but there was no end in sight. There was only water and stone, the two mixing together, one.
Amidst the water and stone were people, all dressed in the same black pants but different colored shirts: Blue, red, green, yellow, white, and gray. Each person had determination in their eyes, the same burning purpose I saw in Kate. They moved with grace, and the ones in gray ran like birds against the river. None of them seemed to have realized we had stepped out of the mist and through the stone as if it were nothing.
