by R.K. Ryals
~Bezaliel~
The week didn’t get any better for me. On Tuesday, Mr. James decided the class needed to write an essay on Camus, his life and philosophy. I was still angry about his treatment of me in class. Add that to my utter dislike of Camus’ philosophy, and the paper ended up being fairly passionate. I spent two hours writing it. Mr. James’ face as he graded papers in class Wednesday said the two hours I had spent was wasted on him. The paper was just the beginning.
I got a sense that some unspoken protection agreement had been put in place by my friends, and it had my nerves frazzled well beyond their already twisted state. Monroe seemed more troubled with each passing day though she played it off well. I wondered briefly if she was still scrying. Conor was still flirtatious but quiet. His mood seemed decided by Monroe’s. And Lita and Jacin seemed determined to shadow me in between classes. I was becoming good at dodging them. James Bond had nothing on me. Besides, letting them bodyguard me around school meant I had to admit I was afraid. And I was determined not to go that route. The first moment I gave into the fear, I’d be consumed by it. So I did what I did best. I let moments and images pass me by. The week became a jumbled mess of mental pictures.
Then there was the Abbey. It had become eerily tomb-like. The Sisters avoided me, sometimes pointedly, and Aunt Kyra was mysteriously absent during meals. While this was a relief, it was also odd and disconcerting. I was becoming depressed. The worst part was the fact that my seventeenth birthday was that upcoming Saturday. I was not looking forward to it.
“Amber?” I asked that Thursday morning.
She looked up from clearing the table in the refectory. I avoided her gaze, moving to finish sweeping the part of the floor I’d been working on.
“Yeah?” she asked.
I moved a few chairs away from the wooden dining table, swept under that particular section, and pushed the chairs back in flush with the wood. Leaning against the back of one of the intricately carved chairs, I looked Amber directly in the eye.
“What do you think of me?”
She froze, her expression troubled.
“What?”
“What do you think of me?” I asked again, louder this time.
Amber perused me a moment in silence.
“What brought this on?” she asked me finally, her chore forgotten as she pulled out a chair and sat down. I moved down a chair.
“Nothing. I just want to know."
She played with the rag in her hand. For a moment, I thought she wouldn’t answer.
“I don’t know, Day. You’re . . . brash, I guess,” she said cautiously.
I looked down at the floor. Brash? Okay.
“That’s it?”
Amber blew a loose strand of hair out of her face and rolled her eyes.
“What is this, Day?” she asked, her cheeks flushing slightly. Her skin was pale enough it showed, and I watched her curiously. She was hiding something.
“Is there a reason for this?” she insisted.
I moved even closer to her and nodded.
“I want to know where I fit in here at the Abbey, Amber. What I’m even doing here?”
This seemed to startle her.
“What?”
“Where do I fit in, Amber? It’s a simple question,” I said reasonably.
Amber looked conflicted. I felt a momentary flash of guilt at my interrogation, but thoughts had been eating away at me for days. Memories I hadn’t let myself dwell on before swamped me. I saw myself at eleven being reprimanded for telling stories to those who came to the Abbey, I saw myself at thirteen being punished for drawing pictures on a dry erase board my aunt used to write down lessons she wanted remembered, I saw myself at fifteen being told that my soul was in danger of being corrupted. Punishment, reprimands, corruption . . . my memories were engulfed with lectures. At sixteen, the punishments stopped. The Sisters quit their lectures, and my aunt retreated into the Abbey’s darkness.
And then there were the memories of my sister. There were memories of Amber at eleven being taught to master the organ, Amber at twelve being told that my stories were damning to the soul because they were full of fantastical creatures that did not belong in truth, Amber at fourteen deep in discussion with the Sisters, Amber at seventeen withdrawing into the Abbey’s Order. The most disturbing of all, however, was the silence. It had been separating Amber and me since our move to the Abbey. And it still remained. I missed my sister.
“Something has changed here, Amber. You don’t feel it?”
Amber’s cheeks grew redder. This encouraged me.
“We quit talking about things after mom and dad died—”
Amber jumped up, her eyes frantic. Her gaze moved everywhere.
“Dayton, don’t go there!” Amber warned.
But I did. I very much went there. I was tired of the space between us. I missed the little girls who used to share stories beneath a thin sheet.
“What happened to us, Amber? What is this place? Really?”
Amber leaned over the table.
“What are you trying to do, Dayton?”
I just stared at her.
“Me? What am I trying to do? Is this really what our life has come down to?” I cried. “Us being left here to be raised by an aunt who has hardly any contact with us, surrounded by women we barely know, our lives monitored but lonely? What does that accomplish, Amber? We used to be so much more colorful. Now we live our lives in shades of black and gray walking on egg shells. We don’t talk and when we do, we look over our shoulders. Why do we do that?”
Amber was in a panic now, watching the room as if the walls were about to collapse in on us both. We weren’t normal teenagers. Teenagers gossiped and even ragged on their parents occasionally. We seemed to have a mythical straight jacket around us waiting to be tightened. When in the past seven years had that happened?
“The Abbey has been a good home. Aunt Kyra does care, Dayton. You’ll appreciate it one day,” Amber said in a low tone. I snarled.
“Fuck that crap!” I shouted, my words echoing off the walls.
Amber looked suddenly sick.
“Dayton!”
I didn’t apologize for my language.
“Oh, come on, Amber! Ever since our parents died, we’ve been raised here in the Abbey, separated from almost everything except what we see or do when we’re outside its walls. And we aren’t allowed out often. School, community projects . . . I had to sneak out just to go out with my friends!”
Amber looked behind her at the door, motioning for me to keep my voice down. That was another thing. We couldn’t be disruptive. It was enough to make you want to scream.
“And you see where that got you,” Amber said callously, her courage returning.
I narrowed my eyes.
“It got me in trouble, Amber. Okay, I admit that. But the point is still the same. What is this place? We’ve even been raised differently. You’ve obviously been accepted. Where does that leave me?”
She met me across the table.
“You chose that, Dayton. You! No one else. You closed yourself off after mom and dad passed. You shut everyone out. Now you decide to wake up and realize you were lonely? That’s not fair. I was lonely too! I was scared! And you weren't there! I'm not like you, Day. I can't grieve alone. I'm not that strong. Don’t blame everyone else for something that was your fault."
Amber's eyes flashed. My heart turned cold. Had I really shut myself off? Worse yet, had I pushed Amber into the Sisters' arms? I reached a hand across the table but dropped it when I saw Amber back away slightly.
"Amber —"
She shook her head.
"No!"
Now, she was the one withdrawing. My eyes met Amber’s. I had hurt her. I could see that, but I'd only been ten at the time. I hadn't pulled away intentionally. It had been a coping mechanism. Why had no one tried to get through to me?
“No one tried to open me up,” I said, mostly to myself.
Amber’s gaze softened.
“What was the point in leaving me to grieve alone, no attempt to get through to me?” I asked.
Amber looked down at the floor.
“Your actions mean more here at the Abbey than you think, Day. You close yourself off, guard yourself. You are spontaneous, indulgent, and outspoken. Even then, even before mom and dad, you were the same. They had you chosen years ago,” Amber said tightly, her eyes moving to the door again.
I froze. My brows furrowed, my heart clenched. Chosen? I had not expected that.
“Chosen for what?”
Amber shook her head, her lips pinched and white. Footsteps in the hall made her step away.
“You weren’t meant to be brought into the fold, Day,” she whispered as Diane came whistling into the room. Amber wiped the table as if nothing had happened. I wasn’t as quick. What? I wasn’t what?
“Day?” Diane asked.
I looked up.
“Hmmm?”
Diane smiled affectionately.
“You know how your aunt feels about day dreaming. Might better get moving,” she insisted.
I picked up my broom and moved two more chairs away from the table. Diane walked out of the room. I glanced again at Amber.
“Do you love me?”
She dropped the rag.
“What kind of question is that?” she asked, her gaze disturbed. I shrugged. I wasn’t asking her again. I cleaned under the chairs and moved down the table. I was pushing the last two chairs in when Amber coughed. I looked up at her.
“Yes,” Amber answered. “Yes, I do. It’s why this hurts so much.”
She finished up the table and walked to the door. At the entrance, she stopped and looked over at me, her face red and her eyes haunted. What had started out a normal week was fast becoming a scene from my nightmares.
“You were never meant to be accepted into the fold."
I felt my stomach drop as she turned and walked away, no explanation forthcoming. What the hell did that mean? What fucking fold? Whatever it was, it had me scared. This time, I let the fear consume me. If I could, I would have let the fear paralyze me. But there was nothing to do but move forward. I may not understand what was happening around me, but I was not a coward. Fear didn’t create cowards. It created caution. Shoving my broom away, I left the refectory without a single backward glance.
