The Starlight Chronicles: Slumbering

by C. S. Johnson

  “Yeah, they probably needed help after you missed the ball, Dinger.”

  I frowned. “No, they were being attacked!”

  “Hey!” Coach Shinal appeared with a scowl on his face. “None of that. We share both blame and glory when it comes to football.” He patted me on the shoulder. “Good work tonight, Dinger,” he said.

  I knew he was just being nice.

  Coach Shinal cleared his throat. “Good game tonight, boys,” he started out. Everyone looked at him like he had suddenly broken out into song. “I am proud of all of you. I didn’t know Rosemont’s team members were playing with the Tigers tonight. We could’ve been better informed, but we hardly could’ve been better prepared. See you Monday for practice. Now go home.”

  The team nodded glumly in response.

  Coach Shinal added, “Those expressing opinions alluding to the idea Dinger is the one to blame for our loss should apologize before leaving.”

  The team grumbled but does as they were told. An indistinguishable choir of apologies was mumbled out in my general direction.

  As we were leaving, the coach added, “And just to set the record straight, Hamilton was right. About twenty-seven people were carted off in ambulances tonight, so far as I’ve heard.”

  9

  Dreariness

  Sleep eluded me half of the time over the next few days, and the other half of the time it plagued me with dreams of a nightmarish sort. And it must’ve been in cahoots with the rain, which started pummeling the ground shortly after my nightmares came, and stayed long after I’d woken up silently screaming. Several nights in a row.

  During the nights, while I was wide-eyed with fearful restlessness, I wondered if the nightmares came because of my failure at the football game.

  They were terrifyingly vivid, even days later.

  The first one especially.

  I felt curious, eager, and shocked silent and still while the man in black I’d seen at the football game – I called him Orpheus, certain that it’s his name even as I was just as certain I’d never met him – poured his own silver-light of soul blood out onto seven glowing crystals; the mix of lights was like fire made of many flames, glimmering with pride, energy, and excitement.

  I knew they belonged to those in the crowd now rendered soulless.

  The terror of familiarity hit me as the crystals glowed, giving birth to seven warriors as the light poured over them – Orpheus’ band of women warriors, all lovely but deadly.

  The feeling of hatred and jealousy for the man himself froze me, capturing my attention like a slow-motion car wreck; awful, but I couldn’t look away. I could not free my gaze from his face as he laughed.

  Confusion swirled, puddling through my cloudy thoughts, each naming a crystalline warrior, too colorfully absurd to be real. Asteropy, Taygetay, Meropae, Maia. Elektra, Celaena, and Alcyonë. Names that whisper of a different time, a different place, a different purpose. A different life.

  They all glimmered with a curse, with restraint. And I was relieved about that. Somewhat.

  I looked expectantly for another face, but did not find it. And then suddenly more emotions poured through me, and I could not stop them.

  Desperation. Anger. Hatred. Revenge. It all pumped through me, more than just a sensation or desire but as a life-force. It punched me out of sleep into awareness, leaving me weary even as power charged through my veins.

  No wonder sleep left me for hours after that dream. I’d walked into my dreams with some sort of Shakespearian death wish, and an adrenaline tsunami had washed over me. And those faces were as real as my own, as though I were watching the secret unfolding of the end of the universe. The rain still wasn’t helping, either; it howled and hounded me, like a warning, like an unwelcome wake-up call.

  But my terror at the truth of these things was only as strong as my denial of it.

  The second dream I had was less frightening but more confusing.

  In it, there was a shadow. I knew it was a girl, but I had never met her – or so I thought. I couldn’t see her face, really; she was a silhouette leaning against the side of a brick building – one I recognized but couldn’t seem to place. She was standing out in the rain as I watched her, the same rain which had pulsated through the skies all week.

  I saw her look up, and I mimicked her gaze, blinking away the throbbing drops of rain.

  I heard her whisper something, but my mind only caught muffles. Something about clouds, I thought, but I wasn’t sure.

  Then she looked down at her wrist, and on the underside of her arm, there was a glow which startled me. Eerie and ominous, it glowed as the rain spiked down on her; I remembered taking a step closer, and seeing her hair darkened by the dampening water.

  A shadow hung over her eyes, but I seemed to know they were watching me.

  Then I heard her words, clearly this time.

  “It’s about time. I was beginning to wonder.” The words were spoken with mild relief, but there was much more feeling hidden behind them.

  Then the Apollo Time Tower rang, and I woke up to find my alarm clock screaming bloody hell at me, and the sky cackling with lightning and thunder.

  “Hey, Dinger!”

  I had a headache that morning. And possibly a stomachache, too, although I am not sure whether it had been brought on by Estella-Louise’s cooking or the recent near-sleepless nights I’d had. So, of course, Poncey would annoy me endlessly today. Today, while I tried with every ounce of brain power I had to find a way out of believing myself to be either sick or mentally ill (neither were really good options.)

  I guess the distraction was welcoming because I actually responded.

  “Hey Poncey,” I said as he sat down at his desk. “Nice day out, huh?”

  Evan grinned, but the rest of the guys in my inner circle sighed. The city streets had quickly became devoid of people this morning. The few who were out were rightly huddled under umbrellas or under hooded jackets, taking what cover they could from the piercing raindrops. Meteorologists had mentioned on the news this morning they had no clue as to where the storm of the last few days had come from, but they were considerate enough (this time) to admit their radar systems could be on the fritz.

  I was just glad none of the guys on the team had said anything about the Homecoming game this week; I was also glad most of them have properly resumed their hero-worship of me quickly enough, despite being lazy about it.

  Coach Shinal was in a bad mood this week though. So were a lot of other adults. Even Martha, I had noticed, for all her coffee-inhaling, needed a good nap. Her baggy eyes were mostly hidden by her glasses, but her frown was extra-droopy and extra-cranky today.

  “Ugh, I can’t believe this!” Drew slumped over at his desk, his head hitting the surface with a bang! He grimaced. “Man, it even hurts to goof off today,” he muttered.

  “When it rains, it pours,” Poncey quipped.

  Jason nodded, sleepy-looking. “I wish I could just stay home and do nothing,” he agreed. “My body’s not prepared for school today.”

  “Yeah, it’s usually your mind that’s unprepared,” Poncey grinned. He appeared to be the only one of any of us who was excited, or at least somewhat energetic. “I wish –”

  “Shut up, Poncey,” the rest of us groaned.

  “Where did the sun go? On a coffee break?” Jason grumbled.

  “Looks like another day of review in here, too,” Drew muttered, his eyes fastened on Martha as she wrote on the board. “Man, history’s the hardest class ever. I looked at the test’s study guide yesterday. Nearly collapsed in computer class. Mr. Gallows almost had a heart attack when I started sputtering. He was like this –” Drew made a wide-eyed, gasping expression, “and only calmed down after he made certain I wasn’t choking.”

  I nodded. “Mr. G’s a good guy. He’d likely call the ambulance if you scared him enough.”

  “Getting me an ambulance doesn’t help me much right now. Maybe later… I don’t know how you manage it, Din
ger. Top marks every time. I wish I had that kind of luck.”

  “It’s something you’re born with, sorry,” I easily dismissed the notion as I pulled out my Game Pac. I’d flipped through the history book a few times since the weekend, but that was it. The history exam was on Friday, so I didn’t really care. I had other things to worry about.

  Like trying not to think about how I was slipping on the edges of the cliffs of insanity. And winning this Tetris game.

  Ah, it was nice concentrating on getting all the pieces of the dropping puzzle to fit together. The rhythm of the game enthralled me. I paid no mind at all to Martha as she started on with her usual lecture. It was the week before the big test, and everybody else was furiously copying down notes. I was in my own preferred world, where I was Tetris King, and there was no one else. No faces, no duties, no hard-pressed psychotic illusions to deal with.

  It was good to see things were getting back to normal at last. Nothing ever went wrong when things were normal (Or least, nothing went wrong where I couldn’t talk myself out of it.)

  “Okay, class, let’s talk about chapter five –” Martha suddenly stopped talking and began tapping her foot. It was at this cue I looked up and grinned as harmlessly I could. As I expected, she was staring down her nose at me again, frowning.

  “Dinger, are you going to be playing games all through my class today?” she asked exasperatedly.

  “Sorry, Martha – er, Mrs. Smithe. Force of habit,” I harmlessly explained.

  “Put it away, if you want to keep it.” There was a slight sharpness to her voice, and I was surprised to see that she was not kidding around today. Weird, usually she was a lot nicer about being mean, especially on the first time she called me out. “Let’s get on with chapter five.”

  “Ah, come on, Mrs. Smithe,” Poncey squawked up. “We went over chapter five last time. We know it already.”

  Mrs. Smithe turned her angry glare on Poncey; a few snickers were heard on the other side of the classroom at Poncey’s assertion. I noticed Gwen wasn’t laughing, but Brittany Taylor and her friends were trying (somewhat) not to giggle.

  “Fair enough,” Mrs. Smithe said, surprising me and probably the rest of us who were smart enough to catch it. “Instead of playing a review game for class, you are all going to study on your own instead. And if you aren’t studying,” she warned, “I’ll give you a detention.”

  She then walked over to her desk and sat down. “Well? Why aren’t all of you studying?”

  The class was just gawking at her, I noticed, waiting for the punch line. When she stared back at us, a few of us moved to get our notes out. Others began complaining.

  “No way, come on, Mrs. Smithe –”

  “We have to suffer because of Evan? That’s not fair!”

  “Way to go, Poncey!”

  “Yeah, why don’t you just keep your fat mouth shut from now on?”

  There were many complaints made, but Martha glared at everyone. “Class, studying requires silence. You have the rest of the period to silently study on your own. Now, get to work.”

  The grumbles didn’t stop, but they did become more muffled. I looked over at Gwen again; she wasn’t happy. And she wasn’t the only one. Brittany’s giggles had disappeared, and there was a murderous gleam in her eye as she glared at Poncey.

  “It would be so funny if they got together,” I muttered to myself as I began to play Tetris again. I knew I was disobeying Martha, but I didn’t think she would actually do anything. She’d probably just grade papers or read a book or something else teacher-ish.

  And I was right. Mrs. Smithe just sat there, at her desk, grading papers and drinking coffee. And she did that all throughout the period.

  “Psst! Dinger!”

  “What is it, Poncey?” I asked, never looking up from my Tetris game.

  “I’m beating you!”

  I paused here, mostly because of the unlikelihood of the matter. Poncey had his own Game Pac out. “Poncey, you only have fifteen thousand points,” I observed. “My high score is thirty-three thousand, remember? Amateur.”

  Some of the guys nearby who were looking over their notes and/or scanning their textbooks laughed.

  I turned back to my game, where I was on the fifteenth level, with a total of ten thousand points. I might’ve been behind Poncey at the start, but it wouldn’t take Poncey long to screw up. Or I would just surpass him anyway.

  “Oh, hey, Mrs. Smithe,” Poncey said in a sheepish tone.

  Ha! Poncey’s not going to fool me with that trick again, I thought, recalling Poncey’s one stroke of genius at Jason’s party.

  But a moment later, a shadow came over me and I inwardly grimaced.

  A sloshing feeling was whirling in my stomach again as I looked up.

  Oh, crap.

  “Ha! I can’t believe you finally got a detention!” Mikey exclaimed as he met up with me in the hallway after eighth period.

  “Shut up, Mikey,” I muttered warningly. “I’m going to get Martha to take it away.”

  “Yeah, good luck with that,” Mikey sputtered as he just laughed harder.

  My expression turned sour. “You know, you’d think you’d be just a bit more careful around me, considering you upset me last week.”

  “That was last week? Wow, I thought it was more recent than that,” he joked. “Sorry. But hey, we’ll be in detention together at least.”

  “Oh… that’s right, you’ve still got all those detentions from Ms. Nolte, huh?”

  “Of course. But it’s been more than a week, and she still can’t look me in the eye. That’s reward enough for me.”

  “Biology isn’t hard,” I remarked. “Why don’t you just pay attention?”

  “I just don’t want to be here,” Mikey told me. “I want to… I don’t know. I just want to get out of here. School’s never been my forte, like it’s been yours.”

  “Well, I don’t like schoolwork either,” I said, which was true. “But that doesn’t mean I intentionally suck at it.”

  “Well… we’re all unique.”

  “That’s a lame excuse. You just don’t want to work hard. Lazy.”

  “Well, I want to play football one day. What do I need science for?” Mikey asked as he started to head off for last period. “I’ll see you in detention later – with Mr. Lockard!”

  “I’m not taking it, remember?”

  “Sure, sure… we’ll see.” Mikey laughed once more while I seriously considered punching him.

  “We’ll see indeed,” I muttered. In fact, I thought, I will go and take care of it right now. That way I didn’t have to worry about it later. What’s wrong with taking time out of last period anyway? It’s just stupid drama, and Mr. Lockard was probably busy with the last minute details for the play. He wouldn’t notice (or care) if I was there or not.

  “Hi Mrs. Smithe,” I put on the goody-two-shoes face as I walked into her classroom.

  “I’m not going to take your detention away, Dinger, before you start spouting out your apologies or ‘reasonable’ excuses and whatnot.”

  She’d obviously prepared for this.

  “I wasn’t going to ask you to take my detention away. I was going to thank you, actually,” I began, still smiling though my resolve has ebbed. “I’ve realized I’ve become very lackadaisical in my work and in my studies lately, and I guess a lot of it has to do with stress and Friday night’s game last week.”

  I thought maybe this was where I should’ve broken down into tears, but I wasn’t sure Mrs. Smithe would have bought it so soon.

  “Dinger, you know if you’re having problems, you should see a tutor. Or a doctor, depending.”

  “I know,” I said. “It’s not really with schoolwork I’m having trouble in.”

  “Well, you’re certainly getting into more trouble in school, if not in your schoolwork,” Mrs. Smithe responded as she took a drink from her coffee container. “We’ve been back in school for over two months now, Dinger.”

  I grinne
d. “Well, I did realize my shortcomings. And I have a solution. So what do you say we forget the detention, since at this point it’s not very necessary?”

  Mrs. Smithe shook her head and smiled pleasantly (her first all week, probably.) “I knew you were faking it,” she laughed. “I might not see everything under the sun, Dinger, but I catch on pretty quick. Do you need a pass for next period?”

  “Ah, come on, Mrs. Smithe!” I sighed. “I’ll make a deal with you – don’t give me detention, and I won’t play Tetris in your class again, I promise.”

  “How about this?” Mrs. Smithe got up from her seat and walked over to the door. “You don’t play Tetris in my class, and you won’t have to sit through another detention. Now, do you need a pass to get to next period or not?”

  I must’ve stood there, dumbstruck, for several moments before answering her question. “Yeah, you better give me one,” I nodded grumpily. Angry as I was, I know it wouldn’t be smart to push the issue. Besides, my dignity had already taken a few hits during the conversation. “Mr. Lockard doesn’t like it when I’m late. He already hates me because I didn’t want to be in his stupid play.”

  “Mr. Lockard, the drama teacher?” she asked. “He definitely likes his favorites, all right. Why didn’t you want to be in the play, Dinger? Chances are you’d make a good actor. You certainly have no problem with memorization, and you would love the attention.”

  “I have more important things to do,” I shrugged. “I don’t really care.”

  “Aren’t any of your friends in the play?”

  “Oh. Yeah, but just Gwen, really. She’s Juliet.”

  “Gwen Kessler? Oh, she’s such a sweetheart.”

  “Yeah. She took Mr. Lockard’s intro class last year and a workshop of his over at the Apollo City Theater during the summer. It’s not a real surprise that he chose her,” I murmured.

  “She’ll look real good next to that nice Tim Ryder fellow who’s playing Romeo.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” I rolled my eyes. My back was to Mrs. Smithe, so I didn’t really care if she heard me or not. “Well, better go.” It’s going to be a long class, and an even longer detention, I thought bitterly.