Lux 1.1 Seeds

by Jalex Hansen

  “You caught me. So you knew I’d fall too.”

  “I knew you would because you believed you would.”

  She was more concerned with being held in his arms than she was with having failed again. It was a pretty good feeling. She could feel his strength and attentiveness, the heat of him.

  Abruptly, he put her down. “That’s enough for today,” he said, his voice clipped and restrained. He turned around and started walking back to the camp.

  “I’ll try again tomorrow,” she said, but he didn’t hear her.

  Feeling sad for some reason she couldn’t really understand, she followed him in silence, and helped him start the fire in silence, and ate another mushy meal in silence, until she couldn’t stand it anymore.

  “I’m sorry,” she finally said, “I’ve disappointed you.”

  He shook his head, “No, more like I’m disappointed in myself. We don’t have enough time. The things I’m teaching you should be learned slowly with an open mind and acceptance, and I’m pushing you. I promised the Guardians I could do this, and I’m failing.”

  She had never seen any doubt in him, anything but a calm and unquestioned confidence. “Sometimes I forget you’re just human,” she said.

  “Sometimes I forget that too.”

  She remembered the feel of his arms around her and thought maybe that’s what he was talking about. He was keeping her at a distance, but she thought that it was difficult for him. She had no experience with boys; she had been raised around her parent’s friends and co- workers, around married couples that seemed to have figured everything out that they needed to about relationships. She didn’t understand her feelings for him and she had no one to talk to. She missed her mother.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again.

  “Don’t be. We’ll try again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. You’ll be ready when you’re ready, and that’s just the way it is.”

  She opened her mouth to say something, anything to bring back the peace and ease that had been between them, but before she could speak she felt her words choked off. She felt like she had walked into a bright room and then someone had switched the lights off. It was cold in this dark room, and even though she couldn’t see, she could feel eyes watching her.

  “Lissa? Lissa!”

  Gideon’s face broke through the darkness and the world opened up in front of her again. She had dropped her plate of food and her teeth were chattering.

  “Lissa, what happened?”

  She shook her head. “It was like my dream, only I was in the fog, the darkness, whatever it was, and he was watching me.”

  “Angine?”

  “I think so.” She promptly leaned over and threw up right next to Gideon’s feet. “Oh God. I’m so sorry.” She had way too much to apologize for today. In answer he scooped her up and carried her to the tent. That was twice in one day, she thought.

  He lay her down in her cot and left her, only to come back a few moments later with a wet cloth, which he used to wipe her mouth with unusual tenderness. He then rinsed it out using the bottled water and laid it on her forehead. She reached out and caught his hand. “Please stay with me,” she said.

  “Of course.”

  She stared up at the white expanse of the top of the tent and tried to find warmth again. Gideon began to sing. He had a rich baritone voice, not an amazing voice, but a soothing luxurious one all the same. It sounded old and measured. He sang a song with words she did not recognize in a language she had never heard, but she believed she felt its meaning, strength and comfort.

  After awhile she felt her heart slow and her blood began to warm again. Like the nightmares, the image began to dissipate, to lose its sense of reality and immediacy. Gideon had gone silent and when she pulled the cloth off of her eyes and turned to him, he was watching her intently. “What?”

  He bit his lip. “It’s really strange that he can sense you here. This desert should have shielded you. I know you didn’t invite him in, but you seem to have an unusually strong connection with him. Or maybe he’s interested in you because he believes what I do.”

  “Which is what?”

  “That you are the most powerful of all of us.”

  She laughed. “I can’t even stand on one leg.”

  “Not yet,” he said.

  “Maybe he can just get through to me because I’m the weakest.”

  He tucked her hair behind her ear. “I’ve thought of that too. But I don’t think so. You’re just untrained, and right now your mind is like a big billboard with a light shining up out of it.”

  “I feel like a time bomb or something,” she said.

  “Then it’s my job to diffuse you. It’s time for your first lesson. Close your eyes.”

  Nervous, afraid of seeing behind her lids the cold dark space again, she hesitated and then did as he asked.

  “I want you to picture the white light filling your mind, every space and cavity until all you can see and think about is the light.”

  Lissa was surprised at how easy this was. The light leapt into her mind’s eye like it was anxious to come to her. Her head filled with a pleasant warmth, and she felt the energy of it run down her neck, into her fingers, her legs, down to her feet, carried in her blood. She felt calm, peaceful.

  “Now,” Gideon said, his voice just a rumble slightly above the pulse and thrum of the light. “Now think of anything, something around you, a conversation we had maybe, and then cover it with the light, wrap it around it.”

  This was trickier, she held the light and tried to think of anything, the sky, the sound of the birds, but as soon as she had an idea in her mind, the light blinked out and she had to start again. The light was extinguished by her thoughts, her craving for something covered in cheese, the memory of her own room back in New Mexico, twinkly lights over the bed, movie posters of films that she had wished she could have seen in a theater instead of the computer screen. There was now something buzzing by her ear... a fly... bee? She’d been stung by a bee once, stepped on it as it lay dying on the ground, a victim of--

  Gideon stopped her. “That’s enough for now, but you need to keep trying, practicing. For now I can help shield you, but eventually you’ll have to do it on your own. I won’t always be able to protect you.” His eyes were shadowed. “The most important thing is that you don’t think of Angine.”

  “Great, that’s like don’t think of pink elephants. I’m just going to think, Don’t think of Angine, don’t think of Angine.”

  He laughed. “You’ll figure it out. Cloaking yourself with the light is the best defense you have right now while you’re untrained. It’s very important that you learn to use that ability.”

  She let the light go, feeling empty without it, and turned her attention to the sand rolling away outside the door.

  They spent the rest of the day in the tent, talking, sharing stories of their childhoods, both of them strange and isolated and full of the same questions. The fabric of the tent turned first red, then lavender, before darkness settled outside bringing cool fresh air.

  Lissa yawned. “Sing that song to me again,” she said turning on her side and closing her eyes. “It’s the nicest thing I’ve ever heard, and I think it might just keep the bad dreams away.” She heard him begin and then she was asleep.

  She woke again in the middle of the night, pulled up from sleep by nothing in particular but an overactive mind that had decided it had had enough rest. She could hear Gideon’s even breathing from across the tent. She could see him from where she lay; he hadn’t pulled the curtain between them. The light of a half moon lit his outline with silver.

  He was going to have to sing her to sleep every night, it had done the trick. She remembered her earlier fears from childhood, of things that didn’t exist. In particular, she had been terrified of a supply closet at the end of the long hall connecting the three eggs of their compound together. For some reason she had become convinced that there was a skeleton hanging in it, and in the
thickest darkest part of the night, she had imagined it rattling its bones and jittering down the hall towards her room. This fear plagued her for months, until at last, unable to take it anymore, she had gone to confront it.

  She had walked barefoot through the dark compound, her heart pounding in her ears, her throat dry, waiting for the bony thing to jump out and grab her and crush her in its crunching jaws. But she made it all the way to the closet unmolested.

  She had stood with her hand on the door knob for what felt like an eternity, unable to open it. She had almost run screaming into her parent’s bedroom, but instead, at the last possible second before the strain broke her resolve, she wrenched it open. In the dark she saw brooms, and a bucket, some old clothes. That was all.

  Still, she stepped inside and shut the door behind her. She stood in the darkness waiting, unable to breathe, and then when nothing happened, she said aloud, “There is nothing here that can hurt me but myself.” The sound of her voice had startled her. She left the closet and ran back to her own room, jumping in bed and huddling under the covers, glad to be safe.

  She had never been afraid of the closet again.

  Now, feeling about the same and hoping for the same outcome, she got up out of bed, making as little noise as possible. She stepped out into the moonlight.

  The world looked like it had been dipped in powdered sugar and flecked with silver. Mica glinted in the normally red sand, gone ash in the night. Overhead countless stars winked down at her, watching. She walked out of the camp toward the rocks, lumped and jumbled smoky forms in the night. But she wasn’t afraid of them, not of this hushed and frothy nightscape, an ocean of moonlight.

  She crawled up onto the rock and stood up, surveying the world that belonged only to her and the stars. “Mom, Dad,” she whispered. “I miss you. Can you hear me?” She looked up at the sky. “I’m here!” she called. “I’m alive. I made it. And I know who I am. Or, at least who I will be.” She felt tears rolling down her cheeks, small warm rivulets. “But please, oh please, please, please... help me be strong. Help me know what to do.”

  She was sure that she felt their answer, deep in her heart. It felt like the light, warm and embracing, as soft as her mother’s hand stroking her brow, giving her strength. She picked up this strength with her mind, held on tight to it, and then opened herself just enough to feel the darkness waiting. In her mind’s eye she turned and faced that compelling, terrifying blackness. “I know you’re there,” she said to the darkness. “And I promise you. You will not have me.”

  The darkness retreated, and she kept her eyes closed, feeling for the light, combining it with the strength that had risen up in her. Slowly, she lifted her leg up and stood perched like some strange desert bird. She did not count, she did not even consider how long she stood there, balanced perfectly, her hands lifted to the stars, her head flung back to all that vastness, until the first delicate pale blue light of dawn made her open her eyes.

  Something caught her attention, a shimmer above her, and she realized with wonder that it was her wrist. She held her hand in front of her watching the extraordinary process of the mark emerging, silvery-white like the moon, gaining strength, until it shown on her skin and pulsed with the beat of her heart.

  She held her hands out to the rising sun, caught the gold of a new day in her palms.

  There was light everywhere; in her, around her, upon her.

  And she smiled.

  Chapter

  Fifteen

  Hikari had gone to a party once. Well, she’d been to a few, but at this one she’d had a drink, well five drinks actually, some terrible concoction in a barrel made with Kool-Aid and every alcohol known to man.

  Someone bundled her in a car and brought her home and she had managed to sneak back into her own apartment without getting caught. But the next morning she woke feeling like she had accidently come home with someone else’s head, a head full of hot ball bearings that rolled whenever she moved. The new head came with a stomach that was trying to turn itself into a Gordian knot.

  Her father hadn’t said anything even though he must have heard her throwing up about fifty times in the bathroom. When she came downstairs dripping from a shower that had only made her feel wet and sick, he had a pizza, fully loaded, waiting on the table, with anchovies.

  Jason thought it was the coolest breakfast ever and Kari was forced to eat two pieces as though it was the best thing she’d ever tasted too, while her father watched her carefully. She knew a punishment when she saw one. She never did that again.

  Waking up after they had broken into the congressional offices felt the same. A sick hollow feeling roiled in her head and gut. The light was a living creature with claws and teeth scratching at her eyes, digging into her brain. She promptly closed her eyes again, spinning on her own axis. The weight of what she had done, what they all had done pressed into her. This was going to exact a punishment far worse than anchovy pizza. But how had they gotten out?

  The memory of the guns leveled at her friends lashed her like a whip and she snapped her eyes open again. She was in bed and Yerik was sitting beside her with his head in his hands. Alive then. We’re the rest of them? “Lights,” she croaked. “Off.”

  Yerik sat up and grinned. “You’re awake.”

  “I’m dying,” she said. “Lights, please.”

  “Oh!” He jumped up and switched the lights off. The room was lit by a neon sign in the window, but it was cool and comforting. He leaned down close to her. “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know.” She struggled to sit up and though the room spun once or twice and then settled down to a small wiggle. “What happened? Is everybody okay?”

  “We’re all here. You got the worst of it from the looks of it. We’re at Kym’s place, in West Hollywood. But we probably shouldn’t stay here too long. We didn’t know what else to do with you. We were afraid to take you home.” He sat down beside her and smoothed her hair. “How did you do that?”

  “Do what?” She pushed his hand away. Her skin felt raw and new and his touch was irritating.

  “You really don’t remember?”

  She peered through her bleary eyes at him. He looked terrible. His eyes were red and hollow, with dark blue smudges under them. He had a day’s growth of scruffy beard and his hair was sticking up like an angry grandma’s. “You look like crap.”

  “Thanks. Seriously, you don’t remember anything?”

  “I remember,” she shivered, “They said they were going to kill you, and then nothing. Waking up here.”

  “You... vaporized them.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Yerik got up and started pacing, the way he did when something upset or confused him, as though moving his feet helped move his mind. “They were about to shoot us. I was looking down the barrel of this automatic weapon and I thought, That’s it. Goodbye world! And then the gun wasn’t there, the cars were gone, just poof! And you were standing there in this, like, trance, and you were glowing sort of. Just like when the guard dropped his gun in the building. You did it again, but you did it big time. When we were driving away it all came back and the stuff was like sand or something, little pieces raining down all over the place. It was... uh... oh Christ... weird.”

  Hikari was staring at him. She always knew when Yerik made stuff up, he had the imagination of a four-year-old and the same willingness to believe it, but she could tell by the shock and the fear in his eyes that he was telling the truth. Or, at least how he saw it. “Are you sure it was me?” she asked trying not to scream.

  “Yeah. We all saw it. You made it all go away and then when you passed out it all came back. How can that happen?”

  She shook her head hard trying to deny it, make it go away. “I have no freakin’ idea.” She laid back down again. “Great,” she muttered. “I slept through the whole thing. I’m like, a narcoleptic superhero.” She tried to smile but it slid off her face with a little plop.

  “What is that?” Yerik was pointin
g to her arm.

  She lifted her hand and watched numb and frightened while a silvery blue mark, a tattoo-like circle that looked like some sort of molecular thing emerged and spread on the inside of her wrist. “Uh... ” she said. It didn’t feel like anything, maybe a little warm. It continued to grow brighter until it made a small light of its own, beating with the pulse of her heart.

  “Cool,” Yerik said.

  “Cool? COOL?! None of this is cool!” She rubbed frantically at her wrist with the blanket, changing nothing. “I broke into my dad’s office and stole files that I don’t even understand, and then I almost got you killed, but I vaporized things and now,” she brandished her wrist in his face waving it frantically. “And now I’m a FREAK!” she screamed. She lay back down and stared at the ceiling.

  Drawn by her screams the rest of the gang appeared in the doorway and bottled up there, as if afraid to come any closer. “Holy shit,” Kym said. “your wrist.”

  Hikari felt like a zoo animal. She pulled her pillow over her face and mumbled “Go away,” into it.

  She felt Yerik sit beside her again and pull the pillow away. The door was closed and they were alone. “Kari.” He was using his Serious Voice, a thing so rare she found herself listening to him. “I don’t know what happened; I don’t understand any of this. We’re all a little freaked out. Okay a lot freaked out. You, probably more than us, but still, whatever the reason you’ve got this thing you can do. And now we know that Angine is up to something really, really bad and it looks like you might be the only one that can protect us.”

  She started to protest but he held up his hand. “Look. The others,” he jerked his head back toward the door. “They all saw it and it made everything different. We almost died out there and you saved us.”

  “I also got you into it in the first place.”

  “Yeah, because your instincts are good. We’ve been looking at the files and well, maybe when you feel up to it you should just come out and read them.” He sighed like it hurt. “What I was trying to say before... we all see you as like, the leader here. Whether you like it or not, that’s the role you’ve got now. None of us can go home, and Jason’s scared out of his mind. And the others don’t know what to do. They’re waiting to see what you say. You have to do this, Kari. It’s just the way it is. Without you we’re just a bunch of stupid kids, but with you we’re... more.”