by Bette Maybee
“By the way, Miss Mason, you get one free tardy per semester. You just used yours.” He smiled and pushed his glasses up once again with his middle finger, hesitating just a bit too long before he winked and brought it back down. “Have a nice day, Miss Mason.”
****
“That asshole flipped you the bird.”
Julie jerked her head up from the drinking fountain to find Kas Penemue towering over her.
“Wha-what?” She backed against the wall. The pounding of her heart amplified against the hard surface, shaking her body with each beat.
“Fredricks. He flipped you the bird. Want me to break his finger?”
“No!” The word gushed from her mouth, causing the heads of those nearby to swivel her way.
Kas chuckled and leaned his arm against the wall over her head.
“I’m just kidding, Julie. Chill.”
Julie inhaled slowly. The scent of peppermint wafted from his mouth, a pleasant smell that had a strange, calming effect on her.
“How did you know? That he did that, I mean.” Julie hadn’t noticed Kas in the classroom, and with his size, she would have had to be blind not to see him.
“I have my ways.”
Across and down the hall, Julie saw Eli Sullivan open his locker and grab a book. He turned his head in her direction and locked his eyes on hers. Why does he keep staring at me?
“Well, do you?”
Julie blinked and then looked up into Kas’s dark chocolate eyes.
“Do I what?”
Kas’s voice softened. “I asked if you wanted to go to a party with me tomorrow night after the game.”
Julie’s eyes shifted back to Eli. He had been joined at his locker by Charsey who was busy giggling and flipping her silky strawberry blonde locks over her shoulder. Charsey was a flirt, and she had the looks to get the job done. Eli Sullivan didn’t stand a chance. He would soon join Charsey’s long list of male conquests.
“Umm. Sure. I guess that would be okay.” Julie bit her tongue the moment the words came out of her mouth.
Kas took a step back and smiled.
“Great. Meet me by the gate after the game.” He jogged down the hallway.
Yeah, great. Julie could have kicked herself. How am I gonna get myself out of this one? Julie turned. Eli and Charsey were gone. In fact, the whole hallway was practically deserted. Julie glanced at the clock. She had less than a minute to get to her next class. She might make it if she ran.
The moment she turned the corner, she collided with someone, rebounding off a hard male chest and landing on her butt.
“Oh, man! I am so sorry!” A tanned, muscular hand was offered to her, the same hand that returned a discarded cigarette to her the day before. Julie looked up into the apologetic face of Eli Sullivan. At that moment, the second period tardy bell rang.
“Crap!” She slapped his hand away and hauled herself up. “Thanks a lot!”
Eli raised his hands in surrender. “I really am sorry, Julie. I—I just need to talk to you.”
Julie hesitated for a moment as his eyes met hers. They seemed to burn right into her, throwing her off-kilter, making her forget why she was so upset. She shook her head to realign her thoughts then pushed her way past him. “I’m late.”
Eli grabbed her arm, halting her retreat. “Please. This is important.”
Julie tensed her arm, ready to pull away, until she looked into his face. His sapphire eyes darkened with concern. Her heart thrummed as he pulled her closer, brushing his lips across her temple.
“What did he want?” Eli spoke barely above a whisper, his breath warm on her ear.
Julie tried to blink away the spots that suddenly clouded her vision. She could feel her heart beating in her throat and a red flag went up. This was not happening. She wouldn’t let it. This time she did pull away.
“What did who want?” Julie lifted her chin and exhaled, trying to calm her heart.
Eli’s eyes hardened. “Penemue. What did he want?”
Julie was totally confused. “What business is it of yours?” She backed away, and he grabbed her arm again. Gently, this time. Once again, his touch sent her heart into overdrive.
“I just think you should steer clear of him.”
Julie jerked her arm out of his hand. “Who do you think you are? My father?” She spun around and headed in the opposite direction.
“Julie!”
Julie stopped in her tracks.
“What?” she snapped.
“You’re gonna need a tardy pass.”
Crap!
Chapter Four
Julie sat on the edge of her bed and listened to the silence of her house. She should be used to it by now, but she wasn’t. It was unnerving, but not as unnerving as her reaction to Eli Sullivan’s touch. Why did she react that way? She’d had plenty of practice putting guys off for the last couple of years. It had become second nature to her. But one look at Eli Sullivan’s sapphire blue eyes, one touch of his hand, one brush of his lips, evoked a reaction, a feeling she’d never had before. She was drawn to him, and it scared her. Not only could she not risk having a relationship with him, but also her best friend was infatuated with him. She had to bury any feelings she had. It was for everyone’s good.
Julie grabbed her American Lit book off the nightstand, leaned back against the pillow she had propped against the wall, and turned to Chapter One, the assignment she should have read the night before. She flipped through several pages until she came upon the legend she was looking for, attached her book light, turned off her bedside lamp, and began reading:
The ripping.
At first Laylah thought she imagined it, but within three steps the pain engulfed her, forcing her to her knees as warm blood and water trickled down her inner thigh. Mustering a ragged breath, she called out for her sisters, but this deep in the woods her cry was met by silence, punctuated only by the croak of the tree frog and the caw of the Ada. She had wandered too far alone.
“Walk, Laylah. Gather acorns for flour. It will speed along the pains, and you will be a mother in no time.” She had done as her mother-in-law said, but the naïve sixteen year old separated herself from the chatter of her sisters as she searched deeper in the woods. Now, they would not be able to hear her or help her. She would have to do this on her own. Not that this wasn’t expected of her—this had been the way of the Numa woman for generations. But knowing this didn’t make it any less frightening.
Laylah took a sharp, flat rock and scooped out a depression in the floor of the woods, lining it with fresh grass to cushion the oha’a as she pushed it from her womb. Until that time came, Laylah walked, never wandering far from the spot she had dug. Each time the pains diminished, Laylah used her digging stick to root out fallen acorns, filling the basket she now had sitting at the base of an oak tree.
Finally, as dusk fell, Laylah had no time in between pains to search for acorns. Her time had come. Beads of perspiration covered Laylah’s face as she removed her buckskin dress and squatted naked over the depression. Beside her lay the sinew lace and sharpened obsidian blade she had carried with her since the last full moon, sitting atop a softened piece of doeskin she would use for swaddling the baby.
As the final pain hit, Laylah clutched a nearby sapling and cried out as she pushed, using her other hand to guide the baby into the soft, grass-lined cradle. The stark emptiness of her womb shocked her, and she leaned back, exhaling in relief as she heard the faint mewling of her newborn. After taking in a few gulps of fresh air, she tied the lace around the cord and used the obsidian blade to separate it from the afterbirth, remembering to cut the sacred six inch piece to put in the pouch around her neck. Laylah wrapped the child in the doeskin, buried the afterbirth as she had been taught, put her dress back on, and began walking in the direction of her camp.
Seven days later, Laylah's mother-in-law uttered the words the young mother had been dreading, “The child is not going to survive.” She handed her only grandchild back to
Laylah, nodded, and walked away.
Laylah looked down at the emaciated face of her baby. Although she had plenty of milk for the child, for some reason, it wasn’t thriving. Now half the size it had been at birth, its cry had become weak and its breathing irregular. Laylah knew what she had to do. The elders and her husband expected her to take the child to its place of birth and let it die naturally. But Laylah had other plans. Her mother-in-law told her that other women had taken their sickly babies to Paoha, a volcanic island in the middle of Mono Lake. There, they prayed to the Great Spirit for two days. If their prayers were strong enough, the child would survive. Laylah had to try.
That evening as she lay in the arms of her young husband, Laylah decided she would leave with the child before dawn of the next day. As far as her husband knew, she was taking the child to its final resting place. He would not expect her back for a few days. It should give her enough time.
When the Great Moon was highest in the night sky, Laylah set off. Blazed by desperate mothers who had gone before her, the trail to Mono Lake was simple enough to follow by moonlight, and Laylah made good time. Just before dawn, she reached the edge of the lake and carefully waded across the partially submerged land bridge that connected Paoha and another smaller island to the mainland. Laylah knelt on the still-warm earth of Paoha, held her child up to the rising sun, and began her prayer.
Before dawn of the second day, Laylah clutched her only child to her breast and collapsed as exhaustion finally overtook her. She lay in a fitful sleep, jarred awake every few minutes by visions of her child’s impending death. It was during one of these semi-conscious moments that she became vaguely aware of a form moving in her direction. Forcing her eyes open, she smiled as a winged being, more virile and handsome than the mightiest of warriors, walked by. The fire-haired vision, clad only in a loincloth, paused briefly. It smiled as it looked down at Laylah and the child in her arms. So beautiful, Laylah thought as it continued towards the center of the island. Laylah’s eyes closed once again.
Within seconds, a blinding light seared through her lids, jolting Laylah back to reality. She thought it was the rising sun that had awakened her, but it wasn’t the sun at all. A fire just as brilliant as the sun burned at the center of the island.
Laylah shielded her eyes as the fire burned, shooting frantic tongues of orange, red, gold, and green high into the sky. Within moments the flames subsided, and Laylah rose to her feet. She walked slowly toward the spot where she had seen the fire, then picked up her pace as she approached, holding her now lifeless child next to her pounding heart.
As she neared the spot, Laylah’s pace slowed and her brow furrowed. A familiar sound echoed in her ears. Was that a whimper? Her own child lay in deathly silence against her chest. Laylah's eyes widened as she looked towards its source.
Lying in the middle of the charred out area that held the fire she had just witnessed, was a baby—a baby unlike any she had seen before. The babies of her people all had the same ebony hair and dark skin, just as her own child had. This one was moon pale. Hair the color of fire covered its head. She had heard of this type of child in a legend passed down by the women of her family through the generations. . .
Every three hundred years, a creature in human form would return to Paoha. There, it would be consumed in fire, and be born again as a child, but it would not return alone. Giants—The Great Ones—offspring of human women and The Fallen Ones, would pursue it and try to keep it from being reborn. Only then would the Fire Child become mortal and die a mortal’s death. The Great Ones were driven to commit this act out of jealousy. Although their fathers were immortal, they only lived the lifespan of mortals, as they were the offspring of mortal women. This Fire Child could not be allowed to have something that should be theirs. It had to be stopped.
The memory of the legend played through Laylah’s mind until another gentle whimper brought her back to the real world. She swallowed as her heart began to thrum. The child turned its green eyes to her, smiled, and reached out.
Laylah strapped the cold, stiff corpse of her firstborn to her back. It reminded her of a bundle of sticks, and she would think of it that way as she journeyed back to the forest, just to make it easier to bear. Sleeping contentedly in her arms was the child given to her by the Great Spirit: a new life to replace the one that was lost.
The burial was quick and bittersweet. The birth depression she had made now served as the child’s grave. After mounding the loose dirt she had dug out only a week earlier over the body of the child, she covered it with stones to mark the spot. Similar impromptu graves could be seen spotting the floor of the forest, signs of the precarious mortality of the Numa people. When she had finished, Laylah sat, leaned against the oak tree and held the fire-haired child to her breast.
Her tears fell silently as the child suckled. Would the elders and her husband allow her to keep the child? After all, she had disobeyed them and gone to Paoha. But the Great Spirit answered her prayers, didn’t it? As her child passed on, she was given a new one to care for. Surely, they would understand this.
Laylah would not have to wait long for her answer. As soon as she returned to camp with the strange child, the Elders and her husband gathered at the council shelter.
“Laylah,” her husband ordered, “you must keep watch while we meet.” Laylah’s husband took the child from her and ducked into the shelter with the Elders.
She closed her eyes and leaned back against the bark-covered walls of the shelter, listening to the singing of her people back in the camp just over the rise. The heaviness of her milk-laden breasts was a constant reminder of the child she lost and the child whose fate the elders and her husband were deciding upon right now. Was this the Fire-Child? If so, surely the elders and her husband would see that she had been chosen to be its mother. After all, even her name, Laylah—the Protector—bore witness to that.
An uneasy feeling shrouded Laylah’s thoughts and her eyes shot open. Something was wrong. The singing she had been enjoying stopped. She looked toward the main camp and squinted as a lone, dark figure emerged on the crest of the rise. Laylah stayed frozen in her spot, unable to move as the strides of this huge stranger brought it ever nearer. Finally, her senses returned, and she ran into the shelter.
“Tse’nahaha! Giant!” she shrieked as she grabbed the sleeping child and dove under a large basket in a darkened corner of the room. Her husband and the elders looked towards the door as a massive body filled the space. Before they could react, The Great One stuck its head inside. Laylah closed her eyes and tried to still her breath as bones snapped and bodies slumped to the floor. She heard The Great One moving about the room and shuddered as its foot hit the basket, but the basket shifted only slightly. A few moments later, the room was silent.
Laylah stayed under the basket until she noticed the daylight fading. The child stirred as she slowly lifted the edge to see if the giant truly was gone. The vacant stare of her husband’s dead eyes met hers as he lay on the dirt floor of the shelter, and she stifled a scream. She lifted the basket off completely, and sat in silence, staring at the mangled bodies of the five dead men in the room...
Julie bolted upright in bed as a scream erupted from her throat—a scream that began in her dreams and eventually manifested itself in her sleeping vocal cords—a scream of pure terror! Her eyes flew open, and she looked around. Her frantic breathing slowed as she realized she was in her bedroom. Grabbing a pillow, she hugged it to her body and lay on her side, staring at the green glow of her digital alarm clock. Something had been chasing her ... something huge and dark and faceless. She could still feel its icy breath on the back of her neck. But it didn’t get her. Not this time.
Chapter Five
Charsey leaned against a neighboring locker and watched as Julie worked the dial once again. She shook her head when it opened on the first try.
“I really do not understand how you can do that!”
Julie shrugged and hung up her book bag. “Mine
is not to reason why...”
It was almost as if she could hear the gears of Charsey’s brain whirring, trying to catch—trying to make sense of what she had just said.
“What?”
Julie sighed. “I’m paraphrasing Tennyson.” She slammed the locker and twirled the dial.
“Who?”
Julie smiled and shook her head at her amazingly ditzy friend. “Just a guy who wrote poetry.”
Purple and white football jerseys, Warrior t-shirts, and short, pleated cheerleading skirts, including the one Charsey wore, littered the hallway as the girls headed to their first class. Charsey was the junior captain of the cheerleading squad. Today she wore her hair in a perky ponytail, complete with a purple and white starburst scrunchy. She was already two inches taller than Julie, and the ponytail added at least another two, making Julie feel like a garden gnome next to her striking friend. Julie didn’t have a stitch of purple on, but was wearing a plain, white, v-neck, baby tee. A crescent of porcelain belly was visible just above the waist of her jeans when she walked, but not enough to make her look slutty. She hoped.
As they approached the girl’s bathroom, Julie made a split-second decision, grabbed Charsey by the arm, and pulled her through the door.
“Julie! What the—”
Julie took a breath and blurted it out. “Kas Penemue invited me to the after-game party.” She hesitated. “I said yes.”
“You have a date with Kas Penemue? Holy Crap!” Charsey shut the bathroom door and stood in front of it, hands on her hips, Jolly Green Giant style. In that stance, with her skimpy cheerleading outfit on, she looked like she was about to start a cheer. Any other time, and Julie might have thought it funny, but this date with Kas was a problem. Not only did she not want to go out with him, she had no intention of dating anybody. The risk was too great.
“Yes, but now I need to know how to get out of it.”
Charsey’s eyes widened. “Out of it? Are you nuts? He’s one of the most popular guys in school!”
