Sunblind

by Michael Griffo

  Sometimes being specific totally backfires.

  “Kind of the way you used your wolf-strength to fight against Barnaby?”

  Arla’s question hovers over my head and threatens to choke me the way I felt I was being choked by a plastic bag when I first started to transform. It threatens to change my world in very much the same way the curse has. Not because her words bring with them destruction, but because her words offer clarity.

  She’s right. After watching the way Nadine used her silver light against Barnaby, I’m convinced she was up to no good. But I don’t have proof that Napoleon is evil or dangerous, only that he’s a brother who’s used his special power in a fight against his sister. Supernatural sibling rivalry. I’m guilty of the same crime.

  “So what you’re saying, Dom, is that you and Napoleon are exactly the same?”

  I’ll accept Archie’s gloating. I deserve it. Arla’s summation is a lot harder to accept.

  “Maybe the whole Jaffe family is connected to Luba and they’re all cursed just like you are,” she proposes. “Which is really kind of a good thing when you think about it.”

  I am thinking about it, and I don’t know how a curse can be a good thing. Or how any type of association with Luba can be a good thing.

  “Because if they’re under her spell, the twins are just like you, Dom,” she explains.

  Just like me?! Now what is she talking about? Is she suggesting they’re werewolves too? No, no, that’s not what she’s saying at all. I can tell by the relaxed expressions on Caleb’s and Archie’s faces that they’re getting it too. Arla’s comment doesn’t really change much, but we understand what she’s talking about.

  “Nap may not be evil,” Caleb clarifies, “but he may be nothing more than an evil pawn.”

  “So now my boyfriend’s an evil pawn?!” Archie shouts.

  “Well, which would you prefer, Archie?” I ask.

  “Maybe he’s . . .” Archie begins.

  “Nuh, uh, uh, uh,” I interrupt. “Those are your only two choices.”

  Slowly I can see Archie age. The anger in his eyes disappears and is replaced by something that resembles, but isn’t quite, acceptance. He’s still innocent enough to retain hope that I could be wrong, that there could be a third choice, but he’s smart enough to know that there most likely isn’t. It’s a constant fight. I saw it in my father’s eyes when he told me about the curse. He clung to the hope that it was superstition, but knew it was fact. The way Caleb and Arla are avoiding Archie’s gaze, I know they agree with me. We’ve accepted adulthood without any hope. Napoleon might be slightly different from his twin, he might use his powers differently, but in one way they are similar: Neither of them can be trusted any longer.

  Arla swipes the air to shoo away a fly that’s gotten trapped in our private sanctuary. She jerks her head to the side, and the way her hair moves I can see her scar. It reminds me that I’ve now wounded two of the three people in this room. How soon before I damage Caleb’s life too? Don’t think about that now; concentrate on one victim at a time.

  “Look, Archie, I don’t know which three out of the four Jess was referring to,” I admit, “But no matter how you look at it, Napoleon is connected.”

  Even though he’s much calmer, Archie’s hands fidget once again until his right hand literally grabs the left to keep it from moving. “And no matter how you look at it, you can’t prove that he’s dangerous.”

  “No, I can’t,” I reply. “Not yet anyway.”

  The only sound in the soundproof room is the ticking of the clock on the wall over Caleb’s head. Now that the room is bathed in silence, the ticking seems louder than usual, but I guess this is how the room always sounds when no one is here. In a similar way Napoleon’s true nature isn’t going to change just because he’s now Archie’s boyfriend. If he was evil before, he’s going to be evil tomorrow night when the full moon returns. If he’s nothing more than an innocent bystander, that won’t change either. I just have to persuade Archie to promise he won’t fill Nap in on what we know before then.

  “You can’t say anything to Nap about this,” I say. I like the sound of my voice; it’s hushed, but strong. “It’s only for one more day. Promise.”

  Squirming on the floor, Archie nods his head in agreement. It’s a reluctant promise, but a promise nonetheless.

  “From what Luba insinuated, I’ll find out the truth tomorrow night, on the anniversary of this curse,” I advise, “when both Orion’s constellation and the full moon will be visible.”

  Unable to control his anxiety any longer, Archie jumps up and starts to pace the length of the small room. “What’s this constellation have to do with the curse anyway?!”

  “It seems to have everything to do with it, Arch.”

  Caleb’s voice is compassionate, but that’s not why Archie stops moving. Caleb’s grabbed him by the ankle, firmly, to make him stand still so he can focus. My boyfriend gets it. We’re on the verge of discovering something important, and we all need to work together; we need to be unified; we do not need to start infighting.

  “I’m sorry,” Archie says, shaking his head. He seems so lost, as if he wouldn’t know where to go even if he had the freedom to move. “It just doesn’t make any sense to me.”

  Raising my hand to grab onto Archie, I pull him down so he sits next to me. He doesn’t flinch; he grabs hold of my hand, grateful for the connection. I don’t let go of him even after he’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, his knee touching mine. He won’t look at me, but he hasn’t broken our hold. He’s letting the warmth of my skin penetrate the coldness of his.

  “I agree with you, but it’s undeniable,” I state. “The twins both have the tattoo of the constellation, and Luba and Mrs. Jaffe spelled Orion in the same exact way.”

  “And Nadine told us that she loves astronomy,” Arla chimes in.

  “Don’t forget that Jess drew the constellation in her diary,” Caleb adds.

  “We may have no idea what it all means,” I say. “But there’s no way all of these little pieces are coincidences.”

  The long, worried silence that follows is broken when Arla shifts her position and her foot accidentally knocks over a box of trumpet mouthpieces. Scattered on the floor they tumble and roll and spin until, of course, three mouthpieces separate from the group and don’t stop moving until they reach the other side of the room, each one connected to the other.

  “Maybe it’s more random than we think,” Arla suggests, staring at the three pieces. “Maybe Nadine and Napoleon have nothing to do with your curse and are simply connected to Luba.”

  “What do you mean?” Caleb asks.

  “Psycho Squaw could have cursed them in the same way she cursed Dominy,” Arla explains. “Maybe Mrs. Jaffe pissed her off too, just like your father did.”

  Three cursed teenagers in one small town? The odds are against it, but the odds are also against finding proof that lycanthropy exists, so why can’t it be possible? Thinking about it, I realize it actually does sound like a plausible explanation.

  “That could explain why Jess freaked out when she saw Napoleon in church,” I say.

  “I would freak out too,” Archie mumbles. “Napoleon doesn’t go to church.”

  Oh really? “He must have had a spiritual crisis, because I saw him there,” I reply.

  Running his fingers through his hair, Archie massages his scalp for a few seconds before speaking. Interestingly, his scalp is slightly darker than the rest of his skin. “He told me he doesn’t believe in organized religion,” he shares. “The last time he was in a church was for Jess’s wake.”

  “If that’s what he said, then he lied,” I claim. “I saw him in church months later.”

  This time Archie doesn’t protest my accusation against his boyfriend. I’m not sure if he’s accepted that Napoleon’s duplicitous or if he’s too tired to fight.

  “When Jess appeared to me at St. Edmund’s, she wouldn’t let Napoleon see her,” I say. “I thought
it was because he was her ex and she was still more Jess than supernatural sun goddess, but maybe it was because he’s inhuman too.”

  “Because Jess said only humans can’t see her,” Caleb says, connecting the rest of my unconnected dots.

  “Exactly!” I shriek. I’m not thrilled that Napoleon could also be cursed, possessed by some supernatural spirit like I am, but I am excited that we’re starting to make sense of what moments earlier was indecipherable. We haven’t uncovered the whole truth yet, but we’re getting close. Or are we?

  “Or it could’ve simply been Jess acting like Jess,” Archie refutes. “She never explained exactly why she ducked when she saw Nap, right?”

  “No, she never did,” I confess.

  You can practically hear the air being sucked out of the room along with the sound until Caleb, the annoying voice of reason, speaks.

  “So essentially, folks,” he says, “that puts us back to square one.”

  “Until tomorrow night when we can join Dominy after she transforms,” Archie announces. “And find out exactly what’s going on.”

  “Absolutely out of the question.”

  Ten seconds later, I figure out that I’m not the one who spoke. It takes me another ten to realize that Caleb shares my opinion.

  “It’s the only way I’m going to find out if my boyfriend’s a liar, evil, a supernatural creature, or all of the above,” Archie proclaims loudly, obviously getting some of his strength back. “There’s no way I’m missing that.”

  “It’s too dangerous, Arch,” Caleb replies. “And we can serve a better purpose than tailgating Domgirl through the woods.”

  “Like throwing my father and the citizen’s brigade off track,” Arla concludes.

  Watching my boyfriend, my best friend, and my stepsister strategize and discuss my fate, I realize they really are a well-oiled machine. They may argue and bicker and disagree, but they all share the same fundamental purpose: to protect me.

  Reaching into his backpack, Caleb pulls out a small box and offers it to me. “I was going to give this to you later in private, but we really don’t have any secrets from one another,” Caleb says. “It’s sort of a pre-birthday gift.”

  “I told you guys,” I reply. “I don’t want any gifts this year.”

  “And is this a really private gift?” Arla asks, tugging uncomfortably on her wig hair.

  “Open it up, Dominy,” Caleb says, his eyes twinkling. “So we can all find out.”

  It’s not private or personal or anything that I ever really wanted for that matter. “It’s a GPS,” I say, staring into the box.

  “Brilliant!” Archie cries.

  Feigning an “I couldn’t agree with you more” look, I add, “Absolutely!”

  Caleb’s high-pitched laughter is so loud it reverberates off of the padded walls instead of getting sucked in by the foam.

  “You have no idea why I gave that to you, do you?” he asks.

  I hear my gigglaughs join in with Caleb’s sound and reply, “None at all.”

  “It has an elastic band, see?”

  When he leans over to show me the wrist accessory on the GPS, his hair falls into my forehead. I can smell his shampoo and his breath and his skin, and I get a rush throughout my whole body. I adjust my position and curl my leg underneath me to conceal the shudder that just took over my body.

  “I have the same one, and they’re hooked up like walkie-talkies,” Caleb explains. “I thought you could strap it to your ankle before you transform so we can track you and then steer Louis and company in the opposite direction.”

  It’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard. Both Archie and Arla groan when I give Caleb a thank-you kiss. We groan louder when Arla mushes up our mushy moment and turns it into something gross.

  “I’d like to put that thing on my father so I can find out who his mystery girlfriend is,” she declares.

  “He still hasn’t told you?” Archie asks.

  “Nope,” Arla replies, shaking her head. “And it’s getting serious.”

  Once again, I keep my suspicions that his new gf may be Essie to myself. There’s enough mystery and speculation hanging in the air regarding Napoleon and his true nature; no need to add the mystery of Louis and his true love into the mix.

  “Seriously serious?” I ask. “How can you be sure if he hasn’t said anything?”

  “Because I found these stashed in the vanity underneath the bathroom sink.”

  Staring at the condoms in her hand that she pulled out of her purse, we let out a huge, collective groan. Mine is the loudest. I will never look at Louis the same way again. Or Essie! And Gwen will never look at us the same way again either.

  “Oh my God! I am so, so, soooo, so sorry!”

  Standing over us, Gwen looks like a giant who just stumbled upon some very inappropriate dwarf-tivity. As she holds up her clarinet horizontally to cover her eyes, she’s obviously a giant who wishes she were blind.

  “I swear that I won’t tell another living soul about this,” she shrieks.

  “It’s okay, Gwen,” I say. “Nothing like that is going on.”

  “I know,” she replies, lowering her clarinet so we can see one eye. “Those things are still unopened.”

  Stifling a laugh in order to preserve her reputation, Arla says, “Gwen, listen to me, none of us in this room were about to have sex. None of us have ever had sex for that matter. Do you understand me?”

  Ignoring Arla, Gwen pursues more practical matters. “Could someone please pass me the box of reeds?”

  “Gwenevere! You can open your eyes,” Archie says. “We just needed a private place to talk about some, um, personal things.”

  “That’s good! We learned in health class that communication before intimacy makes the experience better—and safer—for both parties. Or all four parties,” she asserts. “The box is to your right, Caleb.”

  Caleb is laughing so hard he almost drops the box when handing it to Gwen. With her eyes still closed and doubly protected by her clarinet, she grabs it and starts to leave. Just before she closes the door, she whispers, “Do you want me to stand guard until you’re all finished?”

  I catch Caleb’s eyes, and I’m not sure who’s looking at him: the girl or the wolf. Suddenly I wish my friends were gone and I could take Gwen up on her offer, allow the passion that is starting to grow within my stomach to rise and bleed out, give myself over to Caleb completely. I feel as primitive and as hungry as I do when I first transform and need to feed. Unfortunately, the girl is not going to get to be as wild as the wolf.

  “Thanks, Gwen,” Archie pretend-whines. “But you know something? You kind of ruined the mood.”

  “I’m sorry! I’m always doing stuff like that!” she exclaims. She is feeling braver now; her eyes are only half-shut. “My older sister is always complaining that I bother her and her boyfriend when they want to, you know, be alone, but I can’t help that we share a room!”

  We have officially reached the point of no return. This girl is not going to return to wolf-like territory, so it’s time to leave. On two legs. Standing up at the same time, we surround Gwen and give her a big group hug.

  “Thanks, Gwen,” I say. Then I add a white lie just to make her feel important. “If it weren’t for you, we probably would’ve made a hugomungous mistake.”

  I don’t let her know that she’s probably given us the last laugh we’re all going to have for quite a long time. Stealing a glance at Caleb, Arla, and especially Archie, I know that they’re thinking the exact same thing.

  Chapter 14

  I need a distraction. In spite of Gwen’s unintentional stand-up routine, the day is not going well, and tomorrow has the potential of being even worse. Like epically worse. Thankfully, for as much as my life has changed, it’s also remained the same, and whenever I need help, Jess comes to my rescue.

  Halfway home I tell Arla that I have to make an unplanned visit to Jess’s house, and because Arla isn’t threatened by my strong connection to
the Wyatt family, she doesn’t ask to tag along. However, as we part ways she reminds me to be home before dinner so I don’t give her father proof that I disregard his and the town’s curfew for the under twenty-one set. It’s hard enough as is to sneak out of the house when Louis thinks I’m a law-abiding citizen; no need to make him suspect that I’m a juvenile delinquent who needs to be watched 24/7.

  Calling after Arla, I promise that I’ll be home early enough to help set the table. She doesn’t turn around, but merely raises her hand to wave good-bye to me as she keeps walking down the street. She isn’t angry or being dismissive; she’s just got someplace to go. So do I.

  I’ve wanted to contact Mrs. Wyatt many times over the past few months, but every time I started to dial her phone number or walk toward her house I was consumed with guilt. Today’s no different, but today the guilt is mixed with something else: optimism. I’m not sure how I’ll be greeted on the eve of the anniversary of Jess’s death, but I have to take the chance and find out. When her mother opens the door to greet me with a warm smile and a full-bodied hug, I realize the sense of hope wasn’t a result of my relationship with her; it was a result of my relationship with her daughter.

  Behind Mrs. Wyatt, Jess is floating in the air, her head a few inches above her mother’s, her golden sunshine filling up the entire living room. If I hadn’t closed my eyes to let the tears flow, I would have had to close them to shield them from the blinding light.

  “Dominy!” Mrs. Wyatt squeals. “It’s so good to see you!”

  She continues talking, but her mouth is nuzzled against my neck, and she’s crying so hard that it’s difficult to make out what she’s saying.

  “It’s good to see you too,” I say, though I doubt she hears me over her own words and her sobs.

  When we both stop crying, Mrs. Wyatt and I look at each other, not just a glance, but an extendalook, to really take each other in. I notice that there are bags under her eyes, puffy and several shades darker than the rest of her skin. Her hair has grown since the last time I saw her, and sections of it have turned gray, not just at the roots, but some strands change from black to gray at the tips. Slightly unkempt, she looks like she’s standing in front of a fan, gray and black wisps of her hair lifted up and gliding on the breeze coming in through the slightly open window. Age is clinging to Mrs. Wyatt, and it’s all because of me, because I murdered her daughter.