Bang! Israel heard a shot from a gun, and the crow dropped from mid-air to the ground. He looked over, and on his porch stood his grandfather, Nehemiah and Samuel’s father.
Israel was still holding his head, and smiled a bit as his grandfather started to walk towards him with a walking stick wrapped in olive branches.
His grandfather swung his shotgun back over his shoulder. “Still got a pretty good shot!” he said while he walked over to the bird. He stuck his walking stick into the bird and it instantly disintegrated into ash.
“Grandfather,” Israel spoke with love. His grandfather opened his arms and hugged him.
“My boy, you’ve grown handsome… like your grandfather.” He laughed a bit. “Come,” he said, patting Israel on the back. Pulling two olives from his walking stick he offered one to Israel and they walked inside.
They spent the rest of the day talking and catching up until dinner.
David laid under his blankets with a flashlight, still reading what Israel had left him.
They had just about finished eating. Israel’s grandfather wiped his face and put his napkin on his plate.
“My boy, now I hear you’re in love… I’ve waited for this day since the day you were born.”
He looked at Israel with a smile.
Nehemiah didn’t expect his father to say that. What was he saying? He had called on him with hope that he could change Israel’s mind, because he knew he was the only one Israel would really listen to. “Father,” Nehemiah spoke, shaking his head.
“Never mind now,” he said, disregarding Nehemiah. “Come on, son.” His grandfather stood up, “I want to tell you a story… We’ll build a fire.”
Israel grabbed his sweater, helped his grandfather put on his coat and they walked outside to Israel’s sanctuary.
His grandfather sat down on the chair Israel had made. While Israel began to build a fire, his grandfather began to speak.
“You know, there comes a time in every young man’s life when he has to make decisions… In this world, with the way things are now, there could be no greater decision than love. But you already knew that this was never going to be easy for you. You were born with power and abilities that are not of this world, like myself. But yours… they’re beyond anything I have ever known. This is why the Darkness sticks so close… It has also waited for this, because love is what will open you. Right now you have protection against them finding any way into you, but once you are open… The smallest crack in you is all they need. Just enough to be able to pull you to where you will fully give yourself up.”
“The River of Darkness,” Israel answered, sitting on the ground poking at the fire with a stick. His look was deep.
“Israel… if it can lead you to make the decision, and you submerse yourself in it’s flow, you submit yourself, and all that is you will be washed into him. Enslaving yourself to his workings. This world will then fully be in his stranglehold, and there will be no way out of it. You are the only one who is able to put the Darkness away. Your father doesn’t accept it, but it has always been your destiny to do so. Aira is their only threat, but she is also their only way into you. If you decide to move forward… if you choose love you have to understand, that once you open, it will find a way to enter you. If you choose love, you will have to take on the Darkness. There is no way around that. He will then go after what could awaken you, despite his effort to pull you there, to put him away… Your love… love being the only flower that opens and reaches for the light. Light will always come, because it longs to be reached for, and Darkness is put away. Aira is your flower. Protecting her is imperative. If you choose to walk away, then the threat is gone, and it keeps her safe because they will always need her. But then Darkness gets to keep walking… Whichever way you go about it, I am behind you...” His grandfather smiled. “This world doesn’t need any more Darkness, and even though the Darkness is smart, the question is, does he really know how smart the Light can be?” Israel’s grandfather gave him a quick nod and a telling look.
Israel looked at his grandfather and knew exactly what he was saying.
Aira, her mother and Barry were all sitting in the living room watching T.V, and David finally came out of his room. He walked into the living room and just stood there. He was quiet for a moment until Maddy noticed him.
“Hi sweety,” she calmly said, sitting up a bit. “Come join us.”
David didn’t really seem interested. “I want a slingshot,” he spoke simply, then turned around and walked containing his excitement back to his room. They all looked at each other.
“Well that was different,” Maddy said with a perplexed look. Aira shrugged her shoulders.
“A slingshot...” Barry muttered and smiled to himself. “Well, I’m done with all this crap they put on T.V.” Barry got out of his chair.
“Ya, it’s getting late. You should get some sleep, sweetheart.” Maddy stood up ready to go to bed.
“Goodnight kiddo, I love ya.” Barry said, giving Aira a quick rub on the head.
“Have a good sleep,” Aira replied quietly, as they walked away to their room. She got up off the couch, crawled onto Barry’s chair and grabbed the remote. She started to flip through channels, passing quickly when she caught a glimpse of The Passion of the Christ. She flipped back to it. It was the scene where Christ was being crucified. She watched intensely, horrified. But she continued to watch the rest of the movie.
Suddenly, out the window something caught the corner of her eye. She looked and saw that Israel was walking to the side of the house where her room was.
Excited, she threw the remote aside and ran outside in her pajamas and bare feet.
“Israel?” she whispered quietly so as not to wake anyone. Israel walked around the corner and she ran up to him and right into his arms. He calmly wrapped his arms around her.
“Come with me,” Aira spoke, while she grabbed his hand and pulled him towards her front door. He followed, letting out a small withheld smile. She filled him like nothing else.
She walked him inside quietly, up the stairs, and into her room. She locked her door, leaned her back against it and smiled.
Aira watched him make his way to her bed. He turned around and sat down on it. Taking what seemed to be a breath of relief, he fell back onto her bed and closed his eyes.
Aira, with her back still against the door, waited for him to say something.
He sat back up and looked at her. Most of the time his eyes showed everything he felt, but this time she couldn’t tell. She started to feel nervous, worried. His energy was so calm and still, and his eyes flickered away from her gaze for only a moment, and then he spoke.
“I don’t know what I would do if anything ever happened to you... I couldn’t... I wouldn’t be able to ever forgive myself.” He looked down, playing with the sleeve of his sweater.
“What do you mean?” she started breathing more heavily. She hadn’t expected him to say something like that.
He looked up at her, his look serious, like he was staring right through her.
“Aira… please believe me ... I wish I could tell you everything. I have to be very diligent with what I say to you, but I also need to be very honest.”
“I wouldn’t… say anything.” The knot in her stomach twisted tighter. “Whatever it is… you can tell me.” She felt his presence strongly, then it began to move away from her. The kind of feeling where you’re trying to hold onto someone, that even though they’re right in front of you, a part of them keeps pulling away.
“I just…” He was fighting so hard not to say the wrong thing, or even too much. “I should have stayed away… I think you would have been better off never knowing that I existed.”
Aira quickly shook her head, standing with the start of a dull ache in her chest, as if her heart was about to crack in half.
“Please don’t sa
y that...” She felt shaken. “Did Jaidas say something? If he did, it doesn’t matter, I don’t care… I want you.”
Israel looked away, “Aira…” He spoke gently, then looked back at her “If I loved you, and you knew that, but the only way I could protect you was to walk away… could you understand?”
“Protect me from what?” she asked, completely confused.
Israel sat there helpless, “Anything that would harm you… because of that love.”
“Israel, what happened? Please… just tell me what you’re saying,” she begged.
“I love you,” He just spoke it. “And despite everything… I don’t have it in me.”
Aira’s heart fell into her stomach. “To be with me?” She spoke breathlessly.
Israel looked up at her, “To leave,” he answered, still fidgeting with the sleeved on his sweater.
“You don’t even realize how important you are to me.”
Aira took a small breath as his words went straight into her. She pushed off the door, walked over to him and stood in between his legs. He put his arms around her waist and hugged her as he laid his head against her.
Aira wrapped her arms around his head and put her hands into his hair.
Israel looked up at her. “Aira… look at me.”
Aira pulled her body away from him a bit and looked down at him.
“I need you to leave me,” he requested with seriousness.
“No…” she shook her head, “why would I leave you? That’s ridiculous,” she answered almost immediately. “I’m here, I’m not going anywhere… I love you,” she uttered straight forwardly.
Israel let out a small smile and looked at her. He couldn’t help it. Her seriousness made him smile. “So… if you were me, you wouldn’t leave to protect me? Even if it meant that everything and everyone in existence would be at stake.”
“No,” she answered. Israel let out a small laugh. “I would fight for you,” she continued.
Israel’s look became serious again, taken aback by what she had said. “You can’t even fathom how selfish it is for me not to walk away right now.”
“I know there’s more… even if you won’t say it, and it’s okay. I don’t need to know, I trust you.”
Israel looked up at her with intensity. “I know… but maybe you shouldn’t. I don’t know how strong I am.”
“Then… at least trust me.”
Israel’s facial expression changed to love. “You’re so stubborn,” he spoke delicately, and like two magnets, the pull to be together was too strong, and there was nothing in the world that could have stopped it from happening. Aira slowly grabbed his shirt from the bottom and pulled it up, and Israel lifted his hands to let it come off.
He put his hands at the bottom of her shirt and held onto each side for a moment. Moving his hands down by her waist, he took his fingers and slowly moved them around the seam of her pajama pants, and they fell to the floor. He gently moved his hands up her thighs and up underneath the back of her shirt to her bottom. Israel looked up at her. His eyes had changed. It was like watching the colors in the universe move. Aira didn’t say anything, but she was completely captivated by what she saw, and somehow, it drew her closer and closer to him. She slowly crawled onto his lap with her knees wrapped around the sides of him.
Around Israel’s heart were green vine-like chains. As an immortal his heart didn’t beat. But Israel was opening himself. And as slowly as a flower opening, the vines lifted themselves from his heart. He had made the decision. In that moment, his heart took its first beat, and he instantly stood up lifting her. It felt like he had taken his first breath of real life. His eyes were concentrated on hers. It was so quiet and still, yet the energy bonding them emanated off of them into the entire room. It became warmer, fuller. He turned around and laid her down onto her bed, moving himself over top of her. He looked down at her for a moment, then leaned forward and gently kissed her. In the middle of Israel’s back were very distinct beauty marks, making up the constellation of the Big Dipper, which of course Aira couldn’t see.
Outside on the ledge of her window a raven sat looking in through the rain. It started to tap with its beak on the window.
Israel sensed the bird and he took his hand and waved the bird away. A translucent energy came off of Israel’s hand and it knocked the raven off the ledge. The raven fell, and when it caught itself, it flew away.
Slowly he moved his hands up into her shirt pulling it up, then moved his hands up her arms until he pulled her shirt up over her head. With his hands and hers still in her shirt, he grasped both of her hands and squeezed them a bit.
He moved his head down towards her and used it to gently push up her chin. He started to brush his mouth against her neck and she closed her eyes. He came back up feeling the side of his face against hers and made his way to her mouth. He paused, lightly touching her lips, staring at her. He gently brushed his mouth back and forth, and then opened his lips and kissed her. Israel’s heart beat more, came to life, and blood started to flow down his arms and into his body.
The raven flew through the rain in the forest until it reached a mountain and went up to a cave. As the raven flew in, with the last flap of its wings, it turned into Cleo, shaking off her long black soaking wet trench coat.
Dreadfully panicked and angry, she stormed into the cave. It was lit by many candles and oil lamps. It was immaculate.
She came to a chamber, and a man she couldn’t quite see sat in a chair.
She ran over to him falling to the ground and laid her head on his lap. Even though Cleo knew it was inevitable Israel would find his way back to Aira, she was over ridden with jealously. She was completely obsessed with him.
Cleo looked up at the man. “It’s time,” she spoke quietly and revengefully.
The man slowly put his hand onto her head, and said nothing. His hand was pasty white, the deformity in it clearly seen, and with his slow, heavy breathing, seemed like a beast that was feeding.
Cleo closed her eyes. He moved his hand over her face and she started to change.
Her hair went from black to a platinum blonde, and her eyes from a piercing green to a deep brown. Her face changed into one of the most beautiful girls ever seen, and in that moment she was overtaken with a spirit that matched Israel’s, but feminine. She could now mirror him back to himself.
The Dragon was smart, he was the Darkness. He knew that all humans ever looked for was themselves in everyone around them.
Cleo looked up at him and smiled. She then stood up, kissed him on the forehead and walked out.
His promise to Cleo was Israel. All he wanted was what Israel possessed.
Aira was asleep in Israel’s arms. He slowly moved his arm out from underneath her and moved off the bed. He put on his sweater then walked back over to her. Staring intensely for a moment, he brushed his finger down her forehead to the tip of her nose, leaned down and kissed the top of her head.
Walking over to her window he quietly opened it. He stood there for a moment, gripping onto the window frame, then he crawled out, jumped, turning into a beautiful white dove and flew away.
Aira had sort of opened her eyes and had watched him. As if she was in some kind of dream, she smiled and closed her eyes.
Israel flew home. Though he looked beautiful flying against the darkness of night, the heaviness of the decision he had made seemed very apparent. Like watching fragility flying surrounded by darkness. Just before he reached his driveway, he turned back into himself and walked into his house.
His father was writing at his desk in the living room. He looked at his son. Israel looked at his father for a moment and then continued to his room. Nehemiah could feel that something had changed. He thought for a moment, then continued with his work.
Israel walked into his room, over to his bed and fell onto it. He put his hand onto his chest
, and for the first time, he felt his own heart beating, something he had longed for, for a very long time. As peaceful as it was, he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
Night turned into morning, and with the sun rising Israel opened his eyes and looked around the room. It was as if he had opened them for the very first time. He woke up happier than he had been his entire existence. He got up out of his bed and, wiping his eye with the palm of his hand, he walked to the kitchen. His mother and Olivia were there.
Abby was cooking hash browns and cutting onions, her eyes starting to water.
“Ahhh,” Abby said while rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand.
Israel smiled. “Here, Mom, let me.” Israel took the knife away from his mother.
“Well, you seem in a good mood,” Olivia said with a smile in a teasing way.
“Olivia, don’t bug your brother,” Abby said, pulling orange juice out of the fridge.
“I’m just saying…” Olivia smirked at Israel.
Naomi walked into the kitchen with a large laundry basket of clothes, and a bunch of books that she placed on top of the laundry. She was studying to become a doctor. She could barely see where she was going, tripped, and the books dropped onto the floor.
Israel was startled by the sound, and as he looked, he missed cutting the onion and cut his finger. It instantly began to bleed. He looked down in shock. His vision blurred for a split second.
“What’s wrong?” Abby asked, and walked over to him. “Israel! You’re bleeding” She looked at him with disbelief. His sisters looked at him in complete shock. His mother quickly grabbed a cloth, wrapped it around his finger, just as his father walked in. They all looked at Nehemiah as he walked over to Israel.
Forbidden: Book One of Wild Sky Saga Page 9
