Earth/Sky (Earth/Sky Trilogy)

by Macaulay C. Hunter

  A hard wind coming in scattered the feathers throughout the cavern. More lamps glowed within an offshoot from this room, and straight past the recliners was a narrow crack that led to a grassy field beyond.

  “What am I supposed to make for dinner?” I asked.

  “You don’t talk,” Makala said. Zofia gestured to three large coolers in the corner. What had happened to the man named Trenton who used to be with them? Had they killed him? But the bones in the cave looked too old and small to be his.

  I went to the coolers and lifted the lid of the one to the left. Within were sodas and bottles of water. A generator was humming beside the coolers, and on the ground was a bag of plastic utensils, paper plates and bowls, and straws and napkins. With no idea what to do, I removed four bottles of water and then a fifth for myself. I was so thirsty that I was almost beyond sense. Slipping the fifth bottle around the side, I opened the cooler in the middle. Everything had been thrown into it haphazardly, bags of beef jerky and chips and candy bars, packages of string cheese and cold cuts. The last cooler had more of the same, and also loaves of bread.

  I looked surreptitiously over my shoulder. Barasho was still working on the wings, and Makala was facing away. Pulling up a blanket, Zofia was settled on a second sofa that was as old and sagging as the first. She picked up a novel and opened it to a bookmark. Only Japheem was looking at me. I turned away hurriedly.

  “Jessa, Jessa, Jessa.” His voice slipped over my shoulder with a teasing croon. I laid out four plates atop the cooler of drinks and pulled out a straw for myself. Then I began to make sandwiches.

  “She wanted to know about the skeleton back there,” Zofia said, tapping the metal bookmark on the back of the novel.

  “Is that true? Were you curious?” Japheem inquired.

  I wasn’t allowed to answer, since Makala had instructed me not to talk. At my lack of reply, he chortled. “Oh, she is a quick learner, this one! What did we call that one we left behind so long ago, waving as we flew away? Judah? I can’t recall.”

  If she had been waving as they flew away and they didn’t return, how had she died there? All she had to do was walk through that crack to the grassy field outside. Setting two slices of bread on each plate, I twisted up the tie and returned it to the cooler. Then I shielded the water bottle with my body, uncapped it, and stuck in the straw. I wouldn’t drink until I was already bent over with putting the fixings on the bread. To have water there and be too nervous just to drink! But I sensed this had to be hidden.

  “Judah. Judy. Julia. Maybe it was Jessa! We shall call her Jessa for the ease of this conversation,” Japheem said. “The first Jessa. She died because we did not come back, I assume. We told that Jessa to wait for us in the caves, and wait she did unto death. An obedient Jessa, that girl turned out to be. She tried to kill herself, a college student who jumped off these very cliffs. So sad about her poor grades, her parents getting a divorce, a boy who broke her heart . . .” He shook his head with an imitation of pity. “I watched her stand at the edge, sobbing and drinking, and then she jumped! Oh, attempted suicides are easy for us to rip. People think that they are about to make their lives so much better, and really . . . and really they are about to get so much worse! What do you think of that, new Jessa?”

  I thought it was horrible. After spreading mayonnaise and mustard upon the bread slices, I broke pieces of lettuce from a head. Japheem said, “Makala, if she doesn’t speak, where is the fun of her companionship? You may speak to me, new Jessa. We are going to be very good friends, and you will know what it is to be claimed by a fallen angel. Oh, once the old Jessa tried to escape. I remember that time. I had to give her a correction, just like one would a very naughty puppy. How she did not like it! Put your hand out to the anemoi, first Jessa! Put your hand out to its big open jaws. Then . . . SNAP!” He giggled and my blood ran cold. “She always remembered her correction, since after that she had to do everything one-handed. Remembered it so well that we could leave her here and fly away. There was food and water to last a while, and then there was none. We meant to come back. But we have so many charming homes that we were quite distracted.”

  While he spoke, I had slipped a granola bar into my pocket and pulled one hard, quick drag through the straw. The water was a relief on my throat. Even though I wanted more, I returned to making sandwiches. Japheem laughed about how the girl had been left behind to die, too scared of these Rippers to walk out into the grass not thirty feet away from where I was standing.

  It was cold in here, even without the wind gushing onto me directly like it had in the cave opening. I broke open a bag of chips and divided the contents onto the four plates. Not wanting to be any closer to the awful music that exuded from Japheem, I took the first plate and bottle of water to Zofia. She motioned to the little table behind her sofa, so I set everything down there.

  Barasho smoothed his hand over Makala’s wing as I returned to the coolers and said, “Is that better?”

  “A little,” Makala said. Her wings disappeared. Drina’s feathers were such a radiant green, and Makala’s were very drab and tinged with a dirty yellow. The brown points were the color of liver. I came over with two more meals for them and stood there uncertainly, since I had nowhere to put them down. Makala turned over in the recliner to lie on her back, and Barasho took the second chair. I gave him a plate and bottle of water, and waited for Makala to get comfortable. She grimaced once she had her plate and said, “I don’t care for turkey. Make me something different.” When she looked up to me, I cast my eyes down in response. She shouldn’t see the irritation I was feeling, since how was I to know that she didn’t like turkey? And it wasn’t like I could ask her either. I carried the plate back to the coolers and set it down. Then I opened up a lid and spotted containers of peanut butter and jelly.

  “Aren’t you going to bring me my sandwich?” Japheem asked softly.

  “Yes,” I said, since I was to answer him. It was hard to walk over, knowing how that music was going to make me feel. His eyes gave me the creeps the way the charcoal was ringed with that bright blue. There was no table beside this sofa, so I handed him the water first, followed by the plate. He caught my wrist and squeezed it so hard that I gasped.

  “Are you a stupid girl, Jessa Bright?” he asked, not in anger but fun.

  “No,” I gasped. The music was pulling me apart but his fist was crushing my wrist together, and it was agony to feel both at the same time. A third pain began, one that was icy cold on the underside of my wrist. His thumb was tracing over my skin.

  “Then do not act stupid!” Japheem said with glee. “I am the one that claimed you, and I am the one you serve first. Let us practice. Who is your fallen angel?”

  Adriel, forever and always. “Japheem.”

  “Good! Oh, good. Maybe you will keep your hands unlike the first Jessa. I will treat you as your first fallen angel should have treated you. Do you know how that will be?”

  I should have jumped from the mouth of the cave the second I awoke. I closed my eyes to bear the pain of the music, the iron vise around my wrist and the cold burning. When he squeezed even more tightly, I writhed and cried out, “No!”

  “No, you do not know! Adriel failed to teach you. You are a thread that ended, Jessa, one never to be of any consequence to this world ever again. This means that when we take you places, you draw no attention to yourself. You do not pass notes to waiters at restaurants pleading for help; you do not catch the eyes of passerby. You cast no shadow upon this world. Because you ended, you see? You ended. What has ended makes no impression any longer. When we send you into a store to order food, you order food. You do not chat with the cashier about anything, save a polite response should he or she comment upon the weather. If asked your name, you give a fake one. If asked who we are, you say your family. We are your family. Then you take the food and leave. You will do this to keep your hand, won’t you?”

  “Yes!” I almost screamed. The pain in my wrist lessened, yet still tho
se ghastly chords plucked within me . . .

  “Japheem, I am waiting for my dinner while you play!” Makala said crossly. Zofia turned a page in her book, still tapping on it with the marker in a staccato beat. He let go and I reeled away to escape the chords. Rubbing my wrist, I returned to the coolers to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

  My skin ached fiercely. In the place that had been burning was a tiny, raw pink mark of a crescent moon pierced by an arrow. He had branded me with his fire. Makala called over that she also didn’t like the chips I had put on the original plate, and to give her cookies instead. I did that and handed her the meal, which at last met with her satisfaction. The tapping stopped, Zofia setting the marker aside to eat.

  What was I to do now? Barasho had a digital reader on his lap, and he was watching a movie as he ate. The radio had been shut off and Makala watched the movie with him. Zofia read and ate, and Japheem was crunching on his chips. I cleaned up around the coolers and sneaked another sip of water. My stomach rumbled. Returning through the crevice seemed like a good idea, but I was hungry and no one had said if I could eat.

  With utmost diffidence, I returned to Japheem to take his empty plate and said, “May I have the last sandwich?”

  “But of course!” Japheem said benevolently. “I want to keep you a good long time, Jessa. When we have been served and everything cleared away, you are to make your own meal and take it to your room. But I expect you first want a tour of this place! Zofia, give her a tour. My leg is not yet up to snuff.”

  Zofia snapped her book shut in annoyance and got off the sofa. I followed her into the other lit room, which had a mattress piled with pillows and blankets. Books and a few pieces of clothing were tossed around. Gesturing to everything, she said, “This is my room.”

  “It’s very nice,” I said.

  “No, it isn’t,” said Zofia.

  Through another crevice was a corridor with several lit caves. One was a bedroom belonging to Japheem. I knew it without the explanation, since the mark on my wrist was burned into the wall. The room had a mattress, although there were fewer pillows upon it, and it was trashed so badly that the floor was invisible. Another room was for Barasho and Makala, and the last lit room had a screen over the entrance. Zofia pulled it away to reveal a bathroom. A portable toilet had been placed over a crack along the floor. It smelled heavily in here of herbal scents to mask the toilet. Lit candles were along the wall to clear the air. Packages of toilet paper and paper towels were stacked up, and there were many containers of water. A shower bag hung from the ceiling, with a tube to carry the wastewater into the crack. A portable sink was in here, too. Zofia said, “You need to refill that rack with paper towels. It’s out.”

  “You live like this?” I blurted. I had never seen anything so crude as this bathroom.

  “We rarely stay here, or for very long,” Zofia said crossly. “We just didn’t want to lead your Graystone friends to one of our better homes.” With a scoff that indicated her living situation was my fault, she walked out of the makeshift bathroom. I used it since I was there and replaced the paper towels on the rack. When I returned to the main room, Zofia was back on her sofa.

  Japheem lit up to see me. “Do you like our place?”

  “Yes, Japheem,” I said.

  “Oh, but you shielded at that, and I am unsure it is the truth,” he chided, and I cursed inwardly that my soul was open for him to read. “But do not worry. Once Makala can fly, we’ll move on to a far grander place. That lovely resort in Orling is a favorite of mine. Darling little vacation homes spread all about and half of them never occupied. Did you give her a pillow and blanket, Zofia?”

  “Just take some off my bed,” Zofia grunted without looking up.

  “Do as she says,” Japheem said, so I took a pillow and blanket from her bed and carried it through the crevice. Even with these things, it was going to be excruciatingly cold tonight. I returned for my water and sandwich. Although I had hoped to eat them alone, Japheem motioned for me to sit beside the sofa at his feet.

  I cringed at the chords and forced myself to eat. He could torture me without ever laying a hand on my flesh. Just to bear his presence was difficult. The chords stripped the food of flavor, and made my jaws feel unhinged as I chewed.

  As I forced down the potato chips, Japheem said in a tender voice, “You might be thinking of jumping tonight, Jessa. But I wish you to know that the anemoi will catch you, and bring you back. Then they will tell me what you did, that you wish to cut the new thread you were given, this second life that belongs to me, not to you. I don’t like to misplace my belongings, and I will be very angry indeed.” His brows lowered. “Are you going to try this tonight?”

  “No,” I said, although if anemoi were not down there, I might have.

  His brows lifted. “Wonderful! And you might think to live, not die, and to try to climb the rocks. Oh, I almost lost two of my belongings that way, but the anemoi helped me to retrieve them. You also might try for that door to the grass outside. But we are quite out of the way here. You won’t find anyone to help before I find you. I expected to have to throw your cell phone away, so no one could track you using it. Why did you not have a cell phone in your pockets, Jessa? Zofia didn’t find one. All you had were keys.” He motioned to Adriel’s keys, which were partially under the sofa. “Was it in your backpack?”

  “Spooner doesn’t have cell service,” I explained. “So I don’t always carry mine with me any longer. There isn’t much point.”

  “Get with the times, eh?” Japheem laughed. “No cell phones. Would you give me one of those chips?”

  It wasn’t like I had the ability to say no. I gave him one. His fingers brushed against my fingers and he shook his head. “The amount of shielding on you . . . oh, the first Jessa had that, too. It is normal. It will fade in time, once you come to accept your new circumstances. Right now part of you still believes that you own yourself. But one day, one day soon, you will light up to see me.”

  I doubted that very much. Once I had finished my meal, he flicked his finger to indicate I could clean up my trash. I made it last a long time, just to have some separation from the abominable music that he exuded in a miasma all about him. Makala laughed at something about the movie.

  “Jessa.”

  I turned around. “Yes, Japheem?”

  “You are going to tuck me in bed now.” Dread filled me at the prospect of going to his bedroom with him, but he pointed to the blanket over his sofa. I unfolded it and set it over him, making sure to cover his feet. He jerked his head to the crevice to dismiss me.

  Night was falling outside, and the wind had died down a little. I made a bed for myself with the blanket and pillow close to the skeleton. Then I crept to the edge and looked down. Anemoi played down there, tumbling about on the wind and barely discernible. Into the cliffs they splashed, dashing their pieces in white wisps all around, coming back together and darting over the sea to let the wind propel them into the cliffs again. One saw me looking out, because a growl passed up to the cave. I couldn’t go up or down, to either side, I couldn’t go through that crack to the grass to freedom . . . I could go nowhere, and nobody knew I was here. The Kreelings weren’t looking, and Adriel had not seen me abducted in order to follow.

  My wrist throbbed. I hated to have his mark burned into my flesh. This would heal with a scar, marking me forever as his. If only I had gone to the compound . . . I’d be locked away and resentful there, thinking of everything in my life that I was going to miss out upon, and not knowing there was a worse existence out there. I thought of that naïve girl in anger for what she didn’t know.

  But I had made my decision to risk it. So this was it, my life as it was now and until it ended. I belonged to Rippers. Wrapping myself in the blanket, I buried my face in the pillow and cried.

  Chapter Fifteen: The Darkness

  The Graystones had wanted nothing from me, only to live and go on with my life, a second chance to do as I would. Often
over the days to pass, I thought of the human man that Drina ripped, the one she decided she could not keep since it was wrong to deny the man his liberty. The Rippers felt no such compunction about me. I was the hand to light their candles, make their meals and fix their beds, change the radio station and clean up after them. I would have rather been in Drina’s hands, drinking down the sleeping draught to send me to death. That man hadn’t known how lucky he was to be captured by her, rather than fallen angels such as these.

  Makala’s next set of feathers was growing in, a mix of healthy and singed, and she had me pick up the singed ones after Barasho smoothed them out of her wings. As I did, she spoke hatefully of Drina, who had been the one to wound her. “It’s been so long since we’ve seen her. Do you even remember Drina, Barasho?”

  “Yes,” Barasho said.

  “How dare she do this when we were once friends! Why did she involve herself? This wasn’t her affair.” She grimaced as more of her feathers came free. I picked them up and put them in a plastic grocery bag. Makala continued to grouse. That Drina who had withdrawn her friendship how many thousands of years ago; Drina who thought that she had some lock on ethics. Ever the goody-goody, that was Drina taking in the newly fallen and raising them as her own sons and daughters like she was the only one who could do it. But Makala could as well!

  Lifting her head, Makala spoke directly to me. “Did you know that?”

  “No,” I said, since she wanted an answer.

  She pointed to Zofia. “I can raise them, too! Look at my daughter! Such a bedraggled thing she was, living as a homeless person after her fall. Foraging from garbage cans for food and sleeping in filth. I found her and brought her home. And isn’t she beautiful?” Without waiting for a reply, she looked away. Rippers didn’t see their wings and fire as ugly. And yes, Zofia was an airbrushed perfection, but I couldn’t find her beautiful. Not when she was a Ripper. Makala returned to cursing Drina for saying it was wrong to rip humans. When no one else was supposed to have them, why should fallen angels feel guilty about helping themselves?