Light

by Adrienne Woods

  I found my real mom running up the stairs, not making a sound, but she looked everything except my mom now. My mouth gaped as I just stared at this woman in front of me. She changed her skirt, with her camisole and knitted top and pumps for something that resembled Beavis and Butthead outside, but completely black.

  Her red hair was taken up into a bun.

  She had a black backpack over her shoulder. Crazy scenarios filled my mind as mom walked past me and she smiled slightly as she closed my gaping mouth.

  “Let’s go,” she said, and as she walked past my room she spoke softly – I couldn’t hear what she’d said – and closed the door. We walked all the way to the back to the hall, toward her and Tim’s room. I just stared at her.

  Mom turned around. “Chastity! Come.”

  I did what she said as she pulled down the string that hung from the roof. The attic’s ladder pulled down and she helped me climb up it.

  It was dusty and dark and I had an urge to cough but I knew if I did, Beavis and Butthead would hear us and all our plans would be ruined, so I breathed into my arm and hope that my scent would take away the old dusty smell.

  When my mother’s body emerged, she pulled up the ladder. It was pitch dark, and I couldn’t see a thing in front of me. A couple of seconds later the light went on. I jumped because I hadn’t even heard my mom walking past me. How the hell had she become so quiet? Who was she?

  “Mom, you’re scaring me. What are we doing up in the attic.”

  “You’ll see. Trust me.”

  I nodded. Even though I had no idea about this side of my mother. One thing I knew was that I could trust her, she was my mom, even though she resembled a modern day Sarah Connor.

  “Mom, is it true what they said, about my father? Does this have anything to do with him?”

  “Yes, and no,” Mom spoke fast and soft as she opened the lid of an old black chest.

  My eyes grew as she took out a bow similar to the one Leigh had carried with him last night, just very modern. I found myself at once in front of the chest. “Where did you get this?” I touched the bow softly. It was missing the string.

  “It was your father’s,” she said as she took out a couple of other items. An old green coin bag with golden symbols on them.

  A knife with a black hilt and a whip that was looped up. She added it to a sheath she was carrying around her waist and hid it with her leather jacket.

  I just stared at her. I couldn’t believe that was my mother.

  “Don’t look at me like that. I had to do what I had to do. Giving you a normal life, meant letting go of mine.” She touched my cheek softly. “I’m still your mother.”

  “Yes, a mother who has a kickass side to her,” I said.

  She laughed softly. “That’s my girl.”

  “So I take it we’re not leaving with Beavis and Butthead?”

  “No.”

  “Mom, how do you expect to get past them? Unless you know Kung Fu or something.”

  “We are not going past them.” My mother had a glint in her eye, something I’d rarely seen when she played with me as a child. She smiled and took three small oval devices out of the chest. They were a soft grey with a mushy gel substance in the middle.

  “What’s that?”

  She pulled out a side lever of the chest and ten guns lay in their matching sockets.

  I gasped softly. I only saw Tim’s gun once, but it wasn’t as beautiful as these. Mom took all of them out and placed it into a big black bag. There weren’t any bullets but something told me that she didn’t need any bullets. Her golden dust would make them appear out of nowhere.

  “Vinique,” one of the guys from the SUV, called and Mom’s head shot to the entrance of the attic. I pictured them finding the other mom, sitting frozen on my bed. I didn’t know if she was still in a trance or not but when she started to yell at them and I heard Duke’s voice cussing, followed by hollow sounds of footsteps, I knew that they bought whatever fake-mom said to them.

  “We’ve got to go. Now.”

  I followed my mother’s gaze to the door that led to the attic. “How the hell—”

  A buzzing noise came from the wall of the attic and my head shot back. My mother stood right in front of it.

  It was the same light from yesterday, the one Leigh told me to go to if I wanted to get back to my world. The light formed a vortex. I couldn’t stop looking at it. It was so beautiful.

  It got bigger and bigger. My mother reached out her hand to me. “Trust me.”

  I hesitated for a few short seconds and then took my mother’s hand and nodded.

  She smiled.

  The following words that left her mouth didn’t make any sense. The only thing I got was the word Montana before she jumped into the vortex with my hand firmly inside of hers, and the last thing I remembered was a huge bright flash.

  EVERYTHING SPUN FOR THE NEXT COUPLE OF

  seconds, my body, my head, even my stomach. When I felt like barfing, I landed with a thud on hard surface with my face in the dirt.

  I spat out a few leaves, ground and twigs out of my mouth. My chin ached and when I touched it, my fingers were covered blood, but not so much that I needed a transfusion.

  My stomach was still turning and I crawled on all fours to the nearest tree and threw up.

  “Chas,” My mother’s warm hand touched my back and took my hair out of the way so it wouldn’t get drenched with vomit.

  “Please tell me this is a dream and you’re waking me up to go to school.” I pleaded, ignoring the horrible swirling in the gut of my stomach.

  “I wish it was that easy, honey. We’re safe for now, but they’ll come again.”

  I opened my eyes as I smelled something horribly sweet like chocolate. “Here, eat this. It helps with the after effects.”

  It was dark, almost black. “What is it?”

  “A piece of pure chocolate, the kind you’ve never had before.”

  I took a small piece and bit hard. It was sweet and bitter at the same time, but she was right about the effect rushing from my body. I took another bite and kept it inside my mouth this time, until it completely melted away.

  The spinning subdued and you wouldn’t have known that we’d just gone through a carousel out of hell and landed into the middle of a forest.

  Looking up, I saw tall, high trees surrounded us.

  There wasn’t anything for miles or a road in sight.

  “You feeling better?” my mom asked and I knew she wasn’t just talking about my injuries or my stomach. She touched my chin softly. “I’ll fix that later.”

  I nodded.

  “Take two more minutes. I’ve got to find out where exactly we are.” She took out a map and started looking at it intensely while I took another breather.

  “So who were those men?”

  “They are Selene’s Seekers. People that find people like us in the Domain.”

  “The Domain?”

  “This world, Chas.”

  “Are you a Seeker too?”

  She smiled. “Not entirely, but sort of.”

  “Then why are we running from them, mom?”

  “It’s one of those things that you’d need a cup of coffee and I’d need a brandy to discuss.”

  A brandy? “You never drink.”

  “You make me sound like a saint. Believe me, your father was the saint. Not me.”

  I couldn’t believe that. Everyone that knew Vinique Swanson-Blake knew she had a kind heart. She loved animals just as much as I did, she worked at charity funds to help the poor, even threw out my old clothes to give to the homeless children. She was a saint.

  She looked around, gazing at the map every five seconds.

  “So what, are you in some kind of trouble with them for leaving with me?”

  Mom just smiled. I hated this small gesture that answered absolutely none of my questions.

  “Mom!”

  “The clone kept me and Tim from danger, for now. Those men are far
gone by now, baby. We can discuss all of this later, right now I need to get us to the cabin first.”

  I looked around. “What cabin? All I see are trees.” I turned my head and looked around some more. “And more trees. Look …another tree.”

  A giggle escaped my mother’s lips. “Nice to know you are turning into your old self again. Let’s go.”

  We picked up our bags and I followed her as we walked past more trees.

  We walked for hours, the trees were really starting to make me feel claustrophobic and extremely small, not to mention how many boulders we had to cross, and two streams. There was no way there was a cabin anywhere.

  Birds chirped and I looked up. The trees almost blocked the sky, but not entirely. I skipped over another boulder that was in my path and ran up to stay close to mom’s pace. Another thing, she’d gotten really fast.

  A huge electric noise filled the air and my mother flew backwards as she connected with it. I screamed and ran where my mother’s body had landed. She was lying with her eyes closed.

  “No, no, no.” I repeated fast as I touched her body to wake her up. “Mom,” I yelled.

  I shook her some more, she didn’t even stir. I laid my head on her chest. She was still breathing and her heart was still beating, so I could rule out death.

  “Help!” I cried out, but it only made the birds fly away. I cried out a couple more times, but nobody answered me back.

  “Wake up, please.” I shook her again. “I can’t do this alone. Please.”

  She didn’t respond and I knew we were so screwed. Who knew what sort of animals were going to wake up when the sun went down and see us as an easy meal.

  I didn’t even know how to make a fire or anything. How was I going to defend us from anything? I grabbed my mother’s bag.

  These don’t work with bullets you idiot.

  I tried to make my sand emerge again, but nothing happened. I was really scared and it had worked yesterday. Why didn’t it work now?

  I shook my mom again. “Please wake up.” I felt like crying, like that day I’d lost my mom in the shops. It was so scary and although I was really small, I still remember that. Tim found me and it was how the two of them met.

  The incident from yesterday came next. It seemed so far away now, but it wasn’t. It was real and those men had erased my best ex-friend’s mind to think that she was still my best friend. What did a complete mind sweep looked like? Would it have worked on mom, since she was one of them?

  My backpack was much softer than my mother’s and I placed it gently underneath her head and sat down with my back resting against the nearest tree.

  What the hell happened to her? I tried to see if I couldn’t see the magnetic field that caused her to be in the state she was, but there was absolutely nothing. No buzzing noise, nothing.

  Then my biological father made his way into my thoughts too. I knew absolutely nothing about the man. The only thing I did know was that he was Asian. Mom didn’t like speaking about how they met, but they made one hell of a stunning looking kid. One that had mom’s blue eyes and dad’s raven black hair with slightly narrowed eyes.

  I pulled my hoody closer as a breeze brushed through the trees. I could be glad that it wasn’t winter, because if it was, we would’ve frozen to death right here on this spot.

  What my mother had said made me wonder about a lot of things. She said that Dad was the saint, she wasn’t. Mom was always the one who wanted to keep peace between me and Tim. She’d never say a bad word or gossip about someone. How could she not have been a saint? What was her past like and how did my real Dad fit into all of this?

  To be honest, I used to think the other way around. Like dad was some sort of Chinese drug lord and that mom desperately tried to hide from him. It was one of the reasons that explained why she never wanted to answer my Daddy questions.

  Did we have money stashed somewhere? I shook my head. I didn’t know why I’d even thought about that. But it saddened me that I really didn’t know anything. It was unfair. My entire life had been a lie, my mother should’ve said something.

  My mind wandered back to last night’s dream. I remembered what Leigh said. He’d told me that I could choose. Choose what? Not to be on the run, this life. Nothing made any sense. Mom couldn’t die right now.

  Suddenly, she grunted and started to stir. I crawled back to her side.

  Then finally her eyes flung open. They looked bewildered and she jumped up with protective hands over me as she realized what had happened. Shock and surprised reflected back as she noticed the trees again.

  “We’re alone.” I said.

  Mom still looked around. “What happened?”

  “One minute we were still walking and the next you somersaulted back in the air and landed right here. You were out for two hours.”

  “Two hours?”

  I nodded. “I was scared mom.”

  She grabbed me tight and held me against her chest. “I’m okay for now. I think I found the cabin.”

  I pushed her gently back to see her face. “What, where?”

  A smile appeared on her face, and she pointed into the direction we were heading a couple of hours ago. “Right there.”

  I looked. Squinted, and shook my head. “Mom, there’s nothing there.”

  A heartfelt laughter left her mouth, and she got up, and crouched down next to her bag. “There is nothing there, yet.”

  She pulled two black gloves over her hands, and picked up the green coin bag with the golden symbols on it. I just stared at her with eyes filled with questions and curiosity.

  Mom took out golden sand. It was just a pinch and it shined like golden diamonds on the black gloves. She walked a couple of paces toward the place that had injured her badly.

  “Mom, be careful, please.”

  She stopped and blew the dust gently from her glove.

  At first nothing happened and then something started to appear. It was hard to explain.

  I thought about an artist painting and how his paint brush formed outlines on the canvas first. This wasn’t exactly like that, but as close as I could get to what I saw.

  The roof of the cabin appeared first and it was like an invisible blanket was being pulled off the rest.

  I just stared at the cabin and heard mom giggle. “I knew it was here somewhere.” She looked at me and closed my mouth softly. “I’ll explain everything. Come.”

  We walked up the steps of the cabin. It smelled like wood, like pine.

  “No, key?”

  “It doesn’t need a key, sweetheart. Oh, shoot.” She turned back and walked past me again, took out another pinch of sand out of the bag and placed it into a small pot that hadn’t been there a minute ago.

  “Oh, shoot,” I said in a sarcastic tone. She looked back at me. “Yeah, you’re really badass, mom.”

  She laughed and nudged me inside the door playfully.

  The cabin resembled any cabin. It had a small lounge, a table with chairs right opposite a small kitchen and stairs that led to hopefully two rooms with a working bathroom.

  I put my backpack on the couch while mom put hers on the kitchen table and walked into the kitchen and started opening every cupboard. She took out more of the golden sand from the green coin bag and blew a bit softly into each cupboard before she closed it.

  Curiosity killed the cat, or in this case made me bolt to the kitchen to see what she was doing.

  I opened the one cupboard she was done with and found it stacked with food. Every cupboard had different types of food. Pastas, cereals, rice, cookies, chips… you named it, it was somewhere in one of these cupboards.

  I found a bottle of brandy in Mom’s hand and a glass in the other. “You want that cup of coffee now?”

  I stared at her and back into the cupboards. “Mom, what is this?”

  “Coffee it is then.”

  “I don’t understand. What’s in that bag? Magic dust?”

  “Something like that.” The kettle boiled and I j
ust stared at the food stacked in all the cupboards.

  Mom never liked junk food, but here it was, junk food, upon junk food, and more junk food.

  “Mom?” I looked at her who already had a glass of light brown liquid mixed with a couple of ice cubes in her hands. “This is really starting to freak me out. What’s going on? Why did we have to run from those people if we’re like them? And how do you know about my dream?”

  She just gave me a sad look – it was laced with guilt – that much I could tell.

  She didn’t answer and turned around when the kettle finished and poured hot water in a mug with a spoon’s handle sticking out. I watched her take out a jar of milk from the fridge.

  I found myself in front of the fridge as she closed it and opened it again. A gasp left my mouth as food stacked for at least fifteen people stared back at me.

  “This is nuts.”

  “Come sit with me and we’ll talk.” Mom pulled out a chair at the small table made for four.

  I blew out a gush of air and went over, pulled out the chair opposite Mom and plunged down. The cup of coffee stood right in front of me, steam wafting from it. I wasn’t really even in the mood for one, but if coffee was the only thing that would make her talk about all the paranormal things that had been going on these twenty-odd hours, then I welcomed the coffee with open arms.

  My mother let out a huge breath before taking another sip of her brandy.

  “Before we begin, I need you to answer me one thing, Chas.”

  I nodded.

  “What color was the sand in your dreams?”

  .

  “WHAT?”

  “The color of the sand, Chas. The sand coming from your hands?”

  I closed my eyes and shook my head. “How in the world do you know what I dreamt about?”

  “Chastity, I need to know. It’s very important.”

  “No, mom. I need to know what the hell is going on.”

  “Fine!” she sighed again. She pulled her black glove resting on the table back over her hand and pick up the small green bag – was far from a coin bag – opened it and took out pure golden dust again. It sparkled, and the contrast against the black glove made the sand even more sparkling. “This belonged to your father,” she said as she played with the golden dust with her index finger. She smiled at a memory forming on her mind and then it disappeared with another sigh.