The Affliction

by Wendy E. Marsh

  “So what are we doing?” I asked, as I walked with him down the main stairs and out through the back door in what seemed like a blur.

  “Having some fun,” he replied, smiling playfully.

  I smiled back and he turned to the moon-washed yard, which looked completely different at night. The sky was clear again, a black sea splotched with diamonds and a waning moon that shone ghost light over the midnight landscape. My head swam a little but I giggled at the way the lights streaked and at how light I felt, intoxicated from the shots…and from Gabriel.

  “You haven’t had a chance to push your limits,” he said. “Follow me!” And he took off at a run after a last glance back at me, grinning freely as I hadn’t seen him do before. I laughed and obliged, chasing after him towards the obstacle field.

  Crickets and peepers played familiar music in surround sound, bringing the night to life, while a thousand lightning bugs danced to the sound of the summer night, riddling the field with flashing stars of its own and turning it into magic.

  I had to run fast to keep up with him, the air cool on my cheeks, the scent of field grasses flooding my olfactory system. I’d never exerted so much effort to catch up to someone and it felt good. I could feel my muscles working, straining, as I pushed to stay with him. Gabriel was fast, I realized. Faster than me, and the challenge excited me.

  “Hey, wait up!” I giggled.

  “Catch me,” he taunted, laughing as he disappeared into the tree line.

  I slowed down, not sure I could run through the woods in the dark. I had never tried it before, but my eyes adapted to the night without a problem; not seeing as in daylight, but everything visible and distinguished in hues of gray, blue and green. I jogged through a gap in the trees, pushing through a lining of golden rod and brush and saw Gabriel jump and grab onto a tree limb about twenty yards in front of me. He swung himself up and held onto a branch above his head as he stood looking down at me as I slowed further.

  “I’m drunk,” I called up to him, “I can’t do that!”

  “Sure you can!” he said, and when I stopped at the bottom of the tree and looked uncertainly up at him he said seriously, “I won’t let you fall.”

  My heart pounded furiously and I didn’t hesitate. I trust him, I thought, as I backed up to get a running start and leaped into the cool air. For a second I feared I would miss and fall on my face, but my hands clasped onto the smooth bark and I pulled myself up onto the limb like the maneuver was hardwired into my brain.

  I felt so alive and giddy with the rush of adrenaline as it coursed through me. We both laughed and Gabriel started to climb higher. “See, you can do it! Just let yourself go!”

  I followed him higher, climbing the branches like a twisted ladder, reveling in the thrill of not holding back for once in my life and for being me…for being free with someone who knew the real me.

  The forest was dense enough that branches overlapped from one tree to the next, so we hopped from the maple we were in to a cherry. I glanced down as I easily cleared the ten-foot gap and squealed as I looked at the thirty-foot drop to a bed of ferns below.

  Gabriel waited for me to make sure I made it into the cherry, whose bark was rougher on my hands, and half caught me as I landed at his side.

  “That’s a big drop!” I gasped, as Gabriel chuckled, his left arm still wrapped around my shoulders.

  I looked up into his handsome face, so close, and the intimacy didn’t bother me like it had earlier, but he must have remembered my hesitation from before and pulled away to keep climbing. Just those few moments, with his arm holding me close, were enough to take my breath away. That’s when I realized that I didn’t necessarily want him to pull away.

  “Oh, just wait till we hit the really tall ones!” He said, leaping to yet another tree. I continued on with him through the woods in amazement of my physical abilities, thus far undiscovered, until I heard the sound of slowly flowing water below. I came to a stop beside him on a particularly wide branch belonging to a tree at the edge of the same creek that ran in front of Headquarters and had provided the mirror I needed to find it.

  “It’s deeper back here,” he said, indicating a wide, dark pool at the base of a series of tiny waterfalls. “You trust me?” he asked, uncertain if I truly did.

  “Yes,” I said without hesitation, surprising both of us, his eyes alight with exhilaration.

  “Okay, then we’re jumping in,” he declared.

  “From here?” I gasped, once again considering the distance to the surface, which had now grown to fifty feet at least.

  “Yeah, well, I prefer to dive in,” he claimed.

  “Okay, with all our clothes on?”

  “Unless you want to take them off,” he said suggestively with a sly grin.

  I scowled at him, looked back to the creek and took a deep breath in before jumping feet first towards the water below. My stomach twirled and I let out an involuntary, elated scream as the air rushed past and I closed my eyes shut tight before hitting the surface and submerging into surprisingly warm water. My feet didn’t touch bottom and as I swam towards the surface I heard Gabriel plunge into the pool to my right.

  I surfaced a little before Gabriel and looked around to find him, but I didn’t see any signs that he had entered the water at all. I spun in a circle, confused when he didn’t reappear.

  “Gabriel?” I called. “Gabriel, where are you?” I said a little louder, a little more worry creeping into my voice as the stillness of the night overwhelmed me. And then something grabbed my ankle, pulling me down under the surface and I tried to scream but my mouth filled with water.

  I opened my eyes but couldn’t see Gabriel or anything else as the unknown creature pulled me deeper. I started to panic, kicking and flailing my arms in an attempt to struggle back towards the surface until suddenly Gabriel appeared in front of me and it clicked. He had gone invisible.

  I could see him laughing, even under water, as he pulled me towards the top. When we hit the air I pushed him away and swam to the edge of the pool, coughing into the leaves on the ground.

  “Oh, come on, Aubrie, you have to admit that was good,” he laughed, swimming over beside me.

  “Oh, yes, hilarious,” I said, but I had to admit to myself that it was.

  “I’m sorry, it was just too perfect of an opportunity,” he said, and I rolled my eyes.

  “It’s fine, just wait till I get you back,” I taunted, grinning as I savored the thought while giving him a playful shove.

  “Come on, I want to show you something else,” he said, swimming backward towards the center of the creek.

  I raised my eyebrows skeptically. “What now?” I asked.

  “Nothing bad,” he said. “I promise.”

  “All right, fine,” I agreed, “but no funny stuff.”

  “Okay, okay. No funny stuff. Hold your breath,” he said, and then dove back under the water.

  I submerged myself, keeping my eyes open so I could follow him. He swam towards the bottom, which I still couldn’t see, and I was afraid I would run out of oxygen, but then I had always been able to hold my breath longer than anyone else.

  I attended a birthday party for a girl named Katie when I was little, where we played a version of tag in the pool, only you couldn’t tag the person if she was under water. Even then I knew the other girls suspected something when I kept winning, so I would pretend to run out of breath. I think the damage had been done though. Katie never invited me back.

  Gabriel seemed to have a similar lung capacity to myself. He showed no signs of breathlessness as we finally reached what looked like the bottom and he disappeared again. I was shocked, but only momentarily. I propelled myself further and saw his feet slip through an opening that hadn’t been visible before.

  I pulled myself into the narrow, rocky tunnel and followed Gabriel’s feet until we emerged into the air once more, treading water inside a small cavern.

  “Wow,” I exclaimed, pulling myself out of the water
onto a wet, slimy rock. “This is so pretty,” I said, gaping at the walls, which glowed sapphire blue and emerald green.

  “Awesome, isn’t it?” Gabriel said, climbing up beside me.

  “Why do they glow like that?” I asked.

  “Don’t know,” he shrugged. “We do know that past Mystics did it though.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Well, it seems to be organic, so we figure Shamans grew it, although Adam and Eleanor have never done it and they said they never learned anything about it in their training.” I looked at him skeptically. “And besides that,” he continued as he stood up and walked to the far wall, “there are symbols painted onto the stone over here.”

  “What do they mean?” I asked as I stood beside him and stared at the meaningless marks on the wall.

  “Well, this one here,” he said, pointing to what looked like a feather overlying a circle, “is our symbol, the sign of the Mystic.”

  I touched the feather with my fingertips and felt a surge of energy pulsing between my skin and the stone. I retracted my hand quickly, though there hadn’t been any sensation of pain involved.

  Gabriel smiled. “You can feel it,” he said excitedly.

  “Yeah, can you?” I asked.

  “No, apparently only Sages can. Here, try this one,” he said, grabbing my wrist and hesitantly pressing my fingers to a black handprint on the wall.

  As soon as I touched it I blanched. It felt like ice on my fingertips and a streak of yellow crossed my vision, followed by darkness. I yelled out and stumbled backward, and the cavern room came back into view.

  “What the hell is that?” I asked, eyeing the hand warily.

  “Sorry, I wanted to see your reaction to it. That’s the hand of the Black Shadow.”

  “What’s it doing in here?”

  He didn’t answer and instead just pointed to a third painting. I pressed my fingers to a handprint which appeared as though it obscured a feather even though I thought I knew what would happen.

  The glowing lights extinguished, turning the world to black and white and a sense of terror overwhelmed me until I tore my hand from the wall and walked away.

  “The Apocalypse,” I said.

  He nodded. “I said my mom was the first to predict the formation of the Black Shadow and the Apocalypse. And she was, to anyone’s knowledge, until we realized these symbols have been here for over a hundred years. At least one Sage knew a long time ago what would happen.”

  “So this stuff,” I said, running my hands over the glowing walls, which up close appeared to be covered in some sort of moss that felt like silk, “You think Shamans grew it, that it wasn’t just already here before?” I questioned, trying to absorb everything he’d said.

  “Have you ever seen anything like it?” he asked.

  “No,” I conceded, “it’s just weird,” I commented.

  “Very. This whole place is weird. But cool,” he added, taking a last look around at the gem hued walls. “Come on, let’s go back.”

  I agreed and slid back into the water, following him back through the tunnel to the deep pool. When we stepped back onto dry land I shivered, cold in the night air after swimming in the heated creek.

  “Ick,” I said, shaking my leg, “my jeans are stuck to my skin.” I noticed the effects of the alcohol started to wear off, but I could tell by the way I moved that I wasn’t totally clear yet.

  “Oh, hey come here,” Gabriel said softly, and I looked up to see that he was already dry.

  “How did you do that?” I asked in awe, stepping close to him. He opened his arms and I let him pull me into his warm body as he held me close to his chest and laid his head on top of mine. I guessed he stood just a couple inches shy of six feet tall. I could hear his heart beating fast and I smiled. I was glad I made his heart race like he did mine.

  “There, better?” he asked and pulled away a little too quickly for my liking. I couldn’t dwell on it for too long though, as I realized my clothes and hair had completely dried too.

  “Holy crap, you’re amazing!” I exclaimed, making him laugh.

  “Guardian talent,” he explained. “Just after I started training, I pulled a kid out of Lake Erie near where we hunted a Davo in the middle of winter. He had apparently been ice fishing with his dad and he fell through into the water. I went invisible so nobody could see me dive in after him; they would’ve thought I was crazy. I pushed him back up onto the ice and held him to try to warm him up. It shocked me when I realized we were both dry; I hadn’t mastered that skill yet but most of my talents developed when I was faced with death; either mine or someone else’s.”

  “Wow. Do you think it will take that much for me to learn how to be a Sage?” I asked.

  “I hope not,” he said, a sudden tone of sadness in his voice. “Come on, let’s head back.”

  Chapter 17

  I was much sprightlier and a lot less giddy in the trees than I had been the first time through, but a lot more daring as well. We had to be a hundred feet from the ground when I jumped to a new tree and my foot slipped. At first, I thought I could catch myself but both of my hands pawed fruitlessly against the trunk of the tree, scraping the palms of my hands and my forearms as I fell. My legs banged painfully against branches as I shrieked Gabriel’s name and fell too fast towards the ground onto which I knew I would splatter in a few seconds.

  “Aubrie!” Gabriel called, and I felt him fall past me when I managed to cling to a small vine for a few seconds. He landed on a sturdy limb then jumped to catch me in midair when my fingers slipped from the vine and we fell together to the ground. He landed smoothly on his feet with me wrapped around him as tightly as I could manage.

  My breathing was still unsteady as he walked with me in his arms back toward the field. “Told you I wouldn’t let you fall,” he breathed in my ear, and I chuckled.

  “You did say that,” I replied, still in a little bit of shock that slowly turned into awe.

  He set me down next to the river rock fountain where we had talked earlier in the day and plopped down next to me, the gently flowing water relaxing in the background.

  “Let me see your arms,” he whispered and gently turned my hands over to look at the tiny streaks of blood from the tree bark.

  “I think I’ll live,” I said jokingly, but Gabriel remained serious.

  “I’m not a Shaman and I can’t heal, but maybe an old fashioned trick will make you feel better,” he said as he brought my arms to his lips and kissed my wrists so lightly I felt as though my body stopped living for a few seconds, my heartbeat faltering, my breath catching, and the temperature suddenly hot. Then he continued to kiss up my arms, one at a time, his lips avoiding the scrapes but restarting my body, which was now overwhelmed with sensation. Finally, he sat back upright and left me wanting much more, but I was thankful he restrained himself first.

  I couldn’t look at him anymore so I turned my head to the sky.

  “Big dipper,” I said breathlessly, pointing to the constellation of stars on my right.

  “North star,” Gabriel replied, pointing at his identification.

  I scoured the sky and gave up. “Yeah, that’s about all I know,” I admitted and he laughed.

  “You missed the little dipper,” he taunted.

  “All right, so show me another one.”

  “Can’t. That’s all I know, too,” and we both laughed. He let his arm fall back down and it touched mine, surely purposefully. I took a sharp breath in as my skin once again erupted with sensation and I felt hot excitement surge through my body that I didn’t want to hold back.

  I turned my head to look at him and he looked at me with blue eyes scorching the same way I knew mine were.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he said in a deep, soft voice, touching the side of my face with his warm hand. I took a deep breath in and sighed, leaving my eyes closed for a few seconds as I reveled in the feeling of his touch. I leaned closer to him and his lips gently touched mine, moving
softly together, and then more passionately, as though we were hungry for each other, starving, and finally getting a taste of forbidden fruit. My hands found his chest, his stomach. I slipped my hand beneath the hem of his shirt, wanting to feel his skin and he pulled away.

  “I’m sorry,” he breathed. “I can’t…not yet…nobody’s ever…” he struggled to explain, looking nervous.

  I bit my lip and reached for his hand. “It’s okay,” I said as he leaned his forehead against mine. “I know. You let a wall slip.” He sighed and moved so my head was on his shoulder, his arm around me.

  “I’m afraid…of what you’ll think of the scars. I’ve never shown anyone before.”

  “Who was the girl?” I asked, referring to the image I’d seen when he let the wall down.

  He sighed. “I had a girlfriend a few years ago, an outsider in Pittsburgh. She didn’t know what I was and I never planned to tell her. It was kinda nice for a while, pretending to be normal. I told her I’d been in a car accident, hence the scars, but I never took my shirt off, even when we…”

  I nodded, not needing to hear the details.

  “It was all superficial, lots of partying and being stupid. It got old after a while, once the novelty wore off. I realized that I couldn’t be normal and that I didn’t want to be. Plus, I hadn’t been taking as many jobs from the Mystic and I missed my family here, so I moved back to Headquarters and haven’t talked to her since.”

  “I see. So what do you want now?” I asked.

  “You,” he said simply and I rolled my eyes, trying to hide the jolt of pleasure that had just rolled through me. “But seriously, I don’t have to be superficial with you,” he said as he intertwined his fingers in mine and ran his thumb along my hand.

  “I don’t want to move too fast either,” I said. I knew his scars embarrassed him and he feared that they would scare me.

  He smiled but didn’t say anything more as he held me and stared out into the enchanting field.

  “Let’s go back inside,” I suggested after a while. He nodded and helped me to my feet. We walked slowly back to Headquarters, sober and silent. I looked up at him a few times, but he appeared to be deep in thought and debating internally about something.