by Kelly Hall
Talon and I received strict orders to stay inside, do our chores, and not leave the house for any reason other than it being on fire. Mom would call and check in on us, which was why the home phone would be off the hook and our cells would be turned off. We’d pay for it later, but it would hold us over. Mom and Tom wouldn’t rush Granny along and they’d never suspect that she was stalling them to help us out.
“Hurry up; we don’t have time for you to fix your hair,” Talon snapped, walking up behind me in the bathroom.
I wrapped the band around my hair and let the ponytail go. “I’m just putting it up; it gets in the way if I don’t.”
“Why don’t you cut it?”
“Because I like it long,” I snapped. “I’m done. Let’s go.” I pushed past him and started out. He stopped me, grabbing me by the arm. The heat in his touch and my face and chest burned as I waited for him to say something; anything. Instead he just glared. But something—worry, or regret, marred his expression. He turned me loose and hurried to meet the others. I stood frozen. Holly calling me made me snap to attention.
I followed her out in time to see Talon start his bike and take off, not even waiting on me. I guess I should have known I wouldn’t be riding out with him. I just didn’t think about it until that moment. He drove away without looking back. Holly and Hunter followed.
After they’d made it past the reflectors, Owen spoke up. “He’s not coming back, Lily.” He held out his hand to me. “Come on.”
I walked over and started to climb on back, but Owen slid back on the seat. “You ride in front.” He helped me up and reached around me to the handlebars, his arms caging me in safely. Then he whispered in my ear. “I’ll always put you first, you know, and stay behind you, no matter what.” I knew he meant more than just riding four-wheelers. “And Lily, I’d never—ever—leave you behind.” His breath warmed my neck, his lips softly brushed behind my ear.
“I know.” I wanted to say more, but what?
“Well, we better get to catching up.” He reached around me to turn the key. As he went to lean back, I kissed his cheek.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“You’re welcome.” He smiled. Then the wind licked my face as we took off.
***
We arrived at the clearing in front of the house shortly after the others.
“It’s about time.” Holly threw her arms into the air. “We were about to go back for you two; thought you might have broken down.”
“We were just talking,” I said, as Owen helped me down.
“You let her drive?” Hunter asked. “After that last stunt she pulled? You’re a brave man.”
I waited for Owen to make a cheeky remark, but he didn’t. Talon cleared his throat and changed the subject. “We better get moving.”
We gathered near the porch as Hunter checked a window. “It’s too dark in there. I’m not sure if that trap she talked about got reset or if it existed at all, but whatever that light is, it might be protected too.”
“It came from under the house didn’t it?” Owen asked.
Hunter seemed to study the house. “Yeah, but we didn’t find anything under there but more rocks.”
“Like those.” I pointed to the rocks that made the supports for the house, which were all shapes and sizes and carefully stacked together into short pillars to make a level foundation. “Is it just me or do those rocks look familiar to anyone else?”
“They look just like the stones that surround the well,” Owen said. “Exactly like them.”
“So what about the stones under the house, are they just like this?” I asked, figuring there might be a reason that the rocks might have matched.
“Yeah, they are. They build a wall too, like the short one around the well. Something is blocked off down there, maybe a cellar,” Hunter said. “Come on. Holly, Lily, you two be the look-outs. Talon. Owen. You two come with me inside, we’ll see if there’s anyone home.” He started up the steps.
“No, I’m going under the house,” I said, dropping to my knees to see beneath.
Hunter grabbed me by the back of my shirt. “No way, Lily, you have no idea how creepy it is under there and dangerous. There could be spiders, snakes, anything. Rats even.”
“And I have this,” I patted my pocket, referring to my flask. “I’ll be fine. Besides, I’m not asking permission.” Hunter looked at Talon who made a face that said he disapproved.
“Send lover boy in behind her. I’m sure he’ll get a kick out of playing the hero,” Talon said.
Owen spat at Talon’s feet and then met his eyes in a cold stare. “Someone’s got to save the day.”
“Yeah, well let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Be careful, Bro,” Hunter said. He turned to Holly. “You stay put, be our lookout.” He kissed her and then followed Talon inside. The two of them walked onto the porch, carefully as if the house would collapse around them if they set off the trap.
The house sat high enough off the ground I could crawl on my knees and still have a good bit of space overhead. Owen crawled beside me.
“You notice anything unusual?” he asked, shining his small flashlight up to the house above us.
“Yeah, all those spiders and snakes your brother warned us about. There’s nothing living down here, not even a spider.”
“No ants either.” He stopped and flashed the light up ahead to the wall of rocks. “It does look just like the well.” He shined the light down the length of it. “Check it out, it’s round.” Our eyes met as if we’d registered everything at the same time. “It’s a well. If this is the source of the light shining inside the house then that means it must have opened up.” Owen’s eyes widened.
He’s set a trap. “You’ve got to stop them!” I screamed. I tapped above me as loud and hard as I could as Owen scurried as fast as he could, leaving me below. “Stop! Hunter! Talon!” I screamed. “Don’t move.” I felt a rumble as Owen ran up the porch and into the house. I could hear him screaming too.
“Don’t move! Don’t take another ...” and then it happened, a louder rumbling, as though the entire house would break apart. I scurried out from under the house in time to see the blue light bursting out of the building with a roar. Holly fell to her knees and covered her head. I hit the ground taking a face full of grass and pine straw. The house still stood despite the sound of its implosion. I took to my feet and ran up the steps as fast as I could. The light blinded me, like blue fire spilling out of every crevice. The floor had opened up in the center and Hunter lay near the opening. Talon and Owen had disappeared. The well was the trap.
I ran toward the hole, knowing it had swallowed them up. But as I approached it dimmed. Hunter got to his feet and tackled me down. “No, no,” he cried. “Get out, Holly! Run!” He shouted to the door where I could only guess that Holly had come in for him. “Get out!” Her feet pounded their way out and down the porch steps.
I fought to get away and finally managed, and then crawled my way to the opening. Talon hung onto the rocks for dear life, his eyes wide with fear as he saw me looking down at him. He sat frozen in shock. “Hunter!” I screamed. He reached around me for Talon. I gripped Hunter around the waist to help him with the weight of pulling Talon up. I stared down past him into the blue depths. Nothing. No Owen. He was gone.
Once we’d pulled Talon to safety, Hunter looked down into the hole for his brother. His chest heaved as he stared at the shimmering, icy blue water. The temperature in the room fell with the gaping well.
“He pulled me out of the way. He—he saved me.” Talon couldn’t seem to believe it. “Oh my God, he’s gone.” He stared at the hole. “I’m sorry, man. I’m so sorry.”
Hunter’s disbelief had him paralyzed until I grabbed hold of him and he pulled me tight to his chest, his shirt catching my tears.
“Hunter.” Holly’s tone sounded strange. I wondered for a brief moment why she didn’t run to his side, but then I looked up and realized she wasn’t alone.
�
��What have you done?” Ray said, seeing the gaping hole in the floor. He stood with Holly, his hand gripping her arm. He ran inside, dragging her along and peered inside the hole.
“The source,” I said. “It wasn’t a book. It’s the well, the source of the Water.”
“Very clever! Where’s my son?” Ray asked, and then he growled, throwing Holly to the ground.
“He’s gone,” said Hunter. He sounded so helpless. I couldn’t imagine that he ever thought that he and his father would be sharing such a moment.
“No.” I shook my head. “No. No.” I peered over the edge into the water below. “He can’t be gone,” I choked.
Ray raised his arms and started chanting. The well glowed blue, then green fire so intense I had to back away from it. I found myself backing up against Talon toward the wall. He grabbed hold of me and then let go to fold his arms around himself. I wondered if he would blame himself for this death too.
Just as I had the urge to comfort him, I saw the shadow coming out of the well, and then Ray lowered Owen to the floor, gently, with his magic. Owen’s wet and lifeless body shone pale in the light. His eyes had sunken in and his lips had turned purple from the cold water. I looked over to Hunter who stared at the body, his head shaking in denial. Holly stroked his hair and held him tight.
Ray looked down at him, with a disgusted look on his face that told me this wasn’t part of his plan. I looked back to Owen hoping to see that he had moved. Maybe he’s sleeping. Surely he’d just been knocked unconscious. I hurried to his side and started to shake him. “Wake up, Owen. Wake up.” He’s not snoring. He’s not breathing. I buried my face into his cold, wet chest. I threw my arms around him to get him warm. “Oh please, no. Please, wake up.” I knew I had to tell him anything, whatever he needed to hear to make him come back to me. “I do love you, I do. I really do.” Surely if I said it, he’d return. “You said you’d never leave me behind.”
I looked up as Ray took off his coat and laid it across Owen’s lifeless form. A lot of good that will do him now, I thought. Why couldn’t he have cared before? “This is your fault!” I screamed. “You did this.” Ray stared through me. I got up in his face and hit him in the chest; pounding at him hard with both fists. “I hate you!” He didn’t even try to stop me. My mind switched gears again and I gripped his shirt and begged. “Isn’t there something you can do? You have powers! The Water... How could he drown in the Water? It shouldn’t hurt him, it should have healed him!”
Ray took me by both arms, clenching my wrists in his hands. “No. It doesn’t work that way. The Water got into his lungs, Lily. He drowned. It’s not the same. And I can’t do anything. Death is final. I’m not a god!”
My shoulders slumped and I felt faint. I looked at the others as they stared down at Owen. Hunter sobbed softly with his head buried in Holly’s hair. I put my head in my hands and collapsed at Owen’s side. What would I do without him? How would I live? Ray had been right. The day had come when I’d realize how much he meant to me, but it no longer mattered. I’d lost him.
Just when I thought all hope was lost, the room lit up. It shined different this time; not blue, but bright white. From the well Birdie rose, younger and more beautiful. Her hair flowed golden and she shone all over like something from heaven, and in her arms she held a Light that glowed bright and powerful. She was a Light Keeper, like me, and her strength had been restored.
She hovered over Owen and I thought she might take him over, across the Veil. But when she touched the Light to his crumpled body, he moved. Just a little, but I saw it.
“Owen!” I touched his arm, hoping he’d move again. Hunter crawled closer.
“Gonna take some time, dear,” Birdie said, still bathing Owen’s still body with her Light.
“How?” Ray asked. “It’s impossible.” The two exchanged a knowing glare as if they had a secret they dare not share with the rest of us.
“Are you concerned for your son or for me, Ray?”
“How do you even have the strength to yield your Light?” he asked, ignoring all the other questions in my mind.
“Sometimes there is more power in death for us Light Keepers. We are closer to the Angels here. I’ve been saving my move for the right time. My plan, of course, did not involve this, but this is in itself the most interesting part. I had to help them find the source, and help him protect Lily, and in the process Owen found his favor with the Angels.”
“You think I wanted this? He’s tied to the cure through my blood! It’s the only insurance for my safety, for the future of all Light Keepers,” Ray snapped. “She may as well be dead too if he dies! They all should!”
“I know all about your loophole, Reginald, as do the Angels, which is why he lives, but not for your benefit, Ray, never for your benefit. I wondered how you controlled her. You used the Water. I paid close attention to your recent actions and realized you had another source; a tainted well that you led them to by making a Light like Alyssa’s. You let them think that swill is special, but it’s been just a decoy all along, designed to weaken Lily so you could manipulate her and take her energy just as you did mine.” She took a deep breath and tilted her head, thinking out her every word. “If you could get the two together, it would increase the power and be of a greater benefit for you when you harvested it. Lily would assure you access to great power and Owen would assure that your bloodlines stay strong, keeping the Water useful. But you hadn’t figured on the other boy, and how she’d feel about him.” She glanced at Talon. “You’ve been using the spirits to torment him, trying every trick in the book to get him to leave, even trying to kill him. So tell me... was it all worth it, using my powers to manifest the hurricane, selling off your land to make sure that your son could carry on the gift and the cure?”
“That is what you meant when you said that Owen had to protect the well. He’s linked to the cure, not me. I’m not what you are.” Hunter looked down to his hands.
“Skipped you,” Ray said, not meeting his eyes. “That’s why we tried again so soon for a child that carried the Light. Owen was a miracle with so few being born, and I watched over him from afar. I’ve always been around in one form or another.” I thought about the brother’s birthdays being so close together; they were only born eleven months apart. Ray had been determined to find his heir. His attitude made me sick. The man showed no fear as if nothing ever touched him. Then I realized what Birdie said.
“You,” I shook my head, and pointed a shaking finger at him. “You destroyed my home, my life, to get me here to feed your powers! All those other lives, those innocent people lost in that Hurricane! You’re a murderer. How? How did you find me?”
Ray smirked, as cocky as ever. “Not just for my power, but to save yours and the others, too. There are more, though rare and hard to find in good condition. I thought that your dad had been a dead end. No siblings as it turned out. The papers didn’t list you as a survivor, Lily, because you hadn’t been born. It was after Talon’s accident when your father’s name resurfaced in the headlines that I realized you existed. Tia went to your mother’s salon and got the latest gossip for me. Sometimes I went there myself. You know, your mother has all those pictures of you around her station, and those green eyes are a dead giveaway.”
“And Kevin?” I gasped. “Did you kill him? Did you make that happen?”
“Oh no! Talon has a certain talent for killing people.” He looked down to Owen. “Obviously.” He glared at Talon.
Talon stiffened, clenching his fists. “I didn’t mean for it to happen,” he cried.
Ray curled his lip with disgust. “You never do. But it always does. I suspect you’re cursed, but I have no proof, of course. It’s just a hunch.”
“Indeed he is marked by something; I can see its energy from this side. However, I’m not so sure it’s a curse,” Birdie said. “Tell me, Ray. In all this time, why didn’t you try to find your own redemption? They may have given you a second chance after some time.”
“They betrayed me and took away everything.” He cast his eyes down. “I’ll never go back. I’ll show them my power. It will work. They are destined. Their love is pure enough to make such an awesome power! Not like Alyssa. She was useless. All that power and too blocked up to use it. I wasted my time trying to marry her.” I realized this was what Alyssa had been afraid to tell Birdie. That Rex Mitchell’s inner voice sounded so much like her own son, Ray’s. Ray had been posing through the years as many things, Birdie’s son, grandson, and Rex Mitchell. I pitied her as I realized that at one time, Birdie loved him.
“You’ve always chosen the darkness. Once you didn’t need her, you killed her and made sure you silenced her forever. Disguising yourself as her mother was especially cruel, but she figured you out. You didn’t think anyone would care if Alyssa and her mother had a fight in town or she dragged her off into the woods. No one would interfere with family matters. Alyssa tried to let Lily see that as well and would have succeeded if you hadn’t weakened our connections. It is sick what you have done to me and what you want to do to these children, but their power is no longer available for your influence. Remember that.”
As she said those words I put my head to Owen’s chest. I could hear the faint, but steady beat of his heart. Ray had done this, all of this, from way back with Alyssa to the hurricane, to my moving out here on Bragg. He lured us, just like he lured Alyssa. Suddenly, I felt a hand touch my hair and Holly gasped.
Hunter was at my side in a flash. I sat up, but he was fixed on Owen who stirred next to me. His lip quivered and his closed eyes pinched tight. Then he let out a low groan.
“Owen!” I shrieked. Talon and Holly crowded around, as well as Ray. Birdie still hovered above, and once again she touched him with the Light, but this time it hovered bright above his head, and stayed there. Birdie started to fade only slightly, but Owen... Owen started to glow.