“Good evening, my children.”
“Good evening, Mitchell,” our voices sounded as melodious as a chorus. Nothing was going to take our attention away from him. It was our own little miracle.
“My children, my Lights…the White Light within me knows we are strong. I have allowed it access to my own body so that it can become closer to us. I am the Guardian of the White Light, and now it wants to spread its power to all of us. We will all light our candles and pass it around so we all share the same flame.”
Mitchell’s candle flame was taller than it should be, and much lighter. It was not the usual yellow spark a flame would have but rather it was almost a white, or a yellow so pale it could pass as white. Gently he glided from the front of the room to the upperclassmen seated in the front row. One by one we touched wicks until we all had burning candles, all growing fires to almost the length of a finger. These flames barely moved, barely had a flicker here and there but it held us in hypnosis. I stared at mine in awe, or fear, or a combination of both. I could make out something in the flame. Something almost…human. Inside the flame itself I could almost see the figure of a human, or something that used to be human. Its body swirled in fire and opened its arms to me like in a warm embrace. I held my candle tightly, marveling at this power and this miracle. I knew that all the students now had the same burning flame once it changed again. All the candles turned the same whitish color that Mitchell held, and suddenly cast a brighter light in the lounge room. The power was speaking to us, and we knew what it said. It was with us and we were one. It was real. We belonged to it.
***
The rituals that took place captured my attention of course, but you could also say it was distracting. I forgot about my cell phone for a couple of days and found that I didn’t care. I could not even tell you what we did in the next couple of days. It really was that uneventful; all of us moved forward in our everyday routines on autopilot and did not care. We carried ourselves egotistically, everyone’s noses turned up a bit snobbishly, for we all thought and knew that we were the Chosen Ones.
Mitchell pushed for more recruits. We were to hand out flyers and post them at random points on campus again. This time, our flyers had a picture of the Mayan calendar with the December 21st date and a message: “Join us to BE SAVED! Guardians of Light will lead you out of darkness!” We were given stacks before leaving for classes and were expected to come home empty handed. Mitchell looked at us longingly as we would leave for classes, working to guilt-trip us…to make us feel ashamed if we did not do our part to spread the word. I managed to put up as many as possible, the back of my neck turning hot at all the stares I got from passing students. I even heard a muffled laugh or two as they read it and passed me. How were we to recruit other students if they didn’t understand? How were we to make them understand our message if they were being judgmental and refused to be open-minded? At one point, standing by a bulletin board outside my classroom, I took a moment to really read the flyer. It was informative and it was interesting. I could not understand. What was so wrong with it? I got back home to The Manor after classes, empty of flyers, hoping it would make Mitchell happy. I could tell a white lie and tell him some students were even reading it, but I would leave out the part of them giggling and walking away. Would he see that I did what I was supposed to do?
The first thing I did was check my emails, and my heart fluttered a little to see a couple from my mom and sister that I didn’t get a chance to answer. I opened the most recent one quickly:
“Hey Sky! I haven’t heard from you in such a long time! Did your cell phone run out of juice? I tried calling you and texting you and you never responded! Is everything all right? Please contact me as soon as you can so I know you’re all right. You must be really busy with classes and such. I would be nice to hear from you once in a while though! How was your Thanksgiving?
Love, Mom.”
I hit “reply” immediately.
“Hey Mom! So sorry I couldn’t call you back! We are actually having trouble with signal out here, my phone isn’t working right now. I am going to look into getting this fixed, maybe it’s a network thing, who knows? Thanksgiving was great! We all had a nice relaxing time and it was so much fun! Classes are good, I am at a 3.5 average, which is all right but I know I can do better! Write back soon!
Love, me.”
I sat back and read it a couple of times, cringing at my stupid lie. What was I supposed to do? Tell the insane truth?
A knock at my door startled me. I hit my leg against my desk as Damien leaned in my doorway.
“Hi, what’s up?”
“Nothing,” I said turning around. “Just emailing my mom back…because you know, I can’t call her.”
Something dark passed over Damien’s face and I knew it was the same thought I had.
“My family’s been emailing me too,” he admitted. “Asking me why I haven’t returned calls and stuff. I didn’t know what to say at first, I just said I was really busy and I would call them as soon as I got the chance. I felt horrible, you know? I never lie to my parents about that. This is so stupid. I feel like I can’t tell them what’s going on over here.”
“Me neither. I feel like it would be wrong, like I would feel ashamed of myself or something. I just told my mom we had a network problem.”
Damien shook his head.
“God, this is really messed up,” I said, prompting him to say something.
He just looked at the floor, not sure what to say.
“We have to be strong, Sky. We have to be.”
“I don’t like lying so much. I’m worried that they want us to cut off all communication with everyone and it is freaking me out. We have to get our phones back.”
“We probably will, we just have to pretend like we don’t care.”
“I was thinking of sneaking into Mitchell’s office again. This has gone far enough. But I’m afraid he would…you know...”
“Catch us? Punish us?”
“Well, yeah. Especially now. Especially now that he’s possessed.” I shuddered. “That along is enough to give anyone the creeps. We don’t know what sort of power he has now.”
“Do you believe in it?”
“Yeah. I do. And I think that’s exactly what scares me.”
Damien and I sat by each other at dinner, to my joy and relief. It was pleasant and relaxing until I saw Iris from across the hall scowl at us. My stomach jumped at seeing the look on her face. I kept my head down and ate and slightly turned my face to him.
“What’s with Iris?”
He didn’t look. “She’s probably just jealous. I don’t know. Maybe she has a crush on me or something. I don’t know. Don’t think anything of it.”
We stuck together after dinner and during our next group activity. This time, it made us all stiffen cold with fear. We didn’t even need Mitchell to tell us anything. We passed the angel statue going downstairs, the head turned downwards, but its gaze was not looking at anything. It was a very dismissive pose… its carved eyes were now shut. I wondered if anyone knew it once had open eyes. Either way we all opened ours just a little bit wider as we descended the stairs and felt the chills run up and down our bodies.
Mitchell waited for us with a large poster board at the front of the room. It sat on a stand, but it was blank. Mitchell watched us all, his skin so pale and blemish-free it looked like all the blood had drained from his face. He looked on at us and seemed to speak with his eyes. Hello my children, please come in, look at all of you, I am so proud of you. He did not say these words, yet they formed in my head. We took our seats and looked up at him patiently.
“Tonight,” Mitchell began. “The White Light wants more from us. It wants…unison. We shall have a special kind of ceremony tonight. It is not lighting candles or meditating. Tonight we prove our loyalty towards The White Light in the most serious, and dedicated way possible. The White Light wants a life sample, a life sacrifice. Tonight we will give it our blood.”
“On this board behind me, we will all give The White Light a couple of droplets of our blood. It is the symbol of the life we have right now, knowing we make the best of being human while we still can, and still are. It will also symbolize that we are one, we are together. We do this in its name.”
Mitchell demonstrated, carefully poking his index finger and discarding the needle in the trash. He pressed his finger to the board until he painted a single stroke of deep red. “I give you human life,” he said, ending it with a hard smear. One by one, we were to do the same. We were given a needle. We pricked our fingers and blotted, dripped, smeared and wiped our own personal marks on that board. I got up and did it quickly on my turn, taking a Band-Aid like the others before me once I was finished. As I was fastening the Band-Aid I noticed that Mitchell did not take one. He instead let the tiny bloodstream flow down his finger and rest in the crevice of his nail. He moved his thumb around in it as though he enjoyed playing with it.
The board was hung up on the wall and was to be left alone. It was a strange piece of art with its crude red strokes, looking like tiny dead rose petals. As time passed I knew those red strokes would turn brown and rust with age, and if anyone was to see it, they would have no clue what it was.
The rest of the evening was uneventful… except for when I walked to the kitchen for a drink and saw Damien and Iris on the couch. They were huddled together talking intensively and I couldn’t tell what was going on until I got closer. My feet came to an abrupt halt and I nearly collided with the cat—realizing they were not doing any talking at all. Iris moved her mouth around his chin and made her way down his neck passionately.
Chapter 34
The sun leaked through my blankets the next morning, which were still over my head. I stared at the individual lines and ridges in my pillowcase, the tiny lint balls on my sweatshirt, the freckles on my arms, and the folds and creases of my blankets. I stayed inside my tent, debating on whether or not I wanted to stay there or get out of bed to confront Damien. I did not like this. I did not like this at all, but my insides were boiling and I knew I had to do it eventually.
So, once I was ready, I went downstairs.
I didn’t exactly rehearse what I wanted to say, because I was not even sure what to say. I suddenly realized I had an intense headache, and not the kind that are in your forehead and temples, I am talking about the headaches that are in the back of your head, which in my opinion hurt much more. I kept patting that part of my head as I walked downstairs and scanned the residents. The image of them still made me shudder and the pain in the back of my head throbbed. I could not stand this anymore. I casually turned and went back upstairs, pausing hesitantly at my floor before going up to Damien’s.
I felt like such a spy, the way I crouched down and sat there like a cat. The door opened and I fell back. Sure enough Damien himself stepped out with his T-shirt on backwards and his hair out in as many angles as possible. That part was normal but there was something else that was not: A blemish about the size, shape, and color of a raspberry appearing on his neck. My anger grew and it only increased my headache from bad to worse, but I was too livid to care.
I jumped up and got in his face before he could come all the way down the hallway to the bathroom. Cornered, Damien’s eyes widened but he kept them on me.
“Uh, hi.”
“What the hell?”
“What?” he said, acting like an innocent dope.
“Since when is Iris your girlfriend?”
His eyes darted.
“Ummm….”
“Umm what? I saw you two.”
“So what? We weren’t doing anything.”
“You fucking made out with her, Damien! I can’t believe it. I just cannot-
“What is your problem, Sky?” Damien’s voice turned from cool to cold in just seconds. “She likes me, okay? And I like her. She is the most amazing person I have ever met. She taught me things. She taught me….a lot of things. She believes in the most beautiful things. She tells me I can do anything and be anything.”
“No she is not!” I cried, exasperated. “You are so blind. She is manipulative and is just trying to control you! She just wants to make you her bitch! And clearly, she succeeded!”
“There! Right there! She was right. Iris said how judgmental you are. That’s all you do. If you would just wake up and see what I see. She showed me the most beautiful experience of my life. You wouldn’t understand.”
“I am not judgmental, you are brainwashed!”
“See? Judging. You don’t even know Iris like I do. I believe in her. Okay? So stop being so jealous of what I have.”
“You have nothing!” I yelled at him. “You have nothing and you’re just going to be a puppet. So you know what? Have fun with that.”
Damien’s entire body was tense, even the nooks and crannies of his face, although I could have sworn I saw differently in his eyes. I didn’t wait around for a counterattack and didn’t feel the need to. Damien clearly dug his own grave and I could not say anything else.
“I don’t need you to judge me!” he called after me as I thundered down the stairs. My headache now formed a circle around my entire head.
***
I kept to myself for the rest of the day, evening, night, whatever. The concept of time and day never mattered to me anymore and I couldn’t think straight. I mostly sat on the couch among a small to medium group of people and tried to be invisible. I did my homework in my room and answered emails, mostly from my mom and siblings saying the same stupid response: “Hi, I’m fine, everything’s fine, just busy, how are you?” The last thing that I wanted to have was a meaningless conversation that small talk usually brought, but I have often thought of what would happen if I told anyone anything. My fingers hovered over the spacebar of my computer as I stared at my response to an email. Sure, I could say that my…friend just got seduced by this girl and is letting her control him. I could also say that spirits are haunting the house we live in, possessing the teacher and convincing him and us that the world is going to end and we are the ones who will be the leaders in a New Life. Sure, I could tell my mother that. Would you?
I instead skirted around everything, even answering that yes of course I will be home for Christmas and I couldn’t wait to come home and go sledding and caroling and make gingerbread houses with my cousins at Uncle Freddy’s house. I didn’t know what Christmas would bring. I didn’t even know what next week would bring. I sent the email before I could say anything else and hated myself for it.
I hated myself even more at dinnertime. I hated myself every time I looked over at Damien sitting next to her, of course. He sat there like an obedient puppy and ate casually. Once in a while, she’d pat his arm or stroke his hair. I didn’t stare too long because I didn’t want either of them to see me, so I ate in silence and pretended to be interested in the conversations going on at my table. After dinner, Mitchell said we would be going to the lower lounge again for a casual reflection.
This time, we were seating in half-circles, very close-knit circles which meant this evening was supposed to be a discussion. The cushions wedged together edge by edge leaving little to no leg room, making me almost forget how many members we had now. We arranged ourselves and watched as Mitchell sat down at the front, now turning these half-circles into a whole one.
“My children, I was watching one of those talk shows the other day and it brought up a very interesting subject. This talk show had an individual on it who considered themselves to be ‘genderless’ or ‘gender neutral.’ This person had very plain features that were very androgynous, but they still were just as human and beautiful as anybody. It was very interesting to watch and it got me thinking. While this gen
derless person is different from you or me, we sort of have the same beliefs on other things. We are in a lot of ways genderless as well, figuratively speaking. Yes, the human bodies we have now identify us as male or female, but the White Light itself is genderless. The White Light is genderless just as some believe that their God is genderless, considered to be both with names like “The Holy Father” and “Mother Nature.” When we all got together as a group we lightly discussed becoming simple beings and not relying on material possessions or beautification rituals. We have not really discussed this matter further, and I think it would be a good discussion subject for us tonight.”
Mitchell looked around at all of us, many very attentive.
“The White Light is not a he or a she. It is both. It is both because higher life forms do not have the need for gender separation. What if when we go to the Next Life, we do not need gender at all? Why put labels on beings to tell them what they’re supposed to be? That is only an Earth thing. Where we’re going is the level that is above human, where everyone is equal and free. What are your thoughts on this? What do you believe gender assignment actually does?”
A random girl’s hand went up.
“For mating, reproduction.”
“That is correct,” Mitchell said. “A man and a woman together reproduce to make another human.”
“It gives people an identity from birth,” a boy answered.
“Yes,” Mitchell said again. “An identity that you can’t choose. You are just given it. Did you know that I always liked long hair? Even as a boy I insisted that I keep my hair long because I liked it better. When I was very young I was often mistaken for a girl because I had long hair. It frustrated me. I never understood why boys had to have short hair and only girls could have long hair. Who decided this? Does anyone else have any ‘gender-bending stories?’ ”
The evening went on with almost everyone participating. I said very little, even though I was enjoying the discussion we were having I was still not in the best of moods. I spoke up about why girls and women had to wear makeup in order to feel like they were attractive, and how I never understood why they didn’t appreciate their natural beauty like men did. Mitchell smiled and gestured towards me.
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