Everything seemed to move in slow motion, like we were all submerged under water. No more loud noises, even though I could still see the fireworks dancing in the sky. Everything was silent and peaceful. It was so beautiful. Was it still midnight?
And then Tristan’s face appeared next to mine. He was lying right by my side, smiling at me.
“Don’t be afraid. You’ll be fine,” he whispered to me, wiping away tears that I didn’t even know had begun to fall. He looked so calm and ethereal.
“I’m not afraid,” I said softly. I felt calm and secure now, because he was with me. He reached out and held my hand lightly and I felt sharp pinpricks over my skin where his fingers touched mine. It felt weird, but in a good way.
“Do you hate me? For lying?” he whispered in a broken voice, so full of sadness.
“Of course not. I could never hate you, not in a thousand lifetimes,” I said to him, and though this was a really weird thing for me to say, I also knew it to be true. But then he slowly vanished from sight, engulfed by darkness that seemed to be wrapping itself around everything.
Everything was dark. Everything was silent.
Was he really gone?
Dead and gone, something whispered ominously inside my head.
“Tristan?” I whispered. It was all so quiet, I couldn’t hear his voice any more and I missed it. I missed the warmth it brought to my heart; I missed his silvery eyes and his mesmerizing smiles. I missed him. “Tristan?” My voice wavered in the dark.
“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered near me, his lips brushing my ears like feathers in the air. “Even if you cannot see me, I’m always be right here, by your side.” Once again, his fingers intertwined with mine. My heart fluttered at his delicate touch. “I feel like I have always been by your side, and that I will always be. Does that make any sense?” he asked me, and his hand squeezed mine lightly. But I did know what he meant. Because I felt the same way. Like I’d known him for as long as I could remember, beyond time, even. “Wow. Joey. Can you see this?” he asked in awe.
“See what?” I asked, my voice still wavering a little. Everything was pitch black.
“You’ve … so much light coming from you, blindingly bright, covering me … so beautiful.” He let go of my hand then and my heart whimpered at the loneliness and cold his absence brought to me.
“I-I can’t see anything. I can’t feel anything.” I sensed him moving closer.
“Can you feel this?” he whispered, just a breath away from me now. Something brushed lightly against my lips, so soft I thought I was imagining it. Pinpricks of electricity spread through my whole body, making my heart beat furiously in overdrive, and then something jolted, like the earth itself was running back in time.
If I’d been drowning, I had now surfaced. Bright colorful lights burst through my eyelids like fireworks lighting up from inside. The sound of their explosions filled my ears, deafening me. I felt so dizzy, like I could faint at any second. I heard my mom speaking, along with other voices, all talking at once. Time crashed in on me, running by rapidly, claiming back its lost moments in a fury. The wind rushed back on cue, thrashing and slashing, ice cold, cutting through everything in its path, freezing my bones and my soul. Pain pierced my head, stabbing hot needles in my hands. I grunted loudly.
“Joey? Honey? Are you all right?” I heard my mom’s concerned voice and I felt her shaking me gently.
“S-stop, Mom!” I said, sitting up on the grass and holding my throbbing head. I breathed slowly, trying to control my beating heart. I looked at my hands and there were scratches on my palms from when I’d fallen.
My mom continued patting me, a relieved expression on her face now that she saw I was okay. “What’s happening?” I asked, a little disoriented. I watched as the three old ladies hunched over someone on the middle of the lawn.
“You fell down and hit your head a second ago,” my mom said, kneeling by my side, “and the next second this boy appeared right there on the lawn! He just popped up out of thin air, Joey! One second there was nothing there, the next there was a naked boy lying on the grass!” she whispered, completely freaked out.
I scrabbled to my feet, standing up too fast and feeling a little nauseous as I walked over to the three old ladies. As I got closer, I could see Miss Violet’s hands resting on a boy’s black smooth hair. He was turned away from me, so I couldn’t see his face, but he was lying on the ground, shaking spasmodically. He was totally naked. A numb fear started to rise in my chest. I knew that smooth, black hair.
It was Tristan.
Chapter Seven
Closeness
My mom took charge straight away, taking off her long black coat and handing it to Miss Violet. “Here, please, cover him up, it’s freezing cold!” I couldn’t see his face very well from where I stood but I could see that he was trembling. But how could he be here? He’d said he was a ghost and now …? Nothing made any sense!
I tried to steady myself and gather control over my churning thoughts. Now was not the time to panic.
The three old ladies were whispering intently to each other. “We need to get him out of the cold first,” Miss Violet said at last.
“What we need is to take Megan back home! You know she’s not well and this has taken it out of her,” Margaret hissed.
“But we can’t just leave him. Not now,” Miss Violet replied.
“Bring the girl over. She can help him!” Megan said, speaking for the first time. Her voice was melodic and very low.
All three old ladies turned to look at me. I took a step back, scared.
“Joey, come over here! Don’t be scared, dear. It’s all right, everything will be all right!” Miss Violet said reassuringly.
I looked at my mom, and she nodded in consent. I walked over to Tristan and kneeled down on the grass, watching as his beautiful pale face contorted in pain. “What can I do?” I said in a small voice, feeling useless. I reached out and took hold of his hand, like he had held mine. Or had that just been a dream? Either way, this time my hand met solid flesh rather than going straight through.
When my hand touched his, sharp, hot pinpricks jolted through my fingertips once again. Tristan moaned but he appeared to relax, his convulsions easing. I looked at Miss Violet in surprise but she just nodded, looking relieved. What had just happened here?
“Can you take him to your house?” Miss Violet asked my mom. “Until we sort this whole mess out.”
My mom nodded. “O-okay. Joey, dear, do you think you can manage to get him to walk?”
“I don’t know. I can try,” I muttered.
“Just keep him close to you, and you two should be fine!” Miss Violet advised as she turned away to help the eldest of the ladies, old Meg. She and Margaret were now supporting her, one on each side.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked as they started to walk away.
“Come on, honey. Let’s get him home,” my mom said, kneeling by my side.
I put the palm of my hand flat on Tristan’s chest. My palm tingled at the contact with his skin.
“Tris, can you hear me? Do you think you can stand up? For me?” I pleaded.
He nodded, managing to half-open his heavy eyelids. My mom and I helped him up and wrapped the coat tightly around his body. I hoped no one would notice we had a naked boy inside it while we walked out of there. We managed to stumble through the cemetery lanes, Tristan leaning on both my Mom and me. As we reached the gates, people were still coming and going, but no one paid any attention to us. They were all too drunk or too distracted to notice anything anyway.
We left the cemetery as anonymously as we had entered.
A few minutes after everyone had left, a dark figure appeared on the grass circle.
He wore a heavy, dull, faded gray cloak, and it covered almost all of his pale face. He was tall, very thin and moved swiftly, his cloak billowing in the slashing wind. But he did not care about the cold. He did not feel cold. Or heat, or anything for that matter.
Those were mundane sensations, and he was far from being human and far from belonging to this world.
He looked around. He would have been intrigued, and slightly upset, if he were to have any emotion. But emotions, like sensations, were for humans. He only felt duty as his purpose. He sniffed the air. It smelled of magic.
And he was late. By only a few seconds, but late nevertheless.
He would fix it, though. He always fixed things. That was his job, the purpose of his existence: to fix things that were wrong and out of the natural order. He organized and corrected the many, many mistakes that happened all around. And there was always so much to do, so much chaos happening all the time …
He walked silently around the circle of grass. A group of young people appeared, shouting excitedly, carrying bottles in their hands. He did not worry about them; he knew they couldn’t see him.
His kind was never witnessed. Never seen. Those were the rules.
The young, drunken party passed by, completely unaware of the cloaked figure standing only a few inches away from them, observing, analyzing. Something caught his attention, something almost invisible, but not to him: a tiny, minuscule, dark speck on the grass.
He kneeled down right next to it and touched it. Dark, wet, human blood.
No wonder the air smelled of ancient, powerful magic. All magic of that kind required an offering of blood.
He sniffed the tiny smear of blood on his fingertip. This was his trail, his lead. He could follow the blood to its source. Trace it to the mistake that he needed to fix. He always found them: the “mistakes”. Found them and fixed them. It was only a matter of time.
He disappeared as silently and quickly as he had appeared, without a trace.
We finally got home. It had taken us about fifteen minutes to get there, but it felt much longer.
We half-walked, half-dragged Tristan to the couch and I slouched on to the armchair beside him. I felt like a truck had hit me.
“Well, that was a hell of a New Year’s Eve,” my mom murmured, sitting by Tristan’s side and placing the back of her hand on his forehead to feel his temperature. “Jeez, he’s burning up!”
She went to the hallway closet and brought back a towel, some sheets and a warm blanket. She was drying Tristan’s face and hair with the towel when I felt a wave of nausea hit me like a brick wall, and my stomach finally gave up. I covered my mouth and ran quickly upstairs to the bathroom. My mom appeared at my side, and held my hair while I threw up.
This scene was repeated three times. The fourth time, my mom was bypassing concern city and heading straight to freaking-out town. I don’t know how many times a person could throw up in one evening, but I’ll bet I was going for the record! I didn’t even have anything left to vomit any more; my stomach just kept contracting with empty spasms. And my head! Good God, my head felt like it was going to explode!
“Okay! That’s it. There’s something seriously wrong with the both of you. I’m taking you two to the hospital! Go downstairs and wait for me. Now, where did I leave the car keys?” Mom rambled in obvious panic.
I left her there and dragged myself downstairs, stopping at the front door. I felt horrible; I just wanted to curl up in a small ball and die already. I glanced at the living room and remembered I needed to check on Tristan. He was lying unconscious on the couch, eyes closed, his face pale like death. His hair was all drenched in sweat and he was trembling again. I walked towards him, and slowly slipped to the floor in front of the couch.
I leaned my head on the couch seat and extended my arm, resting my hand on Tristan’s bare smooth chest. The tingling sensation came back, sharp and strong, and to my upmost surprise, I immediately felt better, like someone had just given me a shot with the most amazing, powerful drug ever!
I sighed in relief. The headache subsided unnaturally quickly and my stomach calmed down. I looked over to Tristan, then realization hit me! My mom was stepping down the stairs in a hurry, car keys dangling in one hand and her purse in the other, when I called out for her.
“Mom! We weren’t listening properly!” I said, smiling weakly at her. “I’m fine now, we don’t need to go to the hospital. I just need to be close to him! That’s what Miss Violet said. Every time I’m far from him, I feel awful, but when I’m close I feel good. And look – Tristan was trembling and sweating a minute ago, but now he looks a lot better!”
“Yes, she did say that if you stayed close to him, you two would be fine,” my mom said thoughtfully. “Nothing about tonight obeys any logic, so I might as well believe in that.”
“I think I’ll just hang here for a while,” I said, laying my head on the couch and thinking I would rest my eyes just for a few seconds …
I vaguely remember my mom struggling to lift me up and put me on the couch next to Tristan, and then a blanket covering us up, turning everything soft and warm and safe.
I remember feeling his breath on me, the warmth radiating from his body and the lingering smell of his sweat mixed with his own natural scent. And the tingling sensation all over my body throughout that night …
I woke up and I was lying on the floor, but it felt odd because it was soft and grainy beneath me. When I stood up, I noticed I was actually lying on sand: warm, silvery, light sand. I couldn’t see any ocean, only a beautiful desert as far the eye could see. I looked up at a moonless sky, full of infinite glittering stars and, although there wasn’t any source of light, I could see everywhere perfectly.
There was a small black dot far away on the sand. Someone was there. I walked slowly in the person’s direction, since there wasn’t anything else to do in this alien place. As I got closer, I saw that it was in fact a girl, around my age, maybe a year or two younger. She was sitting on the sand, watching me approach. She had long black hair and big, round black eyes too, just like mine, but she was wearing heavy eyeshadow and eyeliner. She also wore lots of necklaces and bracelets, a tight ragged top, pants and boots, all as black as the sky above.
She eyed me curiously and, despite her heavy make-up, her face was almost angelical.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hello,” she greeted me in return.
“This is a weird dream,” I mumbled to myself.
She frowned, like she couldn’t disagree more.
“Why are you here, Joe?” the weird goth-looking girl asked.
“I don’t know. I’m just … here. Isn’t that how dreams are supposed to work?” I said with a shrug.
“But you shouldn’t be. It’s best that you go now,” she said.
“Go where?”
“Anywhere but here. He’ll find you here,” she said, looking around uneasily.
“Who will?” I asked.
I looked to her left, and a blurred gray silhouette was starting to appear.
“Just wake up, Joe,” she ordered. “It’s for your own good.”
I blinked, and when I opened my eyes again, bright sunlight invaded my sight. I blinked a couple more times, trying to adjust to the change of scenery. Dark moonless sky was now a bright sunny day.
I tried to make my brain start working, but my thoughts felt sluggish and murky. I glanced at my surroundings and realized I wasn’t in my bed; I was lying on our living-room couch. Parts of the previous night started to drift back. New Year’s Eve, cemetery, fireworks, pain … and ghosts. I shifted slightly and then realized a boy’s arm was draped heavily around me. Tristan’s arm. We had both slept on the couch! I smiled as I remembered hoping for a midnight kiss, and we had actually slept together last night. Literally speaking, that is, but still …
His hands loosely held mine. He had long, thin fingers; pianist hands … Mine looked so small beneath his. It was so intimate, the way he held me in his sleep. I could feel his face snuggled comfortably against the back of my neck, and the warmth of his breath on my skin.
I shifted slowly, trying not to wake him. He sighed heavily, but then he just rolled over and went back to sleep again.
I
was free to move, so I turned over to look at him, resting my face on the couch. He slept so peacefully, his dark locks of black hair all messed up, falling over his calm face. His bare chest was uncovered, smooth and well shaped, moving up and down with the slow rhythm of his breathing. He didn’t have a single hair on his chest, just a little trail below his belly button, heading … south.
The soft blanket covered him to the waistline. Then I remembered he was actually kind of naked under there and I felt my face turning red. I started climbing off the couch, to give him some privacy, when he blinked slowly, awakened by the movement.
I froze, not too sure what to do now. He looked confused for a second, but then he turned his face in my direction and his eyes registered me. And he smiled. His eyes crinkled a little and glinted in the sunlight that bathed the room. I was in awe of his eyes.
“Your eyes are still … really … gray,” I muttered to myself.
He looked bemused; I guess it was a strange thing to say.
“Yours are still black as night,” he replied softly.
“How are you feeling?” I asked in concern. It had been a rough night.
He raised his right arm, flexing his fingers, looking at his hand like it was the first time he’d been able to do this.
“It hurts all over,” he said, wincing, and then grinned widely. “It’s great!”
I frowned. “It’s great hurting all over?” I asked, bewildered.
“It’s better to feel pain but be alive than to feel nothing at all,” he said quietly “It sucks being dead.”
I thought about that for a minute in silence. “You should have told me. About your … condition,” I said with a hint of sadness in my voice. “You didn’t trust me.”
He looked at me with a guilty expression. “I thought you’d be scared …”
“I don’t scare easily. I told you that.”
“I know. I’m so sorry, Joey,” he said, and reached out towards me, brushing the side of my face gently with his fingers. It tingled lightly, but not like it had last night. Now the sensation was much more faint.
The Lost Boys Page 5