The Light of the World

by Tara Brown

  She wasn’t my mother. My heart is broken. Seeing the smoke starts creep out the windows and the broken front door is killing me. I want my mom. I don’t care if she gave birth to me or not. She was my mom. Even if she never let me call her that. Tears burst from my eyes.

  He starts the car and we drive away as the flames engulf the house.

  I feel my life end. My old life is gone and the mixed bag of bullshit that has become my new life needs to be sorted through.

  I look at him and try not to love him. I try not to feel everything I do, when I look at him. I hate the way I make him everything.

  "What's a Van Helsing? She called you a Van Helsing."

  He pauses and watches me for a moment before answering. "Your natural enemy. I am the hunter of the things you all are."

  I furrow my brow, "Wait like Dracula versus Van Helsing? Like the movie with Kate Beckinsale?"

  He nods, "You really want to mock me after all of the shit that's happened?"

  "The wolfman?"

  He looks pissed.

  I laugh, "The swamp thing?"

  "Keep laughing. Whoever was coming for you or hid you with an Earth Witch is going to be pissed when they find out you're missing."

  "So all of it's true. Vampires, Werewolves, Mummies? Witches and Goblins and Trolls and Faeries?"

  "No mummies, that’s stupid. No zombies or goblins. Try to focus on the plausible beings. They're all true. Like Vampires and Faeries. Shifters are what you would call werewolves. The shifters are the only ones you probably would get mixed up. They are either wolves or foxes or lions or other things. Some are cats and some are dogs and never do they fall in love." He looks at me and smiles bitterly, "Like things like us."

  I know the pain in my eyes and the hurt crossing my face is visible. I don’t care.

  "Do you love me?" I ask.

  He laughs, "I can't. Like I said you're under my skin but I can't love, not something like you. I should have killed you the first time I realized." His words cut me. It's deep and I know I will never heal from the way he says, 'something like you'.

  "Why didn’t you?" My voice is angry.

  He shakes his head, "I don’t know. I just know I can't live without you."

  I shudder. I just want to talk and not feel anything. I've pushed down my feelings about Willow. I can't let myself acknowledge his confession about his feelings. It's a path I don’t want to tread upon. Not yet.

  "When did you know I was different?"

  "The day you ran away from me."

  "When you slapped me?"

  He knits his brow, "I can never redeem myself for that. I need you to know I am truly sorry for it. Truly. I wouldn’t normally have hit you, a girl. You caught me off guard. I mean I hit the things, like Vampires and Shifters and stuff. But not regular girls."

  I believe him. Mostly because I want to. But I can't let him know that. "You're irrational. You beat up those other guys. The guys I dated. I know it was you."

  He looks straight ahead and drives like a nut, "It was wrong. I know that. I was just so angry and drunk. I get angry thinking about anyone touching you."

  My skin shivers again, "That’s creepy."

  He doesn’t say anything else. I look down at my hands and the dried blood. Wyatt's blood is mixed with the blood from the guy I think I killed. No, I know I killed. I know he was dead when I left him there alone on the grass.

  I look at the book and trace the weird letters, "Can you read this?"

  "Some of it."

  He puts a hand over mine and I wince from the pain. "We'll figure this out okay."

  I pull my hand away. My stomach pains and the burning on my skin is too much to add to everything else.

  We drive in silence. I glance over at him and wonder when I'll be able to be away from him? If ever. My sick obsession with being near him has been getting worse all day. It's overtaken the things I am truly devastated about. I have a sickness. I should be terrified of him. I should be running for my life. I should call the police. I need help.

  I look out the window and see we're back in Burlington. He pulls up in front of a house. It's small and white and sort of looks like my house. My old house that now sits in a pile of rubble and ash. With my old life.

  He gets out and runs up to the door. The waitress answers. The fire witch.

  She looks at me as he talks. She looks defeated. He motions for me to come. I put the book down and climb out of the car.

  I'm shivering. I hug myself and walk up the steps.

  She glares her fiery eyes at me, "Nice. I fucking help you and you sell me out to him?"

  "I didn’t know. I still don’t know. I didn’t know you lived here. I don’t know anything."

  She rolls her eyes and flashes the fire at me again, "He can sniff us out. Our energy clusters around where we live."

  He crosses his arms impatiently.

  She puts her hands on either side of me. I want to fight her and struggle but warmth seeps into me. I shiver and let the warmth creep in under my skin. It’s the best I've felt all day.

  "I don’t know what she is but it's not succubus. It's her way of feeding yes, but whatever her powers are, they're locked away. I wouldn’t mess with this one Wyatt. You Van Helsings get too cocky. Let her go back to school."

  He smirks, "How long did you know what I was?"

  She laughs, "Please. I spotted you from the minute we met. That’s why I had my guards up. If I help you, you leave me alone?"

  He nods once. She drags me into the house.

  Her house is cute and clean. She points to a couch. I sit down. She kneels and lights some candles. She puts her hands into the fire and makes a ball. She puts the fire up to my face. The heat of is intense.

  "Take her hand."

  He takes my hand and she looks at me, "You sure want this?"

  I shake my head, "What?" I'm almost biting my lip from the pain of his hand over mine.

  "If I handfast you in magic, it's like being married in the magical world. It'll stop the pain when he touches you and stop you from feeling sick all the time. But you'll be together. Like together-together."

  I think for a second, but the burning is getting to be too much. I nod quickly. I am tired of being tired and feeling sick. I want to be with him anyway. If I'm really honest.

  She places the ball of fire over our two hands. She lets it go and it falls onto our hands. I scream in pain. Wyatt winces. The fire rips through my hand. I see our skin melt and our hands are one for a second. The skin retreats and forms two hands again. The fire licks and burns. As the flames die so does the pain.

  My cheeks are wet with tears. I look at her, "What was that?"

  She laughs, "I now pronounce you man and wife. Good luck kid." She looks at him and drops her gaze, "I have to ask you to leave. If anyone saw you here…"

  He lifts me by my hand, "Of course. Thank you."

  I stutter, "H-h-husband and w-w-wife?" I cradle my burnt hand, "I thought you were kidding. Like we could date or something."

  She ignores my simpering, "You're gonna have to run."

  "Where? Where should I go? My house burned down." I almost sniffle again but I don’t. There must a quota for how much one person is allowed to cry in a week.

  "You can come with me." He looks at me and squeezes my hand. I want to belong with him. His touch is cured. No pain in my stomach, no burning or sparks. His touch feels like I always wished it would. The dirty feeling in my stomach is gone. His grin makes my stomach flutter but it's in a normal boy girl way.

  He looks at her, "You're free. Free to do magic and be who you are. I can't guarantee it will be that way if you decide to practice like your ancestors. Keep the guard up. Apparently something wanted her hid away. Not sure if that means it's coming here or Plattsburg but either way I would be careful."

  She nods and walks us to the door, "I know."

  He ignores her and walks out. He gets into the car. I walk out onto her porch and shake my head, "You know? You know
what's searching for me?"

  She nods once, "I know, but I can't help you. Find the Earth Witches Rayne. They’ll help you. I can't."

  I look down, "Well. Uhm. Thanks. I guess."

  She lifts my chin and gives me a severe look, "Don’t thank me yet. He has no magic over you, but that doesn’t mean he will let you live. Keep your eyes open. Him and his kind don’t ever do anything, without a reason. And usually that reason has something to do with killing one of us. Don’t trust him or anyone like him."

  I want to stay with her. For whatever reason I like her. I pause and watch him. "Can I ask you a question?"

  "Sure."

  I look back at her and marvel at the fiery eyes, "How did you know what I was? How did you see me when he couldn’t."

  She crosses her arms and smirks, "The Van Helsings think they're so powerful, but the witches of the earth have learned to block them. You had a powerful spell around you. Protecting you from things like him. I could see it. It and the dead things that hang off of. They told me about the dream. They said to say that and you would believe. They wanted you out of the restaurant."

  "Dead things? You mean the whispering dead?"

  She looks around, "Yup. Slow things down one day and have a chat with them. Let them take you home. Good luck with him though. He's a piece of work."

  My frown is fixed when I look at him. My feelings for him are still at war with each other. "Can I get a magical divorce?"

  She laughs and closes the door, "Good luck."

  I walk to the car and try not to think about what she said, or didn’t say.

  Chapter Nine

  We don’t go back to school. I don’t know why. I don't want to know why. My constant stomachache is gone. My feelings of intense and unnatural love for Wyatt have to go with it.

  It was like we crossed a state line and all of a sudden I looked over and was disgusted. The memory of his hand whipping across my cheek makes me feel a new kind of sickness. It's as if a veil has been lifted and I see him for what he is, just a boy.

  He looks more relaxed.

  I can't relax. My fingers dig into my palms. I'm pretty sure I've drawn blood with my nails.

  The scenery flies past us. I've lost track of where we are.

  I want Willow. I want yesterday. I would take the stomachache back if it could be yesterday. Yesterday when I was getting dressed and crying over the phone, with the woman I believed to be my mother. I want that back more than I want anything. I want to be free of the life I took in the grass. The debt of the dead man feels heavy, as it should.

  He smiles at me. I just watch him.

  We've been driving for six hours. My back is aching and my legs are cramped. He's only stopped for gas once.

  "When we get there let me do the talking okay?" Talking to who?

  I want my cell phone. I want to phone the police and confess and tell them the dead man was my doing. I want to snuggle on my bed and have Michelle stroke my head, while Mona Photoshop's pictures of us. I want so many things. Yet all I do is stare out the window and watch as countryside I have never seen before, flies by me at an unnatural sped.

  The car swerves when he tries to hold my hand. My natural fear of him has started to sink in. Somehow now I see the things I should have seen all along. I see the way his eyes look through me and the brutal strength in his voice and hands. He could choke the life out of me and I don’t think I could stop him. My natural fear doesn’t have common sense. She is just a bitch who hates the man next to me, as much as she wants him. I don’t know where I fit into that scenario.

  He slows the car for the first time in what feels like ages. The engine of the Lexus purrs, as he makes a turn onto a dirt road. He drives slowly up the gravel driveway. It winds in a thin forest until it comes to a huge white mansion. I've never seen anything like it before. It's stunning. It looks like the white house.

  "Where are we?"

  "Falmouth."

  I frown, "On the Cape? We've been driving for the whole day. It doesn’t take this long to get here. Not the way you drive."

  He glances at me, no doubt when he catches my tone.

  "I was going somewhere else and changed my mind."

  I don’t know if that is a good thing or a bad thing. I don’t know what to think.

  He pulls up to where a young girl stands at the front door watching us. She looks about ten. She has a gray hoodie on and skinny jeans. She looks like him. Dark hair and blue eyes. I can see the thing in her face that I saw on his. She is evil like he is. I could stab her in the throat and she would live. My common sense bitch wants to stab her in the throat. It's a weird feeling for me, wanting to harm a child.

  She scowls at me.

  I don’t get out of the car.

  He climbs out and stretches with the door open, "Hey Maggie."

  She points, "What is that?"

  He bends and looks at me, "Get out."

  I can see what she is. Something in me recognizes the hatred she has for me and meets it with a fresh dose of my own.

  I shake my head, "No thanks."

  He groans, "Mags, turn it off."

  She chews her lip and suddenly her face is sweet and innocent. Instantly all I see is a small girl with long silky hair and too skinny, skinny jeans.

  The way she turns it off freaks me out more than the weird intense eyes and hatred.

  He closes the door and walks to my door. He opens it and takes my hand. The seat belt holds me in the car. He bends to undo it but I swat at him, "No. I don’t want to get out. I don’t want to."

  He grabs my hands and shows me the dry brown blood in the creases, where the hand sanitizer never reached. It's under my nails and on my shirt.

  "You need to come in and get cleaned up." He takes my thick book, "And we need to read this."

  I look into his blue eyes and press the release on my seatbelt.

  He pulls me out of the car.

  "I'm Maggie? What are you?"

  I shake my head, "I don’t know. My name is Rayne."

  She tilts her head. "How come you can touch her?"

  He frowns at her.

  She raises an eyebrow, "Mom is gonna kill you Wy." She is super shitty and bratty. I almost look up and thank god for making sure I was an only child, but I don’t. I might not be an only child. I might just be the only child they gave away.

  He grips my hand, "Yup." He pulls me up the huge front steps that have to be twenty feet wide. We walk through the massive double front door. The foyer is huge. Dark tiles and a grand sweeping staircase sliding up the cream colored walls. Cherry wood tables and a huge green and beige bench and other finery are everywhere. I think I gasped at one point.

  "We had two very different childhoods." I mutter and look around at the grandeur of his house.

  He shoots me his boyish charming smile, "This is the summer house."

  I nod, "Of course it is."

  The foyer is bigger than my house.

  He drags me up the stairs to a huge open area. Two huge hallways that have to be eight feet across, branch off the massive sitting area at the top of the stairs.

  He pulls me down the hall on the right. His steps are so big I'm jogging to keep up. He is always dragging me and pulling me. I'm tired of his leading and not knowing where I'm going. I remind myself I'm a fugitive. Bitchy common sense reminds me that he is the reason I'm a fugitive.

  He opens double doors to a massive room that is four times the size of my dorm room. A king sized four-poster bed and dark cherry wood furniture fills one corner of the room. It's the biggest bed I've ever seen. It's the size of a Hummer.

  I get nervous seeing it.

  He spins me and kisses me. I push him off, "What are you doing?"

  "Kissing you. I've been wanting to do it all day." He speaks like he's entitled.

  I shake my head and wipe my lips, "Don’t. I don’t know anything and it's making me feel weird. I just want to have a shower and then read the book. I want answers Wyatt. I killed a man and
my mom vanished and you burned my house down."

  His dark eyelashes and dark blue eyes have me captive. He leans down slowly and presses his deliciously soft lips into mine. He pushes back my hair and shakes his head. He smiles. It's cocky and it makes my skin crawl, in a good way. Damn him.

  "Wanna get clean and consummate our marriage?"

  I kick him in the shin and push him off.

  He steps back and turns and walks out. He grabs the door handles and walks out. He speaks softly just as they shut, "Shower fast Rayne."

  I hear a lock click. I dash at the doors and turn the handles. Nothing. I am locked in. My brain works as the devil's advocate and whispers, 'maybe the others are locked out' and my heart tries to agree. I still don’t know why it's defending him. Bitchy common sense is quiet. I think she likes the kisses.

  Chapter Ten

  The bathroom is ridiculous, the bed is soft and lush, and the clothes on the bureau are my size. I don’t know what kind of magic is at work. How did he get the clothes here without me knowing? Did he plan to abduct me all along?

  I look out the window and clutch the book. My wet hair dripping on the dark hardwood floor is the only noise I hear. The jeans and t-shirt are not only my size but they're clean and smell like bounce. Like him.

  I watch the waves crash into the rocks in the distance. The ocean view is amazing. The sea is gray and stormy. I imagine my eyes look similar. I know I feel stormy.

  My fingers tremble and my stomach feels like it's gnawing on my spine.

  I am lost. I look out at the ocean and have the faintest feeling that I could run and jump in and swim away. Like I know that there would be something at the bottom of the sea, waiting for me. A whole world waiting for me to wake up.

  The door opens. I don’t turn. I'm angry and confused. I'm afraid of my response if I turn. I'm afraid of him. My natural responses that were hidden before are there.

  "Ready?" He says.

  "For what?"

  His warm hands are around me and pulling me into him. He smells my neck and plants soft kisses that resemble a whisper along my nape.