The Light Keeper

by Gabriella Lepore

  And the rest, as they say, is history.

  ELANA

  Chapter Sixteen

  Down Came the Rain

  I stood alone in the clearing at the bridge. The sky had opened and rain poured over me. A trail of blood from my cut hand dripped onto my wrist. I made a fist and closed my eyes, but I couldn’t stop the tears from rolling down my cheeks.

  “Jake,” I cried into the howling wind. “Give him back!” I’d sobbed the words so many times—after all, I was a witch, wasn’t I? I could make things happen when I really needed to, right? Well, I needed Jake, so where was he?

  He was gone. Suddenly my legs buckled from underneath me. I staggered to a tree and collapsed against the trunk. The rough, wet bark scraped my skin and branches swayed wildly over my head.

  How could I keep going? How was I even supposed to function when all I could do was torture myself with thoughts of Jake. I couldn’t stop the images from flashing through my mind—horrible, gruesome images…

  They’d hurt him. The shapeshifter had hurt him, and I couldn’t stand it.

  I pressed my hands over my mouth, trying hopelessly to stop the sobs from escaping. Rasps of breath shattered through my fingers. I sank to the ground, my rain-soaked hair tangling around the toothy bark of the tree trunk.

  I never told him how I felt, I realized. He’ll never know how much I cared about him. I pushed the heels of my hands against my eyes, trying to stop the thoughts from coming. All my energy had been wasted on telling Jake I hated him, and that this was all his fault…

  My cries grew louder. I couldn’t hold them back now. I wanted Jake. I wanted to see him. I wanted him to be alive, so that I could live out my days in the watchtower knowing that he was out there somewhere, too. I needed to know that everything was okay with him, because no matter how lonely I got, my memory of Jake would comfort me, would give me strength.

  Ahead, the bridge stretched out into the darkness, adjoining the High Peak to the western mountain.

  I won’t stay here. I could leave this place and go back to Ashwood Hollow. I couldn’t do this alone. I wasn’t strong enough.

  I heaved myself to my feet, staggering blindly across the clearing. In seconds I was close enough to the bridge to see the pools of rainwater glistening on its wooden planks. The drop below plunged into darkness, swallowed by the night.

  Run, I urged myself.

  But I couldn’t.

  “Elana.” There was that voice again, whispering my name on the wind, calling me.

  My heart gave a thud in response. What was I thinking? This wouldn’t end with my running away. The demon who’d killed Jake was still out there. It was probably at the watchtower by now, and it would show no mercy on the frail old Light Keeper. I couldn’t let it win. Jake had died, and if the demon took the watchtower, then all he’d fought for—everything he’d given up—would have been in vain.

  No.

  I took a deep breath and straightened my shoulders.

  No.

  I wasn’t going to run. Correction—I was going to run, only not back to Ashwood Hollow. I was going to do what I’d set out to do.

  Save the world. Or something.

  And I was going to start with the beast that had killed Jake.

  JAKE

  Chapter Seventeen

  Out of the Shadows

  It was like a dream. I stood in a field, shoots of barley swaying gently around me as the sun set on the horizon. The world was at peace, lit with bold shades of orange and yellow. All was quiet, with only the soft whistle of the breeze as it stirred the barley.

  I drew in a shallow breath, letting the tranquillity of the scene steady my nerves. There was nothing to be afraid of. I knew that now.

  A young boy stepped up beside me, appearing as suddenly and inexplicably as I had. I didn’t question it; our presence in this ethereal place was not definable by the laws of the physical world.

  “Well I’ll be damned,” came a voice I knew. “You actually did it.”

  I turned to look at him. I smiled. He was shorter than I remembered.

  He grinned at me. I grinned back.

  “Flip.” My voice sounded tinny and distant, as though I were listening to myself from a great height, and I was overcome by a rush of elation at the sight of him. “You’re short.”

  “And you’re old,” Flip shot back, then smiled devilishly.

  I ran a hand across the rough stubble on my jawline. “I’m not that old.”

  He snorted. “You are. What are you, like, one hundred now?” He turned on his heel and began trotting away, laughing as he weaved through the barley, his childlike figure hidden amongst the tall yellow shoots.

  “Flip! Wait up!”

  I jogged after him, tracking him through the field. Only the rustling stalks gave away his location. Had he always been this fast?

  “Where are you?” I called.

  The glow of the setting sun grew brighter, lancing beams across the field. I shielded my eyes from the glare and stumbled blindly forward.

  “Get a move on, Grandpa!” Flip taunted me. “If this is what old age does to you, I’m glad I never made it past eleven.”

  “You’re lucky I’m having an off day,” I yelled back. “I’m twice your size. I could squash you like an ant.”

  “Whatever, old man. You’d have to catch me first.”

  As I moved forward, everything around me began to blur. I followed his voice until I could no longer feel the barley scratching my skin and could no longer sense the sunlight burning my eyes. The air was different now; it was cold and damp, and I could hear the crash of ocean waves.

  I blinked as my vision slowly returned. I was on the edge of a cliff, looking down at a rocky cove. Grey ocean churned beneath me, and heavy clouds hung over me.

  I knew this place.

  “Rovers Bay,” I said aloud.

  “This is your place, isn’t it?” said Flip.

  I spun around. How did he get behind me?

  “It’s where you said goodbye to us,” Flip went on. “It’s where you went to hide when times got hard. It’s where you go when you’re asleep and dreaming.” The wind swept through his scruffy hair. “You’re the rover who’s wandering, looking for a place to call home.”

  “I-I like it here,” I stammered. “It’s…lonely.”

  “You don’t like being alone, though, do you?”

  “I’m used to it,” I said.

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  He knew me too well.

  I stuffed my hands into my pockets. “Fine. I don’t like being alone. Is that what you want me to say? You left me. What other choice did I have?”

  He smiled compassionately.

  “So, why did you bring me here?” I pressed.

  “I didn’t.” Flip shrugged. “You brought me here. There’s something you need to do.”

  “What?” I asked, frowning. “Say goodbye?”

  “Can you do that?”

  I turned away from him and looked out at the waves rising and falling with the wind. The sullen ocean resonated within me. Flip was right—this was my sanctuary. This was where I would come to find my peace of mind when the reality of life simply became too much. Could I really leave all this behind?

  Yes, I thought, for her.

  And with that, it was like a light switch had turned off. I was in total darkness now. I strained my eyes, absorbing my new surroundings.

  I suddenly found myself in a dank cave. Water was dripping from above and pooling on the ground at my feet. The cave walls were sleek and smooth, glinting ebony even in the low light. I knew I’d seen this rock somewhere before, though not in such quantity.

  Hidden mountain crystal.

  Flip stood before me. Bolts of light shot past him, bouncing from wall to wall, flashing strips of color in the grim cave.

  “Are you ready?” he asked.

  “Ready for what?”

  “To leave,” he replied.

  Then he let ou
t a musical laugh. It was like a window opening into the past. All of a sudden I wanted to be eight years old again. I wanted to be James, a normal boy with no responsibilities, on track for a carefree life of mischief.

  “Well?” Flip pressed. “Are you ready to let go?”

  “Let go of what?” Everything was so fuzzy.

  “All of it.”

  All of what? I wondered.

  “What am I doing here?” I asked aloud. “How did I get…”

  And then I remembered.

  Elana.

  “Well?” Flip prompted.

  I swallowed. My throat felt dry. “I have to give up my life, don’t I? There is no going back. It’s already started.”

  Flip smiled broadly. “Now you’re getting it.”

  “You knew this would happen all along, didn’t you? Is that why you told me to go after the Light Keeper?”

  “Man, I knew you’d heard me! Billy said it was impossible, but I was sure—”

  I exhaled sharply. “You’re with Billy? I knew it!” My heart began to feel buoyant. Wherever it was they were, I’d always hoped they’d be together.

  “Yes!” Flip exclaimed. “We’ve been watching you, taking bets on when you’d be joining us.”

  We were both laughing now—perhaps another sign of insanity on my part.

  “Why did you want me to take this job so badly?” I pushed. It was a question I’d been dying to ask. No pun intended.

  “This is your path.” He offered me a toothy smile.

  “Why, though?” I kept on at him. “And what about Rufus, too. Why did he assign me to this? I was their best soldier. It makes no sense.”

  Flip folded his arms across his chest. “I suppose I can tell you now that you won’t be seeing Rufus anymore,” he said wryly. “You won’t be able to grass me out to him.”

  I waited, eager to hear more.

  “Rufus and some of the elders made the call,” Flip explained. “They wanted you out of the war.”

  I felt like I’d been punched in the gut.

  “Why?” I murmured. “Did they lose faith in me? Because I proved myself a hundred times over. I was a machine out there, Flip. You should have seen me—”

  “I did see you. And so did they. It was…frightening. You lost yourself out there, man. You became more animal than human. And that’s not what they wanted from us. That’s not what they wanted for us.”

  My lips parted in disbelief. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I’d been pulled out of the fray because I was—what, too good? Surely there must be some mistake.

  “A couple of the seniors wanted to keep you out there, let you burn yourself out until you went rogue or got killed because of your arrogance—”

  “My arrogance?” I spluttered. “Of course I was arrogant! They made me that way. My whole life was built around being the best.”

  “Being the best demon hunter is fine,” Flip said with a shrug. “What scared them was the human in you—or, I should say, the lack thereof. They drafted us to be the best we could be, to fight the good fight. Not to warp us into bloodthirsty, heartless monsters.”

  That knocked the wind right out of my sails.

  “Thanks for sugar-coating it.”

  Is that how they see me? As a monster? Have I really gotten that out of hand?

  I thought back to the months before I’d gone in search of the Light Keeper. The killings, the torturous brutality I’d inflicted on the demons… They’d been demons, so it hadn’t been entirely unwarranted. But Flip was right: the human in me had been replaced by a predator.

  I’d become the Shadow.

  And suddenly that didn’t seem like such a good thing.

  When I really thought about it, it was hard to trace back to the last time I’d felt human. I’d had moments, like the times I’d spent with Bernard and Marjorie, but that was merely a glimpse. In all honesty, I’d succumbed to the beast in me on that gloomy afternoon at Rovers Bay when we’d buried Billy. Since that day, I’d focused all my efforts on nurturing the ferocity in me, on detaching from humanity, until…

  Until I became Jake.

  “They wanted to give you a chance to save your soul,” Flip told me, breaking through my reverie. “You know, before it was too late.” His expression was earnest and wise beyond his years.

  Save my soul? I remembered Bernard, and how I’d used that very same sentiment about him. He had saved my soul by offering me a glimpse of humanity. And now, the elders at the training facility were doing the same?

  “They knew this was how it would end if I accepted the mission,” I presumed. “So my head was on the chopping block all along?”

  Could this really have been orchestrated from the start? Rufus had known that Elana was the Light Keeper—no doubt they all had. So they’d sent me on this wild goose chase, pulling me out of combat to rediscover the human in me?

  A sudden thought made me feel short of breath.

  Had they known I would fall for Elana, too? Was that part of the plan? Did they send me to find her, only to lose her again when it was all over?

  Great plan, sadists.

  “They knew your time was up,” Flip elaborated, likely seeing my wheels turning. “They didn’t want to mislead you, but they had to. You served them well, and now they’ve given you an out. This is your reward. Think of it as your badge of honor.”

  “And now it’s time to leave.”

  “Time to let go,” Flip added. “Let go of the Shadow like you let go of James.”

  “What if I can’t?” My heart tugged, heavy in my chest. “I don’t want to. I don’t know how to.”

  “Look, they may have made the final decision,” he reasoned, “but this is bigger than them. As much as you were born to hunt demons, you were born for this—this moment, right now. All you needed was a shove in the right direction.”

  A shove? I felt like a needed a fork lift truck to get me through this.

  “Follow me,” Flip advised. “You’ll know what to do when the time comes.” He turned and began walking deeper into the cave.

  I shadowed him. The light from the mouth of the cave was gone, but the shafts of color exuding from the black crystal walls lit our path. As I trudged on through the labyrinth, I felt my past slipping away, as if the shackles that had bound me were finally unlocked. With each step I took into the cavernous depths, another chain link on my armour was released. Just as Flip had urged, I let go of the Shadow. I broke free from that person and left him behind.

  We came to a stop in a chasm of the cave. On the slick, damp ground was a black crystal spear, lying like a sword at my feet. It called to me, humming with energy. I felt its pull. It was waiting for me.

  I looked at Flip. He stood at the entrance of another mysterious crevice. Behind him, a dark abyss led into the unknown. All I was sure of was that was the path he would take.

  “Flip, wait. Don’t leave me.”

  He looked sad for a moment. “I won’t. Not really, anyway. I’ll always be here.”

  “I can’t do this alone,” I said in a broken voice.

  “You’re not alone. I’m right here. Lifers, remember?”

  I swallowed a lump in my throat. “Yeah. Lifers.”

  “You can come with me, you know,” he added. “If you really want to.”

  I shook my head, struggling to find my voice. “Not yet,” I managed. “Save me a seat, though.”

  He threw me a wicked grin. “You got it, old man.”

  With those final words, he disappeared into the tunnel. Once again, Flip was gone.

  Alone now, I knew what I had to do. The only trouble was, there’d be no turning back once I did.

  I crouched on the ground and wrapped my hands around the crystal spear. It buzzed and glowed at my touch. It wasn’t heavy as I’d imagined it to be. In fact, it felt weightless in my grasp.

  Another voice came from within the caverns.

  “Well done. You’ve come so far.” The old Light Keeper stepped out from the sh
adows, her long silver hair glowing in the light of the spear. “You are stronger than I thought.”

  “I’m doing this,” I said adamantly. “I’m going to see this through to the end.”

  “Good. Keep going. You are nearly there.”

  I rose to my feet, spear in hand. The sensation of age-old power and wisdom flowed into me, transmitting waves through my hands and flooding me with memories.

  My life flashed before my eyes. I saw my dad, and my childhood home. I saw the training facility and the marble statues of lions and bears on its immaculately groomed lawns. I saw Flip and Billy throwing paper airplanes at Rufus, and I also caught a glimpse of weary affection in our mentor’s eyes—something that, as a kid, I had never taken the time to notice. I saw Rovers Bay with its dark sand and rocky cliffs, and its frothing waves breaking on the shore. I saw myself in the El Camino, driving past a signpost on a barren road.

  Welcome to Ashwood Hollow, it read. Stay a while!

  I saw Elana.

  With one final breath, I plunged the spear into my stomach.

  And that was how I left this world.

  ELANA

  Chapter Eighteen

  My So-Called Fate

  I hobbled gallantly up the grassy bank, the watchtower looming in my sights. What I would find there was anyone’s guess. Was I too late? Had Fake Jake already killed the old Light Keeper and destroyed the metaphysical gateway of the Hidden Mountains? If that was the case, then I’d failed and the soulless ones were already unleashed.

  Charging up to the watchtower, I heaved open the door and crossed into the shelter of the candlelit corridor. The iron door slammed shut behind me with a reverberating thud.

  Now I could no longer hear the howl of wind and the patter of rain. Instead I heard only the tick of a pendulum somewhere within the tower and the quiet pant of my own breath.

  My heart gave a little thump. Now what? I wasn’t a demon fighter. I was just a girl.

  A girl with a destiny, I reminded myself. Suddenly, saving the world seemed like an enormous task.

  I crept cautiously along the winding corridor. Once again, it baffled me how long and expansive the passageway was, considering that the dimensions seemed so compact from the outside.