Speed of Light

by Amber Kizer

  I’d never seen anyone wear clothing covering so much and yet showing more than it left to the imagination. She had on at least three pairs of tights—fishnets, sheer black, and sheer pink on the bottom—all ripped strategically to look like an advertisement for layering nylon.

  Her body had the curves of 1940s pinups, with breasts and hips that made her seem way older than me. The entire makeup counter on her face didn’t pin her age down either. She grabbed shotgun and left me to take a backseat. Like Custos. I tried to be pissed, but really it left me in a place where I could make sure she didn’t pull a knife and slit my throat from behind. Safety before ego.

  Yeah, okay, I’m not a fan. I envied her woman’s body. Not the arrogance.

  “Where are you staying?” Tens started the engine and merged back into traffic.

  “Gotta floor?” she asked, carefree and casual.

  Uh, no. “What are you plans?” I said.

  She shrugged. “Find Juliet. You bring me to her.”

  It’s that easy, is it?

  That sounded familiar, but we all knew there was an after the introductions that needed to be factored into the equation. How exactly do we prove she is who she says she is? Just like we hadn’t known quite how to tell who was a Fenestra like me, I wasn’t sure we knew how to tell if a Protector crossed our paths. Is this how Tens felt last winter when I barged into DG, riding to the rescue?

  “We’re headed to meet up with our friends. We need to talk to them. You’re not invited,” I said.

  Tens shot me a censuring glance. I didn’t care. I wasn’t talking about Howie, Delia, and the college kid at the cemetery in front of someone I didn’t know.

  “No problem. There a coffee shop around here?”

  “Sure.” Tens turned down Old Meridian Street.

  “I figured you’ll want to check me out, talk about me. Ex-eter-a. Ex-ecter-ah.”

  Et cetera.

  She was a force of nature. She took everything I dished in stride and with a contented twist of her lips. As if she’d traveled hard and could finally relax, and nothing I said could ruin that.

  “Exactly,” I answered her.

  “Want proof?” She half turned toward me.

  “Of?” I asked.

  “I am her Protector. I’ve seen things. I’ve dreamed her forever.” She looked at Tens, and he nodded. “Private things. Ask her about the treasures she keeps in plastic bottles.”

  I flashed to us crammed into Juliet’s crawlspace at DG and the hollowed out bleach bottles full of birds’ nests and pebbles. I hadn’t asked her about them since the tornado.

  “What about them?” Tens asked.

  “She has more under her new bed. Just look.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “I cannot prove me, but I am not going anywhere. I belong here. I fight to stay.”

  The fierceness in her expression chased away any sarcastic retort on my tongue. I nodded.

  “We’ll come back and get you when we’re finished,” Tens added as he pulled up in front of our favorite coffee shop in town.

  “Can I leave my stuff in your car?”

  “I don’t have a problem with that,” Tens said.

  Fara turned around and winked at me. “Just put it all back in same place, okay? And if you can wash the dirty, awesome!” She pulled earbuds out of her backpack and tuned us out as she opened the door, got out, and slammed it behind her.

  Are we done? I raised an eyebrow at Tens and he simply laughed.

  As we neared Rumi’s, lights and sirens blocked the street. News vans and crews with spotlights and sound equipment were set up on all corners. Rumi was standing with three uniforms, appearing to answer questions.

  “What’s going on?” Tens asked, turning left and heading instead for Tony’s.

  CHAPTER 12

  Juliet

  I walked toward Rumi’s, each step weighing me deeper into the earth, as if the gravity of my deception buried me in an early grave. The portfolio of little window paintings and notes that might have been gibberish if I hadn’t seen Rumi read them was tucked in my bag. I saw nothing like the symbol Ms. Asura wanted. I need to put these back before he discovers they’re missing.

  Can I do what Ms. Asura wants, manage to keep everyone safe, and still find my parents? I have to try. I may have to tell Rumi the truth. But he’d tell them all. They’ll hate me. They’ll send me away. Give me to Ms. Asura with no regrets. I staggered as the threads of dark ate my reasoning. Fear is the most powerful emotion, isn’t it?

  I froze as blaring sirens and flashing lights racing past me. Immediately, I was back at the aftermath of the Feast bombing. The smell of singed flesh and burned corn choked me. I ducked into an alley behind a bank of Dumpsters. I’m too late. Too slow. Too stupid to find what she wanted.

  Had Ms. Asura made good on her threat to injure my people? Was I not moving fast enough?

  I fished around in my backpack for the cell phone Tony pressed into my hand this morning. I’d missed three calls. All from him. I dialed him back without listening to the messages.

  “Where are you?” he asked, sounding weary and upset with me.

  My heart hammered; my tongue barely worked. “There are police at Rumi’s. Is he okay?”

  “You’re at Rumi’s? Get home, Juliet. They may still be watching.”

  Answer me! I wanted to scream. Instead I repeated, “Is he okay?”

  Tony barked, “Yes, yes, get out of there. His studio was vandalized. I don’t know details, but everyone’s headed here to meet up. Why don’t I come get you? Where are you?”

  I’m not a child. “I’m fine. Everyone is all right?”

  “Yes, come home now!”

  His fury slapped at me. Even he doesn’t think you can walk around Carmel alone.

  “Okay,” I whispered.

  “Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t get into any cars.”

  My blood boiled. I’m not incapable. I stabbed my finger against the bricks until my nail broke, tearing with a crimson smile.

  Tony continued. “Tens and Meridian just drove into the parking lot.”

  “I’m coming,” I said, the phone already away from my ear. Uniformed policemen screeched to a halt outside the alley; they shouted instructions to each other.

  “Why don’t I send Merid—”

  I hung up the phone and dropped it back into my pocket, sitting heavily in the trash and debris around me. I peeked around, trying to understand the chaos at Rumi’s store.

  Policemen scurried around taking photographs and studying the ground. There was so much broken glass on the sidewalk that they couldn’t avoid cracking and popping more. Like breakfast cereal.

  I waited until I saw Rumi. He appeared shocked and stricken. His eyes were glazed and gleaming as he tried to answer questions. He kept shaking his head as if he had no knowledge to share.

  I put my hand down to push myself up and touched fur. What? I jerked my hand back, startled.

  Under the Dumpster was the headless body of an orange tabby cat. Near her lay three dead kittens, as if they hadn’t known what to do when their mama died. Eww. Where’s her head? Spooked, I booked down the alley toward the condo, ignoring my throbbing foot wound.

  I thrashed up the stairs and collapsed onto the couch, my bag clutched against my chest.

  “Juliet? Are you okay?” Meridian asked. Concern crimped her forehead and narrowed her eyes. She knows. She knows what’s in my bag.

  I nodded, catching my breath. Avoiding her eyes, deliberately relaxing my fingers so they didn’t show so white against the cabbage-green canvas. I hadn’t taken two breaths before Tony and Tens swooped down on me as well.

  “You’re bleeding,” Tony rebuked and chastised me. “What did you do now?”

  The gash on my foot reopened in the run, leaving dollops of blood on the wood floors.

  “Sorry.” The word sounded hollow since I used it so often. I’m always apologizing. I’m always making their lives harder.

&n
bsp; “You’re going to get an infection if you don’t take better care of yourself.” Tony shook his head as he fetched the first-aid kit, and Meridian wiped up the blood. Tens simply watched me. When he reached for my bag, it took everything I had not to flinch away.

  By the time Tony was done rebandaging my foot and lecturing me on being alone and vulnerable, Nelli and Rumi entered without knocking. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to involve the police. The punctilious insurance salesman across the street came in late. Heard noises. Saw the broken windows. Went all Doolally crazy and called nine-one-one.”

  Rumi’s size used to intimidate me, because his eyes saw too deeply into me. His presence reminded me of truffle risotto and cream-of-asparagus soup with crusty, steaming Parker House rolls.

  “Where were you when this happened?” Tony asked, sounding upset at Rumi but looking at me.

  How sorry do I have to be? His life would be so simple without me. I avoided Tony so often, too often. It wasn’t his fault. How can I tell him that seeing his face reminds me he couldn’t save me from them before, so why should I believe he can now?

  “At Faye’s trying to spell Gus a nap.” Rumi rubbed his eyes. “If only her cold, froideur, daughter lived in town and was willing to help.”

  “But she’s a drama queen you wouldn’t want to have around,” Nelli said. As Gus’s niece, she probably knew more than the rest of us. “I’m heading there tonight for the same thing.”

  “What exactly happened to your shop?” Tens asked. He asked questions so quietly they shouted, like a spicy dish that starts out mild but follows with a scalding kick of heat.

  Meridian wrote fast and furiously, as if her life depended on recording every word of our discussions. She’d done a lot of writing since I’d known her; it was as if stories were nourishing for her heart the way food was for mine.

  “Bricks were thrown through the front windows; all of the Spirit Stones were smashed. Most of my Nain’s and family’s writings were stolen.”

  “Say that again?” Meridian asked, her head snapping up.

  “They obliterated the glass balls into smithereens. Took my family’s archives.” Rumi cocked his head.

  “They stole Nain’s collection?” I asked.

  “Not all. I had a few in a safety bank box.”

  I felt as though I’d eaten a bushel of hot peppers. They think the Nocti stole his papers. Not me. How can I return them now? How will I find what she needs?

  Meridian hummed.

  “What is it, lass? What are you thinking?” Rumi asked Meridian.

  “There was a possum tail and intestines smeared on the cottage porch two nights ago. Someone broke all of the Spirit Stones you’d hung from the rafters there. No one’s touched Auntie’s journal, but we were home, so maybe they couldn’t get to it as expected,” Tens answered for Meridian.

  “It’s like Revelation, like what happened at Auntie’s,” Meridian added.

  “What about Revelation?” Tony asked.

  I straightened, listening intently. Any time Meridian spoke of Auntie, I missed my mother more. Where are my ancestors? Aunts? Cousins? Grandparents?

  Tens said, “Perimo and his followers began escalating their harassment of us in the months before Meridian arrived in Colorado. It’s their way of warning.”

  “I think it’s safe to assume the Nocti equate desecrating any living thing with a threat.”

  “They’re afraid of the Spirit Stones,” Rumi said, cradling a coffee mug full of cream and sugar with only a splash of dark brew. “And our knowledge.”

  “There were several churches graffitied and vandalized downtown two nights ago,” Tony said.

  “My store was the only place hit in Carmel that I’m aware of,” said Rumi.

  “It’s possible it was kids who heard about the downtown incidents and thought to try it out here,” Nelli said. She was built like a plump roasting hen, her hair the color of crisped browned skin. Freckles covered freckles like sprinkles of nutmeg over whipped cream. She wasn’t far out of college, yet her presence felt motherly instead of only a few years older than us. She always looked at me with painful guilt and responsibility.

  “It’s possible but not probable,” Tens disagreed. “Kids might break glass, but steal specific writings?”

  “Do you have any extra Spirit Stones here?” Meridian asked Tony.

  “I don’t, no.”

  I cleared my throat. “I do.” Under my bed, because I stole it.

  Rumi raised his eyebrows. I knew he was wondering how I’d gotten ahold of one without paying him for it, but he didn’t say anything. He would have given it to me if I’d asked.

  “I can get it.” I stood and the nerves in my foot throbbed to life. I grimaced before I tamped down my reaction.

  Catching my wince, Meridian shoved me back down. “Where is it? I’ll get it.”

  “Under my bed, but wait—”

  She was already sprinting down the hall. I didn’t want her to see what I’d stashed under there. Rocks. A fossil I’d found near the creek. Arrowheads. Halves of hatched robin’s eggs. A nest like the one Kirian gave me that blew away in the tornado. A brooch I’d pocketed at Helios last month in the shape of a hummingbird and covered in rhinestones. Meridian’s green scarf.

  Meridian came back out with the scarf draped over her neck and the Spirit Stone in her hand. It glowed like a million refracted rainbows, the tree inside spreading out, inviting us all to dive into its light. She didn’t say anything to me about all the stolen goods. She doesn’t have to.

  “Why the escalation?” Nelli said. “If it is Nocti?”

  “You found the remains of an old DG boy, right? Howie? Or maybe because Juliet survived her transition to full Fenestra?” Tony asked Nelli.

  Why are they escalating? Because they can. They don’t need a logical reason. There’s more to it, Juliet. Figure it out.

  “Are we being dumb not considering other options? Criminals without supernatural connections?” Nelli pointed out.

  Tens shook his head. “It sounds like Nocti, but we should keep our eyes peeled regardless. I don’t know why humans would care about the Spirit Stones. They’re just trinkets.”

  “I’ll go make dinner.” I tried to stand and flinched as the nerves in my foot woke again and pulsed.

  “Sit!” Tony scolded me. “We’ll order in pizza.”

  “But …” I love the kitchen. They coddled me rather than understood my need to escape there. The pity rolled over me like breaking waves and made me nauseous. Poor Juliet. She’s too fragile and useless.

  “Don’t worry about it tonight, okay? We have lots to talk about.” Meridian used the scarf to make a nest on the coffee table and set the sphere gently into its folds.

  I wasn’t used to being waited on. It rankled. She’s probably going to tell everyone I stole her scarf and hid it under my bed. At least the folio is in my bag. They don’t know about that.

  “Thanks,” I said, not meaning it.

  Nelli told us about going to the Milk building and gathering the boy’s remains. They couldn’t identify the cause of death. “Too much time passed; there was no evidence of foul play.” Nelli flushed. “My boss isn’t being helpful. He’s not even sure we have identified Howie correctly. There’s no information about his past anywhere. It’s as if he didn’t exist except for the tiny bit in the DG papers. I’ve requested Howie’s remains be given to me for burial.”

  “What happens to him if you don’t get them?” Tens asked.

  “There’s a mass grave at Riverside Cemetery for the unclaimed, and there’s a monument his name would be engraved on if we prove his identity.”

  “He mentioned meeting Roshana and Argy. I think maybe they were all at DG together—at least their time overlapped,” Meridian said.

  “How does something this horrid happen for decades without anyone noticing and stopping it?” Nelli hung her head.

  “Because people turn away from truth. From seeing the dark sides of life. If it�
�s not happening to them, it doesn’t matter. Hiding in plain sight,” Rumi said, voicing my thoughts perfectly. “They made the children anchorites, living in seclusion, and the murders were secretive murdrums. The general populace doesn’t believe in things they don’t see. Much of reality they turn away from so they don’t have to see it or believe it.”

  I pressed my foot against the chair leg until I felt the edges of the cut break apart and bleed again. I’m still alive. For the moment.

  “You’ll never guess who we met today.” Tens demanded everyone’s attention.

  My heart pounded. Had Ms. Asura come to them as well?

  “Juliet’s Protector.”

  The room erupted with questions and exclamations.

  Who? I shook my head, not sure I’d heard correctly. “What did you say?”

  “Her name is Fara, and she’s been traveling from New York, but I don’t think she’s American,” Tens answered. “She claims to be your Protector.”

  “So she says,” Meridian plugged.

  How could Meridian gloss over such an important announcement? My Protector made contact? Who is she? Where is she? Is it Nicole come back again?

  “Mirabile dictum! Precious good news!” Rumi exalted.

  “We have to talk this through.” Tony’s face twisted in doubt and fear.

  Tens leaned down to me and whispered as the decibel levels around us rose. “We’ll introduce Fara to you as soon as we finish this discussion, okay?”

  “But—” No! I didn’t want to wait. Why are we waiting? Where is she? Not a boy? A girl?

  Meridian tried to reassure me. “We can’t bring her here with all of us. Everyone needs to understand the risk. What if she’s a Nocti sympathizer?”

  “You’ve looked in her eyes? She’s not Nocti?” I asked.

  “No, she’s not. And Tens feels certain she is your Protector. But there are questions—”

  “Then why didn’t she get here in time for my birthday?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t. She’s at the coffee shop on Main waiting to hear from us.”

  “Let’s go now.” I stood up.