by Dela
No response except cottony puffs moving skyward as I exhaled.
“Oh, come on. Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. Every guy who’s dated you knows you’re a hard shell to crack.”
Now I couldn’t move. My throat dried out, leaving me gasping for breath.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Very,” I muttered scratchily.
I needed both hands to close the front door after she left. Is she right? Is Lucas right about us not being together? I didn’t feel vulnerable, but when was the last time I’d thought about life after all this? Where would I go? What would I study? I was too consumed with my feelings for him.
My cell was going off again in my room, much more loudly now that a body wasn’t covering it. I skipped steps upstairs to catch it before it woke the house.
“Please don’t tell me Dylan just called you?” I asked Lucas, already mortified.
“He didn’t need to. I heard it for myself. I’m at your doorstep.”
I ran back downstairs, panting, to let Lucas in. He had changed into a blue sweater and denim. He assessed my apparel and my hair before bringing his eyes back down to mine. It was clear from his expression that I looked rough.
“Want to talk?” he asked.
I crossed my arms over my chest, suddenly feeling naked.
“I need to change first,” I said, touching my gnarly hair. “And maybe brush my hair too.”
He smiled. “Dress warm.”
“Like going-for-a-stroll warm?”
“Like going-to-be-outside-all-day warm.”
He waited on the living room couch while I unearthed my warmest street clothes. I layered two shirts under a buff sweater and pulled my skinny corduroys on over a pair of tights. Then I braided my hair to eliminate the tangles and powdered blush onto my cheeks.
I left a note for Mom and Dad on the kitchen table, letting them know I’d be back by early afternoon, though I always felt those notes were more lies. What if I never returned? When we walked out, Dylan’s car was gone, and the Rover was parked along the curb. The sky graduated into a blossoming blue as the night’s fresh snow crystallized in the morning rays. Light sparkled in every direction.
“Where are we going?” I asked after settling into his car, grateful for the heated seat.
“A special place I like to go to for clarity. You could use a little of that right now.”
With the town still asleep, the unplowed boulevard was deserted. We drove west past Emerald Bay, continued north on the 89 as it curved along the lake past Sugar Pine Point, and then drove deeper into the unpopulated mountains. A familiar pop song played on the radio as the flocked fir trees breezed by the window.
After what seemed forever, Lucas finally exited onto a side road and drove another twenty minutes along switchbacks up the wintry canyon.
“We’re almost to the first point,” he said as we pulled onto a narrow shoulder.
I looked around for a mile marker or even a trail, but he didn’t stop. He plowed through the foot of snow into the untamed underbrush of pine trees until suddenly the trees gapped. They opened into a tiny clearing where the sun shone down, creating a circle of glistening snow. In the middle waited one snowmobile.
“Is that yours?” I asked.
He grinned with unfiltered excitement. “The only way to get where we’re going. Bundle up—it’s going to get a bit cold.” He grabbed his jacket and left me in the car.
“Splendid,” I said to myself.
It bewildered me, in these winter conditions, that he wore only a jacket the weight of my underwear. I imagined it was for show—when he threw it on, he only fastened the first three buttons. Then he put on a loose beanie. As he waited on the snowmobile, I dutifully wrapped my green scarf over my head, concealing everything except my eyes, and put on my mittens and peacoat and beanie.
Lucas’s magnetism was inescapable. His eyes twinkled when he half smiled, and an exciting sense of danger stirred in my gut as he dangled a helmet off one finger.
“Are we going far?” The scarf caught my breath, warming my nose with moist air as Lucas removed my knit hat, tucked it into his back pocket, and slid the helmet over my head.
“You won’t freeze for very long, if that’s what you’re asking.” He grinned as he snapped the buckle and lifted a pair of goggles. “Put these on.”
I was grateful that the merino hid my scowl as I strapped on the goggles.
“Put your arms around me and hold on tight.”
I obeyed the prince nervously and molded my arms to his firm core.
“Just remember that I’m breakable,” I added.
He tilted his head in a subtle bow as the machine roared to life. “Of course, mi muñeca.”
Before I could wonder again what that word meant, I was thrown off balance by a flash of glacial air. It knifed through my layers and crawled along my skin as the countryside passed by. We sped over collapsed logs, frozen rivers, and deep rolling hills. At some point, specks of wet dust gathered in the lower corners of my lenses, shattering my view of the trees into sunlit kaleidoscopes. And then Lucas stopped.
He pointed to our right. “Look.”
The aspens and fir, a barrier of white and brown bark, parted before an expansive clearing around a pond. Across the solid ice, flush with the edge of the frozen water, were broken steps leading to a very small building with a steeple. The remaining steps were frozen under the water.
A soft sunburst filtered through the silvery foliage around the spring. Its chalky streaks held snowy flecks, like crystals woven into the air. I looked more closely at the ruin and gasped. White-winged butterflies flew in and out of the milky water lilies at its base, and birds chirped a morning tune on the iced branches above.
“What is this place?” I asked. I breathed in and tasted the purity in the air.
“This is my sanctuary.”
He grabbed my hand and led me around the pond to the chipped steps.
“Wait here,” he said, and he disappeared into the chapel.
He came out holding two blankets, a thermos, and two Styrofoam cups. He laid the plaid tartan over the pine needles on the cold slab, then handed me the Sherpa throw, which I draped over my crossed legs as I sat down.
“How did you know about this place?” I asked.
He smiled, seeming pleased, and passed me a cup of steamy hot chocolate before sitting down across from me.
“I discovered it when we moved to Tahoe,” he replied. “For some reason, I feel the spirit of Ahau more here.” He looked to the sky, seeming more at peace than I’d ever seen him.
I let the rising steam thaw my face for a second as he remembered his old friend, and then I let the near-scalding liquid coat my throat. The rich flavor of cocoa and cinnamon immediately took the edge off the shivering in my bones.
“Are you warm enough?” he asked. There was such sweetness in his face, but I sensed the torment and hesitation as he kept me at a small distance.
“I’m fine.”
His timeless eyes glinted like gems in the silver light and imprisoned me. When he forced himself to look away, the scary idea of his age broke my reverie.
“When were you born?” I asked hesitantly.
He watched me cautiously for a moment. “June eighth, fifteen-oh-four.”
It took more effort to swallow, especially to keep my shy gaze on his ageless eyes. “What do you do with all that time?”
He released a relieved chuckle and leaned back, playing with the Sherpa as he stretched his legs. “Part of me is Mayan, which means that for the past five hundred years, I’ve been a dreamer, hoping that a mystical utopian community will come to be, somewhere in a distant time.”
I didn’t follow. It probably showed on my face.
“As I told you earlier, it’s not easy watching
people being abducted, knowing they are all going to die a horrible, painful death. Wherever I am, I find a sanctuary. A place I can come to alone and think, and be at peace. Dream of a better life, pray that those sacrificed will pass on to a better life too. You should try it. It helps a little.”
“Try it for what?” I wondered.
“To help with your blackouts. I’ve seen you overcome them before, but some obviously come on stronger than others. You need something to root you down. A dream, a place, or a person.” He faltered on the last word, and I noticed how much closer he had moved to me. Our bent knees were nearly touching.
I picked up a piece of snow and threw it at him playfully. “Thanks, Dr. Lucas.”
He wiped it off his shirt with a pleasant smile, but he was silent, confused by my friendly fire.
“But seriously,” I said. “Thank you for all of this. I appreciate it.”
He blinked hard, twice, and his statue stare tweaked into a shocked expression.
“Well, before all of this dreaming, what did you do as a prince?” I asked, uncomfortable beneath his stare.
His tight face loosened into a dimpled smile. “As a royal, I did three things every day religiously: I studied, I fought, and I ate.”
I tried to act sophisticated, but he disarmed me as always. I pretended he didn’t notice when my breathing faltered, though I suspected I wasn’t fooling him when he smiled again.
“What did you study?”
“Astrology and war.”
I must have looked disappointed, and he chuckled.
“What did you expect for royalty, law? Medicine? Back then, those jobs were for shamans and priests. As a prince, you were nobler if you excelled in war. And besides, a lawyer was as good as dead. There was no diplomacy between cities of the Maya. The Aztecs at least had one ruler who oversaw the smaller cities near them and handled taxes and such. Where I grew up, in the Yucatan, we ruled only one city, the one we lived in. There were a lot of fights between cities for power.”
“Was it really that bad?”
“I don’t understand why people think they have bad neighbors. Do their neighbors try to kidnap them, remove their hearts while they’re still alive, cut their legs and arms off or behead them, or drink their blood for fun?” He looked up sharply and let out a deep breath. “Anyway, I guess my protective instincts come out a bit strong when it comes to you. Sorry . . .”
“Don’t apologize,” I rushed out. “Please, don’t do that. It’s not you. It’s me. Trust me, it’s all me.” I rolled my eyes to the silver pines, annoyed with my inability to control my mind or emotions, and now my actions as my blackouts worsened. “If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be here right now.”
“But . . .”
“No, don’t. Lucas, you have every right to be like that. I’m not angry with you, I promise.”
“You’re not?” He looked relieved, but I didn’t like the way that doubt showed in his brow.
“No, I’m not. Look, we all know I’m weak compared to you.” My fingers fidgeted with their placement over the cup. “I need to tell you something, but I’m afraid you’ll be angry with me.”
When he didn’t respond, I nestled the cup of hot chocolate shakily into the snow.
He studied my hand and looked up, worried. “What?”
“I haven’t been completely honest with you . . .”
“What?”
I breathed deeply and looked across the pond. “My blackouts haven’t been as nice as I’ve made them out to be. I see things. A lot of things. You already know that. But lately, when I’m there, instead of fearing what I see or hear, I walk toward it.”
“You what?”
I tightened the blanket around my legs, worried about what he thought. “At first it was uncontrollable—I couldn’t stop walking toward it . . . the screaming. But the more I go there, the more my fear of that place goes away, and I feel curious.”
He looked betrayed, and I felt guilty.
“I can’t explain the crazy feeling, but it scares me to death. It’s that emotion, Lucas, that desire that makes me afraid. I’m afraid it would control me again for Solstice. I feel dark inside.”
His body was against mine before I finished my sentence. He wrapped his arms around me tightly. “I promised you I would never let anything happen to you, and I won’t, even if I have to protect you from yourself.”
I drank deeply of his tropical scent and tried to control my pounding heart. “Thank you.”
He squeezed me somewhat more tightly, his hands beginning to slide down my body, but then he backed away suddenly with an apologetic look.
“Sorry. That was wrong of me. I shouldn’t have—” he began quickly.
“It was just a hug,” I said incredulously.
He shook his head. “Do not tempt me, Zara.”
“You came on to me!”
“Aztecs one-oh-one. Because of the nature of my living being, of my very existence, I feel I have to devour everything virtuous about you.”
“Your godlike nature, or your Aztec nature?”
“Both!” he replied. He stood to pace in frustration. “After the transformation, every human feeling I ever carried increased exponentially, while everything I felt physically went dead. But now, for some reason, every fiber of my being is on fire.”
My eyes followed him as he moved. “What do you mean?”
“When my body became immortal, I could sit at the bottom of a frozen lake for over an hour and be perfectly okay. I only need to eat every other month or so, I sleep two hours at most a week, my facial hair grows out of control, and I could bleed for days but never die. My body would heal itself, and I would go on living. Absolutely no limits to my physical state, never have been, until now, with you. Something about you makes my insides crazy—a crazy you’ve no idea of.”
“Then give me an idea.” I hoped he’d kiss me again.
But he froze, his inner struggle growing clearer when his eyes hardened. Instead, he picked a piece of crumbling stone out of the snow and chucked it. As it slid across the frozen pond, he bent and picked up another piece, repeating the same throw. It was a good distraction.
He spoke with his back to me, throwing stone after stone. “I am anxious, jittery, and nervous.”
“You, nervous?” I didn’t mean to laugh out loud, but it came out whether I liked it or not.
He turned to me and cocked his head. “Yes.”
My butt froze to the tartan as he sat back down and stared at me intently.
“But mostly, the hole I felt my whole life, the longing for . . . something, has now been filled, and I can’t satisfy it the way I want to. And it’s burned me like fire since the day I met you.”
I felt brittle before his honesty, afraid to move. He chuckled—perhaps I was turning the color of my scarf.
“Aren’t you going to say something?” he asked.
A nerdy laugh slipped through my lips. “Come on, Lucas. Being you can’t be that bad.”
“Zara, for five hundred years, I’ve felt nothing but emptiness. There’s nowhere I can go to find someone who shares the same life. If I could have seen then what I see now, a life damned to solitude and unhappiness, I’m not sure I would have chosen this path.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not? It’s true. And now that I’ve finally found something special, I still can’t have her.”
I blushed and looked away, at a loss for words.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that,” he added in a rush.
“Yes, you did. You’re choosing not to have her.” I couldn’t believe I’d pressured him—or that I’d referred to myself in the third person.
This time, it was the immortal who froze while I took my turn staring at him hard. “You’re just as afraid as I am, aren’t you?” I said when he lowered
his head toward the blanket.
He looked up through his lashes, his voice so close but so distant in its softness. “You and I . . . it’s too dangerous.”
“More dangerous than me and the Underworld god?”
He looked away again, to the tree line, where the sunlight was strengthening. The snow crystals seemed to have been embedded in the branches.
“My feelings for you have grown, so much that I feel as though our relationship should be forbidden. The kiss on the mountain was because I was selfish. I was used to taking what I wanted. I wasn’t thinking right that night. But I care for you more now than I did then, and us being together is too much of a risk, as I keep trying to explain. It scares me, Zara, because they have the power to destroy our world if you make me weak. And you can get seriously hurt. Don’t you see that?” He said it, finally, what Valentina had presumed all along. His voice, his own hellish destruction: he would choose not to love. And it made him a sad sight. I saw only remorse and longing in his eyes. Longing for what? For hope? For companionship? He only needed to reach out to me and I would be his, but he didn’t.
This was the truth, and it hurt, and now I was offended.
“I get it, all right? We don’t need to talk about this anymore,” I said sourly. He couldn’t know that my heart was peeled back and exposed, bleeding out as we spoke.
Or could he?
He couldn’t even look at me in that instant. “Fine.”
Feeling colder, I took another sip of the cinnamon cocoa, but it suddenly tasted bitter. I gave up on it and set it back down in the snow.
“Why won’t you talk about what happened when you transformed?” I asked.
“Because. I just won’t,” he said curtly.
At this rate, I would know more about the Underworld than I would about Lucas. I didn’t want it this way, but I feared this was the only open direction, and I feared when I would black out next. Moments passed while I regained my courage, and then I asked carefully, “What will you do then after the portal is closed?”
He picked at some strands of grass poking through the snow, hardly acknowledging me as he stared across the pond. I imagined that this was the type of prince he was, cold and snappish, but a part of me denied it. That part imagined him kind and respectable and desirable.