Amber crosses her arms and makes a smug face. “Yeah, what was that all about? Getting a little bow chicka wow wow in here? I’m totally cool with it, blowing out lights is intense shit. That must be one helluva pair of lips you got going on there B.”
I look at her sideways. “B?”
“B for Bronx, I’m testing it out to see if it fits you.”
“Thanks, I feel all hood now. The answer to the question about us kissing, is yes, we were kissing. Have you ever heard of Light Tamers blowing up lights?”
Caleb pulls me to him, a concerned look on his face blew his cover at being nonchalant. “If we get a chance to talk to Ms. Gayle tonight, we should ask her about it. Let’s grab the cookies and Cokes. I hear your mom in there still fussing about my arm, maybe if we show her I survived she’ll ease up. If you hand me a dust pan and broom, I’ll get this glass up.”
We watched two movies and went through three bags of popcorn before my mom finally decided to go to bed. Amber admits she needs to get home to help her dad get in bed. She might like playing hard ass, but she really seems to be a good person.
Caleb and I hold hands as I walk him to the front door. “I can’t wait to have you all to myself tomorrow night. I’ll text you when I get home, be careful. You have your flashlight right?”
I pat my pocket to show him I have my flashlight. “Caleb?”
“Beautiful?” he replied.
“Thank you,” I say.
“For?”
“I dunno, for being you. Good night. I’ll wait for your text, be good. Don’t text and drive!”
“Hmmm, good isn’t fun, but I’ll try,” he whispers to me. I shiver and tingle in places I’ve never shivered or tingled before.
I watch him climb into the car and feel a pang of jealousy that it isn’t me in the passenger seat. Jealousy is ugly, it will betray you in a heartbeat.
~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 6
The prize of all too precious you. ~ William Shakespeare
Sonnet 86
Grandma went to bed, telling me she and I’d go out for a while this weekend and have a good long talk. If I were a suspicious kind of person, I’d guess she wasn’t sure about the reason the lights blew up. Me either.
Caleb and I got on the internet and messaged each other through Facebook so our parents wouldn’t hear us talking. While we chat, I ask questions about the things he’s done in his life. He told me stories about going to the doctor a lot when he was young. Doctors poked and prodded him, coming up with nothing. No one could tell his parents why he was weak. His mom always thought he had a vitamin D deficiency because he would perk up after a day at the beach. Other kids made fun of him because he was small and pale, having no idea he was also extraordinarily smart. I told him stories about my dad and how his OCD was starting to get the best of him. How life was living with an artist that painted for a living. When he was good, he was amazing and how when he was bad, life sucked for everyone. I’d never expected that I’d be so forthcoming to someone I barely knew. Here he is, and here I go, falling for the first guy that pays me any attention.
I wake suddenly at 3:15 A.M., only to find my laptop screen protector spinning Captain Jack Sparrow around in circles. Thankfully the lights in my room are still on; my mom has a habit of getting up in middle of the night and turning them off. I go to shut down my computer and see that Caleb sent me a goodnight and good morning note. Does it get any better than this? I’m excited to find out.
Hearing a noise come from the kitchen, I grab my flashlight and decide to investigate. Walking past the door to my mom’s room, I notice its open a crack. I peek inside to see she is steadily snoring quietly. Okay, grandma must be in the kitchen. When grandma had the house rewired for my bedroom lights, she had light switches installed with motion detectors that will turn on when someone walks around. The new houses being built all come with them, and now, this one does too. The light is dim but enough to keep the Dark Ones away I hope.
The kitchen light is on and I fully expect to see grandma up to no good, eating cookies or something. Before I have a chance to react, I’m grabbed from behind. The gloved hand across my mouth prevents me from biting the person and scream for help. I hear the assailant whisper in my ear, “Jessie, don’t scream. It’s dad.”
Did I hear that right? My dad isn’t in New Bern, North Carolina. My dad is in Greece being a starving artist. My dad that never technically married my mom because he didn’t believe you need a piece of paper to belong to someone else. My dad wouldn’t ever appear and not call me to let me know he is in town. Suck is not the word I’m thinking, screaming at the top of my lungs feels right.
I struggle against him, my arm about to elbow him in the gut. It sounds like my dad, but it can’t be. Why is he sneaking into the house?
“Jessie, stop, it’s your dad. Stop struggling and I’ll let you go. I don’t want you to wake your mom or Gayle. Understand?” He whispers in my ear.
I shake my head up and down and he lets me go. “Daddy, why are you sneaking around in middle of the night?” My eyes surely deceive me, it looks and sounds like my dad, but is it?
“Thank God you’re okay. I’ve been worried sick about you. I’m sure Gayle has told you what you are. She has right?”
I shake my head up and down in agreement. I throw my arms around him. I’ve missed him so much, but he will freak out that I’m dating.
“Jess, I don’t have a lot of time. Listen to me, I need to meet with you. The library isn’t far from here, tomorrow at lunch time I can be there. You can see if Gayle will drop you off. I have to warn you Jessie, you need to be careful. Yes, you are a Light Tamer but you’re not just any tamer, you come from a royal line. I can’t tell you everything right now, and no matter what you do you have to have light with you. That boy, the one that saved you when you almost drowned. I don’t remember his name, but he is someone you need to be with. You need to find him, he is your salvation,” dad said.
“His name is Caleb. Why are you being all secret spy man, sneaking in the house?” I step away from him to look and see if he is drunk. He doesn’t look like it and I didn’t smell it on him when he grabbed me. “Daddy, you’re acting strange, what is wrong?”
“Jessie, baby, trust me, I’m your dad. I want you to be safe and I’m doing it in the only way I know how.”
“I’m not meeting you anywhere unless you tell me why we have to do it in secret,” I demand.
“I’m a Dark One, when I started drinking, I escaped the fear. The girl that I bonded to was killed in an accident when we were eighteen. The alcohol eased that void, now I’m clean. I went to Greece to a special clinic to get me off the booze and to come to terms with her death. You’re an Original, and as soon as word gets out that you’ve become unprotected, they will hunt you. I have some ideas, come to the library, please,” he begged. My 6’2” dad looks small and scared. His color is back though, he doesn’t have the dark circles under his eyes and he seems okay.
“You’re the reason I’m unprotected, you left. Don’t make it sound as if I did this to myself.” I stop suddenly, hearing my mom’s voice coming down the hall.
“Jessie, is that you in there?” My mom whispers as she comes into the kitchen.
“Hide,” I whisper. I push him to the refrigerator and he hides like a child playing hide and seek.
Mom walks in, eyes droopy from lack of sleep. Seeing me, she walks over, and pulls me in for a hug.
“You should be sleeping sweetie. Why are you in the kitchen?” She asked with concern dripping from every word.
“Sorry, I was up thinking about a book I want to get from the library. I came in here for a glass of milk hoping it would help me sleep.” Don’t go near the fridge. Don’t..please.
“I have to go in to chart tomorrow, I can drop you off on the way,” mom offers.
“I think I’ll ask Caleb to take me, if you don’t mind. You can’t be super-mom if you’re tired. I’m headed back to bed,” I say, putting m
y hands on her shoulders and lead her away from the kitchen. At least now he knows that I will be there, now I get to be the grown-up and get my mom back to bed.
________
Caleb had no problem picking me up to go to the library. His hair still wet from showering at the gym. He and his dad started working out together when his mom died, and it obviously was paying off.
“You look really cute today, not that you don’t every day,” Caleb said. “I like it when you wear your hair down, it makes your eyes stand out. I have a soft spot for your eyes.”
I wonder if he’s said that to anyone else. “Thank you. How was the gym?” I ask, hoping he didn’t hear me thinking.
“I haven’t Jessie. I’ve never told anyone anything about their eyes, and the gym was okay. You should come with me; I can teach you how to fight. I bet Amber would dig it too.”
I shrug, trying to be nonchalant. Of course I’d go to the gym with him, to watch. Nothing like a girls self esteem being shot down as she sees all the hard bodies of the other girls.
“Jessie, stop. If you honestly think that everyone at the gym is in shape, you’ve obviously not been to the gym lately. Most of the people are overweight and working on getting in shape. You aren’t one of those people. Tomorrow morning, I’ll show you. Deal?”
I close my eyes and shake my head yes. “We better go eat pancakes when we’re done,” I tease.
“Covered in mounds and mounds of whipped cream and syrup, oh yeah, delicious. I accept your challenge and raise you two strips of bacon.” Caleb weaves over to miss a squirrel that was feeling suicidal.
“Bacon is for wimps, sausage is for men,” I counter. It’s the first time in over a week that I’ve thought of something other than being a Light Tamer. “Ah, I think that squirrel is depressed, he just ran out in front of the car behind us, they missed him too.”
We drove in silence the rest of the way to the library. Caleb reaches over and takes my hand into his. The waves of warmth send me on a silent journey of happiness throughout my body.
“What if he’s not here? What if it was all a dream and I was sleep walking?” Panic starts to fill me with uncertainty.
“Jessie, it was real. Take a few deep breaths; I won’t let anything happen to you. I know it’s your dad and all, but if he is a Dark One, we have to be careful around him.”
He’s right, I have to be careful. I can’t let my dad show up out of the blue with tales of royalty and accept it as fact. Can I? No, I’m going in there and listening to him, and decipher it all in my head. Interesting that some guy I barely know bops into my life, and I accept his paranormal tale, yet question my own father’s credibility.
Caleb got out of the car and came over and opened my door for me. I’d seen old movies where guys would hold doors open, but you don’t see it much in high school, that’s for sure.
New Bern library is set smack dab in the middle of the historic area of New Bern. The one story brick building, with its white trim, and pillars by the entrance, look like a story book all on its own. Grandma and I spent many Saturdays meeting up with her friends and having story time here. Gayle loves to read to children, she inflects her voice to match each character in a book. Kids would all gather around us as she painted the story with words. I’d smile with pride that she was my grandma, even if I wasn’t allowed to call her that.
Caleb takes my hand and pulls me in for a hug. My knees sure are wobbly these days. “Jess?” He whispers to the top of my head.
“Yeah,” I whisper back looking up at him. From behind, the sun is glowing and it looks as if he has a halo around his head. I tilt my head back and watch as his face lowers to mine. His lips softly kiss mine. My brain screaming for him to kiss me as though it were our last kiss, my logic telling me it isn’t the right time or place. It couldn’t have lasted more than five seconds, but my heart beat a thousand times.
“Ready?” Caleb asks.
“Let’s do this,” I reply. We walk in; I half expected Dark Ones to be hidden in every corner. Instead of dark and dreary, it is bright and cheerful. The brightly lit room is much brighter than I remembered. We are energetically greeted by the youngest, hippest librarian that I’ve ever seen. Not a dowdy elderly lady, this librarian is actually pretty and inviting. People are everywhere, stacks of books, mothers with e-readers and children jabbering about books. A few teens are playing MTG, I don’t understand the whole Magic The Gathering game at all. I never understood Pokeman either for that matter.
“I haven’t been in here since middle school,” Caleb said jarring me out of my trance.
“I know right. I don’t remember the place being so, you know, so…perky,” I reply. “I guess we’ll walk around and try to blend in. There’s a room in the back, lets go up there and wait for him.”
I hear someone complaining about their laptop shutting down, possibly doing a system update. Another person is frantically pushing buttons on their Nook. It’s then that I realize a lot of people are messing with their electronics. Hmmm, that’s interesting.
There in the back room, my dad is sitting with his head in a book. Not any book, the dictionary. What a dork, I think to myself with humor. “Daddy?”
“Baby, you made it,” he says as he sets the book down. He walks over and pulls me in for a hug. Letting me go, he looks over at Caleb. “Young man,” he says in the… I’m sizing you up voice.
Caleb, not missing a beat, replies to my dad. “I’m Caleb Baldwin.”
“Baldwin, good strong name son. Both of you, sit, I need to tell you some things very quickly, I can’t stay long,” dad said and sits down at the round table.
Dad, please don’t embarrass me. Will Caleb hold my hand in front of my dad? I hope not, my dad will probably freak out. Crap, shhhh stop thinking where he can hear you. Damn.
“It isn’t safe for you to be seen with me. You’re a sovereign tamer, with a hidden ability, you can chazzle,” he leans in and whispers the last part.
“Chazzle, what in the heck is that? The ability to dazzle someone with chatter?” I ask, half kidding.
“Always the witty one, I guess you get it naturally. Caleb, do you know what chazzling is?”
Caleb gave him a quizzical look. “No sir, I can’t say I’ve heard that expression before,” he replies.
“Jessie, you can stop time for thirty seconds, only for you and whomever you are touching.”
Both Caleb and I look at each other with amazement. “What the…holy cow!” I say. “No way.”
“Way, I’ve seen you do it. Not as much as seen, as I’ve been part of it. When you were a baby I noticed it. There’s always been rumors of people in our family having the ability, but I’ve never seen it.” Dad scans the room, as if he expects something to pop out of nowhere.
“Thirty seconds, how?” I ask.
“It is a fifteen back and fifteen forward. That can mean the world to you, especially when it is a life or death situation,” dad says and sets a bottle of water on the table. Look at this bottle of water. I’m going to take the lid off of it and knock it over; I want you to think about the bottle not falling over. As soon as the bottle starts to tilt, concentrate with all your might, reach over and stop me from ever taking off the lid. Got it?”
“No,” I said but not soon enough. In a split second it all began, I reached out and set the bottle up right. My time rewinds and I end up with the bottle in my hand and my dad finishing asking me if I got it.
Caleb and I look each other and then my dad. “That was ridiculous! How did you know and I not know that could happen dad?”
“I figured it out when you were about three. You didn’t want the can of peas, you wanted corn. You flipped out and the next thing I knew, the can of corn was on the counter and the can of peas in the cupboard.”
“Oh my, holy moly, I remember something like that. I thought I was magical when that other kid would come over to play. I’d get the toy from her and trade it out with another toy. She would sit and cry when she came over
after that. That’s freakin’ crazy. Why haven’t you told me? Why did you let your art get in the way of telling me something so damn important. Don’t you think I should have known? Is it really fair that I had to wait for a complete stranger to tell me?” I look at Caleb, “No offense Caleb, but my dad should have told me all of this, I don’t know…ten years ago.”
“Yes Jessie, I should have. I didn’t, and now I am. Do not tell anyone else, not your grandma, your friends, no one. This is between us three. Caleb, I’m trusting that you’ll keep this to yourself too.”
“Yes sir. You still haven’t told us how she is royalty and what that means for us,” Caleb said and took my hand in his.
Do you believe everything he is saying? Squeeze once if you do and twice for no. A light squeeze from his hand let me know that he does believe him. I don’t get why he hasn’t told me in the past. This is big.
The Light Tamer (The Light Tamer Trilogy) Page 6