by J. S. Malcom
CHAPTER 5
Silas Two Weeks Ago
Silas had the park to himself as he walked its paths and the sky continued to darken, the sunset hastened by thick gunmetal clouds. He kept expecting it to rain. He swore he felt the pressure building, the ozone and electricity collecting in the air. But maybe that was just the energy rising inside him, a power he didn't understand or know how to control. He looked down at his hands, half-expecting sparks to be arcing at his fingertips. He felt both relieved and disappointed to see that wasn’t the case. Although, he suspected it would be soon. There were times when he wondered if the true storm approaching was one building within himself.
Silas walked the rest of the way home, soon entering the dingy front hall of his apartment building. He climbed the stairs to the fourth floor and unlocked his door. His place was small. Tiny, in fact. Just two compact rooms, plus a bathroom and a kitchenette. Still, it came furnished, the sofa and bed old, but perfectly functional. Silas figured he couldn't complain. After all, he could come and go as he pleased. That alone was a miracle after being institutionalized, with the foster homes before that just different kinds of prisons.
Given the chance, he'd hug the guy who’d set this up for him. The problem being, he still hadn’t met him. Could this Grayson character really be some old friend of his family? If so, what did that even mean? Had he been a friend of his mother? His father? Both? Not that it mattered, since he’d never met them either. All the same, it was weird to think he could go his entire life never knowing there was someone out there keeping an eye on him. Weird or not, it still beat being locked up. The way Silas figured it, when he finally did meet the guy, he’d make the call. If Lonsdale turned out to be some sort of freak, he’d just bail and opt for the halfway house. Doctor Newcomb would be thrilled at his change of heart.
Thinking of Doctor Newcomb reminded Silas that he was meeting with Marcus tonight. Shit, he’d almost spaced it. His case worker would be there in twenty minutes. A bit tight, but enough time for a shower and maybe something to eat. Then he could suffer through the weekly face-to-face, once again claiming that all episodes of encountering ghosts and other supposedly supernatural creatures remained behind him.
As Silas crossed the living room, the tingling he’d felt before continued building within him. A familiar sensation, but one that always left him edgy and restless. He stood at the window, seeing his reflection in the dark glass. As always, he focused on his hair color first—silvery gray with strands of pure white. Like he was eighty or something. And then there were those pale blue eyes, more the color you’d expect to see on a husky than a human. Silas had never doubted that his appearance had been enough to set him apart. No wonder he’d never been adopted, despite his otherwise proportionate features— the straight nose, high cheekbones and square jaw.
Beyond his image, the red glow of sunset lingered strangely luminescent. Silas turned away, about to go clean up before his case worker arrived. Then he remembered something. As he’d walked through the park, there had been no sunlight. The sky had been growing dark. By the time he’d gotten home, lights had blazed from apartment windows. He turned to look out again, where he saw that same eerie glow bathing the street.
Silas felt himself being pulled, some instinct calling. Without knowing why, he spread his hands toward the window. Then he stared, both fascinated and frightened, as the red light brightened to fill the glass. What he saw before him now looked like a tunnel, fiery orange at its core and ringed with scarlet. In its center, a form appeared, just a shadow at first but soon that shadow solidified into the figure of a woman walking toward him.
From what seemed like a million miles away, Silas heard knocking. Three distinct raps. For a moment, he hesitated. Part of him felt sure that, if he wanted to, he could step up onto the windowsill and enter a different world entirely. He could meet that woman striding toward him.
The knocking sounded again, firmer this time, louder.
Silas stepped back from the fiery glow. He gestured toward the window, expelling the last of the energy that had been building inside him. The woman faded, along with the glowing tunnel. His window darkened to show only his own reflection.
Finally, Silas turned away and went to answer the door.
CHAPTER 6
I sit in the Cary Street Café, waiting for Julia as something keeps nagging at me. Something feels different, and I look around wondering what it is. Nothing jumps out at me. It’s the same old place, with booths and tables that look like they’ve seen their fair share of use over the years. The bar is full of both locals and college students. The lighting is low. Rock music plays in the background.
Then the front door opens and Julia enters the room, a waif-like girl with short blonde hair. I wave from where I sit in a booth near the back. She starts making her way toward me, and only then do I realize what’s been bugging me. Julia and I have come here a million times before, back when we were going to school together, but this is the first time we’ve been here when we weren’t sharing a body.
Julia slides in across from me, blowing at her hands to warm them up. Her cheeks are red from the cold. She notices the smile tugging at my lips and says, “What?”
“Nothing,” I say. “How’s it going?”
Of course, she doesn’t let me off that easy. “Tell me.”
I shrug. “Does this place seem different to you?”
She looks around, her brow furrowed as she thinks. “No, not really.” Then her eyes go wide. “Oh, wait. Is this a first-time? It is, isn’t it?”
That’s what we call it when we visit places we’ve been to before, only now in separate bodies. A little ritual of ours.
“Yup.”
A smile spreads across Julia’s face. We bump fists. I’m fully confident anyone observing us would never guess what occasion we’re marking. We are truly having a unique experience.
The waitress drops off the two mugs of tea I ordered. Just a hunch, but one based on years of experience.
Julia smiles again. “How’d you guess?”
“Chilly night and all,” I say.
The waitress is young, in her early twenties, probably a college student. She goes to set down menus, but I make eye contact with Julia.
“Cheese fries?”
Julia nods. “Definitely.” She turns to the waitress and says, “Oh, and can we get a hummus plate too?”
“Good call,” I say.
The waitress goes to place our order, probably thinking that Julia and I must have been dating for a while. In many ways, we are a couple, one with a long history. We’re just not that kind of couple, since what we experienced is way more intimate. Dating, marriage, sex, none of that can possibly compare. The closest thing I can think of is twins, but only if they could remember what it was like back in the womb.
Now that she’s warmed up a little, Julia peels off her old denim jacket. With its frayed edges and holes, I can’t believe she still has that thing. We wore it all through high school. I love that jacket, and she even has some of the pins I chose back when we still went to Hot Topic and World of Mirth together, one of them for My Chemical Romance. Julia wasn’t into them as much as I was, but of course she pinned their logo to her jacket. Our jacket, because Julia is Julia.
I blow steam from my tea. “Doing okay?”
Julia nods. She knows what I mean, of course. “Overall, yeah,” she says. “I’m not going to lie to you. It’s been an adjustment. I’m still wrapping my brain around that whole deal.”
It’s been a month since I rescued her from Faerie, but it’s not like I’m a hero, even though I would have died trying to save her. If it weren’t for me, Julia wouldn’t have been taken as bait to begin with. She has never once said that. In fact, she’s never given the impression she feels that way. All the same, that’s my weight to carry. Simply because it’s true.
“Sleeping any better?”
Julia shrugs and tries to smile. “A little. Don’t worry. I’m fine.”
<
br /> It’s been this way each time we’ve seen each other. A little awkward at first. Me feeling guilty and Julia trying to preserve her dignity, which she lost entirely as Vintain’s prisoner. Other than being fed, Julia was left to rot in a blank cell of a room. Vintain gave her no way to pass the time or occupy her mind. The result being she spent weeks alone with her confusion and terror. I have no doubt that, had Vintain defeated me, he would have left her that way, probably for the rest of her life. Or maybe he would have simply killed her, if that was more convenient. Julia was merely a specimen of an inferior species, from a realm that Vintain intended to conquer.
As for Julia, it’s a miracle she didn’t come out of the ordeal with her mind irrevocably warped. But Julia is one of the strongest people I know.
Julia sips her tea and asks, “How’s your sister doing?”
Something about her tone tells me this might not be just a casual question. “Good, I think. Why, what did you get?”
Julia shrugs, not denying it. We know each other far too well for that. “Just, well, I think something is bothering her. Has she said anything?”
I shake my head. “Not to me, anyway. Should I be worried?”
Julia keeps her sky-blue eyes on mine. “It isn’t anything like that. Not, like, anything dangerous. What I felt was pressure, a sort of heaviness, like something is weighing on her. A decision of some sort, I think.”
“About what?” It’s a stupid question, I realize. It’s not like she’s holding out on me.
Julia takes another sip of her tea. “I didn’t dig into it. It didn’t seem like my place to go.”
“But everything’s okay.”
Julia nods. “I think she’s fine. Just dealing. I’m sure she’ll tell you soon.”
The waitress drops off our order and we wait to resume our conversation. When she leaves again, Julia says, “So, I decided to take a semester off.”
The news shocks me a little. Julia is a dedicated student, and she’s only a year away from finishing her graduate degree. I hate to ask, but I pretty much have to. “Because of what happened?”
She shakes her head. “No. Not exactly, anyway.”
Julia averts her gaze from mine. I know that look. There’s something she doesn’t want to tell me, but at the same time thinks she should. After a moment, she says “It’s sort of a hunch. Like I’m going to get too busy for a while.”
“With what?”
“I’m not entirely sure, but it involves my abilities somehow. I guess I’ll find out if it happens. If it doesn’t, I can always go back to school.”
She’s still being cryptic, which isn’t like her. Yeah, she’s definitely holding something back, which can only mean one thing. “Whatever it is, I can handle it,” I say.
Julia sighs. “Have you seen that stuff on the news?”
“You mean that thing about the farm out in Amelia?”
“And that other thing,” Julia says.
“What other thing?”
Julia pushes ketchup around with one of her fries, absently drawing a figure-eight. “It happened the next day. Same kind of deal, basically, although it wasn’t in Amelia this time. It was in a city neighborhood. People woke up in the middle of the night, saying they just had a strange feeling. They also said the sky was glowing red. Only, as far as they could tell, it was just over their street. The next morning, their yards were full of dead birds. Dozens of them, they said. I guess they were migrating, but no one knows what killed them. It’s like they just dropped out of the sky.”
A chill ripples down my spine, not only at the strangeness of the story, but because I’d bet anything that a witch lives in that neighborhood. “I didn’t hear about that,” I say.
Julia gives up on her cheese fry, abandoning it in its pool of ketchup. She’s lost her appetite, and I feel mine fading away now too. “There’s something I haven’t wanted to tell you,” Julia says. “Ever since you got me out of Faerie. I’ve had this feeling.”
“What kind of a feeling?”
Julia shakes her head again, this time with confusion. “I kept trying to ignore it. I kept telling myself it was due to trauma, stress, all that. But it just doesn’t go away.” She takes a deep breath, trying to calm herself. “I know you don’t want to hear this. And, believe me, I don’t want to be saying it. But I keep thinking it really isn’t over, that it didn’t end.”
I get a sick feeling in my stomach. Yeah, definitely not hungry anymore. “Are we talking about the fae realm?”
Julia, normally a very pale girl, is even more pale now. She drops her voice to a whisper. “Yes. At least I think so. I can’t read that other place. I’m not from there. I’m not connected to it in any way. I think that’s why everything I’m getting is so hazy. It’s… it’s sort of, I don’t know… muddled. But I think it’s still going on there, or it’s going to start again. I’m sorry.”
I keep my eyes on hers. “Don’t be sorry. I’ll try to find out if—”
“No!” Julia raises her voice, and I sense people looking our way. Not that it matters. “That’s why I haven’t told you. I don’t want you looking into it. That’s exactly what I was afraid of.”
Her eyes start to well, and I suddenly realize what’s really causing the awkwardness between us lately. All of this time I’ve been worried that she’s mad at me, while she’s been worried about me instead. Scared for me.
I nod and say, “It’ll be okay.”
Which I know isn’t exactly the same as saying I’ll leave it alone. Right now, I’m not sure what I’ll do. I’m not sure what I could do. So, I try to comfort Julia as best I can. “Listen, even if there’s something going on there, that doesn’t mean it has anything to do with our realm. Maybe you’re just tapped in somehow, in a way you wouldn’t have been before.”
Technically, I suspect that’s possible. A psychic as powerful as Julia probably can receive impressions, images and feelings, from another realm. Especially one in which she was held trapped for weeks.
At the same time, I don’t believe part of what I just said. I know full well that what affects one realm can definitely affect the other. Just like when the magical imbalance in Faerie had a ripple effect in Silvermist. I had no doubt that it was just a matter of time before that same imbalance started affecting our realm. In some way beyond my understanding, the ley lines between our worlds are connected.
“There’s something else,” Julia says.
This time I’m afraid to ask, not entirely sure I can handle it. Still, I ask. “What’s going on?”
“I keep having this dream. I wasn’t sure if I should mention it.”
Please, I think, don’t let it be the same dream. I try to keep my expression neutral. “What’s it about?”
Julia wraps her hands around her mug, as if she’s suddenly chilly again. “I see this place, where the light is sort of fiery and flickering. I see people trapped there, and these things. They’re like shadows. I don’t know what they are, but there are other creatures too.”
A feeling rises inside me, a certainty, but I still have to know what she saw. “What do you think they are?”
Julia’s eyes lock onto mine. “I think they’re vampires.”
CHAPTER 7
I ride the bus back home, wishing now that I’d driven into Carytown. It’s late, for one thing, and the scene around me is depressing. The bus is nearly empty, which the couple two rows in front of me takes as a green light for pawing at each other the entire time. Not that I have issues with public displays of affection, but there’s a big difference between an intimate moment and the soft porn scene playing out way too close for my comfort. At the same time, their mutual desire doesn’t bother the group of drunk college guys behind me, who keep a running commentary on just how far those two are going to go. I’d bet fifty bucks that several cell phone cameras are capturing the entire event.
As if the company I’m keeping isn’t depressing enough, my visit with Julia left me troubled. The idea was to hang out
for a while, have a few laughs, and probably progress from tea and snacks to a few beers as it got later. We’re way overdue for some fun. As it turned out, we skipped that part entirely. We did eventually manage to move past the sense of foreboding that’s been plaguing Julia, mostly because I didn’t feed the fire by telling her that I had the exact same dream.
Should I have?
Part of me felt like I should, while another part urged me to hold off. After all, neither of us knows what that dream means. So, we wouldn’t be able to do anything but speculate. That’s not going to do either of us any good.
Sick of looking at the hormonally crazed couple, I turn to watch the rain drizzling down the bus window. Adding to my already depressed state is the reflection of myself I see framed there. Not exactly the image of a happy girl having a fun night. What I see is a girl very much alone, as well as one haunted by recent choices. After all, she doesn’t have to be alone, does she? No, she made that choice consciously. And I can see in that girl’s eyes that at least part of her wonders if she made a mistake.
I’ve spent weeks yearning for Esras, even while trying to convince myself that I made the right decision. But that doesn't mean I forgot what happened between us. Something undeniably physical, but also much more. A connection where our innermost magic mingled. No, I haven't come close to forgetting that. How could I? Although sometimes I think it would be easier if I could. Yet one more reason to consider getting therapy.
But the ironic thing is that what passed between me and Esras has also had me thinking about Phoenix too. It's even occurred to me that, in many ways, my relationship with him made more sense. There’s no denying that we also had something. A pretty powerful something. Technically, he was also my first—and that’s not something I can just forget. No, he didn’t set me on fire the same way Esras did but, come on, that was kind of freaky. And, honestly, a little scary. Despite how good it felt—as in, off-the-chain-I-might-just-die-if-this-doesn’t-end-soon good—I’m just not sure how many times I could have surrendered that completely. Or maybe I’m lying to myself. Trying to rationalize so I don’t throw myself off a cliff for closing that door.