Enlightened (Love and Light Series)

by Melissa Lummis

  “Mmm, maybe, maybe not.” Margarite flipped a hand and tilted her head. “Wolf has been looking for a purpose, Rachel, and I think he’s found it. Do you know why he chose to become a vampire?”

  Rachel shook her head, eyes wide. “He never told me. I didn’t know he chose to be one. I thought . . . well, I guess I made an assumption.”

  “Well, I’ll let him tell you that story. It’s not my place.” Margarite tucked her hands around her mug.

  Rachel rubbed her face with both hands. “Ah, don’t do that. Don’t start something and not tell me.”

  Margarite shook her head. “That’s for Wolf to decide if he wants to tell you. Ask him. Maybe he will.”

  “I haven’t seen Wolf in a long time. We’re still getting to know each other again. I was only 19 when he left.” Rachel put her spoon down and stared back at the living room, but Wolf and Nan weren’t on the couch, anymore. She stretched awkwardly but couldn’t see them.

  A gentle smile spread over Margarite’s face. “You mustn’t take his absence personally. They don’t perceive the passing of time as we do.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I know. Ten years is nothing.” But it’s something to me, Rachel pouted. A really big something.

  Margarite tilted her head. “I think the rain has stopped.”

  “Thank the Goddess,” Rachel muttered, grabbing her spoon and shoveling the sweet oatmeal into her mouth. The rain had stopped, but a loud gust of wind rattled the windows on the second floor. The women looked at each other in alarm.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~

  “Katie, I’m sorry.” Wolf stared down at his black boots, his hands hanging between his knees.

  “I know you are. You’re always sorry, afterwards.” Katie crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back into the couch.

  “I’m trying to make amends. The least you could do is—”

  “What? Forgive you one more time? Phpptt.” She rubbed a tired eye.

  Wolf scowled. That was it. He’d given it his best shot. He reared up and stalked to the fireplace. Enough already. She did this out of spite, making him pay by dragging it out as long as possible—like she’d always done. You’d think she’d grow up after fifty years. Her delicate hand grabbed his wrist before he could push the trick panel.

  “Wait,” she half pleaded, half commanded.

  He spun around, frowning. “What?” The day-sleep stinging rose up his neck, but he wasn’t positive it was just the day coming on.

  “I accept your apology,” she said in a rush, her eyes watery.

  His tense face relaxed a smidgen and he hugged her. They held onto each other for a long time, and it was Katie who broke away, stroking the buttery sleeve of his leather jacket.

  “Is this the same jacket?” She wiped her eyes.

  “Yes.” His voice was gruff.

  “You don’t believe Patrick is capable of this, do you?”

  “No.”

  She nodded, rubbing the back of her neck as she turned to the fireplace. She held her hands over the flames. “It’s been so cold. I hope Loti’s okay.”

  “Me too.”

  Katie snapped her head up at the apprehension in his voice. They’d known each other since she was nineteen years old, and she never heard that inflection from him, not in all the years since they’d first met.

  “You’re worried,” she marveled.

  He looked away.

  “Do you love her?”

  “Katie, I just met her.”

  “That doesn’t matter if you’re bonding, and you know it.”

  Taken aback by her ire, he shoved his hands in his pockets, locking his face down.

  “She’s a precious thing, Wolf, and don’t you forget it. She’s been through hell and back, and she’s like a granddaughter to me so don’t mess with her.” She jabbed an aggressive index finger at him.

  “I wouldn’t mess with her,” he grumbled, shifting his feet.

  “Not on purpose, you wouldn’t. You don’t mean to hurt the ones you love, but you do all the same.” Katie snatched the poker off its hook and stabbed the burning log several times.

  “I’m sorry, Katie. How many times do I have to say I’m sorry?” He growled as he slapped the trick board and the wall clicked forward, sliding open. She was beside him before he could step through the threshold.

  “Wolf, wait.” There were more tears on her cheeks.

  He ran a hand through his long hair. Why are women always crying around me?

  “I’m sorry,” she choked out.

  Leaning his forehead on the wood paneling, he closed his eyes. He felt her small, warm palm against his check, and he lifted his head to look at her.

  “I always said it would take someone very special to break through your walls.” Her smile wobbled. He covered her hand with his, lowering his eyes.

  “Let her in, Wolf. Don’t make the same mistakes all over again.”

  He inhaled through his nose as he flexed his jaw. “I’m sor—”

  She cut him off with a kiss. “No more. No more apologies. We’re done with that.” She spoke into his mouth.

  He kissed her back, briefly squeezing her hand, then guided it away from his face. They looked into each other’s eyes.

  “The sun’s coming up,” he said.

  She nodded, her haunted eyes forlorn.

  Scooping a palm of ice cold water from the puddle she knelt in, she slurped up the rain water. The cold liquid felt fantastic on her burning throat. She hummed the old Christmas special tune off-key as she plopped onto her soaked butt, her gaze wandering over the mountain side. She’d climbed above tree line just before dawn and that puzzled her, but she couldn’t remember why.

  Because you’re in Virginia. There’s no mountain high enough in Virginia to be above tree line.

  She giggled as the lyrics of an old song came to mind. Leaning back on nothingness where hands should have been, she shifted her weight to her knees, and brought her hands to her face. Where were the gloves? Oh, she tossed them last night when she’d been burning up. Her jacket was unzipped, and her Henley shirt was ripped. The faintest of trails snaked off between the low rocks and gray ground and then disappeared as if it dropped off the face of the earth. She fought to get to her feet, but couldn’t make her legs support her.

  “Dammit,” she mumbled and crawled mudder-style toward the drop off.

  Peering over the edge, dizziness blurred her vision. It took a minute, but when her sight cleared, she saw the trail descended over a scary looking tumble of boulders. She had a flash of clinging to a slick, green rock, trying to get enough purchase with her booted toe to shove herself up, slipping and grabbing at a scrubby bush. It had ripped free.

  “How did I hold on?” The sun broke through the cloud cover.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~

  The crawl from the drop off to the summit seemed painfully long, and in that time, the sun cleared the horizon. A few clouds smudged the shivery blue sky. Loti squinted at the brown and evergreen landscape spread out below. Like bits of broken glass ponds and snippets of the river glittered and ox-bowed through the forest. A razor-like ridge cut across the summit and curved down the north face of the mountain. Her head spun with the smell of crisp oxygen, the bite of cold air on the back of her throat, and the stiff ache of her arms and back. Lost in an empty and frantic mind, Loti grasped at the sensations, anything to anchor her. She wriggled her shoulders between two rocks to get out of the wind. Stiff-limbed, she sat up and tucked her numb hands under her arm pits, drawing her knees into her chest. Wiggling her toes inside soaked boots, she rocked forward and back, forward and back on her sits bones.

  “If I want to change the reflection,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she said to the raven soaring by. Rocking. Rocking.

  “Oh, Loti.” Her Gramom sat down beside her, shaking her head.

  Loti wept. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want,” she said between gags. She collapsed on her side and wretched up the water she’d drank out of the puddle. Sh
e spit the sour bile out, and whined at the prickle on her neck.

  “Wolf?”

  The wind whistled through the rocks. She pushed at the ground.

  “Gramom?” She craned her neck, but her grandmother was gone. She gasped for air as the corners of the mountain collapsed in on her. The hair on the back of her neck stood.

  “No more!” Her voice cracked.

  Something crashed into her soul like an angry ocean wave, and she screamed wordless terror into the brilliant blue sky. She sucked down the cold air and screamed again as her head struck the ground, her hands bunched under her chest. Cold granite hurt her cheekbone. She couldn’t move. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. Darkness swirled toward her, the world winking out.

  Blackness.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~

  The bottom of her stomach lifted into her chest as she fell into the black abyss.

  You are done. A glowing pair of orange eyes in the blackness stared through her.

  “I want to change my reflection.”

  No.

  No more. That was David.

  “I can’t stand myself anymore. It never gets any better. It never changes.”

  Blackness. Utter silence.

  Who can’t you stand? Who are you talking about?

  She slammed onto her back, bouncing softly in slow motion. When she settled, a cool breeze blew over her. She opened her eyes to the revolving ceiling fan in their bedroom; the moonlight glowed through the bare windows. She shivered at the black window glass. The bed creaked as David sat up beside her.

  “Who can’t you stand?” he demanded.

  She rolled over on her side and touched his arm. David. Oh, my David. “Myself.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m a coward. I’ve never done anything special or brave.” And I don’t want to be bothered by my life too much.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “I’m broken,” she whimpered.

  “Why do you think you’re broken?” David threw back the covers and turned his bare back to her, hanging his legs over his side of the bed.

  “Because I don’t work right. I can’t make myself work right.”

  She reached out to touch his back, but he stood up and her hand fell to the cool, flannel sheet.

  Blackness.

  “You’re done,” she whispered.

  No more

  You’re done.

  “No more,” she whispered into the dirt, cold sunlight and icy wind on the back of her neck.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~

  Find something to feel grateful for.

  She sat in the pew at the funeral parlor, staring at the too small, wooden box on the table surrounded by white lilies, pale peach roses, green orchids, chrysanthemums, and variegated greenery. That’s all that’s left of David. Did they separate David from the pine box they made me buy to burn him in? Is there any difference between them? If they put the ashes under a microscope, would they look different?

  Blackness.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~

  You’re done.

  David lay in bed, his salt and pepper hair gone after half a lifetime of thick unruliness. He opened his eyes and his mouth moved, but she couldn’t hear him. She knew what he was saying though because she had played it over and over in her mind for months. As if they were underwater, he rolled to one side and reached for his dopp kit, but she stopped him. He fell back on the bed, limp and breathy.

  “You’re done.”

  David nodded weakly. “No more.”

  Eyes still on the ceiling, head still nodding. “Okay.”

  “Now.”

  Blackness.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~

  Wet heat, hot steam spread over every inch of her bare skin. She opened her eyes to a dark, closed space lit by a faint orange glow. Trapped between sweaty bodies who were singing and chanting over a hissing sound, clouds of steam rushing over her. Sweat streamed down her bare arms and chest, down her bare backside between her bare cheeks. When the shaman threw open the flap, she was grateful for the cool air rushing in. A jug of spring water was pressed into her chest and she sipped at it. The fire outside the small, round entrance to the sweat lodge sent sparks flying as the tender dug through the coals for another rock. The fire tender passed the rock through the opening into the lodge and dropped it into the pit. The shaman tugged the cover and darkness returned. As her eyes adjusted she made out the shine of sweat on chins and cheeks and knees.

  The shaman mumbled indistinguishable words as he sprinkled dried herbs on the hot rocks. Smoke lifted from the sandalwood, sage, and something else that reminded her of David. Her eyes were wide open as the lodge, with all its sensations, faded away.

  Tall grasses and mountain flowers waggled in the wind as she spun in the warm scent of sunbaked fields. A huge, black wolf loped toward her, a raggedy mountain looming over him. She felt no fear or anger or sorrow or guilt or self-pity. Joy, peace, love, hope, compassion, generosity were the things that eddied in her soul. The wolf sat on its haunches beside her.

  Peace weaved its way through the little spaces in her spine like a warm snake as she stroked the wolf’s shaggy black fur. Staring into its deep, brown eyes—so brown they were almost black—she dropped her hand. The wolf immediately shoved his head back under her hand. She wrapped both hands around his thick snout, running them up and over his eyes as he squinted in ecstasy. He pressed his head into her hands, asking for more touch, more sensation. He lifted his nose to the air, sniffing. A growl rumbled deep in his chest as his hackles rose. Following his gaze, she saw nothing but the raven.

  Blackness.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~

  You’re done.

  Weightless, she fell into a voided blackness. Her stomach flipped upside down as she fell through a cloud of ashes—David’s ashes—blowing in the wind. There’s nothing I can do.

  Silence.

  Stillness.

  Nothingness.

  Through the stillness of the nothingness a voice spoke, “Yes, there is, Loti.”

  “I can’t change anything I’ve done,” she called out, still falling and swirling in the dark.

  “No, you can’t.”

  “I can’t change who I am.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.”

  “You can change your direction.”

  “I’m falling. There’s nothing I can do.”

  “Your time is at hand. Don’t be the rule.”

  “Be the exception,” she whispered to the nothingness.

  “The way to start is to stand.”

  She slammed into the ground.

  Loti woke up to hard granite on her cheek and a wind that howled and whined between the rocks. Her body shivered in the cold mountain air. Experimenting, she wiggled her fingers and then her toes, blowing a harsh breath out her mouth at the burning pain. The sun was in the west. Grabbing the leg of a heavy, wooden sign, she heaved herself up onto unwilling legs. She clung to the large sign, flopping onto her stomach. Running clawed hands over the placard, she squinted, pulled back and tried to read the carved words. With a quiet dawning, a different world greeted her. She lay on the sign, listening to the wind, to her breath, to her beating heart, and to the sound of stillness. But the world was as it had always been, she realized. It was she who had changed. A shapeless stillness perched inside her mind, devoid of color or texture.

  A breathtakingly beautiful sky teased her with hints of color. They ran and hid whenever she thought she had them. On impulse, she unfocused her eyes, sinking into that newly discovered stillness. Her breath hitched. Lines of color and a subtle, throbbing glimmer—clearer still if she peeked at it out of the corners of her eyes—pervaded everything. She looked down at the large letters carved on the sign. Katahdin. That couldn’t be right. The only Katahdin she knew was in central Maine at the far end of the Hundred-Mile Wilderness. She twirled around, her legs buckling. She slid down the sign, looking for what she knew would be there,
but still couldn’t quite believe—a cairn had been built not too far from the sign, piled higher than she was tall.

  “The top of that cairn is about one mile high,” she said to the lights in the sky.

  How could that be? She walked for a few days at most, maybe three. Four. It had been four days since Wolf had disappeared into the dark. The western sky blazed in a drift of shifting pinks and purples. Sharp needles bristled through her throbbing hands, and she gasped as she lifted them. She gaped at the delicate glow. Subtle patterns of light played just under the surface of the skin. Curious, she glanced around at the rocks, and they shimmered with a barely discernible web of light. Finding a little more strength than before—not much though—she pushed herself back up to standing. A black raven barrel-rolled across the kaleidoscope sunset; its throaty caw flooding her with an icy fear.

  She tested her unwilling legs and caught herself, half-crawling, half-shuffling her way through the rocks. It took a long, trembling time to reach the drop off. Over the edge, the rocks turned to boulders, and her traitorous legs forced her to slide on her butt, her neck aching with the tension of holding back. As she climbed down, she thought that up had been easier, less treacherous. As she scuttled down the mountain, the gnarled, stunted trees David called krummolz, untwisted and stood up straighter. She was so focused on the placement of her hands and feet, she hardly noticed the dimming sky until all of a sudden she was surrounded by towering black trees against a solid blaze-orange. The sun had set.

  “Wolf?” she rasped and something stirred inside her. She leaned against a tree, staring unseeing at the pine-needle carpet as the something slid up her back. “Wolf?” she whispered this time.

  Loti

  She shivered. Hopeful, she put one tentative foot in front of the other, letting go of the tree as a raven’s rocking caw, caw, caw, caw sent fizzing panic up her spine. Wobbling and bobbing down the trail at a dangerous pace, she barely avoided the rocks and roots. Rocks pulsed and tree trunks undulated with life. The air and ground flowed in steamers of light that escalated as daylight faded to twilight. A dancing, sparkling waterfall stopped her short. Her mouth hung open as she reached tentative fingers out to touch the colors. Awash in fear and wonder, a dark foreboding thing that lurked in the corners snuck up on her. She stumbled forward, certain the raven cawing after her was the raven in her dogwood tree. She tripped, slamming into the ground.