The Lighter That Shone Like A Star (Story of The South)

by Dan Cash

Freddie showed them his own tattoo; a flaming wing on each of his collarbones. Haze laughed, and showed Freddie that he had a very similar tattoo on his shoulder blades.

  “But does yours do this?” Haze challenged, as the wings seemed to come to life, the flames glowing red, seemingly omitting from his skin.

  “Well, yeah…” replied Freddie, the ink on his skin emulating what Haze’s had just done. But Freddie was confused. “But I thought it was only Terexians who could do that.”

  “I did get it done in Terexe,” Haze said. “Maybe it’s the ink.”

  “Hmm. Maybe.”

  Freddie wasn’t so sure. Fire runs through the blood of Terexians, not through the ink. But maybe he was wrong. The other band members had regular tattoos, all with their own stories and meanings – even Naithain’s, which was a permanent reminder of one crazy night, too many cyders and a dare.

  Overall, Freddie thought that Light on the Landing were five very normal, easy-going, fun guys. He had a great time and the evening so far had almost managed to completely distract him from everything else.

  As Jimmie and Max reappeared from the practise room, the band’s tour manager, Graham, entered the room and told them that the support act was just about to go on stage. Zaak apologised and said that they would have to start warming up.

  The seven friends all said goodbye to the band, thanking them for the evening and asking to keep in touch via Scribbler. Before Freddie left the room he looked over his shoulder at the five band members. They were all looking worried and had begun to speak in hushed tones.

  Jimmie caught Freddie’s eye, looked at him sadly, smiled weakly, and then turned back to his band mates. Before he had time to consider why he had received such a look, Graham had ushered them onto the stage so they could jump down, helped over barriers by security, and stand at the front of the crowd.

  Freddie could not help but smile at how jealous everyone in the audience would be, knowing they had just been hanging out with Light on the Landing.

  The group stood against the railings, facing the stage. Freddie was behind Lornea, his hands around her waist, his chin resting lightly on her head. Sofia and Max were holding hands, Sofia’s head resting on his shoulder. Anne-Alicia was standing next to Sofia, her stare fixed on the back of the stage. Matthew and Russell were next to Max, Matthew’s arm slung lazily around Russell’s shoulders.

  A booming voice asked the audience to welcome Susie Stone to the stage. The audience erupted in applause, whooping and cheering. Freddie placed a kiss to Lornea’s neck and the music started.

  The seven friends stood together but only for a short time

  Only while the music played.

  Haze

  Light on the Landing arrived home the evening before they were expected, to their families’ delight. The tour bus dropped Haze outside his house and before he had even stepped off onto the pavement, his mother had dashed out to give him a hug.

  Haze always appreciated going home because it was the one place he felt truly safe.

  There was never any question that his family loved him for who he was and not for his fame, money or looks. Whenever he arrived back at the house he grew up in, he could be himself completely without worrying. Worrying about how he was portraying himself, worrying about what he should or shouldn’t say, worrying about being photographed at any opportune moment and seeing the snaps in newspapers the following morning.

  No, Haze was safe with the people he loved and who loved him in return.

  The only other time Haze felt this safe was when he was with his four best friends. But, as time moved on and the memories of singing on his mother’s landing became more and more distant, Haze found that he was spending less and less time with only his band mates.

  So many people filtered in and out of their lives that they were all losing track of who they could trust. Especially when newspapers and magazines were constantly printing ‘rumours’ from ‘sources close to the band’ that, more often than not, contained strong elements of truth. It was a tough lifestyle that Haze was leading.

  Normally the young man loved it: doing what he loved as his career, being adored by people all over The South, being invited to high-profile events… But sometimes he missed normality. Sometimes he envied the people who could walk to a shop without being mobbed by fans or the paparazzi.

  Coming home, even if only for two days, was exactly what all five of Light on the Landing needed. Pipton meant security and safety. Usually. But not this time. Pipton apparently was not safe anymore. Haze felt uneasy in his small hometown and all because of that message.

  After a pleasant evening catching up with his family, which had grown since his last visit with the arrival of his first niece, Haze lay down in his old single bed. His mind was racing but also felt empty, as though he had so much to think about that his brain was unable process anything at all.

  To add to his worries, the band had been refused entry to Rysked just two months before they were scheduled to perform there. There was no reason given, other than the land was attempting to keep out foreign guests and avoid the inevitable hysteria. Light on the Landing would of course break both of these rules, but still it seemed rather odd for them to suddenly have a change of heart after months of planning.

  Haze waited until everyone else had gone to bed before sneaking out of his front door into the misty, dark night and heading in the direction of the Stone Circle.

  Light on the Landing had arranged to meet in the park that sat on the edge of the yellow meadow. In what had come to be known as the ‘good old days’, the boys would sneak out of school and head to the park. They were caught once, and as they were so close to their final exams they had been given detention every evening for a week.

  Haze was the last to arrive. Jimmie and Naithian were on the swings, apparently having a competition to see who could go the highest. Jayke was spinning Naithain on the roundabout, ignoring the loud yells asking him to stop before the guitarist threw up.

  “Alright children,” Haze shouted into the poorly lit park, “Let’s get this over with.”

  The other four boys stopped abruptly and made their way to the youngest band member, Jayke supporting a pale-faced and dizzy Naithain.

  “Ready?” Jimmie asked no one in particular. After a resounding “No”, the five young men left the park and crossed the small bridge to the field of flowers. It was eerily quiet and a dense fog made it difficult for the boys to see very far at all.

  They walked in a tight line, hoping that they were at least heading in the right direction. The only sound they could hear was each other’s slow, steady breathing and the occasional gust of wind. Even animals seem to be avoiding this place tonight.

  Eventually, they reached the edge of the woods and paused.

  “Where exactly are we? How far away is the Stone Circle?” Naithian asked.

  “M’not sure,” replied Zaak.

  “Well, it’s definitely that way,” Jayke said pointing to his right.

  “Okay, so let’s just carry on until one of us walks into a stone then,” suggested Jimmie. “And by one of us I mean Haze, obviously.”

  “Oh sh…” Haze began to scold Jimmie, but Zaak shoved him to turn around.

  A bright green mist had appeared about fifty feet away from them. The five boys looked at each other, all scared, until Naithian shrugged, turned and began to walk.

  “Naithian,” Jayke hissed, “What are you doing?!”

  “Walking,” Naithian shouted back. “Stop gawping at each other and get a move on, yeah?”

  Stunned, but not wanting Naithian to go alone, the other four jogged to catch him up and made their way to where the mystical green mist was lingering midair. They reached the Stone Circle and looked up only to see that the murky green fog seemed to be coming from the rocks.

  Before they could even begin to consider the strangeness of the situation they were in, a hole appeared in the middle of the green cloud and a figure appeared to descend slowly into
the centre of the circle.

  In complete silence, the dark shadow levitated towards the five men who were frozen to the spot. As it grew closer, Haze realized that the shadow belonged to a woman wearing a long dark cloak and that her feet were at least a foot above the ground. She stopped abruptly in front of the youngest musician and gently landed back to earth.

  Haze suddenly felt very afraid, his mind struggling to process what was happening. One look to his right and he could sense that his friends were also scared, their bodies tensed and breathing irregular.

  “Tommy, Jacob, Jamie, Nathaniel and Zackary,” the woman addressed them in a raspy voice that Haze might have recognised, he could not be sure. They could not make out her face either, as it was shadowed by her hood and they were surrounded by the blackness of the night. “Thank you for coming.”

  “Who are you?” Jimmie blurted out, the sound of his loud voice making the entire band, including himself, jump.

  “That matters not. All you need to know is that it was I who sent you the message regarding Max Myers. He is in danger and we need your help,” the woman replied.

  “Who’s ‘we’?” asked Jimmie wearily.

  “’We’ is myself and millions of others. ‘We’ is The South. ‘We’ is Naegis.”

  “N- Naegis?” Jayke spluttered.

  “Naegis,” the mysterious lady repeated simply. “I assume that you know about Naegis?”

  “Of course we do. It’s a mythical land. It’s fiction. It doesn’t exist,” replied Jayke.

  “It exists. It is my home and it is in danger. And when Naegis is in danger, so is everyone else. Now, will you allow me to give you the instructions or must we continue to ask questions?”

  “That was a question.” Naithain said, regretting it instantly. The woman said nothing, until the blonde man muttered, “Sorry, carry on.”

  The boys never did catch a glimpse of the woman’s face. They did, however, find out that it was true that Max Myers was in danger. They did not quite understand why they were the ones who had been chosen to help the young man, nor did they understand why the rest of The South was also in danger, but they accepted their duty nonetheless.

  Light on the Landing was to give Max seven VIP tickets to meet the band before the show to gain their trust. The group would then perform the gig and, near the end, they would call Max onto the stage to wish him a happy birthday. Next, they were instructed to ask Sofia, Freddie, Matthew, Russell, Lornea and Anne-Alicia to join them for their final song.

  When the gig ended, there would be no encore. Instead, they would rush the seven young adults backstage where they were to be collected by this woman. She did not say why.

  She finished by saying, “When you are certain that I am with them, you leave. You get on your tour bus and away from Pipton. You answer no questions and you forget that all of this happened. You never met me. You never helped with Max and his friends’ escape. You forget. Or you will fall.”

  “How do we forget?” asked Haze.

  “You don’t – not really,” she replied. “You just pretend.”

  Zaak, who had remained silent through this encounter, opened his mouth to ask just how she supposes they forget about everything she had told them - about Naegis, about Max, about the impending danger – but she suddenly zoomed backwards into the Stone Circle as if pulled by a magnetic force and was engulfed by the green mist.

  ***

  Haze did not sleep that night. When his mother called up the stairs to him, just like she used to when he was late getting up for school, Haze was relieved that he wouldn’t have to lay there any longer thinking about the previous night’s events. He stepped out of his bedroom to the warming scent of fried bacon; a breakfast his mother always cooked him when he had a busy day ahead.

  Today would definitely be busy. Light on the Landing was due for a final run-through of their set-list during the morning, by their own choice, then they and their families would go for a big lunch to celebrate the start of the tour. Afterwards they had to do a sound check with all their instruments, get ready for the show, say goodbye (already) to their families and friends, and go to the school for the third time that day for the concert.

  The thought of a family lunch at The Rusty Kettle kept the boys going through their rehearsal, which did not run smoothly at all. Each of the five musicians were distracted and kept making mistakes. During one song they all lost their place and Graham ordered that they take five and come back more focussed. Haze swore loudly and stormed off into the music room, their backstage area, followed by the other four. Jimmie approached Haze and grabbed him by his shoulders.

  “Don’t let yourself get frustrated. Come on Haze, sort yourself out.”

  “Me sort myself out?!” Haze shouted in Jimmie’s face, breaking away from his grasp. “What about you four? We’re all making mistakes and getting things wrong, don’t you dare blame me!”

  “We’re not blaming you,” Zaak said, putting himself between his two angry band mates.

  “Look, we all need to sort ourselves out. Everyone can see that something is up and we need to get it right before they start asking questions.”

  “Jayke’s right,” said Zaak. “I’ll go make us all coffee, we can sit down and chill for a few minutes. Then we go back out there, run through the set list and go for lunch with everyone.”

  Zaak left and the others sat down on the floor in a circle.

  “M’sorry, Jimmie,” Haze mumbled, his eyes on the ground.

  “I know,” his band mate replied.

  Naithian looked around the room, “Boys, this is where it all started. Mad, innit?”

  The other three nodded in agreement and remained in silence waiting for Zaak to return with five mugs of coffee. The band reminisced until Graham entered the room and asked if they were ready.

  They went back on stage and performed their set list from start to finish, messing up only once when Haze tripped on the microphone chord, tried to save himself by attempting to do the splits and tore a large hole in the crotch of his skinny jeans. The boys fell about laughing and even Graham managed to see the funny side.

  Later, the five boys arrived at The Rusty Kettle with their families and were greeted by a very excited waitress. She was clearly trying to remain professional but was struggling so badly not to express her admiration for the band that her face was flushed and she was trembling.

  As the large party was seated and handed menus, Jimmie thanked the waitress and asked if she was coming to the show that evening. When she regretfully replied no, he withdrew two tickets signed by the band from his pocket and handed them to her. She squealed “thank you” and rushed away to another table, grinning from ear-to-ear.

  “That’s my boy, such a charmer,” Jimmie’s father joked.

  “Well,” said his mother. “He certainly doesn’t get that from you.” The table laughed and began to discuss what they would be eating, knowing they could over-indulge as it was the band’s treat.

  When the waitress, still positively beaming with excitement, had taken all of their orders, Haze looked ahead to see that three people were being shown to the table next to theirs. Initially, he was frustrated that they wouldn’t have as much privacy as planned, but then he thought he recognised the younger boy.

  He leant over to ask Jimmie why he looked so familiar, but before his friend could respond the family of three was walking towards their table.

  “Oh, hello you three! Fancy seeing you here!” Jimmie’s mother exclaimed, over the chatter of the noisy table.

  “Hello, just thought we’d come and say hello!” replied the woman. “We’re here for Max’s sixteenth birthday – our little boy all grown up!”

  The rest of the table became quiet as all five members of the band were now staring up at who they now knew was Max. Haze could feel himself gawping slightly but he couldn’t help himself, he was more than surprised to see Max Myers, the boy who had changed their lives without realising, at the restaurant.

&nb
sp; The group was forced to snap out of their shocked state when Max said nervously, “Hi, Jimmie.”

  Jimmie and the other four wished Max a happy birthday, minds reeling. They were not expecting to meet him until later that day, apart from Jimmie who had planned to knock on Max’s door after lunch with the VIP tickets.

  The Myers family turned to leave, when Zaak suddenly rose to his feet and shouted, “Wait!”

  Haze, Naithain, Jimmie and Jayke all looked up at Zaak, wondering what he was going to say. An anxious part of Haze expected Zaak to blurt out everything that was meant to be kept a secret; he was sure it was on the tip of his friend’s tongue. Instead, Zaak told Max that the wanted to give him seven VIP tickets and they handed them over there and then.

  After receiving several thanks from the birthday boy, Haze looked at Zaak and scolded him in hushed tones for scaring them all. Realising that everyone in their party was looking at them, the boys stopped and restarted the conversations that had been interrupted.

  When the table was noisy once more, Jimmie said, so only the band could hear, “I just hope he doesn’t over-think how we knew to give him seven tickets. That was a close one Zaak, just keep it buttoned from now on, yeah.”

  “Yeah, sorry guys,” Zaak replied bashfully as their waitress, accompanied by three waiters, brought them some appetisers.

  “Yes, food time!” exclaimed Naithian loudly. “I’m starving!”

  “You’re always starving,” chimed his bandmates in unison.

  ***

  The rest of the day went as smoothly as they could have wished. With the sound check completed and their support act, the famous Hurburtan acoustic artist Susie Stone, warming up on the side of stage, the boys went to the music room to wait for the seven youngsters.

  It was a fun hour they spent with the seven sixteen year-olds. Haze spent most of it talking to Jimmie, Max and Freddie. He thought both the younger boys seemed nice and was relieved that aside from the girls’ initial reactions upon meeting Light on the Landing, they were having proper conversations with fans rather than just posing for photographs, signing bits of flesh, or trying to interpret words through erratic sobs.