“You look confused, Anthony,” she declared, leaning closer toward him.
He ran hand over his forehead and let it fall back to the surface of the bed. “You can say that again…”
“You look confused, Anthony.”
He chuckled, but didn’t say anything else. He let his eyes drink in her beauty, her pale, delicate features, the wondrous luster of the stark, pale locks framing her elven face.
“Wanna talk about it?” she prodded gently, the soft smile he was growing to like evermore spreading across her face.
“I’m not sure. That’s why this whole thing is a little bewildering. I’m of two minds about talking about it right now...”
She tilted her head to the side, a silent plea for him to go on.
“…Especially with you,” he continued quietly, casting the line in the river Joaquin had talked about earlier, hoping beyond hope she would take the bait.
“With me? Why on earth would you be worried about talking to me about anything -?” she stopped suddenly her voice somehow strangled in her throat, her eyes bulging slightly.
“Do you understand what I’m getting at?” he asked, his heart pounding in his chest like a blacksmith’s hammer on an anvil.
She nodded, her eyes welling.
He was relieved to see that she was just as nervous as he was.
“You’re thinking about me?” Her voice was mouse-like, squeaky and shook with the beat of her own racing heart.
“Yes, Sophie… I’m thinking of you and I am confused out of my mind.” It was whisper, a faint reverberation in the air about them, but the effect on her was no less than a foghorn.
“By why would I be confusing to you? I should think I would come across as crystal clear as Waterford champagne glasses to you. I’m your friend, right?” she said assiduously, turning to face him more directly.
“Oh, don’t misunderstand me. I am sorry if I didn’t make myself clearer,” he began, sitting up on his elbows, bringing his face closer to hers. “I know, in my heart, you are my friend. I have felt that since I first talked with you outside in the forest. I’m confident there.”
“Well, what then?” she implored her eyes darting over every inch of his face, trying to comprehend how she could have such a negative effect on him, though she was completely wrong.
“I don’t know. I feel as more time passes, as I get to know you more and have you by my side that…,” he gulped, “…that, there is something between us I cannot quite explain. Or, maybe I’m just afraid to explain what I’m feeling inside. It’s all so new and confusing. I’m so far out a limb here, feeling this and having absolutely no idea if you do as well.” He could see the fear blossom in her visage for a second time. His heart sank to his knees. She doesn’t feel the same… about me…
The guys were wrong.
“You are contemplating if it would be a good thing to like me in a different way -.” It should’ve been a question, but the way she said it, it didn’t sound like one. It was almost as though she were talking to herself, “because you are unsure if I feel the same?”
He could only shake his head in affirmation. His throat had gone dry. There was no way he would’ve been able to speak.
She looked at him and let the last of her mask fall away. It was that veneer she often kept between herself and boys, because of the way she had been treated in the past, when she’d stopped being a cute little girl and had flowered into the female males of all ages had lusted after.
He was amazed at the young woman emerging from underneath, filled with such compassion and love. He hoped, if he could just have a sliver of it directed at him, he would be the happiest man alive.
“I feel the same,” she said and a shudder went through her. She looked like a flag fluttering before a brisk wind.
“You do?!?” Again, his voice had betrayed him and he sounded as he had back in seventh grade, ripe with pimples, awash with hormones frenetically changing his body.
“Yes,” she freely admitted. “I think I have felt a tug on my heart since I first met you. You made me feel comfortable in this god-awful place. I think I began to wish for it to be something more about a day ago and probably by tomorrow, if you hadn’t said anything, I would be beside myself with want of your affection.” She smiled into his eyes and let her hand touch his cheek ever so lightly.
“But why?” he couldn’t help but say it. To him, it made absolutely no sense.
“What do you mean, why? Why not?” she asked, playing at putting indignation in her voice, but it didn’t resound with it.
“Why not?!?” asked Anthony with righteous umbrage. “You have got to be kidding me, right?”
Sophie let her hand drop and looked at him like he had morphed into a completely different person.
“Sophie, you have to be one of the prettiest girls I have ever met. Why in hell would you feel anything for me?”
That sunk in and her face changed entirely. “You think I’m too good for you?” she asked a shred of exasperation seeping into her tone.
He smiled a fake smile and nodded, “yes.”
Then, she jiggled with laughter. “You are too funny, Tony. You sell yourself way too short,” she replied with a shake of her head.
“Please, put me out of my misery now,” begged Anthony. “I’m the guy, seriously?”
She blinked at his frank question. Then, she thought about the answer for a few seconds. “Yes. Yes, you are,” she answered with resolve, raising her hand at him when he tried to speak again, silencing him with her finger. “I like you. I really do.”
“Wow,” he shuddered, eyes fluttering like the wings of a hummingbird.
“You are so funny sometimes,” she breathed placing both of her hands on his legs, giving him a good shake. “I get this feeling you won’t believe me until I’ve explained every last detail as to why, huh?”
Anthony felt himself clench in odd places. He could feel his face stretch in at least four different directions before he answered. “Well, if it’s not too much to ask?” She feels so good…
She laughed from deep in her throat, so sexy and provocative Anthony was rapt.
“It’s simple,” she beamed, continuing, “rather than chase me, you are content to merely make things easier - whatever that may be. For the first time in my life, I feel comfortable enough around a boy, you, so I can be my true self. Because of this, I think my real feelings were able to come out.”
He placed a hand over one of hers, beginning to understand.
This seemed to fortify her. Already, he was making her stronger than she could ever be alone. “I like you, because you give me the space and the time to like you, which most boys don’t. You don’t smother me. You don’t get aggressive and try to impose your will. You make me feel like you like me for who I am and not for how I look. Do you know how refreshing and invigorating that is after all this time?”
He could only begin to guess. He shook his head.
“It is…,” she inhaled hugely, shaking her shoulders back and forth, “perfect.” She was gushing, wild with feeling, her heart thudding against her ribcage. She didn’t care. She couldn’t believe it. For the first time, it didn’t matter.
He had to smile, the urge was unbearable. He squeezed her hand, his eyes drinking in the young woman before him. “So, this is real?” he inquired with his heart on his sleeve.
“Yes, it is,” she replied, squeezing Anthony right back.
“You want me?” He said it innocently and entirely devoid of connotation. If he’d thought about it for more than a heartbeat, he might not have said it at all.
She didn’t hesitate to answer.
He was gladdened beyond belief.
“I do, Anthony… I do.”
Their first kiss was like a low-level, electrical current. They tingled from head to lips to toes from the magic spreading between them.
It could always been said of Sophie Reed that she could move a man to do anything, even when she was an unpracticed teenag
er. What Anthony Herrera saw before him on that morning in the Melded World was something he would never forget.
He would die to defend it.
It would prove to be an unbreakable bond, despite the horrors and the separation they would have to endure in the coming future.
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~ 74 ~
Confirmation
Day Three, Saturday, 1:46 pm…
Okaaay, I know use guys are around here somewheres. I can feel it in my pinché huesos, thought Juan Ibarra as he scanned the ground. Somehow he was able to see it, though it was covered with nearly three feet of snow. But, that didn’t seem to faze him one way or the other. His mind was elsewhere, occupied with things of greater import. He ignored the howling wind and the biting snow, made hard and unyielding by the deep cold gripping the landscape. Above him, the clouds roiled with fury, nearly black with anger, swollen with a seemingly inexhaustible supply of precipitation.
He paid it no mind.
He didn’t even glance up. No, his attention was one hundred percent riveted to the ground, on the mound of moss-strewn boulders piled high, forming a decent sized hill. He believed with all of his heart, his son was encased within, protected from the elements, hidden from the horrid enemy lurking this place. Where he knew the boy was safe, or at least for the time being.
His clothes were torn now. They were wearing out fast in the vicious conditions of the climate. His hair made wild by days of neglect, the lower portions of his face covered in a matted, stringy beard. His mustache had grown too, because he didn’t have the means to shave. He was unkempt and smelled, reeked was a more apt description of him. He would agree with anyone who would have said so. Despite the fact he’d been a well groomed man in the other world, the world wherein he’d been born. It mattered little.
Andrew. This is about Andrew. Nothing else matters!
He had to know!
He edged around a few of the larger boulders, his eyes questing over the ground, hungry-like, near rabid with feverish concentration. His hands traced over the now dead lichen covering them, their microscopic life-forms long destroyed by the onslaught of this unwanted winter. He sidestepped a fallen log, bending down as far as he could, his head suddenly out of sight as he plunged it into the snow and stopped - inhumanly immobile. He let his mind calm.
This was a new thing, something just discovered by happenstance. It was the beginning of the explanation of how he’d been able to survived these first few days in the Melded World - calm the mind and then cast his consciousness outward, and listen, smell, taste, feel…
At first, it was merely his heartbeat and his muffled breathing, snowbound as it was. Ever so slightly, it became something else, something without form. It was something that grew. As it did so… understanding came with it, comprehension, a knowing on a level very few could imagine. He could see the snow, each infinitesimally small, individualized crystalline shape. He could feel them exist and then melt from the intensity of his mental gaze.
A moment later, he was beyond them, delving deeper into ice, frozen dirt, then loamy soil insulated from the cold by its depth. Next came the huge stones, great slabs of granite deposited false-eons ago by forces that had never existed in this place. Finally, he could feel the bedrock, its massive weight pushing back against the pervasiveness of his mind as if it possessed a will of its own and didn’t want him to invade its’ privacy. Yet, in the end, he was stronger. His will was greater. He could manage things mere rock could not. He could fit through the seams and the cracks, find the weak points that, up until now, only ageless water had the capacity to penetrate. He used these newfound methods to forge on, to trudge through the thick morass of metamorphic rock, formed long ago in the bowels of the earth, but copied here. He pushed further and further, with every ounce of his will until simply… the rock was no longer there.
It is a space, a chamber within the rock itself?
He pulled his head from the snow, sending it in every direction about him. His eyes were wild, a deranged smile upon his face. He moved a few steps forward and to his left, his feet somehow able to traverse the treacherous terrain without falling, let alone slip. He moved awkwardly now, like a lizard, jerking this way and that, his movements incredibly fast, his expressions coming and going so fast they lasted for merely a fraction of a second. Yet, they were too vivid, strange, like he was a character actor playing some ridiculous loon.
He, though, was still of one mind… find Andrew!
It was then he saw it, spewing sedately from the ground, warmer than the world about it, seeping its way through tons and tons of rock. It was there one moment and gone the next, as the wind seemed to snatch it away with ferocious intent. Because it was warm, it had melted away most of the snow and ice that, without its’ presence, would’ve covered the tiny crevasse between the boulders, sealing the way between the rocky strata farther below. He stopped in mid-motion as if “paused” in place, rooted, stuck. His eyes were scrutinizing every wisp and bellow spewing forth from the earth. He smelled each waft, each puff, as they formed about a trifecta of jumbled stones. His mind was rejoicing at the sight, the fragrance, the comprehension of its’ structure.
Smoke!
He smiled as wide as his face would allow. They are below me, man, in a cave just as I knew they’d to be. He is safe! He is safe from all of you pinché mamones, you mother putas! Andrew is safe! He is with his amigos!
He stood up straight, his entire form becoming more human than it had looked only second ago. His quest fulfilled. His mind shifted to other, more pressing matters. Now that he knew where the children were and knew they were safe, he had others matters to attend.
Now, it is time for you fuckers to dance with me!
The thought had just crossed his mind when it literally “popped” into existence no more than twenty feet from where he stood. The sight of it shocked him to stillness.
It was a flower. Only it was unlike any flower he had ever seen. It stood nearly fifteen feet tall, beautifully colored – bright, as if painted. Though the wind was fierce, dominating the land, he could smell the intoxicating saccharine of its’ nectar. He, though no insect or bee or like creature, was still attracted to the fragrance. He shouldn’t have been able to detect its’ scent, but he could.
He was changing.
He turned his head to the side, considering the unlikely plant, gazing over the long thorns growing along the stalk. It was a strange growth. It was a flower devoid of leaves or any other typically offshoots. Merely, it sprouted directly from the snow-covered ground.
He frowned and took a step toward it.
Before he could move, a thorn streaked from the stalk of the flower, taking him in the center of his belly, a long, tenuous cord attached.
He was shocked. The flower had attacked him!
He glanced down, not surprised that he felt no pain. His mind was growing faster with every passing hour. He could do things before he realized what he was doing.
He was curious to see the middle of him was now indistinct, as though it was only half there. His tattered clothing and abdomen looked opaque, shifting and fluctuating between solidity and some sort of wispy fog.
It’s like Star Trek, pendejo, he chided himself. Only you can stop being ‘beamed’ at will.
He took a step back and the massive thorn fell to the ground.
It lay there for a few blinks of an eye before it suddenly jumped of its’ own accord and retracted back into the flower at an astonishing rate. Within moments, it was embedded back into the stalk like nothing had happened.
Juan pointed at the huge plant. “Go to sleep,” he said loudly.
It was a command.
An instant later, he was gone, vaporized, not unlike the billowing smoke rising from the ground. Juan Ibarra was becoming something onto himself - new, terrifying and entirely of the Melded World.
In his wake, the flower’s petals closed, buttoning up tight until it resembled a new-grown bud, se
aled shut. It had gone to sleep.
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~ 75 ~
A Melded Thing:
Day Three, Saturday, 3:30 pm…
She had waited as long as she could. When she looked down at her watch and it read a little after two in the afternoon, she’d nodded to herself. She had waited long enough. She’d crossed garage, now fairly clean due to her efforts over the past twenty-four hours, and had snatched two of the energy bars from their battered box. She ripped one of them open and ate it fast as she could. The second one, she had forced herself to eat at much slower pace, making herself taste the chocolate and honey and the various nuts and grains comprising the bar. She told herself if she ate it at a normal pace, she could actually make herself believe she was having a decent meal and not something she’d repeatedly eaten since she had arrived in this wild, desolate place days ago.
She remembered she had peered into the box when she’d finished her mid-day ration and was unsettled to see only eight of the energy bars remained. Though she had stayed within her plan, her daily ration, she was still going to have nothing to eat by the end of the day on Sunday, and if the storm didn’t let up…
She didn’t know what she was going to do.
That was an hour and a half ago. Already, her stomach was beginning to knot and clench in her abdomen, wriggling at her, conveying she wasn’t getting enough nourishment. She bit her lips with worry as she glanced around the garage for something; anything she could find to assuage her predicament, knowing it was futile. She had done so a thousand times in the past few days.
Over the course of the last twenty-four hours, she had moved nearly all of the stuff she wasn’t going to use and piled it as high as it would go along the base of the garage doors. Since they didn’t have a rubber guard at the bottom, the wind, being so strong, was pushing air and snow underneath it at an alarming rate. Once she had blocked the gap between the doors and the concrete of the garage floor with the debris left behind by her parents, the snow had gathered behind the bags of junk and other debris. Within minutes, she was effectively sealed off the outside elements. Once more, her sanctum grew tolerably warm from the fire she had going. She had kept it up constantly within the largest of the beat-up bowls she had scavenged when she’d first sorted through the contents of the garage. She had to in order to keep the cold at bay.
The Unwanted Winter - Volume One of the Saga of the Twelves Page 67