Dark Light Book Two

by Rob Shepherd

  A strong wind blew the front door open and slammed it against the wall. Samantha and Susan jumped at the noise. Susan ran to the door, closed it and rested her weight against its surface, so the wind wouldn’t blow it open again. However the wind didn’t disappear. It blew around the living room brushing along the curtains and rattling the chandelier. The wind settled inside the box and the lid closed. The twins with eyes wide open moved to the box, wondering what had just happened. Without warning the lid flipped open and the sand and feathers from the box were lifted into the air and swirled around the girls. Samantha tried moving out of the vortex of debris, but found the debris stung her when trying to press through its wall. They kept their eyes closed afraid of getting sand and feathers in them. A few minutes passed and the wind settled down They took a chance and they opened their eyes. The twins expected to see a mess. Instead they found no trace of sand or feathers in the living room or in the box.

  Both the twins shuddered and inhaled deeply when the feeling of a strange weight entered their souls. They looked at each other, their mouths hung open in surprise. Samantha had large feathery wings spread out like an Angel ready to ascend to heaven. Susan, also had wings but they were leathery and demonic and projected a sick looking blackness around her. They had no clue of what was going on? They didn’t have much time to think. A hole appeared behind Susan, her wings pulled her body towards it. She could feel heat and smell the stench of rotten eggs emanating from its depths. Susan was in a panic and grabbed one of the coffee table legs to stop from being dragged further back. She didn’t know what was inside that hole, but she knew she did not want to be swallowed up by it. A golden glow enveloped Samantha projecting a soft warmth, a hole appeared above her revealing a clear blue sky. Her wings flapped and caused her body to rise towards the opening. She was not scared and felt a desire to be taken away into the blue sky. However, when she saw her sister’s predicament, she became worried. They stretched out their hands towards each other and managed to lock them together. Both holes disappeared and the wings that adorned them faded away.

  They stared at each other confused and upset at what had transpired. They pulled their hands apart, and angelic and demonic wings spread out. They interlocked their fingers, and the wings disappeared.

  Samantha and Susan were breathless and gasped for air. The twins held each other’s hands tight, sweat dripped down their body soaking their clothing.

  When they recovered and gained a sense of reality Susan shut the lid of the box, afraid that more trouble was waiting inside. “I think we should return the box,”

  Samantha closed her eyes and nodded in agreement.

  The twins tightened their hands as they left the house for the strange shop under the bridge; Samantha carried the box in small nap sack strapped to her back. When they arrived at the bridge, the old lady and the shop were gone. They couldn’t understand how the shop had moved from its location. There were far to many things for the Old Woman to carry by herself and even if she hired a moving company they were sure to be struggling with the large statues. Instead all they found were a bunch grizzled fishermen looking for their next catch.

  Susan pulled Samantha with her and approached one of the men. A rough looking sort who had too many fights that seemed to be on the losing end.

  He scratched behind his ears with his worm stained hand, “What can I do you for girls.”

  Samantha felt foolish with the question she was about to ask, but it did happen. They were in a shop under that bridge. Someone other than them must have seen the old woman and the shop. “Were looking for an old woman who had set up shop under the bridge earlier today.”

  The man laughed. “What, you having me on. A shop under a bridge. I don’t suppose she sold lobster and oysters.”

  “No, but…”

  Susan pulled Samantha away, “Lets go. She’s she’s not here, and I doubt anyone is going to know where she is.” They left with the fisherman’s smiling eyes staring at their backs.

  Susan remembered what the woman had told them about the store popping up where it wants. They decided to check other bridges in town, it seemed a good place for them to start. They needed the store and the old woman. They were sure that they would find a way of getting free from their affliction when they found the store. There were many bridges in town Samantha and Susan found lots of garbage underneath, along with abandoned bikes and lost lures but none held the store and the Old Woman. They returned to the downtown area. It was becoming late, and they were getting tired and scared. They wondered if they would be holding hands forever.

  With dusk setting the scene, they knew they would have to head home. They had missed dinner, and their parents were sure to worry. Susan tripped over a construction pylon and separated from Samantha, wings shot out from the backs of the girls and pulled them away from each other. Their hands were too far, and they were unable to touch. Sandra clawed on the cement sidewalk while her wings dragged her to the hole that opened up behind her. Her fingers bled from the effort. Her legs entered the hole, and Susan could feel something grabbing hold, trying to claim her. She could feel hate and rage leeching from the pit. Her stomach was churning, and She screamed with fear, afraid of what she would meet down there.

  Samantha was buoyant and in bliss, she had never felt such a thing before she could feel the angel wings on her back and the softness of love. The sky was a rich blue and full of promise. Samantha wanted to be taken. She was ready to go where the wings willed her to go. A piercing scream of fear brought her out of her comfortable cocoon. The world came crashing down on her. She was going to be separated from her sister who was struggling to stop herself from being swallowed up by the hole.

  Her sister’s ugly leathery wings were too strong for Susan to resist. She needed to get to her, yet she was floating up. Her heart raced as she saw her sister’s legs disappear. She needed to save her sister before she lost her forever.

  Through some sort of miracle Samantha got stuck under scaffolding that had been placed next to one of the older buildings in town. She found rope and unopened paint cans sitting on one of the boards. She tied the rope to the cans of paint and swung them towards her sister. They landed in front of Susan. Susan was quick to grab onto the rope and pull herself out of the hole. Samantha followed the rope down towards her sister until they touched. They held each other in a strong embrace. Tears flowed the contours of their faces. The wings disappeared along with the hole, and the blue sky did not seem as rich.

  Susan shivered and tightened her embrace on her sister. “I can’t go through that again what if it takes me into that thing. I could feel its misery and its need to make me feel the same. What if we never find the store?”

  Samantha stroked Susan’s hair “We will. We have too. How can we live like this, one day we’ll let go and disappear”?

  The girls walked hands together, heads down. Knowing they may end up apart forever if they could not get rid of their curse. They knew it would be a matter of time before they’d lose each other, close they may be, but even they could not maintain contact forever.

  As the girls moved down the path feeling depressed, they could hear a rhythmic clickety clack of metal striking metal. The sound though simple awakened the good feelings inside themselves and their hearts matched the tempo it produced. Following the music they found a tired looking man sitting on a wooden stool, poorly dressed with a crumpled rimmed hat on his head playing with spoons. The sound became more energized as they approached and the man beat them on his palm and then twisted his hand to create a softer noise when he struck the top of his wrist. He ran the spoons along the length of his arm, slapped them to his knee and struck the cement sidewalk making a loud clang. In an amazing finale, he beat the spoons on his chest and repeatedly struck them on his mouth, imitating the footwork of a group of clog dancers. When done, he looked up at his audience. Samantha and Susan would of clapped if their hands were free, instead they both pulled loose change from out of their pockets and tosse
d it into the paper coffee cup placed in front of him. He tipped his had towards the girls and focused his eyes on the their clasped hands.

  “You two seem close but looking at how you are holding one another so tight, I could not help feel you are both desperate. Are you lost? Do you need help?”

  Samantha sighed, “No were not lost and I doubt there is anything you could do to solve our dilemma.”

  The man cocked his head, “Well you won’t know that unless you ask.”

  Samantha recalled the attitude of the fisherman and was afraid of being embarrassed again. “You’ll laugh and I’m sure you won’t believe us.”

  The man brushed his pants with his hands. “Would you have believed you’d see a grown man making music with spoons sitting on a sidewalk today.”

  Samantha shook her head “No.”

  He put away his spoons inside his shirt pocket. “Then tell old Billy what makes you both seem so desperate.”

  Samantha told Bill about the store, the box and the wings and how holding hands was the only way not to become lost to each other. She told him how they went back to the shop and found it gone. Bill didn’t interrupt and paid complete attention to Samantha’s tale. When she was done he smiled.

  “Oh, I know that shop all too well, full of treasures, dreams and nightmares it is, if you don’t listen to Amelinda and follow the rules, you can be sure what you have taken is cursed.”

  “You’ve been there?” shouted Susan. She was excited at hearing that someone knew of the shop.

  Bill patted his shirt pocket “That’s where I got my spoons, traded my guitar for them.”

  Susan expressed her disbelief at the thought of trading a guitar for spoons that you could get for a couple of dollars in a store. “You traded a guitar for spoons? That’s not a fair trade.”

  Bill grinned “At first look you would thinks so, but when I played on the guitar people passed me by, wouldn’t give me a penny or a look. To many people play that instrument and when the tourists from the big city come for a visit their not willing to stop for a busker that plays the same thing that they hear in a subway station.”

  “But spoons?” Susan shook her head.

  “Yeah, spoons. Maybe I would of been better off trading for a flute or a cello. But you know I can’t count how many times, these spoons brought food to my stomach and a cup of coffee to my lips. With my guitar, I had lain many nights in bed full of hunger. So to me the trade was well worth it. And that guitar I once had may end up where it is needed by someone else.”

  “Okay, so we didn’t make a fair trade and are suffering because of it, how do we find the old woman’s shop?”

  “You can’t”

  Susan cried at hearing this news. “But we can’t live like this.”

  “I’m sorry. You can’t find the store, but it will find you both. You are both in need and I am sure it wants a fair trade for what you have taken. That’s all I know, now leave me and go off and wander until the store comes to you.”

  The girls left Old Bill to his playing of the spoons, the sound disappeared in the distance as they walked further away. They both agreed if they couldn’t find the store they would walk wherever their feet led them. The lampposts turned on and the stars came out, their legs were cramped up and they wanted to get home.

  Samantha and Susan kept their heads down not bothering to look where they were going. A few more steps brought them into an alley. They stopped when they collided with a bookshelf, they looked up and found they were in the strange shop they had been in earlier, except this time it was not under the bridge, but in a long narrow alley between a store and a lawyer’s office. One wall was painted with a mural full of people. The Twins were happy that they found themselves in the shop. They searched for Amelinda and found the old woman hunched over a bowl of dried crickets. She popped one into her mouth and chewed on it.

  Susan wrinkled her nose, disgusted by the sight “Excuse me.”

  The lady looked up at them and walked closer to the pair, and stared at them for a minute… “Oh you two. What is it that you want? Are you going to pilfer something again?”

  Samantha put her hands on her hips. “We didn’t steal. We paid for the box more than it’s worth.”

  The old lady spat on the ground. “With some paper bills? Do you think this store could live on money? Open your eyes girls, look what the store has. Do you even see a single penny? The store trades one item for another. Your trade was unfair and as I said before the box you took is too high of a price for girls like you.”

  Samantha grabbed onto to the edge of a table full of books. Her knuckles turned white “We know, know. We know that now, please take the box back, we don’t want it anymore.”

  “No.”

  Susan bit her lips her eyes filled with tears. “But we can’t live like this. It will kill us.”

  “And what did you discover in that box?” The Old woman pulled out her cane and pointed it towards Susan and Samantha. The Twins looked at each other and nodded. They held onto the table and let go of their hands for a moment. Their wings appeared. The sky became richer, and the hole opened up once again. Susan and Samantha locked their fingers together, and their wings disappeared.

  The old woman laughed “I see your predicament, but the box is yours now, though the store still wants a payment.”

  Susan pleaded with her. “ But what do we have to give if not money? Please, we need your help.”

  “Well to remove your little curse, it shall be worth more than a stich, or a tear, but your necklaces on you both wear will be most adequate for a payment.”

  They both grasped their necklaces, with their free hands “We can’t” they said in unison.

  Samantha shook her head “It keeps us together. When we are apart.”

  “Well as I see it, they will keep you apart if you don’t make the payment, and it is the only payment that the store will take from you.”

  They both gave up and removed their hand-made necklaces and tried handing them to the old woman. She pulled away from the necklaces and raised her hand as if to ward them off. “Please put it down somewhere I have no wish to handle them.”

  The twins placed the necklaces on top of an open book.

  “Now girls, you can let go of each others hands.”

  They slid their hands apart and when disconnected the found nothing happening to them. Samantha and Susan thanked the Old woman.

  “Oh, don’t thank me. All you had to do was take those off earlier, and you’d each be free. The divine and cursed souls that were held in the box found a home in your necklaces. Of course holding each other kept a balance of good and evil. Now just because you have gotten rid of those souls does not mean they haven’t by tainted you some way.

  “What? How?” Samantha was worried that they would end up in a similar situation again.

  “That I’m sure you’ll see in time. Now off with you both, unless you have something you want and something to trade. Samantha and Susan had no desire to linger any longer in the store; they left in a hurry for home.

  Weeks passed by since the discovery of the store and the incident with the box. And in those weeks the twins found a hollowness in their hearts. They never felt whole, not even when they were together. They made hair Jewelry again but when hung around their necks it chaffed and irritated their skin. The treasures they spent hours handcrafting ended up in the trash. It seemed as they grew their interests varied from each other. The twins filled in their hollowness with other acts, for Samantha, she was full of kindness towards others. While Susan would follow up on dares and would often get into trouble. The twins had many verbal fights with one, another and their arguments were pulling them apart as much as the angelic and demonic wings had done.

  Meaning of Life

  By R.A. Sears

  Muzak. The Devil’s jukebox. Better known to the world at large as “elevator music.” A bastardized take on the melancholy “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls chortled softly in the background as
I pushed my shopping cart down Aisle 3. There was no need for conscious thought as I brainlessly plucked toiletries from the shelf like ripe fruit before tossing them into the cart. My mirrored sunglasses helped me keep an eye on my back as I shopped, half expecting security to be creeping up my ass any minute. I knew I was conspicuous, wearing shades and a leather trench coat in the grocery store at one in the morning, but my job kept me fairly nocturnal and it couldn’t be helped. Sometimes, a man just needed toilet paper and conditioner.

  The store was quiet like the grave, aside from that horrid Muzak that still tormented my ears. Shit like that should seriously be made illegal. But something else caught my attention, thankfully distracting me from the abomination ringing through the overhead speakers. Footsteps behind me. Fairly heavy foot falls. Maybe I was paranoid and it was purely innocent. Probably just some old lady who had to make a midnight run for some sugar, or milk, or… Something. A closer listen revealed three pairs of booted feet trying to be stealthy behind me.

  These guys were purposely sent for me. It was irritating because I was supposed to be off duty for the night. But beggars can’t be choosers. Maybe I could draw in some extra cash this week with these knuckleheads. I paused for the barest of seconds, reading the back of a shampoo bottle like I gave a damn about the ingredients, wanting to keep the element of surprise on my side.

  My pulse roared like thunder in my ears as the adrenaline kicked in. My heart frantically beat against my ribcage like a trapped bird, pounding relentlessly like a bass drum in anticipation. It was a struggle not to grin. I lived for this shit.

  The mechanical click of the hammer on a revolver being cocked back caught my attention. Seriously… Who the hell sends an assassin after me with a revolver? It was insulting, and I felt bad for whoever this jackoff was. Temporarily abandoning my cart, I dashed to the end of the aisle, ducking to the side and rolling with ease. A stand that held a pyramid of fresh ripe oranges became my refuge as I crouched down and the first round of shots went off, all of them ringing and echoing loudly with a tinny roar bounced back from the industrial and generic walls. A few panicked screams from the lady cashiers and other late night patrons added to the cacophony, setting the stage for our little standoff.