“I doubt that. Those people, they’re your family. They know you better than that.”
“No, they don’t. I heard their chatter last week, after they found me in the field. They al think I’m crazy…like my mother.”
“It doesn’t matter right now. Finding character witnesses is pretty low on our list of priorities,” he said, stroking my hair. “And I knew Ash didn’t like me, but it’s bizarre that he would be so eager to jump into Lucian’s arms. If he thinks for one second that Lucian wil grant him any sort of loyalty, poor Ash is in for the disappointment of a lifetime.”
“I just don’t get it.” I sighed.
“There’s nothing to get, G. I’m sure Lucian did what he’s always done to get his way,” he said, adjusting his position on the seat.
“Money talks.”
“Not nearly as loudly as that godforsaken book.”
“The AVRA-K was designed to prevent this sort of thing from happening,” Henry said.
“Yeah, but it didn’t work, did it…? Lucian found his way through just fine. It’s sickening.”
“You have to understand him to see why he’s doing this. He thinks his actions are justified. Look at La Una. He’s speled it al out for the world. But no one sees it, even though it’s staring them right in the bloody face. He doesn’t think people should believe in anything but him. That’s why he wrote La Una. That’s why he’s been spreading it like a mutant virus al over the world. That’s why so many people in Eaglefern and in dozens of other smal communities al over the place are turning their backs on one another. They’re practicaly eating each other alive, Gemma, which is exactly what Lucian wants,” Henry said. “If he can’t be the top of the heap, he wil level the heap.”
“That’s what he’s doing. But it’s so ilogical—the AVRA-K is the reason that he’s lived so long.”
“Yes, but he’s lived as a follower, not a leader. And that’s not what he wants.”
“But your kind—Marku, you, me, I guess—we’re decent people. Marku loves humanity. He loves the world. How could Lucian want to turn everyone against that, something so pure?”
“Power. That’s it. Lucian is wiling to do anything to get public sentiment on his side. People are dense—they believe whatever you tel them, if you tel them often enough and with enough shiny objects to stare at. Lucian has searched for a chink in the armor, and it wasn’t that hard to find. Tel people what they want to hear, and they’l do anything you say. And, yeah, he’s a bastard, but he’s also a dynamic leader—he has that thing that other successful tyrants have tried to copy, that thing that makes people listen and believe. Lucian has a distinct vision about what the world should look like, who it should include. He truly believes that what he is doing is right.”
“How murder justifies any end, any goal, is beyond me. And if these fools just knew what Lucian realy is! The guy is deranged! I mean, the fact that he murdered Alicia, stole you, probably had something to do with Jonah dying, then kiled Delia, and is responsible for the deaths of Bradley and Marlene? How many others have there been who we don’t even know about? He’s an effing serial kiler, not a prophet!” Henry put his finger to his lips. I was getting too worked up, too loud. Someone was going to hear us.
“There have been many who’ve lost their lives for Lucian’s
‘cause.’ A lot of others just got in his way, and we know how that goes. Think about it—two thousand years is a long time to live, Gemma.”
I sighed. Even if I’d wanted to cry, to scream, to run, I was depleted. “I can’t even begin to think about what he wil do to us if he catches up before we can get to your grandparents.” Whereas a week ago, I would’ve made myself sick upon facing this degree of terror, now I felt only seething, vicious contempt.
Lucian had transformed my family into wounded and dead soldiers on the battlefield. Biology or otherwise, my connection to the AVRA-K and my devotion to Henry would lead me to the ends of the earth before I would rol over in defeat.
A knock on the cabin door made us jump. Henry stood, his posture stiff as he moved to answer the knock.
“Who is it?”
“Guest services. Blankets and pilows, sir,” a woman’s voice said. Henry took a deep breath and opened the door, his foot wedged at the base to prevent it from swinging open from the train’s gentle rocking.
“Thank you,” he said, accepting the bundle of linens. “Also, if I could make a request,” he reached into his pocket and puled out yet another twenty-dolar bil, “no additional services for a few hours. I’m going to try to get some rest.”
“Certainly, sir,” the woman said. “Have a pleasant sleep.” Henry locked the door again and set to making the benches into a bed. He gave the bench a solid tug and the singlewide bunk became a double, the backrest sliding down and clicking into position. He tucked the sheets around al four corners and placed the pilows side by side at the head of the bed. It looked so inviting.
How I longed for just a few hours of uninterrupted shuteye…
“You look like a starving puppy staring at a griled steak,” he teased.
“Wow. That must be beautiful, huh?”
“You’re always beautiful,” he said. I groaned. “But you do have to sleep at some point. You know that, right?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” The warmth and security of the tiny cabin, coupled with the gentle motion of the train, were eroding my wil.
“What about you? Are you going to sleep?”
“I’l sleep after you, or wait at least until I’m sure your dreams are safe,” he said.
I could no longer resist the temptation of the cozy bed, though before getting too comfortable, my teeth were in desperate need of brushing. Even after Henry had washed my hair on the roadside, I could stil feel tiny wayward chunks of safety glass in it from Bradley’s windows. I excused myself into the miniature bathroom, and as I stood in front of the sink scrubbing off the grime and fatigue from the day, a swirl of butterflies flitted to life in my gut. The double bed…I’d be sleeping next to Henry. Granted, I’d slept in his watchful presence a number of times before tonight, but that had been in the safety of my trailer, under the protective, regular intrusions of Marlene.
God, how I missed her, how I wished she were with us on the train to tel me everything was going to be okay.
But we were alone. Marlene wasn’t going to pop in and give me one of her sily pep talks. She wasn’t here to make sure we were behaving ourselves. Not even Alicia was floating in the wings. In the chaos of the last few days, my physical attraction to Henry had not waned but I also hadn’t had time to think about anything but staying alive. Romance had been the furthest thing from my mind.
As I didn’t have proper pajamas, I opted for my last pair of clean jeans and a fresh top, one devoid of scorch marks. Street clothes were safer, in case we had to make a quick escape. I changed, careful to not pul the amulet off with the shirt. Disrupting its connection would not work to our favor.
When I emerged from the bathroom, Henry was propped on the edge of the bed, waiting for me to scoot in against the wal.
“Do you have any problem sleeping on the inside? I just want to be ready, you know, if someone comes to the door.”
“It’s perfect, thank you.” I roled up my clothes and stuffed them into my backpack. I realized my hand was stil unbandaged when I moved a rol of fresh, unopened gauze aside in my bag. I examined the healing burn under the feeble reading light.
“Does it hurt? I should rewrap it for you,” he said, holding his hand out toward me.
“No, it doesn’t hurt. In fact,” I said, taking a step in his direction,
“it’s amazing how fast it’s healing. Look at it.” I was stunned by the progress my body had made in healing the burn.
Henry held my upturned palm in his own and inspected for signs of infection. “It’s the amulet. The charm itself was used for healing, remember.” I moved my hand to my cheekbone, where Bradley had punched me. I tested it with my fingertips, rubbing
where before had been bruised and sore. The tenderness was almost gone.
“It’s incredible, seriously.” Though the edges of the burn were stil raised and a little sensitive, my fingertips were almost blister-free, and the Hebrew script on the flesh of my palm had settled into soft little nubs. It felt odd to rub my left index finger over the writing, the smal bumps not unlike the raised punches made by Irwin’s Braile machine.
Irwin. Lucian’s voice from the phone surged into my head. He’d removed Irwin’s fingers. Blind Irwin, who needed his fingers more than any of us… I plopped onto the edge of the bed and began to weep.
“What? What is it?”
I took Henry’s hand and ran his finger over the texture of the burn.
“Lucian cut off Irwin’s fingers,” I said. “Irwin reads through his fingers. His fingers…they were his eyes to the world.” Henry hugged me as I cried, soothing me as he had done on so many recent occasions. I wanted to be done crying, thought I was done crying, but my poor uncle. My poor, poor uncle who’d lived through so much already, his life now a precarious strand hanging from Lucian’s tangled web.
“He’l have you to read to him, Gemma,” Henry said. He released my burned hand. “Let’s bandage this up, just in case. And do you have a hairbrush?”
“A hairbrush?”
“I thought if I brushed your hair, it might help you relax. Maybe you’l fal asleep faster.”
Henry handed me a tissue for my runny nose. I gave him a smal smile, puling my brush and the rol of gauze from my bag.
Unweaving the gnarl of my curls was going to be a chalenge, but most of my hair was going to be gone soon. Might as wel take whatever pampering I could get. And I loved having my hair brushed. Junie and I used to spend hours doing one another’s hair.
Her lustrous blonde mane was so thick, you could only wrap an elastic around her ponytail once. Although I had a lot of hair sprouting from my scalp, it was fine, textured, and so curly. I’d always envied Junie’s Swedish blood that had gifted her so generously with beautiful skin and hair. My Irish heritage hadn’t been so kind. Or maybe it was the Romanian in me…
After Henry bundled my palm in enough gauze to treat an amputation, I sat on the bed, my back to him, and handed over the hairbrush. His touch was gentle, his fingertips grazing my ears and neck as he puled my hair over my shoulders. He started with the ends and unknotted the strands from one another. He proceeded up the length of my hair, aware of each tangle that might snag on the bristles and yank on my head. A welcome shiver rippled down my back and into my cheeks with each downward stroke. Henry had been right—this was very relaxing.
“Promise me, Henry. No dream visits,” I said.
“No heroics,” he whispered, his lips next to my ear. It gave me chils.
As the drowsiness set in, my head bobbed forward a few times, making Henry chuckle. He set the brush down and patted me on the shoulder, urging me to climb under the covers and give in to sleep. I was more than happy to lie down; the pilow felt glorious under my weary head.
Henry bent over and kissed my forehead, but I grabbed the back of his neck and pressed my lips against his. He kissed me, too, gentle at first but with more vigor when I refused to release his head. He tasted so good. His hair felt soft in my fingers. I loved his smel, the feel of his face so close to mine.
He slowed his return kisses and puled away, his face hovering just inches from mine.
“Sleep now,” he said.
I smiled at him, my cheeks flushed but not from embarrassment.
“Stay close. Don’t leave me,” I whispered.
“Never, G.” He stroked my forehead as I succumbed to blissful, perfect sleep, safe in the arms of my future.
:44:
Day Two
Dum vita est, spes est.
While there is life, there is hope.
A sudden thirst puled me to the surface. I couldn’t have been asleep that long, though when I opened my eyes, Henry was curled next to me, his perfect face peaceful and so handsome it brought the familiar lump to my throat. As I wasn’t brave enough to venture out of the cabin on my own in search of a beverage, bottled water was going to have to be enough.
I inched my way from under the covers, mindful of my movements so I didn’t wake Henry. The door of the tiny closet that housed our backpacks opened without a sound. I fumbled through my bag first, my hand groping the contents in search of the bottles, but they must’ve al been stuffed in Henry’s pack. As quietly as possible, I unzipped the top of his bag and again started the process of rooting around for water when a fluttering sensation started over the surface of my chest. I puled my arm out and reached for the amulet.
It wasn’t burning, but vibrating. Like the wings of a hummingbird against my palm.
“Henry…,” I whispered. As I turned to face the bunk, the room lit up, filed with the brightness of a midday sun. A strong wind blew my hair back and I was no longer in the cabin, the door to the bathroom and out to the halway no longer closed, no longer present, but rather comprised of air and space. I was in an open area, like the field where I first saw Alicia and Delia.
I squinted through the hazy sunlight, the ground moving past me even though my feet remained stil. I felt a hand touch my shoulder and whipped around to see who was there.
“Auntie!” I threw myself into her arms, inhaling the smel of her hair. She smeled like safety and love and everything precious.
“Gemma, my sweet girl. How are you?”
“Oh, my God, Auntie, I miss you so much my heart hurts!” I cried. “And I’m so scared, I just want to go home. He’s hurt Irwin, Auntie. Poor, defenseless Irwin.”
“I know, I know,” she hugged me again. “You must be strong.
Don’t cry, sweetie,” she said, wiping my face with her hands. Teo appeared next to Marlene and offered his hand.
“Where is Alicia? And Delia? Where’s my mother?” I spun around, the environs changeable and intangible, a dreamscape in constant flux.
“We cannot al be here together. It is too easy for Lucian to interfere, with Delia, in particular. She is not strong against him yet,” Marlene explained.
“But you are? Is that why you can speak to me?” She nodded. “I’m too bloody tough for Lucian to destroy me completely,” she laughed. Teo smiled at her and shook his head.
“Gems, remember I told you that maybe the people you’ve seen al these years were trying to talk to you, but that perhaps you just weren’t listening?”
“Yeah…”
“Wel, it is important that you listen now, to whomever comes to you. They are strong, and they wil help you, help Henry. It’s important.”
“But…what about Alicia?”
“She is weakening. She cannot come, not yet,” Teo said. “She’s bound by the rules of the AVRA-K and her ability to communicate with her son has been interrupted until the book is back in the hands of her father.”
“But doesn’t Thibeault already have the book? Isn’t that the point of al of this?” Surprise registered on Teo’s face. As I took in his confusion, the sky darkened, the bright sun dimmed as if someone turned it down.
I knew what this meant. He was coming for me again.
The three of us were suddenly standing on a cliff overlooking a sparse field, our attentions drawn to someone below, someone in stylish dress, smal in stature, her long, blonde hair dancing in a soft breeze.
Junie.
Junie! What was she doing in the field? I flew to the edge of the cliff, stretching forward on my bely, forgetting about Teo and Marlene standing behind me. I reached out over the edge, rocks and dirt faling away under my weight.
“Marlene! It’s Junie!” I struggled back to my feet and rushed at Teo, puling at his arms. “Come on! We have to help her!” I whipped my head back toward the field below and dropped my grip on Teo. “Please!” I screamed, launching myself to the brink where the sheer face dropped into a chasm below.
A quick look behind me revealed that both Marlene and Te
o had disappeared. I was alone, the sunlight gone and replaced with the darkness that comes before a storm. Junie wrapped her arms around herself, her hair whipping about her head as the wind escalated.
“JUN-NIE!” I screamed until my throat burned, slamming my hands into the unforgiving earth in a futile effort to get her to see or hear me.
Behind her smal, shivering form, about thirty paces back, a cloaked figure stepped out of the shadows. I recognized the heavy draped fabric, the concealed face, the long arms sheathed in thick layers of black. As the arms came up from the figure’s sides, as he stepped ever closer to my darling friend where she stood trembling in the looming gale, I gathered every shred of remaining strength I had and screamed at the top of my lungs: “Junie, run!”
:45:
Someone stands behind you, and you have power; you shall neither perish nor be destroyed, but you shall act among men and gods.
— Chapter 177, Egyptian Book of the Dead, The Book of Going Forth By Day
A forceful slap to my cheek puled me out, back into the darkness of the sleeper cabin, away from the desperation of the desolate field. Away from Junie.
I was on the floor, on my stomach, my legs bent against the closet. I scrambled to my feet, stretching for the door handle. Henry managed to wrap a strong arm around my middle just before I laid my hand on the latch, and I struggled against him, beating at his arm with closed fists.
“Gemma, calm down, sshhh, it was just a bad dream,” he murmured into my ear, his face pressed tight against the side of my head. “Calm down…breathe…it was a nightmare. You’re okay.
You’re with me. You’re safe.”
“It wasn’t a nightmare! I wasn’t asleep, Henry! It was real! I was awake!”
“Breathe. Come on, you’re al right…sshhh.”
“Junie,” I cried. My voice cracked and my body went limp against Henry. He puled me backward onto his lap on the bed and wrapped his arms around me so I couldn’t fight him. “Junie…”
Sleight: Book One of the AVRA-K Page 33