“Then, it’s another guy?”
Lucy looked tellingly up into his eyes with a pained expression.
“It’s okay,” he said nodding his head. “I totally understand.” He suddenly looked very sad, and his face dropped.
“I’m so sorry, Mark. I didn’t want to hurt you. You are so wonderful, but I just can’t have us happening in my life right now, and to be honest, it’s not another guy, not really.”
He lifted his head up and smiled at her. “Don’t worry, I’ll be okay.”
He leaned down, kissed her on the cheek, and turned with a weak smile toward the door. As he reached it, Lucy exhaled and felt the guilt that accompanies the breaking of someone’s heart.
As she walked away from her first ever breakup, and despite the ache in her chest, she felt a weight had been lifted; it was surprising that she felt a sort of freedom being detached from Mark. She had enjoyed being with him; she loved how it felt being in his arms, but he was truly not the right one for her. She knew that some of her friends bought into the philosophy that there was only one person for them, and if they never met that person, then they would never be truly happy. While Mark felt close to that realization, he wasn’t the one.
With the bus in sight, Lucy heard Kat calling for her from somewhere in the throng of teenagers. She stopped and wanted nothing more than to just ignore her for a day. She would fill her in later on all that had transpired since their last heart to heart talk.
But later wasn’t on Kat’s agenda. Kat wiggled through classmates and all but ran to catch up.
“Lucy, I just saw Mark. What are you doing?” Kat was livid. “Is this about Benjamin Raven?”
Lucy stopped and looked Kat in the eyes, not knowing what words to say to her.
“You can’t be serious,” Kat said incredulously.
“It’s not like that. I had to break up with him.”
“Why?” The word was loud and the tone was acrid, filled with disbelief. Everyone waiting for the buses seemed to turn and stare at the two girls.
“Because I can’t …” she fumbled the excuse. “I can’t explain it right now.”
Kat didn’t back off. “Mark’s a great guy. What is going on with you? You can’t just dump a perfect guy like Mark because you think you might like Benjamin Raven.” Her tirade was building a full head of steam. Lucy wanted her to quiet down and not give the school paper anything to print, but Kat would not be silenced.
Lucy leaned in and, in a hushed tone, responded, “You don’t understand. What you’re saying is only partially true.”
“I know that you’re in love with him—I’m not stupid or blind—but you have to let it go. It’s not practical. He doesn’t want you.” Kat’s words stung like Benjamin’s sword piercing her body.
“I don’t care,” Lucy said forcefully as she turned away to get on the bus.
She could feel her face flush with anger. All eyes were focused on her as she climbed on and sat down, trying not to meet Kat’s glare as the bus pulled away.
***
The Higgins home was empty and Lucy was grateful for that. She went into her room and closed the door, throwing herself on the bed. Gripping her pillow, she thought about the sadness and hurt on Mark’s face as he left the classroom. Breaking up wasn’t exactly what she always thought it would be. She expected to be sadder about the whole experience, but instead, she felt more guilt than anything.
Rolling over in her bed, she looked up at the ceiling. It looked like a dry lakebed the way the texturing seemed to be cracked in a non-uniform pattern. As she stared, she imagined small plants and vines growing from the cracks and turning the pale landscape into a lush, rich jungle. She could almost see as the long winding vines stretched and crawled down the walls, turning the entire room into a green menagerie of life. The only light left in the room was the orange setting sun coming in through the window, and when she looked toward the beams, she was back in the grove, face to face with Benjamin.
The sensation of his presence was powerful. She locked onto his shimmering eyes as he stared back. He looked sad, and the feelings of wanting to comfort him overwhelmed her.
“What’s the matter? Why do you seem so sad?” she asked.
He gave her a half smile and brushed the hair out of her face. His touch sent a powerful charge up and down her whole body. It felt warm and comfortable. His touch was something that she had not experienced in far too long.
“I think I’m ready to show you, Lucy.”
His look was intense, and to her surprise, he reached down and took her hand. The sensation took her breath away, and the two of them walked into the western woods toward the precipice. As they walked, Lucy felt his fingers wrapped around hers. There was more in his touch than she had ever felt in anything from Mark.
As they came out of tree line, Lucy gasped. “I don’t think I will ever get used to that. It’s so beautiful.”
“I know. This is my home,” Benjamin said.
“Tell me what’s going on, Benjamin. I’m not sure any of this is actually what I think it is, and to be honest, it kind of scares me.”
“This isn’t at all what you think it is, Lucy. This isn’t a dream.”
“Then tell me what it is. I can’t stand not knowing why I keep … coming here. If it’s not a dream, then what is this all about?”
“Why don’t we sit down?” Benjamin said pensively as he guided her over to a patch of ground covered in moss.
“This place, like I’ve said, is my haven. I built it as a replica of a place that means so much to me, but is long since gone.” He paused and took a breath. “A long time ago, I was faced with a decision that would ultimately bring me to this point in my life. Being only seventeen years old, I was really unprepared for what I had chosen to do. So, my brother, Peter, decided to help me build it. It’s a place where I can think and focus on problems or decisions in my life, and a place where I can go to remember.”
Lucy listened to him with her eyes fixed on the ground.
“It didn’t take very long for me to decide on a place where I wanted to spend my time in thought because this place existed in my life and now it will always be a part of me.”
“I don’t mean to sound selfish, but this is so confusing,” Lucy struggled, her hands tracing randomly in the dirt and leaves. “I mean, if this is all created by you, then why do I keep dreaming it, or why do I keep coming back here?”
“Lucy, I know you don’t want to believe it because, like you said, this doesn’t make any sense to you right now, but you will eventually accept that these visits are not dreams.”
Lucy rotated her entire upper body and caught his gaze. “So, why am I here?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t.”
Lucy’s head dropped in disappointment.
“But I have a theory.”
Lucy looked up again with a spark of hope for answers.
“Let me ask you something. What can you tell me about your life, Lucy? Does anything jump out at you as being particularly out of the ordinary or strange?”
“Not until recently.”
“What has happened recently?”
She looked up at him sardonically. “You mean besides whatever this is?” she gestured with one arm to the forest.
“Well, yes, I would certainly count this as being unusual. What else?”
She bobbed her head back and forth. Her ambivalence was waning and she leaned toward telling him.
“What the heck, if I can’t talk about it in my crazy dreams, then where can I talk about it?” Lucy noticed Benjamin’s eyebrows raised as if to prompt her to correct herself. “I’m sorry, not dreams.”
“There you go,” he said with a smile. “I agree; this is the safest place in the world if you want to talk.”
“Well, it’s a lot of things,” Lucy started.
“Like what?”
“Well,” she wrung her fingers in anticipation. “I think I brought a moth back to life, and think I did the
same thing with a bird that the stupid neighbor kid killed with his BB gun.”
“Okay, that’s a good start,” Benjamin encouraged.
“And I felt something with Mark and with you, including you, but out there.” She gestured generally to the sky as if to point outside to reality again. “What is that; it’s like electricity, or energy or something?”
Benjamin reached out and touched her hand. “Does it feel like this?”
As he held on to her, Lucy felt the familiar exchange of energy again. Coming from him it was like a soothing bath and an adrenalin rush all at the same time. It seemed to bond the two of them together, and it was different because she could feel herself contributing to it. She couldn’t fully compare it to anything she had ever felt before, but felt sort of the way an embrace felt when both people contributed equally to the moment. Lucy’s heart swelled and she wanted to hold him. She was overcome by the reciprocal nature of the flow because it told her that he was feeling it, too. The urge to grasp onto him was difficult to resist, but her predominant nature of curiosity moved her past it.
“What is that, and why is so strong with you?” she asked, referring to the energy.
Benjamin smiled warmly. “That’s light.”
Lucy looked at him, intrigued and a little confused.
“What you feel is the force of life. My people, call it Haush-Hatay; it means Immortal Light. We simply refer to it as light. Each of us has this energy, this Immortal Light within us. It is the most powerful force in the universe, and you, Lucy, can harness it just like I can.”
Lucy felt her mind ready to explode with curiosity. “Then you have it, too.”
“I do; I’ve always had it.”
“Is this normal? Do other people have it?”
“Yes, other people have it, but they aren’t from …” he paused to search for the words that wouldn’t scare her away. “People like me, from my home, are taught to use it much like you are doing quite by accident. And, I must say, it is quite impressive, what you do with it automatically.”
“What do I do with it?”
“Well, when my people are young, we know that we have the ability to manipulate our own light and use it like a tool. We can balance life, and we can choose to use that ability to contribute or we can use it for selfish reasons.”
“So, it’s like magic or something?”
“No, not magic.” He looked up sideways at the trees. “Think of your light as blood. Why is blood important?”
Lucy thought about the myriad jobs of the circulatory system and was pleased that there was finally a question she could answer with relative certainty. “It carries oxygen to your organs and other things.”
“Okay, what happens if you run out of blood?”
The answer was obvious, “You die.”
“Your light works the same way. Everyone’s body holds a certain amount of blood, and your body carries a certain amount of light. You can use it for different purposes. Just like you can give a portion of your blood to help save someone’s life, you can share your light to help save a life or to give life.”
“So all of that stuff that I did; the moth, and the bird …” she paused with painful recollection, “and Mark …”
“It was all real. You shared your light and were able to help them.”
“But … I … that’s not possible. That stuff doesn’t really exist. You can’t just give part of your life force or whatever to something else.” Logic was fighting its way back into Lucy’s thoughts.
“I told you that you need to believe that this is real. This place you are in is made possible by the flow of light. It’s all real. Everything I’m telling you is as real out there as it is right here.”
Lucy wanted to believe him, she wanted it to be real, but she was so afraid that when she woke up it would all be gone; it would deteriorate and fade like a winter’s snow.
“The interesting thing about you is that you automatically want to share your light. The normal instinct in a person is to take it.” He looked into her eyes. “Lucy, your natural instinct is to give life, to share it. It’s a protective instinct, and that’s rare.”
Lucy swallowed hard and looked away out toward the valley. Everything he was saying was so overwhelming. She leaned against Benjamin’s shoulder to rest her head with eyes closed. In that one tender moment, when she could feel light passing between them, she felt as one with Benjamin. Then something Benjamin had said earlier finally struck her. Of all the questions she had before, they all hinged on a single answer to a solitary question.
“Where are you from, Benjamin?”
With both hands resting on his knees, he looked over at her. “That’s what I wanted to show you.”
He slowly stood up and reached his hand out to her. Taking it, she stood up and he led her toward the setting sun. The cliff had come into view as they approached and she could see orange sky beyond. When they had almost reached the edge, Benjamin brushed aside the large leaves of a forest fern to reveal a sight that left Lucy’s awestruck.
“That’s …”
“My home?”
“Yeah.”
Lucy couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Down the mountainside, deep in the valley below, she saw the vast sprawl of a city unlike any she had ever seen. Giant buildings like skyscrapers dotted the landscape. They stood well above the tree line and there was movement on streets below. The city was far enough away that Lucy couldn’t be sure, but there seemed to be vehicles moving around, and her mind raced. It was absolutely breathtaking and beautiful. In her wildest dreams, she had never seen anything like it, and she wondered what she was seeing.
In spite of the beauty of the city, the most amazing sight was what she found scattered amongst the skyscrapers. As if arranged at random, Lucy saw pyramid-like structures that resembled in part the pictures she had seen of pyramids of Mesoamerican ruins. They were geometric and stood shorter, but broader than all the other buildings. To her surprise they did not seem to be made of stone. It was obvious that the pyramids were made of solid metal. The gleam off of them could not have been produced by stone or wood.
“Are those pyramids made of … gold?”
“Yes,” he replied simply.
The sight was overpowering and Lucy couldn’t speak. She felt tears building in the corners of her eyes and she reached out and grabbed Benjamin’s hand, pulling him close to her. She knew in that moment that what she was seeing was a real place, that it was not in her head and not part of a dream, but it was real.
As she held Benjamin’s hands, she felt him in the energy or light that passed between them. She could feel his emotions, his feelings, and they were sad. She knew that what she was seeing was a memory written into his sanctuary, his haven, for a purpose so sacred that she knew he was sharing it with her in spite of a promise he made.
From deep down inside him, she felt sorrow similar to what one feels when a loved one has died. It was the way she felt when she would think about her grandfather. Benjamin longed for the miraculous city that lay before them, and she turned to him and embraced him, placing her head on his chest.
She knew there was nothing she could actually do to take away the pain and hurt that distance and time from his home had caused, but she was going to try. She wanted to take away his pain and she felt like that was actually possible. She focused all of her thoughts on his happiness and she could feel his sorrow intensify in her. She felt his sadness and she fought the mental battle of stripping it from him piece by piece. Taking it would be her gift to him and she would not fail. She could feel the process begin to work. It was strangely draining, but she wanted to do it for him.
As she felt the last ounce of sorrow leave his body and as her whole essence began to feel tired and exhausted from the task, she felt Benjamin place both hands on her shoulders and pull her gently away from him.
He stared into her eyes, and her tired body felt loose in his grasp. She couldn’t make out his expression, she couldn’t read h
im, until suddenly he reached both hands up to her face. She could sense at that moment, looking at his perfect face and feeling his cleansed light, that she was in love with him. There was no doubt anymore. Then he brushed her hair back over both of her shoulders and she closed her eyes as he kissed her.
Chapter 12
Lucy’s heart was pounding as she sat up in bed, the morning sunlight beaming in her window. She reached up and touched her lips and the greatest bolt of sheer joy raced so deep through her body that she jumped out of bed and began to spin, arms wide, in the sunlight, dancing on the floor as the light danced on her. There was no warmth greater than what she was producing at the moment, not even the sun as it crawled slowly up the walls.
The clock on the night table read 8:42; she had a little more than an hour to get ready for work. The continued feeling of joy enveloped her as she walked through the white frame of her bedroom door. Excitedly, she ran into her father, who was already dressed for a day of yard work in his torn jeans and old Lakers t-shirt.
Dancing up to him as he carried his well-worn and earth-stained tennis shoes to the stairs, Lucy kissed her father on the cheek. “Good morning, Daddy, how are you?”
James sized up his daughter with a more than skeptical look. “I’m just fine, Goosey. Everything alright?”
“Yeah, perfect, why?”
James looked at her with a contorted expression, then blinked as if clearing his head.
“No reason. Just don’t take too long getting ready, your mother has a hair appointment at ten, so she needs to drop you off early today,” he said to his daughter, who seemed to be possessed.
Dancing to the bathroom, Lucy grabbed the polished handle of the door, turned back around, and poked her smiling face out. “Okay, Daddy, I won’t.”
James just shook his head and headed downstairs.
As she got ready for work, Lucy couldn’t help but think about the night before. Her kiss with Benjamin felt so real. The only other guy she had kissed was Mark, but Benjamin’s kiss on the edge of a sheer cliff bathed in the golden light of the setting sun with nothing but a mystical city of gold as the backdrop could never be topped in reality, so Lucy was content to live in the metaphysical.
Immortal Light: Wide Awake Page 15