She turned and looked at him skeptically. “What kind of promise?”
He closed the distance between them. “You have to promise me that you will do everything I tell you.”
Lucy just stared at him.
“If you can’t promise me that, then I can’t do it.
Lucy considered his request for a moment. “Okay,” she responded.
“Thank you,” Benjamin said.
Lucy turned again to walk away, but she waited for Benjamin to join her.
As they arrived in the parking structure where her car sat, Lucy checked her pockets for her keys. Looking frustrated, she went to check the fender for the spare, but it was gone. When she stood up, Benjamin was holding her set of keys out to her.
“You couldn’t have left anyway.” He smiled cunningly at her as she swiped them from his hands.
Sitting in the front seat of the car, Lucy realized that she didn’t know where to go.
Benjamin sensed her hesitation. “Kat’s folks have a spare bedroom all ready for you. They said you could stay with them for as long as you need.”
Lucy stared at the steering wheel. “I don’t feel like going to her house. Her mom will be all gushy and want to know how I feel, and I just don’t want to talk about it right now.”
“Well, we could go to my house. Peter and Jack will be there, and they’ll pretty much leave you alone.”
Lucy sighed and nodded. “I’d like that. Will you drive, though? I don’t feel very good right now.”
“Sure.” The two of them switched seats and Benjamin pulled from the parking area and headed home.
Heading into Charleston, they crossed the bridge, and Lucy asked to stop at Sunset Bay. Benjamin silently obliged and pulled into the empty parking lot.
Standing on the cold sands with misty rain blowing in from the sea, Lucy walked barefoot to her tree. Benjamin walked behind her.
“It’s so weird,” Lucy said, unearthing a small rock from the packed sand.
“What is?”
“That I was able to recreate this place so perfectly. Everything is the same.”
Benjamin came up close behind her as she stopped. She looked out at the ocean for a long while, the fall air chilling her through her hoodie, and she shivered. Benjamin placed his arms around her and they both stood staring out at the incoming tide.
“Who was he, the man that grabbed me? Was he a reaper?”
Benjamin didn’t answer right away. He had promised himself he wouldn’t tell her too much about that night, but he couldn’t tell her nothing.
“No, he wasn’t a reaper. Reapers only want one thing; they feed on the Immortal Light of another person. They don’t need food or sleep; if they can consume someone’s light, they can go for days at a time. Reapers are wild dogs on a leash.”
“Then who holds the leash?”
“He’s called Sukabra. In our language, it means Extractor.”
“What does he extract?” She couldn’t be sure if it was the chilling sensation of the word “extract” or the air, but a shiver rippled down her spine and she hugged her arms.
“He extracts light, but not for the purpose of using it for energy to keep going all day like reapers. He extracts it to use for knowledge. He can find out everything there is to know about a person by extracting their light; then, he carries that with him for the rest of his life until he is killed and someone burns the remains.”
Every word was a violation of his promise to himself, but he felt deeply that she needed to know everything. He didn’t know why except that a guardian’s primary function is to protect against all evil, and Lucy needed to know what evil was out there.
“Is that who …”
She almost couldn’t say the words, the nearly unbearable pain was too close to the surface, but Benjamin knew she meant her mother and answered.
“Based on how it was done, yes, we think that’s what happened.”
“And my dad, why did he survive?”
“I don’t know. That was a miracle that not even Peter could have foreseen.”
Lucy stopped to take in the empty beach, her mother’s face dancing in her mind.
“Who is doing this to us, Benjamin? I know it’s bigger than this Sukabra, so who or what is it?”
Benjamin waited for a reason not to tell her, but he had already broken every promise he had made to himself, so there was no point in keeping the last one.
“His name is Korisante-Suen. He’s the bastard son of our last king.” Benjamin waited for Lucy to recall the reference.
“You mean …?” Lucy started to ask.
Benjamin nodded. “He’s the reason my brothers and I had to stay behind.”
“You have to find the queen before he does.”
“Yes.”
Chapter 18
From the outside, there was nothing too remarkable about the Raven home. It looked to be like any other single-level house with a high peaked roof. To the right, there was a garage made of brick and dark-stained wood with country style wooden garage doors. One of the doors was open, and the interior revealed what easily could have been a showroom for how clean it was.
To the left of the house, situated about twenty yards from the nearest wall, was a basketball court. The red rubber mat of the court was clean and a rack of basketballs sat near the closest out-of-bounds line, as though someone had been already shooting around that day. There was another building beyond the house, but Lucy couldn’t see it clearly, and Benjamin was ushering her toward the front door.
Benjamin led Lucy through a thick oak door. She was somewhat surprised at the sight that greeted her. From the marble entryway she saw that the house was much bigger than it looked from the outside. High vaulted ceilings supported by light colored wooden beams stretched the entire expanse of the ceiling. To her right was nothing but a wide-open room divided into sections by groups of furniture. To the left she saw a dining table and sunlight coming from what must have been a bank of windows unseen from her vantage point. The large, open room had high walls that were made up almost entirely of book cases lit by recessed lighting. All of the décor was simple but elegant: earth tone walls and carpets, dark leather furniture, and wooden tables.
Having been invited to take any seat she liked, Lucy walked over to one of the overstuffed leather couches and sat down. On the small table next to the couch, she saw a stack of three books, all nonfiction, about various subjects. Once inside the room, she was able to see more of the interior. On the walls, unseen from the entryway, there were pictures and shadow boxes ornately aligned in geometric patterns. Asian artwork adorned most of the empty space, and Lucy’s curiosity got to her.
Standing up, she walked over to observe the menagerie of items. They were mostly pictures of Jack with various people, some Lucy recognized and others she didn’t. In two of the more astounding pictures, Jack was standing with two presidents of the United States. The first was a black and white picture of Jack shaking hands with President Kennedy, a broad smile across both their faces. Jack wore what looked like a Hawaiian shirt and a large button pinned to it that read “For President, John F. Kennedy.” The other was even more amazing. It was a picture, also black and white, of Jack in a light-colored three-piece suit and rain coat. Standing just behind him, waving to a throng that was just visible inside the frame, was President Ronald Reagan.
“That was one of his favorite jobs.” Benjamin’s voice startled Lucy.
“That’s amazing that he knew those men; he doesn’t look a day younger than he does now.”
Benjamin chuckled. “I wouldn’t say he knew President Kennedy—that was at a campaign barbecue in Nebraska, he just happened to get the picture. Reagan, however, he knew pretty well. He was on the President’s Secret Service detail for a short time during his re-election campaign.”
Lucy looked at him incredulously. “How do you just get into the Secret Service? Don’t they do background checks and things?”
“Jack has a gift for … well, he can create thin
gs. Remember your car after the deer?”
“Yes,” Lucy responded.
“He didn’t use any replacement parts. For the parts he couldn’t fix, he recreated what he needed from raw material in his shop. Documents are no problem for him.”
“Wow,” was all Lucy could respond as she examined the rest of the wall.
The photos and memorabilia spanned hundreds of years, from medieval knives to pieces of ancient Samurai battle armor. There were pictures of Jack with men in white shirts and skinny black ties. The number of horn-rimmed glasses made Lucy laugh.
“Those are the Saturn Five rocket developers. That’s Wernher von Braun in the suit.”
Lucy just gawked.
“Jack had just graduated from M.I.T. at that time and he loved what was going on in the space race.”
“How did he do all of this? I mean, how did he just happen to be in these places when these people were changing the world?”
“Like I said, he’s always been attracted to power.”
Lucy continued to take in the wall. At the very end, she came to a small shadow box ornately carved from a dark, cherry-colored wood. Inside were dried pink flowers and a piece of cotton fabric that looked like it was torn from something larger. For no reason at all, she felt sad looking into the neatly arranged box.
“What is this one?”
“That’s Eliza,” he responded somberly.
Lucy turned. “Who’s Eliza?”
“Eliza was Jack’s wife.”
Lucy couldn’t help but look stunned. “He was married?”
“They met in 1659, were married in 1660, and in 1665 she died of the plague in London.”
Lucy held her hands to her mouth. “Oh, that is so awful.” She looked back to the shadow box. “Poor Jack.” Involuntary tears sprang to her eyes.
“He was in love with her as much as a man could ever love a woman. She was special. He was hunting for a week and she contracted the disease and died before he got back. He came home to find her … well, it wasn’t pleasant. He tried to save her. He tried to bring her back, but he just couldn’t, she was too far gone. He was heartbroken for a very long time. It wasn’t until the industrial revolution that he finally snapped out of it. That’s when he fell in love with machines.”
Lucy stroked the delicate etchings in the wood of the case; her heart ached for Jack. Then she thought of her own pain, how she tried to save her mother the night before and that as hard as she tried, she couldn’t get her to a place where she could use whatever power she had and save her. Sorrow was at the surface and she began to feel the weakness and exhaustion that accompanies deep depression. She had to fight those feelings, suppress and keep them from distracting from her newly adopted purpose. Her life had changed irreparably and she had to deal with that.
As she walked around the room and looked at the thousands of books that lined the walls and the ornaments that accented every empty space, she thought about what she had to become. She thought of being a Guardian and how she wasn’t worthy of such a calling, but she would work her hardest to become worthy. She wasn’t going to be useless anymore. No more tears; no more crying. Life was what it was and there was only now and the future.
Thinking of Jack and Eliza, she turned to Benjamin and bluntly asked, “Were you ever married?”
Benjamin looked stunned for a moment, but then recovered.
“No,” he answered with a confident smirk. “I’ve never been married.”
Lucy nodded, “Me neither.”
Benjamin chuckled and Lucy turned back to the walls to continue her perusal. Making her way to the opposite side of the room, she stopped at a picture of an ancient Mesoamerican ruin. The brass name plate said “Mayan Pyramid at Chichen Itza.” It was beautiful. The picture showed the temple just before sunset as the clouds began to turn orange against a fading blue sky. The temple stood majestically, and Lucy recalled the image of the golden temples she had seen in Benjamin’s haven. They were so much alike.
“Many of the people who built that temple were our people, including the three of us.”
Lucy admired the craftsmanship, that it had endured for so many hundreds of years, that it was built by hand, and that the people who built it believed in a power that drove all life in the universe, a power that Lucy didn’t fully understand.
“What do these buildings mean to your people, Benjamin?”
Benjamin came up close behind her. She could feel his light radiate from him. He didn’t even need to touch her anymore for the sensation to affect her; she recognized his light by its uniqueness.
“They are holy places. They are places where the Immortal Light is concentrated. We build them from gold because gold is a powerful conductor.”
“Is that why the swords are made of gold?”
“That’s exactly why. When the gold of the sword conducts your individual light, it becomes indestructible. When you stand inside the walls of our temples you feel one of the most amazing feelings you will ever experience. It’s like …” He couldn’t even begin to describe it. “Come with me, I want to show you something.”
He took Lucy by the hand and led her out the back of the house. Standing some fifty yards away was a large building covered in white corrugated metal siding. Benjamin walked Lucy through one of the large bay doors at the front.
Inside, Lucy saw machinery of all kinds, tool chests, and vehicles ranging from tractors to pickup trucks. The building was at least fifty yards long and thirty feet high.
Benjamin pulled her to a stair case at the back of the building. Flipping a switch, he led her down the stairs that descended deep into the ground; Lucy’s best guess was that they had gone down three stories or more of stone stairs. At the bottom was a wide, solid wooden door. As Benjamin opened it, the stairway was flooded with bright, white light that emanated from above them in the high ceiling. When Lucy entered the room, she closed her eyes to bask in the glow because it felt just like the sun. It felt like she was standing outside on a spring day, and the smell of life filled her nose, making her smile. There was something in the energy of the room that made all of her pain seem to vanish momentarily.
When she opened her eyes, Benjamin was next to her. Looking around the room, she saw that it was made entirely of perfect, white marble slabs. In the center, a tree was growing and thriving right out of the floor, its leaves a bright vibrant green as they reached for the light above them. It was a mahogany tree just like those in her book about the rainforest and like she had seen in Benjamin’s haven. The sight was miraculous.
“I don’t believe this. It’s so beautiful. How is it even possible?” Lucy said, awestruck.
“It thrives off of the light here. This is just like our temples. Behind these walls are sheets of solid gold, they amplify the light of the tree and create what you feel here.”
As they walked deeper into the room that was at least twenty feet square, Lucy could feel light radiating from everywhere. The tree seemed to be the focal point, as though it were a mirror reflecting life into every empty space. Lucy felt the most joy she had ever felt in her life while standing in the stream of Immortal Light swirling invisibly around her. It was pure, concentrated life and she felt stronger and more alive than she ever had before. She took a few moments to absorb as much as she could; she soaked it in as she walked around the room.
Wrapping around the tree were two crescent-shaped, marble benches draped in mossy green fabric. Long, dark, wooden tables draped in the same green fabric sat against every wall, and on each table rested a golden disc with an intricate design of a bird perched on a tree branch, the leaf of which was the same as the mahogany in the center of the room. There were also other objects on the tables, from knives to jewelry and stones to books and scrolls. In each wall was a recess that looked like a window, with a backdrop of bright blue stained glass lit from behind. Each window had something different resting in it. One had a vase of perfect white lilies, thriving like the mahogany; another had a thick book bou
nd in leather. Opposite the book there was a golden bowl that shined brilliantly in the light—it was full of fruit and nuts and berries that looked as though they were freshly picked that day. The final window held a sword unlike any Lucy had seen. It was made of gold like all the other swords she knew, but it was more delicate, and every inch that she could see was covered in engravings of leaves and tree branches. The blade was thin and exquisite, with a slight curve to it. The handle was ornately decorated with a crimson wrapping. It was easily the most beautiful weapon she had ever seen.
A two-foot path of carpet elaborately decorated in woven images of the rain forest surrounded the entire room in a giant square. It had to have been either placed there before the tree or precisely stitched together when it was laid down, because Lucy couldn’t find a seam anywhere, as it was one continuous pattern not ceasing or starting over, even at the corners.
With every step around the room there was an urge to be active; Lucy wanted to dance and move and swing her arms like a child in the park. So many emotions were created by the force of the light in the room that she felt like never leaving. The only place that even compared was her haven, but even that paled in comparison to the pure, almost healing, power of what Benjamin would eventually call the Haven Room.
They stayed in the Haven Room for hours. From the inside out, Lucy felt herself begin to heal and become whole again. The pain of her mother’s death started to turn into hope that she would someday see her again.
All day they sat and talked and ate the contents of the golden bowl. Benjamin entertained her with stories of his people and how the city Zharem came to be. She told stories of her childhood as Benjamin listened intently, as though she were revealing the most delicate secrets of the universe.
As the day waxed on, Lucy watched the lights in the ceiling change color like the sunset, into oranges and reds, until finally there was nothing but a single bright light and thousands of tiny dots, simulating the moon and the stars. Lying next to Benjamin on the intricately woven carpet, she observed how the simulated sky rotated, and she marveled at its realism. The last image she saw in her mind before sleep took over was that of her mother wrapped in her father’s arms, standing on the beach, watching her play in the surf.
Immortal Light: Wide Awake Page 26