by Merry Brown
After a bit of small talk, I asked about Lizzy’s whereabouts. She was still sleeping in Mary Kate’s room.
I ate a roll and drank some ice-cold milk and excused myself to find her. I quietly opened the door to see her fast asleep. She was on her side, facing the window.
I sat in the chair by the desk, studying her. Her hair was loose, spilling over the pillow and hiding her face. She wore what I assumed were Mary Kate’s pajamas because they were hot pink and covered in purple hearts.
I got up and quietly sat next to her on the bed. I slowly brushed her hair back from her face and bent down to kiss her soft cheek.
I sat with my back against the wall, watching her some more. She turned to her other side, apparently unaware of my presence.
My hands flew up to my mouth to hold back an involuntary cry. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
When she turned over, her ink black hair fell back, leaving her neck exposed. It was covered in slashes. It looked like someone had taken a knife and made hundreds of five-inch slits around her neck. And in the middle of her collar bone, where her moon necklace usually rested, was a big black welt, thick and oozing with puss.
I was horrified. In all the excitement last night, I realized I didn’t ask her even once if she was hurt or the status of her brothers and sisters.
With the coming of the dawn I realized I missed a lot last night. How did they know I was in trouble in the first place? I remembered the anxiety rolling off her and her weird response last night as I stated the obvious – the imposter was gone forever.
I pulled my knees up and hung my head. There was too much to think about, to blame myself for. I was in complete overload.
I sat there for who knows how long, totally zoning out, half awake and half dead to the world.
“Good morning handsome,” she said, curling up to me. I slid my back down and laid facing her. I traced her lips with my fingers, her forehead, her cheeks and jaw, then down to her throat. Her hand stopped mine. She took my fingers and kissed each one, singing quietly as she did.
It was our song, the song we wrote together. She got to the chorus and kissed me lightly on the lips. I pulled her tighter. She wrapped her bruised arms around me and we held each other.
I would’ve stayed in bed with her all day, but we were interrupted by her growling stomach.
I slipped out of bed to get her breakfast. When I returned with her food, she was already dressed and waiting for me. She ate and I looked through Mary Kate’s meager CD collection.
I would start this off right, for a change, worrying about her, not myself. “And how are you Lizzy?”
“I’m tired, and a bit sore, but not too bad off. I’m glad to be with you, here,” she said as she finished off the cinnamon roll.
“Lizzy, what happened to your neck?” I couldn’t keep my horrified expression to myself.
Her hands touched her throat and she swallowed. She looked down, not wanting to tell me.
This didn’t look like the kind of injury they typically received from encounters with wraiths or us Knowers. Her silence confirmed what I suspected.
“Please tell me Lizzy. What happened to you?”
“Well, I know you’re also wondering how we knew you were in trouble too?”
I nodded.
“Last night I was playing cards with Charlotte, Justin, and Andrew when all of a sudden my neck felt like it burst into flames. It was as if something unseen was clawing at my neck, sucking the life out of me. I was on the ground, screaming when the pain suddenly stopped.” She took a deep breath and started playing with her wrists.
“I looked up to see what happened, why the cutting stopped. Andrew stood over me, his arm outstretched, holding my necklace.”
“I don’t understand?” I said, but then the connection became crystal clear. When she gave me my half of the necklace she said she’d be able to know if I was ever in trouble. The necklace connected us somehow.
“My guard was completely down last night, after you left our house.”
I shook my head, repulsed. Of course it was; why would she have it up? No one there to hurt or attack her. Oh wait, that’s right, she’s in love with a selfish jerk who doesn’t take the time to think about what the hell he’s doing. And so I walk straight into Mordor, taking her with me, she who absorbs evil and replaces it with love and pieces of herself.
“I see you figured out what happened. I guess the necklace thing was not such a great idea,” she said with a hard laugh.
“Yeah – when you give the other half to an imbecile!” I said with self-loathing.
“William, this is more my fault than yours. How were you supposed to know we were connected this way? It was very foolish of me. And yet, this,” she said pointing to her throat, “will heal. If it weren’t for it, we might not have known.”
Tears falling down her cheeks, she looked me directly in the eyes, “I won’t pretend it’s not painful, but I will be restored. In time my wounds will fade and recede. What would I have done if you were taken from me? I’d gladly take that beating again, for you.”
I felt my heart swell and burst as I stuck it with the dagger of reality: if I had just waited she wouldn’t need to heal, she wouldn’t be a bloody, mangled mess.
I didn’t want to upset her so I sucked up my revulsion at my own foolishness.
I asked about her family. Turns out most were fine; the battle went better than expected, even with their diminished numbers. Most were fine, but not all. Her sister Eva didn’t fare so well and was healing in Eden. After I’d gone to bed last night, Lizzy spent most of the night there with her.
The rest of the day was full of planning tomorrow’s funeral. My father would be buried next to the rest of my family. I opted for a small and simple grave-side service.
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Love
It was a crisp and clear January 1st morning. Lizzy rode with me in the lead limo.
Since I only invited a few friends to the grave-side service, I was stunned to see almost a hundred waiting for us. Most of Lizzy’s family, Michael, John, Katie, Hannah, Sue, my boss, some of the women I volunteered with, the Richardsons and a few of my newer friends from school. All turned out to support me.
The priest said a few prayers and words of comfort. I knew my father wasn’t lying in that casket. He had departed this world years ago. He was in a better place, in the arms of his wife and children.
Still, my heart ached for what could’ve been, what should’ve been in a just world. . . .
Though I was not with them anymore, I was not left alone. Fate or God had left me in good hands. From the beginning of my tragic tale I’d been given the best friends imaginable, two adults I could count on, and a various assortment of other loyal friends.
The service ended and I stayed, taking everyone’s sincere condolences. When the last supporters left, Lizzy and I got in Andrew’s car.
On the ride to her place, she rested her head on my shoulder, and I played with her hair that was let loose from her standard ponytail.
Lizzy made me and a few others tuna sandwiches for lunch. Though her house was peaceful as ever, there was a business-like atmosphere. I was surprised most of her family was still there since the battle was behind them.
They were scattered around the house, looking over artifacts from my house, and doing lots of talking and writing. Lizzy said they were recording what they learned from the Book of Rules and other documents they were able to read before they were destroyed. They were making meticulous notes about the entire operation.
Lizzy and I sat at the kitchen table next to Justin and Charlotte. Andrew came over to see how I was doing. He reminded me of my big brother.
“Lizzy, did you tell him about the house?”
“Not yet. I was going to wait. He needs some time to detox, to process all this craziness.”
“I wish we could give that to you, Will, but time is really of the essence in this case,” Andrew said frowning at Lizzy.
“What about my house?”
“We’re going to have to burn it down, and soon. We’ve gone over every square inch looking for hidden artifacts, but it’s just too risky. It has to be burned to the ground. We can’t, in good conscience, let someone else live there.”
“When? I need to get some stuff out before you do.” I thought I should feel sad or bad about burning my place, but it actually made perfect sense to me. That wraith lord was like black mold. The only way to get rid of that nasty type of mold is tons of bleach and fire.
Once I got my family pictures, I’d throw the first match.
From the look on Andrew’s face and the twisting of Lizzy’s wrists I knew there was more.
“What else?” I asked flatly.
“Last night you saw all the broken bodies. When the bodies die the wraiths try to escape in what probably looks like smoke to you. We tried to get them all, but we didn’t. Some managed to escape.”
“If we’d been ready, we could’ve taken them all,” Andrew said with regret.
“Will, one of the few that got through us was the wraith lord,” Lizzy said.
“What does that mean? I don’t understand?”
“Will, wraiths are brutal, but they don’t hold a candle to what a wraith lord is capable of. They are vicious in the extreme and territorial. He will come back; he will fight for whatever he thinks is his. He’ll search and fight until he has it or we put him out of his misery.”
“When? How long do we have?” Tonight? Would he lose no time?
“Try to calm down,” Charlotte said. “It will take a while for him to find a new body, build up his resources. It’s not anytime soon.”
“But he will be back, and he’ll be back for me? Why does he care so much about me, possessing me?” Frustration rang loud in my voice.
“It’s not you he wants, Will. He’s cunning and perceptive. Last night he saw our bond, he witnessed our love. He plans to use you to get to us.” Lizzy couldn’t continue.
Andrew picked up her train of thought, “You see, though we interact with the Knowers all the time, and we love them, none of us have ever become attached the way Lizzy has. This wraith lord is going to get at you to strike at us. There’s no game he likes better than revenge.”
Dangerous, dangerous, dangerous. From the beginning she said her world was too dangerous for me. As it turns out, I was right. I was too dangerous for her, for them.
I was a liability and a threat to their way of life, as witnessed by their rescue last night.
They saw my anxiety and started laughing in delight. I stood up, completely confused, but ready to bolt.
“Wait, stop. We’re laughing, sweetness, because you are the opposite of a curse. You awoke not only me but also my whole family to possibilities we’d never really considered. You are a godsend to us. Our blessing, not a curse,” Lizzy said and walked up to me, putting her hands on my chest.
“You, Will, have no idea what you mean to me, to us all.”
“Yeah, man,” Justin interjected, “we’re thankful for what you’ve shown us. Thanks for the wakeup call,” he said getting up from the table, Charlotte scooting out too. Justin took her hand, kissed it, and they went out the back for a walk in the orchard. Andrew picked up his keys and headed off to the gym.
“What was that about?” I asked, now completely confused.
“Don’t you see? You brought love to us.”
“What? You all are the most loving people on planet earth. What do you mean?”
“Yes, we love, but as brother to sister or as caretakers. Until recently,” she blushed, “we’d forgotten about the possibility of romantic love for our kind. That’s all changing. All because of you.” She slid her hand up from my chest and locked her fingers in my hair.
“Come here you,” she sang to me.
“I’m here,” I whispered back. And with that she planted a perfect kiss on my lips.
No disappearing, no audience, just her and me.
“Will, we’ll work out the future later. Let’s enjoy our newfound freedom together, and the end of your senior year,” she said with a smile, and a little chuckle.
Brought back to reality. I was an orphaned high school senior, in love with an everlasting creature, and in mortal danger from a vicious wraith. My life was crazy. Nothing new really, except now it was a good kind of crazy. A crazy I would happily deal with because Lizzy was by my side.
Acknowledgements:
Thank you to my readers Jenny Bradshaw, Laura Fieser, Beth Callaway, Stephanie Richardson, Patricia Brown, Diane Lilligard, and Annie Schommer. The gift of your time and encouragement are priceless to me.
Thanks Steve Guiles for calling me out of the blue and inspiring me. Without your enthusiasm I wouldn’t have taken matters into my own hands and published.
Thank you to Charles Bradshaw for your critical eye, catching my mistakes, and seeing the holes I needed to fill.
Thank you Lisa Smartt, my friend, grammar guru extraordinaire, and fellow soul searcher.
Thanks to my ‘home away from home’ coffee shops – Higher Ground in Union City and The Looking Glass in Martin. All things seem clearer with a non-fat mocha and a space to sit and think.
And to my first reader, best friend, and husband Christopher. Without your love, assistance, and constant encouragement I never would have completed this book.
Born and raised in Bakersfield, California, Merry Brown now lives in the northwest corner of Tennessee with her husband, three boys, and two cats. She teaches philosophy at the University of Tennessee, Martin, where she counts it a great privilege and joy to introduce students to perennial questions about the nature of the universe, meaning, morality, and the human condition. Merry Brown’s love of philosophy and young adult fantasy fiction inspired her to write The Knowers.
To learn more about The Knowers and forth coming books from Merry Brown, visit her at MerryBrown.com or Merry Brown on Facebook.
What happens to Will and Lizzy? Read The Second Fall, book #2 in the Exiled Trilogy to find out!
Chapter One: The Fire
In the end, they let me keep nothing.
All pictures, books, everything that physically tied me to my family was now burning in the fire consuming my home.
Lizzy held my hand, silently weeping. I had nothing left to feel. Since my father’s funeral three days ago, I’d been zoned out, half aware of the busy work going on around me, and dead to it all.
Andrew and Lizzy were worried how I’d react once I saw the fire and the finality it brought. Why would I get all choked up now? There was no going back.
No going back to the days of my innocence, shattered that February 14th night, almost 8 years ago when my mom and sister died. No going back, thankfully, to the ensuing black years of ignorance, when I lived under the tyranny of that thing, the wraith lord, who called itself my father.
I was now alone, but freed by the truth. I knew now my real father died in the crash that claimed the lives of my mom and sis. I was also awakening to the very real presence of evil in the world, and a counterbalance of sorts. Lizzy and her kind, the originals from the Garden, those who remain untainted by the decision to eat from the forbidden tree, were a force for all things good.
I watched the fire fight against the starry sky. Rise and crash, rise and crash, rise and strike the earth. It was an angry fire, beating against this mortal coil.
And what of my own mortality? Soon enough I’d meet the same fate as my family and the last traces of our estate. I’m the end of my family’s line. I have no aunts or uncles, no extended family. Just me.
One day I too will be nothing but ash.
I laughed without humor. Lizzy looked at me, trying to understand. I’m only seventeen. Thoughts of death and my own mortality shouldn’t hit for another twenty years or so.
But I had known death. I knew I was fragile. I was keenly aware how breakable I was. I was subject to death, but this lovely creature who held my hand wasn’t. We were side by side, bu
t living in different worlds with different rules. Lizzy would recover from any tear in her frame. She’d never contract a disease. She’d survive any bodily assault. Her physical age was a product of how she wished to appear, not a true reflection of her years.
She and her kind were chameleons, able to camouflage their outrageous beauty and mission. To the uninitiated, Lizzy appeared frail, unassuming, all around average at best. But she was really closer to an immortal goddess, though she claimed to be neither.
I, on the other hand, was like every other tainted mortal. One day death would come and find me. I would leave her behind. We would be separated.
At this thought my smile was gone and I returned my gaze to the wild blaze.
I was mesmerized by the fluid dance of the all-consuming fire. As I watched, I noticed the fire rising higher and higher in the center, where the house stood moments ago.
It was a sight to behold. My sprawling family house, built from old world stone and lumber by my great grandparents nearly a century ago, was completely engulfed.
The book-lined library, music room, dining hall, endless places to hide, gone. I already missed the priceless works of art and even the crappy ostentatious furnishings It acquired. The high ceilings, the one of a kind mosaic kitchen floor, the bedroom that was mine since I was out of the nursery. I was losing it all.
In the former spot of the imported 250-year-old carved staircase, the fire grew taller while the flames around died down, as if trying to flee. I nudged Lizzy to see this strange phenomenon. When she didn’t respond, I turned to see if she was lost in this bizarre sight too.
Lizzy sat utterly motionless. Her rich olive complexion drained of all color. In the place of her cheerful demeanor, were wide unblinking eyes.
Her gaze met mine, shooting goose bumps down my arms. The atmosphere was stifling.
Something horrible was coming, like a deranged lunatic waiting behind the bushes with an axe, ready to hack us to bits.