by Aaron Slade
“So we can never tell anyone you have an extra-human trait, can we?”
He swallowed hard enough for me to hear. “I’m telling my parents tomorrow, but I won’t be telling anyone else after that.” I sensed the depression in his voice. Casper didn’t deserve to hide away, but there were no other options.
I knew it was too dangerous for anyone else to ever know. I could never tell my dad about Casper. Seth and Sara would never even know. If flying could get Casper killed, then just knowing about it could be potentially dangerous as well.
I pressed my head against his chest, listening to the soft beat of his heart through his jacket. I never wanted to be separated from him. I almost didn’t notice when he made his body lie horizontal like lying in a bed, facing up at the starry galaxy. It was strange that I could feel so secure this far above Fallon and the base, and it didn’t even occur to me to be scared anymore.
When I looked into his forest green eyes, something equally as breathtaking caught my gaze. “I’ve never seen the stars so clear.”
The dark sky was different shades of blues and purples and blacks, sprinkled with milky-white stars twinkling like the throbbing of a heart. The brightest part of the sky surrounded the moon, making the sky a pale navy with its own pearl aura. It was a night sky that only seemed real in photographs, or maybe it was because I’d never been this close before.
“San Diego was too bright to see the stars,” I said. I remembered the smoggy air and all the bright lights that hid the stars. “Some of my friends there said that they had never seen the stars. Can you imagine going your whole life without seeing the stars?”
Casper shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe we take the stars for granted in Fallon.” He caressed the skin on the underside of my arm with his fingertips.
“Do you know your constellations?” I asked.
“No,” he answered. He studied the billions of stars with new eyes, looking for patterns.
“They taught me in school on the base in Portland,” I said. “They only had old books and charts to teach with, but I passed the test. I can use the stars to navigate.” I remembered the shabby books they’d used to teach us astronomy, and how that led my friends and me to learn about astrology. “When’s your birthday?”
“September fourteenth,” he said. “Why?”
“That means your constellation is Virgo, but it’s May– I don’t think we can see it very well until later in the year,” I said. “But it makes a lot of sense that you’re a Virgo.” I should have guessed before now.
“What’s so special about Virgos?” Casper asked.
“Virgos are shy and modest,” I began. “They are also intelligent and hardworking, but those are only the good things.”
Casper’s head snapped from the sky to me. “What are the bad things?”
“You worry, you’re a perfectionist, and you think about things way too much,” I said. I giggled at the accuracy of the description. Labeling Casper a Virgo seemed like a perfect match for him. He was always deep in thought, but Virgos were also characteristically happy, which Casper hadn’t started to demonstrate until recently.
“Alright, laugh it up,” he said, “but now you have to tell me what you are.”
“I was born on April fourth,” I said. “So that makes me an Aries.” I pointed my finger to a random group of stars. “It’s located just there.”
He couldn’t recognize any shapes or constellations. When I told him Aries was a Ram, he became even more lost. I pointed out all the individual stars that made up Aries, but he said it looked more like a curve than a ram.
“So what does that say about your personality?” Casper asked. He pulled me closer. “What’s Aries like?”
“Describe me,” I said. “I’ll let you know if you’re right.”
He thought hard for a few seconds. “You’re confident… and you’re energetic… and passionate.” He scratched his head, trying to list more attributes. “Oh, and I forgot beautiful.”
I nodded that he was guessing correctly, but rolled my eyes on his compliment.
“What about intelligent?” I said. I didn’t want him to sell me short. “I think you forgot that. Otherwise you did a good job of describing Aries.”
You’re very intelligent,” he said through his smile.
“Thank you.”
It was weird to think that I was hundreds of feet above the ground, flying with someone I’d only known for such a short time. Shannon must have seen this moment when she said Casper was special, but her other predictions still disturbed me.
Casper:
The night stayed calm, and had so far been the best night of my life. Evee was still floating above me, and I didn’t notice at first when her attention left the sky above and returned to me. I finally looked at her and realized that the stars were nothing when her alluring blue eyes were this close to me. I brushed her hair behind her ear and raised my head so that my lips could find hers. It was nice to think that I could now kiss her whenever I pleased. I felt the energy from our combined aura getting stronger, shining the deep iridescent white in the periphery of my vision.
The feeling of not being able to be close enough consumed me. I held her tightly and noticed the change in her breathing. As we kissed, I rubbed my hands on her lower back and shoulder’s soft skin. It was just as smooth as her delicate lips. Her fingers were playing in my hair, and I could feel her pulse increase in her neck where my hand rested. I felt my own heart beating against her body.
A gust of wind found us and blew us fiercely. Evee let out a small scream of annoyance as the air frantically blew her hair.
“So will we ever be able to make-out with our feet on the ground?” she asked. She grinned big, so I knew not to be embarrassed.
“I’ll do my best,” I said. I needed to practice staying on the ground while kissing. “But if we stayed on the ground, it would only be an ordinary kiss.”
“There’s nothing wrong with ordinary,” she said. “I like extraordinary as well, but ordinary is fine too.”
I understood her meaning. Two weeks ago, I had been ordinary. My eyes caught something in the distance. “Hey look over there.” I pointed to an area a few hundred feet below us. “Look how big those clouds are.”
“They’re just clouds, Casper,” Evee said. “We may not have had stars in San Diego, but there were plenty of clouds.”
“Well, in Fallon you don’t see many clouds,” I said. It was a desert and the few wisps of clouds that lingered in the sky were tiny and thin. “Especially big fluffy clouds like that.”
“It’s still just a cloud to me,” she said. She was unimpressed and I wondered if she’d forgotten she was flying.
“Well, have you ever stood on a cloud?” I asked. I gave her a skeptical look as if she could only answer no.
“Well, no,” she said, as if it were a stupid question. “I’ve never been this close.”
“Wouldn’t you like to be able to say that you’ve stood on a cloud?” I asked. “I would!”
I flew us down to where the giant cloud sailed through the open sky. The moon’s light turned the cloud silver, and it reacted sensitively to the wind that Evee and I brought, curling away from us as we got closer. I knew we couldn’t really stand on it, but I positioned us above it so that it looked like our feet stood on top of it.
“Here we are,” Evee said anticlimactically, “…standing on a cloud.” She reached out, trying to feel it with her fingers.
I rolled my eyes– something I knew she disliked. “You’re too hard to impress.”
Her smile grew as she played with the cloud. It was like trying to touch smoke– impossible. I had half expected her to pull a piece of cloud back and play with it as if it were cotton. She returned her hand, which was now slightly damp. She flicked the moisture in my face and laughed.
“Have you ever danced on a cloud?” I asked.
“Unfortunately, no one has ever asked me,” she replied. Evee rested the back of her hand on her f
orehead and gave a look of despair, dramatizing her false-grief of never being asked.
“Would you dance with me?” I think we both realized it was silly, but nothing could bring us down.
“I’d love to,” she beamed. Evee stood on my feet again and wrapped her hands around my neck. I placed my hands on her waist, wishing for some music in the vast silence.
We spun in circles on the surface of the cloud, causing the mist to wrap around us like a funnel. I’d never danced before, but I’d spent many nights watching movies and dreaming of a moment like this.
“This is my first time to dance,” I said. I felt like I was doing well, but it had to be easier without my feet on the ground.
“Well, you dance wonderfully,” she said. “Why haven’t you tried it before now?”
I would have thought the answer would be obvious. “Our school has dances, but no one ever asks me.” I lifted her above my head like a ballerina.
“Why didn’t you ask anyone to go to the dances?” she questioned.
I didn’t want to confess to her that I was too scared or lacked the confidence. “Maybe I’ve been waiting for you all this time.”
She gave a blissful smile, but then her expression turned sad. “Do you believe in destiny, Casper?” She made sure we could see each other.
“I don’t know… sometimes I think it could be real.” I’d never thought much about it.
“What if I told you that I knew I was going to meet you?” Evee said. She brought a hand to my cheek. “Before I left San Diego, a woman who could see the future said I would fall in love with someone special in Fallon. She said I would feel something for you immediately, and that your family would become my family.”
The news caused my aura to intensify. “That’s incredible. I wish a seer would have told me my future a long time ago. I’ve never even talked to someone who could see the future. A few people at school have precognitive abilities, but… we don’t run in the same circles.”
I wondered why Evee never mentioned this before, though it did explain why she attached herself to me so quickly. She seemed distracted by something.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. Her hair flowed in the wind as we twirled.
“Nothing,” she said. “I’m just glad the lady was right.” Her real smile returned, and I wondered what she wasn’t telling me. I decided that it was nothing important, or at least I hoped it was nothing important.
“So I must be your true love if a seer told you that I was your future. What do you think?” I held her gaze and I knew her answer without her having to tell me.
The answer was apparent in her eyes, smile, and aura.
“Am I your true love?” she asked.
Technically, she was my only love, but I nodded. “I’m glad I never danced with anyone but you. I could have never felt like this with anyone else.”
We rose out of the cloud, finding ourselves in a diamond sky that stretched forever above us. The wisps of condensation around us were a soft silver and pearl from the light of our auras and the moon. The scene didn’t seem real. It was natural beauty that I usually ignored, but with Evee, it was more amazing than I’d ever given it credit.
“Can I tell you something?” I asked.
She nodded her head. “Of course.”
My nerves took control, and I thought about how in the movies characters made a big gulp noise when they got nervous or scared. I avoided making the noise, but understood the urge. My eyes found Evee’s. I’d been sure of the words for a while. “I love you.”
Her face stayed the same, but our aura grew so bright that I could barely see her. It finally dimmed again for her to respond.
“I love you too.”
My sight was partially blinded from watching her aura flare. “Yeah, I know.” And I laughed.
Evee buried her head in my neck as we slowly drifted through the air. The ground below us was too far away to see. The warmth of her breath on my neck caused the light to shine brighter around us. Even when we weren’t speaking, it felt as though we were saying everything. There was a language that only she and I knew– it could only be spoken during silence. I stroked her hair, feeling security that she felt the same as me.
“Where are we?” she asked, breaking the silence.
I’d completely forgotten that it was a school night, and that I had to get Evee back home, preferably before Colonel Ford returned. “I don’t know. I can’t even see Fallon.”
“What’s that big dark spot?” she asked. She pointed to an amorphous, dark shadow on the ground.
I recognized it immediately. “It’s Carson Lake. We’ve drifted a long way from Fallon.”
“Casper,” she said. “Take us to the spot on the beach we went to on our date.”
I agreed to do it, but it was hard finding where it was. As we lowered, we started to see the night sky’s reflection in the water. The closer we moved to the lake, the more the moon’s light illuminated the reflective surface. The moon appeared as big and full in the water as it did in the sky.
“Do you see it?” Evee asked.
I spotted the restaurant and knew I could find the spot on the shore from there. “I found it,” I said. We flew over the restaurant and could see where the sign marked the trail. I followed the trail from the air until it led to the beach. We were over the water when I started to descend.
“NO, NO!” she yelled. “Put us on the beach. We’ll land in the water here.”
I gave a mischievous expression, and she knew what was coming.
“I better not get wet, Casper,” she said. She tried to climb me like a cat going up a tree.
I halted just inches above the water. The beach was close, but she was stuck with me or she had to risk getting wet.
She pointed at the water’s calm surface where an identical Evee was holding on to me in the water’s reflection. “Look at our reflection,” she said. I disturbed the image by letting our feet graze the chilled water.
“CASPER,” she yelled with a grin on her face. I moved us over the dry beach quickly, our feet still dripping with the water.
Torturing Evee made me laugh hard. “I couldn’t resist,” I said, placing my feet on the sandy beach.
She started to walk, but her walk was no longer elegant. She walked as if she were trying to march like soldiers.
“Why is it so hard to walk?” she asked.
I noticed that using my legs felt difficult after flying. “I think our bodies get so used to flying, that when we return to the ground we’ve forgotten what it feels like. Everything feels heavy, right?” I was prepared for the rough feeling of the ground this time, and so it hadn’t been as dramatic for me to walk again.
I sat down on the beach and stared out at the water. Evee sat down next to me and I put my arm around her. The soft crash of water hitting the shore was the only sound to pierce the night’s silence.
“So you never told me the bad qualities of Aries,” I said. “I think it’s only fair that I know, since you know all of mine.”
She stared out at the water as she answered. “Well,” she said, “Aries are hardheaded and a little selfish sometimes. And we…” She stopped. Her face turned serious.
I felt something big coming. “What is it?”
She gave a curt smile before she answered. “We keep secrets,” she finally said. Her look turned to guilt.
“I already know that,” I said. I hadn’t forgotten that she’d hidden her dad’s involvement with Zana, and I understood why she did it, but it looked like there was something else Evee wanted to confess. “Is there something else you want to tell me?”
“I don’t want to tell you, but I think I should,” Evee said. Her eyebrows mashed together in concern.
“You can tell me anything,” I said. “Nothing you can say will change the way I feel about you.” The idea of secrets made me uncomfortable.
“I know,” she responded. “That’s not it at all.” She kept her focus on the lake and stars before she finally loo
ked at me. “I think the psychic lady was right, Casper. I’m in love with you in a way that I’ve never experienced before.”
“That’s a good thing,” I said. Her confession made me so happy, I felt like dancing again. “And that’s not much of a secret. I’m pretty sure I knew before now.”
“The secret,” she said, “is that there’s another part to the seer’s prediction.”
I hadn’t been expecting this, and it was my turn to be concerned. “What is it?”
She couldn’t answer for a few seconds. “The seer told me that I would die,” Evee said solemnly. “I would fall in love and that I would die shortly after.”
She said the words so bluntly and mater-of-factly that it took a moment for me to process their meaning. She acted strangely comfortable saying the words, as if she had already accepted the inevitability.
I, on the other hand, was mortified. I couldn’t bear to imagine a life without Evee in it. Whoever this seer was, I wished that they had never interfered. Evee didn’t need to know her future to find me. It would have happened all by itself. Why would this lady tell Evee these things? Resentment swept through me, causing every limb in my body to stiffen.
“How do we know that this isn’t some crazy old lady messing with your mind because she can?”
“I didn’t know her well,” Evee said, “but I don’t think she told me to scare me.”
“Why would she do it then?” I asked. I tried to make sense out of what I had just heard.
“I think she told me for a reason,” Evee said. She walked over to where I was and put her arms around me. “She wanted me to know my future so that I would live and love as much as I could before I died. She felt so bad for telling me, she gave me this locket.” She pulled the silver locket out from under her shirt.
I didn’t see it the same way as Evee. Knowing the future seemed more cruel than nice. I couldn’t believe it for a second.
“No,” I said. “You don’t believe it.” I waited for her to confirm my statement.
She turned silent before she answered. She rubbed her silver locket’s smooth surface with her thumb. She forced a smile. “I do believe it, Casper. It would have been wrong of me to not tell you.”