“Cinaed,” he whispered, his voice low and rough. I didn’t understand what he said, but strangely there was something familiar about the word and his beautiful voice—like it was from a dream. “At last.” He advanced through the darkness reaching my side quickly.
Fear cemented my feet to the ground. Even though he was right in front of me, my eyes couldn’t seem to understand or make out his shape. It was like he didn’t fully exist. I focused on the only steady part of him—his unreal blue eyes. Without a sound, he moved in closer, his eyes never leaving mine.
“I have been watching you for a long time,” he said. “You have grown into a beautiful woman.”
“W-Who a-are you-u?”
“The better question to ask yourself is who you are.” A slow smile spread over his lips. “You have to stop closing your mind to me.” His breath grazed my neck, causing my body to tingle. “You look so much like your mother.”
“H-How do you know my mother?” The question shot out of my mouth before I even realized it. His statement seemed strange as I knew I didn’t look anything like my mother. I might have taken after her in personality, but looks-wise I had always assumed I took after my biological father.
My mother had been petite, with a tiny, curvy frame, long, thick auburn hair, and sparkling brown eyes with orange flecks. I, on the other hand, was tall, about five foot nine and more athletic than curvy. The only thing I did have was my mom’s thick hair, but mine was jet black and layered past the middle of my back. Ever since I was born, my hair also had these dark red streaks naturally running through it. Everyone assumed I put them there, and I let them believe it. I got tired of explaining that it was some strange quirk in my genes.
It was my eyes, though, that drew the most attention—but never the kind I wanted. Not only were they large and prominent, but I was one of those rare people who had two different colored eyes. Mine weren’t any ordinary colors either. One was a strange, bright yellow-greenish color that illuminated like a cat’s eye. The other one was pale blue-lavender, outlined with electric dark blue and purple. Both pretty—separately. Together on one face, they always caused strange looks and comments.
How I loved the comments. As if I didn’t know I had two different colored eyes. One of these days, I was going to respond with, “Oh how embarrassing. Did I leave the house with my eyes not matching again?” With my pale skin, black hair with red streaks, my different-colored eyes, and my tall build, I could never blend in.
“I know many things about you.” His hazy frame moved in a little closer. “You are meant to be with me. You cannot fight who you truly are, mo chuisle mo chroi.” His voice was so beautiful, I wanted to close my eyes and float away in it. “You are not like them, Ember. Your mind and heart know that. You just have to accept it.” He studied me for a moment before he continued. “I am risking much by coming to you like this, but I had to see you tonight. You are starting to become harder to hide from her. Soon, when you finally come into yourself, I will no longer be able to conceal you. I want you to be prepared.”
“Conceal me from whom? What are you talking about?”
“Em?” Ryan’s voice drifted from around the building. “Are you out here?”
I jerked my head in the direction of his voice. I could see Ryan’s head popping around the corner of the gym. When I turned back, I was alone. My eyes frantically searched everywhere around me, wondering why and how the person, or whatever it was, had vanished into thin air. I inhaled deeply as fear and logic made my mind reel with shock. Where did he go? Who was that? What the hell just happened?
Ryan headed towards me. “There you are. Kennedy and I have been looking for you.”
Panic overwhelmed me. I drew in tiny gasped of air. I really was going crazy, wasn’t I? That hallucination was way beyond having any reasonable explanation. I would be considered certifiable, and this time Mark wouldn’t be able to stop it. My pulse hammered and my body felt like it was on fire. The tingling sensation running over my skin remained, telling me I hadn’t dreamt up the strange figure—unless my imagination was that good.
“Hey, are you okay?” Ryan leaned against the wall next to me. His soft brown eyes were full of concern. He had a sweet round face and dimples when he smiled. Ryan was a few pounds over what would be considered stalky. His outfits and dark hair were always styled perfectly. When I had met him five years ago, I had instantly liked him. His warm, comfortable aura made me want to hug him like a big, sweet teddy bear, but this bear had a sarcastic bite.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I just needed some air.”
“You’re a bad liar.” He nudged my shoulder with his. “I heard the sheriff and the principal cornered you. The whole school is talking about it.”
I sighed. “Of course they are.”
“Come on, let’s go home.” Ryan put his arm around me. I nodded and let him steer me towards the parking lot. As Ryan and I walked away, I took one last glance over my shoulder. In the deepest shadows I could see glowing, blue eyes staring back at me.
Three
“I’ll call you guys tomorrow,” I said, jumping out of Ryan’s beat-up Nissan as it stopped in my driveway. Throwing a quick last wave over my shoulder, I raced towards my front door. I unlocked it and stepped into the house. Double locking the door behind me gave me a false sense of safety. No lock or door could keep out the things haunting me, but the sound of the lock clicking still comforted me.
It was too early for Mark to be home from his poker night with the boys so the house was dark and quiet. There were no streetlights where we lived, and the closest neighbors were over three miles away. We had moved to Olympia, Washington five years earlier. Both Mark and I had fallen in love with the ranch-style house the moment we saw it. The house backed up onto the Capitol State Park. I loved that trees constantly surrounded me, keeping me calm and at peace. But, on this night, the woods felt like they had eyes, watching me through a wall of glass separating us.
Going around the house, I turned on every light. Mark would yell at me for wasting energy, and normally I would have felt the same. Right then I didn’t care. I wanted to feel comforted and safe, and illuminating every dark corner helped.
Making myself tea, I began to settle down. My bruised, achy bones longed for a warm bath. I headed for the bathroom. Undressed, I stood in front of the mirror, peeling the bandages from my arms. My stomach clenched as I peered at my cuts, or really the lack of them. Dried blood was crusted along my arm, around a healed wound. I grasped my forehead bandage and yanked it, a startled cry escaping my lips. My forehead bore a scab that should have taken days to achieve.
Numbness blanketed my body. I had always healed fast, but this was even faster than what was normal for me. I let out a crazed laugh. Turning around, I ignored the bathtub and stepped directly into the shower. Once I was in my pajamas and in bed, under the warmth of my comforter, my lids closed, sinking me into sleep.
***
Fire ripped through them with devastating speed and accuracy. The people fell to their knees with tortured cries, the flames wrapping around them like snakes. I looked down on them. Children clung to their parents in fear. I felt nothing for them as power filled me while watching them wither in agony. Buildings collapsed behind them as my flames consumed their town. The people were not my target; they were obstacles in my way.
“Ember, stop!” My mom was there in front of me, her face full of anguish and fear. “You don’t want to do this. This isn’t you.”
A slow smile spread across my face. “But it is.”
***
I woke up with a start. It was still the middle of the night. Sweat matted my hair to my forehead. The dream evaporated the instant I opened my eyes, but its essence continued to grip my chest, making it hard to breathe. Feeling unsettled, I swung my legs over the side of the bed. I stood up and walked over to my mirror, my glowing eyes reflecting back at me. I turned around, pulling my sweatshirt up. My fingers begin to trace the markings. Celtic knots and symbols t
wisted and merged in thin, loopy, black lines down my back. Seeing them made me feel calmer, as if it was an anchor to my mom.
My tattoo wasn’t a delicate, little butterfly or some tiny, sweet flower. No, my tattoo reached from my neck to the lower part of my back, curling around my side. After I lost my mother, I had had this intense dream. When I’d woken up, I had sketched the symbols from my dream and ended up designing the tattoo that was now part of me. It gave me strength, which was something I needed after losing her. Mark hadn’t been terribly pleased about me getting it, but he had accepted it as something I had to do. He understood it made me feel she was always with me.
As I looked at the beautiful, haunting design, something nagged at me from the bottom of my soul, trying to tell me something. Whatever it was, it was just out of my reach.
Four
The next day went from bad to worse. Between the incident at the school being in the local paper and the gossip mill running overtime, Mark was enlightened about every little detail, true or not, before he returned home from his ritual Sunday morning run and coffee shop stop.
“Ember?” His voice reverberated throughout the house.
Uh-oh . . . I know that tone. Think he might have found out about last night?
“Ember Aisling Devlin Brycin! Get your butt out of bed now!”
Yep.
I sighed and rolled myself out of bed. My head and my body still ached, but not from the non-existent wounds. This ache was more of soreness, as if I had worked out really hard the day before. I felt exhausted as I shuffled into the kitchen.
“So when were you going to tell me about this?” Mark threw the newspaper he was holding, down on the counter with the headline facing me: “Mysterious Explosion Lights School Masquerade Ball.”
“Seriously?” I rolled my eyes. “It wasn’t even an explosion.”
Mark looked levelly at me. That look told me I was walking a very thin line.
“What?” I sighed and then shut up. I knew better than to push him further. Mark Hill was the only family I had left, even if technically he wasn’t blood; and he was the only father I had ever known. He was a slim, tall, good-looking man who still received plenty of attention from women, especially because of his kind, blue eyes, warm smile, and slightly silvering blond hair. He kept in shape and enjoyed running marathons, which I considered the act of a truly demented person. But he seemed to really enjoy doing them.
“When were you going to tell me about this non-explosion then?” he asked.
“When I woke up.”
Again, he looked less than amused. “So instead, I get to hear it from every gossiping biddy in the coffee shop, saying not only was there some explosion at the dance last night, but my daughter was the only one questioned by the police.”
“It’s not like I was trying to keep it from you. When I got home, you weren’t here, so I went to bed. Then I wake up to you yelling at me!”
“I’m sorry, Em.” He looked down at the paper again. “But to hear this from a bunch of prattling, old ladies first, and the fact it involved you, was extremely upsetting. You are my daughter. I want to protect you no matter what. I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about.”
I was in the middle of explaining what had happened the previous night when the phone rang. Mark grabbed the receiver. “Hello?” There was a pause, his lips twisting into a frown, making my pulse quicken.
Oh shit.
“Good morning, Sheriff. How may I help you?”
Shitshitshit!
I tried to swallow the lump growing in my throat as Mark’s face became grimmer. I had “temporarily” forgotten that the sheriff wanted Mark and me to come down to the station later in the afternoon to meet with him and Principal Mitchell. This was the kind of morning where I wished I hadn’t bothered to get up.
Mark got off the phone, and I anxiously waited for his words.
“Sheriff Weiss wants to meet with us at four-thirty today,” he said. It was hard to decipher his mood when he spoke like this. He turned and looked out the window. The silence in the room grew to an ear-piercing level.
“Mark?” My voice was soft. I didn’t know if he’d heard me so I repeated his name. Finally, he broke out of the trance captivating his thoughts.
“Be ready to go by four.” He rubbed his forehead. “I need to go for another run. I’ll be back soon.” He pivoted and was out of the house before I could even respond.
For the rest of the day, I felt like I was awaiting sentence. In a way, I guess I was. Mark’s usual laid-back attitude was anything but, and it got even worse when we walked into the police station. Humor was my default, especially in stressful situations. Trying to lighten his blackening mood, I asked Mark if he had handcuffs he could use so he could walk me in like the criminal I was. He smiled at this, but not like he normally would. This was upsetting him more than he let on. His body was defensive and stiff. He was angry with the police and the principal for accusing me of such a ridiculous thing, but I felt his anger was an act of denial that his daughter could really be the problem.
“Do they have any proof?” he had yelled out to no one in particular on the ride over. “How in the hell can they blame you for faulty wiring? Shouldn’t they be questioning the electrician?”
We were shown into Sheriff Weiss’ office. It held all the basics: an old desk piled with manila files, an eighties-style, black phone that blinked continuously, a desk lamp, several chairs, and a banged up file cabinet in the corner. Sheriff Weiss sat behind his desk and Principal Mitchell already occupied one of the chairs opposite the sheriff. Being under the florescent lights of the police station made the reality of what was happening fill me with dread.
“Mr. Hill, Ember, thank you for coming in,” Sheriff Weiss said. Both he and Principal Mitchell stood and reached out to shake Mark’s hand. They each gave me a short, curt nod.
Sheriff Weiss motioned for Mark to sit in the only available chair. Guess I was standing. This meeting seemed to have little to do with my input anyway; they had already made up their minds about me. I wanted to be invisible, so I pushed myself against the wall, hoping I’d blend in with its chipped, off-white texture.
“I really don’t understand why you called us down here. I can’t fathom how you’ve come to the conclusion my daughter had anything to do with last night,” Mark said.
“I’m not saying she did. I just have a few questions.” The sheriff’s patronizing tone wasn’t lost on Mark.
Mark’s demeanor hardened. “Let’s just cut the crap, Sheriff.” He leaned in. “We all know you didn’t call us down here because you think she’s innocent.”
Weiss pressed his lips together and sat back in his chair. “You’re right, Mr. Hill, I do think she knows more than she’s letting on, and I do believe she’s somehow involved.” He shot me an accusatory glance. “Do I think she was alone in this? No, it’s far too complicated and complex for a girl her age to pull off by herself.”
“Excuse me? A girl my age? You think it’s too ‘complex’ for me? Are you serious?” I shot off before I could stop myself. Mark gave me a look that made my mouth shut with an audible click. It often got me in trouble. My brain and my mouth didn’t always communicate when my buttons were pushed. I definitely got this from my mom. She could be a hothead, reacting first, thinking later. Mark loved and hated that about her. He loved her passion, but sometimes her passion would come out at inopportune times—kind of like this one.
A slight smile formed on Weiss’ mouth, like I had just proven his theory—as if he had been baiting me into a confession. He didn’t understand I couldn’t confess, even if I wanted to. There was nothing to confess except a guilty feeling.
“What proof do you have?” Mark asked. “I’m furious about how this whole thing has been handled. You are treating my daughter like a criminal. Do you have ANY proof besides your insane theories about how she climbed up into the rafters and messed with the lighting?”
“Mr. Hill, what the fire inves
tigation team came up with was inconclusive, but they haven’t ruled out foul play yet,” Principal Mitchell stated.
“So what you’re saying is you have no proof?”
“Proof or not, the fact is that these explosions aren’t a new occurrence. They mysteriously began back around the time your daughter starting attending my school. And she has been at the center of every single episode.” Principal Mitchell leaned forward in his chair, tapping his fingers on the desk for emphasis. “I will not put the other students, most of whom I’ve known their whole lives, in harm’s way just because you think your child is innocent!”
The tension was becoming unbearable. Sheriff Weiss held up his hand to calm the principal. “Mr. Hill, how many of these ‘electrical incidents’ has Ember told you about?”
Mark looked surprised. “Well, there was a small one a couple years back, and then one at the beginning of the school year, I think, and then the one last night.” Doubt crossed Mark’s face. “Why?”
My stomach twisted. I knew exactly where Weiss was going with this.
“Three, huh?” A condescending smile twitched on Weiss’s lips. “Mr. Hill, what if I told you since the day your daughter started in the school system five years ago, we have been called out there six times? Six times, Mr. Hill, and that is not counting the metal shop incident. For the record, the school never had anything like this happen before she started. Circumstances and common sense makes this pretty cut and dry to me.”
Mark looked over at me, dumbfounded. “What are you talking about? What Metal Shop incident?”
Darkness Of Light (Darkness #1) Page 2