Her hand guided Eref to something that felt like an enormous leaf. He collapsed onto it.
“What’s your name?”
“Eref. Who are you?”
“Caer.”
“And this is really Dark World? What do you mean, what they’ll do when they find me? Will they…” He hesitated, somehow not wanting to insult her. She seemed gentle, and she had already helped him so much. “They told us your people are… cannibals and madmen.”
Caer sniffed indignantly and brought her silky hands back to Eref’s wounds.
“What nonsense. Here we live in the protective shade of the gods. We have to destroy any beams of light that come from above. That’s because Light World is cursed—everything is so bright there that your skin melts right off your body, and you go blind in an instant.”
He chuckled at this and immediately noticed that the pain in his side had lessened. Her ointment soothed his flesh. Eref took a deep breath, and the aching in his chest subsided, too. It felt as though his ribs were already mending inside him.
“What is this stuff you’re putting on me?”
“For your chest? Opaque Cuminaline,” she said. “It grows in some of the bushes here.”
He’d heard of powerful gems, like the Moonstone, but never healing plants. Still, it seemed to be working. Who could this girl be? She seemed so young. Could she be one of Dark World’s healers? “How old are you?”
“Seventeen,” she said. “Eighteen soon.”
“Me, too.”
“How did you get here?”
“I fell,” he said. “That’s all I know.”
“What happened to you? Did the Light World curse break your bones?”
Eref laughed again. “You’ve got that all wrong.”
Caer’s fingers hesitated for a second over his heart before she continued. “But you said your own people tried to kill you.”
“It’s complicated,” he said. He tried to imagine how she might react to learning that he was a criminal.
“Well, whatever happened, you’re here now.” Her fingers left his body. “Your wounds are healed.”
Eref heard her stand up. He tried to stand with her but wobbled and fell back down with a light thud.
Caer bent over and touched his shoulders. Again those strands of silk brushed his skin. Her hands felt so gentle. He wondered what she looked like.
“No, you can’t stand yet,” she said. “The lotion stole your energy and used it to heal you. All you can do is sleep.”
She was right. At that moment, exhaustion covered him like a blanket.
He tried to speak, but Caer said, “Shhhh. We’ll talk when you wake up. Rest now. Shhhh. Rest.”
Caer’s lulling voice, her mossy cloak, the soft ground, and the impenetrable darkness enfolded him, coaxing him to sleep. Eref let his mind clear and his head fall back.
“Thank you,” he mumbled.
In the distance he heard a rhythmic drumming, like the sound of footsteps. A sluggish feeling of fear broke through his lethargy, but his strength had faded completely.
“Caer, is someone coming?”
“Shhhh.”
Chapter 2
Dark
Eref woke up to a darkness so complete he felt he had been buried alive. He stretched his eyelids open several times and instinctively gasped for breath.
“Eref, I’m here. Are you all right?”
He jumped at the sound of the voice. When he moved, he realized that he had been clothed in a mossy shirt and pants. It took him several moments to remember what had happened.
The lights. The End. The stoning. The fall. The crash. The girl.
“Caer?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m right next to you.”
“What happened? Where am I?”
“My apartment. You’ve been asleep for three days.”
“Three days?” Eref stood up with a start. He banged his head on a low ceiling. He ran his hands along it, realizing that it felt as if it were made of tangled tree roots. Confused, he sat back down. His body felt completely rejuvenated. It was amazing how perfectly her remedy had worked.
“Sorry,” she said. “I think people from Light World must be taller than the people here.”
“Where am I? I heard footsteps before I fell asleep,” he said. “Does anyone know I’m here?”
Caer sat next to him. A cool breeze blew over his cheek when she moved, and cushions underneath him gave way. Eref assumed they were seated on a couch, though it was nothing like the stone furniture of Light World.
“I’ve hidden you,” she said. “I carried you here in a Life Tree leaf.”
“A what?”
Caer remained quiet for another moment. Then she said, “Eref. Can you see anything at all?”
He rubbed his eyes. The darkness almost hurt. He strained, trying to catch any light, but found nothing. “No,” he said. “I’ve gone blind.”
She touched his cheek with her soft fingers. Rested and healed, Eref could pay closer attention to the way Caer felt. Her hands were small and fuzzy—and ice cold.
“You…are…,” she said, pausing between each word. She seemed to have some difficulty deciding whether to speak her mind. Her palm rested on the side of his head for a moment before she pulled her hand away. “Different. You look different from Dark People. I had to hide you from them. The things they do….”
Eref’s inability to see drove him wild. How could he protect himself if he couldn’t find his way around? And he wanted to know what Caer looked like.
“What’s different about me?”
“Well,” she said, “you’re hairless, for one thing.”
“Everyone in Dark World has hair?” Sometimes people in Light World grew hair, and they tried desperately to hide it. Burning their skin or plucking each strand. But it was never long before someone noticed, and they had to go to the End.
To meet the boulder.
“Yes,” she said. “We have hair all over our bodies. Once in a while, some poor creature will be found, whose hair has fallen out. And—” Her voice wavered.
“And what?”
Eref sensed Caer shiver next to him. It reminded him of the way his body had trembled the first time he watched a stoning.
“I won’t let them find you,” she said. “If they do, they’d see immediately that you’re different.”
“What if I just wore clothes?”
“No. You’re too tall.” She ran a cool finger across his arm. Her touch felt soft, softer than skin, as if her hands were covered in velvet. “And your skin is so dark.”
“Dark? But everything here is dark, isn’t it? How can anyone tell the difference?”
“We can see,” she said. Her voice was light and delicate—the sound of rain falling on flower petals. “Dark People can see in the dark. Your eyes have no color. They are clear… You can see in your world, can’t you? Even though it’s covered in such blinding light?”
Light…. A pain surged through Eref that had nothing to do with the stoning. Visions of his home, his friends, the places he knew played in his mind. He wanted to be back with his things and his people. He wanted to see again. He wanted to be home.
“I have to go—” But he stopped.
Where could he go?
Even if he could find his way back up that endless tunnel, in Light World, he was a criminal.
And yet, here, in Dark World, he was blind.
“Go where?” Caer seemed to have read his mind. “I thought your people threw you out.”
“They did,” he said. “And anyway, I don’t even know how to get back.”
“Then relax.” Caer stood up and walked to the other end of the room. In a moment, she returned and placed a tray on his lap.
“Here are some fruits and wine,” she said. “Eat.”
Food. His mouth watered. He hadn’t eaten since before his trial.
Eref reached forward and touched the cool, slimy items with his fingers. “What is this?”
Eref tasted one of what he guessed were the pregas. They were sweeter than anything he’d ever eaten.
“No,” he said. “We eat beans and vegetables. Like stopotae and nishpac.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve never heard of those.”
A quiet moment passed in which Eref cautiously tried one fruit after the other, half-expecting the food to be poisoned, half-wondering if he even cared. At this point, food was food.
“Is there anything else you need right now?”
As his hunger slaked, his mind felt clearer. And one question was clearest of all. Why was this girl helping him? Apparently, if he were found, he would be in big trouble. Wouldn’t she be in trouble, too, for hiding him?
“You don’t even know me,” he said, turning to face her. He knew he was probably looking an inch or two in the wrong direction. The trademark of a blind man. Another stoning offense, at least in Light World.
“Well,” she said, her fingers sliding aimlessly across his shoulder and back. He longed to do the same to her shoulder, to feel out her looks. He resisted.
“I think,” she continued, “I understand what happened to you.”
“You couldn’t understand,” he said. He thought of Balor’s fiery face and the stones in his hands. Eref bit the inside of his cheek.
“But I do,” she insisted. “The people of Dark World call themselves civilized, but they kill other creatures. Nothing that gives off light or is at all different is allowed to survive. And, to prevent us from thinking too much about it, they…do something to us when we reach eighteen.”
Eref stopped eating and leaned forward in surprise. “That’s exactly what happens in my world. Only my people destroy shadows.”
“I thought so,” she said. “Here, people who disobey the law are executed in a great pyre in the woods. Right where you fell.”
“A pyre?”
“Yes. Everyone attends, but we aren’t allowed to watch. The light would blind us. We just listen to the screams.”
Eref shuddered, imagining hundreds of blindfolded people listening to a person burning alive. “That’s disgusting,” he said.
“Is that what happened to you? Did they try to burn you?”
“No,” he said. “When we break the law, they stone us to death.”
Caer’s fingers tightened around his shoulder. “How horrible!”
“And every day, more people turn eighteen and are changed. After the change, they fear shadows, and they—” He choked on his words, remembering what fun they’d had the day before Balor’s birthday. Just hours before getting arrested.
“You don’t have to tell me about turning eighteen,” she said, stroking his shoulder and back again. “We’re afraid of it here, too.”
Eref closed his eyes, wishing his lids could block out the image of Balor scowling at him. Changed, murderous, insane.
But Eref couldn’t make the vision go away.
“Why did they want to stone you? What did you do?”
At the sound of Caer’s voice, Balor faded.
“I… It was an accident, really,” Eref said. But the judges at the Center hadn’t thought so. All those angry faces, the shouting….
“My friend and I just wanted to play a prank,” he went on. “We thought everyone was so stupid, with all their fears. They stone anyone who’s light-skinned or hairy or cool to the touch. And shadows. Shadows are their number one fear. They light fires anywhere a shadow appears. Investigations are held into the source of every shadow, and someone almost always gets sent to the End for it. Whether or not he’s guilty.”
“Were you innocent?”
Eref paused. Was he? It wasn’t that simple. But before he could answer, Caer clapped her velvety hand over his mouth.
“Hang on,” she whispered in a harsh breath. “Someone’s coming.”
Eref jumped when a rapping sounded on the door, which he gauged to be about fifteen feet ahead of him.
Caer stood and called out, “Who is it?”
“It’s Vul,” said a friendly female voice. “Can I come in?”
“Eref,” Caer whispered. “I’m going to have to hide you in the other room, alright?”
“What if she finds me?” His breath quickened. This blindness made him helpless. He couldn’t even sneak out of the house if he needed to.
“Caer?” The voice on the other side of the door called again. “Did you hear me?”
“Yeah, Vul, I’ll be right there!” Caer grabbed Eref’s hand and pulled him up from the couch. She led him through a doorway and guided him to an enormous soft chair.
Eref sank onto it and waited.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” Caer whispered. He listened in a quiet panic as she walked out of the room and shut the door with a click.
From his hiding spot, Eref heard Caer let Vul inside. His lungs felt as though they were fighting a battle inside his chest; it was impossible to breathe normally with danger this close. What was it Caer had said they would do to him if they found him? He gripped the cushiony arms of the chair and told himself to stay calm. The last thing he needed was to be found out because he was making so much noise hyperventilating.
Vul spoke first, after a brief silence. “So…why didn’t you meet me the past few nights?”
“I’m sorry, Vul. I’ve just been really busy around the house.” Caer didn’t sound like a good liar. Eref’s heart pounded.
“Hmm.”
“Honest. Want some fruit and wine?”
“Sure.” The other girl seemed to have decided not to press the issue. Eref’s heart slowed a beat, and he sighed a thankful breath. “Wait’ll you hear what I’ve got to tell you. We’re going to have fun tonight!”
“What’s up?”
“Well,” Vul mumbled, her mouth audibly full of food, “I was hanging out at the Pyre yesterday, and you’ll never guess what I saw!”
“What?”
“It’s all roped off. Maybe fifty guards standing around. With flamethrowers.”
Caer said nothing for a moment, and when she spoke again, it was with an unsteady voice. “Flamethrowers? Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” said Vul, whose mouth was apparently full of fruit again. “They won’t let anyone near. They wouldn’t say what happened, either. Something big, I’ll bet, to bring out fifty guards with flamethrowers!”
Eref held his breath. Something big had happened there. He had happened.
He had fallen through from Light World.
“How long have they been there?” Caer’s voice shook more dramatically, and Eref wondered how long it would be before Vul noticed something was wrong. His heart sped up again.
“Since three days ago, at least. Some kids said a couple of the guards were talking about two intruders from Light World. I guess they’re trying to trap them, or something. Isn’t that crazy?”
“Two?”
Eref’s fingers pressed deeper into the sides of the fluffy chair, every muscle in his body tense.
“Yeah. I don’t know how they got here. Pretty awesome, huh?”
“Two?” It sounded as if Caer didn’t know what else to say. And Eref didn’t know what to think. Had they just made an error? No one else had fallen through – had they?
“I wonder how you kill a Light Person, anyway,” Vul mused. “The Pyre probably doesn’t hurt them, since they’re just big, nasty balls of fire themselves.”
“No they aren’t,” Caer blurted out. Eref bit the inside of his cheek, willing her to be silent. Change the subject. Leave the house. Anything.
“Oh, yeah? And you’re some kind of expert?”
After another awkward silence, Caer said, “What if they’re just people? Just the same as us, only in a different world?”
Vul laughed. Her voice sparkled like Caer’s, though a little deeper. “Well, this is our chance to find out! When can we sneak over to the Py
re to see what’s going on?”
“Are you out of your mind? No way!”
“Come on,” Vul said. “Live a little. It’s not like we have much time left, anyway.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
Eref stared in the direction of the voices, willing his eyes to see, but nothing appeared. Only the sounds of their voices and the warm smell of this room like wet earth after the rain. He was stranded and broken, unable to defend himself. What could he do, even if the Dark People burst in right now with their flamethrowers?
Suddenly, something small and furry brushed against his leg. Startled, he jerked in the chair and let out a muffled cry.
“What was that?” Vul’s voice sounded much closer to the door, and Eref snapped his mouth shut.
The furry thing rubbed back and forth against Eref’s legs. He stood frozen in place, his heart banging painfully inside him.
“No, Vul,” Caer said.
“Do you have someone over?”
“I—”
The furry creature at Eref’s legs started licking his feet. He scrambled backward and bumped into a wall that felt and smelled as though it were made of tree bark.
“I thought you were just busy around the house,” Vul said, her voice icy. “My birthday’s coming. We were supposed to spend time together, and you had someone over instead?”
“Vul, I—”
The furry thing stopped licking Eref’s feet and began to slide its long, thin body up his legs, across his belly, over his chest, and onto his shoulders. Eref shuddered. It licked his ears.
“My birthday, Caer. My eighteenth birthday. Don’t you even care?”
“That’s not fair,” Caer said.
Then, right into Eref’s slobbery ear, the furry creature shouted, “It’s time for dinnerrr! Caerrr! Caerrr!” It sounded like a person speaking with a mouth full of water.
“Just a minute, Atc!” Caer answered.
“Atc?” Vul paused and then laughed. “It was just Atc?”
Eref heard Vul’s footsteps coming his way. He turned and bumped into a table. The furry creature leapt down from his shoulders and shouted, “Watch wherrrre you’re going!”
“Atc,” Vul said from the other side of the door. “You silly thing. I’ll feed you.”
From Light to Dark Page 2