by Luke Valen
“Oh, so now you decide to tell me what’s in this magic book of yours?” She was getting feisty.
“Do you want to see it or not?” I asked, rewrapping the leather string.
“Yes. Yes. Okay, geez.” Abigail mimed zipping her mouth and throwing away the key.
“Ever since I bumped into you a couple months ago, I have been having these…dreams,” I said as I continued to unravel the little brown journal.
“Wait, what?” A genuinely confused look became her.
“Don’t you remember? Down at the drugstore. I was picking up some supplies and you were with that girl you always hang out with—Cherry? We accidentally bumped into each other when I was leaving and you were going in.”
Why would she remember that meaningless encounter? Only a loser like me would remember something like that.
She smiled faintly, an apologetic smile. “I don’t remember that.”
I knew she wouldn’t.
“You helped me pick up the wood and told me something about keeping warm, that it was going to be a cold one.” Why do I persist?
The memory came back to her with a rushing force. It was visible in her eyes as they lit up. A little spark of happiness warmed me along with the fire.
“I remember! Cherry was upset you almost made her spill her iced mocha latte. That was you?” The room was so cold her breath was visible with each word.
I smirked. “Yeah.”
“Okay, so what about that day?” she asked, ready to remember more.
“You’re going to think I’m crazy or something.” I had finished unraveling the journal.
This was a big moment for me. I had never shown anyone anything that was personal to me. Not even Homer had seen inside this journal, and he is crazier than me. Letting someone in was always something that frightened me to the core. Whether it be from abandonment issues from my estranged parents or something else, God only knows.
“No, I’m not. Just tell me what’s going on.” Her tone had shifted. She must have noticed my concern. Her voice was soft and reassuring. Safe.
“Promise me that you’re not going to freak out.”
“I am way past freaking out, I have seen you half dead and bleeding multiple times. I think I can handle whatever it is you’re going to show me.”
This was true.
“Okay…” I said nervously as I considered backing out from my decision. Finally, I breached the pages. “Look.” I handed over the journal.
She took it without breaking eye contact. Finally, she looked down, puzzled. Almost as if she saw something she recognized but didn’t quite know what it was.
I stood there, frozen with curiosity. What was going through her mind? What was she thinking, how was she going to react…
She finally broke the silence. “What is this? I’ve seen these before…when I was trying to figure out what the symbol on your wrist meant.”
The fire crackled in the background, emitting a warming light, causing our frozen bodies to have shadows that danced against the inner sanctums walls, like ghosts of a ballroom.
“What do you mean you’ve seen these before?” I asked, as if no one should have seen these before. These were things I had been drawing since I was a kid. Before I even knew what a book or the internet was.
“I mean, I’ve seen these. I did an image search after I drew the one I had seen on you. A lot of these symbols were either drawn or painted or carved into some old or even ancient artworks.” Abigail was holding the book and getting excited, flipping from page to page. “My dad actually has a couple pieces I found it on too. It wasn’t easy to find though, most of them are hidden in the work.”
The howling of the frozen wind grew as it whistled through the treetops.
“Did you see this?” I asked, grabbing the book and flipping back through the pages.
“What is th—” She stopped as she recognized it. It was the same symbol that she had on her wrist. Her birthmark. “No way,” she said as she turned from the page to her own body.
“Yeah,” I said, seeing the amazement in her eyes.
“So you saw it that day we ran into each other—big deal.” She folded the book in one hand and offered it back to me.
“You were wearing a jacket and gloves. There is no way I saw it.” She thought I was trying to pull a fast one. “This is what I see when I go to sleep. Every. Single. Night.”
“Well, what is all this then?” she asked, reopening the book and flipping to the first pages. There, in bold and hard-pressed lettering, stood something of an alien-like language. It didn’t look Egyptian, or Arabic, or any other recognizable language.
“I don’t know,” I said.
She was getting flustered. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I mean, I don’t know. I’ve had this book as long as I can remember. My first foster family told me that…that it was given to them when they adopted me. I guess it was the only thing I had with me the day I was left at the hospital.”
Our eyes were locked in intensity. The room felt small, as if it had shrunk to only contain her and me and nothing else. The fire had not grown, yet I was beginning to sweat—the space between us felt hot. I could see her mind reeling.
“Abigail, look at the dates.”
“So you’re telling me that you have had this journal since you were born, but you don’t know who gave it to you or what language this is?” Her tone had shifted again, as if I were withholding information on purpose. She looked at the date. “And that this is almost five thousand years old? HA!”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you. I think it belonged to my biological parents. I’ve tried finding them. It’s impossible. Maybe they were historians or something.” I was as sincere as I could ever be. “Uncle Homer is the only family I have now, and he doesn’t even know about this book.”
“Okay, so then why does this concern me?” she asked even though she knew the answer. She just didn’t want to admit it.
I stabbed the page with my pointer finger. “You know exactly why this concerns you. You’re drawing is in there too, right next to mine and all the others.”
She didn’t respond. She just side-eyed the book as if looking directly at it or me would pry information out of her. Arms crossed, face stern, blonde hair glowing in the light of the fire. Even when she was angry, she was a stunning sight.
“I didn’t start having these dreams or sensing these weird things until the day I ran into you. And everything that has been happening this past week—I mean, come on! I know you saw what I saw in your room the other night! And being able to throw someone through a wall, you can’t tell me that didn’t freak you, and the other ten million people who saw it, out. And I’m seeing these weird…things all over town now too!” I spouted in one long-winded breath.
She turned and looked at me. “Wait. What did you just say?”
“I said, I know this is all freaking you out too!”
“No. After that, what kind of…things are you seeing?” She leaned in.
How do I describe these ugly creatures—they were the kind of thing from nightmares. The kind that couldn’t be described.
“I don’t know. They have these piercing red eyes that are like glowing embers, and these tall bony bodies that look burnt or charred black and long, stringy black hair; sharp, snoutlike mouths; and tusks that—”
“I saw it too,” she says quickly. Her eyes wide as if she had just seen a ghost.
“What do you mean you’ve seen them too? That’s not possible.”
Then again, I guess anything is possible at this point.
“I saw it at Chase’s party that night. It was standing there in the living room—I thought I was going crazy!” Abigail uncrossed her arms and began pacing back and forth.
“You better not be messing with me, Abigail.”
If she was messing with me, I was going to kill her.
“I’m not! Why would I joke about that? I saw it and tried to tell Cherry, an
d she said I was crazy. But I knew I saw something!” She looked at me just before taking a seat in one of the old pews. Breathing slowly, she cradled her head in her hands. “Why isn’t your symbol in Daddy’s book?” she mumbled to herself.
“What book? Abigail. What is going on? What do you know?” I asked as if suddenly she would explode with all the knowledge and information that I so desperately sought.
A moment passed while Abigail was in deep thought. Now staring at the fire, she looked as if she had answers to my long-awaited questions. Her face seemed focused and new questions were being formed.
“This is too weird,” she said finally, pushing the book into my chest and turning to leave.
“Where are you going? Abigail!” I yelled after her.
“I have to go!” She twirled back to me and then away as she exited the front doors.
The breeze came rushing in, taking my voice with it as I tried again to yell for her to return. The force of the wind blew open the doors, extinguishing my fire, my safety. Running to the doors, holding them both, I stood there looking out into the moonlit streets to see if I could see her. Nothing. Slamming the doors closed, I ran to my now-lifeless fire and began sparking the kindling in efforts to revive it.
As the fire returned to life and the crackling began once again like the return of a beating heart, I felt it. Loneliness swept over me, accompanied by the orchestra of crickets, rubbing their legs to keep warm themselves. Sitting there next to the open fire, alone.
I am the eternal abandoned.
CHAPTER 6
FAMILY
The shadows of the trees lit by the moon were not alone. There was another among them, one that was equally as solid and had two legs to stand on rather than one. It watched as Abigail went running from the old abandoned church into the blizzard that came rolling in with the night air.
Taking a second glance at the church, it began its approach. As it grew nearer and nearer to the colossal wooden doors that guarded the entrance, a flicker of light could be seen from a side glass window. The shadow made its way to the colorful mosaic as carefully as it could. Covered in dirt and grime, the window was too dirty to see in.
—§—
“How could I have been so stupid?” I asked myself, sitting there next to my newly relit fire. “I knew I shouldn’t have shown her anything, I knew this was going to happen.” Unbeknown to me was another approaching.
Creak.
I could hear the door begin to open ever so slightly. It was as if the church and I were one—every little movement or sound was as if I myself could feel it.
“Who’s there?” I shouted looking to the door.
Creak.
“Abigail, stop playing around and just come in. It’s freezing outside.” I turned back to the fire.
Nothing. Maybe it was just the wind?
Creak.
I jumped to my feet to go investigate. The wind would have blown the door open by now, and Abigail was the only one who knew where I lived. “Abigail…”
My steps were heavy as I made my way toward the door. My senses were heightened in their fight-or-flight pattern. I could smell the wood burning, I could hear more clearly, I could feel the room. There was a different energy coming from the doorway that I had never felt before. Something powerful. Something dark.
Just as I reached out to take hold of the old brass door handle, the two doors exploded open. Splintering the door as if it were made of paper, a monstrous shadow knocked me back down to the ground with brute force. Fear filled my body as I looked up at this shapeless figure looming over my ant-like body. The force blew out my fire once again, the room was dark. My arms and legs were weak—my mind told them to move, but they lay frozen in fear. My eyes peeled open as this being’s darkness began to fill the room. Like dark sheets in the wind, the creature filled the entirety of the ceiling. Consumed by the darkness, the only thing I could make out were the two burning red eyes in the middle of the cloud-like monster.
“Stay away from the girl,” it said in a snakelike voice as it drifted closer to my face. I could feel its breath on my face. Only inches away, I could see my scared reflection in its glossy red eyes.
The air itself froze as the creature spoke. The hair on the back of my neck rose like the dead from their graves as the dark voice landed on my ears. My scalp covered in goosebumps, I could feel the beating of my heart landing each bar in my throat.
“What’s going on in there, boy? Didn’t I tell you to keep it down?” Uncle’s voice came from the other room.
“Nothing, Uncle, just the wind. Go back to sleep!” I lifted my arm in the direction of the door next to the stage as if I could stop it from opening. The creature looked at the door and back to me.
Just as suddenly as it had entered, the creature disappeared. Just like that. A ghost in the night. A nightmare I had survived, as if it had never happened at all. The only thing that remained of it was the fear this creature had instilled in my innermost being.
Still frozen from what had just happened—what had just happened? It was all so fast, like a dream. I laid there on the cold wooden floor no longer in fear, but rather confusion. Ice crystals landed on my face, kissing me with their frozen love.
The wind was blowing snow into my place of warmth as if I had invited it in, whistling through the treetops like a raging choir. Rising up after minutes of utter confusion, I ran to close what was left of my entrance. I then turned and ran back to where my fire had once again been extinguished. Sparking the kindling, I began to defrost as my fire came back to life for the third time.
Uncle hadn’t come out of the room. I listened in the silence…His snoring was like music to my ears. I couldn’t imagine anything happening to that man.
That…thing’s voice. It was so cold, colder than the icy air itself. What was that? It wasn’t like the others I had seen. No, this one was bigger. This one didn’t have even a body…or a face. The only thing that was familiar were the eyes, those burning red eyes. The eyes that pierced my soul, and the feeling of complete hopelessness that accompanied them. Why didn’t it do anything? Why did it want me to stay away from Abigail?
With all fear and confusion aside, the only thing I could think of now was figuring out what was really going on in this town. All these things were not just coincidence, the creature in the alley, the other at the party, and now this one. Abigail saw them too, so I know I’m not going crazy.
Abigail said that she had seen my drawings before. I need to figure out what she meant. I needed to see them for myself.
Something bigger than her and me is going on. I can feel it.
—§—
The moon lit up the sky as if trying its best to impersonate the sun. The castle shone bright like a city of its own, tucked away behind the protection of the trees. Abigail lay up in her room, finally asleep after overthinking her way into a deep slumber.
Down the stairs and through the intricate grid of hallways, her father, Mr. Li’Ved, sat in his brown French leather chair with a glass of the finest brandy in one hand and a perfectly rolled Cuban cigar in the other. The room was silent and smelled of rich smoke. He sat there with his feet up on a small ottoman.
Without turning to the doorway, he spoke. “Yes, Beth—what can I do for you?” His voice was smooth, enticing.
A tall, young woman stood in his doorway. “I’m sorry to bother you, Uncle.” Her straight black hair was almost long enough to touch the ground.
“It’s fine. You’re here already. What is it?” He sounded slightly annoyed.
“It’s Abigail,” she continued.
“What about her—is she all right?” Mr. Li’Ved puffed his cigar.
“Yes, Uncle, she is fine. I just wanted to let you know I saw her out tonight.” Beth took a step forward.
“That’s impossible. She has been up in her room this whole time.” Mr. Li’Ved paid little attention, flipping through a stack of papers on his desk.
“Not from where I was standin
g,” Beth said.
He humored her. “And where exactly were you standing?”
“The old, abandoned church. She was with a boy.”
Sitting up in his chair, Mr. Li’Ved placed his glass on the desk. He stood and turned to look at Beth. She seemed to wince, her tall slender body so fragile now.
“What boy?” His tone deepened as his heavy gaze locked with hers.
“I’m not sure, Uncle. I just thought you’d like to know…I’m sorry,” she said as she bowed her head.
“Where is she now?” The cigar burned hot between his fingers.
“Upstairs, in her room,” Beth answered with her head still down. “She is sleeping.”
“Get out. And don’t ever show up here unannounced again.” His stern voice was solid as a rock.
“Yes, Uncle.” She turned to leave but stopped, hesitant. “Uncle.”
“You’re still here?” He was clearly annoyed.
Her pale, white face looked to the floor and was covered by her long black hair. “Sir, something about that boy felt different. He was…just different,” she said, confused at her lack of words.
“Maybe you should stop hiding in the shadows and find yourself a man. They are odd creatures to you, aren’t they, my dear niece?”
She nodded once, almost to herself, and left.
Mr. Li’Ved stood hunched over his desk. His fists balled, the veins throbbing as if he were going to press straight through the solid wood. His face filled with blood and anger, becoming a dark red as heat emitted through his suit jacket. A man in total control—a man losing his grip of his own kin.
—§—
The cool night came to a close and the stars began to fade, giving way to the rising sun, the town of AngelFire lay in peace…
“Hey guys! Bryon Stockton here! It’s another beautiful Monday morning here in AngelFire! I hope y’all are having as great a morning as I am. The sun is up, the birds are a-chirpin’, and the air is brisk!” Bryon recorded himself as he made his way to school. “It seems a lot of you liked and shared my latest video, the killer brawl, from the other night. I want to just take a second and thank you all for that. Especially you, Scott_flyer97, I appreciate the multiple shares and your enthusiasm for learning more! I read a lot of your comments, now I did find out what the guy’s name is, but that’s about it! He is very camera-shy and doesn’t seem to enjoy conversation. Though I did find out he works out almost every day! I mean, you have to in order to throw someone through a wall, huh?!”