Glimmer (2 page)

I dream of being free of the chains wrapped around my wrists each night, free from captivity. The Vessels stop at the stairwell watching as Councilman Discernment and I descend the steps. Once at the bottom, and inside the room, I get to work.

"I need you to do whatever you can to get the power on quickly. We can't afford wasting time getting this place back in order. Do you understand?"

Discernment follows as I sit down in my energy-generating chair, watching as I strap myself into place, as I set a crown of wires on my head, as I lean back into position.

"You don't need to watch. You know I don't like that." It's enough to be plugged in like this, I don't want people watching as though I'm a freak show. I already feel like a mutant, except when I am with Lucy. With Lucy I feel like I finally have a glimpse of being understood.

"Fine, I'll be busy enough as it is, directing traffic and quieting the Vessels. Honor was panicked when I left her, typical of a woman. They aren't adequately prepared for this sort of outage. It's never happened in the history of the Refuge. It isn't supposed to happen."

When he finishes, he looks at me, as though he wants to see if there's a part I'm holding back. With my eyes steady on his, I purposefully emit a light that is too blinding for him to stay close to.

"I will go then, Nobleman. When the source levels reach their maximum, I will come back for you. Before I go, I need you to help with this."

He leans down with a flashlight made for disposable batteries, but long empty of that inhibitor. I reach my chained hands out just enough to press my palm against the flashlights reflectors, powering it with my touch.

"Ahhh, good as new. Bet you're glad you were born in a time when disposable batteries are obsolete. I'll be notifying the Head Councilmen of the evening's occurrences. I shouldn't be surprised if he arrives in the morning to more closely identify the glitch."

He turns and leaves, splaying a broad light from the flashlight in his hand as he exits my Energy Room, closing the door behind him.

Alone once more, I'm relieved to have avoided questions on where Lucy and Timid have gone. No one would notice they're missing. Yet. Which is a relief. It will give them enough time to get away from here. Leaning my head back against the cold metal chair, I close my eyes, wanting sleep to come so I can forget the fact that she is really gone.

I let my body sink into the night, allowing light to transcend from my pores and into the wires around me. The unexplainable part of my pulse beats through the plastic pieces attached to my head, attached to the ceiling, splitting off in thousands of ways where my light goes to fuel this Refuge.

It is nothing new. It is my life's work. Every night at one of the six Refuges I come and sit in an identical chair. Charging the Refuges is the purpose and reason for my ability. Except maybe not.

Maybe I am more than that.

And as I try to fade away, a surge vibrates through me. It travels farther than the wires I'm connected to. My Light seems to migrate through space, landing somewhere it's needed. A place far from the Refuge, but somewhere just as important.

Lucy.

I focus on her, on her bright green eyes and her wild red hair and her magic touch. As I focus, I feel the vibrations slow, to a steadier beat. And I know, in some transcendent way, she is receiving my light.

CHAPTER TWO

Lucy

"Do you think we're close?" Timid whispers as she clings to me. We tried to walk without my light, but eventually we gave in. Our bodies were warmer, but our night vision wasn't helping our moccasin-soled feet avoid stumbling over branches and tripping over rocks. My hand has helped direct us, but we still don't feel any closer to reaching our destination. Until now.

"Very close, see, right there?" I point up ahead. "There's a house up ahead, at the end of the road. I'm sure that's it. We just have to make our way there and look for some sort of marker." I don't tell her, but my doubt grows with each step we take. I have no idea if that is the
Safe House
. But there haven't been any houses, anywhere, and this lone one in the distance holds a sliver of hope.

Lukas told us to run, and we did. We needed to.

But now I'm away from the protection of the Refuge -- away from the protection of Lukas -- and suddenly the completely vulnerable state we are in begins to materialize within me. We are two girls walking through the night in hopes of finding a house marked
Safe House Four.
What if we never find it? What if Charlie was lying to me? What if he is a traitor like Lukas believed him to be?

"Lucy, look!" Timid squeaks out, pointing towards a tree in front of us. It's a big evergreen, with a trunk nearly as wide as Timid with her arms outstretched. Carved in the brown bark there are letters and numbers etched, SH4. "Do those markings mean something?" She can't read, but it's easy to identify the symbols as something out of place, even for a sheltered girl from The Light. 

"Yes!" Relief floods through me, we've been walking for what feels like hours, even though I know it hasn't been.

Stepping to the tree, I press my hands against the carvings, tracing the letters with my fingers, thinking as I do, about Grace. About our Hana-Banana and how much she has lost. How much we've all lost. My shoulders fall as I remember Mom. Mom in the greenhouse. Mom in the darkroom. Mom carried on a board through the hallway.

Mom under our apple tree.

I push the thoughts away. My mind still drenched in what I've so recently lost. Saturated in the dying hopes of what I never had. I must forget her, because while sweet blossoms have fallen across her face, there is also the steady mission she was on, that I wasn't a part of. The road she decided, for the both of us, when I wasn't allowed to choose my own path.

Now as I stand in front of a tree trunk, carved with
SH4
,
I can to choose my own way. I know what I need to do.

"This way, Timid. Down this trail." I push back the branches, revealing a different path then the road we've been walking on.

"How did you know?" Timid asks, looking at the house on the hill in the distance, and then back again at me. "How did you know this path was hiding here?"

"It came to me." And it did. As though I was back to playing chess with Dad, knowing the moves before he did.  "Come now, quickly," I say in hushed tones. The Light in my hand seems brighter somehow. It's no longer only in the small of my hand; it seems to be trailing down my fingers. Illuminating more than ever before.

Timid looks at my light curiously as she grips my hand tighter, but doesn't ask any questions. I'm relieved; in this moment I don't have any answers.

We begin down the packed-dirt path, tall grass on either side of us, the slender slice of moon hanging overhead. I had hoped to come upon the
Safe House
right away, but by the looks of it, nothing's in sight.

"Just a little more, Timid. It'll be here soon."

I say words I am unsure of, with a faint idea of what Charlie told to me weeks ago, before I knew the things I know now. Before everything began to unravel. Before I was lost and then found.

And then lost again.

Just when it seems as though we'll be lost forever, we stop dead in our tracks. Timid shrieks, letting go of my hand to cover her face with her small hands. The moment she lets go of my hand, my light disappears. Not that it would matter. Not now.

There is a bright flashlight on the helmet of a man, lit up just like Lukas. Except his light is artificial. And Lukas?

His is real.

And me?

I am staring down the barrel of a gun.

Lukas

"You have no idea what caused the glitch? We're talking about a complete short circuit of power. You must have done something different, something compromising!" shouts Head Councilman Conviction, his finger close to my face. My defenses rise as his words target me.

He must know his pointed finger angers me, for he withdraws it quickly, not wanting to flex my emotions.

He came in on a boat at the crack of dawn, pacing the foyer as he contemplated the stories the Councilmen shared about the “incident.” Deciding, now, how to proceed. His decision will be final.

"I swear. I was doing nothing unusual. Nothing
compromising
. You know better than anyone that my devotion is to The Light. Nothing has changed that." I stand in front of him, my blood rising. I close my eyes in an effort to calm myself. It works, barely.

Of course I am lying. To them. I do know what caused the glitch
. I did do something different.
I kissed my soul mate under the shadow of the moon and I will do it again the next chance I get. The fact that I have lived my life as their public servant means nothing. I made no oaths, I gave no guarantees.

"What about your future mate, Lucy?" Humbleman Depend asks with his weasel-eyes, boring into me. "What does she know about all of this? We must bring her in for questioning!"

"I don't know anything about Lucy. I haven't seen her since yesterday, before her Mom's final service." I deflect, wanting to avoid her and her name as much as possible. Everything will crash the moment they realize Lucy and Timid are gone. Feigning innocence will help bide them time. Time they desperately need if The Light decides to hunt them down in an effort to use them as examples. 

Honor walks into the chamber room, kneeling before us before she speaks, "Your Nobleman, and Councilmen, I regret to inform you Lucy has gone missing. Completely." Her mouth trembles as she says the words, as they should. No one has ever escaped a Refuge.

Still, they have no clue I was a part of her get-away plan. But as I look at Honor, I realize the other eyes in the room have spun to me.

"What do you know about this?" Depend demands pointing his bony finger at me.

I shake my head, a blank stare on my face, letting them know I have no information. Annoyed, Discernment turns back to Honor in search of answers, not tolerating my lack of words.

"Were there any other Vessels or Humblemen who left with her?" Humbleman Discernment asks his mate.

"Her helper is the only one reported thus far. If it was just the two of them I'm sure they've become two drowned rats by now, the water is much too choppy for them to navigate in a dinghy." Honor speaks more frankly than any other Vessel I've known. Then again, this situation is unlike any I've witnessed. People don't escape The Light.

"Foolish woman, there's no way they could have traveled that way. There is no gas in the dinghies here, and we have the energy panels the patrolmen use when they go out in boats locked in a safe. There's no way she could disarm that door to gain access to them." Discernment looks disgusted with his mate, as though she's the reason for the missing people. My people.

My person.

"But do you remember her test?" Humbleman Integrity asks, quietly. I'd forgotten he was even in the room. His frail frame is hunched in the corner of the chamber.

"What about her test?" the Head Councilman asks in confusion. His long white robe perfectly pressed, surprising after an early morning boat ride, and his long salt and pepper hair is neatly tucked behind is ears. He appears pristine as the command of the chamber room. In charge of everything. His presence diminishes me, and I hate that I allow it. But I've allowed it for so long, I no longer remember how to assert my strength.

"You must know about the test. The Council determined that you should be notified immediately of the findings."

Integrity looks at Depend and Discernment with hands in the air, signaling his confusion at the miscommunication. When no one responds, he continues for the Head Councilman.

"Her essay was impeccable, her wording precise." Shaking his head again he says, "I don't understand why you didn't notify Head Councilman Conviction about Lucy, Depend. I told you she may have a stake in the prophecy." He folds his hands in his lap, setting his lips in a thin line.

"Well, I ... I mean ... we wanted...." Depend stumbles for his words before Discernment cuts him off.

"What he means, Head Councilman, is that her test was a fluke. Obviously. That is why Depend and I determined not to include you. You have so much on your shoulders already."

His words cause my body to flinch. I know something about weight on shoulders. This entire belief system weighs on my shoulders. I've spent my life under the watch of Head Councilman Conviction, especially after my parents left me in his care for exchange of their freedom. And while I don't disagree about the pressures Head Councilman faces, the pressure he's under is by choice.

He wants control of The Light, and he has had it. As long as I can remember he's been the Head of The Light. Still, I know my birth shifted control out of his hands, and into my body. I am the Nobleman, and he has, literally, no power without me.

"Show me the test," he orders.

I watch as Depend opens and closes drawers in the desks around him looking for the test. Depend is shifty, and I see it now as he jumps from file to file trying to find the one that matters. Depend is young for a Councilman, in his mid-twenties, but he has that power hungry look in his eyes. I hope I never look like him.

"Here it is." Depend holds up the test that Lucy held in her hands. The pages contain her words and her truth. I want to reach out my hands and take it from Depend, to protect Lucy from the scrutiny of these men. But that won't happen. I never get a chance to act on impulse. I always do what I'm told.

Head Councilman Conviction takes the test and begins to flip through it, "Hmmm ... Ahhhh ... I see...." He examines every page once, and then begins reading the answers that has everyone's attention.

I'm a girl captivated by the sun and I come from the countryside four days from here, never traveling so far from home in my life. I am a child born the day the lights went out, always looking for light. And when the world is dark or confusing, I close my eyes, and things get brighter somehow, reminding me that everything is going to be okay. A light appears within and all the pain and fear and unknowns around me disappear and I can rest knowing there's a flicker inside me.

The room silently listens, and my body radiates more intensely as the tension grows. If Head Councilman Conviction believes Lucy is important for The Light an all-out militia will be assembled to find her.

I can't let that happen.

Then Conviction hands the papers to me. "Burn this," he orders.

"Excuse me, what did you say?" Depend asks, though we heard Head Councilman perfectly clear.  He's not a man who minces his words.

"I do not repeat myself."

"Of course, Head Councilman."

All eyes in the room turn to me. He's asking me to do the one thing I hear my mother’s voice whisper against,
“
Control your anger, Lukas, remember to always rein it in.” My parents, and the Council knew what can happen with my energy if I let myself lose control. For that reason I always keep myself in check, never allowing myself to fall prey to the emotions when they rise. I must avoid at all costs, the cost for losing control is too high, for all of us.

The Head Councilman's request should cause my blood to boil, but it has the opposite effect. Holding Lucy's writing in my hand, I smile. Burning the evidence of her possible link to the prophecy keeps her safe. Burning the evidence of her link to the prophecy keeps Head Councilman in control, as always. Nothing changes.

Except.

Except it's clear Lucy does have a connection to The Light in a way the Council doesn't want to acknowledge. Once again, I question whether they truly believe in The Light. Maybe that's a strange thing to say, but as I look around the room, knowing that I don't even know what I believe -- it's clear there's only one believer in this room.

Integrity.

He's in the corner, still in his chair, but now his eyes look sad, the spark that is sometimes present is gone. Now he looks like the symbol of a religion that was very different before the prophecy was answered. Before I was born.

Part of me wants Integrity to speak up. To defend what he believes. To defend Lucy. I know I can't be the one to convince them of Lucy's importance or explain that she has the same Light as me, but that it just hasn't been tapped into yet.