Glow (14 page)

42.

Lukas

And then I feel it.

Her.

Her presence, coming back to me.

43.

Lucy

When my soul nearly dissipates in the atmosphere, I’m brought back, grounded somehow.

My hand is lifted and my fingers are intertwined with the only fingers my hands ever want to hold.

I can’t make the movements on my own. It’s as though I’m the soul inside of the shell, but I can feel it happening.

Him, returning to me. And I to him.

44.

Lukas

I know we’re moving out of the barn because I can hear more now that Lucy’s hand is firmly planted in mine. I can sense more with her body close to mine and I feel our kaleidoscope of color surrounding us again, grounding us in reality, however removed from it we are. Our love binds us in ways I may never understand, but in a way that makes this world, this life, better. Whole.

My mind connects with hers, and we’re together.

“Lucy, I’m so angry with them, for what they did.”

“I know, Lukas. But you need to calm down, otherwise your color gets shady, and you need to keep your light strong. We need to be brave, together, so the others can be brave. Remember?”

“
I remember.
”

“Then think of me. Of you and me. Think of us.”

“
I need a way to let it all go. This darkness is filling me up.
”

“Shhh … Shhh … you can let it go. Let the anger go.”

Her words make sense. I need to let it go. And I can do that, even if I don’t have my full senses about me. Mustering my strength, I work to pull that anger into a ball and push it away, until I’ve gotten rid of all of it from my body.

I push out my light the way I did before when I burned down the door, the tree. I press out my light the way my parents taught me never to do. I push the light out until my skin tightens, stretching, nearly to the breaking point.

And then I let it burn.

I let the light I send out combust in a ball of flames.

I can’t hear or see, but I know. I know it’s gone.

The anger is no longer harbored inside.

I let it go.

“
I did it Lucy. I let it go.
”

“
Now you can focus on being brave. Now you can focus on us.
”

45.

Charlie

“What the hell? Run!” I yell, chaos consuming the barn. We sprint out, pulling the stretcher out with us as fiery red flames fill the barn. Fill the sky. Destroying everything inside.

“Is everyone out?” I shout, looking at Lukas who lies lifelessly, but knowing that the flames came from him.

I have seen those flames before, out at the tree on Lucy’s property, but also when I was a boy. I listened to Mom scold him, with her Vessel gown-covered frame waving her finger in his face as she made him promise to never do that again. He had accidentally sent her bed into flames when he was angry with her for forcing him to take a nap, insisting he was too old and too important for such a thing.

She saw the potential he had, the dangerous potential.

Fire can kill.

Fire can destroy.

And it is.

Killing and destroying.

“Ohmygodohmygodohmygod.” Basil screams, holding her head in her hands. I see Junie and Hana huddled in terror as the flames shoot to the sky.

“Is everyone here? Are we all accounted for?” Colton has climbed on top of a tree stump, taking charge. Apparently he’s growing up in ways I’ve not. He calls out at us, wanting to be certain we’re all okay. No one mentions if we need to go back in. Free the people we tied up. Free the people who are our prisoners.

My parents. Reagan. The rest of their crew.

“Okay, we’re all out. And now … we….” Colton stops, and looks over at the stretcher. This is so surreal. It’s impossible to make decisions as we watch everything fall apart around us.

But the rainbow of light shining over the stretcher is so vibrant, more vibrant then it has ever been. It’s as though starting the fire set Lucy and Lukas free.

I don’t understand them, they’re otherworldly.

“We can’t go back in. I know Lucy would want to save everyone, she proved that when she chose to save Reagan,” Colton shakes his head. “But we can’t do that now. Without Lucy here to heal the burns anyways, it would be a suicide mission. Got it?”

We all stand gaping at the fiery furnace before us. All the cowboys who committed to joining us on our mission at The Light stand around the fire, some shout, some cry, most every face is cloaked in astonishment. I am no different.

I should have a bigger reaction to this. My response should be to run after my parents in desperation, fight my way through the flames and attempt to salvage what is left of them. But that’s irrational, and that’s not me because according to Junie I’m as selfish as my parents were.

I hope it’s not true.

I’m scared it is.

“We need to go,” Colton says. “I know this is shocking. And unexpected, but we have to get Lukas and Lucy help. Soon. They are … I don’t know what, but I know it’s something. Okay? And from everything Basil’s told us about the thing they were stunned by, time is of the essence. Got it?”

“How exactly are we planning on going there?” Basil asks,

“We have to take the horses.” Colton talks with his hands, pointing to the animals kicking up angrily at the fire they witness. “We can’t just leave them here. When Lucy and I had talked it out, we decided to take the horses on the ferry. It’s the best option.”

“Colton. Stop. Look.” Basil screams, as she points behind him, behind me.

Out from the flames they come. Somehow, beyond reason, beyond sense. They are alive.

Mom and Dad and a girl in their arms.

No.

I turn to Junie wrapped tight around Duke, and see Hana clutching her big sister. There is only person not accounted for.

Timid.

And I run.

Towards her.

In an instant my heart grows insanely protective of this wisp of a girl I barely know.

I see the girl I used to love, her ghost in my father’s arms.

It’s like Perfection has gone back in time and see the girl I knew as my best friend. The girl I dreamt of a future with. Nine-year old Perfection who laughed with me, and stole secret smiles with me, the girl I let go. The girl I chose to forget because I was too scared to travel back to that part of my life. Scared of what I might find.

Scared that I might find what I was looking for.

Timid’s long blond hair is caught in the wind, and I am terrified to see what is left of her, what the fire destroyed.

What our choices, every last one of them, has ruined.

Because then I’ll be forced to see what remains.

46.

Lucy

I hear Junie’s voice above the muffled sounds of my heavy, heaving chest that rises and falls with Lukas’s. Junie is able to connect with me in ways no one besides Lukas can, and the realization is a relief because otherwise I’d be left completely in the dark.

But her voice is not reassuring me now. It’s desperate. Her screams shake me at my core and I try with all my might to force open my eyes.

“Blink, Lucy, blink.”

But my eyelids won’t budge.

Her screams fade farther away, then farther still, until the air is silent once more. Something’s wrong.

I don’t have time to wait until I wake up to find out what it is.

47.

Charlie

“Charlie, you left us to die!” Mom screams at me, horrified.

I don’t answer, because what would I say? Instead I pull Timid from my father’s arms. My parents are walking, screaming,
alive
, but they aren’t the reason my heart races. This fragile girl is my only concern.

“Charlie, let me see … let me … God, no!” Junie gives a deep guttural cry. It’s like she knows the ending before I do, and now I don’t want to be here for the next part. The part Junie knows is coming.

I lay Timid down on the grass, and Duke runs to me with water and strips of cloth. But it is futile. I can see that with one look. Timid is gone.

Her face swelters in red blisters, still, I see the girl that once was, even with her eyelids closed. Clothing sticks to her body, her chest fallen. It does not rise.

“This can’t be happening. Save her, Charlie! Do something!” Hana shrieks.

I lean over, desperate to give her life back, but there is no reason to try. She’s gone, half consumed in flames. She died in pain.

I’m not Lucy. I can’t heal broken people. I’m just a man; not made of magic. Not even close.

“How did this happen? Why did you make it out alive, and not her?” I look up at my parents, my tears buried beneath cries. Beneath blame.

“After you left us to die in the fire, we thought it was over,” Mom screams, tears sluicing through her ash-covered face. “But then, out of the smoke, Timid appeared. She ran to us, through the flames, and untied us. The smoke was thick, and deadly, we knew it wasn’t safe. I yelled for her to turn away, but she refused. She kept crying that she had to make it up to Lucy. That Lucy wouldn’t have wanted us dead.”

“I didn’t leave you to die to be cruel. It would have been a death march to go back,” I yell, pointing my finger, but then drop my head, knowing the words are too harsh, because for Timid, that’s exactly what happened.

She saved them.

She sacrificed herself.

And she died.

“I know. I know you couldn’t have saved us. It happened so fast. Reagan, and all our friends, they’re gone too,” Dad cries, muffled sounds from his mouth as he begins to break down. “And your Grandfather.” He grabs Mom around the neck, sobbing into her shoulder.

The smoke in the air is heavy around us, but this is not like the ash-filled sky from Lucy’s apple tree. This is no fresh start, no clean slate. This is a warning.

“She was so young, it’s not fair,” Colton says, shaking his head.

Basil holds a hysterical Hana back. “She’s gone Hana, she’s gone.”

Everyone knows this was senseless, a tragic waste. I look at Lucy and Lukas, lying listlessly, unaware of the tragedy taking place feet away from them.

“Why did you do it? All of this? Why would you knock Lukas out?” I unleash my fury at Mom and Dad. I wish I could throw fire like Lukas, make them pay.

“It was the only choice,” Mom begs me to understand. “We’ve tried to find an alternative energy source for years. So we can go on a powered boat to The Light and take them down. We can’t go there and start a war without a power source. It was the plan all along to go get Lukas; we just didn’t have the power to go yet. Now we do. Now we can fight. Take back the life they stole from Lukas for sixteen years!” Mom grabs my shoulders, shaking me to see.

But it’s hard to understand. Hard to understand that there wasn’t an easier way out of this mess, an easier way to retrieve my brother, their son.

That’s my problem though. I want an easy escape, a simple way out. I want to run to the wilderness on my horse, instead of sticking around, fighting. For anyone.

For Perfection.

“You could have told us your plan. You could have told Lucy the day she showed you her light. Instead you tried to force her into your machine.” I pull myself away from Mom.

“Would she have listened? Would she have reasoned with us, Charlie?”

I know in some ways they’re right. They couldn’t have explained, in any way, that they wanted her in the cage to draw energy. She would have only seen visions of Lukas chained to a chair, a prisoner. She was blinded by the six years my parents haven’t gone to rescue him, instead of seeing the six years they spent trying.

Sometimes we’re blinded by our own fear.

I’ve seen Lukas as a threat, instead of a brother.

“You’re right,” I say. “She wouldn’t have listened. But now look what you’ve done. Lucy is knocked out too, in an attempt to understand what you did to Lukas.”

“That’s okay, Charlie,” Dad says, calmly. “We were always planning on going back to The Light to take them out. And we knew we would be taking Lukas, like this. We can get the antidote there.”

“You’re still gambling on his life, Dad!”

“There is no other choice!” Mom starts shouting again. “We’ve told you that. How long before they attempt to come find him themselves? Day, hours? God, Charlie.”

I swallow. Hard. An idiot for doubting my parents. My family. I forgot who I was in an effort to be the person I thought I wanted to be.

“They’re right,” Junie says standing, her face covered in creases, scrunched up revealing her hurt, her heartache, her loss. “Timid was willing to die, we can’t lose another life. And we need to get Lucy and Lukas to whatever freaky hospital they have at The Light. Now. So that doesn’t happen.”

“Then we’re leaving. You two,” Colton points to my parents, “can deal with Lucy and Lukas when they wake up. Until then, you’re here to do as we say.”

My parents nod their heads solemnly. They’ve lost a lot too, today. I can’t help but wonder if Reagan wasn’t as bad as he seemed. If I just didn’t see what my parents did. There must have been a reason they entrusted him with the Safe House.

“Before we go.” Hana steps forward, “Can we … can we bury….” Her words are lost in a flurry of tears.

We look back, toward Timid, and instantly begin moving. Some cowboys grab shovels from the shed. Hana and Basil collect the few flowers still growing in late autumn. Junie runs to the farmhouse for a blanket. We prepare for a service, numb.

I glance back at Lucy lying still, reminded how precarious our time is, but knowing in my heart this in not a waste. This is the only way.

Someone picks a cedar tree, and guys start digging. The barn has completely collapsed, the fire stopping as fast as it came. A slight mist fills the air and I fleetingly imagine the rain as the tears we’ve shed.

Junie carries a white sheet from the house and gingerly unfolds it. I help Duke lift Timid’s tiny body on top of the sheet and then Basil and Hana tuck tiny white blossoms in her hair, in her hands.

“It isn’t fair,” Junie whispers as she covers the charred skin of this girl who has spent her life lost, confused, and stuck in the crossfire of trust and deception.

Light and Dark.

I will go, and I will fight if it means no more girls, Vessels, end up like her.

I help carry her body to the quickly dug grave and we place her inside the dark soil. I’ve seen many die; I’ve killed many myself. It’s never been about wanting blood on my hands … it’s been about survival.

But this? This is different. We stand in reverence, in shock, in heartache. And then Mom raises her voice and sings. She sings a song of my childhood, a hymn from The Light. Because that was the place Timid was born and the place she lived, her home. I join in and sing along with my mother, even though it’s a song for Vessels to sing, I know the words.

I sing for Timid. Then I begin to sing for the things we’ve all lost. Junie’s and Colton’s parents. Basil’s innocence. Duke’s years spent stealing for survival. Lost time, lost youth, lost love.

I sing for Perfection.

And we stand still as the last shovel of dirt is patted in the ground.

“Goodbye, sweet pea,” Junie whispers. “Good bye.”

When we take our leave, we are resolved to fight for the things we’ve lost, the things we want back. The things that are ours.