Glow (17 page)

“What happened quickly?”

“Well, there was a group of older Vessels who joined in with Care. They all began yelling about rainbows and the beginning and we don’t know what any of that means. That’s when the Councilmen started hurting them.” Humility breaks down once more, her sobs stifling whatever voice was left.

I search the room looking for eyes that can help me understand the rest of the story. There is no one here I know. There is only one person I wish was.

Perfection.

“Humility, I know this is very hard, but can you tell us what happened next?”

I watch as this young woman gathers all the courage inside of her and stands up straight, speaking loudly so we can all hear. I want to be strong like this girl. She’s being brave when it’s the hardest thing of all.

“The Councilmen did something horrible. Something the Nobleman would have never allowed. They began killing the Vessels. All the Vessels who spoke out. Right before us. In front of our eyes. The children….” She wipes tears from her face. “The younger ones were watching. Everyone saw as they corralled all these older Vessels, and put them on the platform you stand on now and shot them with the things called guns, like you hold now.”

I look around me, bile rising up my throat. I turn, vomiting on the marble tile. There are half sopped-up pools of blood on the floor. Rags tinged brown with dried blood.

“How many, Humility?” Dad asks, remaining steady, even though his face is filled with horror.

“There were twelve, killed in an instant. And once that happened everyone tried to rush out. We were terrified, we’ve never … I know from my Vessel-mate who lived on the outside before joining the fold … I’ve heard her tell me of gruesome stories of how people killed to survive. But here? This is the Haven. The place the Nobleman casts his light and love on us. And he is gone and….”

“And what?” I press.

“And the Councilmen came after us. That’s why so many are near their end. And to think, if they could just hold on a bit longer until the Nobleman returns to earth to fill the land with his pure love. But now he will never return. The Councilmen tainted everything with darkness.”

It is obvious what happened next.

The Councilmen and Humblemen beat the Vessels. For turning against them, for the ones who spoke out. For the ones who knew Lukas was really alive and had ran away.

“The Council and Humblemen left after that. They took all the boats, all the energy panels, and left us here. That was two days ago.”

I want to collapse, but I can’t. Not yet.

“Humility, thank you. I know this has been terrible, but we’re here to help.” I don’t think I’ve ever said anything I mean more in my life. “Dad, you need to get Basil and search the Rehab center. We have to find Care’s supply closet. We need Lucy to help these people, and we need Lukas to show them he’s alive.”

A woman stands up, tender bruises filling her face, “I worked with Care. I can help show you her supplies.”

I nod as they leave, wisely taking a handful of cowboys with them.

“Cowboys, all hands on deck,” I say, watching Humility run a wet rag over a young girl’s face. “We need to do whatever we can right now to help these Vessels.”

Colton nods solemnly at me, before directing our men.

I’m growing up in ways I didn’t know I had in me. In ways I didn’t know I wanted. In ways that make me a better man.

55.

Lucy

My mind sifts out voices; Layla and Hana speak, which makes no sense. Layla died in a fire. But maybe it was a dream.

The fire, or these voices now.

I want to see the light that always dances under my eyelids when I close them tight, but there are no twinkling lights. There is only terrifying, debilitating darkness.

It’s like I’m floating up to the clouds.

“
Lukas, I feel like I am falling, away…
.”

“
Hold on
,
Lucy. I feel them coming for us. I can feel their energy.
”

“
I hear your Mother. She made it out of the fire.
”

“
Are you sure?
”

“
No. I’m only sure of one thing.
”

“
What’s that, Lucy?
”

“
You. I am only sure of you.
”

And then I am gone.

Floating and falling at the same time. Suspended between this life and that. The tether comes loose and I want to grab it with both hands, but when I reach, I find I cannot move. I am cemented, yet I fly.

56.

Lukas

I can’t feel her. I need to feel her. Our connection is everything. Not just to me, to The Light.

“
Come back Lucy! You can’t go now. Not when we’re so close.
”

But she doesn’t answer my thoughts, instead the space next to me that was vibrant with green energy is gone, and nothing replaces it.

“
Come back!
”

I know it’s futile. Wishing or urging or wanting does nothing. Not in life. Not in death. Not in the space between, that place I straddle now.

The energy coming towards me increases until suddenly I feel my hand being removed from the engine, and I no longer am giving my power to this big boat.

Something cold and hard is pressed against my skin, in between my eyes. The power that comes into contact with my skin swims through me. Fills me. Recharges me.

I bring my hands to my eyes, moving them,
actually moving them
. I rub them across my face as I slowly open my eyes, blinking once, twice. No longer in paralysis, I am here, again.

“I’m alive. Thank you,” I whisper to Mother, who leans over me with a frightened look on her face. She’s alive, just like me. She brought me back.

“Oh, Lukas, I thought the worst, that you were gone. After all this time of trying to get you home!” Tears rush her eyes as she reaches to embrace me, and I let her.

The old Lukas would want to yell, scream, set something on fire. But no more. Now all of that anger has left me, left my pores. My very being no longer holds any of that inside. I let it go when I set fire to the barn. I am free in a way I never have been.

I look at Lucy, and my steady heart rate decreases as I see
her dim emerald light fade softer, and softer still.

No. Not now.

“Lucy, come back! I hold her sweet face in my hands, leaning over her narrow frame, so close to mine. I cradle her with one arm and hold her face to my lips with the other.

Her lips buzz with electricity.
She is still here, somewhere.
The pulse I sense from her is the kind I’ve felt the other times we’ve kissed, the kind that is bigger than love, bigger than The Light. When our lips touch, our worlds collide.

“Lucy,” I whisper against her cheek, her neck, feeling our color surround us once more.

Her fingers squeeze mine, lacing tightly with mine.

“You’re here. You are still here with me.” My words hang in the air, so scared she was lost to me, to this world, forever.

“I could never leave you, not again.” Lucy’s voice is scratchy and distant, as though she’s travelled a long way to come back down to the ground.

But she is here. 

And she is mine.

Her eyes flutter open, the brilliant emeralds lighting up my world.

“It was so dark, my light, the one inside of me, was gone. I thought I was going to live in that darkness forever.” Lucy quivers. I don’t want her to cry, but these are the sorts of tears that are impossible to stop.

“You’re in the light again, Lucy. We both are.”

“I don’t mean to interrupt, I know you’ve both been through a lot, but you need to come to the Haven. Quickly.” I hear Charles speaks through our cocoon, there’s urgency in his words.

“I don’t want to leave you or this moment, but they need us. This is our destiny. It has begun.” I pull Lucy in for another kiss, wanting to press my skin against hers for eternity.

When I pull back and let go of her hands, take my arm from her waist and stand, our kaleidoscope disappears and we’re left with our own light. Hers green, mine white, and we stand alone, majestic in our own right.

The real magic happens when we are together.

“What happened?” I ask.

“I’ll show you.” Charles leads us through the enormous ship, Lucy hurrying alongside us. Our strength has returned, just as Hana’s did when Lucy touched her, but I know no one with healing powers touched me to help me wake.

“What did you use to get me out of the comatose state?” I ask Charles as we descend a flight of stairs.

“Care had the machine in her supply closet in the Rehab Center. It was similar to the electroshock Taser that was used to put you out. It’s called an anti-shock gun. It draws you out of the dark with a reverse charge. Mom and Dad may have had good intentions when they knocked you out; they just underestimated what jolts of charge would do to someone who has so much energy in him already. They oversimplified the whole thing and almost killed you.”

“And what’s happening in the Haven?” Lucy asks.

Charles fills us in as we continue making our way off the boat, leading us to the horses we’ll ride to the Refuge.

“Sure you are okay to ride, Lucy?” I ask. She looks weaker than I feel.

“I’ll be okay. It’s just a lot to take in….” Lucy mounts a horse without saying anymore, apparently needing to process this alone.

Night has fallen heavy across the sky. The day has already been so long, and as Charles explains what happened to the Vessels, to Care, my body stiffens at the horror of what’s happened to the people I care so much about.

This night is going to be very long.

“So they think I’ve died? But Integrity wasn’t here for this?” I ask, confused.

“Apparently not. The Vessels were told he and Perfection took an earlier boat, somewhere. The girls here don’t know much. All they know is they’ve witnessed murder, and been abandoned by their mates and leaders. It’s really bad.”

We wind along the pathway toward the Refuge.  Charles helps us tie the horses up with the other ones. Once inside the familiar great room, I realize it’s the first time I’ve ever been here in the dark. This space has always been filled with my glowing energy. Now it’s pitch dark like the sky outside.

“All the power’s gone?” Lucy asks, speaking up for the first time since we disembarked the ferry.

“Yeah, the cowboys looked around and it seems the energy room’s a mess. Like they tried to pour out any energy they could before they fled. They must really think you’re dead.”

My faith in Integrity increases. He could have told them where I went, but he didn’t. He left them to self-destruct.

Lucy and I light the long corridor as we make our way to the Haven. When we get there, I instinctively raise my arms and pour my light over the Vessels and cowboys working so hard to help.

My white light streams forth and Lucy holds my hand high, too, with bright green color, working together for the first time, as the Rainbow Children. As carriers of goodness, promising to restore love and light wherever we go.

57.

Lucy

I’ve barely started to work my hands over the first Vessel’s gaping head wound, when I’m overwhelmed with all the work that needs to be done. Lukas is so certain it’s our duty, but I wonder if it’s too much for two people to bear alone.

I watch him on the other side of the room where Vessels bow at his feet with what little strength they have. Resting his glowing hands on their heads, they fill up with renewed strength.
It’s miraculous
. I know my hands are miracles, too. I just wish I felt more like a miracle and less like a girl.

“Does it feel better?” I ask the Vessel lying before me who’s slightly older than me. She nods her head, thankful, and rubs her rounded belly, revealing that she’s nearing childbirth.

What will happen to her now? Responsibility weighs heavy on me; her newborn’s life is in my hands. If Lukas and I can’t restore some sort of safety at the Refuges, these women will perish.

“Lukas, I need you with me,” I call out to him.

He walks over to me, past women who lie down on the long rows of pews, clinging to their children the same way they cling to hope. In Lukas.

“I need to work with you. After I heal them, you need to restore them with light. I think it will work better this way. I just want to be sure everyone I touch is actually better.” I look back at the woman who clutches her stomach, as if holding tight to her unborn child will protect it from the monsters on the Council.

“You’re right.” He presses his hand on the woman’s hands and she smiles, tears in her eyes.

“Thank you, Nobleman,” she whispers.

We stand and move to the next victim, a young boy, who was hurt when he tried to protect his mother. This small boy, only six years old he tells us, was beaten for trying to keep his young mother safe.

I want to wrap my arms around him and hold him tight as he explains that she died.
She died
. He is now an orphan, like me, and even though I self-deprecate my own maternal side, all I want for him is to be safe and cared for. I quickly move my hands over his face and ribs in an effort to heal him. It’s the least I can do. I can’t erase the past; or make whole his future.

But I can do this.

So I do.

The room is filled with cowboys working to bring food and water. Lucas helps them make head lamps as they make their way around the Refuge finding provisions. These women and children, over three hundred, have already spent a few nights trying to survive in a world they know nothing about. They have only been taught to live with the power of the Lukas’s light. Without it, they can do nothing.

I’m reminded of that day in the underground bunker, searching for rice for Mom. My light was just a flicker then, it awakened because I was desperately searching in the dark. I felt so hopeless, so small. That was such a tiny amount of darkness compared to what these women have lived through.

I knew nothing back then, and the realization humbles me.

I gather all the things I’ve learned since that day of finding a can of baked beans, a short lived victory, and put my hands on the next fallen Vessel. Working throughout the night, until small hours of the morning, we diligently see to the needs of each Vessel and child. We clean, we mend, I heal.

Lukas stays by my side. I find myself looking at him in the moments he doesn’t think I am. My stolen glances are always filled with awe. He’s doing what he was made for, in all his noble glory. I love him in ways that scare me. I’m losing myself and finding myself, all at the same time. And it is terrifyingly courageous. The easy thing would be to do what I did before, shut it off, turn and walk away.

It is braver to stay. To stay with him.

To choose a love I don’t understand, because I don’t think you get to choose how or why you fall in love. It happens. For me, I thought he was gone. Once. Twice. Thrice. I thought I’d never live another day, either. I thought I had floated away to the place where the apple blossom ashes landed.

But he brought me back. Lukas grounded me to earth, and it showed me the truth.

He is my soul mate and I am his, and this is not something I can deny.
It is not something I want to deny.

I want him.

After hours of work, I am able to help all but a dozen women. Those ones were like my mother, perilously close to death before I arrived. I could not keep them fastened to this earth. I watch as children cry for the mothers they barely knew, but wanted to know more of. I push my own tears back, because even though I’ve buried my past, it still surfaces. I hope it always does. I want to remember where I come from; it reminds me of who I am.

When we have triaged everyone for the night, we help the Vessels and children who can walk, find their rooms. Some stay in the Haven where they’ve already begun to sleep, finally letting their bodies rest after so many days of terror.

Most cowboys find their way to the ferry, to their packs with sleeping bags. Others stay posted outside the Refuge, and at the entrances to the Haven. They are the restless ones who will not find full rest until they avenge the people who did this to these innocent people.

Lukas takes my hand, and I follow him out of the Haven. We walk down the long empty hall that has now gone silent. I dim my light like Lukas taught me, and he does the same. We’re a small glow, and it feels like no one exists except us, for this precious moment in time. It’s late. It must be three o’clock in the morning, but my mind races, wide awake.

The hours Lukas and I were unconscious, after we had the electro-shocks, our bodies must have rested in an accelerated way. Or we feel alive in ways we haven’t before because tonight we worked side-by-side for so many hours. It was as if our bodies moved in one fluid motion. My hands healing as his restore and people walked away whole.

Lukas leads me around the corner toward a corridor I don’t know, never having been here before.

“Want to take a dip?” he asks with a mischievous look on his face.

I can’t help but smile in a way I haven’t in so very long. Completely and utterly relieved to know I am his and he is mine.