The Unwanted Winter - Volume One of the Saga of the Twelves (91 page)

She peered back, searching
his face. He knew she was trying to figure out whether or not he
was joking with her or making fun. But, when she realized he
wasn’t, she leaned back, slightly apart from him. Her eyes were
borderline unbelieving. “Songs…?”

“
Yes, my dear. Songs,
poems and ballads, whatever are necessary to tell the story of
–.”

“
What songs?” interjected
Mikalah, catching both of them by surprise. She plopped herself
down on the other side of Mugzy. She was literally covered with
towels, her dark, squarish face beaming with a smile stretching
from ear to ear. She quickly covered her feet to ward off the
cold.

“
Why songs about your
sister, of course,” replied Mugzy, recovering quickly. He smiled
when the little girl’s face lit up at the thought.

Then, she turned her head
to the side, taking the next logical mental step. “But, but, why
would people right songs about her, Mugzy?” she asked in a tiny
plaintive voice.

Mugzy harrumphed loudly.
“Why I would think, before too long, they’d be writing songs about
the both of you – the girl who is faster than the eye can see and
the girl who can call the light. Doesn’t that itself sound like the
making of a great song or at least the beginnings of nice poem?” he
chuckled, looking from one to the other.

Both girls joined
him.

Elena bringing her hand to
her mouth as she quietly laughed.

“
But, who will write them,
Mugzy, we are the only ones here? Who will be able to remember what
happened in the Melded World when there is no one around to record
what we do?” asked Mikalah, after a time.

Smart
girl
, though Mugzy as his smile melted
into a disconcerted frown.

The silence
grew.

“
You see, Poochers, there
is just too much stacked up against us. Our enemies are great and
we are only kids…”

Elena’s statement made the
anger he had suppressed before return in a flash. He glared from
one sister to the other, his eyes intense with feeling,
conviction.
We will not fail!
he commanded himself to believe. He had to, for
all other thought was folly. He was a member of the Five Fingers of
the Light for Heaven’s sake! The Fist does not fail.

“
Ladies,” he began, his
voice tight and hard, the brief pause necessary to gather himself.
“You must believe what I speak, you have to or else all we do here
is for naught. You must believe. You must fight. With every fiber
in your soul, you must fight this enemy - his wishes, his wants,
even his purpose. There is no retreating from this battle, this
war, my precious girls. This conflict does not merely involve you
here in this ungodly world. It involves your families, your
parents, everyone in the World of Man. Because of this, you have to
be strong. You have to learn to resist at every juncture without
hesitating and without fear. The Lord of the Storm is counting on
the fact, at some point, you will. He is betting all that is his on
the notion you will falter at the worst possible moment. When that
happens, he will have his victory. He is expecting it. He will put
all he has worked toward over millennia on the line, because of his
ironclad assurance you will be less than yourselves at the most
crucial time.

“
You must not give him
that opportunity. You must keep him at bay in every possible manner
– mind, body and soul. He will try to destroy you on all three
levels. He will erode your will, poison your thoughts, and make you
despair. Do you understand me?”

Wide-eyed nods
followed.

“
That is why you must
believe what I say. Yes, by all that is real and right in the
universes, you must prevail over this chaos. You must be the
beacons of light in the sky for all to see…

“
You will lead the way.
And, yes, they will write songs about the two of you, all of you,
for that matter! But, you must believe, my lovelies. You must
believe you will overcome this so called Snowman. You must snatch
triumph right before his eyes, right from under his feet.” He
trailed off breathing a little heavy, not realizing he’d put so
much emotion into his speech.

The sisters blinked at
him, eyebrows arched, orbs moist as the import of what he said sank
into their hearts and minds. They were only beginning to comprehend
the sort of personal galvanization necessary to outlast the
Enemy.

Mugzy peered at each of
them, a questioning cast to his expression. “Do you understand?” he
asked in a much more subdued voice.

“
I think so,” mumbled
Mikalah, biting one her pinky fingers nervously.

Elena sighed heavily. “One
of my parent’s favorite movies is one called,
Man on Fire
,” stated Elena, changing
the subject so dramatically, Mugzy was momentarily confused. “They
watch it all the time, and it is a good movie. I like it too. You
ever watch that movie, Poochers?”

“
Uuh, no, Little Flower, I
was a dog back in that world, remember?” he snorted
ruefully.

“
Oh!”

“
Duh, Ellie!” piped
Mikalah, scowling at the absurdity of the question.

“
Sorry! I forgot, Jeez
Louise!” Elena looked up at Mugzy once more. “Anyway, Mugs, the
movie is about this little girl. She about my age and has to be
protected from bad guys who want to kidnap her. Only, her parents
can’t afford a real good bodyguard, because they don’t have enough
money, so they settle for this drunken guy named John Creasy. He is
an ex-CIA killer who is haunted by what he has done in the past. He
has horrible dreams about it, so he drinks himself to sleep every
night. At one point, he even tries to kill himself, but the bullet
doesn’t work.

“
Anyways, overtime though,
he begins to like the little girl, and when he learns one of her
dreams is to become a great swimmer, he agrees to help her get
better. He keeps telling her there are two different types of
people in the world trained and –.”

“
- untrained,” cut in
Mikalah.

To Mugzy, it was clear
both of the girls liked the
movie?
a great deal. He could see Mikalah was deep in
thought. She was clearly watching it play in her mind’s eye right
there, before him.

Elena went on as if she
had planned for Mikalah to interrupt at that moment. “Yes, he kept
telling the girl, ‘there are two types of people trained and
untrained, and which one are you?’ and the girl kept yelling out,
‘trained!’. They kept saying it over and over again…” Her voice
quieted.

Mugzy could see her final
thought taking seed in her brain before she spoke.

“
Is that
what
you’re
telling us, Poochers? Are you saying we have to be ‘trained’
in order to have any hope of beating the Snowman? Is this what you
mean?”

Mugzy couldn’t have smiled
any bigger. Her logic was sound. “Yes, Little Flower. You will have
to train yourself in every way you can think of,” was his
reply.

“
Sounds much harder than
what the little girl had to do,” commented Mikalah, a tiny slice of
apprehension in her tone.

Mugzy chortled aloud.
“Well, my dear the stakes are much higher, don’t you think? She
only had to train to win a race, whereas, you… well, you have much,
much more to overcome.”

Despite the truth ringing
in his voice, Mikalah continued to smile. “But, we have our Gifts,
and she did not have anything close to that, right?”

“
Correct,” answered Mugzy,
giving the girl a soft pinch on her chunky cheek. “You are both so
extremely smart. Both of your parents would be so proud of you
right now.”

“
So, that’s it then,”
announced Elena, looking toward her sister. “We must
train.”

“
Absolutely.”

~~~~~~~~<<<<<<{ ☼
}>>>>>>~~~~~~~~

Organization is the Key,
but It Still Sucks

Day Two, Friday, 12:37
pm…

She had been on the verge
of waking when Hyun had come back into the Market where she and
Derek were still laying down atop the pile of smelly burlap produce
bags. The Korean girl was yelling excitedly at them, saying they
had to get up and help find supplies, because, of all things, there
was a blizzard blowing
“like mad!”
outside. She remembered groaning out loud and
telling the other girl she was still drunk from the beers and
should chill out instead.

Hyun had stood there with
her hands on her hips, some Macy’s bag looped through one of her
wrists with a look of consternation plain upon her visage, one eye
squinting back at Kimberly.

“
What?” Kimberly had
exclaimed when the other teenager kept staring at her.

“
I already told you
‘what’, Kim. You guys need to get up, wash yourselves and help me
gather some supplies,” replied Hyun hotly.

“
What for?” Kimberly had
whined.

Hyun rolled her eyes. “I
already told you. What the hell, maybe you’re the one still drunk
from last night, the way you’re acting all dumb ass and shit,” Hyun
had countered, clearly devoid of patience.

This girl always has a
stick up her ass!

“
Is there really a
blizzard blowing outside?” asked Derek. He somehow managed to speak
through a gaping yawn, which made Kimberly moan again. She knew if
both of the others were of the same mind, she was about to get
dragged into some mindless crap she didn’t want to deal with right
now.

Hyun’s look mellowed as
she peered over at Derek.

He was busy rubbing sleep
from his eyes and scratched at his scalp through his short, neatly
cropped hair.

“
There sure is. It took me
nearly ten minutes to get the doors at the front of the mall to
stay shut. If hadn’t tried, I’m sure they would’ve blown off their
hinges by now. The wind wasn’t just screeching out there, it was
freakin’ screaming, and the snow… good god, it was blowing around
like a tornado. I have never seen anything like before, let me tell
you,” she had replied in a single breath.

“
Wow,” was all Derek said.
He got up and stretched to his full height, bending backward at the
waist to get some of the kinks out of his body he’d gathered during
the night.

“
Christ,” Kimberly had
muttered as she sat up and stretched like a cat, which was what she
normally did in the morning. She arched her back first, then
extending her legs one at a time, and finally crossing herself with
one arm each to loosen up her shoulders. Then, and only then, did
she make an effort to stand.

“
I left some stuff at the
front of the market where the light is better. The both of you can
brush your teeth, wash your face, and comb your hair. All you need
is your own toothbrush. I ain’t sharing mine. There’s a whole bunch
of them three aisles down, hanging on the wall,” she pointed,
indicating where to go. “You might also want to get a dry towel or
something. The one I got might still be too wet to be of much use
to you guys,” explained Hyun, raising her eyebrows at Kimberly. It
was a silent nudge telling her she should move her ass.

This made Kimberly
bristle. She hated being rushed in the morning.

“
Oh, and
if you’re feeling
funky
, because you haven’t changed your skivvies for the past few
days, Macy’s has everything you need. See, I already got some for
myself.” She had finished holding up the plastic bag clearly
showing the dim outline of a few bras and a couple packs of
panties.

“
Sweet,” was the second
single word reply from Derek. He walked off to get what he needed
to freshen up, taking the flashlight Kimberly had found in the Fish
Market two days before.

Both of the girls watched
him go.

Kimberly had turned back
to Hyun. “You’re not fucking with us just to get us up are you? I
mean, there is a storm brewing outside like you said,
right?”

Hyun rotated her neck,
giving her a level stare through slitted eyes. “No, Kimberly, I’m
not fucking with you, as you so eloquently put it. There is a
monster of a storm howling out there unlike anything I have seen in
the past, even on cable. If it gets any worse, it might blow down
the damned doors of this place. If we lose those doors, then it’s
gonna get real, real cold in here. So, we’re going to have to make
sure every one of them is secured against the wind or else we might
be in trouble.