Amber Eyes (17 page)

The woman’s hand flew to her mouth, smothering an exclamation. She staggered to the shattered window, her shoes cracking the few glass splinters on the carpet. She hesitated for some seconds before she finally dare look outside, down in the direction where the man had surely impacted the ground.

Then she screamed. And I screamed too.

# # #

The main hall’s gigantic crystal chandelier turned on. I squinted, dazzled by the light, and covered my eyes with an open palm like a visor. The woman was nowhere to be seen, and Aaron bolted upstairs. “Hush, Justin! Have you gone nuts? Why are you screaming like crazy? My folks are gonna kill me!”

When he reached the top, he turned his head right and left until he located me cringing on the carpet.

“What are you doing on the floor?”

I gradually got to my feet, holding on to the wall. I shivered, my temples throbbed, and my mouth was as dry as a handful of sand. “That woman… she pushed a man out the window.”

“Which woman? What window?”

I raised a trembling arm and pointed with at the floor-to-ceiling window behind him. He glanced back. The window was in perfect condition, shining under the chandelier light as if it were brand new. Not even one single glass splinter was on the carpet and there was no fog at all. Aaron strode toward me.

“What’s wrong with you, Justin?” He stopped short in front of me and he crossed his arms. “Stop talking nonsense. There’s nothing wrong with the wi—”

Aaron looked fixedly into my eyes and then froze. This was the first time he saw me in full light. I grabbed the sunglasses from the neck of my t-shirt and put them on. Then, I snapped my fingers in front of his petrified, wax-figure face. “Wake up!”

Aaron shivered. “Sorry. Your eyes…”

“Yeah, I know.”

“No, no, I mean, they’re exactly like my girlfriend’s.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re wrong. Nobody has eyes like mine.”

“Hmm… Yes, maybe you’re right. Your eyes are… ah… special, but my girlfriend’s eyes are much like yours. They’re amber with pretty eyelashes. Actually, you look a lot like my girlfriend. You could well be her brother.”

In my mind, I disagreed. People didn’t stare at my eyes like idiots only because of their color or my eyelashes. I’d just been told stars and the universe could be seen in my eyes, which I doubted could be sighted in anybody else’s. On top of that, the idea that I resembled his girlfriend was outrageous.

He passed a trembling hand through his hair while he bounced on his toes. “And… and her eyes also do that thing. I mean, that… that sparkling thing your eyes do.” He squeezed his hands at his sides, leaning forward toward me. “Like… like the stars. They… how do you call what stars do…? Twinkle! Your eyes twinkle. Your eyes are like a night full of stars.”

What Aaron had just said was similar to what Edward said before and it made me shiver. I couldn’t figure out why they kept seeing stars and stuff in my eyes. Most of all, I didn’t know if it was good or evil.

“Aaron, you’re giving me the creeps.” I hugged myself and scanned the place. “Actually… this whole place is giving me the creeps.”

My stomach had vanished long ago, and the hole in its place was sickening me. I knew what I’d just seen, even if the window was intact, even if the woman had vanished, and even if there was no more swirling fog. I’d just seen a woman pushing a man out the window, and that was a fact. Moreover, they could well be Aaron’s folks. I wiped my open palms on my jeans, feeling my hands go numb. Then I dragged my feet down the landing to the window and touched the glass. It was cold and icy—not shattered but brand new. I searched for splinters on the carpet, but I couldn’t find any. A lavender tang hung in the air.

“Impossible,” I murmured.

Aaron stared at me, tilting his head right and left. “What are you doing? What’s impossible?”

“I’ve told you,” I muttered. “This woman pushed this man out this window. It should be broken.” I knew what I’d seen.

Aaron approached the window and knocked on it. “You’re talking nonsense. Look. It’s not smashed.”

I touched the freezing glass with my open palm. It was indeed solid, but it didn’t make sense. It’d just been smashed.

“Yeah, it’s not smashed,” I muttered, dragging the words. I couldn’t blink and my body trembled. “But that’s impossible, Aaron. The drunken man shattered it when he hit it. He… he fell backwards down to the garden. Aaron, he might have died in the fall!”

Aaron placed his hand on my mouth, so firmly it hurt me. “Hush! It’s a miracle my folks haven’t come to check what’s going on after your screams. Have you gone nuts? We ought to turn the lights off. My folks will come and they’ll ground me for the rest of the month. Let’s get outta here now. I’ll take you back to your camp. Follow me!”

I couldn’t. I was nailed to the spot and Aaron already rushed down the marble stairway. He stopped, turned, looked at me, and rolled his eyes. “Jesus Christ, Justin! Come on!”

I turned my head and glared at the window. Something was wrong… very wrong. I gnashed my teeth.

Aaron dashed upstairs and tugged at my arm. “Come on!”

He actually dragged me downstairs, and I followed him like a rag doll being carried away. Outside, he dragged me across the large lawn until we penetrated the forest down a cobblestone-paved trail. The man, the woman, the window, the fog, the troll chasing me, all freakin’ wrong. All of a sudden, I had this urgency to pee but it was wrong too because only earlier I’d visited the toilet.

Aaron threw his arms into the air. “You’ve really gone nuts, haven’t you? First, you said somebody was chasing you in the forest and you almost killed yourself running like a mad man. Now you say somebody got killed in the house. That’s impossible! Have you been smoking pot? Cool down, pal.”

For several minutes, we walked in silence. Soon, we reached a roundabout with a fountain at its center—the only one in good condition I’d seen so far. There were two white angels holding huge vases and as we approached, water flowed out of the vases. Soft blue and green lights under the pond’s transparent waters turned on—proximity sensors.

The water ceased to flow and the lights turned off as we left the roundabout. Now we walked down a wide cobblestoned pathway flanked by huge trees and well-trimmed bushes, and I could see the glow of a campfire far away in the distance.

“There you are.” Aaron pointed with his arm. “Can’t go further, need to go back. If my folks discover I’m outside this late, they’ll ground me for life.”

I muttered thanks between my teeth and strode toward the campfire, my gaze fixed down on the ground. If I didn’t look, no freaks or pervs, either real or make believe, would show up. I couldn’t stand another freakin’ weird close encounter. The cobblestones grew scarcer the farther I walked until they completely disappeared. It was so damp, my feet splashed in the mud.

I looked back and saw nothing but darkness behind me, and Aaron had vanished. The pathway and its flanking trees were a murky funnel ending in the faraway roundabout. In the distance, the fountain appeared ruinous. The fog returned fast, seemingly rising from the ground by magic. I licked my lips. I couldn’t tell whether all I’d seen and heard in the forest and in the house, and all I saw now, was real or a hallucination. My chest tightened and I couldn’t breathe. Suddenly, I had this certainty it was my punishment for murdering Yago. Devils and ghosts were haunting me. I dashed. I had to escape from whatever was after me.

A hundred feet ahead of me, Edward scanned the darkness calling my name—well Justin’s. I sprinted and almost crashed against him, so very wanting to hug him close and sob in his arms. His strong, warm arms. I didn’t because I saw Daniel by the campfire. I was not gonna give that jerk the pleasure of roasting me or saying again Justin was a sissy as he’d done earlier.

“Where on earth have you been?” Edward snorted, his nostrils flaring and his arms akimbo.

Tears welled up in my eyes, and I knew they were red and maybe swollen because I’d been about to cry. I gulped and cleared my throat. The urge to pee was gone. I raised my head and stared at him for a few seconds.

“In the forest, where else?” I shrugged my shoulders.

He raised his chin, crossed his arms, and planted his legs wide. “And why the hell did you take so much time?” He almost shouted. “I thought something had happened to you.”

I marched away from him and waved a hand. “I didn’t take that much time. Besides, this stupid forest’s kinda messy. I couldn’t find my way back. If you don’t mind, I’m gonna crash.”

I strode pass the campfire without even glancing at Jorge or Daniel, although I could feel their eyes on me. I went into my tent. Abe was already inside, sleeping like he was dead. I slipped into the sleeping bag Edward had lent me. Then, and only then, I started to sob in sheer silence so nobody could hear me.

July 3, 6:32 am

In the impossibly small space inside our tent, Abe, Daniel and I woke up to the rumble of an earthquake shaking the tent wildly. Abe and Daniel sat up in their sleeping bags as if propelled by a spring, their eyes wide open. Their unruly hair rubbed the tent’s interior canvas while they gaped in all directions. I did the opposite. I cringed and hid inside my sleeping bag, peeking only through a small opening.

“What the hell?” Daniel almost squealed.

The earthquake stopped. “Everybody wake-up,” Edward’s muffled voice came through the tent’s canvas—he must have been shaking the tent from outside. God! He’d scared the hell out of me, and out of everybody else too. “Rise and shine!”

Daniel bore a pinched expression on his face. He lifted his upper lip in contempt. “Rise and shine, my foot! This dude is pathetic.”

“Wake up! I want everybody out here in 5 minutes!”

Abe, who had stood motionless after the first heart-stopping impression, reacted first. He crawled out of his bag and yawned and stretched. Recovered from his start, he seemed still half-asleep. Nevertheless, he pulled on his sneakers, didn’t lace them, and crawled out of the little tent. As he did so, I saw Edward’s boots through the open entrance.

Edward said, “Morning,”

“Mbrolning,” Abe muttered in another yawn, mangling his words. “Jeez! What time is it?”

“A little after half past six. Jorge’s chopping some firewood by the ravine. I want you to go and help him. I want breakfast ready on the double. We’ve gotten a lot to do today.”

Abe yawned again. “Tsure…”

The earthquake resumed. “Wake up! Wake up! Only 3 minutes left. Remember, a Scout is an early bird.”

Daniel kicked me. “Wake up, dude. This is not the Four Seasons.”

Because I was hiding inside the sleeping bag, Daniel hadn’t noticed I was awake too. The sunglasses were inside beside me. I grabbed them and put them on, then I came out of my bag. “You don’t need to be rude. I’ve already heard Edward.”

“
You don’t need to be rude.
” Daniel mimicked my tone. “Why do you talk like a sissy? People are saying you’re gay. If you’re still sleepy, you should have gone to bed earlier last night. Where on earth were you, dude?”

I tried to sound aggressive and manly. “It’s none of your business,
dude
. I got lost. That’s all.”

“That’s what you get when you go to Alaska to pee, dude. Did you sleep in those sunglasses? You’re a total freak, dude!”

I kept with the strong tone. “It’s none your business. Besides, you don’t want to see my eyes. You’d freak-out. I’m a devil.”

Daniel raised his upper lip. “Ha, ha, ha. How funny, dude. Don’t be a retard on top of being a sissy.” He kicked me again. “Get out of the sleeping bag! Edward’s outside and counting down our time, dude. The guy freaks out and behaves like a depraved Army sergeant when we’re late.”

“That sergeant can hear you, Daniel,” Edward said.

Daniel kicked his own sleeping bag until he got out of it. He’d slept in white briefs and nothing else. His skin looked smooth, and the pale color of his hairless torso reminded me of milk. His smooth legs, as milky as his torso, looked more like girl than guy legs. For one second, I wondered if he’d shaved himself clean. He reached for this backpack and dug inside it, producing a clean, black t-shirt and clean white briefs. Then, he took off the briefs he’d been wearing. Instinctively, I closed my eyes and buried myself back into my sleeping bag. I had no desire to view his private stuff.

He kicked me for the third time. “What the hell are you doing, dude?”

Inside the sleeping bag, I could only hear his muffled annoyed voice. I still tried to sound manly, but the high-pitched exclamation I uttered was anything but. “You’re changing your underwear!”

“You’re really gay, dude.”

The tent shook once more.

“Time’s up, guys!” Edward announced. “What are you waiting for? Wanna me to drag you guys out? You know I don’t care if you guys are naked. Don’t try my patience.”

I emerged out my sleeping bag just in time to see Daniel rushing out of the tent, crawling on all fours through its entrance. I saw a flash of his bare legs and wondered if he had exited naked, and whether he was daring enough to do it specifically to piss off Edward. I suddenly feared Edward would indeed drag me out of the tent by the legs or the arms. I had slept in yesterday’s muddy clothes, which offered no risk of being exposed, but the idea of being dragged out didn’t appeal to me so I crawled out of the tent after Daniel.

Outside, he’d gotten to his feet and was rising his hands over his head as if showing his innocence. “I’m ready, I’m ready! If you’re gonna chew somebody out, dude, talk to Justin. He’s still inside his sleeping bag.”

“I’m not, I’m here.”

Thankfully, Daniel was not naked, only halfway dressed. He’d put on the t-shirt and changed into the clean underwear, but nothing else. He wore no jeans, socks, or sneakers. Without a word, he started toward the forest. His long russet curls fell down to his shoulders, sailing after him, and I swore his hips swayed as he marched. The white briefs he wore stuck tightly like a second skin, biting his rounded buttocks. Edward scowled and grimaced. I raised my eyebrows. Daniel might think I was gay, but only because he hadn’t checked himself in a mirror lately.