Redemption (2 page)

“Your mother’s sister, Kyra, has been designated your guardian. This means you’ll be going to live with her. Do you understand that?” the woman asked.

Neither Amber nor I responded. The only memory I had of my aunt was the faint, disturbing image of a scowling woman dressed all in black. She was younger than my mother. That much I knew. I didn’t care to know more. The woman in front of us frowned at our lack of response and looked behind her at an older man leaning against a scarred desk. He nodded.

“We’ll be taking you to her soon,” she said.

I felt Amber’s hand tighten in mine. I shut my mind down quickly. The woman moved away from us and started filling out paperwork. I let my mind wander again. It seemed easier to move through each minute using only vague images, never fully concentrating on each individual moment. The hurt had eaten a hole through my stomach. I wondered why no one else could see the wound.

“Time to go,” a voice said distantly.

There were images again—a car, a brief drive, a sign that read:
Blackstone Abbey
. I didn’t really focus until we entered a long driveway. It was well manicured with trees lining the avenue. Each one was spaced precisely. Sun dappled the road. Amber was leaning against me.

“There it is,” a voice said.

I looked up and up and up again. The building that came into view was huge and made of grey stone. The front was circular and looked eerily like a church. The rest of the building seemed to stretch forever outward on both sides. It was three stories high. The face of the structure appeared new, gardens lining the building in sporadic well designed plots along the front. The closer we got; however, the more visible the age became. The structure was old. Any renovations done couldn’t hide the maturity the building still maintained. It was like botox. It only held the attention briefly.

“What is this?” Amber asked.

I couldn’t look away from the building.

“This is your new home,” the woman from earlier said brightly. The enthusiasm sounded forced. A numbing chill crept up my spine.

“Your aunt is the Abbess of Blackstone Abbey. She resides here with her Order. She seems to be a lovely woman.”

“We’ll be living in a church?” I surprised myself by asking.

Everyone froze. It was the first time I had spoken since receiving the news of our parents’ death. I couldn’t avoid it any longer. Our parents were gone. The gnawing intensified.

“You’ll be a part of the Abbey community, yes,” the woman answered.

 I think she realized my reluctance. Who grew up in a church? The car pulled to a stop. It was then that I noticed the woman. Amber gasped from beside me. She looked just like our mother, only younger.

“Aunt Kyra,” Amber murmured.

I stared. It was hard not to. She was a tall blonde-haired beauty with piercing blue eyes who exuded the kind of presence that demanded attention. Her body was enfolded in a billowing black robe that made her shape mostly indistinguishable. She was frowning. I frowned back. She may look a lot like our mother but the similarities ended there. Her eyes were too cold.

“Mr. Adams, Ms. Smith,” my aunt said cordially as we climbed out of the car.

She shook the social workers’ hands then turned toward Amber and me. We clutched each other tightly.

“Amber, Dayton . . .”

 She scrutinized us a moment. Her eyes raked over our disheveled clothes and weary faces, and I caught a glimpse of disdain in her gaze. It made me scowl. Our parents were dead. We’d not been concerned with our appearance. Aunt Kyra continued to study us, and I looked down at my shoes self-consciously. I knew what she saw. Amber’s hair and eyes matched Aunt Kyra’s. I was different. With auburn curls and green eyes, I more resembled my father. Both of us had the dark circles and red eyes brought on by grief. My eyes were dry from unshed tears. Amber's was swollen.

“Welcome to Blackstone,” she said simply. “I’ve hired a local woman to help with your care.”

She turned toward the Abbey. Our eyes followed hers. A merry, rotund woman bustled forward with a smile. She wore big round glasses, and was fighting the wind for control of a disheveled mousy brown bun. Pins didn’t seem to stay well in her hair.

“This is Diane. You’ll go with her for now."

The ordered command was meant for Amber and me but was directed at the smiling woman. I bit my tongue to keep my expression neutral. Her indifference hurt. Diane took us each by the hand. It meant Amber and I had to let go of each other. Emptiness filled me, and my lungs burned with unshed tears. I thought of the Sand Man’s mountain, and I lifted my chin stubbornly.
I can do it. I can,
I thought. We were pushed gently toward the Abbey as our Aunt turned back toward the two social workers. We never heard what was said.

***

The sun was bright the afternoon we buried our parents. The cemetery was a pretty one, small and well-tended. It seemed appropriately quaint. People surrounded us and whispered sympathetic words as they moved to stand before the two open graves. The caskets hovered above them solemnly. They gleamed as sunlight bounced off of them, and I found it hard to look away. They were in boxes. My
parents
were packaged away in polished mahogany boxes. It seemed wrong to me. I wanted to set them free.

As if summoned by my thoughts, I watched as a bird alighted on a nearby tombstone, its wings fluttering as it pruned its light grayish brown feathers. A mourning dove. Its black eyes met mine suddenly, and I stilled as it cocked its head inquisitively. I stared transfixed, the comfort of those eyes drawing me in until someone passed between me and the grave. The connection broke. I fought to see around the large woman blocking my view, but was met only with emptiness when the woman finally shifted. The bird had disappeared. I hadn't seen it fly away.

A hand slipped into mine, but when I looked up, it wasn’t Amber’s eyes that met my own. It was Monroe’s. I gripped her hand hard, our eyes meeting briefly. She was attired as always in a vintage child’s dress meant more for the 1950’s, her blonde hair flipped and held back by a dark headband. Born Ellie Elizabeth Jacobs, she had declared at the ripe old age of nine that she was to forthwith be referred to as Monroe after her new idol, Marilyn Monroe. Her mother was addicted to old black and white films. It had rubbed off on her daughter. We’d been best friends since preschool when I’d offered to beat up a three-year-old boy for stealing her cookie. I’d un-regretfully kicked him in the nuts.

“Dayton,” Monroe’s mother said quietly from behind her.

I moved away from my aunt and stuffed my face in Mrs. Jacobs’ middle, never letting go of Monroe’s hand as I did. Mrs. Jacobs put her hand on the back of my head. She didn’t tell me she was sorry, that she understood, that my parents were in a better place, or that my parents would want to see me happy. She just held me. Monroe came in to hug my back.

“Dayton,” my aunt said, her voice full of disapproval.

I flinched a moment and began to pull away, but Mrs. Jacobs held on.

“You call me if you need anything,” Mrs. Jacobs whispered before letting me go.

I nodded against her stomach and then moved back over to my aunt. Aunt Kyra didn’t touch me. The funeral was short and people began moving away slowly. I recognized a small number of faces, mainly close friends of my mother. A few of their children were my age, and I nodded at them as they moved past—Conor, Lita, and Jacin. Out of all three, only Conor attempted to approach me the same way Monroe had, but my aunt moved between us. I stood frozen. Conor nodded at me before hanging his head and turning away. I still didn’t move. The sight of the caskets being lowered into the ground had me entranced, oblivious to anything but the pain. Dirt began to fall into the holes, thumping as it hit the wood below. My aunt didn’t pull me away. Amber left the graves and went to the waiting cars. I didn’t follow.

“Will I get to see you now that you live at the Abbey?” Monroe asked me timidly. Like her mother, she didn’t ask me if I was ok.

“Yes." I answered. Nothing could keep us apart.

“Time to go,” a voice ordered, and I turned to see my aunt holding out her hand. She was looking at Monroe with disgust.

I hugged Monroe fiercely despite Aunt Kyra’s glare and moved toward the cars, ignoring her hand pointedly. I didn’t look to see if she reacted.

I was in the car, the engine purring, when I noticed the man. He stood in the trees to the side of the grave. To most, he would be hidden by the shadows. His hair was black, his clothes the same shade. His face was shadowed, but I could swear his eyes glowed red. I shivered. That night the dream began.

It was always the same dream, like a movie looped to replay over and over in my head. It cut me, wounded me beyond belief. It scarred my soul. There was no relief from it.

“You have to close your eyes, Day,” my father whispered, his hands closing over my face gently but near enough my lashes brushed up against his palms. Butterfly kisses. I had to fight the urge to giggle.

“What am I looking for?” I asked him, not for the first time.

He leaned in closer from behind me, his breath fanning along my neck as he bent even more to accommodate my height.

“The light, Day. Always look for the light."

I squinted against his hands. I wanted so very badly to get this right, to hear approval in his tone as a conclusion to whatever lesson I was supposed to be learning, but my mind was blank. I did not understand him, in so many ways.

“I can’t see anything. There’s only darkness!” I cried. This was ridiculous.

Dad didn’t move, just grew very still in that way of his, the one that reminded me in vivid detail of a marble statue I’d seen in a museum once. It was a little scary.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered as the seconds ticked by.

He didn’t remove his hands. The silence stretched.

“There is always light in the darkness, Day,” Dad said suddenly.

I almost jumped as his voice boomed around me. He wasn’t yelling. He just wasn’t whispering anymore. Dad had what I liked to call a large voice. He spoke. You listened.

“You need to learn to look past the dark. If you don’t, it can consume you."

 I opened my eyes to look at the back of his hands. I didn’t understand that word consumed. I said it to myself as I stared at the lines etched into his palms. They almost seemed to glow. His hands dropped, but he still held me away. The sun was setting behind us, and our shadows loomed large against the ground, his monstrous one looming over my smaller one. I felt like I was going to cry, and I hunched in on myself as I watched his broad shoulders lift in a sigh.

“Don’t worry, Day. It’s not your time yet,” Dad said.

His shadow hand came to land gently on my small shoulder. His skin was warm. I wanted to lean into it, but I was too hurt by my own sense of failure. I would never understand him.

“I never get it right!”

Stomping my foot, I pouted. He stood and moved around me then, his face stone-like and solemn.

“Day
—
”

 I stomped again anyway. I knew I was throwing a fit, but I didn’t care.

“Amber always gets everything right. Always!” I whined.

Dad studied me a moment before kneeling down in front of me.

“Amber is . . . different,” he said slowly, as if carefully weighing his words, “And it’s good that you two aren’t alike. You are special, Day. There’s a fire in you no one else can see. Not yet, but it’s there."

 I squinted up at him. I didn’t understand this stuff about fire, but dad looked so sure, so confident that it made me feel a little better. It didn’t stop me from stomping my foot again though just for good measure. Dad smiled.

And then the darkness came.

Confusion engulfed me. The scene changed. It was like someone pulled a rope and the backdrop was different.

It was sudden, the rain, but I felt it pelting my body unmercifully as the clouds came tumbling one over another across the sky—thick, black, and ominous. I wanted to scream but nothing came out. Lightning flashed in jagged lines across the sky and mud started to slide in large avalanche-like chunks as water piled on top of water. The rain hurt, digging sharply into my skin, and I cried.

“Run, Day. Look for the light,” I heard him whisper in my ear, but when I started turning to look for him, the space behind me was empty. The rain was coming harder, more brutal, like fingers trying to peel away the skin.

“Run. . .” I heard again.

This time I listened, slipping and sliding as I tried to get my feet into the sucking mud. I kept falling, my knees gripped by the punishing ground. I cried harder. Blood was dripping from my face, and I worried skin had indeed been peeled away. I tried running again. I had to run. Had to!