Sunblind (5 page)

Luba has other ideas.

I didn't notice the smell right away, but now it's overpowering. Similar to my mother's favorite perfume, Guerlinade, it's a mixture of lilac and powder, but there's another scent added to the mix, something I can't distinguish. But the more I breathe in, the more I feel like I'm going to choke.

As if I'm ripping off a day-old Band-Aid, I throw back the blanket and see what's making that awful smell. In her right hand, my mother is holding a bouquet of moonflowers; she looks like a bride taking a nap before her wedding ceremony. My first instinct is that Luba put them there, that she snuck in before my brother arrived and placed them underneath the covers. But then I remember the first rule of deduction: The simple answer is most always the correct one. The solution to a mystery is usually so obvious, it's often overlooked. Taking a deep breath of the toxic fragrance I inhale the truth: The flowers were my brother's gift.

A son bringing his mother flowers is a beautiful gesture, no cause for alarm. Then why do I feel frightened? Why do I feel as if this is even worse than my brother's carrying a torch and leading a group of fanatic townspeople in search of a would-be serial killer? Once again the answer isn't difficult or convoluted or elusive. It's worse because this action, this simple gift, links my brother to the enemy.

There's no way it's a coincidence that my brother chose to give my mother the same kind of flowers Luba gave her. He has no way of knowing that he's under that evil witch's influence, that she's using him like she used me as a way to get revenge against my father for an accident. An accident!! One that happened when my father was just a boy!

I gasp for breath, not because the smell of the moonflowers becomes even more poisonous, but because I think my father has just tried to speak to me. Not with words, but with a memory. When he was a teenager, roughly the same age Barnaby is right now, he made a mistake that set into motion this curse and this horror that we're all living through.

What if Barnaby is about to make a mistake of his own? What if his friendship with Luba is more than that, what if it's more like an allegiance? Could Luba have armed Barnaby with enough information for him to think that I'm the enemy and not her, so he would consciously choose sides? It's a horrifying possibility, but a possibility all the same.

I may not be able to destroy Luba, but I can destroy her connection to my brother. Reaching out I grab the revolting flowers and crumble them in my hand so they resemble a mound of white petals that were ripped from a vine.

I toss the mangled mess into the garbage and look back at my mother. Her eyes are shut tight again; her beautiful blue-gray eyes are no longer looking at me. Perhaps she didn't want to see what I'm seeing right now, that the moonflowers are defying nature and blooming back to life in the garbage can. It's an all-too-obvious sign that Luba's power and her connection to my brother cannot be so easily severed.

 

As I stand underneath the shower, the hot spray of water envelops and cradles and revitalizes me because I know that I don't have to fight Luba alone. I have allies. Really? Then why do I have to press my forehead and my palms against the cold tiles to stop my body from shaking? If I have so many allies on my side why do I feel so alone?

My palms contract and my fingernails claw at the wet, slippery tiles. I feel like a fly desperately trying to climb its way out of a spiderweb, but for every step it takes closer to freedom, it takes two steps back toward defeat. We're both lost causes. Just as my friends have rallied around me and refused to abandon me, my family has done just the opposite. My father is dead, my mother's in a coma, and my brother has chosen to believe that I'm his enemy. Whether they've made their choices consciously or involuntarily, the result is the same; they've left me to fend for myself.

Out of the shower, I dry myself as quickly as possible. The towel smells different, more fragrant, like lavender I think. I don't like it. It's nothing at all like the smell that used to cling to our towels when my father did the laundry. I wrap the towel around me and try to remember what my laundry used to smell like. After a moment the memory comes back to me, the smell of too much bleach—my father was never good at doing laundry—but it's as if the memory is being held at a distance, slightly out of reach, so it's hard for me to get a firm hold on it, and I wonder how long it'll take me to forget most of the things I took for granted while my father was alive.

Thankfully the mirrors are steamed up so I don't have to look at my body, but as I gather my clothes the fog starts to lift, and I can see my partial reflection. I force myself to look at the pale skin, then the long red hair, and finally the blue-gray eyes that stare back at me. I can see the girl completely now, and contrary to my griping she isn't alone. But it isn't the wolf I see standing next to her; it's her brother who's joined her, standing behind her with a gun.

“What the . . . !?”

Whipping around I expect to see Barnaby pointing a gun at my face, but he's not there. The bathroom is empty; there's nothing in front of me but the wall and the towel rack. That can't be. I saw him! Heart pounding, I wipe away the rest of the steam that's still clutching at the mirror, and I'm the only person in the reflection. Maniacally, I slide back the shower curtain to reveal more emptiness.

Gripping the side of the sink, I breathe deeply several times. I avoid my gaze and focus on the pale blue porcelain until I can trust my body to move without shaking. When I enter my bedroom, I don't scream. I wasn't hallucinating; I was just having a premonition.

Barnaby is sitting on my bed pointing a gun at me.

Chapter 4

I should be frightened, but I'm not.

Maybe it's because I know that there's a very slim chance that Barnaby's gun is loaded with silver bullets, the only type that can do any permanent damage to me if, of course, the folklore and the information I've gleaned from Wikipedia and at Lycanthropy.com, are true.

According to legend (and the larger-than-I-expected online lycanthrophite community), it takes a very specific type of ammo to take me down. And if my brother shoots I may be wounded, but since there's no full moon tonight, there's no risk that my other self will emerge while I'm in the emergency room doing my best imitation of my mother.

But wait! Am I only immune to regular bullets when I'm a wolf? Will they harm me when I'm not in wolf form? Another philosophical question emerges: Is a werewolf always a werewolf even when the werewolf isn't a wolf? I have no idea, but I feel the formidable wolf-strength push underneath my skin, and I feel way more invincible than vulnerable. A good way to find out how I'd be affected by a regular-strength bullet would be to provoke Barnaby and get him so pissed off that he actually pulls the trigger. I have a feeling that won't be a very difficult task.

“What the hell are you doing with that thing?” I ask.

“Aiming it at you,” he replies.

“Why?”

“Because that's what you do with a gun, isn't it?” he asks rhetorically. “Point it at people.”

“For starters,” I respond defiantly.

Looking at my brother, I notice that his feet are planted squarely on the floor; he's grown a few inches since last year. His gym shorts reveal that his legs are muscular, well-developed from track practice, and they're covered with spotty patches of brown hair, a thick cluster around his shins and calves, much thinner around his thighs. His arms and upper body are still on the skinny side, and he needs two hands to hold the gun. That, however, could be more for effect than necessity. The overall impression is that he's aged. I'm not sure if it happened overnight or if there's been a steady growth that I've ignored, but my brother looks older than I last remember.

And yet regardless of what he's holding in his hands, he's still my little brother.

“So you gonna do something with that thing other than point it at me?”

As usual when a bully is confronted, a bully wavers. The gun lowers just enough in the air to convince me that Barnaby has absolutely no intention of using it the way that its maker intended. Gone is the cocky attitude, and in its place is confused apprehension. It's like I can hear his thoughts rolling in his mind, like a huge, heavy wheel that a weakling is trying to push. Clunk, clunk, clunk, until the momentum clicks and the wheel starts to roll, and I realize with more than a mild amount of surprise that my brother is no longer a weakling. That's when Barnaby pulls the trigger.

Despite my steely determination to be aloof, I flinch. Not a quick flinch that I can hide as a shiver, but a full-on, body shake so violent I have to clutch my towel so it doesn't fall to the ground and give my brother a free show.

After I stop shaking and am satisfied that my private parts are still covered, I realize that either my skin is human Kevlar or Barnaby's gun isn't loaded. His laughter proves it's the latter.

“Gotcha!”

He falls back on my bed squealing, the weight of the gun making his outstretched arm bend so he looks like some underage assassin who finds his career oh-so-hilarious. Right now I find my brother oh-so-repulsive.

While Barnaby is reveling in his self-staged amusement, I do what a big sister—as well as a big, bad wolf—was born to do: I take control of the situation.

Lightning quick, I grab the gun from his wiggling grip. When he finally notices the piece is missing, he's still laughing so hard that his protestations aren't filled with any of the anger I know he was aiming for.

“Give that back!” he shouts childishly.

“Make me,” I reply, sounding equally as childish.

Barnaby lunges forward to reclaim his prize, but I have supernatural speed on my side, so I step out of the way and turn around just as Barnaby slams into the sliding closet door, the impact ripping it from its hinges. His cries of pain are muffled by the sounds of the door falling and crashing onto his back. His bawling combined with my gigglaughs create a raucous sound, so it's no wonder within seconds Louis is standing in the doorway.

“Dominy!” he screams. “What the hell are you doing?”

Just like Barnaby moments earlier, I can't stop laughing even though the situation calls for a serious face. Guess inappropriateness runs in our family. And you can't get much more inappropriate than I appear to be right now, dripping wet hair, wearing only a towel, brandishing a gun, standing over my brother who can't move because a closet door is weighing down his back. I understand how Louis could interpret the situation as being my fault. But he's wrong.

“This isn't my fault!” I cry.

“Put that gun down!” Louis cries back, doing a great job of sounding fatherly. “Now!”

“Who's got a gun?”

Arla's not yet in my bedroom, but she must have heard the commotion and is en route. When she takes in the situation, she has a different take on it than her father.

“What happened to the closet?” she screams.

“Just came off its little rollie things,” I assure her. “We can get it back up in a jiffy.”

Quickly, though, her concern escalates to match her father's.

“Is that Barnaby?”

“Will you get up!?” I demand.

If Louis and Arla weren't in the room, Barnaby would've jumped up immediately and started punching me. I know this for a fact because this scenario has happened before, when we were living in our old house. Without the gun of course. The last time my brother was knocked to the ground by a closet door, he was upright within twenty seconds, ready to do battle with me. Now that he has an audience, he's milking it.

“Can somebody help me, please?” he asks, trying to make his voice sound fearful and fragile and frightened. None of which I know he is.

“Oh come on!” I hear myself shout. “It's a closet door! It's hollow! It's not like the front door which, you know, would be really . . .
really
. . . you know, heavy.”

By the time I finish my sentence, my tirade has become quite tepid, and I can see myself the way Louis and Arla must see me, like some crazy girl who showers with a weapon.

Waving said weapon in the air, I announce, “This isn't mine.”

Wrapping his fingers around my wrist like a vise, Louis points the gun toward the ceiling and quickly wrenches it from my hand. Once again I'm reminded that despite his lackadaisical nature, he really is a trained cop.

“I know it isn't,” he says, examining the firearm. “It's Barnaby's.”

A trained cop with insane detective skills.

“How do you know that?” I ask, very curious and very impressed.

“Because I gave it to him.”

And now I'm very scared.

Just how irresponsible can he be? First allowing Barnaby to join the witch brigade and now arming him with a weapon to kill the witch. Is this what my father had in mind when he put our lives in this man's hands? Did my father have any idea that this man would work overtime to destroy our future?

“It was your father's, and I wanted Barnaby to have it as a memento,” Louis explains.

Finally vertical, Barnaby doesn't ask for his gun back; he doesn't demand it be returned to its rightful owner. He silently basks in the joy of feeling superior, knowing that Louis and Arla think I'm the one who violated a beautiful memory.

Think again.

“He was pointing that memento at me,” I say.

“What?!” Louis screams.

His usually quiet voice is so unexpectedly loud that it literally makes me and Barnaby jump. Arla, obviously used to her father's sudden outbursts, doesn't move. She remains leaning against the doorjamb, arms crossed, head tilted, with the smallest of smirks on her lips. Even though I'd look horrible in a black pageboy wig, I so want to trade places with her right now.

“I didn't give you this gun so you could wave it around and scare people!” Louis starts, waving the gun around and kind of scaring most of the people in the room. “I gave it to you so you could remember your father! Do you understand the difference?!”

I'm sure that Barnaby does know the difference, but since his face has turned ghostly white, I'm also sure that he doesn't have the ability to respond to Louis's question beyond a nonverbal head nod. Nonverbal communication, however, will not satisfy Louis at the moment.

“Answer me!!”

“Y-yes,” Barnaby stutters. “I . . . I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare anybody.”

Breathing deeply through his nose, Louis examines my brother for a few seconds in an attempt, I think, to determine if he's telling the truth and if he's truly sorry for his actions. I could put Louis's mind at ease and tell him that Barnaby is being honest; he's not trying to pull a fast one. Barnaby only stutters when he's contrite. Physically, he may be changing, but emotionally he's still the baby of the family. No matter how much our family has changed.

“I-I thought it would be f-funny,” Barnaby continues. “Guess I was being st-stupid.”

“
Very
stupid!” Louis shouts.

After he paces restlessly for a few seconds, Louis's demeanor softens. He kneels down in front of my brother and holds the gun in both of his hands like it's an offering in church.

“Your grandpa gave this gun to your father when he graduated from the police academy,” Louis whispers, his voice rough. “He said, ‘Those guns they give ya won't protect ya; ya gotta have one from your family.' ”

Louis doesn't have to say another word. He doesn't have to lecture Barnaby about gun etiquette or why it's beyond wrong to point a gun at your sister, or anyone for that matter, as a joke. He does inform my brother that he wants him to put the gun back in its box and leave it there; it's a for-show gun, nothing more.

Nodding his head Barnaby agrees and then adds, “I knew there weren't any bullets in it.”

When Louis laughs I know that this reminds him of my father too.

“None of Mason's guns had any bullets in them,” he says. “He must've emptied them all. I know he didn't run around town with a gun he couldn't shoot if he needed to.”

Arla's smirk disappears into a look that can only be described as “uh-oh,” which, in turn, disappears when I catch her eyes. We both know that her father's offhanded comment is correct, but there's no reason to fill him and Barnaby in on that secret as well. Let them think that my father was like every other policeman in the world and carried a loaded gun; no need to tell them that his guns were bullet-free because once upon a time he had made a pact with God.

“Like he would ever do that,” I say sarcastically.

Sarcasm, once again, does its trick. It calms the situation and diverts Louis from the truth he unwittingly stumbled upon and toward the reality he wishes he hadn't seen.

“And there's, um, no reason for you to walk around the house like that,” he says, pointing a finger at me, but keeping his eyes focused on the carpet.

Clutching my towel, I make a mental note to bring my clothes into the bathroom from now on so I can change before exiting into shared territory. Even though I'm totally covered and wearing more than I would at the pool, I guess the fact that I'm naked underneath the plush cotton is making Louis a wee bit uncomfortable. I decide to give the guy some slack and apologize.

“Sorry, Mr. Bergeron,” I say.

“That's okay,” he mutters, busying himself with lifting the closet door and jamming it back into its correct position with one easy push.

Before he heads out into the hallway where he doesn't have to deal with guns or half-naked teenagers, he turns back around. A glutton for punishment?

“And I told you I'm not Mr. Bergeron anymore,” he declares. “I'm Louis.”

As he waves at the three of us, his smile can barely contain the joy and the sorrow that's filling up his heart. He'll never replace my father—he, more than any of us, knows that—but he really is a good man. And after he leaves Barnaby takes one step closer to making me wish I were an only child.

“Nice to see that your scars are almost all healed,” he hisses.

Involuntarily, I cover the faint remnants of my wounds with my hand.

He takes another step closer to me, and I can feel the gun in his hand rest against my thigh. “You know, the scars you got the night Jess was killed,” he whispers.

After Barnaby closes the door, I wonder if Arla heard him. I wonder if she knows how complex he's becoming. When she speaks, I realize she didn't hear him.

“That's sweet,” she says, flopping onto my bed. “My dad's really enjoying having a son.”

And my brother is really enjoying taunting me.

What exactly does he know? Has Luba filled him in on our secret? Has Barnaby told Louis what he knows? These are the questions that are racking my brain so I don't hear anything Arla's chattering on about. Through the window the moonglow is so bright it looks like sunlight, and it illuminates Arla's face. Her bronzed skin shimmers in the light, and she looks beautiful, until she takes off her wig and I can see her entire face. The light glistens on her scar, the scar that runs diagonally from the outside of her left eye down toward her cheek, the scar that I gave her when I wasn't in control of my body.