The Frozen Moon: Book Two of The Living Curse series + BONUS Full Version of Book Three! (9 page)

She could hear Mira pacing outside the door, restless from the experiences.  Her heart ached for her friend, who hadn’t been forced to deal with as much loss as she had.  At this point, Nameh knew the procedure, and that this was nothing she couldn’t cope with.  She dried her hair, stepping out of the small shower; the bristled ends brushed against her back.  Her oversized t-shirt and warm flannel shorts lay across the towel rack.  She pulled them on; relishing the shallow level of warmth they brought her.  If only they could
do more than scratch at the surface of her bone-deep chill.  She almost smiled at the irony of the angel paint splattered across her black t-shirt. Almost.

She moved the pure white towel from her hair to her face, where she wiped away the remnants of mascara that soap had failed to cleanse.  She tossed the towel aside, now streaked black.

She emerged from the bathroom a new person, already the same Nameh as she had always been, or so it seemed from the outside.  Inside, she knew that she never would be the same, that each death affects a person no matter how many they experience, but outside she was stoic.  Mira’s hair hung in stretched curls from the weight of the water it was holding, fitting, she thought.  If only there was something she could say, anything that might ease her pain, she thought, but she knew there was not.  The only elixir for such an ailment is the sweet song of time, but even so, it is a long road.  Instead, she gave her friend a meaningful look, making up for how words can often fail, for how language can come up short.  All the words in the entire world could not express to Mira what she wanted to at that moment.  Mira was clad similarly in shorts covered in maple leaves and a long-sleeve navy shirt.  The shorts had come from their trip to Canada along with Deanna.  The shirt was from their trip to Paris together; she was immediately catapulted through her memories to the scene on the window ledge when they had watched the city wake.  She smiled in spite of herself as she recalled how this was her last memory at the thought of losing Mira.

Before rationality could get the best of her, she scooped her friend into an embrace, finishing off the wordless conversation like an emblazoned wax seal on the scroll.  They stepped into the hallway of the dimly lit building and, as usual, saw no one in the long corridor.  She
rapped her knuckles against the thick wood of the door next to theirs, painted with the same faded red and gold.  Talar opened the door to let them in, and locked it behind them.  He was wearing a sweatshirt of seemingly random colors patched together.  Big swoops of blue and red and green swam around each other, giving a pleasant effect.  There were three beds in the room, but four figures sat on them now:  Max, Wyd, Seth, and Cal.  Talar took a seat next to Max, while she and Mira sat comfortably against the wall facing the beds.  The others offered their seats, which of course annoyed Nameh to no end, and they promptly turned them down.

They talked for a few minutes, the somberness slowly melting away like some massive block of ice in the shade on an autumn day.  Seth and Cal announced that with Gwen and Eve gone, they would join the group.  They had planned to get another room close to the two already reserved.  The conversation took a casual turn, talking about music or the weather, or something devoid of true meaning.

No one wanted to speak of what had happened that night, and what had been lost just as soon as it had been gained.  Cleaned of blood and the clinging scum of death at last, no one was sure who fell asleep first.  Everyone was splayed out on the floor, and all of the beds lay unoccupied.  She knew her legs were up against someone, and her head up against someone else, though she didn’t know or care exactly who.  The last thing Nameh remembered was an unfamiliar closeness with everyone in the small room; the warmth and comfort it brought sent her drifting into the complete and restful sleep of fatigue. 

The feeling of family she had developed tugged at her receding consciousness; for the first time, she was tempted not to pursue the amulet.  What if they just left, and fell off of the scene of battle, never to be found or sought after by the Guild again?  Maybe they could have a chance at happiness all together, what none of them could find before.  The idea that she didn’t deserve any of these things, which she normally clung so tightly to, slipped out of her mind with surprising ease.  These thoughts filled her head as she drifted off to sleep.  She tried to shrug off the intoxicating warmth that swelled within her, but her weary mind lacked the control.

This is why she hated love.  Love made you weak.

             
He woke with the seed of an idea at the front of his mind, like a dream he wasn’t sure if he had lived.  As the haze of sleep cleared from his mind, a vivid plan erupted from the seed, refusing to silence itself until the urge was satisfied.  It could have been the tragedy of the night before, it could have been the refreshing bite in the morning air, or it could have been his childhood memories taking hold after too long of a suppression.  However the feeling had come to be, it sent a jolt of new life coursing through his body.  For the first time in a long while, he bounded out of bed, or rather, his resting place in a crumpled heap on the floor.  Max crept around the sleeping bodies, the miracle of their long-deserved placid expressions not wasted on him.  He remembered that the door had a habit of creaking, but a silence spell, even one projected on another object, was not above him.  Once out the door, he broke off at a steady jog down the stairs and through the lobby.  The morning air was refreshing, restoring even. 

In all of his excitement, he hadn’t noticed until he felt the warm sun that his body deeply ached.  Aching was perhaps too weak a word to describe the ripping and tearing feeling that one’s muscles may, at any given moment, decide to relocate themselves to the outside of one’s skin.  Maybe Cal could do something about that later, he thought, but now his mind was elsewhere.  He was unfamiliar with this part of the city, but considered himself quite personable, and fully able to find what he was looking for.  It proved slightly more complicated.

The maps proved easier to locate than he had anticipated, but a car was where he ran into real trouble.  Apparently, few people had a need to rent a car directly in the city, so loaners appeared more frequently in the suburbs and smaller cities and towns.  After some searching, though, he found a lot and rented the cheapest car they had available.  He didn’t have much of his parents’ money left, and didn’t imagine he would be receiving any more after news of his new endeavors reached them.  He filled the tank with all the gas it could take and drove the short distance that lay between him and his friends at the Corner.  It was good to have a moment to himself, since he hadn’t in days.  The car muffled the sounds of the outside world, and mere distorted fragments of beeping horns and shuffling people pierced the metal shell.  It was only when he was alone that he could paint fantastical images of mundane perfection in his mind.

For a breath, he could imagine he was driving anywhere, and that he would have a home to return to once he tired of such a place.  For a breath, he could imagine he was just another person without the shadow of death hanging loosely about him.  For a breath, he could imagine he wouldn’t always be alone.  For a breath, he was breathless.

              The sun peaked higher in the calm blue sky, and Max rushed his friends along.  Everyone was moving slowly as the soreness he hadn’t at first noticed set in and weighted them down like wet clothing.  They shoved clothes into bags, though none of them knew exactly what to expect.  He relished the moment of mystery he held over them, though he knew it was childish.  No one seemed quite as excited as he, but no one shared his dream-like vision as they soon would. 

             
A resounding grumble had arisen when he woke the others, but he urged them on with repeated promises of a journey well worth their consciousness. 

“Why on God’s green earth are you waking us at eight a.m. after a night like last night?” he remembered Mira’s voice demanding. 
Talar’s waking words had not been quite as tactful.

He knew daylight was steadily burning away, a lamp with precious little oil.  Who could really be certain how much remained?  The moment everyone declared they were
ready, he scooped up the bags in one massive armful and descended the steps again with the same eagerness as earlier.  He could feel his spirit beginning to lighten the surrounding moods, especially as the morning sun began to soak into weary skin.  Max threw the bags into the trunk of the rusty old car he had rented, and shoved the map into Nameh’s hands. 

“Navigator” he stated simply with a grin. 

“Has anyone bothered to count seats?” Wyd cut in, asking a question Max had known was coming. 

             
“Yeah, I know.  Five seats, seven of us.”  Max replied with a sigh.  “Basically, we’ve got two options.  We could either cram seven people into a five seat car, or use a transport spell to get some of us there.”  The question hung in the air for a moment, though he was pretty sure he knew which option would beat out the other.

             
“Well there’s no way
I’m
getting in the car with all six of you, so at least I’m transporting there.” Wyd cut in.

             
“I’m with you on this one;” agreed Talar, “it could be a long drive.”

             
“Road trip!” called Mira, already jumping into one of the back seats.  The group’s comfort with each other was at an all time high, and he suspected each person was compensating their feeling of loss with a feeling of gain.

             
“If we ever want to get there, I guess I’m in the car too.” agreed Nameh with a smile.  He was glad Nameh would be driving with him, and Mira would be fun too.  Seth and Cal stood between Wyd and the car, still undecided. 

             
“And then there were two.” Max pressured playfully.

             
“I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I’ve been for a drive.”  Seth’s eyes lit up with his words in uncharacteristically youthful anticipation.  Max was glad that someone understood why he had rented the car in the first place.  “One more seat, Cal, are you up for it?” 

             
“To tell you the truth, I hate car rides.  I’ll hang back here.” Cal stepped back with the other two, and the small group waved their goodbyes after promises of meeting up at noon.

             
Walking around to the driver’s side of the car, Max reached through the open window to press the button that released the car’s roof.  Metal screeched against metal as the old soft top slowly labored open.  Despite what seemed like great effort on the car’s part, the roof remained halfway closed, and had to be coaxed back with a mechanical groan.  When the ancient machine seemed ready at last for the road ahead, he settled into the driver’s seat and immediately felt at ease.  There was something about driving that had always appealed to him, the sense of control and precise direction.  Now, though, it was a slightly different sensation.  Being alone in a car was one thing, but leading others along with you was another.  He felt inches away from the escape he knew he needed, they all needed, desperately.

             
He pulled out of the tiny parking lot, and Nameh was already fiddling with the radio.  She scanned through what seemed like hundreds of stations until she found one deemed acceptable by everyone in the car.  An upbeat track was playing, a type of song that almost everyone remembered fondly from earlier years.  He knew almost immediately that he had picked the worst person to navigate, though the best person to be sitting in the front seat.  Already, Nameh was hopelessly distracted, lost in thought and catching stray bits of conversation.  But she had her feet up on the side of the car beside the windshield, and the wind caught her white hair like the branches of a willow tree.  Her dark eyes had a strange habit of capturing the sunlight, as though they knew only night waited ahead, and wanted to save it away for when clouds blinded even stars. 

He watched the roa
d, rushing by like a spinning record.  He wished that he could run his fingers across it and listen to the stories it had to tell.  Roads had probably seen the most people come and go, live and die, but still they were only roads.  Still they were only ways of getting to another place, rushing through another part of your life.  The road they were on was slowing them down, unlike most, reminding them that they had to live against the ticking of the clock, which counted off seconds lost almost imperceptibly in their ears.  But when the days fell silent, the seconds were louder than thought itself.

Even so, he thought, measuring each second gone by was even more of a waste than letting them slip by unnoticed.  He had no way of knowing what came ahead, and he couldn’t see an escape from death in his future, but he still had today.  He still had warm air brushing past his skin, and sunlight settling on his features, and a car full of friends around him.  He pulled his mind out of the despair it so easily slipped into, though it was almost comfortable in acceptance now.  Although he had almost forgotten, he remembered why he was driving, why he had put so much effort into escaping the city, even life, for
awhile.

They had finally reached a more rural area, and with Nameh occasionally pointing out turns, were making good progress.  Suddenly, he realized that he had little idea what had been going on in the car up until this point.  Apart from Nameh’s directions, he had tuned out most of the conversation and music with his thoughts.