The Marked Son (Keepers of Life) (13 page)

Move faster. Got to move faster.

The ground behind me suddenly rises, sweeping me along on a wave of dirt until I bump into Leo.

He glances back at me. “Bro, what’s your hurry?”

I search the woods. Nothing is there, yet something hovers close by. It’s coming for me. Closer and closer.

I push Leo. “Go, go, go!”

The tremor in my voice urges him on. He slams into Jason and the three of us race ahead. Tree limbs slap at our faces, tug at our clothes. We trip, yet we don’t fall. Leo’s breathing roughens. Jason rips apart anything in his path, daring the woods to stop him as he bowls forward. In no time, we stumble into the clearing where the girl disappeared the first time, and I turn around, conscious of the weight of eyes on me. I don’t see anything. My hands find my knees and I suck in air that still feels too thick. Too strange. Too heavy.

Jason plants himself in front of me and scowls. “What the hell was that all about? Look at my arms.”

Scratches line his forearms, his face. I gulp in more air and force myself upright. “Sorry. I…”

A light buzz sounds, and I whirl around to face the forest.

Jason does the same. “What?”

Leo bumps into us, and we three stand back to back, our eyes searching the forest beyond. The buzzing grows. My gaze ricochets from tree to tree. “Do you hear that?”

“What?” Leo asks, his voice higher than usual. The beam from the flashlight he’s carrying whips around. “What do you hear?”

“Buzzing.”

As soon as I say the word, tiny lights fly into the clearing and head straight for us. Leo ducks and weaves, but they expertly separate him from us. I whip off my backpack and swing. It catches nothing but air. One light rushes close and knocks me off my feet.

I can’t believe I’m flat on my back on the loamy ground staring up through the tree limbs. I need to get up. The limbs suddenly bow. They’re coming for me. I flip over and bounce to my feet, darting away, searching the clearing for Leo and Jason.

Leo is gone. I hear his faint screams for help, and shout for him to come back.

Jason nearly tramples me as he bats and cusses at the darting lights. His movements are slow, his voice a warble of disbelief. He rakes his fingers through the air like he’s trawling for shrimp, yet nothing is caught.

The lights fly off, and Jason staggers toward me, his breathing deep and ragged. I catch him. His face shines pale, his muscles tighten, as he stares up at me. “What the hell is going on?”

“I don’t know.” Grandpa and I hadn’t been attacked. Not like this.

The shadows darken. I hadn’t thought this through. It’s just like Jason said. Bad things happen to guys like us. I should’ve read more Stephen King.

Jason holds up his left arm, and the hair on it stands straight. His eyes lock with mine. The vein in his neck throbs. “I know this feeling. It’s her.”

The sensation of all the oxygen being sucked out of me descends. I nearly sink under Jason’s weight. “We’ve got to get out of here. Can you walk?”

What am I saying? I can barely move.

“I don’t know.” He clutches at my shoulders and blinks heavily. “I’m dizzy. So sleepy.”

I take a good look at him. He’s covered in glittering dust.

He sags further into my arms. “I don’t feel so good,” he says, his words elongated and distorted. I spy a fat bush and struggle with his bulk toward it. Before I drag him two feet, mist spews out of thin air. My nerves tingle, as if I can feel every molecule shift and grow. It’s not a comfortable feeling.

“Dylan!” Jason’s weak warning slips between his flaccid lips.

His eyes flutter shut, and he’s out.

Shit!

I look to the right. To the left. I’ve got no idea where Leo is. The mist swirls and dips, stretching and contracting. The hairs on the back of my neck spike. The area is deathly quiet, and one thing is definitely clear.

The ghost is rising, and I’m the only one left standing.

Stepping Through Air

Mist ripples in front of me, threading through the air. If I stretch out my hand, I can touch it.

I don’t.

Instead, I ease backwards, dragging Jason with me, keeping my eyes glued to the strange, misty fingers. When we reach the shelter of the trees, intense friction skids across my skin, and the girl in white appears amid the shimmer. Her halo of dark hair whips about violently as the filmy gown slaps against her legs. She takes a step forward. Her bare feet wriggle in the spongy soil of the forest, crackling the dry leaves beneath them.

Ghosts have feet?

The mist evaporates and the forest is quiet and still once again.

My gaze skims from her feet, over the belted nightgown that clings to her body, up to her violet eyes. She’s beautiful, but how can she be real?

She stares back at me, unselfconscious, her body glowing softly from some inner light.

My grasp weakens, and Jason slips free. His head thuds onto the mossy ground, but I don’t react. All I see is the girl in white. Smell the scent of summer wafting off of her.

She moves slowly forward, and my retreat mirrors her steps. For the life of me, I can’t turn and run, though leaving is the smart thing to do. My feet won’t obey common sense. It’s the questions that keep me near; they won’t shut up. Who is she? Where did she come from? What does she want?

She stops and holds out her hand. “Don’t go, please.”

Her voice cascades around me like soft rain, dripping with an elegance I’ve never heard before. I’m speechless. Completely transfixed. Her graceful movements against the too-thick air are like the dance of a snake charmer, hypnotizing its foe. I explore every detail of her face, searching for the flaw that will prove this is a hallucination, albeit a really intense one.

Everything looks and feels normal. At least as normal as a guy in the forest meeting a girl wearing an old-fashioned nightgown while his buddy lies passed out nearby can feel normal. I’m sure situations like this have happened to tons of people…on drugs.

I close my eyes. I’m going crazy. This can’t be real.
Wake up, wake up, wake up.

I open my eyes and see her tilt her head to the right. She takes another step forward, and this time I don’t move. Her big, luminous, violet eyes contain a hint of pleading. I drop my gaze to her mouth and wonder what it would be like to kiss her.

She steps even closer, unafraid of me. “Is your friend all right?”

The sound of her smooth voice invades the quiet of the night. I could listen to her talk for hours and never grow bored, yet I’ve suddenly lost the ability to speak. My voice has grown sticky, like I’m talking with a mouth full of peanut butter. “Um... I… He’s…”

I blink and she’s at Jason’s side, cupping his face. “The
pux
didn’t hurt him, did they?”

How did I not see her move? “The what?”

She looks at me, and I lose all ability to think straight. “The
pux
. Tiny winged creatures that glow.” She touches Jason’s arm, and a tense frown settles on her face. “I’m ashamed. I knew the wall had been weakened, yet I’ve kept silent. A disastrous mistake on my part.”

She isn’t a ghost. No way. But she isn’t normal. She stepped through air, appearing out of nowhere. No one can do that. “Who are you?”

She closes her eyes for a moment, and the long, thick lashes framing her eyes lay against her cheeks. “You know me, Dylan. I’m Kera. Kera of Teag. I shouldn’t be here, but we’ve shared our dreams for so long, I feel as if I already know you.”

“You really are the girl from my dreams?”

“Yes. I don’t understand why you’re here in this realm. It makes no sense.”

“Hold on, are you telling me you’re from another dimension?”

“Yes.”

Holy crap! My balance fails, and my back slams against a nearby tree trunk. I stare at her as if I’ve never seen a girl before. Leo was right?

No way.

This is too sci-fi for me. It’s too Hollywood-gone-special-effects.

She stands and takes a few steps toward me. “When I felt you, I had to see you, to prove to myself your existence, and when I pushed through the barrier, the
pux
must have followed.” A flush tints her cheeks pale pink. “Everything’s a mess, now. My father will be angry when he finds out what I’ve done. I’m not supposed to be here, but I couldn’t stay away. Once I saw you, I knew.”

I push away from the tree and wave her silent. “Wait. You didn’t know I was real? You thought
I
was a—”

“Childish hallucination. I’ve always had a good imagination, something my father constantly scolds me about.”

Emotion I don’t understand shimmers in her eyes. I can’t look away. I know getting close isn’t wise—

But she’s so pretty,
my inner voice whines. And if she’s the girl from my dreams, I’ve known her forever.

And then I see the knife tucked into her belt, glinting in the moonlight, and remember what Leo said. Is she just trying to lure me away to make me a midnight snack? “What’s with the knife?”

“It’s for protection.”

Normally I’d let it go, but she’s touching it in a way that makes me want to take a big step back. “Protection against…?”

“Evil,” she says, as if I’m a little slow on the uptake. “Dylan, you have no idea how long I’ve waited to meet you.” She glances up at me through her thick, dark lashes. “When I realized who you must be, I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

If any normal guy heard a knife-wielding, beautiful girl say she couldn’t stop thinking about him, he’d run. So why am I still standing here? I shake my head. “This is crazy. If you’re the girl from my dreams—”

Nope. Stop, stop, stop.

“—but, you’re not. You can’t be real. She’s not real. I made her up.”

“I’m real.” She holds out her hand. “Touch me.”

My chest tightens, and my heart thuds wildly. She’s hit my weak spot. Man, oh man, I’d like nothing better than to touch her. My resistance wanes. My body leans forward. And then, at the last minute, I snap straight.

No touching. I’ve got a horrible feeling if I do, I’ll never be able to think clearly again.

At my sudden withdrawal, her eyes well with tears, and though she tries her best to stop them, they slip down her cheeks.

Wow. That looks real. I watch a single teardrop fall to the ground and splatter onto a dead leaf.

Really real.

Unlike Mom’s, Kera’s tears affect me. A strong need to help her attacks my hesitance. I should be protecting her, not hurting her.

I turn away, confused by my reaction. What’s wrong with me? She appears out of nowhere, searching for me, because she felt me? This has all the earmarks of a slasher movie. Boy takes a walk in the woods with his friends. Suddenly his friends are gone. Out of nowhere, the beautiful, otherworldly stalker from his dreams appears, only to change into a hideous beast that devours him whole. Yeah, that does
not
sound cool. I should be concerned. So why aren’t I?

“Let me get this straight. You expect me to believe there’s another world connected to this one?” I rub my forehead as if I can erase the idea, but it won’t go away. “Alternate universe. Parallel realm. This is totally mind blowing.”

“Dylan. Can you feel it? Try. You don’t belong here. Something must have always told you that.” Her words sound desperate.

Seeing the uncertainty that must show on my face, her tears spill more freely. No blubbering mess. No ranting. No demands. The raw emotion playing on her features surprises me. She really, really,
really
wants me to believe her, like it’s a life and death thing.

Weird.

Weirder still, her quiet tears pluck to life some residual feelings I had abandoned for dead. That flicker of hope scares me more than I’d thought possible. “You don’t know what you’re saying. This has got to be a mistake.”

“No mistake. You’re the one I’ve been waiting for.”

A groan escapes me. Great. She’s like Mom, searching for the perfect guy. I’ve got news for her. I’m not perfect. Far from it. I don’t need another psycho female in my life. Not now.

I turn away, and force myself to take a step.

My chest pinches.

Stay
.

I take another step and some strange connection we share races through me, forcing me to turn around. I slowly pivot, and when our eyes meet, I can’t look away.

The strange energy that pulses off her pulls me forward, gives me strength, cracks open the part of my heart I thought I’d closed up for good. She’s daring me to trust again.

The glimmer in Kera’s eyes urges me closer. There’s an aura of magic around her, and I can’t lie. It excites me. With each step, senses I’ve only half used burst open. The forest shudders, willing me to see all that it is, and unlike the times before, I don’t freak out as the soft vibrations of life bloom under my feet.

This time, it feels completely natural.

I stop only inches away from her, and we stare at each other. My heart pounds and swells along with hers. A lone tear drop clings tentatively to her bottom lashes. Instinctively, I raise my hand to wipe it away, but I stop short. My throat grows tight. “Don’t cry.”

She wipes at her wet cheeks with her palm. “I rarely do. It’s because there’s so much at risk. I can’t lose you, but I’m at a loss as to what I should do. My instincts tell me we should quit this place. Now. But I can’t leave the
pux
here. They’re too vicious.”

I can feel the dilemma tearing at her. I don’t understand everything she’s saying, but at this moment, I’d do anything to ease her mind. I hold out my hand. It feels natural, like it’s something I’ve done a million times before. “We’ll make it right. We’ll find your
pux
and send them home.”

She stares at my hand, then tentatively slides hers into mine. A shock surges through my fingertips and up my arm. My heart slams to a halt, and when it starts again, it beats in perfect time with hers.

“You can’t tell me you feel nothing now.” Her grip tightens as if her hand wants to meld with mine. “From the moment I first saw you, I trusted you, Dylan. Now I know I was right to find you.”

“What do you want from me?”

“I don’t know. I just know you’re the one that’ll made everything right again.”

I don’t have a clue what she’s talking about, but a strange warmth grows in my chest, one I’m not sure I want. “You shouldn’t trust me. I’ll just disappoint you.”

She grazes her fingertips along my temple, so gentle. So familiar. “I know your heart.”

She’s insane, I tell myself, but I know it’s not true. I’m scared to believe someone is willing to accept me for me. Something very odd is happening. I’m on a precipice of knowledge. If I yank away, I’ll tumble back into my old life, where feelings of helplessness reign, but if I lean forward, I’ll shatter the glass that separates me from what I should’ve known all my life.

Something that would’ve given me comfort and strength.

Something Mom denied me because it scared her.

I’ve smothered the strange feelings since I was a boy. I let Mom control me. But no more. I’m my own man now.

My breath grows still, and I force out a ragged whisper, “Seriously. Who are you?”

“Who banished you here, Dylan? Who forced you from our world?”

At my blank look, her hand in mine begins to glow. The warmth of her palm spirals through me. Images of paradise careen through my brain, fighting with the reality of my painful past, showing me that my life until this moment has been a terrible lie.

She unlocks the lost and faded parts of my dreams. The meadow fills my mind. We’re small, laughing at things young kids laugh at. I spill my secrets, share my sorrows. Over the years, our time together lengthens and wanes, but when we’re together I hold her, touch her, kiss her. She touches me and all my worries disappear. I revel in the peace only Kera gives me.

She’s my friend, the
only
one who’s been there for me.