I asked David to drive us to my house so that we could talk. Claire had a meeting and wouldn’t be home until past six o’clock, so our dinner plans would be later than expected.
David was reluctant to enter the house claiming Claire would disapprove of his visit without her presence. It took a little convincing, but in the end, I swayed him.
I threw my book bag on the recliner and sat on the sofa.
He was uneasy even about sitting down.
“I can’t stay long. Though my brothers and mother say they don’t want to meddle in my affairs, they still worry about me.” David sat at the edge of the sofa.
“Galen’s still at it with the comments, I assume.”
David nodded. “They’re afraid Gabriel will confront me any day now. The only reason they enrolled in school was to keep an eye on me. My family doesn’t trust me. They think that I’m liable to act out of impulse and unintentionally reveal myself.”
“Why would they think that?”
“Because I’ve given them reason to doubt me.”
“What did you do?”
“Isis, love is irrational. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes, more so than anyone, I would say.”
“Love makes us do crazy things.”
“Like?”
“I asked someone to break a rule—a rule that may have cost him and me a great deal of problems.” He looked down at the floor. “I asked a deity to… distort your emotions so that you would love me.”
“What?”
I felt rage erupt from within my core. When he tried to speak again, I jumped to my feet and slapped him. I doubt I physically hurt him, but his face reflected pain.
“You made me believe that I loved you? How could you do that to me?”
David grabbed me and held me tight. I tried to force myself free, but his strength was much greater than mine.
“No, Isis, that’s not true.”
“You’re a liar… a hypocrite… a charlatan! Let me go! Get out of my house!”
“I didn’t follow through; I didn’t do it. Listen to me… please. You love me on your own.”
I stopped struggling.
“I swear on my life, I didn’t go through with it. I’ll swear on anything you want, do anything to prove it, but believe me… please.”
David released me from his grasp. He dropped before me on one knee and took my waist between his hands. I tried to push him away, but he wouldn’t let go.
“I’m begging you. Forgive me… please.”
The way he looked at me reminded me of the way my dad gazed at my mom imploring her not to leave him before the divorce. It broke my heart to see David like this. I never imagined I would see the day a god would kneel before me, pleading at my feet to believe in his words; it was just so wrong.
“I believe you,” I told him.
A tingling sensation swept over the tips of my right hand. I raised it to see what could be causing the feeling.
“My fingers…” I said. I brought my hand closer to my face to see it better. My nails and fingertips were a purplish black hue. The color and tingling sensation were traveling up at a steady speed.
“No!” David gasped, his eyes wide in panic. He lifted me into his arms and ran out the door. He soared into the air at an astonishing rate. I had no time to react. The tremendous pressure of the wind burned against my skin. I felt David’s body tense as he landed. I heard his feet pounding on the ground. Everything around me was swirling blur. I was going to be sick.
“I have to throw up,” I moaned. I shut my eyes to block out the spinning, but the nausea continued.
“I can’t feel my hand,” I managed to mumble. My hand was cold and limp. The pins and needles sensation had now reached my wrist.
I heard David’s steps echoing. We were indoors somewhere, but I didn’t want to open my eyes. My stomach was still in knots.
“Mother! Gemini!”
He lay me down on something soft. I heard footsteps approaching. Someone took my right arm as if examining it.
“I have to throw up,” I warned a second time.
“Calm her.” I recognized Nyx’s voice.
I felt a light breeze on my face as I inhaled. My head was light, but the dizziness was gone. My stomach began to settle. My body relaxed, and I slowly opened my eyes.
David was kneeling by my head. Nyx sat next to me, while the twins stood behind her. I examined my hand. It looked like it was beginning to decompose from the fingers. The dark purple color was a third of the way up my lower arm. The tip of my pinky fell off. I should have been frantic, but I was unfazed, like I didn’t realize what I was seeing.
“Forgive her,” Nyx said to David.
“I forgive you,” David said to me.
“No. You must feel it.”
“Mother, I should be the one asking her for forgiveness.”
“She struck you. Forgive her. Do it now,” Nyx said.
“I forgive you, Isis,” David said, again, stroking my head.
I studied my arm. The blackness was at the base of my elbow. The tingling didn’t stop. It looked like something was boiling under my skin, slowly creeping upward. The muscle tissue was exposed in my hand. I could see bone and veins all turning black. The smell of putrid meat made me gag.
I looked up at everyone. Galen and Eryx were focused on my arm in horror. Nyx was crying, but trying to hold her composure.
“It’s not working,” David said. “Why isn’t it working?”
“You don’t have much time. If the corrosion reaches her chest, she’s going to die,” Nyx said.
“I’m going to die?” I mumbled.
I always thought I would be afraid of dying. I carried that fear with me since I was twelve, after looking inside that coffin at my dad’s stiff, breathless body. But now that it was my turn, I was ready. This destiny was written for me.
“I can’t do it, Mother. I have nothing to forgive her for,” David said.
If I was going to die, I needed to tell David something I hadn’t had the courage to tell him before.
I glanced at my arm. The decomposition was at my elbow and the tingling had crept up near my shoulder. I didn’t have time to waste.
“David,” I said, and he looked at me. “I’m sorry I hurt. I needed you to know… to hear it.”
I could feel the tingling a few inches past my shoulder. Nyx pulled my shirt at the neckline exposing my collarbone and part of my shoulder.
“I love you,” I said. “I always have.”
“I’m so sorry I did this to you,” David whispered, stroking my forehead.
I could no longer feel my arm, my shoulder, and part of my chest. And then I felt it—a searing pain in the middle of my chest. I writhed in anguish, screaming at the top of my lungs. My whole body jerked, and then there was darkness. Everything was silent, including my heart.
A soft light surrounded me, cradling me in a tranquility I had never known existed. I struggled for a last breath, but it was too late. The end was here.
“Vivere.”
A whispered word within the peace of the warm light echoed around me, and somehow, I knew what it meant—live.
Bright lights in beautiful colors that I had never before seen pulsed everywhere around me. I felt myself falling slowly, then faster through the endless spectrum.
I sucked in a lungful of air, and my eyes sprang open.
Eryx cried out, “It’s receding!”
David raised me to a sitting position.
“Gemini, flush her,” David ordered.
Eryx and Galen set one of their hands on my shoulders and joined their free hands, palm to palm. Their lower arms formed a baseless triangle between them.
I felt a strange suctioning sensation tugging the inside of my arm and hand, making my fingers twitch inward.
A black stream tunneled under the twins’ skin. The flow traveled from the hand with which they grasped my shoulders, then over their chests and to their raised
arms. A deep plum- colored ball formed between their palms.
Meanwhile, my arm regained feeling. The decomposition was gradually covered by new skin. My pinky finger was by some means restored, and my senses started to recuperate.
The twins removed their hands from my shoulders. They lowered their arms and held the melon-sized sphere out to Nyx and David.
The ball was formed of coiled maggot-like creatures. Their little bodies squirmed over one another in a spiral motion.
David blew a gust of breath over the circular mass. Instantly, the creatures ceased their movement.
Nyx took the sphere and compressed it between her hands, then separated her lips. She made a low rattling noise and out of her mouth slithered a black and pink serpentine tongue, which wrapped around the sphere. I watched as Nyx dissolved the ball of larva with thick, opaque saliva. My stomach was still weak. I squirmed and turned away, gagging.
As I listened to the hissing die down, the shock of what had just happened sank in. I had almost died. Or did I die? I didn’t know if I was more disturbed by the near death experience or the family’s extraordinary abilities. I collapsed on the couch.
“Isis?” David leaned over me.
“I need a minute,” I said, and fainted.
***
Nyx sat at my side, rubbing my arm in a comforting gesture as I came to.
“Well, you’re a feisty little thing, aren’t you?” Galen said, sitting across the way from David and me in the living room.
“David must have done something very wrong,” Eryx added.
“He didn’t do anything,” I said.
“Well, if that’s the way you express your love to him, I’d hate to see you express your scorn,” Galen said.
“We can talk about this later,” David said to the twins.
Nyx raised a cup of tea to my lips.
“I can sense you’re feeling better,” she said.
I tried to get a glimpse of her tongue as she spoke. It looked normal enough now.
“You gave us all a very good scare.” Nyx took my right hand to inspect it. “Thank goodness David pardoned you when he did. And if Gemini hadn’t flushed the parasites from within you, this hand would have remained black and deformed; it’s a life penance.”
“Thank you all for…”
“You would have done the same. I’m sure,” Eryx replied. “But David is the one who deserves the thanks; after all, his quick actions saved your life.”
“I don’t know how else to say that I’m sorry,” David told me.
“For what? I was the one that slapped you.”
“No one’s to blame.” Nyx settled the subject.
In the frenzy of things, we had left David’s car parked on the curb in front of my house. Eryx offered to drive us back before my mother got home, and I was all for it, but David insisted flying was much faster. I thanked Nyx and the twins again for what they had done to save my life.
“You should consider anger management classes,” Galen teased me.
***
The flight home was easier on my stomach.
“What if someone sees us up here?” I asked. I was relieved that Claire’s car wasn’t in the driveway yet.
“We’re not visible.”
“Not visible… as in, invisible?”
“Camouflaged,” David said, setting me down in my living room. “By the sky.”
“Oh.” I wasn’t sure how that was possible. Though, by now I realized everything was possible.
As David and I took a seat on the couch, my cell phone beeped inside my book bag. I walked over to the recliner and reached inside to retrieve it. I had nine missed calls, nine voice mails, and seven text messages—all from Gabriel. I dropped the phone back into the bag, ignoring the messages.
I turned in David’s direction. He was gazing at me like I was his Hope Diamond. I sat next to him on the couch.
“Today was the single worst day of my entire existence.” David held his head between his hands. “I had never felt more helpless or afraid than I did in those minutes. If I lost you…” He shook his head.
“I don’t want to think about that anymore. It’s over now and all that matters is that we’re still together,” I said, leaning my head on his arm.
“But I have to think about it, Isis. I’m the one that caused it. Don’t you see what might have happened that afternoon if Gabriel had struck me in front of all those people?”
The anxiety I had sensed in David and his brothers that afternoon with Gabriel was now so clear to me. They knew what could have happened if Gabriel had decided to take a swing at David. There would have been no way to save him. Everyone around us would have witnessed those parasitic larvae devour him whole. I shuddered as visions of my decomposed arm ran through my head.
“I understand now,” I said.
“What you must think of me… I’m nothing short of a monster or a freak.”
“No. I don’t think any of that.” I cupped David’s face with my hand. “I love you.”
David pulled me close to him.
“I’ve waited so long for those three words,” he said. “I’ve loved you for so long.”
David applied pressure to my waist, pushing me back against the couch. Ever so gently, he kissed each feature on my face. The warmth of his breath traveled along my neck and across my shoulder. His spicy scent was stronger than usual. One of his hands found its way to the back of my knee, creating sweet, rippling waves that coursed through me like electricity.
I did nothing short of attack him. I dove into him with a kiss so deep and hard that I felt my lips begin to swell within seconds. His shoulder muscles tightened under my touch, and for a moment, our entangled limbs refused to part. I felt David’s hot hand slip under my shirt. His fingers caressed my stomach, making my breath hitch, my skin tingle. The sudden noise of a car’s engine in the driveway broke into our private moment.
“My mom’s home,” I said, blushing. I had somehow pinned him to the couch.
David looked at me wide eyed. I saw the color drain from his face when we heard the doorknob turning, and I jumped off the couch.
“Hi kids, sorry I’m so late,” Claire said, as she walked in. “The meeting went on and on. Let me freshen up, and I’ll be right down so we can leave.” She stopped at the third step up and looked down at me. “Did you light a candle or something? It smells good in here.”
I shook my head.
Claire shrugged, then climbed the stairs and left us.
David put his arms around me. “I would’ve been embarrassed to have been caught in such a compromising situation. Promise me you won’t ever kiss me like that again.”
I crossed my fingers behind my back and nodded.
***
At the restaurant, about half way through the meal, Claire asked about David’s father. David replied that his father was a shoe sales man.
Claire’s mouth dropped.
“You don’t believe me,” he said. “My father—Alezzander—owns shoe manufacturing companies in Greece and Italy where my family has lived on and off through the years. Most of my father’s time is spent traveling abroad for business affairs. ”
Claire was impressed. She was even more impressed when David told her how many languages he spoke—seven, including English and Spanish.
Then David did something that neither Claire nor I expected.
“Mrs. Martin,” he started, “I’d like to ask your permission to court your daughter. Now, I realize that you may think my asking might be all too premature since Isis and I have only known each other for a short period; however, I assure you that my intentions are sincere.”
I choked on my lemonade. If the year had been 1823, I would have conformed to the time’s practices. However, being that Women’s Lib had been around for a while now, I would not have this. Plus, I was almost eighteen; I didn’t need my mother’s permission to have a boyfriend.
Mom chuckled.
“Yes, you may court my
daughter, David,” she said. “That is just the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard. I’ll have to tell Nyx what a good job she’s done teaching you all this properness.”
“It’s an old custom in my culture. It’s done out of respect for both the girl to be courted and her parents,” David explained.
“My grandmother believed in that custom.” Claire poured a packet of sugar into her iced tea. “Nothing earns high marks like good ol’ fashioned respect.”
Seeing how pleased they both were, I decided to keep my mouth shut. After all, it was really sweet of him to consider my mom.
I was shocked when, after David left us, Claire didn’t bombard me with questions. I guessed that David had done a good job of settling all her doubts with the whole “permission to court your daughter” thing.
I got ready for bed and remembered about all the missed events on my phone. There was no putting it off; I was going to have to deal with it now.
The voicemails all said the same thing: “Isis, I need to talk to you. Please answer your phone.” The text messages were the same also, with the exception of two: “Who’s that guy that keeps hanging around?” and “Don’t I mean anything to you?”
I held the phone in my hand knowing I had to get it over with as soon as possible, but I lacked a foolproof plan to convince Gabriel to stop pursuing me.
If I told Gabriel that David was my boyfriend, he might be tempted to pick a fight with David again. However, since Gabriel had seen David and me in what seemed like an intimate moment, I couldn’t lie and say we were only friends. I’d have to figure it out as I went along.
I dialed Gabriel’s number and crossed my fingers, a big part of me hoping he wouldn’t answer. But he did answer; loud music was blaring in the background accompanied by shrills of laughter.
“Gabriel?” I said after several seconds of noise but no answer.
“I knew you’d call me,” he yelled over the din. “Can I come over?”
“No! Don’t you dare.”
“Can I come over tomorrow?”
“No! I don’t want to see you. The only reason I’m returning your calls is to tell you that I want you to stop calling and texting me. It’s over. I don’t know how to make that any clearer. I’ve practically spelled it out for you.”
“Isis…” The background noise grew softer, like he had moved away from the party. “I’m not happy. I feel like everyone’s abandoned me, including you. Sometimes, I just want to…”
There was a long pause.