***
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!
/> “Dad!” I screamed as I fell again, the earth trembling beneath my knees, bucking and rolling till fissures began to open up along the ground, widening until a large hole had materialized in front of me. There was nowhere I could run, no one to turn to.
“Daddy!” I sobbed as the earth gave way beneath me, and I fell. It was dark. So very dark, and I held my breath waiting for the end.
“Look for the light, Day,” I heard my dad whisper, but as the air rushed in around me I welcomed the darkness. The thought of light now, scared me. I didn’t want to see the end.
“Day. . .”
It was an echo this time. My name moved around me and through me, and I finally found the voice to scream.
7 Years Later . . .
Chapter 1
The Time has come when He will come looking. She is ready. I have faith in her. She is her father’s daughter. She carries my blood. And I will never forgive myself for feeding her to the wolves.