Sixteen-year old Timothy Gril slides his welt-striated back and buttocks downward along one corner of the room. He reaches a squat. He places his elbows on his knees. He puts his face in his hands. He leaves a space between his fingers to see, careful not to touch his split lip, or his black eye. He leaves a space between his fingers so his pale green eyes can see through them. A tousle of his red hair cascades his forehead and momentarily conceals a large bruise.
Gyle Gril, Timothy's father, agitatedly paces one section of the room in front of the boy. There's a tic that periodically pulses his left cheek. His large hands, complete with their fingernails never quite cleaned after each day's work in the water reclamation project that's quickly turning Flicker into a constantly enlarging scab-lands oasis, keep opening and closing. His swift heartbeat is evident in the pulse spot at the base of his thick neck.
"Don't you dare move from there!" Gyle has stopped his pacing, long enough to warn his son.
Simultaneously, there's a popping sound of the glass panes in one window. It's as if a change of air pressure threatens a hurricane. There's even a brief sound of outside wind.
Gyle goes to the window and throws it open to the darkness outside.
Gregory Ranlin enters gracefully through the breach. His six-foot frame, bent to achieve successful entrance, easily unfolds. He runs one hand through his black hair to make it automatically fall into order.
"So," Gregory says, his black eyes, set within his extraordinarily handsome face, having already surveyed the scene within the room.
"Timothy knew, all right," Gyle announces. He repeats, as if unheard the first time. "Just as you said he would. I found that…" He motions toward a small cloth-wrapped bundle on one cushion of the couch. "…in the back of his closet." He goes over and unfolds the cloth package. Inside there's a distorted lump of gray and black wax which may, or may not, once have been a candle.
"Why don't you leave your son and me alone for a few minutes, Gyle?" Gregory says.
"You want me to leave the room?" Obviously, Gyle finds the request surprising and not to his liking.
"Yes, please," Gregory says. His voice is low, his tone polite. There's something, though, in what he says and how he says it that insinuates he won't accept refusal.
Gyle storms out of the living room, stomps down the corridor, enters his bedroom, slams the door.
"Well, then," Gregory says. He positions a chair to better face Timothy's corner and sits in it. He purses his full lips. He tents his two index fingers and places the resulting apex within the deep cleft of his chin. "I think it's time I should apologize to you, my boy. Hopefully, it's not too late to make a difference. In that, I'm afraid my fondness for your father, and my inability to believe this time would ever arrive in our time, has seen me terribly neglectful in seeing that you have been properly cared for. I'm going to try and rectify that, here and now. Beginning with a trade-off, wherein you tell me what you saw in the candle flame, and I tell you how to make your life easier, from here on out."
He waits.
Timothy says nothing. Timothy does nothing but eye the handsome and dark-complexioned visitor through the spaces of the fingers still covering the boy's face.
"You envisioned a girl, possibly one of your classmates, walking the scrublands," Gregory says when Timothy remains silent. "You're not too sure which classmate, because candle-reading skills, even among the few of our kind who have them, are never the best. Yes?"
Still, Timothy does nothing but stay crouched, watching.
"This girl entered a cave and found some candles, one of which she lit. Shortly, she was joined by a second girl who, like the first, was unrecognizable. All visualized in black-and-white, of course, since no candle-reader on our side has access to a full color palette."
Gregory leans back more fully into the chair and folds his arms across his chest. The creases of his black suit, black tie, and black shirt grow darker with shadow.
"Come now, my neglected candle-reader," Gregory cajoles. "All I'm asking is a nod of your bruised and battered head in confirmation. As you can see, another candle-reader among us has already provided the details. And for your simple nod, I think even you will be pleased with the scope of your reward."
After a long pause, Timothy does nod. While he has meant to keep his candle-read a secret, out of pure spite, it's obvious his father and Gregory have at least one more source to keep them informed. He doesn't know what Gregory is offering for cooperation, but it has been a long time since Timothy has received something nice.
"Excellent!" Gregory informs.
For a minute, Timothy thinks Gregory will now leave without fulfilling his part of the bargain. It is what Timothy's father would do — it is what Timothy's father has done — at numerous times in the past.
However, though Gregory does stand, obviously preparing to leave, he doesn't immediately exit through the open window. He walks over to the boy, gently puts a hand to the boy's fingers and easily — though Timothy has meant to prevent it — shifts the face covering to one side.
Sympathetically, he shakes his head when seeing the results.
"Quite unexpectedly, Timothy," Gregory says, "though you may not yet know the how or the why, you suddenly have far more power over your father than he has over you. In fact, you have the power to prevent him from ever laying a hand on you again."
"How?" That's definitely a secret Timothy would give a good deal to know. If it were true, he would gladly candle-read for Gregory until the sun no longer rose.
"From here on out, it's your father who should be afraid of you," Gregory says and is suddenly gone, dissolved without even bothering, it would seem, to leave the way he entered; although, the window does, quite by itself, somehow loudly bang shut (behind him?).
Copyright 2009 W. MALTESE
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