Chapter 16: THE BOYFRIEND

Roger Remoth opens the door to his daughter’s bedroom and stands in the breach.

“Someone here to see you,” he says with a disproving frown.

He steps back and lets Matty Donnelly step on by and into the room.

“Hi, babe!” Matty says to Trish on the bed. He smiles by way of additional greeting.

“Hi, back to you,” she says, glad to see him. She just loves the way his smile lights up a room. Both of his cheeks dimple. Little creases form at the corners of his light blue eyes. The cleft in his chin even seems to sink deeper.

“Don’t make this overly long, Trish,” her father says. “You need your rest.”

Roger leaves but doesn’t close the door behind him.

“Suddenly, I don’t think your father likes me any more,” Matty says. He pauses long enough to deliver a quick kiss to Trish’s forehead. His blond hair smells pleasantly of his tar-based shampoo. He sits in the visitor’s chair already bedside.

“What daddy doesn’t like is that I called you on the cell phone I’d promised him I wouldn’t take with me to Dry Wash Gulch. Then, I’d no sooner hung up from talking to you when I was kidnapped.”

“He doesn’t think I told anyone where you were, does he?”

“He doesn’t know what to think, Matty. Besides, you really didn’t know where I was, did you?”

“What in the heck were you doing there, anyway?” Matty has been wondering ever since he heard.

“You know how my parents have this thing for rocks.” Trish has thought about what to tell him. Importantly, it isn’t exactly a lie. “They think Melissa and I should love them, too. They hear of something interesting, geologically, and they figure we should all go, as a family unit, usually immediately, to see it. Go figure.”

“The police have any clues who took you?”

“Not that they’re saying.”

“You remember anything more?”

“A snake. A cat. A dog. Maybe, even, an Indian.”

“An Indian? Like a surround-the-wagons-we’re-being-attacked-by-an Indian?”

“Yeah, but don’t tell anyone, because that part is really vague. As is the number three.”

“Three? As in Three Blind Mice? Three Little Pigs? Three kidnappers?”

“Whatever, whoever, maybe nothing, it’s probably just left-over hallucinations.”

“I heard the bastard drugged you.”

“You heard wrong. I only got stuck with a needle or needles. Twice. No sign of anything injected. The police say some sadistic perverts get off on weird things, these days.”

Mary Remoth makes an appearance with a vase of red roses.

“From Matty,” she tells Trish. “I’ve put them in water. They’ll have you thinking of him until he comes back the next time. Right now, you should get some rest.”

“All I’ve been doing is resting.”

“I’ll come back tomorrow, babe,” Matty says, stands. He kisses her on the cheek. “Promise.”

He leaves. Heading down the front walk, he feels Mr. Remoth’s gaze nailing him through the house’s front picture window to the paving stones.

“Hey, buddy!” someone calls from across the street.

Matty glances over to see Sydney Michaels and the new kid, Cooper something.

Matty heads in their direction.

“Your girlfriend up to visitors?” Sydney asks. “Some of the kids at school would like to stop by.”

“Probably best for everyone to wait for a couple more days,” Matty decides. Mr. Remoth isn’t exactly welcoming, but that might be special treatment just for Matty.

“You know Cooper, here, don’t you? Soon to be joining us on the wrestling team.”

“Actually, Coach Waynright isn’t going to decide that until tomorrow,” Cooper reminds.

“I’ve seen one of the other guys up for the slot,” Matty says. “Joey Spellman pinned him to the mat within thirty seconds. You’ve no competition from that direction.”

“So, how is Trish really doing?” Sydney probes.

“As well as anyone kidnapped, poked with a needle or needles, and still trying to deal with the aftermath of hallucinations about a snake, a cat, and a dog.” He almost adds — and about a Native American, and the number three.

“She’ll be okay,” Cooper assures.

“If that’s true, you know more about it than the quack-quack doctors do,” Matty says.

“Maybe that’s because Cooper, here, is a bona-fide diviner, buddy,” Sydney informs.

“Isn’t that someone who goes around with a forked stick, looking to find water?”

“Come to think of it... Not in this case, though. Cooper divines the future. Go ahead, Cooper, tell Matty something that’s going to happen to him.” “My insights aren’t all that automatic, if you know what I mean,” Cooper excuses.

“Ah, come on!” Sydney insists. “At least try.”

“Sure, go ahead.” Matty, doesn’t believe it’ll happen, but his interest is piqued.

Cooper bows his face into the fold formed by his two open hands.

“Do…do…do…do,” Sydney chants the theme song from a popular scary TV show.

Cooper opens his fingers but leaves them anchored, claw-like, to his face.

“You’re soon destined to have a close encounter of the third kind with a werewolf,” he informs Matty.

“No shit Sherlock?” Sydney responds.

Matty’s eyes squint. His lips purse. He looks from Sydney to Cooper. He bursts into full-throated laughter.

“Damn!” he chides and gives Sydney’s left bicep a quick and forceful fist-jab. “What’s up with the two of you trying to take me for a bloody idiot?”


Copyright 2009 W. MALTESE

Chapter 15: SISTERS, OR NOT

Uxana Uxl is young, afraid, and cold.

She can do nothing about her age. She can do nothing about her fear. Unsuccessfully, she tries to make herself warmer by pulling her blue cloak even more tightly around her. The last large candle, blue as Uxana’s smaller candle had been blue, burns the darkness to provide flickering light but little warmth.

Uxana can get warmer by taking the long walk down the rocky corridor to the sunlight entering the narrow perpendicular mouth of the cave perched over the perilous drop-off, but she can’t spare the time. It’s her suspicion that too much time has already elapsed. She has to monitor closely this latest burn-down —that of her mentor Zila Bwl — and maybe others of The Sisterhood. She has to be there to do what she can do, if anything, in case something else goes wrong.

She should have known when she asked the apparition, “How long?”, and the girl obviously hadn’t a clue, that the time lapse was already too long. That is now verified by how, one after another, three of the all-important four larger candles have sloughed all their wax, with no results. All three have become merely lifeless colorful shiny splotches on the black basalt floor. The smaller candles still in the pile are possibly (fatally?) contaminated, too: burrowed by long-dead bugs, made brittle or crumbly from age, split and cracked from a natural temperature regulator malfunctioned (how long ago?).

Uxana is sorely afraid her candle, similar in color to the larger one of her mentor that now burns, might have been the only one, large or small, to survive as viable. Why else had her wick spontaneously combusted when she was fifth in the pre-planned revival sequence of large red, large yellow, large green, large blue, then Uxana’s smaller blue? Granted, one such anomaly of sequence occurred after the first flood, but never since.

She leans back against hard stone. She trembles but not just from the continuing chill. The energy pulses are genuinely electric all around her. They’re more powerful than any she’s ever known here. Another purging of them by flood water must surely be imminent. How can she, on her own, ever vacate the area and prepare for another soon-to-happen deluge?

She tries, again, for not the first time, to mind-contact the apparition. Although it had no answer, it can be an indication of people somewhere near, maybe even within the flood zone. Likely mortals drifted in; no warnings available since the last flood. Maybe some with psyches genetically attuned to the present massive power surges. Newbies with remnant DNAs from previous times before their ancestors chose mortality over magic?

Unfortunately, Uxana’s skills at summoning weren’t honed before having gone candle before the last flood. Even with the extra benefit, now, of magic-boosting emanations registering off-scale in intensity, no visions come. Meaning the girl of the apparition had revived before Uxana but left everyone else dormant? Who in The Sisterhood would have done such a wicked and perverse, not to mention dangerous, thing? Besides, Uxana didn’t recognize the girl who was such a pretty thing.

So, had magic merely reverted to mortals with everyone else suddenly out of the picture? If so, that wasn’t a pretty scenario, either. The magic of this place had never been something in which novices could safely dabble.

Her eyelids grow heavy. How strange that she should desire sleep, having already slept so long. She begins the mental exercises long-ago prescribed to keep those of The Sisterhood alert.

“Oooooooooooooooo,” comes a mournful moan from within the flickering darkness. The lit candle wick flares, briefly and brightly, and then, as if pinched by ghostly fingertips, goes out.



Copyright 2009 W. MALTESE

Chapter 14: A DIVINE FRIENDSHIP

“Okay, Michaels, turn loose and let the kid up!”


Sydney Michaels does as Coach Waynright instructs and releases his head-hold on his opponent.


Both sweaty young wrestlers scamper to their feet.


“Take a shower, Michaels,” coach says. “Loor, you stick around for just a minute.”


Sydney Michaels again does as instructed and heads for the locker room. Coach Waynright waits patiently, arms folded, until Sydney disappears into the locker-room access corridor on the far side of the gym.


“You should have seen that takedown coming from a mile away, buddy,” coach tells Cooper. “You’re rusty as hell and need some fine-tuning before you’re up to my standards.”


“I’m good at playing catch-up, coach,” Cooper promises. “As usual, I just need time to get back into a regular work routine after my dad’s latest base transfer.”


“I’m not saying you can’t be brought up to speed,” coach says. “In fact, I’m actually impressed by what I see. That said, later today I’ve a couple more kids trying out for the one available slot. I’ll take a look at them and have my final decision to all three of you by first-period tomorrow.”


“Great.”


“So, go take a shower and don’t be late for your next class. Grade-point is important for any kind of ongoing participation in extracurricular sports, here, at Flicker High. I can’t tell you how many good athletes I’ve had to let go because they thought brawn and not brains was all they needed on a wrestling mat.”



Coach Waynright nods toward the locker-room access corridor, turns, heads for the weight room in another direction.


Cooper peels off his sweaty T-shirt in the corridor. At his locker, he discards his shoes, sweaty sweat socks, sweaty shorts, and sweaty jockstrap. He picks up a fresh towel from the convenient wire basket stuffed full of them and wraps his sweaty neck with soft terry-cloth.


In the shower room, Sydney Michaels showers down the way. Cooper turns to the plumbing just inside the doorway. He hangs his towel on the pipes and reaches for the water release.


“Hey, Loors, get your studly ass over here,” Sydney calls and pats the wall tiles of one of the two shower spaces immediately beside his. “You and I have to talk, and I don’t feel like screaming.”


Cooper retrieves his towel and walks the distance.


For not the first time, he’s impressed by Sydney’s physique, tanned, and now made sensuously glossy by soap slick and water. He wonders if his classmate came by his great body naturally, because of good genes, or if he, like Cooper, has had to spend long hours bulking up. Intuition tells him it’s a combination of both.


Cooper hangs his towel, turns on the water, steps into it.


“You ever again hand me a takedown on a silver platter, and I’m going to beat the living crap out of you,” Sydney says. Sounds like he means it. Definitely looks as if he can at least give it a good try. “I don’t need hand-outs to pin your sorry ass to any mat.”


“Actually, I didn’t hand you anything,” Cooper says. He reaches for the soap and begins lathering his tightly muscled chest and belly. “I’ve just been off my regular training regimen, that’s all. Although, I can see where you might think the new kid on the block is out to brown-nose Mr. Popularity in order to gain social acceptance sooner than later.”


“Obviously, you have me confused with my older brother. He’s the one you should be kissing up to if you want quick acceptance around here.”


“Nah, he’s way too unapproachable. Besides, he’s obviously fond of you and includes you in just about everything. Sometimes, it’s just easier for a wannabe to try the backdoor approach.”


Sydney laughs. It’s a nice laugh; low-key and very-very sexy.


“Obviously, you did your homework and know I’m gay,” he says, turning in the spray to face, more directly, his possibly soon-to-be teammate.


“I know you’re gay, and I know you’re the ward of a vampire.” And doesn’t that make Sydney’s attractively square jaw drop just a bit. “And I…” The soapy index finger of Cooper’s right hand reaches out and almost, but not quite, touches down on the deep indent at the base of Sydney’s throat; it slowly air-traces a line down the middle of the young man’s chest to Sydney’s slightly innie navel. “…am a bisexual diviner who divines that you and I are going to become the very best of friends.”









Copyright 2009 W. MALTESE