Immortal Light: Wide Awake (43 page)

Kat told Lucy that her arm muscles and leg
muscles were a little more defined, and Lucy realized she was
benefiting in more than one way from her self-imposed rigorous
workouts.

Lucy had spent every day doing one other
thing. She would go to the hospital and visit her father. It wasn’t
long before she had come to terms with the fact that her father
might never recover from his coma, so she decided to make what she
could of it. In his sleep-like state she would talk to him. She
told him everything about her life and how it had changed. She
talked about Benjamin and her new found prowess with a
sword.

Most importantly, however, she told him that
she would never let her mother’s killer get away with what he had
done. She was training to get revenge on the faceless extractor
that had turned her mother into a helpless captive inside of him.
She was training to kill.

The days had gotten significantly colder. The
Oregon coast was known for brutal winter punishment. The wind was
bitingly harsh and the air was thick and wet. Citizens of Coos Bay
were seen with jackets and windbreakers zipped up around their ears
as they walked around the town. They would tolerate the conditions
even without the satisfaction of snow.

It was those days that Lucy was grateful for
Kat’s parents’ generosity in allowing her a place to live, and
especially Kat’s father’s skills as an attorney in taking care of
the Higgins family estate, free of charge.

After visiting her father on a particularly
damp day, Lucy had picked Kat up from school. She had decided to
take a break from public education and do correspondence home
schooling for the rest of the year. She chalked it up to
bereavement, when in actuality she was getting a completely
different kind of education.

Driving up the hill to the
Raven home, Kat was
jabbering on about how
glad she was that she was free of school for two weeks due to
Christmas break, and could finally spend more time with Lucy. It
was obvious that Kat had taken a serious liking to Jack. She never
forced the subject on Lucy, but it was plain to see where her
affections lay. Benjamin had assured her that Jack didn’t harbor
romantic feelings for Kat, and as long as everything stayed
innocent, Lucy wasn’t going to butt in.

“
So, do you think my folks would
let me stay up here for New Year’s Eve?” The question was a little
absurd to Lucy.

“
You spend most of your time up
here anyway, why would they care on New Year’s Eve?”

“
I don’t know, I was just
wondering if they trust me up here with all these boys late at
night.”

Lucy could see that it wasn’t a question of
Kat’s parents allowing it, she was trying to gauge whether or not
Lucy knew anything about Kat’s chances of getting kissed that
night.

“
I don’t see why they wouldn’t
trust you; your track record is impeccably clean. Besides, it’s not
like you have a boyfriend up here.” Lucy looked sideways at Kat,
hoping to drive home her point.

Kat’s smile turned to a grimace and she stared
out the window as moisture streaked down it. She didn’t say another
word on the subject and Lucy smirked inside, hoping she had thrown
a bit of a curve ball into Kat’s game plan with Jack.

Parked out in front of the house, Kat gathered
her things, still pouting over the conversation. Lucy felt a little
bit of remorse, so as a gesture of peace, she said to Kat,” Look,
he’s like seven years older than you are.”

“
More like two thousand and
seven,” Kat sneered.

“
Right, I mean, it would probably
feel weird to him if you came onto him, being only sixteen, you
know?”

Kat smiled weakly at Lucy. “You’re right, I
guess I was just being silly. C’mon, let’s get inside where it’s
warm.”

The two girls slammed their doors, huddled
inside their jackets, and walked into the house.

All three brothers were standing around the
dining room table and Peter had large rolls of paper under his
arms. As soon as he saw the girls, he left the room and exited out
the back door toward the shop.

“
Is he alright?” Lucy asked as she
hung up her coat.

“
Yeah, he just has lot on his mind
right now,” replied Benjamin.

The two girls sat down on one of the couches
as Benjamin and Jack occupied two adjacent chairs.

Lucy couldn’t stop thinking
about how mysterious Peter was to her. She rarely saw him since
their days building her
haven
. He had barely seemed like the
same person. When she did see him, his conversations were so brief
that she could never figure him out. He was always so nice, but he
didn’t seem as open as his brothers.

“
What is Peter like? I can’t read
him. He’s so much more different than you two.” Lucy’s question was
direct, so Benjamin tried to answer as directly as he
could.

“
His role is very different from
ours,” he indicated between himself and Lucy and Jack. “He has a
special calling that he doesn’t feel ready for.”

“
What is it?” asked Kat, as she
stole a momentary glance at Jack.

“
He’s going to be the high priest
of our people when we get back.” Benjamin said somberly.

“
What does that mean?” Lucy had
heard Benjamin talk of their father as being the high priest and
she remembered something about going through a ‘transfiguration,’
but she still had no idea what any of it meant.

“
That means that
he has very little time to master his control over the
light
. He can do things
with it that we will never be able to do.” The girls were attentive
to every word.

“
When Peter is
ready, and he feels that he is far from being ready
…
”

“
He’s ready now, he just refuses
to believe it,” interjected Jack, quite forcefully.

Benjamin glanced at Jack
before continuing. “When he’s ready, he’ll go through the
transfiguration process that will change him from a weak conductor
of life—like us—to a controller of it. Our father is the current
high priest and he went through the transfiguration before becoming
the high priest.
”

“
What is the transfiguration?”
Lucy softly asked.

“
I’ve never seen it done. But,
according to Peter, who was fifteen and watched as our father went
through the process, it is a brutal and difficult thing to
experience.” Benjamin looked at Jack again who was subtly nodding
with his eyes closed, as if in accord with everything Benjamin was
saying.

“
The candidate
lies on an alter in our central temple that we call
The Tree
. As he enters
his
haven
, the
reigning high priest pierces the candidate’s heart with a knife
made of our purest gold. The candidate then experiences in
his
haven
the
worst parts of his own conscience. His worst fears become tangible
like demons, and he must defeat them.”

“
He has to fight them off?” Kat
asked automatically.

“
Sort of. He has
to defeat them not by killing them with a sword, but by banishing
them from his
haven
. It’s like cleansing his mind of all his own
fears.”

“
What happens if he can’t do it?”
Lucy asked.

“
If he can’t do
it …
”
Benjamin
looked to Jack.

“
If he can’t defeat his fears,
then his fears defeat him and he dies.”

Lucy and Kat shared a look of shock and sorrow
knowing that Peter had to eventually experience the
process.

“
How does Peter prepare for
something like that?” Lucy asked.

“
He spends a lot of time in the
Haven Room,” replied Benjamin.

Lucy thought about her time in the Haven Room.
She replayed the peace she felt in there, how she never wanted to
leave it. Then she thought about Peter sitting in the room
underneath the tree trying to train himself for the task he would
eventually face, and her heart went out to him.

“
He can’t just die. How will he
know he’s ready?”

“
He’s ready, trust me. He was
father’s anchor, he knows what it takes.” Jack blurted out as he
stood up from his chair.

“
What is an anchor?” Lucy
asked.

Jack gestured to Benjamin to explain. “Every
candidate has what’s called an anchor. This is the person that is
the candidate’s only link to the outside world. It is up to the
anchor to remove the golden knife when the transfiguration is
complete.”

“
What happens if the knife isn’t
removed?” blurted Kat, having followed the entire conversation with
rapt attention.

“
Until the knife
is removed, the candidate is unable to come out of his
haven
. If the knife
isn’t pulled within a certain window, the candidate can suffer. But
we don’t really know what that means because no anchor has ever
failed.”

“
But how do they know when to pull
it?” asked Lucy.

“
They have to keep their hand on
the knife the entire time; this could mean days sometimes. When it
is time to pull the knife, they will feel it. But, if the anchor
falls asleep or lets go for some reason, he could miss that window
and the candidate could die.”

“
So Peter pulled the knife for
your father, but how will he know he’s ready for the same thing?”
Lucy asked.

“
Peter is
amazing,” Jack interjected. “I’ve seen him do things that only our
father could do. He can manipulate people’s desires, he can think
more clearly than any of us, and his
Haven
is amazing. It’s not even a
real place and it has more real-life detail than real-life. We
can’t do that.” He waggled his finger between himself and Benjamin.
“We can’t use the
light
like he can. He’s ready, trust
me.”

Jack walked out of the room and headed for the
bookcase that lead to the basement. Kat tracked him as he left.
When she looked to Lucy for permission to follow him, Lucy subtly
shook her head, and Kat just stared in Jack’s direction.

“
He’s fine,” Benjamin said to Kat,
noticing her distress. “He hates it when he thinks someone isn’t
quite reaching their potential.”

Kat simply smiled and tried not to look at the
open door to the basement.

“
So, how does he know when it’s
time?”

“
I don’t know what it’s like, but
Peter will know when he’s ready. There are only two other people
who can know for sure besides Peter; one is the high priest, and
the other is the King, neither of which is here.” Benjamin’s words
struck a new chord with Lucy.

“
What about the King; why aren’t
you looking for a king?”

Benjamin laughed at Lucy’s new train of
thought. “Wow, I have to keep on my toes around you, don’t I?” He
smiled at her as he answered her question. “The prophesy said very
little of a king. We just assume he will be provided the same as
the Queen. All we know is that the Queen will come. The fact is, a
Queen is more important anyway. She is the nurturer.”

Lucy wrinkled her forehead. “I don’t get
it.”

“
I told you before that the King
and Queen are like the parents of our people. The Queen is the
nurturing element that intuitively understands the city. It is
easier for her to lead the people because they are like her
children and she knows what they need and how to get it. The King,
on the other hand, is like a father; he leads by productivity and
delegation. He is responsible for being a provider, a judge, and a
protector. The King is usually responsible for the welfare of the
people and the disciplinary judgments. He instills rules while the
Queen instills values.”

Lucy thought about how everything Benjamin had
said was true for her own parents. Her father set the rules and
enforced them, while her mother made sure Lucy knew how to be the
best kind of person she could be. It made sense to her that while
the city had a steward who could accomplish all of the things the
King could accomplish, the missing element was the nurturing nature
of the Queen.

***

The next morning at eight o’clock Benjamin
drove Lucy straight to the hospital. He didn’t want to leave her
alone for very long for fear she would be found by reapers, so he
made it his habit to drive her, and since Lucy loved his company,
she never objected. He would usually stay in the car or run errands
around town during her visits. He wanted to allow her time alone
with her father. It was James’ birthday and Lucy wanted to spend as
much time with him as possible. She was hoping to be the first
person to visit him but as she walked into his room, she saw that
she was late compared to another friend.

On the wall above his bed was a large,
colorful banner that read “Happy Birthday, James!” Gold and purple
balloons were left in neat clusters in the four corners, and a
life-size Kareem Abdul-Jabbar cut-out stood near the window wearing
a “Happy Birthday” crown. The piece de resistance of the whole room
was a replica of the 1987 Lakers championship banner that Lucy was
certain hadn’t come from a catalog. Knowing Jack, it was the one he
had purchased in 1987.