Lost Seraphine (The Seraphine Trilogy #2) (6 page)

I strain to control the electricity running through me. I dampen the fabric, roll it into a ball and then rush back over to my friend’s side. She’s holding her chest and trying to smile at the same time.

“Where’ve you been all this time?” I ask. All kinds of thoughts race through my head.

“Trying to find a way back to you... and Lelo.” I stop cleaning her body after hearing those words. I don’t like the way her breathing sounds, ragged as though each breath takes a ton of effort. This isn’t the time or place to tell her about her sister’s death.

Her face turns serious. “What is it?”

“We need to get you back to the safe house. Can you walk?”

“Can I walk? I’m not the frilly Princess, Giancarella. That would be you, my beloved royal friend.” Grunting as we shuffle to our feet, Cori lets out a stifled cry as she stands.

“Okay, so the girly princess here is going to have to be the crutch for us both, I think.”

“Looks that way, doesn’t it? Bernael sent me back with a message for the son of the Wanderer,” she says through ragged breaths. “He either gives himself up to the prophecy or suffer whatever crazy thing Bernael’s cooked up in his head.”

My blood turns cold and I’m sure my face matches the way I feel inside. How does Bernael know that Caleb is the Wanderer’s son? I guess the better question should be, why does he even care?

Caleb

In the distance, I can hear House of the Rising Sun. The song has played almost one hundred times since I entered this dream. Two small black scrolls tattoos about the size of a quarter are etched in the skin on the underside of my wrist. I don’t get why these things keep showing up in my dreams now. I’m cool with my new ink, as long as it stays here in la la land.

I’ve gone back to the sea, the area just outside Uncle Mashu’s house, and I’m trying to find Gia.

Walking along the shores, I inhale the strong scent of saltwater, burning my nostrils and even coating my tongue. The waves slam against the shores harder today than the way they usually do. My Uncle’s mansion sized cottage sits on a deserted portion of the beach, not another house in sight for at least a mile or so. The land the house is built on has been passed down through our family, a group of Lumbee Indians. I should be enjoying a day of sun and vibrant green trees and clear blue water that looks as though it jumped straight out of a painting, right?

That’s the problem, though. Everything looks too clear, too crisp, too perfect.

Squinting against the sun’s rays, I keep looking out at the water and scanning the woods off to my right, waiting to find my water angel. This time, another little girl finds me, though. She’s about the same size as Gia, the same height, too, but the lighter brown hair blowing in the wind is where the similarities end.

It’s Erica.

As though she senses me standing there gawking, she spins around, her green-eyed gaze confirming my suspicions. Covering her mouth, she giggles and says, “You and me will become one, underneath the light of the Copper Sun.”

“What are you talking about? That sounds stupid,” eight-year-old me says back to her. Instead of answering me, Erica makes another silly giggle. I’m thinking if she’s going to crash my dreams, then she at least needs to stop laughing at everything. At once, she turns and runs toward the ocean, plunging into the waves before I can get an answer.

A monster of a wave surges high above her head. I cry out to warn her. No luck. Her body has disappeared and another little girl’s body has taken her place. She’s close enough for me to see the once light brown hair that’s now shiny black, glistening against the backdrop of the water.

Gia’s body now bobs up and down inside the tides. She flips over a couple of times, her legs sticking up each time.

Where are her fins? There’s no way she can swim without those.

My heart sinks. I feel so useless. There’s no way I’ll be able to reach her in time. I have to try, though.

I take a couple of steps forward as the wave lifts even higher, covering the sky, filling the entire scene before me with its darkness and blanketing me in shade. I can only glance up and stare at it with my mouth wide open and my body frozen in fear.

The water crashes down over me, shooting me instantly out of the dream. I awaken and sit straight up on the couch.

Drenched in sweat, I focus on the music that’s stuck on one verse. For some reason, my Mp4 player has snagged on this one line:
And it’s been the ruin of many a poor boy; and God I know I’m one.
Freakin’ nuts! Things like that never happen in this day and age of technological wonders. When something odd does happen, I’m usually the lucky guy of the moment, though.

I pick up the player and hit the home button. The song that had peacefully guided me into the land of sleep and fantasy has become a reminder of the nightmare that keeps on changing each time I experience the dream. Figures. There hasn’t been a single easy thing to happen to me in months.

“What the hell are you trying to tell me?” I ask the empty living room. No answer. Instead, I’m sitting in what Mom calls her meditation spot.

I’m surrounded by a set of plush, beige couches Darren bought last month, furniture that makes me paranoid about looking at pizza let alone eating it in our white-washed living room; colors that reflect the exact opposite of the way I’m feeling right now. Adding to the beige couch horror is the super fancy glass coffee and end tables complete with frames made of—you guessed it—glass. Various pictures with the three of us standing inside an amusement park are sitting on the tables, making me ache for a time when life felt more innocent and carefree.

My ultra cool Uncle Mashu has attempted to help ease my time in the new torture chamber by donating genuine Lumbee Indian tapestrie
s—
reflections of our Native American ancestr
y—
to hang on the wall, creating a dash of dark browns and muted reds to break up all the white without looking like a mistake. Maybe in a subconscious sort of way, my stepdad was trying to help Mom forget about the darkness that has entered our lives. Either way, the new setup makes it hard to kick my feet up and watch Naruto with Kyle.

Mom and Darren still haven’t returned from his presentation. They’ve been gone for hours. I mean, how long does it take to present a new fence design? As a city engineer, my stepdad gets projects like these on a regular basis. The kind that eat up all of his life. This one must be intense, though. The approval process has been going on for months now. As usual, he’s used his work as a way to avoid talking to me about our new relationship status.

I won’t lie. It has been hard for us. At the same time, Darren walks around the house smiling more, acting more like a husband and less like a zombie. He even asked when my lacrosse season started.

I scoff as my thoughts drift back to the dream.

These visions, or whatever thing I’m imagining, are getting ridiculously crazy. It freaks me out and I don’t have anyone to talk to about these things. Wait. I can talk to someone, a medicine man and the perfect person to help me also shed some light on what kind of man my real father might’ve been.

It’s one thing to find out your stepdad isn’t your real father. It’s an altogether different game when you learn that the guy who could possibly be part two of the duo that created you might actually be somebody who isn’t cool.

Sitting up, I grab my keys from the table, lift my heavy body up and head toward the front door. Misted rain greets me once I step outside the door. Great. I’ll have an afro by the time I reach my uncle’s place. I hop into my car, rev up the Challenger’s engine a few times, ease out of the driveway and start making my way through the city of New Bern.

March isn’t a particularly touristy time of year, so I take the long way to Uncle M.’s house, passing through one of the oldest parts of the city; the corner of Pollock and Middle streets, where in 1893 a man named Caleb David Bradham invented Pepsi in this section. Yep, I still feel proud that Mom chose my name for that very reason.

Eventually I pass by the Fireman’s Museum, North Carolina’s first charted fire department, and think of the time back in elementary school when Kyle and I had attended a field trip to this place and he wound up wetting his pants because the fireman rushed out of the doors in ski masks like Jason Vorhees. The idea was to entertain the class since it was Halloween, but the plan kinda backfired. Neither the kids nor the teachers found anything funny that day.

I’ll miss my hometown with its rich, colonial history and Greek Revival architecture. A city surrounded by the Neuse and Trent Rivers on one side and the Atlantic ocean on the other. The perfect place to serve as a portal to a city underneath the sea.

The whole atmosphere in New Bern seems changed in some way. It’s hard to put my finger on why that could be. It’s not the sudden burst of storms or the gray skies that never seem to clear up these days, but I do believe I once remember a time when more sunny rays covered our shores. More kids laughed and goofed around in the school’s hallways. More fun things like the skateboard competitions highlighted our days.

Now there’s this strange sense of something weird hanging over our heads. I can’t figure it out; however, I’m afraid it has something to do with me, my real father, my mom and Gia losing part of her powers.

Plus, who can forget the black stuff the geologists find each time a wind storm roughs up our beaches. This is my home, my sweet little town. I’ll do what I can to keep my friends, family and the girl I love safe. That’s kind of a big sounding deal, right?

The drive to Uncle M’s house, though dreary, doesn’t take long. His driveway is empty; the Mercedes he lets me borrow every so often is gone. The rain has stopped, but there’s still a grayness hanging over his crisp white house with the black shutters, a 60-year-old, two-story Greek Revival marvel, recently restored, that serves as a getaway for troubled kids during the summer. I release a long sigh of relief. Explaining to Uncle M about why I decided to come over and take a stroll on the beach isn’t something I want to do.

Mom made the rules clear; no dabbling in the past, no heading out to the ocean and risk getting caught again and most definitely no diving into the water, trying to find hidden worlds under the sea. I make my way to the shores behind the house, the place where I met the Melusine witch months ago, and find my favorite rock to sit on.

I toss a pebble out across the water. It skips across the surface just before the tides swallow it whole.

The last time I came here, Gia and I were reuniting for the first time since she did whatever thing it was she did so she could stay here with me. I’ve caused her so much pain. I don’t even really think I should be allowed to have such a beautiful girlfriend. However she insists on maintaining our relationship, even though she knows there might be consequences neither of us are ready to face.

I’m so caught up in my thoughts, I don’t even hear the footsteps behind me.

“So serious,” the voice says. It’s the sweetest voice, the kind that lifts my spirits even when everything else has failed.

I turn around and find Gia standing behind me. She has changed her clothes and looks like a vision of what she truly is, a girl who has risen from the sea. The long, pale green dress she wears under her leather jacket highlights her dark hair, giving her the glow of a princess; a hint of the things she hides, the part of herself she gave up for me.

“Still picking up on my vibe lines, I see,” I say, feeling awkward.

“You know it... well, not really. I kind of cheated. I texted Kyle. He told me where to find you,” she answers. We both share a nervous laugh.

I move over to where she stands and pull her into my arms. She feels so good. The way I get all screwy in the head when she’s around scares me a tad. Yeah, I’m admitting it.

“I’m sorry I acted like an ass today,” I whisper against her ear.

She pulls back and glances into my face, smiling. “You’re right, though. Mabry needs to accept you as my boyfriend. Maybe I’m the one who should be apologizing.”

I don’t respond with words. Instead, I kiss her; long and hard and yeah, maybe a touch desperate. I never understood the power of making up until now.
Fireworks.
That’s what this kiss feels like. Eventually, we come up for air, our lips bruised.

Fireworks sure do make a lot of smoke.

We lean against each other, our foreheads touching, waiting for the smolder to fade. Our bodies are heated, even with the chill flowing inside the evening air.

Damn, my man. Keep that up and you’ll really make Kyle happy the next time he teases your ass.

“There’s something I...” Gia starts through raspy breaths. I’m not listening and that’s because I’m still waiting for the thud pulsing through my body to ease up a touch. “I need to tell you something.”

“What’s that?”

“The sea witch, the one they call Mel, is alive. She’s working with Bernael.”

The chill hits me like a rock, snuffing out any trace of heat I had left. Yeah, all light shows have to end at some point.

* * *

~Gia~

“Oh snap! Mel’s alive?” Caleb’s face darkens as he glances at me. I can only nod. I’m still stunned by the news myself.

I tell him all about how I found Cori and how she has been a prisoner of Bernael, the Angel of Chaos, the leader of the fallen and the one who’s responsible for all this mess. She had been trembling as we made our way to Mabry’s safe house. As soon as we stepped through the front door, a few of the other kids started asking questions. Ignoring them, I had made our way upstairs and helped Cori clean up, worrying about her silence; a characteristic that’s new for her.

Inside my bedroom, I had helped her shower and untangle her hair and then we both changed into fresh clothes, since mine were soiled as well. She didn’t stay awake for long after that, but she did manage to tell Mabry and me that the Melusine witch, Mel, was helping Bernael and they were planning something terrible.

I leave off the part about how Bernael has somehow found out my real name. Caleb has enough to worry about without me adding on the details of unexpected visitors from the Dark Lands.

“Whoa, Gia. What does that mean exactly?” He pulls me into his arms and I savor every single moment. When the two of us sit together this way, I feel as though we can conquer anything together.

I glance at my feet. I still haven’t told him about what our house leader believes, that Cori’s release only serves some darker purpose, something that involves me. I don’t believe them, though. They tend to lean toward thinking the worst before giving anything good a chance to evolve. I come from a particularly dark-minded clan.