The Legend of the Firewalker (14 page)

“That’s intense,” said Alan.

“The legend goes on to say that after Lucifer and the Angels of Light failed to take over the heavens, they were forgotten and cast into the void,” said Jonathan.

“What’s the void?” asked Alan with a frown.

Jonathan paused and smiled again.

Nathan could tell that he was enjoying all the atte
ntion.

“Most scholars agree that the void was on the surface of the Earth, or the physical plane,” explained Jonathan
, “before the creation of man, before the creation of the sun, water and land.”

Jonathan took another pause and noticed that Lafonda looked annoyed again. “And so, continuing on with the st
ory,” he said, “for thousands of years, the Fallen Ones were banished to the void and toiled in darkness. The story goes on to say that it was there they realized their weakness, because not even with their collected powers could they pierce light into the darkness.”

Samantha gasped and covered her mouth. “They were sentenced to darkness forever?” she asked. “That’s really sad.”

Christina and Eva Marie both let out a huge laugh. “Leave it to Samantha to feel sympathy even for the devil,” grinned Eva Marie.

“It just seems so sad to be in the dark, forever,” S
amantha said, her cheeks turning a bright red. “But I hope they stay there because I’m not like Angela, and I never want to meet them — let alone date them.”

Quickly, Angela sat up straight, and her blond hair bounced readily on her shoulders. “Hey!” she spouted.

Jonathan closed his notepad with a thud. He had a grim look on his face. “We aren’t that lucky,” he said. “See, to their surprise, light eventually did pierce the darkness, and as it says in the legend and in the Bible, they rejoiced and cried out to the heavens.”

Behind his dark-rimmed glasses, Jonathan’s blue eyes grew wide, and his voice became softer. “But they had been replaced,” he said. “To their dismay other heavenly bodies had replaced them, and just as many stars had populated the sky. There was a new creature on the face of the Earth: man. That is, us. See, they are still bound to the void, the same plane we live on,” he explained. “And they are angry b
ecause all of this — the stars, the water, the land — was created for us. According to the legend, man was given dominance over the face of the Earth and, even in our weakness, made lord over all the angels.”

“Ha! I’m sure they were happy about that,” said Alan sarcastically.

“According to the legend,” said Jonathan, his voice returning back to normal, “they vowed to destroy us, to condemn us to the same fate that waited for them.”

“And by the same fate you mean
…” said Nathan.

“Damnation,” said Jonathan.

“This is one cheery story,” said Alan.

“But if we are on the same plane with the fallen a
ngels,” said Lafonda with a curious look on her face, “how come no one ever sees them?”

“According to my research,” Jonathan said, “the C
ahokia Indians believed that Lucifer was given dominion over the underworld, and his brethren, the other fallen angels, were given dominance over the spiritual plane, which is a parallel dimension that coexists with our world.” He paused to reposition his glasses on his sharply angled nose again. “In their mythology, Lucifer is often referred to as the root or source of all evil, and evil is represented by the serpent in the symbol.” 

“It’s just a myth,” blurted Malick. He had a blank, cold look on his face.

Lafonda glowered and placed her arms across her chest. “Jonathan,” she said, while keeping a watchful eye on Malick. “You don’t actually … believe this stuff, right?” 

Malick looked sternly at Lafonda. “Myth,” he groaned.

She turned her head away from him and stared into the fire.

Nathan looked uncomfortable as he looked at Lafonda and then at Malick. Alan sighed while adjusting the gold leadership shirt he’d commandeered from LaDonda, and Erin tossed dirt from her shoes. A shiny purple hairbrush suddenly materialized in Angela’s hand, and Jonathan stu
mbled through pages in his black and green notebook.

“And most excitingly,” said Jonathan, breaking the aw
kward silence, “we have found a new symbol!”

Nathan turned his attention away from Malick and Lafonda and focused on Jonathan again. “A new sy
mbol?” he uttered.

“Yes!” Jonathan said, while holding up another page from his notebook. “It’s another symbol depicting fire, but do you see the difference?”

Nathan leaned forward. His face frowned while staring at Jonathan’s sketch of the symbol. He thought it was peculiar that somehow it looked familiar. “Is that what I think it is?” he asked.

Malick shook his head and placed his hand slightly over his mouth.

“Yes,” replied Jonathan, his blue eyes glowing bright. “It’s a man!”

Lafonda crossed her legs again and leaned forward t
oward the sketch. “What does that mean?” she asked.

Jonathan closed the notebook and smiled. “We aren’t e
xactly sure yet,” he said. “Dr. Helmsley and I just uncovered it yesterday.” He paused to clear his throat. “Since then, I have been poring over all the books and archival documents at the Cahokia Museum and haven’t been able to find that symbol or a reference to it anywhere. Dr. Helmsley believes we’ll be able to determine what it is after we uncover what’s behind the cavern wall.”

Malick had a perplexed look on his face. “Cavern wall?” he asked. “And who is Dr. Helmsley?”

Jonathan’s eyes sparkled. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said excitedly. “I am leaving out the best part!” He leaned over and placed his notebook into his backpack. “I’ve been assisting Dr. Janet Helmsley, a professor of archeology at the university, with the excavation of one of the Cahokia caves,” he said, pointing towards the cliffs overlooking the lake. “I’ve been helping since I first arrived in town.”

He paused, positioning his backpack close to his side. “Dr. Helmsley is also the director of Archeological Stu
dies at the university,” he continued. “I first learned about the new excavation site after reading an article she had published in my dad’s journal.” He smiled, lightly chuckling to himself. “Well, technically it’s not his journal. My dad is the editor of the
Oxford Journal of World Archaeology
.”

With his index finger, he slid his glasses back to the bridge of his nose again. “Dr. Helmsley believes that b
ehind the wall is a hidden chamber that might provide more insight into the tribe’s culture,” he said. “It is truly exciting. We really don’t know what we will find. Dr. Helmsley said that I will definitely share the credit in the discovery and that in itself is amazing — I might even have a byline in the article!”

“That really is great!” Nathan said to Jonathan with a smile. “Umm, congratulations
— with your discovery.” He glanced at Malick and couldn’t help noticing he looked distracted or in deep thought.

“Yeah, congratulations,” added Malick, finally coming back to life. “So, when do you expect to get a peek at what’s behind the wall?”

Jonathan paused for a second and gazed into the fire before speaking. “Well, it probably will be at least a couple weeks,” he said. “I was thinking that Nathan might want to join us when we first enter the hidden chamber.”

Angela stopped grooming her curly blond hair and passed her hairbrush to Alan. “Now, that is even more exciting,” she said. “Let’s all go!”

Alan glared at the shiny purple hairbrush in his hand and placed it in Angela’s lap. “I am not holding your hairbrush for you,” he said, rolling his eyes. “And why on earth would I want to go inside some grubby cave?”

“Come on, Alan!” she whined, tossing her hair. “It could be fun. Where is your
smell of adventure? Your taste for history?”

“Yeah,” commented Erin. “Lord knows nothing exci
ting ever happens around here.”

Lafonda laughed. “Your
smell
of adventure?” she asked teasingly. “Your taste for history? Where did you get those from, Angela?”

Alan looked anxious and crossed his arms. “Whatever,” he said flippantly. “I’m not going.”

Angela gave Alan a devious grin and then smiled happily. 

“Whatever, Angela,” he protested. “You are not going to convince me.”

Abruptly, Erin sat up straight and glared at Jonathan. “So, a few weeks?” she said. “Does this mean we can expect more unexplained disappearances and more tardiness from a distracted Jonathan Black?”

Everyone laughed.

Jonathan’s cheeks became flushed and almost matched the redness in his eyes. “Sorry,” he said, sounding embarrassed. “I promise to work on my communication. It’s just that I get so excited. But this is not an excuse.”

Erin grinned. “It’s cool, Mr. Indiana Jones,” she said. “Just don’t forget us little guys when you become famous for all your discoveries.”

He smiled. “Thanks,” he said.

“But hold on,” cautioned Erin. “We still are going to talk later about some things.”

“Understood,” nodded Jonathan with a smile.

Angela cleared her throat. Her eyes were brighter, and her voice was bubbly. “Hey,” she said. “Have you tried r
esearching on the Internet, you know, for that symbol?”

Jonathan stared blankly at her, and Alan tried to hold back his laughter.  

“What?” she asked with a shrug. “It’s worth a try.”

9

PREMONITION

Nathan opened up his eyes slowly as they adjusted to the darkness. He had a view of what appeared to be the night sky. His head was cloudy and he was a little confused. He continued to blink while his mind tried to focus. He could clearly see what looked like the stars and the moon, but they were a lot more vivid than usual. They appeared almost animated. The stars and the moon appeared to flicker playfully with one another.

“Am I dreaming?” he asked himself

His thoughts were coming together now, and he was becoming aware of his body. He could tell that he was lying on his back but on an unfamiliar surface. There were little prickles of something underneath him. He stretched out both his hands to sit up and immediately noticed something bendable and soft pass through his fingers. It almost felt like plastic.

Nathan looked down to examine what was between his fingers and paused before looking all around him. “Where the heck am I?” he wondered. “This can’t be grass.” He was sitting in an open field that was surroun
ded by small and large trees. There was a stone road to the left of him that ran alongside a series of small hills. 

Nathan blinked his eyes several times and held his hand to his head. “I might need to be on medication, or something. Or maybe I already am on drugs. Because everything is gray. There is no color.”

He looked down at his hands again and then at his clothes.
Whew,
he thought.
I can see the color in my skin and in my clothes. For a second I thought I was going colorblind.

He hoped one of the campers hadn’t put something in his drink. “This is not funny. It’d better not be Jonas,” he said to himself.

Nathan turned his attention again to the gray-looking grass that was all around him.
It’s like — frozen
, he thought.
And it feels weird — like plastic.

He stood up and continued to look around him. The trees were motionless, and the air was humid and sta
gnant — no breeze, no sign of animals or people, and no sound.

He quickly clapped his hands together to test his theory and was relieved to hear the sound they made as it echoed back at him. He was caught off guard when a small branch beneath his foot snapped with no sound.

Cautiously, he picked up the branch and examined it. Next, he picked up a rock from the stone road and tossed it, but again there was no sound. “This is definitely strange,” he murmured. He was relieved that he could hear himself. “Everything but me seems frozen, lifeless, muted.” 

Nathan glanced up at what he thought was the night sky and was amazed at how brilliantly the stars and the moon shone, considering that his entire view, apart from himself, seemed shrouded in gray.   

He crossed over the stone pathway and climbed up one of the larger-sized hills. Almost at the top, he froze. A cold shiver ran down his back. The silence that gripped the entire area was abruptly broken. The sound was all too familiar to him — everything was, the sky and the lifeless trees.

He heard the sound again;
this time it lingered amongst the trees. “Somehow I know I’ve been here before,” he mumbled to himself. “And that was definitely a scream, and I am pretty sure it was Leah’s.”  

Everything flooded Nathan’s mind at once: his dreams about Leah, her face as she fought in desperation against an unknown attacker, the speckles of blood on her pale skin, and the scratches on her arms and legs. 

Nathan’s heart pounded against his chest. He was definitely frightened for Leah as he had always been, but this time it was different. This time, he actually felt like he was there. He wasn’t a spectator watching everything unfold; and this time, dream or not, he planned to do something about it.

In a matter of seconds, Nathan was down the hill. Frant
ically, he headed in the direction of Leah’s screams. If it weren’t for the sudden tingling in his hands, he probably would have kept running recklessly towards the screams. 

“Okay Nathan, calm down and think. If this is like all the other dreams, then Leah is in trouble and she is being a
ttacked.”

His hands felt warm, like they had at Lafonda’s birt
hday party. He looked down and saw that they were red. He clenched them into fists. “I don’t have time to think about my hands right now!”

Cautiously, he continued down the stone pathway.
I need a plan
, he thought.
I need to find something to fight with.
He thought about stopping to look for something, but every time he did so, his stomach twisted in knots. He couldn’t bear the thought of wasting time to look for something when Leah’s life was in danger. 

He considered going back and picking up a tree branch he saw along the way, but he came across a large oak tree at the end of the pathway. “I’ve seen this tree before,” he said to himself.

His eyes quickly caught the first line of the all-too-familiar words carved at the base of the tree. “De mortuis nil nisi bonum,” said Nathan. “Speak no ill of the dead.”

Just about everyone in town knew the saying because it was carved in the large tree that stood right outside Grimm Cemetery. “I must’ve awoken in Lynn Field. But how in the world did I get there?”

He rubbed his head and stared again at the familiar words, trying to make out the second line, but he couldn’t because someone had scratched through them. No one in town could make out the second line either, and no one knew who had scratched it.

Nathan looked up and then back at the big oak tree. He caught a glimpse of the glaring moon before it disa
ppeared behind a wisp of gray clouds. “How could this be? Besides my funky gray vision and the psychedelic sky, everything seems so real.” He glanced up at the gray branches and leaves of the big oak tree and shook his head. “This has to be a dream.”

He froze. A cold shiver ran down his back again and a
nother scream filled the air.
Yeah
, he thought,
and Leah is supposed to be in a mental hospital right now. And yet, here I am, running towards her outside of Grimm Cemetery.

He made his hands into fists again, but they trembled u
ncontrollably and felt like they were on fire. “Dream or not, I have to save Leah,” he said.

Grimm Cemetery looked the same as it always had. The only noticeable difference was that everything had a grayish hue to it. It was almost like looking at a black and white ph
oto. Nathan approached the stone-and-iron fence to the cemetery and paused. He was surprised that even the plants that wrapped themselves around the black iron gate were gray.

The gate was supported by two stone columns, one on e
ither side. Carved in the stone of one column were the words Grimm, and on the other Cemetery. Nathan was familiar with the urban legend surrounding Grimm Cemetery, but he regarded it as such and didn’t want to waste time even thinking about it. He wanted his thoughts focused on finding Leah. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I have no idea what’s waiting for me in there,” he said to himself.

A leaf from one of the plants wrapped around the gate grazed him across the neck, causing him to spin around quickly. Startled, he tripped over a loose stone and flew headfirst into the gate. The gate swung violently open and slammed into one of the stone pillars.

Nathan wiped his brow. “Whew,” he said. He was relieved that the absence of sound also applied to the iron gate. “This lack of sound may actually work to my advantage.”

The plot of land that was Grimm Cemetery gradually el
evated up three levels. As soon as Nathan entered the gates, he saw the top of the large obelisk towering on the third level. He quickly darted past the rows and rows of battered, old headstone crosses and hid behind some of the taller gravestones and monuments scattered here and there. Carefully, he made his way to the stone steps that were at the end of the pathway. His heart pounded so loudly against his chest that he swore it was probably the only sound that could be heard for miles.

The stone steps, like the stones that made up the iron black gate, were badly weathered. Pieces of stone cru
mbled beneath his feet with each step he took. Before he reached the top, he paused. He could hear the sound of voices a little ways off in the distance. It almost sounded like someone was conducting a ritual or chanting. Nathan continued carefully up the stone steps to the second level. He could now see the array of mausoleums that decorated the landscape. He had never ventured this far into the cemetery before and in the past had only visited the cemetery to play games of chicken with friends. 

As he had on the first level, he cautiously made his way to the stone steps at the end of the pathway. Nathan co
mpared the many mausoleums to the cemeteries of New Orleans. He had visited New Orleans once with LaDonda and Lafonda during one of LaDonda’s trips to visit family. Just like in New Orleans, it truly had looked like a city of the dead.

Slowly, Nathan approached the stone steps that led up to the third level. The voices grew louder and he could definit
ely tell there were multiple voices. It sounded like chanting, but Nathan couldn’t decipher what it was. He strained his ears to hear more, wondering what language it was. It sounded like Latin.

At the foot of the stone steps to the third level, he was close enough to see much of the tall white obelisk that stood at the center of what looked like a memorial plaza. He crept up the steps, trying to catch a glimpse of who was doing the chanting.

There was the faint sound of crying beneath the chanting voices and someone whispered softly, almost peacefully. He dared to inch a little closer to the top, and that’s when he saw them: three hooded figures dressed in long red cloaks.

Quickly, he took a step back and crouched down again, his heart beating frantically against his chest. “What the frig is going on?” he murmured.

He inched up again to take another look.
They’re not shrouded in gray,
he thought.
They’re in color!
He paused to wipe the sweat from his brow. “It looks like they’re performing a ritual. But for what?”

The red-hooded figures stood with their backs towards him, their hands stretched out in the air. It looked like they were praying or worshipping something. Around each fi
gure’s waist was a decorative gold, tasseled rope that hung from their hips and stretched out to the ground. 

Nathan followed the trail of gold with his eyes. The gold tasseled rope shone against the deep-red cloaks. “What’s that on the ground?” he wondered, while strai
ning his eyes to see.

He gasped. At the foot of each hooded figure lay se
veral bodies strewn across the brick-and-mortar floor.

A sick feeling gripped his stomach. So far he had gone unnoticed and didn’t want to chance being seen, but he had to see their faces. Nathan swallowed hard and then dared an inch closer. “Leah!” he gasped.

He clenched his fists again. “What are they doing to her?” he muttered. “And the others — who are the others?”

Nathan looked on as Leah continued to lie on her back. It looked like she was saying something to the pe
rson lying right next to her. Her pale face somehow looked peaceful, but her clothes were worn and tattered. Blood stained her white shirt, and strands of brown hair lay strewn across her face. Slowly, she reached out for the hand of the other person.

Nathan gasped again, this time almost losing his ba
lance. “Jonas!” he said softly through clenched teeth. “B-but how?” It felt as if his entire body was trembling. “How did they get Jonas, and what do they want with him or with Leah?”

Suddenly, Nathan’s thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of laughter and giggles. He thought the voice was familiar; it was definitely a female voice. He looked t
owards the center of the plaza and that’s when he saw her, standing near the tall white obelisk.

Her back was towards him so he couldn’t see her face. Her long white dress floated seamlessly as she laughed in the arms of a tall, red-hooded figure. Slowly, her fingertips traced her partner’s face, causing her sleeves to hang del
icately off her arms.

Nathan noticed that this figure’s red cloak and hood seemed different from the others’. The tall man’s cloak was intricately ornamented in gold, and the silver rope and gold tassel that hung from his waist were thicker and longer. His skin was luminous, like the long strands of white-blond hair that hung from underneath his hood and down to the crest of his cloak. Abruptly, the woman stopped caressing his chi
seled chin, and he released her. Nathan watched as he seemed to vanish right through one of the tall white archways surrounding the plaza.   

The woman dressed in white gracefully walked past the bodies lying on the ground.

Nathan’s eyes followed her closely. “What is she up to?” he murmured.

The woman seemed to glide across the floor, the long train to her dress flowing behind her. At each archway she passed, she nodded. There were more hooded figures, but they were dressed in black, not in red. There was a black-hooded figure in the shadows of each archway. The dark-hooded figures blended in with the shadows so well that N
athan almost didn’t see them.