Burden of the Soul

11.

I heard the high pitch beeping and the click of the front door, but it was Dad’s sudden movement up from the couch that threw my eyes open to catch myself before falling over. The TV was still on and the clock said it was a bit after midnight.

I heard the beeping come to a stop and I headed to the hallway, but Dad’s arm caught mine and pulled my body back behind his. He held me there, blocking my view. I had to extend my neck to its limit just to catch a glimpse of Aunt Grace as she rounded into the kitchen.

His body relaxed a bit when he saw her.

“So,” he said. “What’s going on?”

“She’s filled you in about the turn today has taken,” she said, twirling an end of her colorful scarf around her neck until it was free of her.

Underneath, the light over the kitchen table bounced off a champagne-colored chain around her neck that hung low under the neckline of her t-shirt.

Dad let go of my arm and took a few steps toward Aunt Grace, his arms crossed over his chest. “What did they say?”

With one hand, she pulled up on the chain, lifted it over her head and held it out straight in front of her.

“They say… Happy Birthday, Clara.” She dangled the key out for me to take.

I took a step forward confused, yet moved. The thought of wearing something that had known the warmth of my mother’s skin made my heart leap, as if shared knowledge between me and the charm could bring me closer to her.

Dad took a giant stride ahead of me and brought his hand down on Aunt Grace’s wrist, pushing it down to below her waist. The key bounced with a snap at the sudden drop.

“Absolutely not, Grace,” he said. “She’s too young. We all agreed not until she’s older.”

His voice echoed throughout the first floor with force, startling me out of my warm nostalgia and resigning me to the confusion, questions stockpiling in my mind.

“Chris, we know what we had agreed to, but things have changed drastically. She needs to be equipped and she needs to be moved. We don’t have time for you to fight us on this.”

“Like hell you don’t have time. You’re going to make the time, Grace.” He was leaning into her with his whole body, forcing her to take a step back simply to keep her nose from rubbing against his chest.

“I played along last time, and I moved to the location you all wanted even though I wanted to get her as far away from this place as possible. And now this guy is getting to her through her dreams? As if moving is going to stop him.” His volume was growing and his words were hard and fast, as if rooted deep within the earth, unshakable.

“Moving to another house is not going to get him out of her head, so tell me what you are going to do to keep my daughter safe.” The force of his voice rattled dishes in the cupboards. I turned my head down instinctually, a bit frightened. But Grace stood straight, unmoved.

“I know, Chris. We’re not sure how he did this, but we have an idea of how to…”

“You all and your brilliant ideas—your brilliant diversions. Well they obviously aren’t working so this time I get to call the shots.”

The air was thick as they stared each other down. Then came a gentle tap on the door, a staccato rhythm… Shave and a Haircut? Seemed a bit whimsical given the tension in the room.

Aunt Grace turned and took off down the hall to the door, opening it slightly. Under the pool of yellow light on the front porch I could barely make out the crop of red hanging over a black leather shoulder.

“He’ll be here with the car in ten minutes, Grace.” The voice was sweet and just above a whisper, not at all threatening or intimidating, a deep juxtaposition against my preconceived notions of security detail.

“Thanks, Liv,” Grace said with a nod, clicking the door shut before the words were beyond her lips. She flipped her right hand, coiled in a fist around the key she had held out to me a moment ago, and checked the time on her watch. She turned back to Dad and their conversation.

“We thought it best to stay near the Reservoir to keep her near the concentrated security force. You can’t blame us for not realizing they would track her through her own mind. And with all due respect, Chris, I am not obligated to give you information like that. Consider it a courtesy.”

I saw the length of his spine stiffen at her words.

“Excuse me?”

Her resolve was set. Few times in my life I had witnessed Grace morph from my hysterical and sarcastic aunt to a pinnacle of strength. Dad towered over her physically by at least a foot, but in moments like this when she centered herself and focused what strength she had on the given moment her presence filled the room and inspired me to back off.

“You will do as we instruct or we’ll be forced to take Clara,” she said.

He approached her slowly. They were two unmovable forces about to collide, opposing resolves charging the space between them.

He spoke quietly.

“You are out of your mind if you think I would ever allow you to take her.”

“Then don’t force our hand, Chris. It’s not up to you to allow or not allow. We will do what’s necessary.”

“I need someone to tell me what’s going on.” My eyes panned from her face, down to the key hanging from her wrist, and back up to her face pleading with her.

“I will, Clara. I promise, but in the car. Right now you have to grab only what you need.”

“Absolutely not,” Dad said, his voice booming in the space again. He stepped between Grace and I with his right arm propped on the wooden rail that ran up the length of the stairs. “I’m not leaving here until you tell me exactly what’s going on.”

“Fine,” she said, skipping up the first few steps to the second floor. “You can stay, but Clara is coming with me.”

“Like hell she is.” He was really angry now, but his voice sounded a bit desperate and scorned. He followed her up the stairs shifting his approach from fury to frenzy, the words pouring out.

“Grace, you can’t take her away from me. She’s still my daughter, she’s all I have left.”

The intimidation that was present in her face and stance just a moment ago had faded away and the woman staring at my Dad resembled the aunt I knew.

“Then come along,” she said with a shrug.

When he didn’t move, she softened even more and took a few steps closer to him. “She’s my niece, Chris. There is no one in this world I love the way I love her. But none of that matters right now. The fact that she’s my niece can’t matter. The fact that she’s your daughter can’t matter. From now on she’s the only weapon we have and needs to be hidden. For all we know they could be using the dreams to track her. They could be here now looking for her. They could already know where she is.”

She took a step down to him as his right arm went back to the rail to support his body. His shoulders rolled forward and his head drooped down. She reached out and rested her hand on top of his on the railing.

“This is difficult for me too,” she said, her voice shaking. “But we have a responsibility. We’re Guardians before we’re an aunt or father.”

I couldn’t help but roll my head with utter frustration. “Well, I’m glad we cleared that up,” I said, the sarcasm rolling off each word loosely. “Cause if that’s the case, you’re both fired.”

I turned and started heading back to the first floor hard set in my decision that I wasn’t going anywhere tonight, or any day after until I was brought fully up to speed.

Her protests from behind didn’t stop me, but the low rumble under my feet did. The sudden shaking threw me off kilter. I caught myself by the handrail before falling down the remaining steps. The noise and motion jolted all of us. For a moment, we were silent.

“What was that?” I heard Dad ask.

Again, I felt the innards of the building, as if straight up from the very foundation, quake with hunger. It was all so familiar and locked all of my joints in terror. My veins froze over with fear and I could feel my jaw shaking as I tried to mouth the words, to warn them.

It was coming back.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Grace pass Dad on the stairs and come closer to me, her hand never leaving the rail.

“Clara, what’s going on?”

Slowly, I turned my head to her and took control of my jaw forcing out the single word, “Run.”

As if the word set it off, the entire atrium began shaking with angry tremors seeping up the walls, throwing us back and forth, bringing us to our knees on the stairs to keep from falling. I could feel Grace’s hand on my back, clenching the collar of my shirt and pulling me toward her. I let go of the railing with my left hand and hooked my arm around her bent knee to try and pull myself up. Each movement took extreme effort, like bending a frozen tree limb hoping it wouldn’t snap.

The trembling of the building was loud, blasting with the scratching of metal on metal and the cracking of wood giving way under massive pressure. Framed pictures on the wall fell from their place, crashing on the stairs behind us and on the floor in the foyer. The cream colored fabric on either side of the door swayed with a ripple down its full length.

Grace let her other arm fall from the railing and reach down, grabbing under my right arm as Dad made his way directly behind her on the stairs in a seated position reaching down for both of us.

Then, it stopped. Our motions jolted the three of us up a step without any force to work against. I was practically on Grace’s lap, her arms wrapped around me while Dad took the opportunity to slide down next to me, reaching his hands to either side of my face, turning me to him.

“Clara, are you okay? Are you hurt?” His eyes were wide with his own fear and concern.

Even the air around us was still. I couldn’t feel the brush of his breath against my face as he said the words. It was as if the atmosphere had taken a liquid form and a thick mist pushing against each motion, no matter how small, enveloped us all. I blinked twice and could feel the added force it took.

I couldn’t waste any time. “We have to go. We have to go now.”

I was yelling and pushing at them, trying to force both of their bodies up from the stairs. It felt as if the force was below us, about to break through the floor or right under our feet. We had to move.

And then, CRACK. All of our heads snapped to where the sound was coming from on the first floor. There was a crack in the hardwood floor, intersecting the layout of each board like a jagged scar.

I couldn’t feel my feet. Every muscle in my body contracted at the sound and refused to relax or budge from my twisted pose on top of Grace. Gently, she pulled me off her and stood up pushing me behind. Dad followed, his shoulders stretched out broadly forming a barrier with Grace between the crack and I.

“Grace?” He didn’t even turn to look at her when he said it. He kept his eyes on the fresh mark in the foyer. Without responding she lowered her right foot to the next step, but it jolted back up at the sound of another CRACK.

The scar in the floor became an open wound, and through the spaces between their splayed legs I could see rays of yellow light shoot up from the floor. Like a spotlight pointed up to the sky, the ray shot up through the atrium in a straight line, disappearing into the darkness of the third floor.

All three of our heads followed the bright trail upwards and watched as a thin, white mist dripped down the beam on all sides in rolling streams, gaining speed as they went. This I hadn’t recognized from the time before, and it brought me to my feet. I watched the stunning streams encircle the light as they fell, merging with one another, twisting and bending down to the floor below.

Both Grace and Dad’s heads tilted downward following the trail of the mist as it slid to the floor below us. Their positions stiffened as the mist coiled into two streams flowing across the floor—one winding under the front door and the other swerving toward the kitchen, its destined path hidden from view.

And then CRACK, CRACK, CRACK—the noise was deafening as a blinding brightness took over the space in the foyer and started creeping up the first few steps in our direction.

“Clara, run!” Aunt Grace yelled as she turned and lunged up the stairs. Dad was just behind her, his body turned out toward the foyer keeping his eyes on the expanding light exploding from the floor. I lost my footing as I turned and fell, splicing my knee on the edge of the stair ahead of me. I felt Grace’s hands under my arms as she lifted and flung me forward, grunting with the force behind the motion.

I stumbled up to the second floor landing, not knowing where to run from there, my mind completely frozen as the illumination spread deeper throughout the shadows. The light was thick, solid. It seemed to consume the material in front of it chewing at the walls and the floor, swallowing everything inch by inch into its ravenous belly. The light swirled like a smoke around the edges, curved and seductive with shimmery glints like a liquid light pouring up into the atrium.

Dad was jumping backwards up the stairs, his arms spread out as a barrier to the path that led to Aunt Grace and myself.

“Dad!” I was panicked and my heart felt like it was lurching out of my chest to him, begging me to go back and pull him away from the light.

“Clara, keep going.” His voice was deep and cut through the ear-piercing sounds. “Do not stop.”

Aunt Grace was at me again, pushing against me with the weight of her body as I tried to head back to Dad. Her hands were on my shoulders thrusting at me, turning the direction of my body to the flight of stairs that wrapped around the edges of the atrium to the third floor.

“Clara, move.” She was yelling in my face.

The clamor of noise flexed and blocked out all other sound. I could see her mouth moving, forming words that I couldn’t hear over the cacophony of shrieking, as if the house itself was crying out in pain as the light tore through its remains, moving with a sickening speed that sent Dad sprinting up the stairs. I let my body give in to the weight of Grace’s, turned and took off running knowing now that my Dad and Aunt were right behind.

As I followed the stairs’ curve, I could see Dad’s dark figure, silhouetted by the liquid flames gaining on him, licking his heels. It wrapped around his dark figure on either side and pulled him back into nothingness. He was gone.

I felt the scream pierce through my chest, felt the vibrations in my throat, but could not hear my own voice within the vacuum. My body stopped to go back to him, to pull him from the clenches of the abyss, but Grace’s body barreled into mine and threw me forward with incredible force. God, she was strong.

I took off at full speed, tears biting at the back of my eyes unable to will my body to do as I wished—to go back to the light to retrieve my father or be taken with him. I was Aunt Grace’s puppet, moving my legs and pumping my arms as she willed me to do, rounding the stairs to the third floor landing. I risked turning my head to catch a glimpse of her, a few stairs behind me clawing her way around the atrium’s edges, stairs falling away just feet behind her. Her arms and legs pumped with incredible force, but the light was gaining.

Her right hand was closed in a fist and the light gold chain jumped violently with her every motion. It shined brighter than ever before, the pearlescent brightness of the flames illuminating it from every angle.

I threw myself up the last few steps and onto the third floor landing, sliding back to the opposite wall. I kicked my legs out in front of me, pushing me back against the wall and watched as Aunt Grace’s body came into view over the horizon of the floorboards.

She raced up the stairs, first her head in view and then her shoulders, her chest, her waist. Behind her, a wall of light rose ripping at the walls, like a winding tower following our path through the atrium.

Her right arm pulled back in a pitch and lunged forward as her body flew into the air just feet from me, her mouth opened with a silent scream. Her eyes sang terror and determination in perfect harmony. I watched as the key flew out of her hand, the chain floating behind it like a tail following a comet. It hit the wall next to my head without a sound and fell lifeless to the floor.

Her arms were stretched out to brace her fall, but it never came. The curling tower of light surrounded her on all sides and finally took her, catching her before she ever felt the sting of impact. It catapulted itself forward as it pulled her back into its depths and continued coiling upward. I flinched and covered my face as its turn wrapped toward me. I pulled my knees in and fell to my side, anticipating death.

But nothing came. The shrill sounds of destruction and chaos died down to a murmur, my ears left ringing in the clearness. It lowered to a gentle hum and I could hear the sound of my own breathing, heavy gasps with chokes accompanying each tear that burned paths into my skin.

I loosened my eyes a bit, allowing them to open just a sliver. There it was, gracefully swirling into a slender peak stretching to the stained glass skylight at the ceiling. Never peeling my eyes away from the luminous helix that pulsated as if breathing in front of me, I let my right hand slide down my bent leg, over my thigh and then ankle to feel around for the key now two of my loved ones went to such great lengths to save.

The tips of my fingers nudged it. Quickly, I wrapped the chain around my wrist until the remaining loop scratched at my skin. My knees came to life hoisting me up, my back still pressed against the wall. My eyes were wide now and unable to blink. Shaking, my hand reached out in front of me, one finger stretched out to tap the surface of the glimmering mass.

Just under its surface, I could see fluid like swirls cascading, reflecting bright golds, blues, pinks, silvers… gem-colored waves molding into one another. With one shaking finger I reached forward to touch it. In streams, the colors started climbing over one another to the exact point my finger was approaching as if to connect.

Just as the pad of my forefinger was about to meet with the light’s surface it recoiled, pulling shyly away. It turned a pale shade of pink, as if blushing. Slowly, it curled around my outstretched hand, peering around the curve of my thumb and dipping between my fingers, but never once brushed against me.

I didn’t dare move, allowing the mass to curl around and begin up my arm. My chest rose and fell quickly then, with shorter spurts as my jaw clenched preparing again for some sort of sting or burn. But under the light’s gaze, my left hand and arm began to relax, as if dipped into warm bathwater.

The contrast between my relaxed arm and tensed body frightened me, and I pulled my arm back with a jerk, inspiring the light to do the same. It quivered and jumped back from me, pausing for a moment in a flush of silver. And then a whistling sound like air being sucked through a massive straw echoed and the spring of light quickly backtracked. It was being pulled back into the depths, stairs and patches of walls popping back into place as it retreated.

“No!” I launched myself off the wall and took to the stairs chasing it. I leapt down multiple stairs at a time, trying to reach it, but it doubling its pace with each inch I gained.

The sucking sound turned to a high-pitched wheezing as I rounded the second floor and took to the stairs again. I was coming closer to the source and it sounded as if our home was gasping for its last breath, pulling the light back in. Steps continued to materialize under my feet as I kept running.

Walls righted themselves and picture frames that had crashed to the floor and shattered pieced themselves back together in a whirlwind, and sailed to their original places on the walls.

With only steps to go, the last mass of light fell through the floor and the open wound began closing back into the jagged scar with only a few stray beams escaping.

“Wait!” I followed the word through the air as I flew over the last steps and landed with a thud on top of the disappearing tear. My knee screamed with the new pain after once again slamming it.

“Please, no. Please.” I was weeping the words through gasps for air. I could barely see the rip in the wood now, not only because of its rapid healing, but also due to the well of tears that had exploded in my eyes blurring my vision into flatness.

My fingers ripped at the floor, trying to find some grip to wrench the tear back open and throw myself into the light. I no longer feared the light, not nearly as much as I feared the emptiness that waited for me.

“Just take me.” I didn’t recognize my voice under the hoarseness—my grief running ragged sandpaper over my vocal chords, ripping at my insides leaving me unrecognizable. “Come on!”

But then it was gone. My hands slapped and slid against the smooth surface of polished wood, but the gentle hum of whistling remained. There was a hole left in the continued to pull at the trails of translucent mist that had rolled down the beams of light and traveled out the front and to the back of the house.

My hands stopped and supported my weight as I lifted my head to the front door and saw the stream of mist pulling back. I sat back on my ankles and turned to see its identical twin retreating from the kitchen.

I reached my hand out to touch it, but it bent around my hand. The farther I reached the farther it bent to stay outside of my grasp. Frustrated, I jumped to my feet and tried stepping on the thin strand. Quickly, it altered its path and sped up its pace, falling back into the floor until finally the last tip of mist disappeared into the ground. I bent back down running my hand over the spot in the wood where it recoiled, but felt nothing out of the ordinary.

My mind struggled to pull itself from the thick mud of shock. It thrashed out of its frozen state and started reeling with anger, mourning and loss. The house was silent except for the sound of the television. Studio audience laughter trickled into the foyer from the family room.

The last few minutes played out in my mind, jumping over the part with unexplainable light monsters swallowing the only two remaining family members in my life and going straight to the time the three of us stood together in this same space. The words that bounced between them hadn’t made sense then, but I listened carefully keeping a mental list of the questions I had. I hadn’t been able to get my answers. Time was taken away from me.

Time.

The car.

The car was arriving any minute. I didn’t know who was driving the car or where the car would try to take me. Grace had never gotten so far in explaining that much. And the Reservoir—they had mentioned the Reservoir multiple times and my memory ticked back to the look on my mother’s face as she looked out over the caged water at the heart of Central Park. I had no idea what part it played in all of this, but it seemed important to both Grace and Dad. Even to Mom at the time.

Anger boiled up inside of me—anger at all of them for their secrets. For having forced me into the role of stranger within my own family. For being left behind. I had trusted them and had kept my mouth shut for a year out of fear of bringing back some old pain with a fresh ache. At that moment, all trust I ever felt for them and for their judgment disintegrated.

I took to the front door and yanked it open, ignoring the beeping that followed. The door slammed behind me and I gasped at the sight of the frozen body, stiff as a plank, stretched out on our stoop. Aunt Grace had called her Liv, and there she lay rigid propped against the steps, her eyes frozen wide open.

Across the street I could see the outline of a newspaper cast by the pool of light from a nearby street lamp. He too lay completely frozen and stunned, arms flat against his sides and legs pressed together. From where I stood, I could barely make out the whites of his eyes, but there they were without a blink or twitch.

I turned back to Liv thinking of the young man and old woman who were probably sprawled out in a similar fashion in our back garden. I reached my hand down to her, bending my knees to steady myself. The skin of her arm didn’t give underneath the pressure of my touch. I poked again, hard this time, but she remained still.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her right hand come to life stretching in a claw-like motion. It bent and flexed, building with each labored turn of her wrist.

I shot down the steps. By the looks of it she was alive, or coming back to life at least, and that was enough for me. She and the others were someone else’s problem.

Without understanding why, I bolted myself in the direction of the park despite the warnings I had received so many times from adults to stay away at night. I needed answers and I needed to find my family, and something inside me pointed to the park. I didn’t bother slowing my pace once I hit Central Park West as a black town car took the corner, passing me. I sprinted across the four-lane street and kept up my speed over the uneven brick path.

At the first opening in the wall, I made a sharp turn and shot down the narrow dirt path twisting into the darkness. For a moment I thought I heard someone yell my name. I kept running, pushing farther now and ignoring it. My arms pumped at my sides and my right knee was throbbing as blood pumped into the point of impact. It ached and burned, but I ran through the pain.

“Clara!” It was clear now, I could hear the voice and it was gaining on me.

I crossed the road and sprang back onto a dirt path into the shadows of the park. I was panting hard now, the cool air burning the inside of my chest with each drag.

“Clara, wait!”

The voice sounded a bit familiar, but I couldn’t trust it. The shadows of the park felt comforting as they rolled past, as if the playing field was finally leveled. I no longer was the only player left blind.

Through the trees on my left I could make out hints of light. The Resevoir. I bolted through the trees and brush, pulling my hands up to my face as the branches slapped at me. I came out on the other side and saw the Reservoir, ripples highlighted by the moonlight brushing across the water’s surface. I hoisted myself up the fence trying to use what little strength I had left to pull the weight of my body up and over the steel posts.

I heard the crackling of someone behind me making his way through the trees. At that, I made one concentrated effort to swing my leg up and over the top rail.

“Clara, don’t!” Someone pulled me back to the ground and held me there with their arms wrapped tightly around my waist. “Are you out of your mind? What’s the matter with you?”

I was kicking my legs trying to free myself and pulling at the hands pressing in on my belly button.

“Let go! Get off me!”

My right leg hooked back around my attacker’s knee and kicked it in, making them tumble to the ground on their back under my weight, but the hands never came unlocked.

“Dammit, Clara. That hurt!” I leapt out of his grasp and put a safe distance between us before turning. It was Dave. He was twisting his leg out from under himself and trying to straighten out his knee.

“Oh God, I’m sorry. I didn’t know who you were,” I said, but then skepticism took over. “Why were you attacking me?”

“Attacking you? I was saving you.” He was on his feet now motioning with his arm at the spot on the fence that I had tried to climb. “Going for a midnight swim, were you?”

His tone was a bit more playful now, but still disapproving. My shoulders softened at the sound of his taunting. The moonlight hitting the side of his face emphasized his smirk. For a moment I forgot why I was there, but only for a moment.

“Why are you here, Dave?” I glared at him with distrust. There was no way of knowing how many people were in on it, whatever it was.

“I heard something outside. It was you running like down the street like a crazy person. By the time I got to the sidewalk, I saw you dodging cabs and some black car stopping in front of your house so I took off after you.”

He cut the distance between us in half with a few steps and waited for me to return the gesture, which I did. I needed to believe that someone was on my side.

“What’s wrong, Clara?” His hand reached up and cupped the side of my face while his other hand wrapped around a wrist at my side. “What were you running from?”

He was holding my face up to his. I had never been this close to a guy ever. I could feel my bottom lip quiver at the proximity, but then a thought flashed through my mind. “Oh God, your parents!”

Leave it to me in a moment like this to be concerned with Dave getting in trouble or grounded for running out into the park after me. It made him chuckle slightly, still looking into my eyes.

“They’re out of town, Clara. It’s just me.”

I felt his thumb slide over my cheek. The gesture melted me, breaking the seal. Physical and emotional exhaustion took over and my head fell into his chest. His arms wrapped around me, one hand at the small of my back and the other pressed against the back of my head, allowing me to fall deep into his embrace.

“You can tell me, Clara,” he whispered in my ear.

But I couldn’t. He would think I was crazy. Maybe I was crazy, or worse—completely sane. Crazy would be the easiest way out at this point.

It happened so quickly. One moment I felt the warmth of his body against mine, and the next I was being pulled back in one direction and he in another. I could see a towering shadow behind him holding his arms behind his back as he kicked his legs out in front, struggling to break free.

“Let him go,” I yelled, trying to propel myself forward, but a smooth black sleeve wrapped around my chest, holding me there.

“Clara, wait. Let him do his job.” It was a soft voice just behind me and I turned to see Liv’s pleading eyes.

The figure came around to the front of Dave, grabbing him by his shirt and thrusting him up against the side of the fence.

“Who are you?” The figure’s voice was deep and full-bodied.

“Get off me, man,” Dave yelled, still squirming under the force and wincing with pain.

The man threw him up against the fence harder this time. “Who are you?”

“Demitrius, you can let him go.” The voice came from the shadows of the brush, and I heard the crumpling under his feet as he approached.

I saw the light bounce off his glasses first and recognized the rectangular rims paired with the bored tone of voice. He emerged from the wooded area casually, strolling up the path behind Demetrius, who was still holding Dave against the fence by his throat.

“Demetrius.” His voice stretched the name out playfully. “I don’t mean to take away your fun but he is with us, technically.”

Dave was clawing at Demetrius’ hold, but the man responded with one last push against the fence, this one far softer than the previous. He set Dave back on the dirt path and unwrapped his hands from his neck, smoothing Dave’s collar out in the process.

“I apologize.” His voice was deep and rounded, as if it belonged in a ballroom or giving a grand, political speech. Dave whacked Demetrius’ hands way from him and gave a pull at the collar of his jacket trying to regain some portion of his masculinity.

The five of us stood in an awkward circle, Liv’s arm still extended in front of my chest, her hand on my shoulder ready to hold me in place if I made a run for it. He turned to her and I could see his brilliant green eyes and that annoying strand of dark brown hair resting on the top of his glasses. I fought the urge to reach over and tuck it to the side, or better yet, rip it right out of his head.

“Liv, at ease,” he said, nodding at her. Her arm dropped from my chest, but her stance didn’t back away from me.

“Well,” he started, clapping his hands in front of him and looking around the circle. “I believe introductions are in order. I’ll start.”

I had my eyes on him as he looked back at me. It seemed like he was waiting for me to say something.

“I know who you are,” my voice was venomous. “You’re Brik. I remember.”

A smile broke out across his face. “Great, yes. I’m still Brik, and you’re still Clara.” His arm bounced to either side of the circle as he introduced Demetrius and Olivia.

I turned my face to her and saw a kind smile cross her face. “You can call me Liv,” she said, but then stammered. “Unless that’s not comfortable for you, I mean… people who know me call me Liv, I forget that you may not… I mean, that you don’t know… or…”

“Yup, that’s Liv,” said Brik, rolling his green eyes at her.

I turned across the circle to Demetrius. “And you?”

“Just Demetrius.” His voice was a powering presence in the air, yet held a gentle tone.

“Great,” I said, my sarcastic alter ego bubbling to the surface. “That clears everything up.”

“I’m not finished,” said Brik. “Holding the perimeter right now is Rose and Oliver.”

At the sound of his name, Oliver called out from the darkness, “Hey, Clara!”

I jumped to the conclusion that Rose and Oliver were the individuals camped out in our back garden throughout the evening. I didn’t respond to his greeting. It was all too weird.

“And this one?” Demetrius motioned to Dave, who took a quick step back at the redirection of the man’s attention.

“That would be David, or Dave if you prefer,” said Brik approaching Dave’s side and swinging a friendly arm around his shoulder. “Looks like you’re in it up to your nostrils now, kid.”

Dave didn’t recoil from Brik’s arm, though he didn’t fully relax either. Regardless, the two seemed familiar with one another. The confusion was drowning me, but the frustration won out in the end.

“I want answers this time, Brik.” My arms crossed over my chest as I shifted my weight away from Liv, staring Brik down across the circle.

“And answers you certainly deserve,” he said, nodding his head once. “But might I suggest we take this conversation to a less conspicuous place?”

“Gee, Brik… I’m pretty comfortable where I am.”

“Clara, please.”

“Why don’t you explain why this place is conspicuous, Brik.”

“I will, when we’re back at your house. Where’s Grace?”

The mention of her name pierced my chest and I lost control of my expression. I watched their faces as they watched mine and saw the answer to his question. Liv gasped slightly and both she and Demetrius looked at Brik, whose jaw dropped.

His casual expression of arrogance gave way to a striking misery. In that second he figured out Aunt Grace was gone and the thought crippled his eyes with pain.

“Brik…” said Liv, taking a step in his direction. He cut her off quickly by raising his hand.

He cleared his throat and collected his demeanor back to one of casualness and calm authority as his arm fell from Dave’s shoulders. Dave took a step back keeping both Brik and Demetrius within view.

Brik looked up at me as I wiped a tear out from under my eye. “Looks like I’ll need answers from you as well,” he said.

We all stood silently as Grace’s absence affected each of us in our unique ways. After a moment, Brik nodded a few times, possibly to himself, and then began walking away from the Reservoir. One by one, we followed.