Forever Twilight, Patrick Sean Lee [christmas read aloud txt] 📗

snapshots of that mad, powerful dream fresh in your mind. Little scenes cut from the longer movie. The hand holding the knife above his head, ready to strike you. Someone who’s familiar, and yet not. What was the rest of it? You concentrate, try forcing your brain to bring the rest of it back, because it was entertaining in its weirdness (if not scary), but it’s going fast. It fades, but that hand holding the knife sticks for hours. You try harder to resurrect it, just to see the details one more time—to put it into rational context. If you believe dreams say something deeper about you other than your brain’s simple need to dump data, then you might try to play psychoanalyst and connect the strange people and events of Oz to the real, weirder people and events of New York City, you know?

No, that isn’t really it. Some higher entity was speaking to you in riddles. Warning you, or intimating something wonderful that’s in store for you. Your future.

Jerrick and Mari were there together is what the dream told me. Daddy. What did his presence, and the image of him being sucked up in one long ribbon of electrons, as though he’d gotten too close to the Event Horizon of a Black Hole, mean?

Was all of it a warped “vision”?

Whatever it was, the image of Mari and Jerrick together with the alien kept reappearing. It would pop into my head at the craziest times and grate at me. I related the dream—those parts I could remember—to Peter, but he shrugged its importance off. “Just a dream.”

It was time to go out again, because deep down I knew it wasn’t just a dream.

I knew that Mari was alive somewhere nearby, and something told me Jerrick was with her. Maybe my father was there as well. Perhaps two farms over they’d started a little community of bizarro mutants; chosen Israelites culled out of New Egypt for a mission.

“Why do I always let you talk me into something I don’t want to do?” Peter said after I informed him we’d be setting sail again to find the edge of the new world’s horizon.

I smiled. Because in reality women rule the world…and you love me.

“No San Diego or Los Angeles this time. We stick close to home, we stick together, and we stay in constant contact with Charles and the rest of the family.”

“Agreed,” I lied. Wherever the trail led is where we’d go. But yes, we wouldn’t separate this time.

I wanted to shoot back to Bernie Beast’s den, just to see if he and Celia and Kayla were still alive, but…well, bad idea I thought after consideration. He might have survived the bullet I winged him with, even healed to the point that he could resume his assaults on Kayla after screwing Celia. None of my business.

Yes it was. I needed to get Kayla out of that hellhole, but that would have to be on some other day.

Mari. Where would she have gone under the direction of the invaders? I searched the skies above the treetops for telltale signs of smoke, or dark, vaporous shadows ascending and descending. South or north? East or west? Think like an alien, Amelia. Where would you take them?

Useless. Impossible. I’m not an alien.

Okay, I am a little weird, though. I scavenged through the board games tucked into the cabinet in the room where Jerrick had sat for hours practicing his cello. I found exactly what I was looking for. A Ouija Board. I know, I know, you think I’m crazy, but then this whole existence is crazy. I spirited it and myself into our bedroom one afternoon, locked the door, and sat down on the floor to reverently consult it.

Where is Mari?

Who-is-Mari?

Stupid board. Don’t think that insult too loudly, Amelia.

Where is the little girl?

My fingers atop the Planchette, it finally began to slide slowly across the alphabet, figuring out that there probably weren’t that many little girls in the vicinity, and that none of them except Mari was named Mari. It stopped briefly at a series of letters. Four of them.

Near.

Okay, I thought, be more specific. North, south, east? West? Keep it simple, Amelia.

Near where?

I waited for the spirit out there to answer. At last…

South.

How far south?

Very quickly this time.

Near.

You’re no help. Sorry, sorry. I don’t mean to talk down to you. The-next-farm-over?

No.

The one after that?

No.

Well, where?

Avocados.

Huh?

I considered something else as I ran the word avocados through my inner spirit mind. Reverently, of course.

Are you good or are you evil? Sun or Moon?
           I thought I heard laughter.

Depends.

That could only mean one thing.

Goodbye.

The Planchette remained locked on the last letter, “s”.

Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye!

No.

Well then, thanks, but screw you.

I tossed the Planchette under the bed, folded the board, and slid it alongside the stupid communicator device. Hocus-pocus. I stood and left it all there…probably making the entity as angry as a nest of riled up hornets.

 

Two weeks had passed since Jerrick walked out of the door, and out of our lives. This night was perfectly lovely, with a full Harvest moon rising above the treetops, and air that was still and cool. I sat beside Peter on the porch swing relating my strange encounter with the Ouija Board earlier that day.

Inside the rest of the family had gathered in the living room. They were talking and laughing. Even Lashawna. The in-ceiling speakers of the stereo system Munster and Peter had installed tumbled out in a waterfall of sound, enlivening the party-like atmosphere now that a rough, but effective trip-wire alarm ran the perimeter of the farm. The skies were empty of everything save the gorgeous moon and trillions of stars. No dark splotch of the mothership hovering. No activity now that they had snatched Mari and Jerrick away.

A quite normal sky, except for one odd, disconcerting image. Far to the east beyond the mountain range an eerie glow, a soft, Northern Lights curtain, shimmered. I made a mental note to ask Charles what he thought it might be, given the fact that the Northern Lights should be consigned, not to the eastern horizon, but the northern, and that never had we seen them here in Southern California.

“It was your subconscious driving the Planchette,” Peter offered as an explanation of the Ouija experience. “Why, if some disembodied spirit was actually talking to you, didn’t it give you some clear hint where Jerrick had gone to?”

“I don’t know, but if I hadn’t felt that the…whatever it was…was evil in some way, perhaps I could have forced it to nail down a more precise location.”

“You think south.”

“It said south.”

“Whatever. South is a pretty large area.”

“So is north or east or west—we’ve eliminated those at least. Peter, when I pressed it to be more specific, its only answer was avocado. That made no sense. I felt as though I was talking to an insane person. ‘What color is the sun?’

“‘Mountain ranges.’

“Like what?”

Peter chuckled. “You were talking to an insane person, although I won’t say whom. Ouija Boards. God, Amelia.

“Wait a second. You just said it spelled the word avocado.”

“Yes.”

“As in the fruit. As in orchard. As in a farm in that direction,” he said pointing behind us. I jumped to my feet. Of course! Why…how had I missed it?

“Peter! You mean…how far south are the avocado farms? Did they used to grow them with oranges? Like one section oranges, and another avocado trees?”

“No idea. Back before all this happened I didn’t hang out much at either type of farm. But seriously, Amelia, your head was just scratching an itch for an answer. He and Mari—if they’re together—could be anywhere.”

“Let’s go.” I tugged at him. I wanted to kiss him for hitting me in the face with the answer I should have understood without even thinking.

“Tonight?”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s dangerous out there in the daylight, and God knows at night it’s worse!”

“Coward. I’m not afraid, and you’ll be with me.”

“No I won’t, because no way we’re leaving on a wild goose chase in the dead of night. Sit back down.”

We would go. He hadn’t said no to the idea, and I knew before bringing it up that he couldn’t refuse my request. That was Peter.

Tomorrow, then. First light.

“Let’s go join the merrymaking,” I said grinning.

Island In The Sky

 

I told everyone we were going out again; that Peter and I would be searching for Jerrick and Mari to the south. I didn’t tell them how or why I…we’d…chosen that direction. Charles, if no one else, would have thrown his hands up in total dismay.

“I’m going, too!” Lashawna said immediately. It seemed pointless to argue with her there. After all, her brother was half the object of the search. Jude naturally wouldn’t allow her to go alone, so the little Stanley and Livingston group doubled to four.

“Me and Cyn, too,” Munster said. “We’ll follow in the Ferrari.”

Sammie’s countenance fell. Her hero and ‘that other girl’ were going to leave her behind. She said in a whining voice, “What about me?” She’d been hanging on Munster when Peter and I walked in and laid out our intentions, giggling at whatever profoundly nonsensical thing he’d just said. Munster consoled her with an arm around her shoulder.

“No we ain’t. You can ride in the back of the pickup, kiddo’. I’ll let you take the Glock. You like that one, right? If you see any aliens or…”

“Munster, you are not giving Sammie a weapon!” Cynthia put her foot down.

“I know how to shoot it! He taught me.”

“Absolutely not,” Cynthia said.

“Okay, okay. Sorry, Sammie,” he said hugging her a little tighter. He leaned over to her and whispered something in her ear that brought a smile to her face. She nodded yes. I wondered what other instruments of destruction they’d been playing with that he could sneak to her in the bed of the truck?

Charles, strangely, didn’t disagree with our hastily drawn plan, nor the caravan that had suddenly formed around it. He did inquire why we’d chosen south, as opposed to any other direction. Denise put the question more bluntly.

“What are you not telling us that maybe we should know? This all seems rather sudden to me.”

“Just a hunch,” Peter rescued me. She eyed Peter and I momentarily, and then glanced up at Charles beside her with a suspicious look.

“We’ll take the walkie-talkies. Each of us will have one, but we’ll stay together anyway. We’ll check in every hour on the hour, and whatever we find, or don’t find, we’ll return by sundown,” Peter promised the two adults who would stay behind and keep the farm running. It was pretty apparent that Peter’s response missed the mark with Denise, but Charles nodded his head in tacit approval nonetheless. Maybe we would locate one, or both of the expatriates, and in a group, if we did stumble upon someone or ones who were dangerous, the chances of harm coming to us were diminished proportionally.

 

We left the following morning just after sunrise, stopping just outside the gate momentarily while Munster swung it closed, and then notified Charles to switch the alarm power back on.

Cynthia and I had risen in the morning darkness to pack enough food into two coolers to last us a week, while Munster loaded Sammie into the rear of the