Constant

Chapter 23

Mom was making money, and this should have excited me. It meant we were staying for at least another while. We had hit that three-month mark. Usually, by now, I would know for sure that we were moving, and that it was a matter of days. But I had yet had the feeling of uncertainty, which ultimately led to us leaving. Mom's attitude about Highstone hadn't changed, and she remained positive. By now, she usually was all down in the dumps, hating our situation and looking for our next stop. Maybe she was right this time—we were staying.

I had gone from wanting to stay to wanting to leave to... I didn't know. Did I want to stay in Highstone now? Even with Hannah gone, I had gained some friends. Hopefully, I'd keep them too, even after all the accident-drama fell into the past and the novelty wore off. Which left me with Ben—what was the deal there? He intrigued me, because I didn't understand his intentions. Did we really have a thing we did? The mocking and bullying each other? Had it been all play for him? For me, it had been serious. I thought he hated me, and now it turned out he didn't. I was so confused.

Showering had become the bane of my existence because I had to cover the cast in plastic, and it was impossible to get my hair all shampooed up with just one hand. My scars were bright red, still itching and very much visible. I came to realize that they were probably not going anywhere, and that they were cut deep enough to leave serious scars. I wanted to scratch my skin off.

I sat down with my trusty old laptop, deciding to do the modern thing—Google. I tried all combinations of terms I could that would give me answers why the Light wanted me. It was ridiculous how little I found on the community itself. It must have been a smart move to name themselves something as ordinary as the Light. That's when I joined the terms the Light with Lumenoil.

Jackpot!

I found forum posts and pages dedicated to the Light and Lumenoil. Most of them were positive, and how the Light had helped them regain their focus in life, and how it helped them grow as people. Some were over the top, and about people doing lightning rituals, helping them see things clearly and making them leave their families and go on missionary trips. It was all so bizarre. Everything was overwhelmingly positive.

Until one tiny post on a forum about essential oils.

"They took my child away from me! I joined Lumenoil for the products, I fell for the scam. Then the Light found interest in my daughter and seduced her into their cult. I haven't seen her in five years because they took her. Don't support Lumenoil, you support kidnappers!"

That sounded an awfully familiar. The post was only a couple of months old. I had to contact this person.

But when I clicked on the username, a wall of nothing hit me.

"Account deactivated."

Fuck.

When Mom told me good night, I was still sitting with my laptop in bed, trying to find something. But all links and all information I found turned out to be dead ends. I could scratch criminal detective from my list of potential careers. There was nothing to be found on the Light's prophecies, and I tried googling lines from memory, but got nothing. I chastised myself for not paying closer attention to their ridiculous rhyming bullshit. But how was I supposed to know that they were actually important?

At midnight, there was a knock on the window.

"It's open," I replied, without getting up.

Ben pushed open the window and climbed inside.

"Watcha doin', Scarecrow? Are you looking at naughty videos?" he teased.

I rolled my eyes.

"No, I'm doing research," I replied, my attention on the screen.