Redemption

Chapter 8

He has come for her. He is enchanted by her fire, her thirst for life. I fear for her. But I cannot come. I cannot save her. May God have mercy on her soul.
~Bezaliel~

"You have to close your eyes, Day," my father whispered, his gentle hands closing over my face near enough my lashes brushed against his palms. Butterfly kisses. I fought the urge to giggle.

"What am I looking for?" I asked, not for the first time.

He leaned in close, his breath fanning my neck as he bent to accommodate my height. "The light, Day. Always look for the light."

I squinted against his hands. I wanted so badly to get this right, to hear approval in his tone as a conclusion to whatever lesson I was supposed to be learning, but my mind was blank. I didn't understand him.

"I can't see anything. There's only darkness!" I cried. This was ridiculous.

Dad didn't move, just grew very still in that way of his, the one that reminded me in vivid detail of a marble statue I'd seen in a museum once. It was a little scary.

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

His hands remained over my face, the silence stretching.

"There is always light in the darkness, Day," Dad said finally. His voice boomed, and I jumped. He wasn't yelling. He just wasn't whispering anymore. Dad had a large, commanding voice. "You need to learn to look past the dark. If you don't, it can consume you."

My eyes opened, my gaze on the darkened palms of his hands. I didn't understand that word consumed. Repeating it to myself, I stared at the lines etched into his hands. They were glowing.

His fingers fell away. The sun was setting behind us, and our shadows loomed large against the ground, his monstrous one overtaking my smaller one. Tears threatened, and I hunched in on myself.

He sighed, his broad shoulders lifting. "Don't worry. It's not your time yet."

His shadow hand landed gently on my shoulder, his skin warm. I wanted to lean into his touch, but I was too hurt by my own sense of failure. I would never understand him.

Stomping my foot, I pouted. "I never get it right!"

He stood and moved around me then, his face stone-like and solemn. "Day-"

I stomped again anyway. I was throwing a fit, but I didn't care. "Amber always gets everything right. Always!" I whined.

Dad studied me a moment before kneeling in front of me. "Amber is ... different," he said carefully. "It's good that you two aren't alike. You're special, Day. There's a fire in you no one else can see. Not yet, but it's there."

I squinted up at him. I didn't understand this stuff about fire, but Dad looked so sure, so confident that it made me feel a little better. Still, I stomped. Dad grinned.

And then the darkness came.

The scene changed as if someone had pulled a rope and the backdrop was different.

Confusion engulfed me.

It was sudden, the rain, the water pelting my body unmercifully as clouds tumbled one over another across the sky-thick, black, and ominous. I wanted to scream but nothing came out. Lightning flashed in jagged lines across the sky and mud started to slide in large avalanche-like chunks. Water piled on top of water. The rain hurt, digging sharply into my skin, and I cried.

"Run, Day. Look for the light," my dad whispered against my ear, but when I turned to look for him, he was gone. The rain came harder, more brutal, like fingers working to peel away the skin.