Outcasts

Epilogue

Nathan

I stare out a window silently. Lucinda is at a funeral. And I am alone.

I watch the rain dripping down the glass like tears. Lucinda always loved rain though. My brother never did. But I'd be lying if I said I was like my brother.

So I watch the quiet rain fall, washing away my misery and shame, and let myself be at peace.

The light jumped from here to there, and back again. I watched with fascination that I usually held inside, not showing my friends. Father wasn't with us that particular night, and I was alone with Lucinda.

"Have you never seen a firefly?" she asked with some surprise.

She loved fireflies. Though she hated bugs, to her fireflies simply didn't count. They were special, and she knew something that nobody else didn't about them.

They had a secret mission.

"I have but...Not so many..." I murmured.

Lucinda gave a knowing smile. They were totally surrounded by the lighted insects, some she could feel brushing her skin. She didn't mind.

She caught one and gently opened her hand. She whispered to the bug and lifted it up to the sky. It flew away towards the moon, and she smiled. Now her wish was riding away, perhaps to even come true.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

I couldn't figure out why Lucinda would look so peaceful around bugs and why she had whispered to a thing that couldn't answer her. It just didn't make any sense. I caught one of my own and glanced down at it.

"Have you never heard the old story about fireflies?" Lucinda asked softly.

Her onyx eyes shined brightly amongst the flames of a candle she had set down on the ground. She was more interested in the creatures circling her head then in the light she needed to see.

"I guess I haven't." I replied, releasing my firefly.

I got the feeling that if I had squashed it Lucinda might have tried to beat me to a bloody pulp.

"My mother used to tell it to me before she died." Lucinda's voice was so faint that I had to strain to hear it. Talking of her long gone mother was something she hardly did, something neither of us really did.

"My mother used to say that if you catch a firefly, you must tell it your wish." She paused as she gently brushed one off of his sleeve.

She gave me that bittersweet smile that I had come to love.

"And every wish that is told to the firefly rides on its back. Fireflies carry the wishes of so many people. If you squash a firefly, you squash the wishes of others to." She shrugged nonchalantly.

"Wishes don't come true though." I said rather bitterly.

I felt that familiar anger flare up inside of me. And after it, the feel of that deep pain that I knew would never leave me. The pain and the anger began to mix together, making me even more miserable.

Jacob will be avenged! I growled mentally, One day they'll pay!

Lucinda watched me a moment. Sometimes I wondered if she could read minds, the way she just seemed to know what I was feeling. The bond that we shared ran deeper then what other children had. We shared something, and we both suffered for it.

"Perhaps not." Lucinda replied, glancing at the twinkling balls above her. "But they can still live. Whether its in our hearts.." She caught a firefly and set it in my hands. "Or on the back of a lighting bug."

She quietly slipped away from me, leaving me to ponder her words. She was good at knowing when I wished to be alone and when I needed company.

For a couple moments I held the firefly. I could feel the legs tickling my skin, and I imagined how it must feel, trapped in my sweaty hands. Slowly, I brought his face down to my hands.

I whispered a few words and released it into the starry night. After all, what could it hurt? It was just a bug.

I never expected it to come true. I never expected her to suffer for it.

Yet even now I can imagine her smiling face if she had seen me that night.