I looked at my mother now, as she kept chatting away with some of the details of the case, talking about legal fees, long-term punishment, social work, counseling, prison time, public humiliation, government cooperation, etc.
Fear unexpectedly tore through me. What would my mother think if she found out I was one of her adversaries in court? What would the government do with me? What if I did die, like I’d feared earlier? How would I live, though? How was the battle between Wingdinger and the Sinisters going to end? I didn’t know. They sure seemed to have an endless supply of minions for me to fight. And how was I ever going to have my dream life if I was chasing demons?
Bitterness quickly followed. Starry Knight didn’t have these kinds of problems, I’ll bet, I thought.
And speaking of problems . . .
Elysian was slithering up the stairs outside Cheryl’s office.
“I’ll have to think about it,” I sputtered out, interrupting Cheryl mid-lecture. “I just don’t know.”
“Don’t be silly,” Cheryl snapped, just a bit too forcefully. “This is what you’ve always wanted.”
She’s never doubted that I would say no to this, I realized. But then, I wouldn’t have, either.
“Well, I still have school, and swim team, and other stuff,” I reminded her. “My SATs aren’t going to take themselves. Especially with Mrs. Night’s class, remember? I’ll be lucky if I get a 750 in English at this rate.”
“Oh, honey, we’ll work that out,” Cheryl insisted. “I’m the District Attorney now, and Stefano is an understanding man. I’m sure we’ll be able to work out a schedule for you that fits into your life.”
“Oh. Well then. I guess I’ll have to meet him one day.” I didn’t really know what else to say.
“You’ll like him, Hamilton. He’s already impressed with you and your records. Stefano’s very concerned with the next generation and he even told me today he thinks you’ll be an exemplary role model for his team.”
I wish she would’ve stopped there, but she continued.
“Getting those two nuisances up on trial is a great opportunity to refine your skills and learn the ins and outs of being a lawyer. This is the chance of a lifetime, Ham! It’s everything you’ve ever dreamed.”
I nodded, unable to feel my legs anymore. “Okay,” I said listlessly. “I gotta go. I have some work to do.” Then I hurried off before I had to deal with any of Cheryl’s questions.
☼11☼
Break
“So, how did the rest of your date go?” I walked into my room to find Elysian on my bed. He was curled up in a big pile of his snake-like skin, relaxed, like my strife didn’t matter at all to him.
“Shut up!” I snapped, surprising myself as much as Elysian. I slammed the door to my room shut and rounded on him. “Just shut up! I’m so tired of you. You’ve ruined my life!”
“What do you mean by that?” Elysian asked, yawning a second later. “Sorry. It’s not you.”
“You! You’ve ruined my life,” I accused. “You, with all your talk of destiny and saving the city and working to stop the Sinisters.”
“What’s wrong?”
“My mother is downstairs working on a case to sue me,” I hissed. “The girl of my dreams thinks I’m too busy for her. My dream job of working in the mayor’s office was practically handed to me, but I can’t bring myself to take it. And you and Starry Knight are the most arrogant, annoying, confusing idiots in the world!”
I shoved him off my bed as I continued. “What’s wrong? You want to know what’s wrong? I had a perfect life before you came into it. I had plenty of time–”
Elysian snorted, interrupting me. “Which you mostly wasted on yourself.”
“I told you to shut up!” I roared. Angrily, I stomped over to my window, yanked back my curtains, and thrust it open. “Just go away! I quit! Get out of my life.”
“Quit? You can’t just quit,” Elysian sputtered back. “Your powers! They’ll–”
“Hopefully go away!” I asserted. “I can’t handle this anymore, Elysian. I don’t want this. I don’t like it. I’m not good enough at it anyway. That demon took a soul today. I wasn’t able to stop it. I don’t really even care that I didn’t.”
“I think you do,” Elysian insisted. “Or you wouldn’t be feeling so guilty right now.”
“Guilty!?” I swung around and glared at him, eye to eye. “I’m not the guilty one. If anything, you’re the one who let Eris get away, not me! You just like to blame everything on me, and it’s not all my fault. It’s all your fault, both you and Starry Knight! And you know what? Sam Carter was an idiot too. Frankly, I’m surprised she hadn’t already sold her soul to try to get a date with me.”
“That’s not–”
“If I do feel ‘guilty,’ it’s just that I bought into this whole mess in the first place,” I declared, my voice gradually getting louder of its own accord. “Someone made a mistake. I can’t be worried about or involved in all this. I don’t care enough to want to try. I have other things to do. I don’t want to do it. I’m too busy. I have school, and now I have Gwen, and soon I’ll be working for the mayor, and working towards a future I want!” I pointed to the window. “Now, get out, and don’t come back!”
“Hamilton–”
“Get out! Get out! Just go!” I screamed.
Elysian frowned, but he listened. He took flight and hurried from my room, just as a knock on the door came.
“Hamilton, what’s going on in there?” Cheryl’s voice was a mix of concern and confusion, making me hate her too, since she couldn’t understand or know why I was really upset, and she didn’t seem to care when she could.
“Nothing!” I shouted back. “I’m just . . . ” I lowered my voice. “I’m just playing a video game,” I lied.
“You’re getting very loud,” my mother said, still unconvinced.
“Fine, I’ll turn it off.” My tone was harsh. I need to get out of here, I thought. I need to get out of here now.
I pushed open my door, forcefully, surprising Cheryl. She was indignant, but I brushed past her easily enough. “I forgot something at Jason’s house,” I told her. “I’ll be back later.” I didn’t wait for her response or permission. I left the house and didn’t look back.
*☼*
The far end of Shoreside Park was not my intentioned destination. I don’t think I really had a specific place in mind as I stormed outside my house. But when I finally looked up from my fury, I found myself surrounded by the familiar sights of my childhood.
The evening sky had darkened, allowing the planetarium roof of the Lakeview Observatory stand out against the skyline. The observatory, I knew, overlooked the marina on the other side of the hill, while the fields of grass surrounding it provided ample room for playing sports, having picnics, meeting friends. All the things I’d done throughout my adolescence.
All without a thought or even a daydream of my previous life as an Astroneshama, a fallen star.
Out of breath, I stopped and huddled over, placing my hands on my knees. The mark on my wrist glimmered at me, and I suddenly hated it. I gripped my wrist, as though I was trying to strangle the mark, squeezing it off my skin.
I didn’t really expect anything to happen. (At that point, I should’ve been wiser in aligning my expectations to reality.)
Warm heat fluttered off my skin and I was suddenly very keenly aware of my emotional turmoil. A small aura of angry red, glowing orange, and shadowed purple leaped off my skin. Recognition poured through me as I recalled being able to sense Gwen’s emotions before, when I held her hand, and feeling Adam’s earlier contentment as I’d carried him.
Well, I thought, there you go. Bitterness, anger, jealousy. All working to build up hatred and darkness inside of me.
I suddenly grabbed my marked wrist again. There had to be more to this, I thought.
I was right.
Pushing past the colored fragments, I drove power deep inside of myself. Fueled by my anguish, I wan
ted nothing more than to go to the heart of the problem. “Augh!” I felt a scream rise up in my throat as my eyes closed and pain lanced through me.
It was over seconds later. As the pain vanished, I opened my eyes.
I gasped.
A world of shining white surrounded me. There were crystalline structures floating all around me. I looked down to see a small ball of energy, not unlike the power I channeled to defeat the Sinisters’ demon puppets. It was a burning flame of brilliant light, giving off a warm, yet distinct feeling.
“So,” I muttered to myself, “This is my heart.” Metaphorically, I assumed.
I looked around at the different, mirrored panels around me. Memories and feelings resided side by side by side (you have to picture all the dimensions of a heart to really imagine this), changing and moving. I saw my friends as we grew up together. Played together, worked together, laughed together, talked with each other. I saw Gwen, the first time Mikey had introduced me, the first time I felt attracted to her. I saw my family, too, in smaller surfaces.
And then, there was a bridge in front of me.
Make that a half-bridge. It wasn’t completed. Or at least, I didn’t think it was. The clouds of white sheltered the other side from me; the fluffy whiteness of it all surrounded it like fog during a snowstorm, and I didn’t have the faith–let alone desire–to cross it.
But that didn’t mean I wasn’t curious about it, of course.
I stepped closer to it, trying to get a glimpse of the other side of the bridge.
There were some holes in the surrounding smog, but not enough for me to see it. I could tell it was above the core of my power as well. As I took a tentative step out on the bridge, I could hear it.
The music. Starry Knight’s music.
Shuddering stillness shot through me.
“I’ve seen this bridge before.” I remembered now. Shortly after the acceptance of my power, my destiny, I’d seen a tiny picture of this in my mind’s eye.
I glanced around. Where was the Prince? I wondered. He usually shows up at times like these, didn’t he? I mean, he should. It was kind of a supernatural moment for me, and I didn’t know what to do.
Didn’t I? Didn’t I have any clue at all about what to do?
I looked at the bridge again and allowed the music to be absorbed into my memory. I wanted to hold onto the music, to the magic, without letting go of anything of my own.
That sharp truth left me breathless.
I believed in the Prince. I knew he was a real person. I knew I had special powers, and with that, a responsibility to protect others.
But . . .
I sighed. Believing in something was one thing. Having faith was another. And having enough faith to cross over to the other side of my heart–no doubt containing much more of the Immortal Realm, the Celestial Kingdom, and even Starry Knight–that was really asking too much of me. After all, I was a man of fact. Faith is not fact. And fear was too easily a result of anything less than faith.
I stepped off the bridge. The heavenly music dissolved instantly, leaving me feeling darker and more solid than ever, like I was the only real thing in the world, and it was too lonely to bear.
“If I want to stay away from my supernatural self, I have to get rid of this bridge.” The moment I said it, I knew it was true. If I wanted to get rid of my problems, my powers, my responsibility, my destiny, then that was it: Destroy the bridge to the other side of myself.
I reached for the power below and called it to me; the blinding, translucent force of my heart’s energy came easily, willingly. And then I held it, breathed deeply, and focused in on the bridge.
Closing my eyes, I swung down my power.
I didn’t watch as the bridge collapsed, but I heard it, as though every minute detail splintered like an atom, setting off a chain reaction of horrified freedom within me.
*☼*
I woke up on the ground by the observatory with a jolt, with no clue as to how much time had passed, if any at all. I found myself lying on the grass, sprawled out on my back. I sat up immediately, embarrassed and disoriented, like I had fainted or something.
As I checked to make sure nothing was amiss, I found something was wrong. Or rather, completely right.
My mark was gone.
I pressed into the now-bare skin, and there was nothing. Nothing!
Happiness flooded through me with rolling waves of pleasure. I looked around wildly. There were no auras, no prickles of pain, no tremors pouring out from the dark corners of my mind. Nothing!
“I’m free,” I whispered, awed and humbled. I stood up quickly and looked around. The world looked strange, as though all the luminosity of the world had been taken away, leaving the harsher realities of the physical world; as though the universe had been whitewashed in grayscale paint; as though the hidden background of meaning, purpose, and all the little strings of things that matter had vanished, leaving only potential for pleasure and prettiness to abound.
I felt more solid and hollow than ever before as I smiled and headed home.
☼12☼
Elysian
Determination set in early the next day as I decided not to think about anything having to do with my supernatural self. I gave up, I quit, I was free. End of story.
The problem with the end of story part was just there were some loose ends I had to take care of, because Elysian was too stubborn to take care of himself.
It wasn’t long–less than a week–before I found the small dragon pacing on the floor of my bedroom, his eyes narrowed, his brow furrowed, and his arms folded. When I turned on the lights and walked in, Elysian was greeted with my groan.
“What’re you doing here?” I scowled.
“You can’t just quit, Hamilton!” Elysian practically shouted.
“Shut up, would you? And I sure can quit, just like that. There’s no two weeks’ notice in this business, Ely! I can quit. And I did.” I held up my wrist, now blank, as proof. “See?”
“What’s wrong with you? You get a little shaken by an attack and run off scared?”
“I did not run away scared,” I insisted. “I no longer want to fight. I do not believe any of the bull crap you fed me before about that starry kingdom or whatever it was.”
“What about the people who lost their souls?”
“Maybe they deserved it.”
“And maybe they didn’t. What then?”
“I guess it’s their problem now.” I shrugged. “I am not fighting anymore, Elysian. Find someone else to play your games and fight your battles or whatever. I have more important things to worry about than the forces of ‘good and evil.’
“But what about the city? The world?”
“Let the FBI or some other government operation handle it, all right? The media wants them to, and no one else wants me or Starry Knight to do anything about it. They want us gone, and I’m just trying to fulfill their wish.”
“That has to be the biggest load of baloney your mother ever let into this house!” Elysian yelled. “You’re not doing it for them! You’re doing it for yourself. Admit it!”
“So what if I am?” I didn’t see where Elysian was headed with this. I was my own person. I had an entitlement to make myself happy. This supernatural stuff was messing my life up hugely. And if I didn’t want to continue it that should be my choice; that goofy lizard should be able to understand that.
“So? What do you mean, ‘So what?’” Elysian sputtered, clearly taken aback. “I’ve never heard of such selfishness in all my existence–and I’m an eternal being!”
“You want a medal for it or something?” I spat back. I moved over to the window and opened it up. “Get out of my room, get out of my house, and get out of my life!”
Elysian just stared at me, his reptilian mouth agape. “I suppose you have a choice in this matter,” he finally wheezed out, his anger barely contained. “But you will not escape this. You will lose your powers, and you will suffer the same as the other humans
running around. You have just put your family and your friends in danger, all for the sake of yourself.”
“Spare me the lecture,” I replied in a hard voice. “I’ve had enough. I don’t need you, or my supernatural powers! I was fine long before you came, and I’ll be fine long after you’re gone.”
“So be it.” And then Elysian transformed and swooped out the window, his long dragon body disappearing into the city-lit skyline, along with any hesitation I might’ve admitted to having. His farewell echoed through me like a disembodied voice. “Good-bye . . . Hamilton.”
☼13☼
Emptiness and Anger
It was amazing how quickly and effectively apathy sunk in, following my rejection of all supernatural responsibility. You might think I am a horrible person for this, but I can say with charging clarity indifference is the most pervasive and preferred state of mind of many individuals, and the world has yet to fall apart. Yet.
Apathy is not hard to conjure. But I discovered, relatively quickly, it is hard to maintain. It requires a lot of distraction, pop-psychological platitudes, and pseudo-logical reasoning. You can only go on so long before you run out, or find out you are running in circles. The bad news is that when you don’t run around all those circles, pointless as it all becomes, it’s much much much harder to fall asleep at night. That’s when all the things you’ve been holding back all day will come creeping into your mind and crush you. Otherwise, sleep is such a good escape.
Fortunately I was well-stocked up on music, texting, social media, Tetris, Gwen, some actual schoolwork, and hating things. I especially liked hating things because it took up a lot of energy to boot. I didn’t like hating things because I think it made it harder for me to like things though, and I think that made things difficult for some people. Like Martha.
In all fairness, I don’t think Raiya was giving her an easy time, either.