REMEMBERING
BOOK FOUR of THE STARLIGHT CHRONICLES
C. S. Johnson
Copyright © 2016 by C. S. Johnson.
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher.
Again, for Sam. I still remember you.
This book is also for Marsha Smith, who made History unforgettable even as she made unforgettable history in my own life story. You were among the first people in my life to show me what the evolution of a hero looks like, and I cannot thank you enough for it.
☼1☼
Habits
In the chill of the early morning air, I was no longer my ordinary self.
I had transformed; I was ready to fight. Power flowed through my veins, purging all weakness from me, and giving me a rush similar to consuming twelve cups of coffee after being asleep for twenty years like Rip Van Winkle.
Energy inside of me twisted, building up and trickling the warmth of my supernatural energy down toward my fists. I lashed out punches, the heat of my power scorching the dew-covered grass.
“I have to be stronger!” A kick lashed out next, breaking hard against the trunk of a tree. I used it to propel myself up the trunk and duck around the branches.
It’s perfect. “Okay, Hamilton,” I murmured to myself. “Time to fly.”
I glanced down just in time to regret it. The ground was a good eighteen to twenty feet away. A lump coagulated in my throat; I had severe doubt my wings would hold me. They were, nearly a year after accepting my destiny as an Astroneshama, or Starlight Warrior, still rather flimsy and small. Especially when I compared them to Starry Knight's.
My so-called co-defender might’ve had a zero personality, but she sure had nice wings. Starry Knight’s wings were like angel wings—white, long, graceful, and strong.
Meanwhile, mine were stubby and dark, with a blood-red base and fiery red tips.
If I didn't hate Starry Knight, I might’ve admired her.
There was a loud snap, and quickly I was called back to reality. Holding my breath, my eyes squeezed shut as I jumped, just as the tree began to tilt.
And then I hit the ground, simultaneously moments and seconds later.
I tried to keep my yelp in, but an awkward “Ow . . . ” escaped as I landed hard; first on my feet, and then on my butt.
“Look at the bright side. No dog poo or demon blood this time.”
I groaned at the sound of that voice. If it weren’t for the pain screaming at me from my legs, I would’ve screamed in frustration at the unwelcome interruption of my training session.
But then Elysian—my changeling dragon/part-time mentor/roommate—never did seem to listen to me, screaming or not.
“You'll never learn how to fly like that, kid,” Elysian asserted as he appeared by my side.
“What're you doing here?” I was slightly surprised to see Elysian transformed into his life-size dragon self.
“I can tell when you transform, idiot.” Elysian frowned. “I'm your mentor, and we are connected by a bond not easily broken.”
“Uh-huh, right.” I rolled my eyes. “You could tell I transformed, but not that it was for practice? That bond we have . . . it's not by chance a government savings bond, is it?”
“No, but I didn’t sense any trouble, either, so I thought you might be trying to show off.” He narrowed his gaze. “Or maybe you were telling that girlfriend of yours about your secret.”
I sighed. “I wasn’t going to tell Gwen.”
“You’ve thought about it.”
“Of course I’ve thought about it,” I snapped. “But I haven’t done it. And every time I think of it . . . I don’t know, I just don’t want to.” Gwen Kessler was a woman worthy enough to keep a secret like my superhero identity. But somehow the timing never seemed quite right.
After nearly six months of dating her, I was beginning to wonder if there ever really was a right time.
Elysian’s hurmph brought me back to our conversation. “Good. We don’t need her being a liability.”
Seeing him too happy with my decision made me argue against it. “Hey, don’t be like that. Mikey’s been doing okay with keeping the secret.”
“Yeah, sure. You say that while he’s writing a blog about it.”
“He doesn’t mention Hamilton Dinger. Just Wingdinger,” I argued. “There’s a big difference between my real name and my superhero name.”
That was true on many levels. Hamilton likely wouldn’t have acknowledged Wingdinger at all, unless it was to make fun of him. Especially if it had been a year ago, when the meteorite struck Apollo City and unleashed a whirlwind of evil.
“You’re sure your friend wouldn’t accidentally let it slip?”
“Not intentionally.” I shrugged and sighed, tired of this argument with Elysian. It wasn’t the first time he’d brought it up, and it wasn’t the last time I would fall for it. “This is so hard sometimes.”
“It doesn’t help that you haven’t been sleeping well. And how the last few attacks have been . . . complicated.”
“You don’t need to remind me.”
The last several attacks—including one at Rachel’s wedding this past summer—were easy, but my abhorrence for Starry Knight’s presence left me angry and tasting bile by the end of our battles. More than once, Elysian had caught me working out my frustrations by training harder. Or yelling out tirades when my parents and brother were conveniently out of the house. Or something else satisfyingly destructive.
Elysian slinked back into his smaller dragon self. “I know you're frustrated by this whole situation. But you have to realize, this is not just about physical force. Waking up this early is not helping you work through your heart issues.”
I snorted disdainfully. “I happen to like practicing at this time of day.”
“I’d laugh if I was sure I’d be able to stop.”
“Shut up,” I growled. “I like the colder morning air. And practically no one is up yet.”
“I guess you must, because you’ve been getting up early for weeks now.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing. I have a lot on my plate right now, with Gwen and the SATs coming up this year.”
“I don’t think those are the reasons you’ve been unable to sleep well,” Elysian said. “And it’s not the reason you haven’t been fighting well, either.”
“What do you mean? I’ve been just fine when it comes to fighting off evil,” I snapped.
“There will still be battles of the heart you must face, not just the ones you can dress up as Wingdinger and go around shooting energy beams or waving your sword around.”
For a long moment, I said nothing. I knew all too well of the “battles of the heart” Elysian was talking about.
The very last thing I wanted to do, however, was talk about it. Especially with Elysian. Especially when he was right. “So . . . I'm not going to get stronger by practicing like this?” I asked, deciding to play the fool.
He sighed, snarling out a small puff of smoke. “You still don't get what I mean, do you?”
“Does it really matter?” I muttered back.
Elysian huffed and crossed his small dragon arms. “You'll see progress in how you act and in what you say. You won't find a very good view of the complete picture this side of the River Veil, but you need to be aware of what is really happening before you can do anything.”
I used to never care about the stuff he talked about. It’d largely been like that ever since we met. When I didn’t want to hear anything about his other worldly realm, he would more or less blac
kmail me into doing this superhero stuff anyway, by saying if I didn’t protect the world or whatever, Gwen and all my friends would die or get their souls stolen.
But even though I laughed it off at first, I finally came around to see it was true. I’d seen the monsters attack, and how the demons ravenously devoured the souls of their victims and forced them into a coma-like state. And I’d even seen the power of Time and all the beauty and ugly it carried inside of it.
Dubbed the “sleeping sickness” by the delusionary media, the demon epidemic in the city had been dismissed by most of the mainstream outlets as hardly “newsworthy.” Since the attacks were also casually linked to foreign and domestic bioterrorism at one time, I was willing to bet they’d been paid off. Although SWORD, the Special World Operations and Research Division, also seemed to be a likely candidate for providing the right kind of incentive for their silence.
The rest of the world thought it just miraculously cured itself. But I knew the only known cure for the “sleeping sickness” was to kill the demon, which really only me and my comrades—Elysian, Aleia, and Starry Knight—knew how to do.
Thinking of Starry Knight burned pure pain into my already raw heart. I knocked out another punch, hitting a nearby tree hard enough to leave significant damage. The forestry service would think Smokey went postal.
“Hey!” Elysian flinched. “Watch what you’re doing. You almost hit me.”
“Sorry. Trying to work out some of my extra energy,” I murmured back, only somewhat apologetic. In truth, I felt worse for the tree than I did for Elysian, but I also felt sorrier for myself than anything.
I had accepted the truth about my destiny, and I had even joined in the fight to stop evil, save the world, and sacrifice for the good. But it didn’t seem to offer much in return.
“I doubt that,” Elysian countered. “You haven’t slept well in weeks now, remember? You just admitted that not five minutes ago.”
Another reason for me to hate him. He loved to remind me of everything I wanted to forget.
“Aren't you supposed to wear lipstick if you're going to act like my mother?” I retorted. I caught sight of the Apollo Time Tower, the only building visible from practically anywhere in the city, in the distance. It was getting close to six in the morning. “I'm going to Rachel’s for coffee.”
Elysian folded back his wings and curled up in the hood of my winter jacket. “Do you really think it’s a good idea if you can’t sleep? Maybe you should take the day off.”
“I’ll need energy to get through the day, Elysian. School started again last month, remember?” I rolled my eyes. “And it’s not like I’m actually going to sleep if I take the day off.”
“I think you should.”
“I don’t. The last thing I want to do is to be left alone with my thoughts all day long.”
“Are you still afraid of thinking about Starry Knight?”
Murderous thoughts and various vile threats instantly consumed me. I choked him around his small, scaly neck and spat out, “Don’t say her name in front of me.”
Elysian spit out a flame in response, singeing my arm. I allowed it to hit me, even though it stung. The fire on my wrist felt better than the ache in my chest. “You know, you’ve always needed to watch your emotions,” he told me. “But I think, in this case, ignoring them isn’t working any better.”
“I’ll work on thinking of another plan, then,” I shot back. “Until then, this is the best one I’ve got. Deal with it before I have to choke you again. Or before I decide to use my sword on you.”
“That’s part of the reason you’re having issues, you know.”
“What?”
“Your sword.”
“Nothing’s wrong with my sword,” I muttered.
“No, there’s something wrong with you.”
“What’s wrong with me?” I had to watch the volume of my voice, as I almost found myself hollering loud enough to wake the dead.
“You see your sword as a weapon.”
“Swords are weapons.”
“They can be used to protect people.”
“They are used to harm the enemy,” I argued.
“You’re too keen on revenge and causing the Sinisters pain. You haven’t been doing that good of a job lately because of that.” Elysian’s tail wrapped around my arm, almost comfortingly. “Hurt people hurt people,” he told me, “and you are hurting people with your pain.”
“Just stuff it.” I bristled at his compassion. I’d take his rebuke over his pity any day. “I guess you would know,” I finally replied. “Since you’re a hypocrite who couldn't get past his own pain at being tricked into committing crimes for his brother.”
Elysian frowned at me. “Alright, alright. Fine, I don’t want to talk about that, either. Let's just go, okay?” He sighed wearily before curling around my neck. I didn’t say anything, and I never would, but I was grateful he didn’t get too upset at me for my temper. It was a strange way of being loyal, and I needed it.
As we walked in preferable silence, I glanced at the moon, the small crescent still out and blazing in the late October sky like a warped sword.
The bubbling swirl of colors just hinting at the horizon made me recall another time when a blazing light had scratched up the sky.
It was little over a year, I thought, since the meteorite came crashing into Apollo City. The meteorite that carried the Seven Deadly Sinisters and their leader, Orpheus, right into my hometown.
A grim smile formed on my face. If only that was all it had done, I thought.
It wasn’t the first time I’d thought that. I was with Gwen when the meteorite hit, and as the city reeled from its blow, and I found out—albeit gradually—I had supernatural powers.
In addition, there was the matter of everything else that came right along with it: a super-irritating, familiar-like dragon, who could morph into different reptiles; dangerous enemies, who were often just as focused on fighting with each other as they were on attacking the humans of Apollo City; and an eternal overlord, too powerful and humble for me to properly contemplate, who called me out of my reluctance to face a destiny greater than I could ever imagine.
And a maddening, yet stunning, archer-girl who pushed me away even as she pulled me in, the girl I loved with a depth that made me wonder how life could go on without her—even though I’d yet to recall her name—even as she was the girl who resided right next to the hatred in my heart.
The one who had betrayed me in order to save me.
My fist clenched as I un-transformed from my superhero self.
I just had to become stronger, I decided. I could get rid of the Sinisters, and I would never have to worry about Starry Knight again. I could focus on work and school and Gwen and going to college and getting my law degree and getting a job and then traveling the world and running for president.
I didn’t need to fall in love.
Just like any normal kid.
☼
2 ☼
Morning
“What are you doing here so early?”
I almost grinned as Raiya opened the door. She was bleary-eyed with broken sleep, but I knew she was up before I arrived. There was a light on, shining out into the darkness from the second-story window of the small coffeehouse, and I knew from my other visits it was her room.
“I’m hungry,” I told her, half-honest about it. My mother had gotten a new chef recently, in order to fulfill her latest fad-diet requirements (something called the “Builder Regime,” or something like that).
She rolled her eyes, yawning as she turned away. “You want the usual?” she asked.
“If you teach me how to use the espresso machine, I can get it myself.”
“You’ll need to ask Rachel.” Raiya shook her head, allowing several of her long, brownish locks to fall free of the loose bun at the back of her head. “She’s the one in charge of that, and she has rules.”
“Okay,” I said with a laugh.
She glared
at me. “How come you’re so cheerful this morning? Don’t you realize it’s only six o’clock? Rachel’s not even going to be here for another hour.”
“Where is she?”
“Since she’s married now, she moved in with Lee and his brother. They live closer to the marina where Lee works.”
Rachel had gotten married over the summer to her one true love, Lee.
“How is Logan?” I asked. I was shocked to find out at the wedding that Logan was a brother to Lee; I’d met Logan before, as he was one of the workers at Lakeview Observatory, and one of the many people I’d more recently rescued from a demon monster attack. Seeing him show up as the brother of the groom was one of the things that made Rachel’s wedding memorable, to say the least. “I mean, living with newlyweds must be sickening.”
“I doubt he notices. He’s going to college, so even if he does notice, it’s cheap rent for him.”
I wondered if Logan was feeling better since Rachel and Lee had moved in with him; I had a strong suspicion it was mostly a charitable move on Rachel’s part.
“So Aunt Letty and Grandpa and I all take turns opening for Rachel,” Raiya finished, calling my attention back to her.
I grinned. “Neither of them seems to be here when I come.”
“You’ve been coming early in the mornings for only a few months, and only a few days each week.” Raiya pulled out the milk from the small fridge behind the counter as she began to set up the coffee bar for the day. “And I happen to like taking the early shift, so I can get it over with for the day.”
“You’re not going to open your own coffee shop one day with that attitude.”
“This place is Rachel’s. Why would I want to copy her dream?” Raiya shook her head. “I have different ideas in mind for myself.”
“You don’t want to work here?”
She arched her brow at me. “Serving you at six in the morning isn’t as grand as it seems.”
“There are some girls who would sell their souls to serve me coffee, I’ll have you know,” I bit back.