Like Moonlight on Water: Chapter 18
The Lightening
It’s been a long while since I’ve posted a chapter in this WIP, but the completed novel releases on Amazon and with other retailers on May 4, so you can expect a rush of chapters from here to the end.
Like Moonlight on Water is the sequel to my speculative women’s fiction novel Daughters of Men. Spoilers await, but who cares? Pretend it’s Season 2 of that TV show everyone’s talking about and you’re just tuning in. If you like it, you can start from the beginning later. ✨
The Lightening
You drew Aislyn.
No hesitation. No deliberation. He had lied as easily as a human—and his modulators had not reacted. After all, a spoken lie was just a combination of words, and modulators could not reason. They could not judge. No, it was the passion underpinning a lie that could trigger the psychosomatic heat and apprise the Servants of a falsehood. Or betray him during dual-time.
Idly, he scrolled the news feeds on Eileen’s laptop, dragging and tapping with a fingertip instead of entangling his modulators. Physical sensations would provide a steady stream of useless information for the Servants to ignore while they pored over data gleaned from other realities.
He paused on a story of humans forming a living chain to save a drowning dog. A smile was appropriate, and he indulged himself. The Servants would search diligently for Aislyns in other realities, for significance in why an alternate Lila had drawn her, for a hypothesis relevant to his team…and would find nothing.
The other Lila had not tried to communicate a message to herself. The message had been for him.
“What’re you smiling at, alien?” Eileen finished rinsing the last dinner plate and handed it to her mother to dry.
“Humans saved a dog trapped in a flooded car.”
“Something good in the news?” Lila’s question sounded hopeful, if disbelieving.
Ignoring the fact that the flood was caused by other humans blowing up a hydroelectric dam and destroying hundreds of homes, farms, and lives…he nodded.
“So, no signs of…effects from…?” she attempted.
“Mom, use your words.” Eileen had been patient with her mother all evening. “Talking is good. Spacing out is bad.”
Lila rewarded her with a self-conscious chuckle, but Sal held in a sigh.
“Good news is difficult to find this week,” he said.
“Anything…local?” asked Lila.
“That’s a good question, Mom.”
Eileen smiled at her before directing a thoughtful frown at him.
“If we presume the Seneca Guns are an audible manifestation of the energy released by another reality collapsing…and since similar phenomena have been documented around the world, but not in every locale…does that indicate a stronger correlation to certain geographic areas? If so, do those locations receive more—or less—of the energy?”
Steaming water flowed from the faucet as her words quickened.
“And do those locations generate more fractals to start with? Did you see more of them here, when you had your visual enhancers? Is that why you were assigned to Wilmington?”
“I was not assign—”
“And it seems improbable that sound or pressure waves would be the only manifestation, doesn’t it?” Without waiting for him to concur, she grabbed her mother’s arm. “What about those things you see!”
Lila reached across her and turned the faucet off. “I’m afraid you lost me, honey.”
“Come on, alien!” Eileen dried her hands on her shirt and plopped down in the chair beside him. “Y’all record every type of energy…what are they? It’s stupid to call them…”—she swiveled back to her mother—“What do you call them?”
“Black energies.”
Lila folded the dishtowel and joined them at the table. Like her daughter, Lila had also been patient this evening. Both of them cautious, having shared opposite sides of an experience that had revealed more about their relationship than either was ready to address.
Eileen squinted up at the ceiling. “Imprecise or inaccurate?” she mused. Her fingers began to drum the table, an undulation of movement from left to right, right to left, in staccato taps.
“They’re like tiny black holes.” Lila’s own hands crept along the table as if wanting to still Eileen’s. “You okay, sweetie?”
The child’s eyes widened and Sal glanced up at the ceiling. Nothing. But her fingers increased their tempo, even as her heartbeats slowed.
“Oh!”
Sal’s attention swept back to Lila, whose palms were now angled toward her daughter. A slow grin brightened her face, and she eased from her chair.
“You’re zinging,” she breathed.
Eileen blinked at her. “I’m what?”
“Zinging. I could feel your energy vibrating across the table.”
Lila sculpted the air around the child’s head and shoulders, defining an invisible boundary that seemed to extend outward and upward beyond the reach of her arms. Suddenly blushing, she sat again.
“My dad and I used to play a game,” she told Sal. “He would’ve been very impressed by his granddaughter.” She winked at Eileen, and the child’s head dipped in bashful pleasure at the compliment.
Sal allowed them two seconds before speaking. “Describe this game.”
Annoyance supplanted their smiles.
"So rude,” Eileen muttered.
“Just a bit,” her mother agreed.
Their unity was beginning to wear on his nerves.
“You first told Madeline of this ‘game’ at age six, and occasionally distracted Eileen with it until she learned to read and occupy herself at age four.”
He arched an eyebrow at Eileen. “You were, as humans say, a handful.”
“Three handfuls…” Lila murmured. “My dad and I would play when he needed me to be quiet.”
“Why did you have to be quiet?” Eileen asked.
“Tell us your story, Lila. We would like to hear.” Sal did not emphasize the plural, but Lila swallowed before answering her daughter.
“My moth—your grandmother was always sick. And my grandmother always said I was more than two handfuls, when God only gave her two hands. The game was just an excuse to get me to sit still—here, actually.”
Lila’s voice sounded shallow, skimming across unwanted emotions, and she became engrossed in lacing and unlacing her fingers like a child playing with a knotted loop of string.
“My dad would sit in that chair”—she glanced at the empty one—“and put his hands on the table. I had to close my eyes and find him without touching him.” She demonstrated quickly, sweeping her arms horizontally through the air, palms parallel to the tabletop. “Three tries to win,”—her tone pitched upward like a young girl’s—“but I never needed that many.”
She grinned at her daughter, her voice regaining its normal modulation, “Your energy is so strong, I bet I could find you across the room.”
“What is your first memory of this?” Sal asked. “How old were you?”
Lila shrugged. “Three or four? He made this table for my mother’s twenty-first birthday.”
Sal held her gaze until uncertainty bloomed in her expression.
“You should’ve known…” she said.
His head dipped in agreement. He should have known—would have known—had those events occurred.
“Your dad would’ve liked Adam,” Eileen announced. “He built this house, too—right, Mom? They would’ve had a lot in common.”
Lila pushed her chair back. “Pebbles missed dinner. I’d better look for her.”
Sal heard the woman’s stomach gurgle and glanced at the clock. The nausea had returned—on time and on cue.
“Lila!” He caught her at the front door. “Memories are not just data. They are stories we create to interpret our past.”
She hesitated on the threshold, her eyes roving his neck and torso before turning away. “I’m not the one who needs to remember that.”
“What are y’all whispering about?” Eileen harrumphed.
He ignored the child and allowed Lila to walk out alone. He had no other choice, as every cell in his body was suddenly on fire.
Black energies. My kid was right. Such a stupid name for something so…terrifying, disconcerting, strange, upsetting, haunting, bad…? My brain flicked through its go-to words, but settled on none. Different. Opposite. The voids were that, too. Not my angels. Other. Wrong.
The wind soughed against the house, a peaceful, exhausted sort of stirring like a cat circling twice before it slept. But I still couldn’t sleep.
Memories are stories we create to interpret our past. His lips were still moving when the black things had appeared. Not swarming this time. They were…frozen. A fixed constellation of tiny black holes arrayed around his temples and above his head. Like miniature cigarettes had burned holes in his aura.
Not that I could see his aura. Angels. That’s what I’d always seen.
And the black things—once when I was a child, the first time I’d seen Sal. And then two months ago, when I met Cara and saw them around her womb. Sal had been there then, too. But I’d also seen them around Adam…when Sal was there. Always when Sal was near…?
He wasn’t near now. He’d rushed off on some sort of errand—grocery shopping, maybe. God, I missed cheese. And eggs.
My stomach growled and triggered a huge yawn that nearly split my bottom lip. Too late for food now. Or too early. What time was it? Should’ve held onto my dinner. How could I be so tired and still awake?
Black things. Around Sal. Lies.
Flies, my addled brain suggested.
Lies, I insisted. I’d told Sal as much the night he confessed that he’d given Eileen his own modulators. He’d been so moody. So sad. They’ve lied to you, I’d told him, though whether the liars were Servants or his family, I wasn’t sure. And apparently they’d done it more than once since he hadn’t known about the energy game with my dad.
Memories and lies.
Maybe the black things weren’t around Sal tonight. Maybe they were around me. Maybe my angels hadn’t abandoned me. Maybe they couldn’t survive around evil.
No, the black energies weren’t evil. They were terrifying and wrong, but they were a side-effect. A symptom of what was horrible. They were…nothing.
If my angels wanted to show themselves, they could.
But maybe they couldn’t, because I was a liar. Wrong. Other. Like the black things.
The wind settled, and the house became so quiet I could hear the bedsheet rub my chest as I breathed. Nearly dawn. I hadn’t slept, but I hadn’t Wandered, either. I was still me.
I yawned again and watched my windows—one, two, three—slowly change from black, to gray, to a single blinding light.
Aislyn, I remembered. Find Aislyn.
But the light was everything in my world. Viscous across my face, gelling and pulling my eyelids apart, searing…searing. I screamed, and a cool hand covered my mouth.
“Shh, child! Let go now…you don’t belong here.”
Mimi! I snapped awake and instinctively counted my windows—one, two…four? Adam rolled over and reached for me, smelling of beer and sorrow.
“Is it you?” He stroked my body in the dark and my no felt like a yes as a saxophone keened in my ear.
My room. No Adam. Weak sunlight in three windows and moody jazz oozing from the phone on the nightstand.
I groaned and stretched, letting the oh-so-random alarm music play. I felt parched, sucked dry of the will to do anything but listen to the sexy, buttery-mellow sax and watch the angels sparkling above my bed.
“Don’t leave,” I whispered. But they did, in twos and threes, until only one remained. White and fragile, it flickered at the edge of my vision until I sat up and turned off the music.
I longed for the one-way conversations we used to have—even if it meant I was crazy for talking to what no one else could see and delusional for interpreting what I saw as guidance. But what weighed on me now couldn’t be spoken for fear of being overheard—and was too great a burden for one lone angel, anyway.
It was also too great a burden for caffeine to make a difference, but I tried anyway, brewing coffee strong enough to stand a spoon in. Yet after filling my biggest mug twice, I was still depressed and still sleepy, just with a sour stomach and hot flashes. Though maybe the last was because it was barely seven and already eighty degrees.
Today required a skirt.
Bleary-eyed and cursing under my breath, I shaved my legs with more speed than skill. Heatstroke would be particularly inconvenient today, so hopefully a breeze down below would offset the heat dome above. Even so, I rummaged in my closet—and Eileen’s—one last time just in case a high-necked, ultra-thin, cotton miracle had appeared.
No such luck.
“I’m wearing your shorts again, and we’re coming to work with you,” Eileen declared.
“Wha…why?” My voice was muffled as I burrowed into yet another turtleneck sweater. “Sal’s not even here.”
“We decided last night. He’s meeting us after he gets supplies.”
My head popped out and I gasped for air.
“Supplies for what? Everything’s done—thanks to y’all.” My child and an alien, picking up my slack. Pathetic.
“You’ll see!” She grinned, but I winced.
“I don’t think I can handle a surprise today.”
“It’s not for you, so there!” Entirely too gleeful, she rubbed her hands together. “Maureen will love it!”
“Add a lab coat and you’d look like a mad scientist. What abou—”
“Thank you!” She threw her arms around me and squeezed, so I decided to take the small win.
I’d made her happy, and God knew that was a rare occurrence. Of course, once I saw the ladder and huge spools of what looked like fishing line, I wondered if I’d made a mistake.
“Trust us,” Sal said as he climbed.
“Yeah, Mom. It’s just electrical wiring. It’s not like we’re building a spaceship.”
Fair point.
They made an efficient team, running long bundles of the filament across the ceiling and cutting strands to dangle down in a pattern that only made sense to them. Sal seemed to relish teaching Eileen how to connect everything, and assured me the voltage was too low to strain the panel. By noon, they were finished.
Sal left to get the food from the church, Eileen was sweeping the sidewalk out front, and I didn’t smell smoke…so…another win. I checked Sal’s notes and began clearing merchandise from the table he’d designated for food.