Like Moonlight on Water: Chapter 8
There Are Worse Things
If you’re just joining us…welcome! I’m releasing Like Moonlight on Water in installments—info and chapter list here. As written, it would be a PG-13 film due to thematic elements and language. Though no doubt Hollywood would prefer to produce it as an “R” to sell more tickets. 👀
Click here for the previous chapter. Adam just injured himself, right after Lila witnessed the black voids swarming around him.
There Are Worse Things
Horrified, I caught Adam’s arm, but he shook me off and kicked the door—a violent strike that broke two hinges and jarred us both.
“Just let me see!” I begged.
Red-faced, he shoved his right hand into mine, revealing a wicked gash splitting his palm. His warm, slippery blood oozed between my fingers, and what had been simple fear hollowed into dread.
“No…” I breathed, my eyes finding Sal’s.
Adam yanked free of me. “I’m fine!” he snapped. “It’s just a damn cut.” He glanced between us, then fixed his glare on Sal. “Did you do this?”
Sal shook his head slowly, eyes still locked with mine.
“This was your nightmare!” Eileen blurted. Her arms were rigid in front of her, Traveler dangling from his armpits.
“No.” My denial was automatic. “And don’t hold the baby like that.”
Sal scooped Traveler up against her chest and positioned her arms. “Be kind,” he admonished.
“You dreamed this?” Adam’s doubt made my stomach lurch.
“No…?” I swallowed slowly. Eileen is right here. My daughter. My child. “Everything was different.”
“What about my hand?”
“Lila!” Sal commanded my attention. “What was different?”
Words jostled free of my throat. “Wasn’t here. Dark.” I scanned the room, trying to recall details. “Ugly couch. Tile floor. Everything was…dark,” I repeated.
“You had trouble seeing?” he pressed.
“At first. Things…moved…when I looked at them.” I rubbed my bloodied fingers together, feeling the texture of the cloth when I’d unwrapped the other Adam’s hand. My weight shifted, left to right, and I again felt shattering glass sting my feet. “Nothing made sense, until…until…”
“Until you accepted it as your own reality,” Sal intoned. “Mind and body.”
“Lila, what’s he talking ab—”
“Was I there?” Eileen interrupted. Traveler was snuggled against her neck now, his chubby fingers tangled in her curls. “That’s your regular nightmare, right? That you can’t find me?”
I clutched my stomach. “I don’t…no.”
“You don’t know? Why are you bothering to lie? I heard y’all arguing, remember?” Arms occupied, her chin jabbed toward Sal. “The day he came back.”
Mother’s Day. Less than a week ago.
“I remember, snoopy.” Adam ignored her blush to round on me. “These aren’t dreams, Lila. Are they.” Not a question. An accusation. “So this is the big secret? Why you won’t talk to me? Because my kid sister committed suicide and you think I can’t handle it?”
Aislyn’s dreams…dreams so real a four-year-old believed she’d already opened her Christmas presents. So real that even as a teenager she couldn’t tell if she was asleep or awake. Had she been like one of the Picoji children? Had she been…like me?
Sal’s head bowed.
Oh, God, no. He knew about her. They knew about her—but he hadn’t told me.
“Why do you keep looking at him?!” Adam shouted.
Tears flash-filled my eyes. “Y-your hand. We need to—”
“The hell with my hand!” He threw his arm in Sal’s direction, splattering more blood. “Why’s he still here? What does he want with you?!”
“Stop yelling at her!” Eileen scolded. “He’s here for me!” The baby wailed at her outburst and she plucked him from her shoulder like he was a leech. “Somebody shut him up!”
Sal swooped over, grabbing cushions from the couch, nestling the baby on the floor, and backing away all before Adam could react.
“A reality just collapsed,” he informed us. “And all of its energy—all the evil that permeated it—was released back to the point of origin. This reality.”
Eileen gasped, and Adam staggered forward.
“A…reality?” He looked down at his son, who was now happily sucking on his toes.
“Destroyed,” Sal confirmed. “Annihilated. Except for the energy that…” He raked his face with his fingernails, leaving red welts from scalp to jaw. “I need to speak with your Cara. Immediately.”
“Why?” Adam demanded. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Your lives—your alters—are most likely connected in other realities. If she sensed the Seneca Guns disruption as well, that is information that may be helpful.”
The hairs on my arms lifted, and an odd buzzing filled my ears. Cara and Adam? My Adam?
“Lila!” Sal snapped his fingers in my face. “Focus!”
Adam shouldered in front of me. “Get away from h—”
“She cannot control her transits!” Sal bellowed.
Little Traveler released his big toe with a wet pop, but instead of crying, he grinned up at us like we were all playing a noisy game.
Now, Lila! Tell him now or—
Shut. Up! I stamped my foot and all eyes turned to me.
“Let’s all just calm the hell down!” I mimed a deep breath, and—surprisingly—Sal complied, his scratches fading away as he exhaled.
“Well, don’t yell at me,” Eileen groused. “I’m not the one losing it, even though my mother is a liar.”
Sudden exhaustion folded my legs and I found myself on the floor beside Traveler. His little pink tongue blew me a raspberry before settling back to business on his toes. Unfortunately, no one else seemed inclined to join us down there. My daughter was glaring at the baby, Sal was waiting with one raised eyebrow, and Adam had turned to face the window. His broad back was taut beneath his knit shirt, and his fist slowly dripped blood.
No more excuses.
“Sal’s team believes in branching world theory,” I said. “That the psychic energy from people’s repressed impulses creates what they call fractals. Parts of us that split off into other realities.”
Sal grimaced at my intellectual inadequacy, but motioned for me to continue.
“And since the super-brainiac extraterrestrials are convinced they know everything,”—I punctuated the word with an eyeroll—“they think all these worlds are one tragedy away from total annihilation.”
He grunted.
“Which they cannot possibly know,” I insisted. “Though…what some people secretly want to do is probably awful…”
The last of my conviction bled away as the scope of the problem sunk in. Billions of people making trillions of decisions every day—most of them moral and decent—but how many people were truly altruistic? What urges did they suppress?
A shiver raced up my spine. “They…Sal…thinks the negative energy from bad fractals…”
“Has resonance,” he finished. “Like attracts like, so to speak. Fractals accumulate—magnifying their effects until their energy can no longer be contained by that reality.”
My daughter uttered a strange little whimper, and he sighed.
“Imagine millions of stars colliding in a single moment at a single point in space. A cataclysm of that scale is absolute. But energy is…” he looked expectantly at Eileen.
“Never lost,” she murmured.
Adam turned around. “You think Lila’s nightmares are visions of these worlds?”
“That is n—”
“Yes,” I answered. Some truth was better than all lies.
I got to my feet, arranging my features into a mask of chagrin.
“I’m sorry. The visions are terrifying, and you were right. I didn’t want to remind you of Aislyn—or have you worry about some sci-fi parallel world’s apocalypse when this world needs you.” I gestured to his son and turned, all too aware of my child’s burgeoning fury.
“Leenie, honey…” My tone firmed to match her tight lips, “You can be mad all you want, but you’re my child, and I wasn’t going to add to what you’re already dealing with. I just wasn’t. Period.”
Mottled red bloomed in her cheeks, but her mouth stayed shut—which was definitely better than I could have hoped. Unfortunately, Sal wasn’t so magnanimous.
“At the very least, Adam should be aware that in exchange for Cara and Traveler’s return, I convinced my team to allow me to assess your abilities—yet you refuse to cooperate.”
I sputtered a rebuttal, but Eileen cut me off.
“Why? What can she do?”
“Nothing, honey, don’t—”
“Don’t what?” she challenged me. “Don’t ask? Don’t care?”
“Answer her,” Adam barked. Not at me, though. He squared off in front of Sal. “You’ve got the tech to manipulate a whole damn planet. Why do you need a psychic?”
I winced, and Sal turned a cool stare my way. Yes, yes. I’m a liar. Just answer the question.
Unblinking, he turned back to Adam. “To be clear, ‘psychic vision’ is an inaccurate description of her gift.” His dry assertion dared me to contradict him. “However, regardless of phrasing, my hope—what I proposed to my team—is that we might discover a method to neutralize fractal energy. Though now, I need to confirm my theory about the Seneca Guns…and speak with Cara.”
“That doesn’t explain wh—”
“‘Colliding suns’ doesn’t fit,” Eileen interjected. “It’s not fission—or fusion—unless fractals have neutrons or protons,” she mused. “Do they have mass? How do they leave this plane? How does the released energy get back here?”
Sal’s demeanor brightened. “Quantum tunneling, perhaps?” He was practically beaming at her now, but this wasn’t the time for his proud mentor routine.
“Confirm how, Sal? Not…not that group thing?” I swallowed hard. “Isn’t there another way?”
“If I initiate Transition via my modu—”
“No!” Oily bile surged in my throat. “W-we might lose you forever.”
Adam started, but Sal’s lips curved in a wry smile.
“Would that be such a bad thing?” he asked. A persimmon-colored angel sparked over Sal’s left shoulder—and a cluster of the black things swarmed it like ants.
One by one, as his family had used their modulators to jump from one location to another, they had desynchronized from this world. Ended up in those horrible alternate realities. Alone. Angry. Desperate.
Raw hatred boiled in my veins and I bared my teeth at the blackness. You can’t have him! The angel flared a savage red and the black things disappeared. “You belong here,” I told him.
I insisted on tending Adam’s wound before they left. My fingers worked carefully but quickly—barely touching the back of his tanned hand as I inspected the cut. The metal hadn’t gouged as deeply as the broken bottle in my dream, but the similarity in length and shape was uncanny.
“You need about a gallon of peroxide,” I said as I tied off the gauze. “And stitches, or it’s going to keep bleeding.”
“I’ve had worse.” He caught my wrists and turned my palms up. “So have you.”
And just like that, our angels reappeared. A galaxy of white sparks, spinning and flowing between us, our bodies anchoring their motion like two giant planets.
I pulled free and started rinsing the bloody washcloth in the sink.
“You told me you cut yourself,” he pushed. “Those scars aren’t—”
“I did cut myself.” I turned the water off and dried my hands with a clean dishtowel. “I was washing a vegetable knife, and I’m an idiot.”
“It’s only been a week, Lila.”
My eyes met his, unblinking. “I’m a fast healer.”
“Adam!” Sal called from the porch. “We must leave!”
“How do you expect m—”
“Before another reality collapses!” Sal yelled.
I worked up a grin. “Bossy for an alien, isn’t he?”
Adam shook his head. “Alright, fine. I’m leaving.”
“Don’t forget him.” Eileen looked up from her computer and pointed at the baby, asleep in his nest on the floor.
Adam knelt and gathered his son to his chest, pressing his lips to the baby’s one tuft of dark hair so instinctively and sweetly that my eyes pricked with tears. “Time to go home, little man,” he crooned.
Eileen made a noise in the back of her throat, but with a patient sigh, Adam stood and bent to her ear.
My heart ached as her head tipped toward his, and I went outside to find Sal. He’d rolled his red death machine beside the truck and popped the kickstand.
“What’s Adam saying to Eileen?” I asked.
Sal glanced up at the house. “He said being a big sister was difficult, but that he hoped she accepted the responsibility.”
Just then, the ruined door opened, and I felt a ripple of energy leave my body and rush up the stairs. Stunned, I turned back to Sal, but he was polishing a bit of chrome with his shirt hem.
Adam’s own expression was opaque as he joined us in the yard.
He knows, Lila. He knows she’s his!
Shush! My subconscious felt morose and eager, and neither was acceptable.
“Sorry about Eileen,” I offered.
“I’m sorry I lost my temper.”
“It wasn’t…you.”
He watched my mouth close, as if listening for the words I held back. The rising sun barely shone above the eastern trees, but the day was already hot and humid. Sunshine glinted off Sal’s bike and pierced my left eye like a hot poker—and a violet spark flickered near Traveler’s ear.
“What do you see?” Adam’s arms tightened around his son. “More of th—”
“An angel. A bright purple one.” So delicate. Tiny, yet radiant, as it floated across the infant’s temple and disappeared. “It loves him.”
Suddenly self-conscious, I again looked to Sal for help, but he was fiddling with the handlebars.
“I made a mess of you.” Adam was closer now, the baby stirring and yawning between us. “Your shirt looks like a crime scene.”
For the first time I realized I’d slept in that same damned R.E.M. shirt—now smeared with blood. Appropriate, since it documented the end of a world as we’d known it. Or…as I’d known it. Memories of that wretched life jumbled with memories of the concert where Adam and I would have met in this life. But he had gone to war and a different stranger had sat beside me.
My Adam is never a stranger. Stop hurting him…please, Lila, please tell him…
Shifting sunlight turned Adam’s eyes a brilliant green. “Somehow, I got blood on your face, too.”
“What’s a little blood between friends?” I turned, and his fingertip brushed my earlobe. “Right, alien?”
“Blood bonds are strong,” Sal agreed. “Come, Adam.” He lifted his motorcycle and placed it in the truck bed. “I will ride with you.”
The human’s glowering silence was to be expected. Particularly after Sal had tried to squeeze his body in the rear seat beside the infant carrier.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Adam had demanded.
“If there is an accident, I can better protect the child here.”
“Get out of there. You sit in the front where I can see you.”
Traveler had whimpered and grasped one of Sal’s fingers. The infant’s grip was mighty for his size, and Sal had taken care to extricate himself gently.
“Another time, little one,” he had whispered. Rear-facing carriers might typically be safer for transporting young humans, but in his protective arms, the child could have enjoyed a view.
As the truck left River Road for a side street, Adam finally spoke.
“Why the hell did you want to ride together?”
“To give us an opportunity to speak candidly.” Sal slid his hand from the window controls to his lap, disconnecting his modulators from the electrical system. The vehicle seemed to be in working order, though he had tweaked the front right tire’s pressure sensor to adjust the sensitivity. The truck pulled to the left whenever Adam braked.
“Fine. What do you have to say?”
“What do you want to ask me?” Sal countered. “You are angry. Frustrated. It would be appropriate to control your volume so as not to disturb your child, but otherwise…” His cheeks lifted and fell in a quick smile. “I believe the human expression is have at it.”
“Oh, I’d like to have at you, alright,” Adam grumbled. “With an AR-15 and a Ka-Bar for the pieces.”
Sal barked a laugh and startled Traveler into hiccups. After twisting in his seat to soothe the child, he turned back and caught a glimpse of Adam’s lips compressing a smile.
“How much does that bike weigh?” the man asked.
“Not much compared to one with an internal combustion engine. Less than six hundred pounds.”
Adam snorted. “You lifted it like it was a tricycle. And when we hauled you out of the marsh…you must weigh, what…three hundred pounds? Three-fifty?”
“Thereabouts.” This is what the man wanted to talk about? “The motorcycle is a prototype with a reinforced frame.”
“Stole it?”
“A more accurate descriptor would be traded. I left valuable information in the company’s mainframe. Now, they can skip a generation or two.” Or several, if the lead engineer was as clever as the Servants indicated.
“I don’t want Eileen on that thing.”
“Neither does Lila, but Eileen is safe with me.” Sal waited for an outburst, but Adam just sighed.
“So she does whatever you want now.”
“Hardly! This would all be much simpler if she would.”
Adam clenched his bandaged hand, and the scent of fresh blood permeated Sal’s receptors…coppery, with a sour note.
“Your wound is infected.”
“How the hell would you know?”
They had reached the highway, and Adam stopped to wait for a gap in traffic before merging.
Sal looked around the cab. “I can smell it. The bacteria excrete a certain combination of waste…” He unlatched the compartment under the dash and noted a retractable tape measure, a small tool kit, and the vehicle’s manual.
“What are you looking for?” Adam asked.
Removing the tape measure, Sal experimented with a quick pulse of electricity. Steel. Perfect. He extended it a couple of feet as if inspecting its markings.
“Will you allow me to disinfect your wound?” he asked.
“What? I told you before, if you ever touch me again—”
Sal tapped the metal ribbon to the man’s wrist.
“Ow!” Adam roared. “What the—”
A whiff of ozone confirmed the task accomplished and Sal retracted the tape. “I did not touch you.”
“Son of a bitch.” Adam accelerated onto the highway with rather more velocity than necessary. “Did you do that to her? Is that what—”
“It needs suturing, as well.”
“I have a med kit,” Adam retorted. “And why do you care?”
Relieved at the diversion, Sal placed the tape measure back in the compartment and considered his response. He thought well of the man, and his skills might make him a useful ally—among humans at least. And Eileen would never forgive him if he withheld healing from someone who needed it. But one reason superseded all others.
“I promised Lilith that I would keep you safe.”
The man fell silent. He navigated the truck from the highway to secondary streets without a word, and Sal knew his next questions would be the most difficult to answer.
“Why do you call her that?” Adam asked.
Then again, humans still surprised him occasionally. “It is her name.”
“You stopped calling me The Adam.”
“She explained it was offensive.”
“How old are you again?”
Ah. Sal understood now. “Yes, I knew the first adam. And the first female named Lilith.” He drew a deep breath. “Now ask me what you really want to know.”
The man’s pulse quickened, but he said nothing until they were on the winding road to his house.
“Do you love her?”
Again, not what Sal expected. “I am not capable of the type of love you are suggesting.”
Adam’s heart raced and a vein in his temple throbbed. “That easy is it? Just another human.”
“Unfortunately, nothing about her is easy.” Sal rolled his eyes.
Adam slammed on the brakes. “Damn you!”
“Have care!” Sal reached back, but the carrier was secure and the infant’s breathing uninterrupted. Asleep. He smiled as he faced forward again.
“Wipe that smirk off your face, you alien piece of shit! Respect her, or I will find a way to make you.”
The truck accelerated before Sal fathomed what the man meant.
“Adam, we—we are not physically intimate.”
“It’s none of my business if you are.” The man’s words were bitter and his wounded hand flexed and fisted again. “Unless you hurt her.”
A slow fire spread beneath Sal’s skin. Embarrassment, resentment, sadness…and sympathy for the miserable man beside him. “I would never endanger her like that.”
Adam grunted as he steered into the driveway. “Too bad I can’t trust you.”
He stilled the engine and exited the cab before Sal could speak, but when he opened the rear door to unbuckle the child, Sal twisted in his seat.
“I cannot lie with her, Adam. I cannot even kiss her. Do you understand?”
The man pulled his child close as he evaluated Sal’s implication. “You’d infect her.”
“Yes. My modulators would transfer to her body and suppress her gifts.”
“And then she wouldn’t be useful,” Adam spat.
Sal slammed his door and walked around to look him in the eye. “And then she might die.”