THE MARK Page 2

  “Oh, it won’t die,” Leroy answered, disappointment in his voice. “Not here anyway.”

  Leroy’s iridescent skin was in a tug-of-war with the sunlight. The back and forth motion was making Chris woozy.

  “What do you mean ‘not here anyway?’” She felt like she should keep him talking, buy herself some time until her mom got home from the store.

  Instead of answering, he started pacing the room, inspecting the books on the shelves, trailing his nails along the soundproofing, leaving long scratches on the wall. The Fly never took his eyes off of him.

  “You know, Christina,” Leroy said, “I came a long way to meet you and you don’t even seem happy to see me.”

  “I’m sorry,” she quickly said. Please, God, don’t let him get mad.

  He shook his head and strode across the room to her. An unseen energy radiated off him. Chris could feel it pulling her toward him like a wave being sucked back out to sea. She grabbed on to the piano, but something in the air had shifted. Suddenly, Leroy wasn’t so scary anymore. Actually, now she couldn’t see why she had been afraid of him. He looked so friendly, like a big stuffed animal. Her fingers relaxed and she let go of the piano.

  “That’s right,” Leroy said. “Let go.”

  The Fly zipped across the room, still watching Leroy, and bumped into the wall.

  “Chris!” her mom called from the living room.

  Leroy leaned closer to Christina who in turned leaned closer to him. “Meet me back here after dark,” he whispered.

  “Why?” she asked even though she didn’t really care. All she wanted to do was snuggle with him and take a long nap.

  “Chris!” her mom yelled again. “Can you give me a hand?”

  “It’s the in-between time,” Leroy said, like she should know exactly what he meant. He must have seen her confusion because he changed his tactic. “We could talk some more. Wouldn’t that be nice? And we don’t want your mother or your friend interrupting, do we? They wouldn’t understand anyway. Their brains would explode.” He made the sound of a bomb going off and mimed what it would be like: a cloudburst of skull fragments and brainy bits splattering across the room.

  “Christina?” Her mother was calling upstairs now.

  Leroy made so much sense. Her mom and Micah wouldn’t understand, and she doubted she could explain it to them in a way they could comprehend. All they wanted to hear from her was that she was going to do what they always wanted her to do even though she didn’t want to do it anymore. She didn’t even like playing piano. She didn’t. At least Leroy was something new, something of her own. Chris nodded at him and stood.

  She sneaked out of the room, thinking about her secret get-together with her new friend that she would have later that night, wondering if he glowed in the dark.

  CHAPTER 3

  Chris lay on her bed listening to the usual creaks and pops of the house settling, and for the first time since she had gotten the letter from Fenton Academy, she felt nothing but excitement. The giddiness she’d experienced in the study was still there. Leroy was harmless. Nothing more than a big teddy bear.

  When she had left the room to help her mom unload the car The Fly whizzed around the house. It landed on her mom’s cheek, then the rocker where she had nursed Chris and Claire when they were infants. Micah was staying the night, sleeping on the couch because his mom was “having a friend over.” It didn’t happen often, but when it did, Chris’s mom was cool with him staying there. The Fly bounced from room to room, but neither her mom nor Micah noticed the commotion it was making or the way it must have tickled and itched when it landed on their skin. Chris was the only one who saw the creature’s panic, the way it lifted its front legs in a manner of supplication, seemingly pleading with them.

  She sat up in the dark, knowing without looking at the clock that it was time. Time to meet Leroy. Chris had the same feeling she had whenever the weather started to change, when summer gave way to fall, like everything was going to be different soon. She quietly made her way to the study, still dressed in her t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers, careful not to wake anybody. The Fly was on her shoulder tugging her shirt. She could feel it there, but she didn’t care. She needed to see Leroy.

  Standing outside the study’s door, she put her ear to the wood and listened. If he was in there already he was silent. She turned the knob and pushed the door open.

  The room looked the same as it always had. Moonlight streamed in through the windows. Chris didn’t know why she had thought it would be different.

  Leroy stepped out from behind the piano and Chris almost screamed, but she clamped her hands over her mouth and caught herself just in time.

  “Anybody or anything follow you?” he asked. He stepped into a bit of light and it refracted off his skin resulting in a tri-colored prism-like effect.

  “The Fly hitched a ride on my shirt for a while, but I think it’s gone now.”

  Leroy looked around the room, searching for it, and she thought it was wild that he could spot a fly in the dark.

  “Good,” he said. “Why don’t you come a little closer? I can barely see you.”

  She took a couple of steps forward and when she did that same magnetism she had felt before started to pull her in. Before she knew it they were standing at arm’s length. Chris felt giddy, her head swimming. Was this what it was like to be drunk?

  When she got close enough she could see Leroy extending an arm toward her. Yes, she wanted to hug him too. But then she noticed that his hand was closed into a fist. He was holding something in it. Blood oozed between his fingers and dripped onto the floor. When he opened his hand, his palm upward, light glinted off the razorblade he held. Leroy’s blood danced and shimmied on its surface, the droplets like jumping beans.

  “We should shake hands,” he said. “That’s how friends greet each other, right?”

  Normally, Chris would have felt sick at the sight of blood, but the energy wafting off Leroy was stronger than ever, and at that moment she felt a connection with him that she’d never felt with anyone before. He was her friend. And it was rude of her to stand so far away, to leave him waiting there.

  Chris pressed her palm to his. There was a sharp pain when the razor sliced her skin but that was quickly erased the second Leroy’s blood mixed with her own. She felt light, as if she were rising up off the floor, as if every problem she’d ever had didn’t matter anymore. Chris knew she could get lost in that feeling forever.

  It took her a second to notice that Leroy had started chanting. It wasn’t English. Maybe German or Russian? The chimes that laid under his voice bounced off the ends of his words, lilting like music played over a loudspeaker on an ice cream truck, until he stopped. Then all that was left were the echoey remnants of the ice cream truck music, calling Chris, calling her out to the middle of the street where she knew she shouldn’t go, but she wanted that cold sweetness so much she would gladly run into traffic for it.

  “Chris!” Micah yelled from the doorway. The sound of his voice lifted her trance enough that when she turned to face him she saw the swirly gray vortex on the wall next to her. Leroy released her hand, hissing, baring his sharp teeth, and lunged at Micah just as Micah ran to grab Chris’s arm. Leroy didn’t tackle him, just knocked him off balance, and both humans were knocked into the vortex before he could get to them. Leroy’s scowl was the last thing Chris saw before the swirling gray cloud pinched closed behind her.

  * * *

  Chris turned to Micah, but he wasn’t there anymore. Nothing was. The spell she had been under with Leroy was dissipating. She tried to hold onto it because she knew what was coming next: sheer, unadulterated panic. She was alone, floating in blackness. For all she could tell she was in what all those science fiction movies called “suspended animation.” Once Leroy’s magic wore off she feared she would go crazy, so she willed herself to think about what she could do to get out of this.

  She closed her eyes and tried to come up with a way out, but Leroy’s
face filled her vision, snarling at her. Chris quickly opened her eyes and he was gone. In the place where his face had been a small dot of blue appeared, and her first thought was that he was coming for her, running toward her to pull her back to him. But then the blue dot grew larger until she could see it for what it was: a planet. It was moving. Or she was. Either way, it got closer, looking much like Earth except that there was only one large land mass plopped in the middle of an immense blue ocean. She and the world in front of her got so close that she could feel herself getting yanked into orbit. Desperately, she kicked, trying to break free. Fortunately, all it took was that one good kick and she broke loose of its gravity. She watched as it grew smaller and smaller behind her until it vanished.

  She must have passed hundreds of planets, stars, and asteroids as she sailed through space. Distant galaxies swirled and stretched out their coiled arms as if they were waving to her. She even thought she saw a spaceship, complete with circular lights that flashed, but she chalked it up to just being an afterimage left by the light of the stars.

  Another planet grew larger in front of her. She leaned her body to the left to dodge it, but it kept heading straight for her. It was slowing down, like they were approaching each other at a stop sign, until it completely filled her vision. Green circles demarked where the land masses were, surrounded by a sea of aquamarine. It looked like a giant, circular Easter egg. She could feel its pull, so very much like Leroy’s, and it took a moment to realize that it wasn’t magic. It was gravity. Like the other planet, it threatened to take her in, but unlike the other planet its gravity was so strong she knew there was no escaping it, though she tried anyway. She reached outward, futilely grasping at the emptiness around her, trying to heave herself back out into the darkness, but she was already falling.

  It was a slow dive at first. Like falling in a dream where you have all the time in the world to think about how your body will look when it’s flat, bloody, and broken on the ground. But as Chris tilted and dipped into the planet’s aura, feeling the wispy phantom fingers of atmosphere grazing her skin, she got to the point where she just wanted to see the surface. She wanted to see just how far she could fall. Maybe it would be further than anyone, ever. At least it would be something to be remembered by.

  She picked up speed, the phantom fingers raking across her body. The air around her flickered then sparked like she was a lighter on a windy day. Finally, she caught and the space around her body burst into flame as if she were a meteor bulleting to the ground. At first, she couldn’t see anything through the breaks in the flames except for the occasional cloud. Then the air around her cleared and she could see everything. The ground was even greener close up than it had been from orbit, the ocean more aquamariney.

  Chris angled downward and accelerated. She was headed for a secluded section of beach, a cove of sorts. All at once, an updraft hit her, lifting her back up into the air moments before she would have hit the ground. It slowed her descent so that she fell gradually, like a feather, and when she hit the ground it merely knocked the wind out of her.

  She tried to catch her breath, struggling to suck in just one gulp of air, but couldn’t. She banged her fists on the sand, flopping like a fish out of water, until finally her lungs expanded and she gasped. For a long while she just laid there trying to recover, wondering how in the world she was alive, if she’d broken anything in the fall, and if Micah had somehow managed to survive. If he died it would be her fault.

  Chris’s skin soaked up the sunlight that penetrated the cloud cover. Who knows how long she had been out there floating. She didn’t want to get up. She just wanted to be back home in her bed, safe, with Micah and her mom all under the same roof. But she didn’t know how to make that happen. She wasn’t even certain that Micah was alive.

  The last of Leroy’s spell dissipated and with it the last traces of numbness until she was just Christina again, listening to the waves crashing rhythmically against the shore. Then exhaustion rendered her unconscious.

  CHAPTER 4

  It was dark when Chris woke. The clouds had all cleared and a cool breeze washed the foamy waves against the sand. Her muscles were stiff and sore when she finally sat up. Part of her wanted nothing more than to lie back down and sleep, but she was thirsty, and she knew from watching TV that the first thing you have to do when lost is find water. She had to move.

  Looking around, she realized she was cut off from the green hills and forests she had seen while rocketing through the air. There was nothing but ocean, sand, and the large arched entrance to a cave behind her, a torch flickering on its wall. After floating in space then lying on the beach all day she knew she must be dehydrated. So, even though she didn’t want to, she grabbed the torch and walked inside.

  Light flickered off the cave’s nooks and crannies, the stalactites and stalagmites that were hiding God-knows-what in its damp interior. Chris imagined snakes, spiders, and roaches lying in the shadows waiting to find a way to weasel into her sneakers or crawl up her legs. But what she really feared were bats. Every few seconds she would raise her torch into the air and peer into the darkness above her. She imagined hundreds of thousands of little brown bodies clinging to the top of the cave’s ceiling with their tiny, sharp claws. One misstep, one kicked rock and they would descend on her, tangling in her hair, biting her, infecting her with rabies or bleeding her dry.

  She shivered and kept moving. She could hear water dripping. It was exactly how caves always were in movies: dark and drippy. She searched and searched with her light but couldn’t find a puddle anywhere. Her tongue was starting to feel like a clump of Styrofoam. She was so thirsty that the moisture on the walls looked mighty appealing. Lifting the torch closer to them, she inspected the jagged blue minerals embedded in the rock, and somewhere in the darkness something squeaked.

  Chris dove to the ground, her torch rolling downhill. She caught it before it could get away. Frantically, she squinted her eyes and searched for the bat that would be the first to dive-bomb her. But something else caught her eye instead. Where the torch’s light met the darkness, a fork lay in the tunnel, an actual shiny green fork with tines and everything just lying on the ground. Around the corner, a skinny, pale man dressed in ragged clothes pushed a wooden cart. One of its wheels wobbled and he gave it a swift kick. The cart was piled high with gleaming utensils. Around him the walls glittered with all manner of cutlery. More forks, some spoons, knives—even a melon baller—protruded from the rocks.

  Luckily, the stranger didn’t turn around or he would have seen her. She couldn’t take any chances. This wasn’t Earth. He was an alien. Or wait, she was. Regardless, she had no idea how he would react. Better to be safe and stay hidden.

  Chris almost lost the man as she trailed him, weaving through the complicated network of tunnels. She absently pocketed the fork and kept following him, though. There was the possibility he knew where water was. So she kept as close as she dared, tailing him through the labyrinth until she heard music and voices singing out of tune.

  * * *

  They followed the network of tunnels further underground, Christina and her silent companion, and instead of it getting darker it grew brighter. Torches hung at intervals along the cavern walls. When they rounded the final corner the tightness of the previous passages fell away, and Chris was suddenly standing on a balcony-like platform that overlooked an enormous cavity in the earth holding an entire underground city. The man she’d been trailing continued down a ramp on her right, but she stayed for a moment, taking in the marvel before her.

  Small, compact buildings that looked like they’d been sculpted right out of the rock that surrounded them were closely knitted together. Their windows and doors were just square holes cut into the rock sides so she could see the people inside moving around. Pale, ghost-like figures wove through the alleys, and a group of revelers gathered around a large fire, drinking and singing. A few men clinked their flagons together, their drinks sloshing out. Chris licked her lips
and took the ramp down into town.

  Firelight cast long, erratic shadows across the floors and walls, and the ghostly faces of the people that moved through the city made it feel like an off kilter haunted house. A man and a woman had a board set on top of a barrel and were dropping stones onto it, a game maybe. The man stood up, smacking the board, sending it flying. He took a handful of shiny green coins out of his pocket and hurled them at the victor before stalking off. Across the street it looked like they even had a brothel. Women stood clustered in front of the dilapidated building, bright smears of makeup streaked across their cheeks and eyes.

  Chris tried her best to cling to the shadows, still afraid to let anyone see her. She could only assume she was in some kind of alternate reality or parallel universe, and she didn’t know the rules. What would happen if she was discovered? What would happen on Earth if an alien just walked up to a bunch of people? Nothing good. She thought about turning around, heading back up the ramp through the dark insect-infested tunnels, but her thirst was becoming a physical pain. She needed to find something to drink soon.

  That’s when she heard it—the splash of liquid. She was tucked into a narrow alley behind a row of houses, chin tilted down in an attempt at anonymity. A wispy woman was dunking laundry into a wooden tub, rinsing a dingy white nightgown before hanging it on the line that draped and connected to her neighbors’. She was just about to wash another piece of clothing when Chris heard a deep male voice from the house. She couldn’t make out what he was saying, but he must have been calling the woman because she quickly wiped her hands dry on her smock and rushed inside.