Love in Darkness (Castles on the Sand 2)

One

This book will be out May 21, 2013

My name is Alex Katsumoto and I’m on a subway platform in Tokyo, Japan. This city is where I’m serving my mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, otherwise known as the Mormon Church. I’m twenty-one years old, have brown hair, brown eyes with a slight Asian tilt to them (I’m half Japanese) and am six feet, two inches tall. I state these facts because they seem important. Like I must repeat them or I’ll forget.

The station is packed so that it’s hard to stand without touching anyone and the air is thick with the scent of exhaled moisture and bad breath. The man right next to me wears a surgical mask, ostensibly to protect against airborne disease, but likely just as much to afford a little extra privacy, to not have his face read by thousands of strangers on the course of his commute.

In my hand is an unopened letter from Madison Lukas who lives in my home town in California. She’s got ice blue eyes and platinum blond hair and skin as soft as silk. I sense this letter is dangerous and don’t dare open it.

Except, where is it? My hands are empty, and it’s not on the floor. A quick patdown of my pockets reveals only lint and my appointment notebook. I paw through the contents of my bag and a couple of copies of The Book of Mormon fall out and land with splayed pages. People shift around me as I jab them with my elbows.

“You all right?” asks my companion. Elder Ito is his name, and like me, he’s an American. Both of his parents emigrated from Japan, but his posture and mannerisms are so unabashedly Western that people here startle when he speaks Japanese. They expect him to yell in English like they’re all deaf. “What are you looking for?” He shoulders people aside so he can lean down to pick up the books.

And I still can’t find Madison’s letter. It’s not anywhere in my bag. I pat my pockets again, then claw at them, scrunching the fabric and willing it to be paper.

“Elder Katsumoto,” says my companion. He draws my name out in a way that lets me know I’m acting weird and hands me my books. “Seriously, what’s with you? You launch into a two hour lecture during scripture study, say nothing for the rest of the day, and listen, you need to take a shower tonight. I’m serious. You reek, man.”

A cold fear pools at the base of my spine and I know, in my bones, that something very bad is going to happen. An earthquake. We’re in danger down here, walled in by the crowd.

I force myself to stand as still as I can and reach out my awareness. Voices chatter on a higher plane and I eavesdrop, a trick I’ve taught myself painstakingly over the last few months. It used to be I could only hear the voices as whispers, but now, I hear them clearly. They’re breathy and genderless, but if I concentrate, it’s as if they speak softly right into my ear.

“-doesn’t know what’ll happen to him.”

“They’re standing there, sitting ducks. Standing ducks.”

“The train is the way out.”

“Unless you’re wrong.”

The voices always speak in a kind of code and I do my best to piece together what’s going on. They’re plotting something, that’s clear. I bet they cause the earthquake, and the train might be the way out if I get on it, or they might be warning me to step in front of it. This might be their way of saying I’ll soon wish I were dead.

“Never let him hear you.”

“He’s Chosen. We may have no power to stop him.”

I hate it when they say things like this. Any day, any minute, they’ll figure out I can hear them and then what? Will they stop talking altogether? Adopt another code? Kill me on the spot?