From Shadows to Starlight

A Friend and a Teacher

"You're welcome, Monsieur," she said, smiling. "It was nothing, really."

"Call me Erik," he said, the ghost of something like a smile passing briefly over his lips. "And it was most definitely not nothing." He took her hand in both of his and this time, Erik smiled.

Erik looked back through time and saw his younger self, and his mother. At the moment her bottles of alcohol were set aside, and she sat in front of the one small mirror she had, arranging her hair and putting on dark, heavy makeup, wearing a rather flamboyant, low-cut red dress that looked to be a few sizes too small. She noticed him watching her and scowled.

“What are you looking at?”

Little Erik shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Well, I have to go meet a very important client soon, so why don’t you run along and play with your friends while I’m gone?”

Erik just looked confused.

“Oh, that’s right,” his mother laughed. “You don’t have any friends!”

He shrank back into a dark corner of the room, where he knelt on the floor and hugged his knees.

“Never had any, and never will! No one in their right mind would ever want to be a friend to a freak like you!” She threw her head back and laughed again, as little Erik bowed his head and rocked slowly back and forth, trying not to listen to her.

The older Erik looked at his mother and this time, he laughed at her. She’d always thought she was right about everything, and as a child he had always believed she was, too. For the most part, he still did. But this time, this one, sweet, precious time, she was wrong. Dead wrong. Because just a few moments ago, someone had said words his mother had told him he would never hear.

“I’m your friend.”

Erik let Alana lead him back through the tunnels to where they had stopped earlier. His head was spinning. He couldn’t believe what he’d heard, and yet the expression on Alana’s face, the meaning in her words, and the feeling of her hand in his couldn’t be doubted. She was his friend. And he was hers.

He was in awe of the emotions washing over him. His heart felt so much lighter, the dark music in his head faded into new songs of celebration, with words he couldn’t quite understand yet, but he had hope he could understand them in time. Hope. That was something new as well. Hope had somehow awakened inside of him for the first time in his life. Alana had found him at one of his weakest points, and somehow she had known exactly what she needed to do, and more importantly, what to say to him. Her words had burned, with a heavenly warmth, into his broken heart and made their way down, down, into a deep part of his soul that he’d longed to forget. A place where a small, lonely child, crying alone in the darkness, suddenly looked up from his sorrow and rose to his feet. There was a light in the window, and as the little boy moved towards it, his tears vanished and a smile spread across his face.

“Erik?”

He suddenly came back to the present. They’d returned to the cave chamber where they had left their things, and Alana was looking up at him, concerned. “Are you all right?”

He nodded, feeling new strength surge through him. For the first time in his life he felt…not alone. “I’ve never been better,” he said, meaning every word.

“Good.” Alana smiled. She had such a charming little smile, but like him, she rarely used it. Like him, she had led a troubled life of sadness and fear. And maybe, he could help her like she had helped him. Maybe. Though his new friendship…he loved that word…had suddenly made his world a better place, he knew he was still plagued by self-doubt. Would Alana still call him a friend if she knew what he really was? He didn’t want to think about it, and tried his best to banish the darker thoughts with the new music in his head, but the doubts still crept through the depths of his mind, trying to poison his happiness. For now, however, he refused to let that happen.