Sol

Chapter 1 - Trent - Fairy tale

"There is no death, Trent. We are universal beings. There is only one consciousness. Don't you feel it? All the good vibes?" Dani's honeyed voice lilted up, drifted back, and reached somewhere deep inside me.

As usual.

And as usual I didn't do anything about it, even though I wanted to.

I clenched my jaw and took a deep breath, holding it in. She was just right here, right beside me, but not mine to touch. Remember that.

The brook glinted below us in the dappled shade of the trees. As if demonstrating just how much she felt the rhythms of the Universe, she stopped right in front of me on the middle of the log that served as a bridge, closed her eyes, and lifted her open-palmed hands toward the lofty tips of the trees, all the while balancing on the wide trunk.

I'd been following close behind her and checked myself before I ran into her, resisting the urge to grab her by the waist for balance. At eighteen years old, I wouldn't dare. She was twenty-two...a goddess, too delicate, too precious. An object to admire from afar—even when I was so near.

But she always charmed me. Of course she couldn't deal with death the way everyone else did. Of course she couldn't simply cry and huddle into herself like, oh, ninety-nine percent of the population. Of course she had to process things in her own bohemian way.

And of course she had to smell like some exotic spicy perfume. Kind of like chai tea, but on a person, sweet and alluring at the same time.

I knew from when I caught her hiking with drooped shoulders and slack arms that her blasé words were a brave front for the grief. That she twinkled despite the pain.

"You're gonna make him roll his eyes so far back he can see his brain." Degan, her younger brother and my best friend since we were eight, picked up a stick, threw it into the underbrush, and stepped on the shaggy redwood log, the last to go over the stream.

Dani's white-blond, spun-sugar hair and slight figure contrasted with Degan's dark, sticking-up hair and tan, sturdy body. Her beauty had taunted me most of my life. Her luminous, crystal blue eyes, ringed with makeup, often made me forget what I was saying, and the ethereal gypsy skirts she wore drove me to complete distraction. Especially on a day like today when I'd glimpsed her slim legs silhouetted in the sunlight and imagined the beauty I'd explore under her clothes if given the go-ahead.

She opened her eyes and smiled at me while paused on the tree-bridge, her eyes locking onto mine. "Oh, Trent understands me, don't you?" But a quiver in her smile betrayed her confidence.

I nodded, wanting to reassure her. "Yeah." At this point I would have agreed with anything she said. She turned, satisfied, and danced over the rest of the bridge. I stood in the middle, transfixed, watching her move. She might only be four years older than me, but she'd forever be out of reach.

It struck me how she shimmered in the golden filtered light—the movement of her clothing, the light on her hair, the glow to her skin. She always shimmered, just by existing. Even in her moments of darkness, her brightness came through.

Then I snapped out of it and remembered to finish going across.

She usually had these silly hippie-girl sayings. I honestly had no idea what she was talking about. "Wait, what's wrong with a ceremony to honor someone who has died? It's dignified and respectful," I said.

"To have all these people who don't know you come and say a bunch of bullshit they don't mean? To force all these people to cry? No. Not for me," she said mildly. She skipped along like a wood sprite, pausing to coo at a particularly fairytale-like red mushroom with white spots on top. "I'm not saying it's wrong to have a ceremony. I just don't like the way we do it. I don't need that kind of convention in my life."