Conduits

Chapter One

Then there were kids like Sammy. Off in their own worlds. Chasing the past. Fascinated by the junk from the Lighted's old world three generations past. None of the junk worked… for most people anyway, which made the junk useless to most people.

A friend of Gabby's, Clara Danvers, was like Sammy. Clara was of an age with Gabby but with her head in the clouds, always scrounging junk to sell to collectors and repairing junk that would never work again, stuff with gears and springs and a second skin of rust. Nana G collected the junk with gears and springs, "antiques" from her first life. Gabby called it "junk" same as most. If you couldn't eat or wear something it was junk. Not just useful. Broken. Broken to most at least.

Gabby pulled out her toothbrush and paste from the medicine cabinet. A beeswax candle helped in lighting the closed off bathroom, enough so she could change clothes and brush teeth properly.

The paste Gabby scrubbed her teeth with tasted like chalk and salt, a foul bitterness that would not leave the mouth for hours after.

"That's how you know your teeth are clean," Nana G used to say with a firm nod to cap off the wisdom.

When she couldn't stand the taste of the paste any longer, Gabby spat the stuff out into the sink. A pitcher of water sat next to the sink. She poured the contents into a cup and rinsed then her mouth.

Taking the candle on its plate, Gabby exited the bathroom and padded off to her room.

Gabby saw a flutter blue light as she approached her shared room. It was an unnatural glow. Clean. Cool. Unlike the flame of a candle that produces smoke and ruddy illumination.

"My stupid brother is at it again, huh?" Gabby could not believe her brother's nerve, his audacity. What if someone saw the light? Did she pull the curtains before heading off to change and wash?

Damn him!

Upon crossing the threshold to the room, Gabby stepped wrong.

A floorboard in the doorway creaked under the ball of her foot. Gabby's shoulders jumped up and she winced. Every time! It gives me away every... time!

The odd blue light winked out before she took another step.

Gabby exhaled and stepped into the room.

She shined the candle's light into the now dark room. Her brother sat on his bed, legs pulled up into his chest, a picture of innocence. Too innocent by his grin.

First thing Gabby did was check the window. The curtains were drawn closed, held fast with a clothespin. No light was getting out. Gabby began to breathe again. She then settled her glare on Sammy.

Sammy threw up his hands, bringing his bed's quilted blanket along to hide the lower half of his face. "I didn't do it!" he claimed guiltily.

Eyes narrowing, Gabby stuck her head between the curtains and glanced around outside. Pinpricks of candle light in other windows revealed other apartment buildings in the town along with single homes. Other than that, the street along which the Gonzales family lived was still. No wind sent refuge tumbling, lingering clouds from the overcast day dampened the light of the moon, and the oil lamps' lights would hinder anyone's vision trying to look up.

Gabby once more secured the curtains with an air of a paranoid person, then regarded her brother. "What 'it' didn't you do?" she asked, placing a hand on a hip.

The light from the candle Gabby held had a limited range, her brother barely within the border. Still, she could make out the movement of Sammy's owlish eyes darting in search of an excuse.