"Wait, why can't we see each other anymore?" Trent's brown - almost black - eyes were always so much more expressive than his voice. Nadjia felt twice the guilt she thought she would.
"Jonathan's home, Trent."
"...but you're my best friend!"
"That's just it, Trent, we're friends, and we've gotten closer than appropriate. I am supposed to be with him. Not you. Not anyone. Jonathan."
A shadow grew over Trent's expression. "Four years. We've been close four years. I've always respected you, your space, and I've never crossed any lines."
"I'm not even saying we cannot be friends... just that we can't be whatever this was going to turn into. Whatever you thought this was going to be."
"What I thought. Whatever I thought this was going to be. I can't believe you're breaking up with me like I'm some summer fling."
"Summer fling?" The lunch bell rang. "There was no fling, Trent! Oh, my God, I want to pull my hair out right now. We hung out. A lot. We're still friends! Why are you so upset?"
"...because you were crying a good three months when I met you, and it wasn't me, it was that boy! He left you to go off to his hoity-toity college. He never wrote, he never called, he never once visited."
"Alright. Lunch is over, and I have class. Can we talk after school?"
"Yeah, sure." Trent stared at his feet, and had to actively force himself not to yell, or lash out. After all, this was not her fault. It was this Jonathan, this faceless nobody that seemed to dominate her entire world. His fault, and no other. "After school, then."
✟ ☧ ✟
Nida rushed to the door before the second chime, opening it to see the smiling face of Lillian Plow.
"Lillian, won't you please come in?"
"Nida Sharif." Lillian nodded, stepping inside, "you have a beautiful home. The Order has taken good care of you. Sufi, correct?"
"Insha'Allah." Nida bowed her head, and smiled. "Welcome to our home. Amir, and I are happy to have you as our guest."
"The honor is mine, of course."
"Amir will be with us shortly."
"What brings me to your lovely home today?"
"We are very concerned..." Nida's grave expression matched the near whisper of her voice.
"Yes. The Walker boy is returned, and things are not going as your agreement with The Order hoped they would."
"Jonathan is distant with Nadjia, and Nadjia is angry with Jonathan. She is spending a lot of time with some boy in her school. If she breaks the accord we made with Judge Grifford and Clayton Walker, things will not go so well for our family, I do not think."
"So you want me to influence her?"
"No." Neither Lillian, nor Nida heard Amir enter the den. "We need protection... and to learn how to protect ourselves if need be."
Lillian's grin spread a little too wide, and Amir suppressed a gasp.
The diminutive woman was all too suddenly, too clearly, what The Order warned. "I can help with that. I am not permitted to form any circles, and I cannot influence Driftwood with you... but I can give you the means to do so yourselves."
Lillian reached beneath her shirt and produced a faceted black crystal, an oily red gleam in the light reflected on its surface. She closed her hand tightly over the crystal, and when she opened her hand there were two new crystals. She dropped the two crystals from one hand into the other, and they made a strange, nauseating musical sound.
"Black glass, my friends. Not crystals. It is a living force born from the very soul of magick. A gift from the shadow of Driftwood."
Nida flinched, a flash of shifting skies, and two enormous twisting towers briefly invading her mind. She looked to Amir who was sweating, wiping his palms across the sleeves of his shirt.
"Take these. Everything you need to know is in them."
"We are not heathens." Nida's voice shook, but she found herself reaching for one of the gleaming crystals.
"They are not without a price." Lillian dropped one into Nida's outstretched hand.
"What do we owe you?"
"Nida, my darling. You owe me nothing... but power like this comes with a price. You must use it. Appease this power. Do whatever it is you do. Pray north to Mecca. Ask your Allah whatever you will. The glass knows your focused intentions... demands use."
Amir reached, and Lillian dropped the remaining faceted glass into his hand.
Amir was trembling. "What if The Order should find out?"
"Why would they?" Lillian's motherly tone calmed him, echoing in his ears. "They've no idea of Black Glass. Should they see it, they'll not understand it."
"...but what if they find you were here?" Amir examined the crystal between his thumb and forefinger, no longer trembling."
"Me?" Lillian took a step toward Nida, and rubbed the woman's stomach. Nida's eyes went wide, the flecks of indigo in her deep blue eyes bright, and shimmering.
Lillian nodded.
"Beautiful Amir Sharif... I was never here."
The room was empty, except for Nida, and Amir. They breathed heavily, holding their new pendants their breath small clouds of frosted fog in the suddenly cold space of their den.
Nida turned to Amir, unable to keep herself from smiling. Her voice trembled. "Amir! I am with child!"
✟ ☧ ✟
Nadjia had to run to catch up to Trent, her voice was hoarse. She swallowed, trying to catch her breath. "I was yelling for you!"
"I heard you."
"...and you ignored me. Trent, don't be angry with me. Your one of my best friends."
"Sure, that's just what I want. I'm your best friend. Like a brother. Let's not ruin a good friendship by complicating things."
"That's right!" Nadjia's accent, years faded now reappeared as her voice hardened. "I have never given reason for you to treat me badly."
"I want to show you something."
Nadjia took a single step back. She could never read his voice. He had little body language. "What do you want to show me?"
"Do you trust me?"
No. "...yes."
"Come with me. We can take the bus to my stop, and I can take you to the falls. We're on a schedule, though. If we don't go now, we'll miss it."
"Miss it?"
"Do you trust me?"
No! "Yes, Trent. You've never given me reason not to. Please don't."
"Our chariot awaits." Trent extended an arm toward his bus. "Ours is bus fifty-seven."
Nadjia hesitated.
Why could Jonathan not be here now?
She felt - not for the first time in Trent's company - afraid. She remembered something about herself, just out of reach... the once upon a time at Twin Knolls Park, a time when she could anticipate, and dodge Jonathan's attempt to tag her.
Everything inside her bore down on her heart.
Don't go.
Don't trust Trent Henrique.
Nadjia don't be stupid.
Don't go.
Wait for Jonathan.
Jonathan Walker. Wait for Jonathan? Absent four years without a letter, or a call. Absent from comfort when she needed it. Absentee from dances, and matinee movies. A horrible empty shadow that dominated her these past four years, where her every action anticipated the what-if, her existence in denial from what was.
No.
Jonathan Walker was not coming, but Trent; Trent was there. To talk, to confide, to befriend. In many ways, a surrogate for Jonathan Walker, for whom she loved... but loathed.
Nadjia boarded bus fifty-seven, shivering as she stepped on board, an ominous and irrational response she could not place.
Get off this bus.
Fifty-seven has no luck.
Nadjia ignored the voice in her heart as Trent boarded behind her. They took a seat in the back of the bus, Trent unreadable as always.
Inside her, that voice which always called to her in her voice screamed, panicked. Nadjia saw Trent staring at the profile of her face, looked to him and smiled.
She cursed the voice in her heart, and ignored it.
There was a hiss as the doors to the bus closed, and Nadjia flinched.
There was a grinding sound as the driver put the bus into motion, and they were underway.
✟ ☧ ✟
Jonathan arrived to an empty campus, except for one girl standing alone at the campus bus stops.
"You, girl."
"Excuse me?"
Jonathan frowned. "Rude. Sorry."
"Whatever."
"I'm looking for Nadjia Sharif."
"Gone." Monosyllabic. Great.
"I'm sorry to hear that. What are you still doing here?"
She didn't answer.
"Okay. So much for first impressions."
The girl sighed. "My boyfriend was supposed to pick me up."
"I see. My, uh - Nadjia - was supposed to. Well, no I guess she wasn't. I wanted surprise her. I'm Jonathan."
"I don't know you."
"I suppose you wouldn't. I don't go here."
"There's only one highschool in Driftwood. You a dropout?"
"Am I - no - no I'm not a dropout."
"Victor Guerrero."
"That's a uniquely male name for a girl... but okay. Good to meet you Victor."
"Stupid." She rolled her eyes, but she laughed a little. "I'm waiting for Victor Guerrero."
"Should I know his name?"
"I'm surprised you don't."
"I'm sheltered, I guess." Jonathan glanced around the empty campus.
"I'm Maria Olga Collazo Sandoval."
"That whole thing, huh?"
Maria laughed - genuine laughter - and her tone softened. "Yeah, white-boy. That whole thing."
"Looks like we're both late."
"No, I'm right on time."
"I meant me. Me and Victor, too, I guess."
Maria frowned, looking a little more than distracted. She absently ran a hand over her shirt, flattening it to her stomach. "It's good to meet you, but I have to start walking if I want to make it home before sunset."
"If the office is open, I could make a call and secure you a ride."
"Secure a ride? Do you really talk like that?"
"Blame it on upbringing."
"Can you really get me a ride, or are you just talking to talk?"
Jonathan scratched nervously at the back of his neck for a moment. "I don't talk to hear my own voice if that's what you're asking."
"Alright, white-boy in shining armor. If you're for real, go make your call."
"I'm on it."
"...hey, Jonathan? Thank you."
"Yeah. I'll be right back."
✟ ☧ ✟
By three-fifteen PM Nadjia forgot the urgency of the warnings inside her.
Trent led her from their drop off at the bust stop onto a trail that led into the woods. Ten minutes and a half a mile in they came upon the skeletal burned out ruins of an old house. The floor of the cabin was in spectacular condition.
"This house once belonged to Gregory and Elizabeth Anne MacAllen. You'll notice the majority of the surviving parts are in remarkable condition, especially considering the age of the ruins."
"How old are these?"
"They were living here before they laid the first brick in the foundations of Driftwood. The only other structure as old belongs to old man Finley at the crossroads on the way to the Pridewater township."
"I think Pridewater qualifies as a city, now." Nadjia said, passing Trent, and stepping into the ruins. There was no evidence of fire.
"Well, now. Sure... but when this was whole, it was just the MacAllens, and Cassus Finley."
"The history here. You can smell it. You can feel it." Nadjia knelt over the floorboards, setting her backpack beside her. The floorboards were dusty, dirty, and parts were covered in piles of pine needles, some old and brown, some fresh and green. Nadjia unfastened a pocket on her backpack, and drew out a small pocket knife. She unfolded the small knife and began poking at the floorboards."
"You shouldn't..."
Her voice was light, and her expression was far away as she began carving into the floor of the ruins. "This place is forever, Trent. History that refused to die. It's like us, survivors. All the pain that tried to utterly wipe it from the world, but here it is."
Nadjia took her time, and Trent rocked on his heels trying not to show his impatience as she carved a large slender valentine's heart. She etched her initials into it, and then below hers, Jonathan's, and the date. "You see. Now this place will remember us. We will grow up, have families, get old, and die one day... but this will be here. One day someone will come here with their friend, like you did for me, and they will ask: 'who were these people?'"
Nadjia blew the dust away, and smiled, satisfied with her carving.
Trent nodded. "Can I?"
"Of course. No one can steal this moment from us. Today we are Driftwood. We are forever."
Nadjia handed the folding knife to her friend, and he took it into his hands cautiously, examining the blade.
He circled around, staring down at her as she admired her handiwork.
Trent passed the knife back and forth between his hands, and took it into his right hand.
He stared hard down at Nadjia, and the small pocket knife suddenly felt very heavy.
Trent took a deep breath and closed his eyes exhaling. He knelt down, jamming the tip of the knife into the floorboards. He took another breath, inhaling, and exhaling slowly.
He was not so careful as he carved the word spite into his part of the floor.
Overhead, there was a brief screech. Nadjia's attention was immediately upon it, a large pale barn owl stared down at her, it's eyes like black marbles, it's face only a little menacing.
Trent stood behind her, carefully folding the knife back in on itself. "They nest somewhere nearby, but I've seen as many as four, or five at a time perched up around here."
"Huh. There's no pellets."
"I don't think they do that here. I've never seen any other animals."
Nadjia stood, and turned to Trent, plucking the small pocket knife from his hand. Behind her the sunlight shimmered through an unscathed stained glass window, casting hews of blue, green, and red over the floorboards. Nadjia saw the cast glow from the in tact window. "This was meant to be."
"Do you think it's pretty?"
"It's beautiful."
"It's nothing. Come on. We have to hurry. You need to see what I wanted to show you."
"This wasn't it?"
"Pales in comparison... but if we're any longer, we'll miss it."
Nadjia did not want to leave the ruins. She felt peaceful, and there was something in the ruins that called to her.
Something about them...
"Come on. You're going to love this."
✟ ☧ ✟
The Taxi pulled up to the Brookstone Apartments, and came to a stop at the gated apartment community. "Hey white-boy... thank you so much. You didn't have to do this."
"Yeah, I kind of did. What kind of man would I be to fail two people in one day?" Jonathan abruptly opened the door to his side of the taxi. He hurried to her side and opened her door.
Maria wore a peculiar expression. "You are a very strange person."
"Right? Rides for everyone! You get a ride... and you get a ride!" Jonathan pointed, jabbing his index finger at imagined people around him.
"No, I mean how you are. The rides. Going out of your way to help someone you don't know. Opening doors for people."
"Blame it on my upbringing."
Maria rolled her eyes. "You need to be okay with people thanking you for doing good."
Jonathan reached for the back of his neck, and stopped himself. "I... I just know how much it sucks when you're expecting someone who isn't there."
Maria stepped out of the cab. "I don't think your friend Nadjia sees it that way. Girls like her only go off when they're mad at boys like you."
"It's complicated. I've been away a long time. She was bound to want worthy company."
"You're dumb white-boy. I don't know your girl, but I see her every day. She spent her freshman year crying."
"She cried?"
"Like every day. That boy she goes with, she doesn't care about him. She didn't cry for Trent Henrique. You're dumb if you let him run off with her."
"I don't know. She's mad at me."
"Okay. What are you doing tomorrow?"
"What's tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow's when you're hanging out with me. It's Friday, and honestly? I could use the company of a stranger."
"How do you know I'm not some freak with a chip on his shoulder, and a big knife?"
"Okay psycho, because you don't like violence. If you did, Trent Henrique would be drowning in his blood, and your girl Nadjia wouldn't be fawning over some shitbag like him."
"So hang out?"
"I was thinking maybe you take me to Sam's Diner and get me a malt."
"Why not ask Victor to take you?"
"Why don't you take Nadjia?"
"I am afraid, I think. Afraid she'll reject me,"
"Your stupidity is going to lose you something great... but while you're trying to make up your mind whether you're brave or whatever, someone is going to steal her from you."
"She deserves better than someone who didn't write, or call."
"Whatever. You're making a mistake, but I could use new company. Pick me up tomorrow, same place."
Jonathan felt a fleeting wave of guilt - fleeting - and it was gone. "Alright. If you're there, I'll see you."
✟ ☧ ✟
"These are the Prism Falls." Trent said, helping Nadjia up onto the rocky path. "Follow me."
Nadjia stared at the falls. They were, compared to the MacAllen ruins, uninspiring. She followed sullenly after Trent.
Trent led her long the path, catching her - with a little difficulty - when she stumbled, and soon they were at the falls. He took Nadjia by the hand, and pulled her. There was a brief rush of wet cold as the falls caught her on the shoulder, and they were behind the Prism Falls. The sun shone through the falls in shades of sunset, orange, red, and gold. She squinted at the glare of the light, and the misty spray of the water as it crashed into the rocks just beyond their small cavern.
It was pretty... but it wasn't the stained glass at the ruins. It wasn't...
...the sun lowered slowly, and suddenly she was standing in a rainbow of light. The inside of the shallow cavern shimmered, crystal refracting light into into coppery flecks of mica, and thin veins of silver.
Nadjia felt her berth stolen. "I'm in a rainbow..."
"We are Driftwood..." Trent's voice was only just audible above the falls. He leaned closer to Nadjia, leaning in to her awe, and he pressed his kiss to her mouth.
Nadjia's eyes closed. She leaned into Trent, and kissed him back.
✟ ☧ ✟
The room was silent when Clayton entered alone.
Emily stood first, her hands holding over her slightly swollen, pregnant belly. Amir, Nida and Nadjia stood up out of their seats, but there was no cheer in the room.
"He wasn't at the pickup."
Emily looked concerned. "Clay, what does that mean?"
"It means he wasn't at the pickup. The academy says he never showed up for Pass and Review, and he never checked out."
Nadjia's blue eyes looked wet, especially under the soft lighting. "Is he staying there?"
"I don't know, Nadjia."
Nida, and Amir looked worried, and catching the brief exchange of concern, Clayton shook his head subtly.
Nadjia slumped back into her chair, cut a thick slice of roast beef, and scooped up a large scoop of mashed potatoes. She doused them both in two ladles of brown gravy. Without further ceremony, she began to eat.
Nida, Amir and Emily sat slowly, and began serving their selves.
"Well, that's backward," Jonathan stepped slowly down the stairwell, his eyes fixed on Nadjia. "...starting my big return dinner without me?"
"Jon..?"
Jonathan stepped from the shadows of the stairwell into the light, casually into the dining room. Clayton's cheeks were a little red, his eyes a little wide. Emily glared at Clayton, and Clayton shrugged stifling - poorly - a smile.
Nadjia's blue eyes were wide, her face a mixture of anger, and awe. Jonathan was tall. "Your hair!"
Jonathan ran his hands alongside his head, and laughed. "I keep it short on the sides, and pretty long on top."
Nadjia was slow to her feet, and stumbled trying to get around her chair. Jonathan stood still at the dining room threshold.
His eyes were brighter green, and deeper in his face than she remembered. When he smiled, she felt her cheeks warm.
His teeth were straight, somehow almost pointed, and when he smiled she had the feeling she was little red riding hood, and he was Sam the Sham and the Pharoah's Big Bad Wolf.
She found her way to Jonathan and the two stood a foot apart.
Nadjia slapped him hard across the face, and the sharp crack her hand made across his cheek echoed through the house.
There was a collective gasp. and silence hung in the air. A tear rolled down Nadjia's cheek. "Four years, and you couldn't find the time to write me! Me, Jon!"
Jonathan's smile did not fade. He drew a tattered, and heavily taped book from the pocket of his pea coat. "This is the only way I got through them. I wrote you every Sunday... there's letters. Four years worth waiting for you at home."
"...there are?"
"I wanted to surprise you today. You first. Before anyone else, but you weren't there after school. So, I helped some chick get a cab, and then went to your place to hand deliver you the letters. You weren't there. I gave up, and decided to surprise everyone."
Nadjia fell forward, and Jonathan caught her effortlessly. He was strong - too strong - and she wrapped her arms around him.
They held each other a long time.
Still standing in the entryway to the house, Clayton broke the moment as the door shut audibly behind him. "Well, dinner's not getting any warmer."
Nadjia breathed him in, and he smelled different.
Stronger.
He felt so strong in her embrace - solid. When they parted, their eyes locked on one another. Nadjia was still blushing.
All that muscle beneath that coat, and those black and gray clothes.
Those eyes, so green, so bright. They almost glowed under the lights.
Jonathan offered Nadjia an open hand, and for the first time she noticed his hands; he was wearing the same tight black leather gloves she sometimes saw on Clayton.
Nadjia took his hand, and Jonathan led her back to her seat, and stood his as the opposite head of the table, and Clayton took his across the long table from Jonathan. When Nadjia sat, Jonathan say.
"Now," Jonathan's voice, deeper than the twelve year old boy who left them four years prior, echoed in the room. There was command - an authority - resonating in the depth of his voice. Very much a man's voice. "Before we eat, let us say our blessing..."