After school on Thursday, I go with Luca to meet Candis and Apollo at Common Grounds, a house-turned-coffee-shop in the Cocoa Falls historic district. When we enter, they wave us over to a table next to the window that gives view to the street.
"Whoa," I say, looking around at the assortment of historical relics used as decoration. The wall behind the coffee counter boasts an assortment of old guns, and there's a belt holster hanging from the right antler of a semi-creepy buck head mounted on the wall behind the refrigerated pastry case. Another wall holds framed newspaper pages and old pictures, and a sign next to the doorway that leads to the restrooms reads, "Of Darkness and Light, there is no Coexistence". "This place is interesting," I say as I sit.
"Common Grounds has a real rich history." An older, round-middled man has appeared beside me. He reminds me of Neighbor James, but wider. "I grew up in this house," he continues. "My mama died when I was nine, and my daddy fell in love and married my caretaker a couple years after. Cocoa Falls has always been a sorta microcosm of racial reconciliation, but anywhere else, it would've been quite the scandal, white man marrying a black woman.
"Anywho, poor Emmett Till was murdered a couple hours north of here just two weeks after the wedding. Left us all pretty shell-shocked. In a fit of indignation, my daddy remodeled this lower level and made it a sorta open house. Called it 'Common Grounds' because he gave out free coffee to everyone who came in, regardless of their skin color." He looks around, nostalgia blushing up into his cheeks, and smiles. "I'm Theo Tate, proprietor."
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Tate." I smile back and shake his beefy, extended hand. "I'm Bliss Myer."
His face lights up. "Myer, you say? Any relation to a Ginger Myer? She was my caretaker's niece."
"Yes, sir," I nod. "She's my grandmother."
His eyes go wide. "Well, I'll be darned...."
Apollo, Candis, and Luca, puzzled by Mr. Tate's reaction, look at each other and then at me. I feel like a cockroach under a magnifying glass. "Well, it was real nice meeting you, Bliss," he says after a beat. "Welcome to Cocoa Falls. If you need anything at all, you know where to find me." He walks away to greet another table.
"That was odd," Candis says, giving Luca and Apollo a nervous glance before clearing her throat. "Moving on, how goes your first-week's foray into the bush, Biggity Bam?"
"Okay, I guess. As Luca can tell you, English is awkward, but overall, not too bad."
"Sufah and her minion are in our class," Luca explains.
"Ah, I see," Candis says. "So what have you learned about yourself, B? I'm sure Lylah had some pansophical gem that everyone already knows about you."
"Oh, you mean my obsession with that blonde kid from the cafeteria?" I omit his name—and my library-stalking session—to hide my intrigue (Intrigue is not obsession, mind you).
"Speak of the devil..." Apollo lifts his chin toward the window. Reign, Duff, and a third boy I've never seen before sit on a bench across the street. Next to Thing-one and Thing-two, who are both pretty good-looking, the third guy looks downright majestic.
"Who's the pretty boy in the middle?"
"Remember how we noted an absent member of Club Suck in the cafeteria a few days ago?" Candis says. "That's him. Mauro. He's the king of the proverbial castle, jack."
"King of the castle?" Duff and Reign are laughing, but Mauro just stares off into the distance. My eyes dance over his aquiline nose, sharp cheekbones, and soft jawline. His deep bronzy skin practically glows in the sunlight. "He doesn't seem very... imposing."
"He may be prettier than most of the girls at our school, but don't be fooled," Apollo warns. "He's more dangerous than he looks... like a great-white shark in flamingo's clothing or something."
Candis rolls her eyes. "Oh my word, it is not that serious."
"You know what the stories say, Cand," Luca says. "Even if it's all made up, you can look at what happened to Blaise Johnson and know there's more to the guy than hair and skin most of the girls at our school would sell their souls for."
"What stories?" I ask. "And who is Blaise Johnson?
"You mean who was Blaise Johnson."
"Guys, stop," Candis says. "Let's not imbue our new comrade with fable-based pretty-boy intimidation." She turns to me. "Mauro is purported to be a direct descendent of the most wicked woman this side of the Mississippi. It's a load of poppycock if you ask me. We're talking about a sixteen-year-old boy who gets a weekly mani/pedi and brow-shaping... Not that there's anything wrong with that, he just seems more focused on aesthetics than murd—"
Luca cuts in. "Blaise was a bully who missed four months of school after being trapped in a broom closet with Mauro for, like, two and a half minutes. Last we heard, his family had left the country."
As I stare at his profile, Mauro suddenly looks at me. Every vestige of hope drains from my mind, and no matter how hard I try, I can't break the eye contact. I can vaguely hear Candis calling my name, and Luca saying "Something's wrong," but their voices are distant. As they fade out completely, blood-curdling screams crescendo inside my head and my entire body goes numb. A wicked smile tugs at the corners of Mauro's mouth, and he winks, sending a stab into my stomach. As he turns away, breaking the gaze, the sights and sounds of the café come flooding back over me.
"Bliss, are you ok?" Candis' voice comes urgent, concerned. My head is spinning, and I slip from the chair.
Apollo catches me. "He got her," I hear him say in a low voice. "We need to get her out of here."
********************
The moment Aunt Lil hears the word 'Mauro', I'm quarantined in my room. Ruby has been detained downstairs with Gigi, and although I can hear my friends' muffled voices through the floor, I've been told I can't see or speak to them again until tomorrow.
At exactly 8:00PM, Gigi brings me dinner. Worry has deepened the lines of her face, but she smiles and kisses my forehead before leaving the room.
Completely exhausted, I lie down and close my eyes. I think about my mom and Neighbor James and my old school and how there were no boys and how that was actually a good thing because no boys meant no sleaze-bags eyeballing me like I'm a filet mignon, and no supernaturally evil boys who are prettier than me sucking my life-force out through my eyeballs.
After a few minutes, I hear a faint whisper outside my room, and my eyes open involuntarily. I quietly rise from my bed and follow the sound out into the hallway. Something tells me to go back into my room, that I shouldn't be listening, but I can't resist the lure of the hushed tones. Maybe they can explain what happened with Mauro.
I tiptoe down the steps to get closer to the voice. Three stairs from the bottom, a loud creak startles me. In the short week and half I've lived here, I've used these stairs a hundred times; there's never been a creak. When I catch a glimpse of myself in a large mirror hanging over the mantel of a fireplace and see a leather, wingback chair in front of the fire, I know I'm no longer in Aunt Lil's house.
I walk through the French doors into the living area I usually see from outside the window on my left. The husband smiles at me from the wedding photo, but there's no one actually in the room.
"In the shift shall surface a shadow with the strength to blot out the sun." I whip around to the voice. Kneeling in an open room across the hall—a study judging by the large desk and wall of book-filled shelves—is the wife. Her hands are over her face, and she rocks back and forth as she speaks. The husband paces behind her.
A flash of movement in the corner catches my eye; Mauro is concealed there, watching and listening. Fear clamps around my throat like a vice. His eyes meet mine, and pain explodes between my ears. He grins and raises a finger to his lips—which is pointless because I couldn't speak if my life depended on it.
The wife continues, "Growing in darkness when light shines brightest, unless illuminated by the glow of a mighty flame, he will rise..."
Mauro's lightless eyes flicker somehow, and a crash from outside startles the husband. Panicked, he lifts the woman to her feet, and tries to pull her out of the trance.
Mauro steps out of the corner and walks toward the couple. With his coal-black eyes locked on mine, he makes the shapes of guns with his hands, points them at the couple, and whispers, "Boom." The man touches his chest and pulls away a blood-covered palm. A stain blossoms from the magic hole in his chest, and he collapses.
By the time I tear my eyes away from his lifeless body to look at the wife, her face is covered in blood from the hole that has appeared in her forehead.
Mauro snaps his fingers, and hooded figures pour into the house from every dark corner. I try to run, but my feet won't budge. He appears in front of me and traces a line down my face with his index finger. I open my mouth to scream as my skin freezes and cracks, but no sound comes out. His black eyes stare deep into mine, and all the light inside me is snuffed out at the same moment the shadowy figures plunge the room into total darkness.
I sit up in bed, gasping for air, the light pulsating in my skin brighter than I've ever seen it. I reach over to turn on my lamp, and my hand lands in something mushy.
Can't breathe can't breathe can't breathe.
"Bliss?" Ruby's voice interrupts my panic from the bathroom door. Her feet pitter-patter across the floor, and I hear the click of the light switch.
"Uhh, Bliss—why do you have your hand in mashed potatoes?"
I open my eyes a peek. My uneaten dinner sits on the nightstand, and my hand is third-knuckle-deep in creamy root-vegetable.
I look at Ruby. She is standing with her hands over her mouth trying not to laugh. The moment our eyes meet, she bursts into a fit of giggles.
She comes over to the bed. "Bliss, I need to tell you something."
"Okay," I say, mysteriously soothed by her presence, as usual. "Tell me."
She stands on her tiptoes and cups her hand over my ear. "Your skin was glowing!"
"I know," I whisper back, smiling. "It does that sometimes when I have bad dreams."
"Oh!" she says "Occasionally!"
"Occasionally, huh? Where'd you learn such a big word?"
She smiles proudly. "Gigi taught me it."
"Huh? But I thought Gigi doesn't talk...."
"She doesn't."
"So how did she teach you a word without talking, Rube?"
"She taught me it in my head," she says with a shrug.
"What does that mean?"
"Well occasionally, I look at Gigi and she looks at me and I can hear her talk in my head. She tells me stuff." She says this like telepathic communication is the most normal thing ever.
I'm not really sure how to respond. So I don't.
"I know why you glow," she says, abruptly switching gears like only a six-year-old can.
"Oh yeah? Why?"
"You're a Speck!"
I laugh. "A Spark actually. But yes."
"You should stay away from that boy in your dream," she says matter-of-factly. "You're not strong enough yet."
"Huh?"
"He's really strong, even though he doesn't really look like it."
I furrow my brow. "How do you know all this, Rube?"
She beckons me down to her level. "I'm like your mommy," she whispers.
My brows shoot up and I immediately feel like an idiot because it should have been obvious. "You're a Clai—"
"NO!" She clamps her hand over my mouth. "Don't ever say that word! It's dangerous!"
"Oh... okay...."
"You're gunna start your treasure hunt soon, and then you'll get stronger," she says matter-of-factly.
"Uhhh..."
"You should go back to bed now. Goodnight, Bliss!"
As she pivots on her heel and strides back to her room, all I can say is, "Goodnight."