Lumen (4 page)

“He’s one of us, he has to be,” she said, tracing over the symbol on her wrist with the tip of her finger.

For a week now Daniel kept to his room, only going out to eat, while the rest of the time he was reading through books his father brought him from the library. Though the concept of a week passing by had phased him, and so had all thought of his birthday; the one day of the year when life should've been carefree.

“Daniel,” his mother called.

He groaned, and smothered his ears with his pillow, trying to drown her voice out. She shouted up to him again and the light padding in the pillow made her voice clear enough. He groaned again and forced himself to sit upright in his bed. It pained him to think about getting up and seeing the Sun, even worse, having the Sun see him.

“Get up, Daniel!” his father shouted.

“I am up,” he groaned, and coughed the phlegm from his throat.

Out of his duvet the air was cold and damp. He sneezed and hurried to get dressed, like every day he picked out a clean pair of jogging bottoms and t-shirt. He picked up his black hooded jacket and shivered as he slipped it on, rubbing his arms warm, and putting his hood up before he plodded down the stairs.

“Happy birthday!” his parents shouted as he stepped into the living room.

He glared at them from beneath his hood. “Thanks.” He knew his birthday was coming up, but he thought he’d be happier. Turning sixteen was a big deal, you could get a job, marry, have children, build a house. He quickly listed all of them to himself, smiling as he parents watched bewildered at the quirky creases in his face.

“Cheer up, love,” his mother said.

He continued to question why he’d want to move out, he had a nice life; he wasn’t one of the children with scratches up their arms from foraging fruits all day in thorny bushes, or one who carried sacks of seeds on their back all day.

He turned to his parents with a quizzical look on his face. “Do the people from the Upperlands really despise the Lowerlands?” They both grinned at each other.

“You’re from the Centrelands. If anything the people at that school of yours should be worried; you’re in on 
pure
 talent, not their parent’s fortunes,” his mother said patting his shoulder and smiling. “Anyway, you’re aunt and uncle will be here soon. Go shower and put something nice on. Maybe that black shirt your father bought, the one you’ve not worn yet.” She smiled and gave him a nudge.

“Presents?” Daniel asked.

“Cheeky,” his mother chortled. “Wait until 
all
 the family’s here.”

After Daniel had showered he found himself staring into the mirror, eyeing himself up and scowling at his reflection. He was scrawny looking, just like his father, and it meant that when he did look for a job he’d be sweeping cuttings and filings from the floors of blacksmiths and butchers. Everyone who was from or had ever lived in the Lowerlands also had a lot of muscle; it was to show that they had a lot of energy, although it could've been because they didn't have enough.

Daniel wore a pair of black pants, a white vest top and the black shirt his mother had told him to wear. He dressed properly once a year to appease his mother and her side of the family; the only side that he knew. His mother’s parents originally came from the Upperlands and still kept to the same standards.

“Daniel, honey, we have guests,” his mother called from the bottom of the stairs.

“Great,” he mumbled ruffling a hand through his damp hair, trying to flatten it.

Up against the far wall of the living room was a long table, covered in a white cloth and several silver plates. On the plates were piles of sandwiches and baked confectionaries, and at the end of the table was a jug of freshly squashed fruit juice and beside that was a stack of plastic cups. It was the same thing every year; his grandfather and grandmother would be there, unmoved until they left, criticising the house. He only had one aunt, no uncles, and she was married with three children: Fillipa, Tygen and Roma. His three cousins were all under 12 and were all shifting, but only into the family animal type; reptile.

The youngest of the three, Roma, bobbed along with her gaze glued to the floor in search of something. Her eyes flamed a faint yellow and her strawberry blonde hair started to stick to the back of her head as she shrunk into a sandy coloured lizard, chasing after her brother, a pale brown lizard, who was a few inches longer and seconds faster than her. And then sat on the settee were his grandparents; they were laughing and being friendly between sips of their hot drinks and nibbles of their biscuits, not their usual selves at all.

He walked around the room, hearing ‘congrats’ first and then ‘happy birthday’, because being accepted into the most prestigious school on Templar Island was better than get older. Daniel thanked them all, shaking hands with his grandfather and his aunt’s husband. He pulled away to eye a small pile of wrapped gifts under the table.

“Later on,” his father said, from his chair in the corner.

Daniel sighed, joining his mother in the kitchen where she busied herself piping the cream on his cake. She looked up at Daniel and then smiled.

She wiped her fringe out of her eyes and continued to pipe the cream. “Is Jac coming?”

Daniel shrugged.

“Hun,” she said straightening her back and setting the piping bag aside.

“I haven’t seen him since I told him about the Academy.”

“Oh. When did you tell him?” she asked.

“A week ago.”

“I take it he didn’t like it then,” she said and he nodded. “You know you’ll have to speak to him before you go.”

“And I will,” he snapped, sighing and leaning against the counter. He knew that he was going to leave it until the last minute. He’d seen what had happened to some of the people on Jac’s bad side; people who had stolen his kill or sold him faulty tools. Jac wasn’t the calmest of people.

“Okay honey,” she said and kissed her son on his forehead. “Now, go back in there and talk to your family.” She shooed him and resumed piping.

Daniel dragged a chair from the kitchen into the living room and placed it between the food table and his father’s chair. He looked the sandwiches over, but couldn’t stomach eating any, partly because he enjoyed the knot of nothingness eating away at his stomach but also because that feeling distracted him from everything else. Daniel clenched a hand up against his stomach. 
Jac was in the wrong, not me, I’m not going to speak to him first, if anything he needs to apologise.

“Daniel,” his grandfather said in a gruff voice from the other side of the room. Daniel looked up and met his grandfather’s protruding green gaze. “Don’t let this 
school 
make you forget your roots. ‘Cause you came from right here,” he said prodding a finger into the air.

Daniel nodded and smiled. He glanced around the room and saw his father behind him shaking his head. He smiled,
best not be rude, or bring up the fact that he's actually from the Upperlands and lives in the Lowerlands. Then again, he never lets anyone forget where he came from
. “I won’t.”

A knock at the front door roused his grandfather’s glare and Daniel jumped before it could resume. He rushed over to the door, nearly treading on one of his cousins reptile forms.

He opened the door. Jac stood there with a thin smile on his face. “Still not talking to me?” he asked. “Well, happy birthday,” he continued and turned to leave.

“No,” he said, and Jac turned, “come in,” he added heading into the living room.

Daniel closed the door behind him and slipped back into his seat at the food table. Jac stood and glanced around the room – he didn’t know anyone there, and Daniel’s grandfather made him especially uncomfortable.

“Can help me?” Roma asked, tugging on the side of Jac’s three-quarter khakis. He looked down at the wide-eyed girl. “My brother’th hiding. He’th a lithard,” she said, and Jac grinned.

“Your grandfather doesn’t like me much either,” Daniel’s father said, “not sure if he likes anyone.”

“Then how come he let you marry and have me?”

“We’ll go through that some other day,” his father said smiling.

Through the rest of the evening Daniel stayed sitting at the food table, now eating to his heart’s content. Jac had moved from the living room of awkward stares and stood in the kitchen talking to Daniel’s mother.

The cake was brought out with 16 candles alight on top and he blew them all out while his grandfather whined about the practise of blowing candles out on a perfectly good cake. Daniel’s mother portioned the cake into 12 pieces, and each piece went, some of it wasn’t ingested, but his cousins made sure that all the cake went.

“Oh, they love cake,” Roan’s sister said to her.

Daniel’s eyes gleamed with excitement as he glanced upon a larger than usual pile of presents being pulled out from under the table.

“Open them up then,” his mother said nudging him.

An awkward nostalgia knocked him from when he was a child and eager to open his presents, of course he wanted to do that now, but he was no longer a child.

He opened them all, thanking them; he received three dark tan leather-bound writing books for all his notes at school from his grandparents. His aunt had given him a small polished red stone in the shape of an eagle, symbolic of his shifted form, which they all presumed he could no longer do.

From his parents, Daniel was given clothes. He smiled and thanked them, although they got him the same clothes every time, the same colours, the same plain design, but it was cheap.

The ground shook, and jellied their legs. The thud sent dust from the ceiling, coating them all and sending them into the dark. They all broke out into murmurs of questions; even the children paused and surrounded their parents with bulging eyes and bitten lips, trying not to cry, especially not in front of their grandparents.

“Is everyone okay?” Daniel’s mother asked, her arms flailed and silhouetted against the dark. She flicked her arms and dull orange flames burst out on candles and the few gas lamps that they kept.

“That’s why you should move,” Daniel’s grandfather said, scrunching up his wrinkled face.

Three sharp blunt knocks struck the front door. Daniel was the closest to the door. He turned to look at everyone, and then answered the door. A tall pale man, only wearing a pair of three-quarter black khakis stood in front of him. The man thrust an envelope out and glared down at Daniel with his large jewel embossed green eyes, distracting him, he nodded and grunted towards his hands.

Daniel took the envelope, and the man fled. “Thanks,” Daniel said after he took a nose dive over the cliff. “It’s a letter,” he said, closing the door and turning around to face the peering crowd.

“Did you see him?” his aunt said pressing a hand to her chest and rolling her eyes.

“From the academy?” his mother quietly burst ignoring her sister’s outburst. “Open it then.”

Daniel turned the letter over in his hands; sealed with a blue wax stamp and the Croft’s emblem: ‘
C
’. He peeled the wax away and flicked it to the ground, eager to tug the letter from the snug envelope. His heart thumped in his ears as he opened the letter up, squinting at the letters in the dark. His mother approached him, and before she could snatch is away he turned and cornered a candle.

“I leave tomorrow,” he said quietly, reading from the yellowed paper.

“When?” his father asked.

Daniel turned with his eyes still on the paper. “Tomorrow morning,” he said scrolling a finger beneath the words, “it says, ‘You will need to be ready for 9 a.m. on the 28
 of August, failure to meet this, and you will lose your place at the academy.’” He glanced up to see the half-lit smiling faces of his family, and Jac. “It’s too soon,” he mumbled.

It wasn’t long after that everyone had gone. Jac waited behind, helping take empty plates and dishes into the kitchen, until it was only Jac and Daniel left inside the living room.

“I didn’t mean to flip. But you’re going to the 
Upperlands
,” Jac said, “that’s kind of a big deal.”

“I know, right. I had to take books out of the library just to catch up,” he laughed.

“At first I thought your mum was forcing you,” Jac said.

“She 
did
. I wanna go now, and like you said, it is a big deal.” He smirked.

Jac pulled a coin from his pocket and flicked it into the air. “I found this a few years ago, and it’s been 
pretty
 lucky,” he said, handing Daniel the coin.

“Luckier already,” Daniel said, examining the coin. “What is it?”

“A euro, something like that, nobody would accept it, but I’ve had it since my first kill, in fact it was choking on it.”

“You sure you don’t need it?”

“Ha, you’re the one going to the Upperlands, that’s more of a jungle than down here will ever be,” he snorted. “Anyway I need to go. If it gets too dark, I’ll be lost for sure.”

Daniel nodded as Jac left. He then sighed, falling into a seat of the couch.

Chapter Four

Daniel had tossed and turned in his bed sheets, waking in a human knot. He fought his way out of the cold sweat drenched sheets, groaning as he swiped a hand across his forehead and touched his hair. It had wrapped itself around his head from perspiration and stuck to him like a helmet.

“Moving today,” he mumbled, sat still on the edge of his bed with his packed suitcase beside him.

He heard his father’s whistling from down the hallway. Daniel’s stomach grumbled. He butted his lips and closed his eyes. 
I wish I could feel excited. In fact I’d give an arm to live out at sea or something
.

His mother knocked on his bedroom door. “Daniel, honey,” she said.

“Yeah?” he croaked, and then wet the back of his throat with the glass of water on the side.

“I’m making breakfast, do you want anything special?”

He lulled his head and rested his eyes. “No thanks. I’m not that hungry.”

His mother barged in, knocking the suitcase from behind the door. “You’re going to eat something. It’ll be a long journey to the academy and I don’t want you falling ill, or fainting on your first day,” she said, furrowing her brow.