The darkness around Mason melted away, slipping through the cracks in between the floorboards. His shoulder-length black hair was fanned out around his head and his skin was even paler than usual. On his forehead, shiny with sweat, was a large black 8 pointed star. Orchid’s scrawny little limbs were wrapped around him as she snored lightly against his chest.
Twyla stood up from her spot crouched by the door and peered down at her two children she watched disappear into a black cloud of dark magic for hours as they laid on Mason’s bed. When she tried to focus on the strange new mark on her son’s forehead an intense pain shot through her skull until she looked away.
“Orchid!” She whisper-yelled, inching closer to the bed. Orchid didn’t budge. Twyla stepped right up to the side of the bed, cleared her throat, and called in a slightly louder voice, “Orchid!”
Orchid stirred, raising her upper body and turned to look at Twyla, “…Mom?”
Twyla hooked her hands under Orchids arms and picked her up, immediately taking several steps back. It had been nearly two years since Twyla had been able to lift her, but that didn’t matter as Twyla carried her lanky 11 year old daughter to the door, “…Mom, what?”
“There’s something wrong with Mason, let me handle it.” Twyla whispered, setting the half-asleep Orchid outside the door and quickly pulled it shut before Orchid could try to step back inside. Twyla turned around and pressed her back against the door, facing her eldest child. Taking in a deep breath, she called out to him, “Mason!”
His face twitched in his sleep, then his eyes slowly opened.
*
The haggard brown-haired man heard Regi’s footsteps approaching and looked up. He instantly started shaking, pebbles scraping against stone as he shuffled back a few steps, “Re-Regi!” Regi frowned and narrowed his eyes at the man whose face he was still struggling to place. The man raised his hands up in a gesture of nonviolence, “I’m not here to cause problems.”
It took until the final word for Regi to recognize who he was looking at, “Gideon…? Is that you?”
Gideon hesitated for a moment then nodded.
“What are you doing here? You look like shit.” And he did. His confident posture and cocky smile were nowhere to be found. His hair had grown out unevenly and he was clearly not taking care of it… or himself in general. He avoided Regi’s eyes, looking back at the door, “I was just following my brother.”
“Your brother… why-” Regi’s question was cut off by a strange pull in his chest. The pull of magic. He felt it when he was around Vakawa but it was stronger than it ever was with him….Kiama…
EJ Williams Books 