In Light's Shadow

Chapter 2-2

She had thought the risk was worth it, especially if the children were quarter-fey. When the twins had passed puberty, she had been sure she was safe.

But Gavin had seen her light the candles with her fingers. She had seen the fey light in his eyes.

Eleanora leaned back into the couch, wishing Gavin were a little older. If only he were as old as she had been when her mother had told her. She had been nine when she had seen her mother fly.

“So. You caught me,” her mother had said when she came back down, landing softly on the wet grass in the back yard late one night. Eleanora had only nodded; she had no idea what to say. Her mother was a para, the fairy kind. So many bad things were being said in school, at church, and on the radio. The fairy kind had caused the war in Europe, the Second Great Crusade. God had called for the war to punish them.

She and her mother had sat on the swing on the front porch for a long time and her mother had told her, as they rocked, the creaking a back song to her words, that what she had heard wasn’t true. Things weren’t like that at all.

Eleanora nodded to herself in the dark. Her mother had told her what she was and what Eleanora and Marguerite, her little sister were, and that they were fairies, not fairy kind, not para. Para was a term normals used for fairies and other First Folk; it wasn’t nice. She had told Eleanora having any fey blood had to always be a secret. Eleanora could not tell anyone.

“Not even Daddy?”

“Honey, he already knows. He’s keeping the secret, too.”

Eleanora knew she could not tell Paul, not yet. She would tell Gavin what her mother had told her.

* * * *

The Imperial Columbian Church of the Rational Christ, Scientist, of Northern Carolina, Piedmont District 34, sat on a low hill, surrounded by old oak trees, a rose garden, and a wide lawn. On the left and in the front, and into the curve of NC 86, the lawn became the “new” cemetery, which dated back to the Civil War. The old graveyard, right across the highway from the new cemetery, and next door to the New Light Volunteer Fire Department building, dated back to the 1740s, before the church’s founding as New Light Presbyterian, in 1756. To the right, and in the back were the manse, where the minister lived, and woods and the church-run district camp. The Staghorns’ dairy was up the road.

The Presbyterians, along with most of the other mainline Columbian Protestant denominations, had been caught up in the Rationalist Reformation of the 1880s, eventually merging into one national super-church at the turn of the century. The two-story cruciform red brick building, with its tall steeple, a plain steel cross affixed at the very top, was less than a mile from the Booker house.

There was no time on Sunday morning for Gavin to ask his mother any questions. Between breakfast and showers and getting dressed, the Bookers barely made it to Sunday school on time.

Gavin opened the door to his classroom slowly, as his mother had told him to do. Be as quiet as a mouse, she had said. The class had already started. He took an empty seat near the door. Ten other boys and girls, in the Primary I class, turned and watched Gavin sit down at the low round table. Miss Virginia, the teacher, a grey-haired woman with silver wire-rim glasses and a thick cream-colored turtleneck sweater, frowned at being interrupted. She sat next to a blackboard on which she had written the words para, paranormal, and hybrid.

“All right, boys and girls, let’s pay attention,” Miss Virginia said, clapping her hands. “We’re all glad that Gavin is here, but I need you to stay with me now. This is a very important lesson; it is one that could someday save your life. Gavin, we’re talking about paras, which is short for paranormal and hybrids. Some of the boys and girls were at the movies yesterday when a part-fey man, a hybrid, was arrested.” She tapped each word on the blackboard as she said it.

“Daddy, Charlie, and Elliott were there,” Gavin said. “They saw it. They said the man glowed grey. Mama said that was because he was sick—the para—”

“Thank you, Gavin. Gavin’s mother is right: the para was sick. Paranormals are sick, sick, sick. Paras are dirty and evil and sick.” She tapped the blackboard again. “They do really bad things. Paras are not like normal people. They glow like the man in the theatre did. Normal people, good people, do not glow. Paras are magic and magic is evil; it comes from the Devil. Paras live in ghettoes and on reservations, behind fences, not like normal people. Hybrids are made by a very evil act. The person who called the police did the right thing.” As she spoke, Miss Virginia made a list on the blackboard under para and hybrid: dirty, evil, sick, glowing, magic, ghetto, reservation.

“Now, class, how do we know this is true? Vanessa?”

A red-haired girl across the table from Gavin had her hand up. “It’s in the Bible.”

“Very good, Vanessa. The Bible says so and the Bible is never wrong. Exodus 22:1 and Leviticus 19:31 and 20:37. Deuteronomy 18:10 and 11. These verses clearly say that anyone who practices magic is evil and should die. Paras do other bad things, too, that the Bible also says is bad: Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, and Romans 1:26–27.” Miss Virginia stared at the children, looking at each one in the face. She cleared her throat. “Remember, God is offended by the paras. Jesus has turned his back to them. By choosing magic, they have turned against God. God put them here to test us, to teach us good from evil.”

Gavin looked down at his hands, afraid to look up, afraid that someone would see his secret in his face, or worse, behind his eyes. Mama glows. She lit the candles on the table with her fingers. She’s not evil, is she? Sick and dirty? Is Jesus mad at Mama?

The minister preached on the same topic an hour later, shouting at the congregation from the pulpit, with the Celtic cross-shaped window behind him. Gavin could see a squirrel in the window, running from branch to branch, and two or three crows, their cawing just audible. Paras are an abomination. Let yesterday’s incident be a lesson, a warning: vigilance! Lest we forget. Mama sat very still, staring straight ahead, as if she were seeing straight through the minister, the window, the trees and squirrels and crows, into some other far place.

Jesus calls us to cast out evil. Did he not cast out the money changers in the Temple in Jerusalem? Gavin had questions about Jesus he was afraid to ask. If Jesus was a normal, how could he walk on water, heal the sick, make the blind see, turn water into wine? Miss Virginia and the preacher said these were miracles. But witches, whose spells could change things, and paras who could fly, were magical.

Gavin didn’t know what to think.

* * * *

The grey-glowing hybrid’s public execution was broadcast live that evening, just after the CBS Sunday Evening News. Gavin watched, along with his mother, brothers, and his father. They had all been told to watch by the local CBS News anchor. It was the duty of every normal Columbian to watch. The hybrid, whose glow had turned a darker grey, almost black, was dressed in pure white and stood tied to the old Execution Oak in Capitol Square in downtown Raleigh. Behind him, lush green winter grass led to the steps in front of the rose-grey granite Capitol building. A WRAL Channel Five reporter, microphone in hand, quickly explained what was going to happen and the racial purity laws that made the execution a necessity.

Most of the time, the reporter explained, the police would shoot the hybrid on the spot. Sometimes, like tonight, the execution was public and televised. “A reminder,” the reporter said. “Lest we forget.” Then the cameras cut back first to the three Raleigh policemen taking aim, then a slow pan of the huge crowd that had gathered to watch, and then back to the hybrid. It didn’t take long. They only had to shoot once. The grey light went out, as if a switch had been flicked, and bright, bright red bloomed on the hybrid’s white shirt. The body slumped.

“So perishes all evil,” the WRAL Channel Five reporter intoned. “We now resume regularly scheduled programming, already in progress.”

Gavin looked up at Mama. She sat on the end of the couch, staring at the TV screen, her body tight. He realized then this was the way she had always been: clenched, tight, restrained, and he had never seen it until now. He looked at Daddy; he was watching her, too.

* * * *

Mama woke Gavin first the next morning. When he had focused on her face in the grey morning light, he saw she had a finger to her lips. “Shhh, be really quiet, let Charlie and Elliott and Daddy sleep a little longer. Be as quiet as a mouse. Your clothes are in the living room; I want you to dress in there.”

“Why?”

“I’ll tell you why in a minute,” she whispered. “Hurry up.”

Gavin nodded as he climbed out of bed and followed his mother, who was already dressed for her job at the Chapel Hill Public Library. In the bright light of the kitchen he could see the newspaper, the Durham Morning Herald, at his father’s place. Coffee perked in one corner. Bacon lay cooling on a paper towel-covered plate. A carton of eggs and a loaf of bread sat on the snack bar counter. Dishes sat stacked on the table, along with a pile of silverware and jars of strawberry, blackberry, and peach preserves. Nobody else was up, just him and Mama. He looked at her, trying to figure out what was going on, not knowing what to ask her.

“Finish getting dressed and I’ll tell you why.”

It took Gavin less than three minutes to yank on his clothes. When he was carefully tying his shoes, Mama came into the living room, and sat down on the couch beside him.

“Tell me what you saw on Saturday.”

“I saw you light the candles with your finger. You glowed, like the hybrid who got shot. Except you glowed yellow, he glowed grey,” Gavin whispered back, not saying the other things he wanted to say and ask: Are you a para? Are you a hybrid? Are you sick and evil and dirty? Miss Virginia and the preacher said people who glowed were.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. You did it twice, once for each candle and the yellow didn’t go away right away.”

“Gavin, what happened to the man who glowed grey at the theatre?”

“They shot him on TV.”

“And if someone saw me glow?”

“Mama, don’t let them shoot you,” Gavin said and started crying. His mother pulled him into her, stroking his hair, and whispering, Shh, it would be all right, it would be all right, hush. When he had stopped, she sat him up and took his chin in her hand. “I know you are only six and some of this may not make sense and I will explain more when you get older. What you saw has to be a secret from everybody. Nobody can know what you saw.”