My Resolution

Chapter 18

Over the next several weeks, I spent more time with Matt, and Donovan and I fell back into our comfortable friendship via text and calls. Marissa and I had started hanging out more, and Sierra joined us for lunch every now and then, too. When Matt found out my birthday was coming soon, he insisted on taking me out for dinner and the show of my choice. I had heard that there was a special fall performance during the month of October at Kaufman Center of Sweeny Todd, and Matt bought tickets for us to attend the night before my eighteenth birthday that was now, just a few days away.  

Being followed those weeks ago had made me so paranoid that I was now hyperaware of people and traffic, everywhere I went. I found myself taking random turns because I noticed a car behind me for longer than I like or going back into buildings if I felt like some random person outside was watching me. I was starting to feel like I was losing my mind; I got goosebumps anytime I thought about that night. As an individual pack member living outside the territory, I was supposed to keep the warriors informed of any danger, but I had decided that it wasn’t serious enough to make that call. Truthfully, nothing had happened since, and the night that it did, I had been out late driving by myself. It was probably just some crazy human following a young girl. I could take care of myself against a human if I needed to.  

I was sitting on my living room floor Wednesday afternoon working on a research paper for my composition class when I decided I needed a break. I grabbed an apple and stepped out onto the balcony outside my kitchen. My apartment was on the third floor, which I really liked; I had a great view of the park behind the complex. The weather was slightly overcast, with a chance for storms later, but every now and then, the sun would peek out from behind the clouds. It made for a beautiful scene. I pulled out my phone, deciding to snap a picture of the view before me. As I snapped the photo, a beam of light peaked out through the clouds. “Perfect,” I smiled at my little work of art and sent it to my group chat with Tobi and the girls.  

Tobi:  

-Pretty sky!  

Mara:  

-I love the way you caught the light in the clouds  

-What are those little twirls?  

Sloane:  

-I love stormy days!  

Tobi:  

-That’s crazy! I didn’t notice the swirly lights  

Circles? Swirly lights? I looked at the picture again, they were right, the light didn’t look like straight beams. It was loopy and swirly looking.   

I switched my camera to video and started recording the sky, hoping for the sun to shine through again. I stood there filming the sky for another five minutes until I finally got a shot of the sun again. I played it back, fast-forwarding to the end where I got the light recorded, it looked like about a hundred little balls of light swirling around in the sky. “What the hell is that?” I murmured, staring back toward the sky. My efforts were futile, I couldn’t see anything. “Was that the light or was the light just making them visible?” I thought to myself. I watched the video again, but I couldn’t decipher what I was seeing, but something about them was familiar.  

While I was contemplating this, the rain started falling fast and hard. It was freezing, so I turned on some water to boil for tea and changed into some cozy sweats. I wasn’t leaving for the rest of the night, anyway. I watched my blip of video over and over again. There was something familiar about those little circles, it was sitting at the edge of my memory, but I couldn’t place why. I finally had to just put my phone down, but I couldn’t shake the floating light from my mind.  

I threw a frozen pizza in the oven and chopped up salad veggies for dinner, then settled into the overstuffed chair in the living room to watch a movie. My phone rang, it was Matt.  

“What are you up to?” he asked.  

“Dinner and a movie at home,” I replied before taking another bite.  

“Cool, what movie?”  

“It’s an eighties movie called “Some Kind of Wonderful.”  

“I’ll never understand your obsession with old movies,” he scoffed.  

“It’s hardly old,” I said, dismissing his statement.  

“It’s like two decades old. That’s not new.”  

“Please,” I mocked, “you want to see old? I’ll make you watch Errol Flynn’s “The Adventures of Robinhood.”  

“When was that made?”  

“1938.”  

“Oh, f**k that, no thanks,” he replied quickly.  

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” I said cheerily.  

“I’m good,” he insisted, “I was calling to see if you were busy tonight.”  

“Very busy. I’m eating and watching old movies,” I said sarcastically.  

“Want to do something then?”  

“Not tonight. I don’t want to get out in this weather.”  

“Ah, come on, beast girl.”  

“Nope, my ass is staying home tonight,” I stated simply.  

“Fine, fine,” he relented, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”  

“Definitely. See ya.”  

“Night, beastly.”  

I rolled my eyes at the nickname and hung up.  

I took two more bites of pizza before my phone rang again. “Seriously,” I said to the room, getting irritated, “Can a girl not watch a movie in peace?” I checked the screen; it was Donovan this time.  

“Hello?” I sighed through the speaker.  

“Hey, Valley Girl. How is everything out there?”  

“Good, why?” I asked curiously.  

“I just saw the weather. Looks like you’re in for a bad storm, I just wanted to check in,” he explained.  

“Oh, yeah, thank you. Yeah, I’m in for the night with some pizza and a little “Some Kind of Wonderful.”  

“Sounds about perfect.”  

“My ideal night,” I said dreamily.  

I could hear him laughing on the other end of the line.  

“Hey! Can I send you a video I took earlier?” I asked, wondering if he could help.  

“Sure?”  

I sent the video and told him to fast forward to the end where the light is. “Do you notice anything?” I asked.  

“Oh, cool. The sun looks like little faeries flying around, doesn’t it?” he said.   

“Faeries!” I yelled, realization dawning on me. The little balls of light look like fae in their shifted form. “You’re right! I’ve been trying to figure out what that reminded me of.”  

“Glad I could help,” he chuckled, “Well, I won’t make you stay on here. Enjoy your movie. Let me know if you need anything.”  

“Sure thing! Talk to you later.”  

“Night.”  

They looked like shifted faeries. I closed my eyes, trying to envision the little floating balls of light we had seen in the forest the day Donovan had taken me to the waterfall. It occurred to me, those twirling lights also reminded me of something else I had seen on that trip. Something that I had tucked into a drawer in the bedroom. They looked exactly the way the glass orb had looked as it floated toward me the day Luciana had given it to me.  

“I wonder,” I murmured, heading toward the dresser in my bedroom. I retrieved the orb from the bottom drawer. Rolling around in my hands, I tried to decide what to do.  

I turned on my phone flashlight and shined it through the orb, but nothing happened. I tried the same thing with the lamp in the living room and the vanity light in the bathroom. I was trying to mimic the sun, so I needed something really bright. Pacing around the living room, I remembered the giant flashlight in the rear of my SUV. Mr. Boone had put a bunch of tools in the back that he said would be “handy to have around”, and he had been particularly proud of the flashlight because it had really high lumens. I don’t remember, but the thing was bright as f**k.  

I threw on a jacket, grabbed my keys, ran to my car, and grabbed the flashlight. I was soaked and freezing by the time I made it back inside. “I really need a garage,” I thought to myself as I hung my jacket back up and took off my sopping wet socks. I didn’t bother to change; I could do that later. I grabbed the orb, flipped the switch on the flashlight, and shined it through the orb. It cast a sparkling shadow on the wall. I flipped the light off and tried again. Just a sparkling shadow. That couldn’t be all there was to this; it didn’t make any sense.  

I flipped the lamp back on and slumped back into my chair. I was missing something, I had to be, but what? I had never managed to get anything out of the orb, and the light did cast an indistinct sparkly shadow. Granted, that could mean literally nothing.  

I held up the orb in front of my face and glared at it, “what am I missing?” I demanded. “Talking to inanimate objects, yep, I’ve lost it,” I mumbled, throwing my head back into the chair.  

The sun is bright, like, blind people bright. I didn’t have anything brighter than the flashlight though. I kept rolling this thought over in my mind. It occurred to me, the sun is also hot and today it was overcast and humid.  

I jumped out of the chair and started digging through kitchen cabinets. I wasn’t sure what I needed to do, so I was winging it. I found a pot and a steamer tray that fit on top. I filled the pot with water and put it on the stove, turned the knob to “10” to bring the water to a boil. While I waited, I grabbed the flashlight from the living room.  

I carefully set the orb in the steamer tray as the water came to a boil, flipped off the kitchen light, and shined the flashlight through the bulb. I looked at the wall, just a sparkly shadow. I waited for a moment, letting the water temperature continue to rise as I stared at the wall. The small flickering sparkles started to grow larger and shine more steadily. From the corner of my eye, I noticed the orb was glowing dark orange. I waited with bated breath. I don’t know what I was waiting to see happen. I turned off the flashlight and the orb glowed on, but nothing more happened.   

“Damn it,” I grumbled, staring at the orb glowing in the steam rising around it. “f**k it.” I stormed off into the living room, turned off the light, and flipped the switch for the gas fireplace, it immediately roared to life.  

I went back into the kitchen and turned off the stove. I grabbed a kitchen towel and carefully picked up the orb. This would either work, or I was about to destroy the only clue Luciana had given me.  

I kneeled down in front of the fire and sat the orb down directly into the flames, as carefully as I could without getting burnt. It rolled over the ceramic logs before it finally stopped, nestled between two of the decorative pieces. It glowed again almost immediately, but this time it grew brighter and brighter. I watched intently as the orb turned from almost clear to orange to gold and finally to the brightest white. It hurt my eyes to look directly into it, but I didn’t dare turn away. When it seemed like it couldn’t possibly get any brighter, I heard a musical voice coming from the glowing orb.  

“Daughter of the sleepwalkers, please, hear my cries. This king is not who he claims to be. The true king, and my daughter, are being held prisoner by the imposter. He seeks to destroy all worlds. He has weakened me and my people, child. Our men are riddled with the bleeding disease and the women are losing fertility, but they naïvely press on denying themselves the one thing that could save them. He has ripped away our heritage and destroyed our faith in our brothers and sisters. Only you can set the fae people free. You must seek the truth, daughter of the sleepwalkers.”  

“Holy s**t!” I breathed as the voice and the glowing ceased, leaving me sitting in my dark living room, firelight dancing gently across the walls.