Fall of Light (17 page)

“Love me,” said Young Caitlyn. “I'm strong and beautiful.”

“Love me,” said Young Serena. “I'll do whatever you want.”

Corvus laughed a villain's laugh. It went on too long. Opal dropped the pages and stared at him. His eyes glowed green.

“Go away,” she said. “You said you wouldn't come back until tomorrow!”

“What?” Corvus blinked, and the extra light in his eyes faded.

“Let's go to bed,” Opal said. “Which side do you prefer?”

“The left side,” he said. “Now
I've
got to brush my teeth. Did you want to—? Because I'm not sure I have the energy.”

“I'd rather just get some sleep,” she said. While he was in the bathroom, she curled up under the covers on the right side of the bed.

Water ran. She needed to collect more power. She might need enough to offer some to the Invader and keep some for herself, or she might need enough to fight him. Either way, she needed to engage in power collection.

She thought about the person she had been in her teens, her brief period of rage and revenge, when she had attacked her irritating brother, Jasper, in ways creative, devious, and mean. It had been so foreign to her character she hadn't maintained it for long. Also, Jasper had gone through transition soon after she had, and once he had his own powers, he was too formidable for her to fight. She had read some of the Forbidden Texts during her brief flirtation with the dark side, though, and learned a few handy things.

She reached into her shadow and summoned the Sifter Chant, the one that threw out a net to snare any stray power in the environment and store it in her power reservoir. There was nothing inherently evil about this chant. It could work in the background once she set it going; she would only need to check on it now and then to make sure what she was collecting wouldn't make her sick. The world was full of different-flavored powers in various stages of existence, and some of them weren't good for anyone.

She scribed three symbols on her palm with her index finger and spoke the Sifter Chant three times, felt the opening out of her nets and the first tiny tugs as she collected. The power flowed into her reservoir and stored itself, quiescent.
Good,
she thought, drowsy now, warmed by the very act of summoning.

The next time she opened her eyes, it was because she smelled coffee. Corvus stood beside the bed holding a mug near her face. “I don't even know if you drink coffee in the morning,” he said as she sat up. “I do. Copious amounts, usually, unless I'm about to put on a costume it takes an hour to get out of. Thank God this picture isn't like that.”

She took the mug from him and drank from it. It had lots of cream and sugar in it; usually she didn't use either, but she liked it this time. The coffee tasted like hot ice cream.

“Thanks,” she said.

He was already dressed, black jeans and a blue shirt, and his hair was wet from a shower. Opal lifted her wrist to check the time. Six thirty. She groaned and glanced at the pillow, imagined flopping down to sleep another couple hours.

“We gather for breakfast between six and nine. The hostess is kind of strict about that,” Corvus said.

“You go ahead,” said Opal. “I'll go back to sleep and drive out to the IHOP later.”

“Come on. You can eat here. Bess always makes too much of everything.”

She downed the rest of the coffee. “Okay, if you want to be public about this, us being a couple, if that's what we are. I'll be down after I shower. You sure?”

“How secretive have we been so far? If you think Magenta and Lauren aren't going to tell anyone, think again.”

“And anyway, it's only half a couple. You never said anything,” she muttered. “I feel like your all-access stalker.”

He sat on the bed beside her and pulled her into his arms, kissed her with his eyes shut; she knew, because she kept hers open, and saw the trouble in his face, the lowered brows, tightened cheeks. She flattened her hand against his chest and pushed him back until he lifted his face away from hers. “Please. Don't torture yourself. I said a stupid thing, all right? I meant it before, about this not demanding any specific response from you.”

“Am I that bad a kisser?”

“Go on down to breakfast. I'll shower and sneak out. I can get something to eat at Craft Services.”

“No. We need to straighten this out before I turn into that other guy you don't like.” He shook his head. “Still not sure I believe that, but I'm afraid of it anyway. What's wrong?”

She blew out a breath, got up, and paced. “It's much easier to love you when you don't know about it. I don't want everything to shift around because this information is in the way. I can love you from a distance, from the other hotel. I can love you whatever you do, including if you get involved with someone else. I can have this as my own background feeling and do my job just fine. This foreground stuff isn't working for me. I don't want to think about whether you care about me. If you do care, I don't want you worrying about how to treat me, or whether I'll explode if you make the wrong move, or whatever's going through your head that makes you feel like you have to prove something to me. If you want to prove something to me, this isn't the way. Okay?”

“What do you think I'm trying to prove?” he asked.

“God, I don't know. You don't have to act like you want me, Corr. That's not what I need.”

“But I—I
do
—” He dropped his forehead to his palm. “What do you need?”

“Go back to normal. Think about the role, worry about your lines, be here because you're doing a job. You do yours; I'll do mine. We'll be fine.”

“Except for the other guy who walks around inside me.”

“Well, there is that.”

“Give me a kiss before you leave,” he said. “We might not have another chance.”

She huffed, exasperated, then went to him. He embraced her and kissed her, and this one went better; with him sitting and her standing, they were well matched in height. This time she tasted desire and desperation, two things she felt, too. Eventually, he eased away from her and smiled. She smiled, too.

“Okay. I'll see you in the trailer at ten.” She grabbed her bag and went into the bathroom to shower.

On her way down the back stairs ten minutes later, she ran into Blaise. They slipped out of the house in silence. Blaise walked away down the street in the early morning light, then glanced over her shoulder. “Come on,” she said.

Opal followed her to a small but ornately gingerbreaded house in the next block. Blaise gestured her up the front porch steps. “Neil initially set me up with a room at the B&B, but I didn't want it,” she said. “Didn't want to be housed with the movie people. Said it'd be too noisy. More fool I.”

“So this is your lodging?”

“Right, a nice lady in her seventies with cats. A fan. Sickening, really, in a way, but handy, too. She always gets up and makes me breakfast if I'm here, no matter what time the call's for. She made me a four A.M. breakfast one morning. She stocks my favorite foods. I bet she'd be thrilled if I brought another movie person to breakfast.”

Opal raised her eyebrows.

“Yes, you're enough of a movie person to impress her. Come on in.” Blaise tapped on the door and opened it. “Myrna?” Blaise called softly as she and Opal entered the foyer. The walls were dark maroon with sparkles in the paint, and a strange, complicated coatrack stood against the right wall, with dangling garments hanging on it that looked a little like the cult robes in the film. A large, fluffy, tabby-striped cat stropped Opal's legs, purring. “You up?” Blaise called.

“In the kitchen, dear,” called a pleasant alto voice from the back of the house.

“I've brought a friend. Is that all right?”

“Oh, who? Who?” A door flapped open in front of them. A stout woman with short curls of bright, copper-washed hair stood there in a gray silk dressing gown covered with blue butterflies.

“This is Opal LaZelle, who does the creature makeup for
Forest
,” Blaise said. “Opal, Myrna Partridge, my excellent landlady. Myrna, is it too late for breakfast?”

“Too late? Of course not. I was hoping you'd make it home in time.” Myrna held the door open and they walked past her into the kitchen, all white counters and yellow, flower-sprigged wallpaper and sunny floor tile. A black cat clock with wagging tail and shifting eyes ticked loudly on the wall by the fridge. Everything looked unnaturally clean, considering there were six cat dishes on the floor near the back door, each with a little kibble remaining, and three large water dishes on the floor near the sink. “What's your pleasure this morning, Blaise? My goodness, Ignatious certainly has taken a liking to your friend.”

The big tabby had followed them into the kitchen, where he settled on Opal's feet. The cat's purrs were audible from the floor. He stared up at Opal with wide green eyes.

“Is there any more of that strawberry Special K?” Blaise asked.

“I bought a new box just yesterday,” said Myrna, “and more skim milk for you.”

“Thank you, Myrna. You're much too good to me,” Blaise said.

Opal knelt and stared into the cat's eyes. Their green glow looked familiar. The cat licked her nose.

“Oh, please,” she said.

He did it again, the rasp of a wet tongue against her nose. She sighed and stood up.

“What would you like for breakfast, dear?” Myrna asked.

“Cereal sounds good,” said Opal. “Thanks so much, ma'am.”

“You're so welcome.” The landlady got down two large pottery bowls and poured cereal in one, eyebrows quirked as if to ask
how much?
Blaise held up her hand after only a little cereal had gone into her bowl. She took the bowl to the fridge and poured milk into it, then grabbed a couple of spoons from a drawer and returned to the kitchen table.

Opal waited until the bowl was half-full before cutting off the flow of cereal. “Okay if I get my own milk?” she asked.

“Surely. Help yourself.” Myrna sat down at the table with a large mug of coffee. “If you want coffee, there's a full pot in the coffeemaker, and mugs in the cupboard above it. So you're making the Lapis monster?”

“Well, the monster for the movie, anyway.”

“That creature is a local celebrity.”

“Oh? Did the writers base him on an actual local legend? They didn't tell me. Are there any descriptions of him?”

“Tall and dark, they say, and he stalks the young girls. I remember when I was fifteen, all the girls talked about him, and none of us were allowed out alone at night. We had some shivery sleepovers, I can tell you.”

“Did he have a name?” Opal asked. She poured milk onto the cereal and set the bowl on the table next to Blaise's place. Blaise handed her a spoon.

“There was something romantic we called him. Let me think.” She sipped coffee, narrowed her eyes, and stared into the past. “So sad, it was. The Last of the Lost.”

“Last of the Lost,” Opal repeated.

“There was a girl I knew then—what was her name? Linda, I think—who felt sorry for the Last.”

Opal got some coffee and sat beside Blaise. “What happened?”

“She had some idea that he was a sad and lonely creature someone had abandoned. This was the early fifties, and there were lots of things we didn't talk about. Linda never had us over to her house after school, and she came to school with bruises she never explained. She had a terrible time at home; I think that's why her heart went out to him. Anyway, at one of our sleepovers—now that I think about it, I remember she didn't make it to many of those; her mother didn't let her out of the house—she wanted us to sneak out the basement window and go to the forest with food for the Last. None of us would do it. We were all terrified. She snuck out after the rest of us went to sleep, and we never saw her again.”

“Whoa,” said Blaise.

“Was there a search?” Opal asked.

“Oh, yes. Everybody and their dogs were out in the forest looking for her. Somebody found her hair ribbon on a bush. Someone found a few bloodstains on those strange rocks out there in the clearing where you all are filming, but they looked old. I think some of the boys went out there and played weird games. Nobody who had a cat let it out of the house at night, I recall.” Myrna drank more coffee, sleep-walked to the coffeemaker for a refill. “They said it wasn't the first time something like that happened. People went missing—that was why our parents were always telling us not to go out at night.”

She settled in her chair. “Sometimes I envied Linda. I thought she went off somewhere and found another life, and it had to be better than here. Maybe she found someone to care about. Maybe someone did her in. I did think about that, too. Might have been better for her, either way.

“Even these days, I don't much sit on my porch after sunset. I'm still afraid of the night. I remember my husband and I went to Mexico on a trip one time, and there were all kinds of people out after dark, and music and drinking and dancing. It was like visiting another planet.”

Opal ate cereal and drank coffee and thought about the Invader. “Why did you stay here?” she asked. “Why not move away?”

“Oh, well. I inherited this beautiful house, and it was all I ever knew, really. My husband and I both grew up here. He went away to college, but something scared him and he dropped out his junior year and came home. He worked in the gravel pit here ever since. Died last year.” She shrugged. “I asked him what happened out there in the world, but he never did tell me. Boys do all right here, but we had no children, and not for lack of trying. If we'd had girls to look after, we might have made different choices.”