Lunangelique (The Lunangelique Series) (21 page)

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t care whether you believe me or not.” I want to stick my tongue out at him. “All that matters is its true and I’ve just shown you the evidence. Are you going to continue to deny it?”

“I don’t know. It makes no sense.” He folds his arms over his chest like he’s pouting.

“Just don’t tell anyone, okay? I don’t want anyone to know, especially our parents. They’ll freak out and won’t understand. I don’t want to scare them,” I plead.

“I don’t understand. I’m freaking out. I’m scared.” Alex almost reaches hysterics.

“Alex, it’s not bad. And I’m your sister, your twin. I know you have a gift too,” I finally get it out there.

He walks away from me and into the house. Leaving me outside, alone. “He just needs time,” I tell no one in particular.

When I walk inside mom and dad are watching TV. Alex isn’t with them.

“Why are you swimming in the pool at this time of year? Lexi, you could catch a cold,” my mom scorns as I walk past them to the stairs. I could laugh. Catch a cold. Yeah right.

“The water was still reasonably warm. I just needed to stretch my muscles. I’m going to bed now. Night,” I call to them as I hit the stairs and hear them tell me good night back.

When I get upstairs, I see Alex’s door is shut tight. I just need to give him a little bit of time. I go to my room to shower and change for bed. I thought the hot water would relax me into falling asleep quickly but it doesn’t. I toss and turn in my bed until there is a knock on my door.

Alex peeks his head through and whispers, “Are you asleep?”

“No. What’s up?” I sit up and pat the bed next to me for him to sit.

He comes over and sits next to me but is turned away from me when he starts talking. “I can do something too,” he admits. “But it defies science on a very extreme level. It’s something only known in sci-fi movies or comic books.”

“What is it?” I try to talk in a calming voice but I’m too excited.

Alex takes a deep breath, preparing himself for saying it out loud. “Invisibility.”

I gasp. “Really? That’s incredible. I wish I could do that. When did you discover it?”

“I don’t know. A long time ago. We were kids and I was being chased by some punk older kids and I thought ‘hide’ but I couldn’t run from them fast enough. They ended up running right past me. I was confused on what had happened, why they ran past me. I looked to see if they were chasing some other kid but I didn’t see anyone and then I noticed that I couldn’t see my hands and then my body. I freaked out.”

“You’ve been hiding this from me for years! What the hell, Alex!” I start getting upset that my brother, my best friend, my twin, has been alone in this for so long.

“I know. But you have to understand how bizarre it was. I’m a freak.” He covers his face in his hands and I realize he is soon crying.

I sit closer to him and put my head against his back. My head is shaking with his sobs and I run my hand comfortingly against his back to soothe him. “It’s okay, Alex, you’re not alone with this anymore.”

We stay there like that for an eternity. I let him cry out all of his years of fear and the relief he must have to know that he now doesn’t have to keep it to himself. His sobs start quieting down and his body slows down as he takes deep breaths to steady himself and calm down. He wipes the tears off his face and then turns to me, ready to talk some more.

“Sorry, I feel like such a wimp.” He claws his fingers down his face.

“You’re not a wimp. It’s definitely not something anybody would be able to comprehend. If it had happened to me that way I think I would react the same way,” I reassure him. But it’s not totally true; at least I don’t think it is. I’ve always been the dreamer. The one who believed in the impossible. However, I can’t really be too sure that if I was a young kid and all of a sudden I couldn’t see my body, I would have freaked out. I think I would have told Alex though.

“I’m sorry I never told you. It would have been nice, felt better, to be able to talk to someone else about it,” he says. He’s always been on the same mind track as me.

“True,” I agree with him. I’m curious now to ask him questions about it. “How often do you, you know, disappear.”

“Never,” he says in a tight voice. Typical of Alex to not want to document the proof, to not want to ever experiment with something so unnatural and
freakish
, to use his term.

“Never?” I try to draw out any other incidents where he might have needed to use it or wanted to.

“Nope. Just that once. I’ve always been afraid that I won’t be able to come back. I was afraid that someone would see me do it or I would reappear in front of someone and scare them.”

“Then, you don’t know if you can really do it. Maybe that one day was like a fluke or apart of your childhood imagination. Maybe it was a really bad dream.” I’m trying to dare him into doing again.

“I’m sure it was real.”

“How sure? Would you do it for me, right here?” I jump from the bed and lock my door to give him the security that our parents won’t walk in. Even though they rarely ever come to our rooms.

“I don’t know,” Alex says in an unsure voice.

“Think of it as one of your science experiments,” I coax him. I know he’s intrigued with the idea now. He’s always loved science experiments. I wonder if his love for physics has stemmed because of the long ago event. He had to have been around eight or nine. I remember he was bullied a lot at that age. The kids in school picked on him because he was such a ‘know-it-all’. It was me who finally stood up to the kids and pointed out every one of their embarrassing flaws. That moment of humiliation made them back off Alex and we somehow earned respect from the kids. Me, because I stood up to them and Alex because he was my brother. Later, Alex earned respect on his own because he was such a great leader and was able to help the other kids in school by explaining the class work in much simpler explanations.

Alex stands up and looks at me with an expression of a loss of what to do. “Just think ‘hide’ like you did last time,” I coach him.

He nods his head and instead of just thinking it he closes his eyes and says, “Hide,” out loud.

I gasp as he vanishes into thin air. I spin around the room like he could pop up anywhere. “Oh my God, Alex! You did it! Where are you?”

“I haven’t moved,” he says from the same place where he had been a moment ago, by my bed. “I don’t know how to come back,” he admits.

“Just think… ‘Don’t hide’ or ‘visible’.”

“Visible,” he says his instructions out loud again and reappears He quickly opens his eyes and looks down at his hands and body in relief. “Thank God,” he prays.

“That was amazing,” I exclaim, jumping up and down, clapping quietly.

Alex gets a smirk on his face and admits, “That was way cooler than it was like ten years ago.” We both laugh quietly, not wanting to get our parents attention.

“You should try it again. But this time think it. Don’t say it out loud.”             

He nods his head and then closes his eyes and vanishes again. I give a little squeal of excitement and he materializes behind me. “Ah,” I scream and fall over on my bed laughing. “That’s amazing. I can’t say it enough.” Alex just continues to smile. I’m so glad he’s finally accepting his gift and
enjoying
it.

“I just had a thought,” he tells me with wonder in his voice. “Stand up,” he orders and grabs my hands to get me to my feet faster. “I’m going to try to take you with me. I want to see if it will work. If you can do what you say you can do then maybe it’s possible for you too. Just do what you do. Ready?” He grasps one of my hands.

“Yeah, count to three.” I close my eyes and will myself to accomplish this.

“One…two…three.” I open my eyes and see that Alex is gone but I can still feel his hand but I can’t see my hand!

“This
is
freaky,” I tell Alex.

“Yeah, I thought maybe we would be able to see each other though. You know, like we have crossed over into another dimension where everything in it will appear.”

“No, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I admit. “Can you just wish us back because this is too weird? I feel like I’m talking to a voice inside my head and I’m getting dizzy not being able to see my body attached firmly to the ground.”

“Ok. I’ll count to three again. One…two…three…” I don’t close my eyes again so I can see when we both re-manifest.

We continue to practice until the early morning hours. Alex can make objects disappear with him. He can even keep those objects invisible until he’s ready to get them. Not something you want to make a habit of. He makes my bed disappear at one point and I felt like I was floating on air, seeing a mess on the floor under my bed that I didn’t realize was accumulating.

I tried to do it by myself but my abilities have their limits. I can stay invisible without Alex’s contact and I can reappear without him. I just can’t disappear without him. I don’t get it. I’m still really happy with my ability though. Alex said he wants to test mine out more. He jokes and says we’ll watch some Chuck Norris movies to see if I can copy what he does. I know I can.

Chapter 16

Cole made reservations for the dinner on Saturday for Edmund, Cole and I. We are going to Freemason Abbey, a restaurant with a lot of history. The building had originally been a church and then a town meeting hall until it became a restaurant in the late 1980’s. The building is massive and magnificent from the outside. The inside is modest with special features like stained glass windows in the old church style and stairs that may have once led to the pulpit and chorus stands but now have several tables set up.

That’s where the waitress leads me and Cole now. Apparently Edmund has already arrived and is awaiting us in a far cornered booth. He sits with his back to the wall so he can see us as we get to the top of the stairs and turn towards him.

Edmund stands up and shakes Cole’s hand and then leans in to give me an unexpected light hug and kiss on the cheek.

“You look like a goddess tonight, Alexis,” his eyes sparkle as his eyes look me over. I didn’t pick out anything special tonight like I had for Cole on our first date. I decided to go with the cornflower blue cocktail dress that I didn’t wear the night of Edmund’s gallery showing at the museum. It’s a simple dress but elegant. It clings to my body showing all of my curves yet there is room to breathe and move around in it. It has a v-neck with capped sleeves and a self-tie cut out design in the back. It’s a little too cold to wear it alone so I have on a short dressy sweater over it.

I noticed Cole wince at what he said. “Be careful professor one of your students might see and think you’re picking favorites,” I tease him.

“No, I’ve already scoped the place out. No students here,” he teases back with a smile.

I realize they are both waiting for me to sit down so I hurry and scoot into the booth. Cole slides in next to me and Edmund sits back in his place across from us, just like how we sat at the first dinner.

Cole helps me out of my sweater as the waitress brings us the drink menu.

“Are you going to intoxicate the girl again tonight?” Edmund asks Cole while keeping his eyes on his own menu.

“Cole never lets me get drunk,” I inform Edmund. I don’t want them to start the night fighting.

Edmund doesn’t respond and I can tell Cole is upset that I spoke up in his defense. Men are so typical. It doesn’t matter that they’re fallen angels, a man is a man and they are all alike. Never let a woman come to their defense because they can ‘
handle it themselves’.
Stupid machismo.

I wonder if Cole is going to order me wine after Edmund’s remark. I know I really want it if Edmund is going to interrogate us for the next hour or two. Then, I realize that Edmund is trying to be the concerned parent. Not wanting me to drink because I’m underage or because he doesn’t want Cole to take advantage of me.
Too late for that one, I took advantage of him already.
I put my head down to hide my grin but Cole notices and places his hand on my knee and shakes it like he’s asking ‘what’.  I shake my head at him and then the waitress is there to take our drink orders.

I just order water but of course Cole orders two of his favorite’s cabernets, one for him and one for me. The waitress doesn’t even blink an eye and then she turns to Edmund who is giving Cole a
very
disapproving look.
Uh oh
. I think he is on the verge of telling the waitress to make that order a one, but he just orders his own drink, never taking his eyes off Cole. Cole appears to be totally oblivious to Edmund’s dark look. He’s pulling the defiant card, just like Edmund
is
his father and not mine.

Wanting to break up the tension I’m starting to feel at the table I ask Edmund, “How is Patryck doing?” The artist that we practiced drawing facial expressions on.

Cole’s hand, which is still placed on my thigh, tightens to an almost painful level. I refrain myself from taking notice as Edmund tells me, “He’s doing well. He’ll be leaving for Europe soon to work on something for the Louvre.”

I’m about to remark how awesome that is but Cole speaks up and addresses Edmund in an accusing voice, “You introduced her to Patryck?” Did I not mention that the other day when I gave him a rundown of the conversation Edmund and I had that day in class? I wonder if Patryck is another one of them.

“Yes,” Edmund says curtly. “I want her to be acquainted with as many artists as possible. For her future.”

“Didn’t she make it clear that it’s not the future she wants,” Cole seethes.

“I was under the impression that she was going to take a few days to think about it. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to meet with both of you tonight. I was hoping you would help me
persuade
her to acknowledge the great opportunity this will be for her.” He speaks so eloquently for a man who appears only in his late twenties, more like a man of fifty or sixty, or an angel who is thousands of years old.

“She doesn’t need any more
persuasion
,” Cole says the word with the same implication Edmund used. I know what kind of persuasion he means. He wants to make Cole
force
me to cave.