Posting a Story for Haiti: The Family

 This is a charity post. The idea, from the editors at Crossed Genres, is that writers post free stories online. If you, the readers, are interested, you read them. If you are touched (by awe at the great story, or maybe by pity for poor mumbling_sage who can't write), we humbly ask that you donate to one of the many charities involved in relief efforts in Haiti in wake of the recent tragedy. While I'm a bit sheepish to set out my humble efforts beside those of Sarah Monette or Jeff VanderMeer*, here is my story, "The Family".  As a link to start off donating efforts, here's Partners in Health's contribution page. Other charities can be found via Charity Navigator.

*You can find both their stories, and many others, through the links on the Crossed Genres page.

The Family

            Emily opened bleary eyes, blinked them. Something wasn’t right. The night around her was black—black, except for the yellow-white, almost blinding lights filling the bottom of her vision. Sleep faded, and as it did she became aware of a sensation—speed.

            According to the speedometer, 35 miles per hour.
            She didn’t check for headlights behind her before she slammed on the brakes. As the car slowed to a stop, she leaned back gasping, heart pounding and leaping in her throat. When the adrenaline came, it coursed through her body with nearly ecstatic force. Almost worth waking up to find yourself driving down a country road in the middle of the night.

            She was dressed, jeans and a cotton blouse both clingy with sweat. She must have done it all while sleepwalking—something she had never done before. Never mind sleepdriving. And by the look of things, she had driven pretty far from home.
            Still almost queasy with relief, she turned to her passenger’s side to look out at the fields bordering the road.
            She found someone sitting there.
            Emily screamed. Not very loud; her mouth was so dry that she could only manage a strangled yell, but it was still one of the most terrified sounds she had made in her life.
            “It’s all right,” the young man said. His tone was calm, soothing; he didn’t even bat a blonde eyelash. “Just keep driving.”
            She found her foot gently pressing on the gas pedal in spite of herself and turned back to the road. “Who the hell are you?”
            “My name’s Tivvien. I’m the nephew of the 14th Lord from—well, that doesn’t mean anything to you. Go straight; just follow the road.” His voice, still smooth and soothing, was faintly accented in a way she couldn’t identify. He spoke as if everything was all routine, which was just as well, because if he hadn’t Emily wouldn’t be functioning well enough to drive. “You’ve been…kidnapped, I guess the word might be. It’s all right; you won’t be hurt. Can you go a little faster? Anyway, you aren’t the only one they’ve taken. We’re going to meet …some people. Turn left here.”
            The directions were given a bit too close to the fact, and Emily took a strange satisfaction in the way Tivvien was tossed around in the seat beside her. He should have worn a seatbelt. She did, even if she had buckled it on while asleep.
            “Where am I going?” she asked.
            “A meeting.”
            “And will my… ‘kidnappers’ be there?”
            “Yes.”
            The road was straight for a long way now, leading between rows of corn. Emily took her eyes off it and turned to Tivvien. He was funny-looking, she thought, though not entirely in a bad way; slim, not very tall, with bright blue-green eyes and shoulder-length yellow hair. Yellow, not blond. And though his skin was pale, his features were defiantly not Caucasian. Not bad looking, either.
            “What’s going on?” she said.
            “You’re being taken to a place where some of…my people, I suppose…are waiting for you. You won’t be hurt, but it would be dangerous to let them know you’re awake. Look.” Tivvien sighed and ran a slender hand through his long hair. “I want to help you. This meeting…I’m trying to sabotage it.”
            “Why?” Emily took the wheel again. She was going slowly now, but felt calm enough to handle a conversation. She liked listening to Tivvien’s voice. It was soothing, sounding sort of like the way chocolate frosting tasted.
            She shook herself out of it. “Why?” she repeated. “Why do you want to sabotage this meeting, and what do I have to do with it?”
            “Why? I suppose you could call it revenge.” His voice, though still soothing, sounded almost sheepish, as if he hadn’t considered his motivations might be so base before. “There will be people there who have harmed me. Injured me. And they’ve hurt other people, too.”
            “You don’t look injured to me.” He looked fine, actually: young, athletic, and healthy, though a bit strange.
            “It’s not physical. It was more of an embarrassment. A  personal…never mind. The Family will hurt you, too, if they get the chance. We’re not going to give it to them.”
            “The Family?”
            “The…people. My people.”
            “And how can I help you with them?” she asked dryly. “What, and I’m asking this for the second time, do I have to do with anything?” She was about to continue in this vein, demanding to know what she was doing driving in the middle of the night down country roads, where she was going, and why on earth was it her of all people, when Tivvien started speaking again with his soothing, chocolately voice.
            “For my plan to work, I needed one of the people they’ve kidnapped—you. The ceremony requires ordinary people, at least what you would call ordinary. I’ve lived among your kind too long; I’ve started thinking like you. This will only make things more confusing. Forgive me.”
            “There’s nothing to forgive,” Emily said. She was warming to this Tivvien, though that may have just been the result of his looks and whatever he was doing with his voice. It probably wasn’t wise to trust him, she thought, but she didn’t have much choice now.
            “The Family will try to bind you to them.”
            After a pause, Emily realized some answer was expected of her. “Oh…kay.”
            “During the binding, you’ll be connected to the Source. That is…well, it’s what keeps the Family strong.”
            “A powerhouse?” Even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t the word. But what could be? Tivvien wasn’t describing this Source very well, but he didn’t have to, the tone of his voice said it all. It was like hearing of water from a man drowning of thirst.
            “Perhaps you could call it that. All of us—all of the Family—need contact with the Source. We won’t die without it, not like a lack of food or heat or something, but…it’s very lonely, to be cut off from it. Like cutting off from everything you know in the world.” His tone changed, growing softer, but also more pained. There was a brief silence, but Emily didn’t care to pursue that line of conversation.
            “So for a moment, you’ll be at the Source…turn left. This is it.”
            She stared at him blankly; there was only an open field where he directed her to turn.
            “What did you expect, a concert hall?” He sounded as if he was trying to sound irritable, but couldn’t quite make it; an interesting, brittle tone. Emily turned into the field and winced as her compact’s springs complained by imitating a jack-in-the-box.
            “Park anywhere. Probably by those others.” He pointed to an interesting line up: two minivans, a pickup truck, three compact cars, and an SUV. Probably not the Family’s, Emily thought dryly. She stopped beside the pickup.
            “Act sleepy,” Tivvien said. “Or better, act asleep.”
            “I don’t know how to sleepwalk,” Emily protested.
            “Move slowly. Keep your eyes on the ground. It’s not quite like real sleepwalking, anyway.” As she unlocked the doors, he added, “And don’t trip over anything.”
            Emily considered doing her best imitation zombie shuffle—without the moans—but changed her mind as a willowy brunette strode past her with footmanship not out of place on a fashion runway. The way her eyes stared glassily into space didn’t do much for the look, though. Emily followed with her own eyes on the ground and her own walk a little less glamorous, trying to still the shaking of her hands.
            “Don’t worry.” Ah, and Tivvien was using his best soothing voice, so it was no trouble at all to obey. “You won’t be in any danger…not…never mind. You’ll be fine. But look, I can’t stay with you. Join the rest of the sleepers. Do what you’re told. And when you touch the Source…you need to break it.”
            “Need to break what?” she said. “And how? And…” Unfortunately, she saw shapes moving in the corner of her eyes, and had to murmur the words in a low voice without moving her lips. Nobody heard her, including Tivvien.
            “Just follow the others.” He clapped a hand on her shoulder in a way that was probably meant to be reassuring; it wasn’t. He sounded nervous, as much has she could judge his strange voice, and when he left her he was walking too quickly, as if afraid to be seen nearby.
            “Heya, Tiv,” she heard someone say. “We’ve been wondering when you’d come to watch the herd. See anything you fancy? Like that bright young spark, and what did you call him again…?”
            There was laughter, but not cruel. It was as if they had found something genuinely funny in what was said…Tivvien and his bright young spark from out of the herd. Like herself? she wondered.
            She kept walking, and was nearly out of earshot at Tivvien’s reply. She couldn’t make out any of the words, but the tone was frighteningly pleasant.
            Then the people walking in front of hers topped. She halted and raised her eyes to furtively look around. The cluster she was standing by were all normal men and women, about forty of them. But there were others, too, standing around the group as if watching…she wasn’t sure, exactly. A cross between a childrens’ softball game and feeding time at the zoo, she thought. Not a nice way to be watched. Of course, the watchers were slight, beautiful, with yellow hair and alien features.
            “Hello.” The voice was normal, a man speaking a little loudly as if to get their attention. The sleepwalkers turned to the point where it came from. Emily followed belatedly.
            There was a man standing there, dark-haired, middle-aged, and portly. He moved strangely, and Emily realized he was staring into the space above the people’s heads.
            “Please listen to me.” There was a rustling as the group shifted, then silence. “Thank you. Welcome to the Family.”
            The man gestured to the people standing around them. “These are our Cousins. We share forbearers, forefathers, far back. There aren’t many of them left, unfortunately—which is why you are here. Our Cousins need your help.”
            “What can we do?” someone asked. Their voice was muffled, sleepy.
            “You need to open yourselves to the Source.” Silence; the man’s voiced echoed in the open air. Emily dared a glance at the strange people, the Cousins. They were still. Tivvien stood too motionless, rigid, with hands clenched in fists. He was nervous. That wasn’t exactly a calming influence on Emily, itself.
            “How?” one of the sleepwalkers whispered.
            The man pulled something from a deep pocket and held it up. Light shot from it, reflected by crystal strands in the globe of glass. Emily couldn’t tell where the glow was coming from, but she was pretty sure the source of it wasn’t inside the orb. The Source?
            “Come forward,” the man said. Several of the sleepwalkers did at once; there was momentary confusion as they moved into single file. Emily wasn’t certain if she should join them, and looked at Tivvien for guidance. He wouldn’t meet her gaze.
            “You,” the portly man said to the first woman in line. “What’s your name?”
            It was the brunette with the supermodel walk. “Melissa.”
            “Melissa, will you serve your family?”
            “I will.”
            He handed her the globe and murmured something. Nothing happened—at least, nothing Emily could see. Tivvien’s hands were clenched so tightly she wondered that the knuckles didn’t burst.
            After a moment, the woman moved away, and someone else took her place. Same murmured exchanged, same question, same answer, same nothing happening. A new person in line. Emily looked at the light-filled globe. In one man’s hands, it flickered, and the portly gentleman gently retrieved it and sent him away. But for the most part the globe burned steadily in the hands of whoever held it, and didn’t change at all during the strange ceremony. Emily watched each of the people, but none of them seemed much different, either, though after all they were sleepwalking.
            She tentatively took her place in line. She tried to pass close to Tivvien, in the hope that he’d give her some sort of directions. He was silent as she filed by.
            So then. It was down to her. The Source flashed in the globe as another sleepwalker held it in his hands. Something different. The portly man sent him away. Closer. Emily could hear the exchange again, low murmurs.
            “I, Karen, will serve my family.”
            “I, Joshua, will serve my family.”
            “I, Derek, will serve my family.”
            Then Derek was gone, and Emily stood before the Source.
            Time slowed. She looked into the glowing depths of the orb and saw them pulse. There were heartbeats in there—glowing heartbeats. Like lives flickering. They needed her to burn stronger.
            The gentleman offered her the globe. “What’s your name?”

            Flickering heartbeats, pulsing in the Source, before her eyes. They needed her. Understanding came in a rush. She wondered if it came from the orb itself.
            The Family’s lives were in the globe. Not just the Cousins’. The sleepers’ too. Tied together, burning brighter for it—or at least the Cousins’ did. She could recognize their life-flickers, because they were so strange.

            The man repeated his question.
            “Emily.” She said her name thickly, and barely even heard it herself.
            “Emily, will you serve your family?”
            He was offering the globe. She reached out to take it, knowing it would enslave her, bind her life and reduce it to a shadow for the sake of that other, flickering being. She saw it now, the one that must be meant for her, a coiling ribbon of brightness, not blue, not gold, but somehow like both of those colors and more besides. It stretched as her hand reached out, straining towards her. As she took the globe, heavy and cold in her hands, she realized in a flash of insight whose the life-spark was.
            Tivvien’s.
            Tivvien, alone and unbound, one of the last Cousins to receive a member of the Family. Tivvien, who needed her to survive. Who needed the Source to have her.
            Tivvien, who wanted to destroy the Source.
            Did he know they were to be bound? Had he been drawn to her because of it, out of all the Family’s captives? She felt their lives slither together, bind together—there, inside the Source; how had she gotten in there? It didn’t matter. She was flickering out in there. She needed to destroy it or she would vanish, extinguished, snuffed out. Whether he knew or not, her choice must be the same. Kill the Source and everyone who depended on it or lose your own life. Them or you. Him or you.
            The man repeated himself again. “Emily, will you serve your family?”
            Hollow glass, so fragile. Flesh, so fragile. Life. Light. Flickering flames. Heartbeats. Glass.
            “Not a chance,” Emily said, and crushed the Source in her hands.
            Shards cut into her palms. Her skin was burning too hot for her to feel the pain. Cries screamed around her, so loud they were soundless. Lives raveled and unraveled. Some flickered and went out. A few human. Most Cousin.
            Tivvien.
            His life flickered, like a candle in a soft breeze, or a bonfire in a strong one. He was dying.
            Emily didn’t want him to die.
            It was for no reason, really. She didn’t particularly like him. Even if he was somehow attractive, it was such an alien attractiveness that it couldn’t be likeable. He had as good as kidnapped her, by using her kidnapping for his own ends. She had only gone along with his plan for her own sake. And by God, it was his plan. If he should die for it, wasn’t that his own fault?
            But it was so simple, really. So simple, to reach out through the ruins of the Source and entwine and bind their lives. To save him.
            Emily felt her life gutter a moment, but it still burned. Duller, perhaps. She would live.
            The fat man who had handed her the Source was dead. Dead, like so many of the Cousins scattered around her. Some lives were still bound together, floating before Emily’s broken vision, and some of the strongest held on alone. Tivvien lay sprawled on the grass. She went to him.
            “Had your revenge?” she asked. It was a cruel thing to say, she knew, but she could already see from his even breathing and clear eyes that he was okay and had nothing else to do but answer.
            “Yes.” He pushed himself up. “But…I don’t understand.”
            He didn’t know? “I bound myself to you.”
            “But you destroyed the Source?”
            “Yes.” She paused. “It would have killed you, you know. If I hadn’t…”
            His head fell. “I know.”
            “You didn’t care?”
            “Look at us.” He weakly waved an arm around, gesturing to Cousins who were mostly dead. “We’ve lived off your kind for centuries. Parasites. I thought…” In a lower voice, he added, “Sometimes it kills humans, you know, being bound to one of us. That’s what happened to him. Maybe it was because he was so sensitive, I don’t know…”
            “Who was he?” Emily ventured. Tivvien’s ‘bright spark’?
            “Alejandro. We were in the south then…” He shrugged, as if forcing something heavy off his shoulders.
            “You were friends?”
            “Yes.”
            “You…were bound to him?”
            “Not me. No. He belonged to someone else. I was…so helpless. Watching him die…”
            She placed a hand on his shoulder. Carefully. “Perhaps we can be friends?”
            He looked up at her. He was frowning, not angry at her, but…puzzled. Bewildered. Lost. Above all, lost.
            “Look,” Emily said finally, “we should get out of here.”
            He looked around. Dead Cousins, humans, some of both still alive and sprawling dizzy and confused. The sleepers were slowly waking up.
            “Is there anything we can do to help?” Emily wondered aloud, then shrugged it off. There really wasn’t. “Come on,” she said at last. “Let’s go.”
            Tivvien let her haul him to his feet. “Where?”
            “Anywhere. My apartment, for now. I’ll make tea…we can talk. Get acquainted. You can tell me what this bond between us entails.” She smiled weakly. “I’ll drive.”
            He fell asleep in the car. Emily let him drowse. After a few turns, she found a familiar road and headed down it. She pushed all thoughts of the field and what had just happened there out of her mind. There would be time enough for that, she thought, when they got home.
            She turned up her headlights and wondered at how they joined far off in the night, like two living flames intertwined.