Break the Sky : Prologue
CHAPTER 1
He walked slowly, placing every step with deliberate care. It was the foul, blustery mess of an Oregon winter, and the path was slick with patches of black ice and slush, and his tennis shoes were worn nearly bald.
The pavement was black and the sky was pewter and the trees were frosted with white. Little flecks of dandruffy snow flecked the shoulders of his coat, his black bangs, his glasses. Miserable climate. He'd nearly bought it a few times just walking to class.
Watching with detached interest as a raven the size of a small dog brought down a blizzard as it hopped from branch to branch in a frosted pine tree, he realized something that he'd been fighting all along.
Sebastian was bored. A bare six weeks of freedom, and he was practically dying to get away.
Sitting in Statistics, when he'd conquered the lofty heights of Calculus when he was nine. Listening to the baboon the school called a science teacher outline the Laws of Thermodynamics, taking a small measure of spiteful satisfaction as he violated a couple of them one handed, under his desk. Listening to his brain calcify with boredom in English class, where he mentally translated the teacher's droning monologue on thesis statements and Venn diagrams from German into Russian into Finno-Ulric and finally into Sumerian, then back to English, imagining the words in his mind screaming as he forced them from one idiomatic usage to the next.
His fellows -he refused, in any way, shape, or form, to regard them as peers- cavorted in the scant inches of snow on the ground, hollering and running and performing various indecorous mating rituals.
For the most part they ignored the small, black-haired boy in his dusty brown leather coat, with a patchy beard and aggressive spectacles. Many of them wore glasses; Sebastian wore spectacles, hiding his mismatched eyes behind frames and lenses that had probably been fashionable for a single afternoon in the summer of 1956.
The noise was getting to him. He found himself thinking longingly of the tiny room he rented from some senile old woman; with its wooden floors and cantankerous heater and the bed that barely left room for the desk. He liked listening to the other boarders through the paper-thin walls; at least there was a barrier. He wasn't surrounded by them.
Calm down, he instructed himself sternly Stay focused. They're good cover. Try to blend.
The wind cut straight through the thin cotton shirt he wore under his coat; it and his elderly jeans might as well have been made of cobweb and netting. His feet, he just noticed, were wet. Maybe if he caught trench-foot, he could sue the school. Or Nike. Or somebody.
Unconsciously he reached up to the small silver disk on a thin silver chain around his neck, and tried to focus that soon, very soon, he would be alone again, and warm.
“Well, hello there.”
Or not, Sebastian thought to himself, grimly.
The voice was unfamiliar; slightly nasal, a little rough around the edges with puberty. The body, too, wasn't ringing any bells, a lanky teenager with an acne-splattered jaw and violently blue hair. He wore a sleeveless t-shirt and artfully shredded jeans and a pair of truly hideous blue-and-white mittens. He was steaming furiously in the cold. Only his smile was familiar, stretched wide to incorporate too many teeth to truly be a smile, and the color of his eyes.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Sebastian said, all the remaining heat fleeing from his body through his feet.
“Well, that's not what I'd call hospitable,” the teenager, if anything, grinned even wider. Sebastian noted almost absently that his teeth were very white and sharp.
“What do you want, Zee?” Sebastian asked, wishing to his very bones that he could run away.
“I want what everyone wants, Sebby old boy,” Zee drawled, ruffling Sebastian's hair “everything.”
“You shouldn't be here,” Sebastian said, fighting the impulse to slap Zee's hand away from his skull.
“Oh? Who says?” Zee said blithely, his eyes avidly tracking a group of cavorting students with interest that brought to mind a cook, watching the lambs at play “you? You don't have the authority to forbid me anything, Sebastian. That is, unfortunately for you, not the format of our relationship.”
“We're in America. They'll track you, and-”
“That sounds rather like it's more your problem than mine,” Zee noted “since in all likelihood they'll track you down, not me.”
“What are you doing here?” Sebastian said, weary, aware that the poorly-dressed pubescent behemoth was attracting way too much attention.
“Following a whim, short answer. Long answer, protecting my investment. My turn. What are you doing here?”
“Attending college.”
“Oh please, Sebastian,” Zee guffawed “That's the second-biggest heap of bullshit you've ever tried to pass of on me.”
“It's true.”
“So I suppose your presence in this town has nothing to do with that little oath of yours.”
“I broke that oath, Zee,” Sebastian said, walking faster towards the bus stop. Zee matched pace effortlessly “I broke it, I quit. I'm done. After all,” he said bitterly “I'm going to hell either way, right?”
“Quite,” Zee replied, affably “but this town is interesting. I think I'll stay awhile.”
“That is-”
“If you are about to tell me that my decision to remain here is not a good idea, I must, once more, remind you that your opinion is not particularly valuable to me,” Zee said, voice flat, eyes cold “and I will remain here, whether you wish me to or not.”
They walked a little further in silence.
“Where'd you get the duds?” Sebastian asked after the silence grew too long to be comfortable.
“What, this old thing?” Zee laughed delightedly, turning a quick pirouette, presumably so Sebastian could admire his new self “it was piss easy, actually. Bless this country for deciding that ignorance was safer than knowledge.”
“So he's-”
“He called,” Zee said with a shrug “I answered. He didn't expect anything to happen, of course, nor what the answer would quite entail; but he's rather enjoying himself at the moment. Truth be told, I think it appeals to his innate melodrama.”
“Zee-”
Zee reached up, putting a single finger on the underside of Sebastian's chin. Under the blue-and-white wool of Zee's mittens, Sebastian could feel something sharp “if I were you, I'd go to the library. Read some stuff about the history of the town. Might be enlightening.”
“What are you-”
“You might also,” Zee overrode him, the finger on Sebastian's chin tilting his head up to meet Zee's eyes, each of which was the color of an individual nebula, plasma purple and gamma red “think about why certain things are easy here, that are difficult elsewhere.”
Sebastian said nothing.
“Fine. Be that way,” Zee laughed gaily, throwing his arms up, drinking in the winter sunlight that was pouring through the clouds, joyless and thin “I'll be in touch. Goodbye, Sebastian.”
He waited a moment, his eyes boring into Sebastian's.
“...Goodbye, Zee,” Sebastian said.
Zee gave a little half-wave of fairwell. He walked down the street, swinging from the occasional lamppost; singing an extremely off-color song that would surely shock and appall any passersby who happened to speak Babylonian.
Sebastian, without quite knowing why, turned around, back towards campus, and headed for the library.
Terrified, he decided, was actually a step up from being bored.
<><><>
“No, seriously. Dude is totally a serial killer,” John said, gesturing authoritatively, managing to upset one stack of notebooks, one propped-open textbook, and a (thankfully) empty soft drink can in the process. His friends, familiar with the collateral damage, straightened everything up with barely a grumble.
“Who are we talking about again?” said Nicole, here seen as the top of a curly blond head emerging from the edges of a truly massive math textbook.
“Are we still talking about Terry?” said redheaded Aaron tentatively, peering slightly myopically from across the cramped and over-filled table at John, who was looking at his friends with an expression of martyred disbelief.
“Do none of you listen when I talk? He asked, outraged. Nicole emerged from her text just long enough to give Aaron a significant look; he bit back a laugh.
“I am talking about Sebastian,” John announced.
“Who?” Aaron and Nicole asked in unison.
“Sebastian,” John said, impatient. After a few moments of blank stares, he groaned, rolling theatrical eyes towards the heavens “oh for fuck's sake. The skinny kid with the black hair,” more blank stares “in our statistics class? You know, the one we're studying for right now? Sits about two rows in front of me?”
“Oh, that guy,” Nicole said, returning to her book.
“Who?” Asked Aaron, more confused than ever.
“The serial killer, Aaron dear,” Nicole replied, reaching a hand from around her massive tome to give him a pat on the wrist.
“Oh. Why is he a serial killer?”
“One: never talks in class.”
“Don't see how that's an issue, as you never shut your mouth,” Nicole responded pleasantly. John gave her the finger and a stapler went flying.
“Two! Never talks to anybody IN class!”
“Maybe he's not a murderer, John. Maybe he's just shy. Occam's razor and all that.”
“No, no no,” John shook his head “shy is one thing. Aaron here is shy.”
“Hey!” Aaron protested.
“A wallflower, a shrinking violet, a blushing English rose,” John continued as though he hadn't heard “Sebastian, by contrast, is quiet because he's contemplating how best to lure you to an isolated location to murder and eat you. Subtle difference.”
“He's not going to be much good at luring if he never talks,” Nicole pointed out.
“He could be an accomplished mime,” John said mildly “he looks like the kind of guy who'd be a good mime.”
“French?” Aaron asked.
“No no no,” John said, shaking his head sadly “quiet.”
“Ah. Well.”
<><><>
Aaron wondered to himself, as he retreated into the stacks, if all friendships made you want to run away and hide every so often. He liked John, of course, but the guy didn't so much suck all the air out of a room as he drew it all together and compressed it into some kind of Attention Singularity.
And yes, damn it, he was shy. Not that there was anything wrong with that. Besides, John was assertive enough for any group of friends. Or small South American republic, honestly.
“Excuse me.”
The voice wasn't familiar; Aaron glanced to his left, and standing there, naturally enough, was Sebastian.
John was right, in a way. There was something kind of unsettling about the guy. He was young – younger than Aaron, he guessed, by at least a couple of years- medium-tall, extremely thin in a way that made him seem smaller than he actually was; his hair was dusty black and his eyes were blue. His left eye was bluer than the other, since the right had a single, jagged stripe of yellowish-green. He had a perpetual pinched and colorless look, like someone who'd been pulling all-nighters for a week, not at all helped by a decidedly scruffy black beard. There was this quality of stillness around him that made, for some reason, all the hair stand up on the back of Aaron's neck.
“Uh. Hi,” Aaron said, feeling like he should at least be polite.
“Hello,” Sebastian said, squeezing past Aaron.
Later, Aaron couldn't possibly have explained what prompted the question. In fact, on reflection, he often felt like an obnoxious movie patron when he remembered that particular cusp; yelling “Don't talk to him!” to his past self over and over again until he was thrown out by the usher.
But hindsight, of course, was 20/20.
“Do you need help finding anything?” Aaron asked in the ridiculously bright, chipper voice he used whenever he was deeply uncomfortable, which was, more or less, whenever he was forced to interact with someone “I work here. You know. On the weekends?”
Sebastian surveyed Aaron with his head tilted quizzically; Aaron could have sworn that the thought running through Sebastian's head was something along the lines of “how stupid can an animal be and keep respirating?”
But the moment passed.
“...Yes, actually,” Sebastian said, reluctantly “actually, that would be useful. Thank you,” he added, as an obvious afterthought.
“What are you looking for?” Aaron beamed, hating himself with an enthusiasm he usually reserved for action movies.
“History of Lashdale. Like, the area. Starting with anything about local Native American folklore, ideally.”
Aaron blinked “you in Shcauer's 'History of the Red Valley” class?”
Sebastian managed to conceal about 80% of his annoyance at being asked a question; Aaron felt it anyway “sure. Why not.”
<><><>
“So if you're looking for Oregon Trail stuff, it's this section right here,” Aaron said, pointing out a few dusty-looking volumes “there's a museum downtown, they've got a lot more archival stuff. It's pretty easy to get a viewer's permit, just tell them you're a student.”
“Hmm,” Sebastian said, reaching out to touch a few of the spines. He had the intentness of a true bibliophile, something Aaron could appreciate “anything earlier?”
“There's some stuff from some of the fur companies in this book right here,” Aaron gestured “personal correspondence and surveys, mostly.”
“And earlier?”
“Well, there isn't anything much,” Aaron said apologetically.
Sebastian made a vaguely discontented sound, somewhere between a sigh and a snort “what tribes lived in this area, historically?”
“None.”
Sebastian peered at Aaron, his expression indicating that he was wondering if he could ever plumb the true depths of human ignorance “I beg your pardon?”
“There were no tribes that lived here.”
“That's impossible.”
Aaron shook his head “seriously. It's the big mystery of the Red Valley. I'm an archeology student and I've done digs here. You find historical stuff, like from 19th century, and then there's nothing until about twenty-five hundred, three thousand years back.”
Sebastian slipped a thick volume off the shelf; Legends of the Red Valley. He scanned the chapter index, frowning at the yellowed paper.
“Is there anything else weird about the area? Like, geologically? Ecologically, maybe?”
“Well actually-”
“Aaron?” John's voice was shockingly loud. Aaron jumped a good foot in the air before he turned around and saw John peeking at him through the bookshelves.
“There you are,” John said, exasperated “I've been looking all over for you. What's the hold-up?”
“I was just helping-” Aaron turned to gesture, but Sebastian was gone. He'd neatly vanished, the only sign of his presence the gap left in the shelf from the book he'd taken.
John came around the aisle, and grinned at Aaron “helping who?”
“Ugh, get out of my way,” Aaron shoved his way past John, and -damned if he knew why- hurrying towards the front desk.
He barely made it. Sebastian was slipping his book into an ancient backpack that was a chalky grey that had probably been navy blue, once upon a time.
“Yes?” Sebastian said warily as Aaron came up.
For a brief moment Aaron thought, he's terrified. He'll bolt if I so much as blink.
But that was ridiculous, of course, because Aaron couldn't terrify anybody. Soaking wet, he'd weigh as much a his stepfather's dog. The moment passed and Sebastian was simply standing there, expressionless.
“Sorry, my friend John-”
“I'm kind of busy-”
“I was wondering if you wanted-”
“I need to be getting-”
“To know more.”
Sebastian blinked “I'm sorry?”
“I was wondering if you wanted to know more. I could, you know. Tell you more. I've done a lot of research into this area, because it's strange,” Aaron felt the idiot I'm-Uncomfortable grin creeping back onto his face “actually, you're the first person I've talked to who thinks it's strange.”
Sebastian had the oddest expression on his face. It was like he was trying to smile, but had largely forgotten how the thing was done. It wasn't much, just some barely-perceptible shift in the musculature of his face, but it was far and away the most pleasant expression Aaron had seen yet.
“Oh. Well. Alright,” Sebastian seemed frankly appalled at the words coming out of his mouth.
“Just, uh, give me a call. I'm Aaron, by the way.” Aaron said, scribbling his number down on a post-it note from the front desk. Sebastian made no move to accept it. Aaron, who considered himself a failing student of human behavior, suspected that Sebastian had some kind of touching-people thing.
“Sebastian Barclay,” Sebastian replied, not shaking hands with Aaron, but looking like he was maybe possibly considering it.
“Hello!” John said brightly, stepping out of nowhere and seizing Sebastian's hand and pumping it vigorously “I'm John, such a pleasure, such a pleasure. Musn't mind Aaron, he's just tongue-tied around strangers.”
It turned out knowing someone's name didn't make it easier to light them on fire with your mind. Aaron knew, because he was trying it as hard as he could.
“Charmed,” Sebastian said in a faint voice, his expression screaming “Oh-god-this-thing-is-touching me.”
“Now, Aaron, we're still looking for those books, why would we befriend a librarian if we wanted to search the stacks ourselves?”
Aaron glowered at John, and glanced back towards Sebastian. Predictably, he'd vanished again, probably the exact instant John had released him. However, Aaron noted, mostly in passing,the post-it was, in fact, gone.
“I hate you,” Aaron said, walking back towards the stacks.
“Oh, Aaron, my friend,” said John expansively, throwing a comradly arm around his shoulder “I'm just trying to make sure nobody eats and murders my favorite nerd.”
“Hate you forever.”
“I know, child, I know.”
<><><>
It was snowing, hard, by the time Sebastian left. The weather had taken a definite turn for the worse, not unlike his afternoon.
There was a bright pink post-it note in his backpack. Sebastian had rarely – well, never- actually...well, he'd never...
Never done anything like that before. With a person who wasn't Father, or one of the assorted grim-faced and humorless men who had made up Father's circle of acquaintances. Aaron. He turned the name over in his brain. Biblical, of course, and generally associated with Jews. Where there red-headed Jews? Besides Judas, of course. He was...well,he was going to “hang out”, as the vernacular went. Aaron seemed to have a functioning brain beneath his doofus grin and boneless face, which was a relief. Maybe he was even capable of carrying on a conversation about something other than panties or beer-pong or whatever it was that occupied the barren little minds of his fellow students.
He pushed Aaron of the rusty curls and the, he guessed, more-or-less perpetual hangdog expression out of his mind. Zee had been correct, obviously, there was something odd about the town.
Sebastian stopped, heedless of the driving snow that had long since soaked him to the skin. He looked at a small and malnourished oleander bush growing by the sidewalk, caked in snow. Closing his eyes, he intoned a word inside his mind. A word that Father had nearly killed him, many times, to hammer into his brain.
He opened his eyes. Nothing happened, except...
The bush shivered; clumps of snow sloughed off it as the leaves began to steam, and finally with a fwoosh the entire bush went up in merry, orange-and-blue flame, hissing as the snow continued to fall.
Sebastian relished the warmth, as he always did, but he shivered inside. That was far, far too easy to do.
Reality was thin here, very thin.
Clutching the silver circle at his neck, he hurried on his way, as the bush burned itself to cinders behind him, sputtering fitfully in the snow.
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