Salamander

Chapter Twenty Six: Fewer Stars

Chapter Twenty Six

I had been looking at the night sky for what had seemed like hours before I heard Mariam say my name. “Alan, are you okay?”

            I shook my head against the dead grass, feeling the sharp blades brush against the back of my neck. “I don’t think so.” My voice was raspy and I put little effort to allow the words to form in my mouth, so they came out slurred and barely comprehensible. Not wanting to look at him, I asked, “How’s Lance?”

            I could hear Mariam crawl up to him. “Sleeping.”

            I looked at the stars. There were less of them than when I was in my hometown. “Why are there fewer stars here?”

            “Probably the light that the city gives off at night,” Mariam said.

            “I suppose.” I rolled over on my side, the cellar door in my line of sight. “There’re torches lining the city streets.” I closed my eyes. “I guess if there’s enough light it can even get rid of the stars.” I thought back to the blinding white light in my dream, the one where I had heard Mariam’s voice call me in a thousand directions. I swallowed the buildup of saliva that had been forming in my throat. “You’re scared of me.”

            Mariam didn’t reply immediately. “I’ve known you my entire life.”

            “But you’re scared of me.” I turned my head to look at her, watching her crouch by Lance’s still body.

            At first I thought she was going to deny what I had said and tell me what she had been ever since I had killed my father. But I saw her eyes water and she put her hand to her mouth. She nodded, causing the tears to fall from her eyelids. “Yeah,” she said, trembling as she tried to hold back the sobbing.

            Feeling a bit shocked and heartbroken, I turned my head the other way. But I wasn’t mad at her, I couldn’t be. “The truth?”

            “Yeah,” she said again, this time hiccupping and sniffling.

            After a moment of hearing her sob, I said, “I’m sorry.”

            “Don’t be,” she said in an honest voice.

            I continued to lie there, listening to her soft crying and the crickets chirping, their song pouring out into the night sky. I wondered what they were singing about, or what they were thinking. All I knew was that they were probably non-judgmental. They were probably the only ones who wouldn’t hate me for what I did, both to my father and to Lance. “I’m dangerous,” I said, realizing that my hands, the ones right by my sides, were weapons. Murderous weapons. Weapons that had punched my friend several times.

            Mariam didn’t reply, because I knew that she knew that I was right. I was dangerous. I thought I heard her footsteps approaching me, but they were heavier. I turned my head again and peered across the garden to find Byron standing there, staring at Lance sleeping on the ground. His eyes eventually drifted to me, and then to my bloody hands, glowing in the light of the nearly-full moon. He held up a roll of gauze. “I thought you might need this.”

#

            Byron watched quietly as Mariam wrapped the gauze around Lance’s nose and tied it at the back of his head. He sat there, watching her do the work he had done as a physician, and I could see the pain and longing in his eyes, for I had felt the same way. I was feeling the same way at that very moment.