7 - CULTS NOT CLUBS

8.2K 472 117
                                    

     No one would suspect the great difference between the two small houses on that lonesome, Los Angeles one-way street, not from a single glance. The houses were similar in exterior features, both had only two residents each, being a mother and a child, and both had a foundation set in religious beliefs. But past the windows, through the wooden walls and behind the front doors, there was one difference that was so similar it was frightening. One house was holy and the other wicked, but who was to say which house was which. One prayed to the Father in the sky and the other prayed to the Father down below. One had a mother that appeared light and wholesome that was anything but. The other had a mother that appeared as hard as nails but was supportive and nurturing. One had a daughter with an untidy appearance that bottled everything up like a boy. And the other had a son that brushed his golden curls and was open with his emotions like a girl and often cried himself to sleep when the terrors in his mind became too much. A stranger walking by would never know the differences or similarities between the two houses, but they were there, hidden yet so striking. Both starkly opposing each other, but so close too. So close that they shared a pole, a connection, a spectrum. Day and night. Good and evil. Heaven and hell.

     For the next week or so, Michael Langdon walked Carrie Moore home from school. His days became long stretches of time just waiting for the sun to start setting over the city of angels so he could return to Carrie's side, holding her backpack and smelling her natural perfume of honey and blood that hummed in the lining of her skin and flourished through the air with each thump of her heart. Sometimes they would talk about anything and everything and other times they would just share the silence of the afternoon as the last ray's of the day softened all the harshness of the world. 

     Yet each day, Carrie believed that that day would be the day he wouldn't show, that he had found something or someone better than she. The doubt was heavy in her chest, weighing her down all day, until she spotted him outside the school gate, leaning against a tree, just waiting. Waiting for her. And then her lips would split and her cheeks would ache from being high and hued with a pink blush. But he hadn't let her down, not once. 

     The afternoon rapidly became Carrie's favourite time of the day and she hated going home to the floral wallpaper, to the classical music Magaret listened to on an old record player while she cooked dinner. Carrie wasn't very enthusiastic about classical music, but it was the only music she knew.

     The pair walked a lot, just wandered around their neighbourhood and often visited the graveyard, to sit with the weeping stone angels. It was blissful and there was never any expectations of what their friendship was or should be. Both Carrie and Michael had found a slice of peace that wasn't fragmented by the expectations of other people or the expectations of what the world and society told them they should be. 

     No boundaries. No expectations. No judgment or contempt and no cruelty. Just them and each other's company. It was new to them both, but both were coming to rely on the other's company, which was a dangerous thing for two outcasts that only knew brutality and neglect. Whom both had more experience with the sourness of the world than the sweetness.  

     Nighttime was Carrie's second favourite time. The darkness and the shadows provided her with the perfect opportunity to practise her power. She's often cross her legs and move the objects she had gathered and placed out before her. Books and her stash of food and knick-knacks from her childhood. She never pushed herself too hard, wasn't even sure she wanted to know what her limitations were. 

     But there was one night at the beginning of April that she did test her power. It was a moonless night and the shadows that stretched across her bedroom floor were only broken by a single flame from the candle on her nightstand. Carrie was sitting cross-legged on her bed, her faded sheets soft under her thighs. Six hardback books were spread out before her, each rather heavy and fat. The teenage girl took a deep breath, extending out her arms to hover over the books, palms faced down. Usually, when Carrie practised her power in the dead of night, she used anger and rage to bring forth the raw energy that lingered in her blood. She'd imagine her mother hurting her while muttering out prayers. Angel of God, my Guardian dear, to whom God's love commits me here, ever this day be at my side, to light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen. She'd imagine the laughter and the sniggers from her fellow high school students. Above all, she'd remember her skin red from humiliation and blue from bruises. Then her blood would boil, spilling out that raw energy and objects would fly. 

Prom Queen 。 Michael LangdonWhere stories live. Discover now