Rimwick

Gentleman In Converse

My dreams are all of glowing trees, and I wake before the sun sets again. The girls around me are breathing softly- Fallon, burrowed under her blanket; Echo, swaying in her hammock; and Brooke, who mutters something about the wind while she slumbers. I pull on my boots, shrug into my navy peacoat, and slip out the door with my book. I contemplate telling Felix where I'm going, but I don't want to wake him.

The snow outside is turning to slush in the daytime warmth from the filtered sun. I tilt my face to the sky and breathe deeply as I hike down the hill to my house. My dad and I used to go on walks like this, in the opposite end of the forest. We'd gather plants for Mom and talk about school, Earth, and everything. I never knew how he grew up, only that his parents died when he was very young and that Grandpa, Mom's dad, took care of him. Part of me wants to ask Mom that, too. Did Dad know about the Dusk Children? And more importantly, why did they take him?

Because the Dusk Children I know aren't monsters. I wish Rimwick could see that: there's good in Nocterem. Maybe we could get along, if my hometown would grow up and stop being afraid of the dark.

I peer down the street before walking up the slanted front steps- no one is here. No one ever is, and they don't come to the house either, except for medicine. I waltz up onto the front porch, ignoring the blue paint that chips away where I step, bang open the front door...

And am very surprised to see Isaac Lamarr at my kitchen table.

He looks up at me, brown hair more disheveled than it has been in years, his dark eyes rimmed with red, and stares.

"Riley?"

Dawn. Dawn and dusk and everything in between, why did HE have to be here?

I grab Isaac's wrist and pull him into the hall, slamming the kitchen door and pressing him against it.

"You can't tell."

"What?"

"You can't tell anyone that I'm alive. Anyone, got it? Dawn it, Isaac, promise you won't tell!"

"I... but Riley you..."

"Riley!" Mom bangs on the wall. "You know how I feel about closed doors when boys are over!"

"Ms. Fey, did you know that your daughter is alive?"

"Yes, Isaac. Riley, open this door immediately!"

"Isaac, listen-"

"Open the door, Fey," he says firmly.

"Oh, are we on last name terms now? That's excellent, Lamarr."

"Riley!" Mom shouts.

I glare at Isaac and pull the doorknob behind his back, sending him tumbling to the linoleum kitchen floor.

"You're alive!"

"No, duh. Welcome to the present."

Isaac stands up and brushes off his fancy-shmancy khakis with an air of great dignity. "Did you really hate school so much that you were forced to fake your own death? And why are you so violent today? Shoving people up against doors, really?"

"I'm a- Mom, can I tell him?"

"He knows," Mom says.

I glance at her sharply. "What?"

"He's guessed, anyway. Go ahead."

"I'm a Dusk Child."

I wait for him to laugh at me, or scream, but he just blinks.

"A Dusk Child? Like, the monsters who ate your- I mean- the same Dusk Children that- like vampires and stuff?"

"Yes, those Dusk Children, and no, I haven't met any vampires. Demons, yes. And a witch." I glare reproachfully at Mom.