Lucina #3
Ivy mutters something about the immaturity of boys, then hops off the back of the board, her auburn hair turning dark brown as she resurfaces. When I stay put, her green eyes peer back at me. “You coming?” she asks, her chin jerking to the shore, her arms swimming in slow circles around her.
“In a bit.” I stabilize the board, rocking with the slowly swelling waves, then I rest my palms behind me. “I wanna float for a while.”
“Suit yourself.” Ivy kicks her legs and begins swimming back. “Just don’t go too far.” She points up to the nearly full moon. “The current might be stronger tonight.”
“I won’t,” I tell her.
Eventually, the splashing ceases, and the waters calm, leaving only me and a sky of stars. The party starts back up, I can hear it from the shoreline, and the swell of the tide increases as the moon crests over the sky. Bathwater waves wash over my legs as the current bends and sways beneath me.
I squint at a particularly warm light tangling between the cool-toned stars. Its movement is smooth and steady, like a drop with a parachute. I squint as it sails closer. Honestly, it kind of looks like—
I flip on my stomach using my arms to pull myself through the water as fast as I can.
A Veila. Bits of the collapsing star that formed the Chiaros.
Remnants of its debris that could never find their place in the sky and have been wandering ever since.
They float aimlessly through time and space, having seen a hundred, if not thousands, of years from now.
Catching one is like catching a time traveler.
If they can speak, they’d be able to whisper secrets of our world that we’ve not yet discovered—the good and the tragic.
They can’t communicate with words, but they speak in soft pulses of light. Historians have never been able to translate more than ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ They’d probably be a lot farther in that process if they could catch the damn thing.
Veilas have to be caught by something with a pulse for it to feed off. If no one is around to catch it, it melts into whatever surface it lands on, taking all of time’s secrets with it.
I do my best to navigate the swelling waves, paddling into deeper waters with one eye on the sky. The fiery puff of flame breaks through the clouds, floating down faster now.
I position the board directly underneath it, settling myself amongst the rough water, then I let my legs dangle off either side, feeling the rhythm of the current. The shore is far off, but I’ve been out farther, and I grew up in these waters.
I reposition my open palms as the Veila gets closer, doing my best to stay right beneath it, to give it a beating pulse for it to grasp onto.
My core strains as I hold myself steadily on the board, my arms trembling in anticipation as the small plume of fire falls delicately into my awaiting palm. It’s a misty mass of warmth that’s been clumped tightly together after millennia of rolling through space.
I cradle my hands around it, inhaling sharply when I feel it latch onto my thunderous heartbeat, absorbing it like fuel. My pulse pulls back like a slowly descending tide as the Veila takes hold until my head is dizzy.
A deep swell rocks the board, and I squeeze my core tighter, treading my legs in wide circles to regain my balance. The current is getting stronger; I can feel it.
The Veila begins pulsing, flickering slowly at first, then speeding up until it’s a strobe beating wildly in my hands. Brief pauses between the pulses indicate each word it’s trying to speak, like I have a single clue how to decipher it.
The current flips, the tide rocking against my submerged calves.
“What are you trying to say?” I whisper, and a bone-chilling wind sweeps up my spine. “Should I go back to shore?”
It pulses twice. Two pulses? Shit, I remember Nana telling me about this. Two pulses, that was…No! Two pulses is no.
“Okay…why?” I ask, remembering quickly that I only know two translations, so I rephrase. “Is there something you want me to see?”
One pulse. A bright little burst of light. Yes.
“Well, what is it—I mean, how do I—” The board rocks and my head sways, my heartbeat unable to pump enough blood for us both. Before I can phrase a yes or no question, the Veila flashes six times, in a rhythm that mimics a human heart.
There’s an eerie silence left in the wake of its reply. A haunted kind of quiet that has the hairs on the back of my neck rising. A frigid breeze skates over my skin, the salty air dropping drastically in temperature. Suddenly, the water isn’t warm anymore.
“There’s something I need to see?” I ask again, and it pulses once, the brightest it has so far, draining ounces of my blood with the effort.
Maybe it’s the vodka that makes me say what I say next, or the lack of oxygen to my brain.
Or maybe it’s the prospect of Fate—fear of missing a life raft she throws.
Whatever it is, it takes over my entire body, forcing itself into my limbs and squeezing until I choke out, “Take me to it, then.”
A riptide forms beneath me.