How to Secretly Protect your village: Excerpt 12

Warning: It’s Looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong.

Dusk’s voice getting my attention snaps me out of the stream of thoughts. 

“Storm?”

Something inside of me crumbles.

“Is everything alright?” He asks, worry in his voice.

I devolve into a hunched down tear filled mess. I can’t stop crying.

I can’t believe this is happening to me.

I feel warmth as Dusk wraps his arms around me, gently caressing my back.

“Hey.” He says softly. “Storm. You’re safe with me. I’m going to help you. I promise. Va a estar bien.”

Crystal sighs. “Are you sure you’re not being dramatic? That’s the fourth time you’ve cried like that this week. You’re always fine afterwards. Don’t enable he—“

Heat builds up inside of me. Dusk glares sternly at Crystal, who immediately stops talking.

“I’m not fine.” I say, my head still near Dusk’s shoulder. I refuse to look at Crystal. She doesn’t even know how much it hurts.

“If you didn’t do this to me, I wouldn’t be a hopeless mess.” I sniffle angrily. “Thanks to Mom and the rest of you caring about how only you would be seen by others thanks to some hair color, and making me do pointless things thanks to being treated as a bad luck omen from some stupid story, I don’t trust you. I’ve had to find others to help me. Thanks to you, Dusk has shown me more love in a few hours than you guys have in years.”

I sigh shakily. “They’re better family than you will ever be. Dusk is more of a father….more of a parent than I’ve ever known.”

“Storm-“ Mum begins, but Dusk lifts a hand, silencing her.

“Let that sink in.” He says, his tone a mixture of concern for me, and disappointment towards both my mom and sisters. “You made mistakes, but you refuse to admit it. Now Storm doesn’t want to be a part of your family.”

“I-I can’t believe this…” Mum says sadly. “I didn’t know this would happen. I thought I was protecting Storm from being ostracized. I was only trying to help…”

She drops to her knees and puts her head in her hands.

“I failed everyone. I should’ve known the effect of believing too much in these stories left on Storm and Opal.”

“So what will you do?” Dusk asks. “The whole town knows these stories.”

“I need time to think.” Mum says tiredly.

“Now look what you did!” Crystal says, in mock disappointment. “You made Mum cry! You should—“

“Nope. Nope. Stop there.” Dusk replies, cutting her off. “This is a consequence of years of being made to feel like the world sees you as nothing more than a mistake.”

“But—“ Crystal says before being cut off. “Storm doesn’t even know you! You could just be ly—“

“Crystal.” Dusk says firmly. “From the time you first saw me with Storm, all you’ve shown is an enormous amount of disrespect. What is with that?”

“I-I…”

For the first time in a while, Crystal is at a loss for words. But I have a reason why.

I look at Dusk and gesture towards myself. He nods, letting me do the explaining.

“What are you even doing??” Crystal asks, confused. 

“You’ll see.” I say. She raises an eyebrow. We stand in silence.

I have a story for you on the way we treat the older citizens in this town. I say telepathically.

Go ahead. Dusk says.

My aunt and my grandmother are both redheads like me. Both were guardians, but since their town thought they didn’t need them, both snuck out and protected other parts of the world. My mum didn’t know where they went. Others thought they died. I wanted so badly to find them.

But no one would let me. I loved them so much. Periodically I’d dreamvisit them.

But this town is too scared to open up and let me go.

I wish I could live in a place where I can just live my life and not be hated.

A place where everyone is respected. Not a place where kids and teenagers are underestimated and the elder population are left sitting bored to tears in their houses all day with nothing to do and are seen as having no value or shipped off to facilities.

I wish I was loved.

But it’s so hard to feel when there was barely any.

I sit up, and Dusk hugs me again. “I’m so sorry it’s like this for you.” He says.

A jolt of anger and sorrow makes me jump slightly.

“I think someone needs you, Dusk.” I whisper. “I know who it is.”

I hear Opal’s angry thoughts in my head. She’s easy to read due to her knowing me, but it’s harder for those she doesn’t know to hear her mind.

“Opal needs you.”

Dusk closes his eyes, his gem flashes, he winces, and opens them.

“I can’t read her.” He says, shaking his head. “It’s like her mind has a thorny burning wall around it. Can you help her?”

“I’ll try.” I reply. 

We both go silent.

Opal. I call out telepathically. Opal, it’s me.

“What DO YOU WANT??” she replies. I feel a slight burn deep inside from the flames.

I want to help you. Please let me help you.

“Why? What will you do? Here’s to hoping it can help me nurse the wound I got from being dragged by a couple of meat headed idiots at school today.”

It will. I promise it will! Please let us help you. Let Dusk in. He really cares about you.

“You met Dusk?” Opal asks.

Yes! I promise. He really is here with us.

I feel the wall lower. It seems like Opal is even a bit excited.

“I really like Dusk.” Opal says. He’s quite nice.

Me too. I reply. He is.

“When I walked home from school, I stopped at his house to have tea once.”

That must be a good time.

“Can I talk to him?”

Sure.

We walk down a hallway. Inside, I hear muttering. It sounds like pieces of…heavy metal lyrics?

“Wow. It seems like she really likes metal music.” Dusk says.

“She deals with really strong emotions, particularly anger. Angry at herself. Angry at us. Angry at the world. But she doesn’t want to hurt anyone. So Opal deals with it by doing intense vocal exercises and screams to heavy metal music for up to three hours. We’ve gotten calls from the neighbors thinking someone is going insane. She sometimes sings them in her head, but can accidentally come out of her head when she sometimes makes growling noises and sings pieces of what she hears in her head. Although she quickly stops once she realizes she’s not alone.”

“Poor Opal.” Dusk says softly. He knocks on Opal’s front door.

“Hey Opal. It’s Dusk. We’re here for you if you want to talk.”

I feel her hesitate, then the door opens a crack, but it’s enough for me to see her whole face.

She looks exhausted, and…sad.

She gestures towards us to come in. Once we enter, she closes the door behind us.

Normally Opal’s eyes are obscured by her bangs. She hides every hint of emotion in plain sight. Only one side of her bangs covers her face, to trick people into thinking she only has one eye color, but if she takes a big blow to her trust in people, she hides them completely. My mother’s side of the family doesn’t really know her. They see her with her eyes obscured, and try to brush her hair out of the way for the sake of “not being rude” they get a hand slapped away and are told by her to “stay away.” They don’t listen and she is told she is “impolite”.

She’s not. She’s only protecting herself from those she keeps her distance from. Mum’s family doesn’t give off good energy. Opal can feel it.

“Everything okay?” Dusk asks quietly. Opal looks up at him, and brushes her hair away from covering her eyes. They’re both reddened from silently weeping. She blinks her purple and blue eyes up at Dusk. Even though she remains expressionless, we can both see the hidden sorrow and anger behind her eyes.

“Not really.” She replies. Her usual flat tone is tinged with anger. “Metalbanging helps a bit. All the growling and screaming is worth it.”

“So that’s why you’ve been doing all those vocal exercises. At least you care about your health in some way, shape or form.” Dusk says.

“Do you sing?” Opal asks.

“In church, sometimes.” Dusk replies.

“You go to church?”

“Hey, I’ve gotta have some spiritual connection. And besides, it lifts people’s spirits.” Dusk replies. “Started going during the 70s. It recreates the same sense of connection my friends had back in the 17, 18, and 1900s. You can come with me when you visit next time. The world outside is nothing like your town. Everyone is just treated as the people they are. It isn’t dominated by superstition.”

“I’d like to go.” Opal replies. “I wish I could just live. That’s all.”

“Then go, we shall.” Dusk replies. Opal scoots towards him. He kisses her on the cheek. A faint smile appears on her face.

Dusk makes everything better. I see how much he cares about us. I see how much he cares about Opal. The most joy I’ve seen her express was whenever she would go out and visit with Dusk.

We all stand up and exit Opal’s room. It’s still familiar to me, the wall plastered in heavy metal posters, lanterns, the occasional dream catcher, and a stack of cassette tapes. Opal’s bed is covered in blankets and several sad looking pillows. Her clean clothes are in a pile in the corner of the room, while her dirty laundry sits in a basket.

It’s exactly the same as last time. For now we’re going to have to say goodbye to this room.

“Adiós to this heathens of an abode.” Opal says, chuckling. “Wow. I can’t believe I actually get to go somewhere with my four favorite people.”

“Opal…” I look into her eyes. “This isn’t just for an adventure. This is also to find someone very important to us.”

“Who is it?” She asks.

“Our sister Ember. I know you’ve only heard stories, but this time, you get to meet her.”