Called By the Dark

“Not in a traditional sense,” she says. “But I am taken care of. Very well taken care of.”

I shake my head, frustrated. “I feel like you’re telling me things without telling me anything.”

Sazahn sighs, looking down for a moment. “It’s very difficult to explain the way my life has changed in the last two months. But suffice it to say, I am changed. For the better.”

Even the way she speaks is totally different now. I reach up and grasp the locket she gave me on my birthday. “I feel…I feel like I’m losing you, Saz.”

She looks up at me then, and her gaze lingers on the locket. A soft smile crosses her face. “You’re wearing it.”

“I always wear it,” I say emphatically, and for a reason I can’t explain, my eyes fill with tears. Maybe it’s the overwhelming night I’ve had.

Or maybe it’s that my sister feels like a stranger.

“I want to give you a gift,” she says, and reaches into the pocket of her black leather jacket. She withdraws a small black-framed photo and hands it to me.

It’s a photo of us together on my birthday.

No, not a photo.

A drawing.

I look up with a gasp. “This is incredible. You drew this?”

She nods. “For you. We didn’t take a picture together that day, and I wanted you to have one to remember it.”

“I’m glad you’re still making art,” I say, gazing at this picture. “It’s beautiful.”

“Good.” She looks pleased. “I’m glad you like it.”

“Why does this feel like a goodbye?” I ask flatly.

She’s silent for a moment, then extends her hand. “Because it is.”

I take her hand, but my face crumples into tears. “But why, Saz? Why?”

“There is something greater I’m meant to do with my existence, Cynthia,” she says gently. “To explain it to you would only trouble you, and I think I’m doing plenty of that now.”

“Sazahn, you’re scaring me,” I weep.

“There’s no need for you to be afraid,” she murmurs. “Know that I need to do this. That I’m being called to do this. Know that I’m happy. And know that I always have and always will love you very, very much.”

Her words tear at me, but all I can do is cry.

She pulls me into her arms and hugs me tight. I cling to her. But her hug feels different. There’s…a darkness that clings to her, and it engulfs me. I can feel it to the marrow of my bones.

I flinch away from her.

Sazahn leans back, eyes widening slightly. She looks concerned, confused. Hurt.

Then she smiles at me with melancholic understanding.

“Goodbye, sister,” she whispers, and squeezes my fingers before letting go.

She turns away, and that’s when I notice a tall, broad-shouldered man, devastatingly handsome, dressed in black, standing fifteen or twenty feet away. He nods at me, but it’s almost like a formal bowing of the head. There’s a strange sense of respect and acknowledgment in it, as if he knows me.

But it’s his eyes that catch me off guard.

It’s as though there’s a flare of light in them. Almost like fire. But no; it must be my imagination or maybe a trick of the light coming from the streetlamps.