Two
“What happened?” Sam mumbled as his eyes opened.
“You fainted.” Thor smirked, “it was a pretty feminine swoon to...”
“Oh stop.” His mother came into view with a concerned look on her pretty face. “I told you he wasn’t ready.” Her hand on Sam’s forehead felt better than it should and Sam felt himself smile. The blinding pain in his head returning turned the smile into a frown.
“I want my sister...” he mumbled.
“I’m afraid you can’t see her...” The woman said, her voice full of anguish as she looked to her son.
Thor pulled on his arms and forced Sam into a sitting position. He pressed some pills into his palm. “Take these, they’ll help.” The kid practically forced the bottle of bud into Sam’s hand. Willing to do anything to get rid of the pounding in his temple Sam, without question, downed the pills. Within a few seconds heavy lids came down over his eyes.
***
Sam was going to die.
Water closed in on him, suffocating and cold. Sam tried to kick his legs but a weight dragged them down, beckoning him to the sandy bed that was to be his grave.
Sam thought of his sister and the promise he was breaking by dying here today. Since their parents had died, Sam was all Star had. She knew nothing of the world and how cruel it could be, not really. Sam swore to protect her, be the big brother she deserved instead of the one that had abandoned her all those years ago. Another thing he’d messed up, because of it, Star would be alone.
As his feet hit the bottom of the lake Sam found himself staring into the eyes of a boy. The image was more like a flickering flame of a candle, Ryan Small grinned at him then everything went dark.
***
Sam West jolted upright, upsetting the bowl of water in the woman’s hands. It banged across the loose floorboards as Sam struggled to remember where he was.
“Hey, it’s okay, it was just a dream.” She soothed picking up the bowl.
“What the hell did Thor give me?!” Sam demanded angrily. This woman didn’t deserve it but he was confused and, truth be told, scared.
“Some of my sleeping pills.” The woman confessed with a sheepish smile. “Your body needs rest after what it’s been through.”
Sam caught her wrist, “and just what is that exactly?” He probed.
“You’ve been missing for three months Sam.” Thor said entering the small and dingy bedroom of the farmhouse. Camping lanterns provided the only light but they might as well have been switched off. Sam’s world darkened at Thor’s words. That bad feeling dwelling in his stomach was starting to make sense. Something really bad had happened. He could feel in his bones.
“What?” His voice came out as a whisper.
“Caspar the unfriendly ghost, the thing that’s been shadowing Star,” Thor started to explain, “it took you that night, once you reached shore.”
Sam swallowed hard. “Took me where? I thought it was Star it wanted...” he looked back and fourth, at Thor and his mother, with a dazed and confused expression. The thing in black had haunted Star West for years. Upon waking, after the car accident that had claimed their parents, and had nearly claimed them too, it had been there. A black devil showing his sister all sorts of sick and twisted things. Lately though it had upped its game. Back home, before Sam and Star had been forced to leave, it had came at Star. Sam knew it was the one thing he couldn’t save her from, unlike her, Sam couldn’t see it.
“...We don’t know where Sam.” Thor’s mother was saying, pulling him back to the present, “though I don’t think it was Hawaii.”
“Star was frantic.” Thor continued. “I’ve never seen her so...she tried everything to find you Sam. Nothing worked. It was like you’d vanished off the face of the earth.”
“So how did you find me tonight?”
Thor shared a look with his mum but it was her that answered. Thor seemed unable to talk all a sudden. “Star made a deal with it.” The room seemed to plummet into icy coldness.
“Your life for hers.”