Chapter 1: A Thousand Years Later…
Serena Marshal shuffled through the lunch line, grimacing at the containers of food displayed for the students' perusal. There was an orange, goopy substance labeled sweet potatoes, flat, square, white patties labeled turkey, withered corn on the cob, and wilted salad. Beyond that was the dessert, but Serena never made it beyond the main course line. Nobody did. She paid for her turkey patty and salad and began to search for a place to sit. As usual, the cafeteria was packed with students catching up, chatter echoed through the high ceilinged room, filling her ears and distracting her. A student with a brown bag ran past her, almost knocking her tray from her hands and he turned around long enough to snicker at her before running off again.
At least he noticed her. It was rare that anybody looked at her. She was nondescript in the highest order. She had mid-length, light blonde hair she kept pulled back in a bun at the nape of her neck, light blue eyes the color of the sky on any slightly hazy day, and she always wore loose, floral tops, dark jeans, and sneakers. Pretty much the only thing about her anyone noticed was her ears. They stuck out a little, which was especially noticeable with the bun and had garnered many jokes dealing with cell phone reception and flying. But only when anyone bothered to notice her.
Serena sighed and made her way out of the cafeteria. Her mother had asked that she attempt to make friends by eating with everybody else, but she just didn't understand. Serena was a senior. The time for making friends in high school had long past. She would be going away to college in the fall and never have to see any of these people again. Columbia was calling and she would be leaving her small town and the state of Ohio for good since her mom was transferring to New York as well. Maybe she could make friends in college, when she was surrounded by likeminded individuals, people who enjoyed old films, classic rock, and star gazing. She sighed again. 'Not likely,' she thought as she maneuvered down the stairs, holding her tray out to watch her feet. She might find people who shared similar interests, but that didn't mean anything unless you actually talked to them, and she'd suffered from debilitating shyness since starting school. Her counselor called her an introvert and gave her up as a lost cause, saying she would probably never fully function in a social setting. Like she was some type of toaster that couldn't be fixed.
"Whatever," she whispered to herself as she hit the last step and searched for the door to the library. "Who needs friends anyway? They only demand your time and energy. Time I could use for more useful things, like TCM marathons and…well," she paused, turning on her heel. Andrew Tillman was standing behind her, giving her a strange look and suppressing a laugh.
"Sorry," he said. "Didn't mean to interrupt. It sounded like a serious conversation." he laughed, going to his locker and swinging it open to pull out a brown paper bag like the one the boy in the cafeteria had had clenched in his fist as he'd ran past her. She briefly thought she should start packing her own lunch before his words hit her. He'd heard her saying she had no friends. He'd heard her talking to herself like a crazy person. A blush crept up her neck and permeated her cheeks and she knew she must look like a tomato with shoulders, but horror and her shyness kept her joints locked in place. She could only stand there, looking down at the tiles, blushing. She heard him laugh again and walk away, leaving her humiliated. When she was convinced he was gone she tossed her lunch, tray and all in the nearest garbage bin and ran to the music room.
It was always deserted, since the school placed so much more emphasis on sports than the arts and really only consisted of a black board and a beaten up old piano. The music teacher had a habit of locking herself up in her office and listening to Mozart while she "graded papers". Serena had caught a glimpse of her one day when the office door had been left ajar and she was actually taking a nap. She was eighty-four, after all. Serena sank down on the piano chair, her fingers going to the yellowed keys immediately and pounding out a melody she'd composed the night before. It was only a hobby, writing music, one of which she'd taken up shortly after seeing her therapist for the first time on his suggestion. He said music was a good way to vent emotions and being friendless, probably one of the only ways she had. Luckily her mother had invested in piano lessons growing up; to keep Serena entertained when the bike she got her for Christmas just sat in the garage gathering dust.
Her fingers danced across the keys expertly. Her skills no doubt exceeded that of the music teacher's, but nobody but her mother would ever know. Her fingers stilled on the keys and the room grew quiet again. 'What's the point?' Serena asked herself. She shut the piano lid and rested her head on her arms as tears splashed on the dented and scraped wood. Music was supposed to be shared and she could never work up the courage to share hers with anybody, so why bother?
After a few moments of silent tears, Serena dried her eyes on her sleeve and resigned herself to the rest of the school day. Her last two classes passed in a daze of doodled notes and silent sighs. Even the teachers barely noticed her. Their eyes swept the classroom in search of the perky, attractive students. Serena kept her head down and continued her doodles. By the end of the day she had sketched out the southwestern sky's constellations and was working her way north. The final bell rang and she slapped her notebook shut as she practically flew from her seat and out the door.
Her mom's small sedan sat in the curve of the high school's parking lot, where she waited every day. "How was school?" her mom asked just like every other day.
"Good." Serena replied, just like every other day. Her mom grunted and put the car in drive, pulling away as the rest of the student body began piling out the doors. Serena was usually the first one out. And her mom wouldn't let her forget it.
"Did you talk to anybody today?" she asked, pulling out onto the highway.
Serena thought to the boy who'd laughed at her as he'd overheard her talking to himself. "Sort of." She couldn't help but grin.
"That's great, honey!" her mom gushed, genuinely happy. Serena squirmed in her seat, ignoring the guilty weight in her stomach. It wasn't a lie, technically. She couldn't help it if her mom took it a certain way that wasn't necessarily true. "What's her name?"
"It was a boy, actually." she replied without thinking. The car swerved a little as her mom gaped at her.
"A BOY!" she squealed, quickly righting the car and reaching over to grab her daughter's hand. "You've made a real breakthrough today! Should we go see Dr. Thompson?" she scowled at the name. "No, ice cream!" her face brightened. "This definitely calls for ice cream." Her mom chattered on and the guilty feeling in Serena's stomach grew until finally she couldn't take it.
"MOM!" she interrupted. Her mom stopped talking and glanced at her, still grinning.
"What is it, honey?" she asked innocently.
"It wasn't quite what you think it was. I was going to eat lunch in the library and I was talking to myself and he just happened to overhear. I didn't actually talk to him." Serena clarified. Her mom's grin quickly faded with her words and she put her hand back on the wheel, leaving Serena's feeling cold, like the rest of her. "I'm sorry," she whispered.
"There's nothing to feel sorry about." her mom replied in a clipped tone. The rest of the car ride was silent. It was far too long before they pulled into the cracked driveway of their one story, brick house with its scraggily front lawn and over grown hedges. As they made their way up the drive, her mom vowed again to do something about it that summer. Serena grabbed her books and quickly exiting the car, letting herself into the house with her key and fleeing to her bedroom. She closed the door behind her with a sigh of relief, sinking to the purple carpet as though she'd returned from a perilous journey. She gazed around her room with teary eyes, taking in the well-worn wooden bed with its patchwork quilt her grandmother had made for her when she was a baby, her metal desk with the glow-in-the-dark stickers stuck all over the sides, and her full bookshelf of precious novels she lived precariously through. It was the only place in the world she felt relaxed and safe. Nobody could hurt her here.
"Serena?" her mom knocked on the door gently.
"Yeah?" Serena replied tentatively.
"Dinner will be ready in about twenty minutes. Do you want to eat at the table?" Serena thought for a moment. She felt bad about getting her mom's hopes up, but if she ate with her she'd have to listen to her mom give her hints about how to make friends and be more outgoing, which was almost worse than actually doing those things.
"Can I just eat in my room? I have a lot of homework."
Her mom sighed and agreed, making her way back down the hallway slowly. Serena sighed as well and stood, throwing her back pack on her bed and settling in her desk chair. Her computer was an out of date hunk of metal that could not be moved easily, but still ran well enough. She'd left her astronomy computer program open from that morning zoomed in on her favorite constellation of the unicorn. She smiled as she traced it with her pinky. She could always count on the stars to make her feel better. Indeed, the more she stared at them on the computer the more she longed for night to come. It had been a bright, clear day and she'd looked forward all day to taking her telescope out that night.
Her mom finished supper and she ate it while watching a silent film with the Marx brothers before delving into her homework, all the while keeping a careful eye on the darkening evening through the miniscule slit in her curtains. As she closed her last textbook and put away her pencil she deemed it to be dark enough outside to see the stars clearly and hefted her telescope over her shoulder along with a blanket and her IPod. Her mom looked up from her paperwork only briefly before looking back down.
"Be careful and take a jacket." she said with a resigned tone in her voice. Thankful, Serena grabbed her windbreaker and made her way to the backyard, setting up the telescope with a practiced ease and spreading the blanket on the grass. After a quick view through the lens she spotted the comet she'd been waiting for, watching as it arced across the dark sky in a slow, fiery blaze. She lay on the blanket after she'd had her fill of the comet, smiling up at the stars as she listened to Jimi Hendrix play a rift on his electric guitar. She wished she could stay like that forever, alone with her stars and music, in her own little world.
In between tracts she heard somebody clearing their throat and jumped up, turning wide eyes to the top of the privacy fence which separated her yard from the neighbors. It was Andrew. He grinned down at her and gave a little wave. "Hey neighbor." he laughed. "Long time no see, huh?"
Serena just stared at him, her finger frozen on the pause button of her IPod. He was her neighbor? Since when?
"You look like you've seen a ghost." he joked before hoisting himself over the fence and landing easily in her yard. "Are you going to say hi?" he asked, settling himself on the quilt besides her plucking her headphones out of her ears.
"Wh-I-Um…" she muttered, trying to make words come out, anything coherent at all. "I…didn't know we were neighbors." she said finally, surprising herself.
"Really?" he laughed, scrolling through her IPod. "We've lived beside each other for nearly two years. Jeez, you really don't get out much, do you?"
"Not really." she admitted. "What are you doing here?" she asked after he continued going through her music library.
"I was bored and I heard music. Thought it was a party." he chuckled. "Boy was I wrong." He finally looked up, laying her IPod aside and glancing at the telescope with interest. "So, you like astronomy?"
"Yeah," she replied her eyes on her hands as they fiddled nervously in her lap.
"I've never looked through a telescope. Mind if I check it out?" he asked. She shook her head, blushing in the darkness.
He stood up and put his eye to the lens, turning it as he gazed at the stars. Serena watched him, knowing he would not notice and wondered how she had happened to be spending the evening with Andrew? He wasn't the most popular boy in school, but he was well-liked. He'd just transferred to her high school a couple of years ago from India, where his father, a captain in the military had been stationed since he was five years old. He was tall, but thin, with shaggy blond hair and vibrant blue eyes like ice, or the ocean. He was attractive, which made Serena's shyness all the more evident and her stomach growled with her nervousness.
"Wow!" Andrew exclaimed suddenly, causing Serena to jump and goose bumps to rise on her skin. "Sere, you have to see this!"
She blinked at his back, confused by his nickname for her. Nobody called her Sere. Ever. Not even her mother. In her surprise she forgot to be shy as she walked over to see what had him so excited. He stepped out of her way carefully and allowed her to look through the lens. He had moved it down from the sky and had it positioned perfectly to see into her other neighbor's upstairs window where her elderly neighbor was dancing in a white, button down shirt, boxer-briefs, and tube socks. Serena pulled back quickly, her face redder than she ever remembered it being and swatted at Andrew, while trying to contain a hysterical giggle.
"That's not funny!" she insisted as Andrew laughed hysterically, holding his stomach and collapsing to the ground. Despite her blush and intense fear of people, she grinned and settled down beside him. He quelled his laughter and rolled over on his side, watching her watch him. "How do you do it?" she asked quietly.
"Do what?" he asked curiously.
"Just come over and make yourself so comfortable? You don't know me and you act like that doesn't matter at all." Her stuttering had gone away and she found her thoughts were calm, a rarity around strangers.
"I know who you are." he chuckled. "We're neighbors. And I just thought it was time we got to know each other better. You're such a hermit."
"I'm not a hermit. I just have social issues." she replied, slightly indignant.
"And you think hermits don't have social issues?" Serena sat back on her heels, frowning at him.
"Did you just come over here to make fun of me?"
"No," he smirked. "I came over to help you unwind. I thought if I came on your turf you'd be relaxed enough to actually talk to me. And I was right, sort of." he laughed as her frown deepened and began to stand. "But I can see I've worn out my welcome for the evening, so I'll be going." He hoisted himself back up on the fence, pausing to look back at her. "See you at school tomorrow!" he called before leaping over the fence and out of view. Serena grunted in frustration and crawled to lie on her back, staring miserably up at the sky.
Had she been a normal girl, she would have been giddy that a boy had just scaled a fence after dark, just to talk to her. But she was anything but normal. And a boy talking to her, no matter the circumstances, was terrifying. Although she had been able to converse with him, after getting over her initial terror, just thinking about it made her stomach sink. What if he told everyone at school that he'd talked to her. That she was weird? There'd be no way she could step foot in that place if people started talking about her. A salty tear trailed from the corner of her eye before she wiped it away and sighed.
"Serena, it's time to come in, you need to get in bed for school tomorrow." Serena sat up with a resigned look on her face, glancing up for one last look at her beloved sky. And then she saw a shooting star. It blazed across the sky in a glittering arc. It seemed so close, closer than any shooting star she'd ever seen. In fact, she thought it could be a meteorite. It sailed over her house and she ducked as it zoomed within feet of her head, the heat bringing a glaze of sweat to her face. It gleaned the ground of the field behind her house before settling in a smoking heap, just a foot shy of the back of her fence.
Serena glanced incredulously back at her house, expecting her mother to come running from the house, but the door remained closed. Nobody threw open a window or even showed the slightest interest in the seemingly miraculous astronomical occurrence. But Serena wasn't about to let it go to waste. She flew to her feet and ran to the thin stream of smoke coming up from the reedy grass. The object pulsed with a brick red flame and still emitted enough heat to keep her back. She knelt beside it, getting her face as close as possible. It was long, almost spherical in shape, and she thought perhaps it had a handle-shaped protuberance, perhaps whittled out by its descent through the atmosphere.
"What is that?" Andrew asked from over the fence. Serena grinned up at him, too excited to be alarmed at his sudden reappearance.
"It's a meteorite!" she squealed. "I can't believe one fell in one own backyard, what are the odds?!"
"I'd say a million in one." he replied, coming to kneel beside her. "It's weird looking, isn't it?" He reached out a hand to touch it, ignoring Serena's warning of its heat. "It's cold!" he exclaimed, wrapping his hand around it and lifting it. The aura of heat remained around the dugout area and Serena supposed it was just from the velocity of the object hitting the ground. Like a magnet, Serena followed him as he stood up, her eyes glued to the object as Andrew dusted ashes from it. He revealed a solid black, smooth surface that glinted in the light given off by the half moon. It also had a curled handle, perfectly sculpted so that it looked like a natural extension of the bottle. Because that was what it was, a bottle, a squat, shallow bottle with a handle.
Serena's excitement died down. "Someone must have thrown it from a helicopter or something." Andrew handed it to her, noting her disappointment.
"Well, it's still kind of cool." he tried to appease her.
Serena stared down at the ebony metal and frowned. "Not really. It's so boring." She noticed dim writing below the lid and rubbed at it, trying to make it more discernible through the ash.
"Whoa!" Andrew exclaimed as steam poured from beneath the lid and Serena dropped it as it suddenly became scalding hot. Andrew pulled her away from the expanding steam cloud and they watched as a solid form grew from the fallen bottle.
"I am Endymion," a deep voice echoed from the shadowy mists. A sudden breeze pulled at the steam, blowing it away to reveal a tall man with honey tanned skin, shoulder-length blue-black hair, and black eyes that seemed to bore straight into Serena. He wore loose pants with a sapphire sash holding them up and an intricately stitched tunic. "Who has awoken me from my cursed slumber?" he asked, his voice retaining its echoing quality.
Andrew glanced at Serena but she was struck speechless, this time out of shock rather than fear. "Are you a genie?" Andrew interceded.
"I am a jinni." Endymion replied, turning to face Andrew. "Did you rub my lamp?"
"Um, no. She did." He pointed to Serena and she jumped as Endymion redirected his intense gaze to her.
He bowed to her. "I have been condemned to this lamp and sent out into the universe, cursed to fulfill the wishes of whosoever finds my vessel. As the one who rubbed my lamp and released me for this sole purpose, I must give you three wishes, whatever your heart desires."
"Are you serious?" Serena replied. She turned to Andrew. "Is this actually happening? No…I'm dreaming." She wrapped her arms around herself and closed her eyes, willing herself to awaken. "I have to be dreaming. That explains why Andrew is here, this whole wish thing, even the skies were too clear for any of this to be real."
"What is she doing?" Endymion asked Andrew, quirking an eyebrow.
"I think she's in a state of shock." Andrew replied, thinking he wasn't so far from that himself. "Serena, I think you're going to have to open your eyes and deal with the current situation."
"I don't want to," she pleaded, keeping her eyes closed. "Can't Andrew have the wishes?"
"Only the one who freed me may make supplications for wishes." A moment of quiet and Endymion stepped closer to Serena, placing his hands on her shoulders and stooping to look into her startled open eyes. "Calm, young one. I will not hurt you. There is no need for this disbelief. Make your wishes and I will be sealed away again in the lamp and cast to the next location to be discovered."
As he spoke, his voice took on a tone of bitterness and for the first time Serena felt pity for him. "You mean you can't ever leave the lamp unless somebody calls you?"
"Yes, it is part of my punishment. My eternity of torment." Anger flashed in his eyes and he dropped his fists to his side.
"That sucks, man." Andrew supplied, watching them with interest. "Isn't there a way to get out of the deal?"
"There was no deal. I was sealed away by a powerful enchanter against my will."
"What did you do?" Serena asked.
Endymion gave her a withering look. "I prefer not to discuss my previous life with those who rub my lamp. The less they know, usually the better. Please just make your wishes."
"What if she wishes for your freedom? Since she doesn't seem too keen to use the wishes on herself." Andrew added, grinning at Serena. She scowled back at him.
"It is against the rules of my enslavement." Endymion said with an exasperated sigh. He dropped the echoing in his voice and sounded like a normal human, albeit dressed a little oddly. "I cannot escape through any power of my own. The magic granted me is strictly for the use of granting wishes of anyone but me."
"How do you escape then?" Serena asked, curious.
Endymion turned equally curious eyes on her. "I can only escape when one is willing to give their life for my salvation. Only then will the curse know that I am worthy of love and release me from my obligation."
"Oh," Serena said, sobering.
"So, you see the problem there, of course." Endymion chuckled sadly. "There are none who I would grant wishes to who would give their lives for me. So I am fated to that lamp for all eternity."
"That's so sad." Serena whispered. They were silent and Endymion shuffled his feet awkwardly.
"Look," he began. "There's no need for you to feel guilty, especially about asking for your wishes. I must accept my punishment. The fault is mine and mine alone." he attempted to console her.
"Still," she replied. "I can't help but feel like there must be some way we can help you? Surely nothing you've done has called for this level of slavery." she paused. "You didn't kill anybody, did you? Or…um…force yourself on them?" she choked out the last part. Endymion grinned at her embarrassment.
"No, neither." he paused again, sizing Serena up. "If you are sincere in your desire to help me, there is one other way, besides offering your life up." Andrew narrowed his eyes in suspicion as Serena eagerly nodded her head.
"I definitely want to help. There must be something?"
Endymion grabbed her hand, ignoring the scarlet blush that rose in her cheeks, locking his eyes on hers. "You can pledge your life to me, to be my wife." he said, dropping his voice to a sultry whisper. Serena nearly blacked out from her mortification and Andrew exclaimed loudly. "It is the only other way. I promise, I would be the most considerate lover and a strong provider." Serena was nearly crying from shame, but she could not look away from his bottomless eyes.
"I can't…" she choked. "I'm…you don't understand. I'm not that type of girl…" her words were clipped and high-pitched and her palms were sweating.
"I know," he replied, unaffected by her squirming. "I can see there is something in your mind that keeps you from growing close to others." He paused and laughed. "Luckily I am not like others either. I could help you. And we would be happy, I think."
"Come on!" Andrew butt in. "She can't get married, she's only eighteen, she's going to college! Things don't work that way here, you know?"
Endymion turned to him, his smile dropping a bit. "I am aware it is a different time than when I came from, but people do still wed here, sometimes young. Besides, we would not have to marry right away. A pledge to marry in the future would suffice." He turned back to her, excitement lighting up his features. "What do you say? Will you pledge yourself to me?"
Everything seemed to go quiet around Serena as she gazed into his eyes. Her mind seemed to race through a thousand thoughts at once, what everyone at school would say, her mother, what would be expected of her after marriage, and her plans for her future. If not Endymion, then who? Who would ever want to marry her again? For whatever reason? She was hardly the kind of girl who could go out and flirt. This was her only shot at a romantic relationship. At a boyfriend, or fiancé. He did say they didn't have to marry right away. So she could still go to school, maybe Endymion could enroll with her even. Did Columbia have married housing? She knew it wasn't the kind of promise she could enter into lightly and had a sneaking suspicion saying yes would create some kind of magical contract impossible to dissolve.
She took a shaking breath and gripped his hands with hers, hoping to take some strength for her answer. "Yes."
