“Climb in,” he told her. “You’ll have to “stand” on Charlie’s shoulders because this is the only way this will work.”
“What about that other acceleration couch in the rear?” The girl wanted to know—climbing in as best she could without hurting the older boy too much.
“That one’s mine.” Reggie explained. “Because of the sudden acceleration of the capsule, we can’t have anyone free boarding in this thing without serious injury or possible death incurred.”
“Oh.” Tillie said. “I guess that makes sense.”
“What next?”
“Next? We strap you in. Like this.” Reggie offered then—showing her what he meant.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The Nightmarish Truth
One hour later.
Tillie and her party emerged from the access tunnel at the other end of the line—the girl in much better spirits than she was when she first started out.
Of course, her feet felt somewhat sore from the experience, but she realized that her main problem was that she hadn’t had the time to break in her new boots yet.
Hence the recent pain in her ankles, her feet, and everywhere else.
But the trip back to the alleyway where she and Charlie first met was an uneventful one this time around and closing in on about four in the morning by the time they got back to the barricade and then down the stairs and finally down the hall where the hidden platform lay.
Tillie yawned to beat the band and said: “I am so fucking tired right now. But the trip over through the capsule was one for the record books. I rather enjoyed myself.”
“You were laughing and giggling the entire time,” her companion said with mutual embarrassment. “And you wouldn’t stop pawing me either through the fire blanket.”
“I was curious!” The girl said in mild defense of herself. “I never had to ride like that before where—” and was cut off when Charlie clamped a hand over her mouth—silencing her.
“Please don’t say it. I don’t need Roz on my case when I get back to my place over the whole experience.” Then he let go of her at that moment.
Tillie grinned.
“Does somebody have a jealous girlfriend that I don’t know about?” She teased mercilessly—enjoying the look on his face.
“I already told you that she’s just a close friend of mine.” He said in defense of himself. “Nothing more.”
“Hmph.” The teen said in response. “I dunno about that. Sounds like I have some serious competition on my hands.”
“Roz would kick your ass in a heartbeat. She’s that wound up. And strong to boot.” Charlie tossed out then after the platform cycled a few times and then started.
Tillie took that as a personal challenge to herself.
“I’m no pushover, bud. I can handle mean-spirited girlfriends who are not girlfriends.”
Charlie snorted derisively. “You don’t know Roz the way I do. She’ll eat you alive in a head to head contest—if it ever came to that.”
“Why?” the other girl asked—curiosity getting the better of her.
The older boy coughed a couple of times with his hand in order to cover for his own embarrassment.
“She’s, ah…very protective of me.” He admitted at that point.
Tillie punched him in the shoulder lightly. “You? Needing protection from a girl? Get out!”
Charlie nodded in mutual embarrassment. “It’s a long story.” He said in turn.
Tillie waited for him to spill the beans on that front, but he wasn’t very forthcoming.
Rolling her eyes, she muttered crossly: “Look man, I don’t have all day. I’m going to be crashing hardcore when I get back to the women’s mission and I at least want a good bedtime story to go with it. So out with it.”
“Why should I tell you?” He deflected with ease—even though he was a bit uncomfortable with the idea from the start.
“Because you’re interesting to be around and also because I like you as a friend?”
The older boy snorted softly. “I think it’s more than that.”
“More than what?’ Tillie repeated innocently.
Charlie turned and looked at her. “it’s only been a few days at the utmost and you want to be—” he stopped for a second as the platform jostled a bit from the weight of a few extra bodies.
Then he resumed by leaning over and whispering into her ear so the others couldn’t hear:
“You want to be my girlfriend.”
Tillie’s ears burned bright pink upon hearing those words come out of his mouth—not to mention the whisper of his fragrant breath in passing.
She sniffed for a second and asked: “So when did you have tomato soup last?”
“I had a bowl at the local soup shop right before we left. Why?”
The girl laughed. “Because your breath smells like tomato soup?”
“Sorry,” the boy sniffled in turn. “I didn’t have any breath mints with me.”
Tillie reached out and took his hand. “It’s okay, man. I don’t mind. Not one bit. It’s you.”
Charlie nodded a moment in distraction—before he pulled his hand away from hers.
“I’d rather not. Roz would get the wrong idea and definitely kill me.”
Tillie’s eyebrows went up. “So she is more than just a close personal friend then?”
Charlie shrugged indifferently. “Were not together-together—if that’s what you mean.” He said and sighed heavily. “Roz…she…um…sees me more than just a brother or a friend.”
“A personal conquest?” Tillie ventured casually—liking where this was going. She definitely had some competition on her hands and she was insanely curious to meet this new friend of his.
Just to size her up.
Charlie hesitated. “In a sense, yes.”
“So how old is she then? Younger than me? Or older?”
“Older,” the boy confirmed. “She’s nineteen.”
Tillie’s jaw dropped.
“Dude…! You dog!” She blurted out in open astonishment. “How come I can never get that lucky in a past life?”
“You? A past life?”
“Yup. A queen of royalty. Much like Elsa in those three Frozen movies.” The girl rambled on. Then she looked at him earnestly. “Now I want all the details of your little relationship with Roz: The how, the when, and where.”
Charlie was saved in responding when the platform finally came to a shuddering stop—throwing everyone’s equilibrium off balance.
Tillie tugged on the older boy’s arm. “Come on…spill. I want in on this little relationship of yours.”
Charlie sighed. “You just want to be killed by her—don’t you?”
“I can handle her,” Tillie said with absolute confidence in her voice. “She’s only human—right?”
The seventeen year old boy shook his head. “No. She’s not human.”
The other girl’s eyes screwed shut.
“Holy Moses! Are you telling me that she’s a magical kinsfolk?” She breathed in wonder.
“No. A half-ling. She’s an elf to be precise.”
Teena bumped him then. “Quarter elf,” she reminded him coolly. “Remember who introduced you to her when you were kids.”
Charlie nodded distractedly. “Right. Sorry about that, Teena.” He called after her as she passed him. They all traveled down the same stairwell that would spit them out onto the subway platform and then onto one of the empty thoroughfares.
Tillie waited on this new revelation like a young girl starving for attention from her parents.
“So…?” She pressed off hand.
Charlie sighed in defeat. “Okay, okay, okay,” he finally gave in. “I’ll go call up Roz and have her meet us over at the Boiler Plate steakhouse after we get some sleep. Then you can worm the story out of her when you see her.”
“Not you?” the other girl grinned.
“Not much of a storyteller, I‘m afraid.”
Tillie rubbed her h
ands together excitedly.
“So what will I have to bring for this impromptu gathering of ours?” She wanted to know.
Charlie smiled for the first time since coming back.
“Knowing her? Your last will and testament.”
***
Sleep came and went for Tillie Gunderson after she returned to the women’s mission with her stuff. She didn’t have much time to put anything away—save for a couple of her spell books (that were clearly marked)—but getting some rest was another matter.
It wasn’t just the departure of her mother and Sarah Winters that had her in fits for the next hour or so of tossing and turning in bed, but also Charlie and his girl friend.
But a lingering truth stung her even more when Charlie whispered into her ear and dropped a bomb on her young life in passing: She was trying to make a play for him by wanting to be his girlfriend.
Tillie sighed in bed, clutching her pillow even more. Then she started squealing like a loyal fan girl thinking that was the best thing he had told her since they first met.
Of course it was…crazy! But just the feeling and emotion! How can he stand there in front of her and be this clueless about how she really felt about him?
It wasn’t like every day that some mystery boy would drop into her waiting lap like that out of the blue and present himself to her as a tantalizing prize worth taking.
She started to calm down after that, shaking her head all the while.
“Okay, okay, okay. Sleep.” She scolded herself. “Think of nothing else but that. Because if you don’t get any sleep—you’re going to be worse off than you were before you climbed into bed.”
Sighing quickly, she closed her eyes and refocused her attention on a small part of her mind and thought of nothing else.
Relax.
Relax.
Relax.
Breathe in…
Breathe out…
Slow your heart rate.
That’s it. Just like that. Let the fog of sleep overcome you like a warm security blanket. Like when you were at home.
Ever so slowly, everything started to gel together nicely as she started to drift off a bit, thinking nothing stressful or anxiety-inspiring—she just kept her thoughts calm, uniform, and quiet.
Then the dreams started almost a few minutes in and she was back in the street again—facing down Kara Plummer and her regiments; holding nothing back, leaving nothing to chance as she called upon her most powerful spell incantation available and brought down the mother of all storms down upon her sworn enemy.
Torrential lightning, thunder, squalls upon endless squalls of rain and the girl’s cloak was whipping about wildly in the wind as she increased her powers tenfold, then twenty.
And before she knew it, she was standing in the middle of a hurricane to beat the band and everyone was trying to get out of the line of fire but being mowed down by baseball sized hail, drops of rain that smashed into the personnel carriers littering the street and causing the hover control bots to lose their assigned positions before being blown away by huge gusts of wind.
Explosions dotted the landscape, bodies too—everything the girl channeled into her hands became a fantastic blowtorch of magical might that had no equal.
“Stop this at once!” She heard a voice call out to her in that instance. “You will not prevail!”
But the girl was beyond listening. Her mind was torn open by the sheer will and power that laid dormant inside her for quite some time.
“You can’t make me stop!” She finally shouted. “Nobody can stop me! Not even you!”
“You would risk the very life force of existence for this one moment of unchecked destruction? Are you that insane?” The same unknown person accused.
“No more sane than you,” Tillie said with a smirk of her own choosing and twisted her wrist sharply.
The tempo of the storm went up another magnitude even as the same person—now visible to her and walking towards her through this monstrosity—came up to her in that second.
Then stopped.
“Foolish girl.” She bluntly charged. “You do not know what you are causing.”
Tillie stared into the eyes of her former foe and shrugged.
“I wasn’t asking you.” She countered. “But if you want me to keep reliving this battle over and over again, I would suggest that you get out of my mind. Out of my dreams and let me do as I wish.”
“Then you will destroy all of reality in the process—thanks in part to the Dragon's Tear you now possess.” The nameless woman argued up front. “And you know this as well as I.”
Tillie paused in her ongoing rampage for a few seconds, causing this dream reality to do the same.
“Then why give me a taste of this incredible power if you knew that it might end up corrupting me some day and turning me into another version of you…Greta Freeman?”
The woman laughed. “Power begets power, child. I didn’t just hand you an incredible gift at the height of our titanic struggle. I saw an opportunity where there was none before. I gave you unlimited power. Untapped possibilities. And yet…you stand here rehashing your last fight with an enemy whom is very much like you in every way.” She pointed to the scene behind her. “You are a disappointment to me.”
“I wouldn’t call it a disappointment, Greta. I only learned from the best. But in this reality, I am free to test myself in this dreamscape where everyone that I have shared a vivid hatred of can wilt beneath my awesome power.”
“And in doing so, you will bleed off into your current reality—affecting things there. I’m sure you don’t want that to happen—now that you have found love for the very first time. I’m sure your new “friend” wouldn’t want to be the unwitting subject of your untapped potential.” Greta surmised before turning her attention back to her.
“So what shall it be, Tillie Gunderson? Will you continue fighting my distant cousin to a similar end, or will you instead use what I gave you for a higher purpose?” She said with an ingratiating smile of her own. “Your most cherished dream?”
Tillie looked down and found herself arraigned in the garments of a Field Mage. To a world much different than the world she already knew. There were homes in the distant, a rousing city somewhere on the horizon with high rise towers glinting in the open sunlight.
And a road not yet traveled.
Greta smiled and nodded. “See your future, Tillie Gunderson. See your potential. This is what you dream of and desire the most above all else. Why waste it on a life such as yours? On a path that will only bring you tears of misery?”
Tillie took a step forward. Then another. She could feel the fresh breeze on her face. The crisp wind across her lips. The warm sunlight bestowing a promise of a better life.
Only if she were brave enough to take it.
“I…I…” she began haltingly. Then she shook her head.
“No.”
Greta Freeman looked at her stupidly in that second.
“No? Are you going to stand there and deny yourself your very own destiny like that?” She cried. “Look at what you could have in your grasp! It. Is. There!”
Tillie opened her hands and saw nothing but the rain. The sleet. The pea-sized hail of a passing storm above her head. Along with the metal conduction filaments interwoven between both her hands.
She mustn’t forget. She. Must. Not!
Forget.
“I am a witch.” She decided at last. “My own fate will be mine alone. You have no claim to it.” She said. “Which means…you do not belong here. You belong in my memory.”
“I will not be a memory.” The woman seethed in absolute fear and disgust.
“I am a part of you whether you want to acknowledge that or not. Just as your mother swore you to absolute secrecy the night we fought. The very night that I died. She made sure that you would remember who it was that gave you such incredible gifts.”
The street scene changed to a battlefield of broken wills and shattered power norm
s as one terrified little girl stood victorious over her sworn adversary—a woman whose power was both uncharted and off the charts and only bested because of the link they shared together as one and all.
Tillie shuddered at the sudden and raw memory this vision evoked and she cried out in fear and terror all at the same time—not wanting to face the reality this fight had wrought for her.
Because she was just like Greta Freeman at every turn. A copy of her might and power and everything else that had been born into the legendary High Witch of Lower Tam.
Of her dreams and nightmares made real because of the Dragon's Tear.
Because of Susha.
Because of—
Her.
“MOM!”
“MOM!
“MOM!”
Tillie kept crying, kept moaning, kept calling out for her at that last possible moment—knowing that she would never come and save the day like she had in times past.
And she would collapse to her knees and sob because of how powerless she felt—even as the Dragon's Tear around her neck got progressively brighter with each passing second.
Every passing second. Until it had become so great that it not only swallowed her up, but every given reality which she was connected to as well.
***
Tillie bolted out of her bed in a dead run—hitting the floor in a tangled heap of blankets and two pillows which she clutched onto for dear life.
And she was still crying. Still calling out to her mother in the early afternoon—still trying to remember the reasons why.
Then she got to her feet—clambered over her bed and hit the small bookshelf that lined the other side of it.
The girl got there just in time to see the Dragon's Tear’s power fade before her very eyes and she knew then that what she experienced wasn’t just another silly dream.
It was a vision of things to come.
Tillie snatched the family keepsake off the hook and clutched it to her chest in worry—collapsing back onto her bed in the process.
“Why…mom? Why did you do this to me? Why did you chain me to this power if you knew it was going to corrupt me at some point in my lifetime? You must have known that there would be a terrible price to be paid for me being exposed and then saturated with Susha’s power—before the Tear was lost for a time…”
Generation Witch Year One Page 26
