“Get a grip on yourself and calm the fuck down, man! It’s like you’re scared of your own shadow!” Josh shouted at Simon, pissed that he had threatened Seth a second ago, even though he’d reacted out of fear.
And that small comment was the key that unlocked the puzzle and made everything fall into place inside my head. It all made sense to me now.
Fear. That was the explanation.
“You are scared of everything.” I exhaled in realization. “It’s you. You’re the one doing all this.” But neither Simon nor anyone else had heard me. Everybody’s attention was fixed on the giant shadow of a bear slashing down a tree trunk, making it crack and crumble in our direction.
“Everybody move!” Tristan shouted, pushing me, Simon and Harry out of the way, while Josh pulled Seth and Sam to the other side.
The tree landed with a loud thud, missing us all by an inch.
“Everyone okay over there?” Tristan shouted to the other side of the huge trunk, where Josh, Seth and Sam had jumped out of the way.
“Josh is crushed under a heavy branch, man! His leg is stuck! He can’t get out!” Seth yelled back in panic, making Tristan and Harry jump hurriedly over the tree to help set Josh free.
I peeked over the other side and saw Josh squirming under a big branch, his leg stuck at a weird angle, while the boys tried to lift the branch off him. Crawling spiders and black bugs started to spill from the base of the fallen tree and swarm over the trunk towards the boys. Harry and Sam had taken off their flannel shirts and were trying to swat the closest bugs, while Seth and Tristan helped Josh.
I turned round and ran after Simon. He was the key to making all of this go away. I found him crouched on the ground, freaking out badly, both hands over his head while he rocked back and forth, mumbling incoherent words to himself. He looked on the verge of a psychotic breakdown.
“Simon! Please, listen to me!” I shouted, shaking him by the arms to try to force him out of his panic attack. “It’s you who’s doing this! You’re making the shadows turn into your worst fears! You have to calm down and make it stop!”
“I’m not! I can’t! We’re all going to die here!”
“Simon, look at me.” I grabbed his face and made him look up. “Remember when you told me about your brother? You said he could curse people. What if his ability is really about instilling fear? What if you are the one who can make things happen?” I tried to explain to him as fast as I could. “If your brother can put fears into people’s minds, maybe you can make those fears come true! Think about it. Every time something has happened, you were there. Someone mentions things that scare you, and suddenly it becomes real. The wolf only showed up after that girl mentioned it, and the ghost in your cabin after Tristan and I talked about it. Even the lake creature – that might not be your brother’s curse, after all. It could be your fear of water making it real.”
“No! It wasn’t me! I swear it wasn’t!” he denied in panic.
“But it makes sense, Simon,” I persisted. “Those wasps appeared after you heard me scolding the boys, telling them they looked like drones harassing you. It might have been the suggestion you needed to create the wasp nest. You felt threatened by the boys. And it was the same thing with Tristan just now. The second he pulled you away from me, you felt scared, and then we saw that shadow shrouding him. Remember? You made him look bigger and scarier than he really was, because you were afraid. And now everything you heard Seth suggesting, it’s happening! The more scared you are, the worse it gets, Simon.”
“N-no! No! It can’t be me! It can’t be!” he wailed, rocking even harder on the ground. “I can’t be doing all those things! If it’s me, they’ll come to get me!”
Every tree around us trembled violently, as if shaken by an invisible hand. Leaves, twigs and branches crackled loudly as they fell down, and the shadows that had once moved like insects now shifted and started to slither to the ground, morphing into silhouettes of big, tall, muscled men in dark cloaks.
I widened my eyes as I realized what I had done.
I had given Simon his biggest fear.
He was now creating shadows that resembled the members of the Top League.
I could see him losing control. I could see panic rising and taking over every inch of his mind, flooding uncontrollably out of his eyes. I had given him the one thing he feared most in his life: being taken away by the same men that had taken his brother and changed him into something horrible . . . the men who had marked and scarred his family for ever.
And now Simon thought they were coming for him, too.
“No, no, no! Listen to me, Simon! This is not going to happen, okay? I won’t let them take you!” I tried to reverse the situation, but he wasn’t listening to me. His head was buried under his arms, and his knees were bent, while he rocked frantically on the grass, mumbling quietly to himself. “They’ll take me away, it can’t be me, they’ll take me away.”
“Oh. Crap,” I mumbled, as I watched the dark shadows sliding menacingly my way. “Tristan! Help!” I cried out.
The boys had told me I had black belts in martial arts, but I still had no memory of that. I had no idea what to do or how to protect myself. I felt so impotent, so useless. All would be lost because I couldn’t remember how to save us. I knew I had the means to do it, but I couldn’t remember a damned thing!
Tristan poked his head from over the tree trunk, and his eyes widened in shock when he saw the new threat marching towards me. He leaped over the tree in one fluid movement and ran fast, trying to get to me before the shadow men did. But he wasn’t fast enough. The dark figures were already upon me.
One of them detached himself from the mass of menacing shadows and swung a heavy arm, throwing me away from Simon with a hard blow. I crashed on top of Tristan, the force of the impact dragging us both to the floor.
“What the hell are those things?” Tristan grunted, untangling himself from me. He stood up quickly and pulled me up, stepping immediately ahead to shield me. A few of the shadow men had formed a defensive circle around Simon, enclosing him within their hold, while the rest turned to face us.
It almost seemed as if they had pushed me away from Simon because I was trying to get him to stop freaking out. If he stopped being afraid, all the shadows would disappear. It made sense for them to be trying to prevent that from happening. They wanted to hold on to their existence through Simon’s continuous state of fear.
But I didn’t have time to explain any of this to Tristan. More and more shadows were morphing into dark silhouettes of suited men, and now they were closing threateningly on the boys. But Josh, the most equipped to fight back, was stuck under that tree branch, unable to protect anyone, even himself.
Even though I couldn’t remember my martial arts training, something inside me still jumped alert, ready to protect the boys. The thought of any one of them getting hurt made me react on instinct. I was jumping over that trunk and running to them before Tristan could even think about stopping me.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ring of Fire
“GUYS! WATCH OUT!” I shouted in warning, as I ran towards the boys.
Seth, Sam and Harry stood up and stretched their necks to get a better look over the tree trunk. As soon as they realized what was happening, I saw their faces grow pale. Seth immediately scrambled around, frantically looking for his iron poker. Sam crouched back down to try, with increased urgency, to dislodge Josh from beneath the tree branch, and Harry started to break a smaller branch off the tree in a hurry, with a view to arming himself.
“What? What’s going on?” a clueless Josh asked, his words emerging in huffs with the effort of trying to help Sam release him from under the massive branch.
“Shit’s about to get ugly, dude!” Harry shouted, finally pulling a branch off the trunk with a loud crack.
“There’s a bunch of creepy shadow men closing in on us!” Seth wailed, grabbing the iron poker and hurrying to stand beside Harry in the defense line.
“How do you even fight off shadows?” Sam grunted through gritted teeth, heaving at Josh’s branch with all his might.
“Hell if I know! But I’m praying I can hit them hard with this!” Seth gripped his iron bar and swung it around in an attempt to make the shadows back away.
I reached the boys at the same moment Seth had hit one of them, the iron bar slashing the shadow man in half as if a gust of wind had brushed through a cluster of dense fog. The figure hissed loudly, its form breaking and dissolving on the ground in rolls of dark smoke. Before Seth could celebrate his victory, another shadow man detached itself from the group at the back, and stepped forward. He swung a heavy arm and threw Seth to land on top of Sam. The iron poker swirled and landed far away from anyone’s grasp. Apparently, iron pokers could dissolve the smoky bastards, but also made them very, very cranky.
The line of shadow men advanced, prompting Harry to hold his branch aloft, in a fencing stance, as if he was about to challenge them to a duel with a silly wooden stick.
“Stop! Stay back!” Harry hissed, but the men continued advancing, forcing Harry into a slow retreat.
It looked like the shadows were trying to force us all away from Simon. But what would they do when they reached Josh, stuck under that branch and unable to move? Would they tear him out, even if it meant ripping his leg off in the process?
I had to do something, and fast, before they could get near Josh. But what could I do? Seth’s iron bar was gone! I had no weapons to fight them with! If only I could remember how to create fire again, I could try to blast these shadows to hell.
Tristan had followed at my heels, and was trying to help Seth and Sam back to their feet, while Josh cursed the extra weight their bodies added to the branch pinning down his leg.
When one of the shadow men took another step closer, and started to get ready to strike Harry down, I reacted on instinct. I ran towards him with my arms outstretched and my hands wide open, palms up, trying to stop the blow. That thing was going to hit Harry. I couldn’t let that happen!
The thought of Harry being hurt made my blood boil. But then, as my heartbeat raced and blood rushed through my veins, a memory of a dream came back to me. I looked at myself and there were flames in my hands. The fire spread, running all over me, consuming me whole, like I was a born star. I felt big, invincible, as powerful as the sun. The sound of crackling fire caught my ears, merging with the urgent shouts of the boys in the background. Yellow, bright flames burst from the palms of my hands, a warning sign that anger was taking over.
“STOP!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, and stood defensively in front of Harry, the flames now enveloping my whole hands. I could hear Harry gasping in shock behind my back, while the shadow man retreated and hissed, cowering in pain as if the flames were actually burning him.
“J-Joey? W-what’s happening?” Harry stammered, eyes wide as he stared fixedly at my hand. “H-how are you doing that?”
None of the boys knew about my ability, except Tristan. Oh, well, I guess that metaphorical flaming cat was out of the burning bag now.
“I can explain this later, Harry,” I grunted, concentrating on my anger so the fire in my hand wouldn’t vanish. I needed to stay angry. I needed that feeling to keep the fire going, so I could protect everybody.
The shadows retreated in unison, backing away from my burning hand, but they quickly began to slide sideways and move to our back. They were forming a circle around us. I couldn’t protect everybody, not if they decided to attack from every side, all at the same time. It seemed that was their plan. Tricky, smart shadows.
Was that Simon’s doing? Was he thinking up all these strategies? I couldn’t see him any more, not over the huge tree trunk and the wall of shadow men blocking the view. Was he still cowering on the ground, head stuck in his arms, mumbling in fear all this time? How long would his panic attack last?
“Shit! They are coming from behind now!” Harry warned, turning round when he heard the others shouting to get our attention.
I tensed again, the imminent danger fueling my anger. As I stared at the flames in my hand, trying to think of a way to get out of this, another memory drifted back to me: The whooshing sound of consuming fire filled my ears, and along with it came rattling chains and angry whispers. The noise was maddeningly loud, but this time I knew I could bear it. For Tristan and the boys’ safety, I could control this. For them, I could do anything.
A rush of images filled my spinning mind, and all my memories returned to me all at once in a fierce torrent: the boys, all the moments we shared together, the brotherhood we had, their support and love whenever I needed strength or help; Vigil, all the struggles we’d been through that led us into the friendship we had now; magic and the wonders it brought to me; my life since I first met Tristan and everything that has happened after that point. I remembered it all. It seemed the release of my fire powers had unlocked the rest of my memories along with it. I frowned in concentration and remembered Vigil’s words echoing in my mind in one of the many lessons he gave me about controlling these abilities when we had switched powers: You can be fierce like a blazing sun and gentle like a candle flame. It is you who controls this power; it does not control you. You cannot let it rule over you. And then I remembered the key to making this power come to life.
Let it burn.
I let heat consume me from inside, rushing within me, taking over my soul. The sound of crackling fire was loud inside my head, deafening my thoughts. But I would not let it rule over me. I had to make this fire bend to my wishes.
Let it burn, something whispered seductively, urging me to unleash all this force building inside of me. It would take only a slip for me to fall prey to these suggestive whispers. I frowned harder and focused all my attention on this energy, taming and ordering it to form a circle around the boys and me.
Flames sprouted from the grass, running like wildfire around us. It looked as if I had struck a match and cast it onto a line of gasoline, which was now forming a circle of fire around us, safely enclosing us inside its burning walls.
The boys and I had protection now.
They all watched the circle of fire with awestruck eyes, including Tristan, who also seemed startled by it. Slowly, they started to huddle together in the middle, trying to stay away from the flames.
“Oh, my God, is she doing this?” I heard Seth gasping at Tristan, his voice shaky and scared. I knew this would frighten the living daylights out of them. That was why I’d wanted to keep this a secret all along. The boys would never look at me the same way again after this.
The shadows outside the circle hissed loudly, angry at the sudden obstruction. It was pretty obvious they hated fire. But it looked as though the fire I was making wasn’t strong enough to hold them back. They began to stretch out, looming over us like giants made of dark smoke. One of the shadow men risked taking a giant step forward, his long leg passing easily over the ring of fire.
I stomped my feet on the ground. “NO!” I yelled angrily. “You can’t get in here!” And I let the whispers inside my head grow louder, allowing the heat to spread and the need to burn grow stronger inside me. I unleashed it all.
The fire wall sparked up, flaming higher and higher, licking at the sky. That seemed to do the trick. The shadow men weren’t advancing any more; we couldn’t even see them on the other side, the fire was too high.
“Ugh!” I grunted under the stress, beads of sweat rolling down my face. To maintain this level of constant fire was taking a lot of energy and all of my concentration. I didn’t know how much longer I could keep it up. Probably not very long.
The fire licked at the fallen tree trunk and started to spread through the wood, finding a new source of fuel to feed on. I frowned and concentrated harder, forcing the fire to retreat back to the circle I had drawn in my mind. It should stay in that line, not run wild, or it could burn the boys to a crisp.
But fire has a will of its own. It was eager to spread and take over, to run fr
ee through the forest. The urge was too strong, the force too big to be contained only by my wishes and concentration. It started to inch back to the wood again in tentative strokes, waiting for me to get tired and lose control.
I realized in shock that the fire could soon take over the trunk completely, and get to Josh, burning him, since he was still trapped beneath that blasted branch. I wouldn’t be able to keep it constrained for much longer. I didn’t have much time. To save Josh, I would have to put the fire out. I needed to will it to go away. But then those shadows would strike at us again.
“Tristan!” I shouted through gritted teeth. “Tristan . . . the fire . . . can’t hurt you,” I gasped between labored breaths. “You need . . . to get to Simon. He’s making the shadows . . . come to life. You need to . . . go to him!”
“What? Simon?” Tristan asked, shocked. “He’s the one doing all this?”
“Yes!” I grunted. “Hurry . . . I can’t keep this up . . . for much longer!” I felt my legs start to wobble, threatening to give way under my weight. I was getting weak. “When you get close to Simon, use your fading!” I said, the realization suddenly coming to me. Tristan hardly ever used his fading any more; we sometimes even forgot he could still use this special trick he had acquired back in Ghost Land. “Fade and pass through the shadows protecting him . . . and then hit him! Knock him out! If he’s unconscious . . . this will all go away!”
Tristan turned to face the fire, creases on his sweaty forehead revealing his doubt. The wall was impressive, and for a second he seemed uncertain. Then he turned to me, gave me a firm nod, and walked right through the fire, his whole frame engulfed as he disappeared into the flames.
I heard the boys calling after Tristan in panic, but I couldn’t risk losing concentration now. I couldn’t stop to reassure them everything was fine and that Tristan was okay. I needed to focus on the ring of fire and keep it locked in place. I wobbled dizzily again, and almost fell, but I managed to regain my balance just in time. My chest felt so heavy, as if there wasn’t enough air to breathe. My trembling arms were open and outstretched, fingers spread wide to command the fire around me.
Lost and Found Page 21
