by Sarah Swan
“She took you away for an entire night!” It sounded like a cardinal sin.
“She didn’t know any better. Besides, Madison was the only one with enough sense to come with her. I heard all about your reaction that night, Eve.”
“It seemed like the better option,” Eve said stiffly.
“Well, had they done it your way, it could have turned out much worse!” Liz exploded. The girls stared, flabbergasted. Liz took a deep breath, composing herself. “Anyway,” she said tightly, “the vote’s been taken – twice now – and, each time, the outcome’s been the same. We can’t waste any more time arguing. Everyone’s had a chance to voice her concerns before the vote, according to protocol, and this post-decision bickering won’t amount to anything. The choice has been made, and each of you—” she looked at Eve and Ashley only “—will have to learn to live with it.” She turned to look at me, and added in a gentler voice, “Don’t worry, this’ll all make sense soon. Girls?”
Grumbling, Eve stood up, and stalked over toward us. She dug a hand in one pocket, emerged with a clenched fist, and then deposited the contents onto Liz’s open hand. I caught a flicker of light, and wondered what it was.
“Come, sit down, Tracy,” Liz said, walking around the fire to sit between Eve and Madison. She scooted over a little, increasing the gap between her and Madison. I sat between them warily. The five of us made a semi-circle around the flames, with Ashley and Madison at either end. Ashley continued to stare defiantly at me, while Eve looked blankly into the flames. Madison gave my knee a little squeeze.
“Are you finally going to tell me what’s going on?” I asked, shifting uncomfortably. The mixture of Ashley’s venomous stare, the blaring heat of the tall fire, and the obvious tension between the girls made me very uneasy.
“Yes.” She put her hand out in front of her, and opened it to reveal the object that Eve had given her. I could see now why I had caught that flicker of light before. The object was a small crystal, about the length of my pinky, slender and elegant. It had a slight bluish tint to it. The hard edges all scattered the light of the fire around us, and I could see my own tiny reflection, along with reflections of all the girls, in the faces of the rock. I thought it must be very precious, to be of such a unique color and expertly-crafted shape, but other than that, I had no idea why it was being shown to me.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Just a crystal,” Liz replied. “Open your hand like mine.”
I did, and Liz dropped the crystal onto my palm. “I just want you to look at it, Tracy. Pick it up. Touch it; examine it. And tell us what you feel.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Just try it,” Liz said, closing my finger gently over the crystal. “Do you… feel anything?”
I frowned. “No. What do you—”
Suddenly, my eyes went wide. My hand felt as if it was on fire. The crystal had been cool when it first touched my skin. Now, it burned with the intensity of the sun. I thought it would scorch through my fingers, melt my skin and turn my bones to ash. I wanted to throw it away, to scream in agony, to run and hide from the torrent of heat and energy that the crystal was emitting. I wanted to— nothing. The sensation disappeared just as quickly as it came. For a second I thought I’d imagined it.
Liz’s response, however, told me I definitely had not. She practically squealed with delight. “See? See? I told you she could do it!” Liz exclaimed happily, bouncing in her seat. This was the Liz I knew from before.
“Do what?” I asked, not understanding what had just happened.
“I’m so happy! Liz was right!” Madison bubbled, wrapping her arms around me in a hug. She kissed both my cheeks. Her eyes glistened in the flames. “We’ve been waiting a long time for you.”
Even Eve, who had been so standoffish toward me the entire time, had to smile. “Congratulations,” she said tightly, looking up at me.
Only Ashley, who looked shocked beyond words, failed to congratulate me. Instead, she got up and stormed off.
Chapter Sixteen – Oblivion
“So I didn’t imagine that?” I asked one more time.
Liz shook her head. Her eyes shone with excitement. The other two girls – even Eve, to my surprise – seemed to share in her delight. “No. That was real, and is about the strongest reaction one can incite. Tell us again what happened.”
I repeated, for what must have been the seventh time, what I felt for that brief moment with the crystal in my hand. I didn’t understand exactly what it was, or why the girls seemed to be so thrilled about it, but that’s just how things were. I was still holding the crystal, but it was now nothing more than a useless lump of rock. There was one difference, though: the bluish tint had faded, leaving the rock totally transparent.
As I told them what I felt, the girls oohed and aahed at my story. Eve even laughed at the part where I said I wanted to run and hide.
“I’ll admit, I was wrong about you, Tracy,” she told me when I had finished. Glancing sheepishly at Liz, she added, “I shouldn’t have doubted you, Liz.”
Liz waved the apology away. “You were only looking out for the best interests of the group.”
“I guess,” Eve said. “Still, it doesn’t feel right—”
“Excuse me?” I interrupted. “I know all of you are happy about… something… Would somebody please tell me what it was that just happened? And why it was so important?” After a moment’s thought, I added, “And what this group of yours really is?”
“One question at a time there, kiddo,” Liz teased. At the least it was good that the tension had dissipated. The joking and laughter even reminded me somewhat of that first morning we’d met at breakfast. “Madison, you want to tell her?”
“Certainly. You see, Tracy…” she trailed off, staring past me. “Here comes trouble.”
I looked the same way. Ashley was walking toward us, her face an unreadable mask. Liz looked over, and then back to Madison. “Don’t worry about it,” she said.
My eyes, however, were glued to Ashley. There was something unnerving about her emotionless face, something that didn’t quite let me look away. When she was about twenty feet away, her steps quickened. She put such purpose and force into them that they looked angry. I knew she was coming right at me. The other girls didn’t seem to be paying her much attention.
I noticed that one of her hands was clutched into a tight fist. Suddenly, she thrust it out in front of her, and a blue light erupted from it.
It was the same light I had seen at the party. This time, there was no questioning its source. It came from Ashley’s hand. It seeped through her fingers. In a second, it had coated everyone and everything in that neon glow. A booming silence shifted into place. I knew I was in grave danger.
Everyone around me froze. Madison was leaning forward, her mouth open in mid-sentence. Liz, who had started to get up, was clutching at something in her pocket. Eve had just started to twirl her head around, and her hair was stuck flying through the air. Only Ashley still moved. But her movement was slow, as if underwater.
No! It was not just Ashley who still moved. The flames of the bonfire still cackled and danced, soundlessly. The heat from the flames was still palpable. They flared and died away, flared and died once more, in what seemed like a fruitless struggle against the blue light.
I could see a sort of yellow aura cast around the fire which fought the blue light. But the blue luminosity emanating from Ashley’s hand pulsed against it, pressing it down. The top of the yellow enclosure burst, and a tendril of blue light swirled down into the flame. Quickly, all the rest of it seeped in. Like water rushing forth from behind a dam, it overtook the bonfire from its very bottom.
The orange flames were sucked down toward it. They contracted, becoming focused in a tight ball of impossible brightness at the very bottom. The ball pulsed, glowing brighter and then fading, glowing brighter and then fading. Then it started to spin. Out of nowhere, a bright blue flame erupted from it. It w
as coming straight for me.
I cried out, instinctively shielding myself. Despair gripped me as I realized I was unable to move under the coat of the light. I willed my arms to cover my face, my body to twist away from that deadly flame. Nothing happened. My muscles tensed and strained under pressure. It was as if I were trapped in a pit of tar. Time seemed to slow to nothing. I watched in horror as that terrifying flame inched its way toward my face. It emitted no heat, but I knew one touch of it would be deadly. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Ashley smiling. She was the one who was doing this. She hated me. She was trying to kill me, and I had no idea why.
That strengthened my resolve to stand and fight. Instead of shying away from the flame, I set myself to embrace it. It came, crawling slowly forward. I stared it down, defying it from taking me. That didn’t do a thing. The flame kept coming.
At the moment the flame’s pointed tip was just about touch me, the crystal forgotten in my hand flared to life. I felt its heat rushing up my arm and into the rest of my body. The power roared into each of my limbs, pulsing in rhythm with my own heartbeat. I didn’t know what was happening, but somehow, the crystal’s spreading heat freed me from the constraint of the blue light. I twisted hard, falling to the earth with a thud just as the flame was about to was make contact.
Ashley let out a shocked gasp. Somehow, the sound carried. My eyes darted to her. She seemed to be moving more slowly. Everything else was still frozen in place. The flame that I knew she was controlling flared angrily, then warped in the air toward me. I scrambled backwards, away from it, but it just came faster.
At that moment, with my entire body flared with the heat of the crystal, I knew I could fight the flame. I thrust the crystal in front of me, and felt it change the pulse it was emitting. The heat no longer pulsed in rhythm with my heartbeat. Rather, it began to echo the flame itself. The flame was drawn to it like metal to a magnet. The flame sped toward me, but its projection changed. Now, it was coming straight for the crystal.
Or rather, it was being sucked toward the crystal. It was like a vacuum had opened up just in front of my hand. The uncanny, blue light, together with the flame, was being pulled into it. I heard a cry of outrage behind me. The flame’s tip met the surface of the crystal, and the world exploded around me.
Light as I’ve never seen it burst from the crystal in my hand. It was pure and white. Everything disappeared under its powerful glare.
I didn’t know where I was. My body floated in a sea of pure white. It pierced through my closed eyelids and went through my skin. I was weightless. I couldn’t tell which way was up or down. Direction was meaningless. The bright light pressed itself tightly around my body, like a second skin. It was tight, tighter than anything I could imagine. The pressure increased on my chest until I couldn’t breathe. Every second, the pressure increased, until I knew I would be crushed into absolute oblivion. Nothing existed in this place. The light was determined to keep it that way. I was an intruder; a leaf swept into a roaring river with no hope of escape. The light pressed against me, tighter and tighter, until it burst through my skin and devoured my body into nothingness.
I was floating, this time in darkness. I couldn’t feel my body. I had no body. All that existed was my consciousness. There was no beginning and no end, no destination and no origin. It was an abyss of pure darkness, stretching forever in all directions and nowhere all at once.
A flickering in the distance caught my attention. I looked that way with no eyes. A series of straight bright lines, connected at perfect angles, appeared there, far away. They wavered for a moment, threatened to be consumed by the dark, but then sprang back into place. In this void bereft of hope, these lines were my only guidance. I went to them.
As I got closer, I recognized the shape. It was the outline of the crystal I had used. It fought against the control of the dark. They called to me. I came closer, but distance was not what it appeared, here. One moment I was within reach, the next, hundreds of leagues away. Time was immaterial as I fought to get closer. The lines wavered once more, nearly overrun by the black pitch, but forced themselves into shape. Yet they were weaker this time, as if made of mist. I knew I had to get there, now. One more oscillation and they would be gone forever, and with them, my chance of salvation.
I thrust myself forward, not knowing how I did it or what propelled me. The frame of the crystal was now in front of me. It was fading fast! It was my only hope. I threw myself in.
A searing pain coursed through my mind as my body was reconstructed. I felt every piece snap into place, every molecule and cell that formed who I was built itself into a recognizable shape. My torso formed beneath me, followed by my limbs, my head, my hair. I flexed sore muscles that felt as if they had been unused for ages, and was gripped by an intoxicating euphoria. Suddenly I had eyes, and could see again.
I saw myself, lying on the ground of the forest, clutching that tiny crystal as if it were my life line. And so it was. But how could I see, if I were right there? Panic came over me as I realized the body on the ground was entirely lifeless. There was no color in my cheeks, no rhythmic rise and fall of my chest. I was there, but I was here, too.
From high above, I floated toward the still body. I reached out with my hand, and saw that it was no more than a thin vapor. I touched the body, and was jolted down into it.
My world turned to black. This time, there was no thought.
Chapter Seventeen – A Latent Ability
The first part of me to regain feeling was my head. And the first thing I felt was pain. Pain, and immense pressure, running from the bottom of my neck all the way up to my temples. It was like my head had been stuffed full of cotton, and then stuffed some more. I opened my eyes slowly. The tiniest movement threatened to send a wave of unbearable pain across my forehead. It was dark. All I could see above me were the thick branches of many trees.
“Tracy? Oh thank god.”
My ears screamed in protest. The noise was deafening. It sent another surge of pain through my head.
“Not so loud,” I said in the barest whimper. My entire body was numb, like an appendage that had lost circulation and fallen asleep. I tried to push myself up. My arms refused to respond.
“No, no! Stay right there.” The voice was softer this time. I recognized Madison. Her head popped out above me. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I’ve been through hell and back,” I groaned.
Surprisingly, she grinned. “At least you’re sentient now.”
“What… happened?” I managed. “Are we still… in the forest?” I knew that was a stupid question as soon as it left my lips. I could see the trees above me.
“A ways away from the fire, but still in the same clearing,” she told me.
“What… happened?” I asked.
Madison looked over her shoulder, and patted my arm gently. “I’ll go get Liz. She can explain everything.”
“What…? No, wait!” I started to protest, but she had already gone.
As I waited, lying on my back like a vegetable, the feeling returned to my body. I tested my toes, flexing and relaxing them in turn, then moved my fingers. They seemed to be working fine. The strength came back to my arms, then to my legs, then to the remainder of my body. The pain in my head was already starting to fade, although it was still an order of magnitude worse than any migraine. I heard approaching footsteps to my right, and slowly rotated my head in that direction. Liz was coming toward me, looking relieved and furious both at the same time.
“Do you have any idea what you did today?” she asked as she knelt down beside me.
I blinked a few times, thinking back. Memory of what happened earlier was… splotchy. I remembered coming out to the lake, and meeting Liz there. I remembered a fire, powerful and all-consuming, burning in the middle of some type of clearing. In fact, I could still feel its heat against my body. Wait. Heat? There was something else that gave off heat. A crystal, one that had nearly burned my hand to a crisp. When
I thought of that, all the other memories came crashing back. The blue light, the desperate fight against Ashley, and the agonizing time in that ever-shifting void.
“Oh yes, you remember,” Liz said as she watched my expression change. “You probably have no idea what it was though, do you?”
I looked at her, and felt anger bubbling up. Whatever it was, it had threatened my life. Liz was the one who brought me here. This was her fault!
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “Trust me. I had no idea Ashley would react that way.”
Wait. That meant she knew what Ashley did? Then again, how could she not? She had been the one to show me the crystal in the first place, and the one to get so excited when I explained what I felt with it in my hand. The crystal seemed key to everything.
“You need to explain,” I said simply. “Everything.”
“Everything?” she blew out a breath. “Where to begin? You’re special, Tracy.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re special, and so am I, and so are Madison, Eve, and Ashley.”
“What are you talking about?”
“What do you think? Do you think just anybody would have experienced what you just went through?”
“I… don’t know.” It was all too much to think about. My head still hurt.
“No, Tracy. There aren’t many people in the world who have the ability.”
“What ability?”
“To use the crystals!” She sighed. “Maybe I’m being too harsh. I keep forgetting you’ve never been exposed to this before, that you don’t know anything about them, yet. Let me start from the beginning.”
“Please.”
“Remember at the party, when you found me senseless on the floor?”
“Yes…?”
“Do you know what happened before that?”
“You’re asking me? How on earth would I know? I wasn’t there!”
