by T. S. Hall
Milly knelt beside the bed, and placed her hand on Allora’s bandaged arm. They held each other’s silent gaze.
“Honey, I’m so, so sorry about your… uh, accident. Are you okay?”
With her defiant teenage pride on the line, Allora replied, “A little sore, but I’ll be all right.”
Milly gave her younger sister an ominous nod and quietly excused herself from the room. “Aunt May, what’s wrong with Mom?”
Trying to mask her concerns with a smile, a weak, “Hello, darling,” was all Aunt May could muster before her eyes began to well up. She sat down on the bed. “Your mother is just worried about you, that’s all.”
Even as Aunt May spoke, Allora knew the words weren’t true. The medication was wearing off, and the throbbing pain in her hands and forearms felt as if she’d stuck her fingers into a light socket. Allora couldn’t understand why everyone was so distraught. It’s not like someone died, she thought to herself.
Milly charged back into the room. “Get dressed, Allora. We have to go home right now.”
Aunt May helped Allora with the arduous task of exchanging her hospital gown for her everyday clothes. Adamant about getting out of the hospital, Milly hurriedly undertook the discharge process.
Allora found the sudden and immediate departure from the hospital alarming, but with the abnormality of the day’s events still fresh in her mind, she yearned for the safety and comfort of her own bed.
On the ride home, Bell elucidated the different treatments for severe burns and the various antibiotics to fight infections and anti-inflammatory creams used to decrease swelling and pain. “Some of the quacks say you can even put mustard or butter on it, but who wants to do that?” she said.
Allora was rather impressed by how much her sister knew about the subject, but everyone else in the car remained silent.
The minivan took a left at the wooden mailbox and headed between two large pine trees. The long gravel road curved to the left, then opened into a large meadow. At the end of the driveway, a rectangular, one-story log cabin sat in the middle of a field, surrounded by trees. The roof angled down on either side of a large brick chimney.
Milly pulled the van into the garage and turned to her daughter. “Lora, I want you to go straight to bed. You’re gonna need plenty of rest.”
“Yeah… and some mustard!” Bell said with a giggle.
Spent from the afternoon events, she nodded.
Inside, she closed the door to her room and leaned against it. Glancing around her sanctuary, Allora saw only what she had always seen, yet the room somehow felt unfamiliar. The assortment of random gemstones on her shelves, the imaginative drawings of fantastical creatures on her wall, and even the funky armoire. Allora laid down on the bed and looked up through her skylight at the bright stars. Her mind raced between the tryouts, the fire, and her mother’s strange behavior at the hospital.
How did my hands catch fire? She reflected.
None of it made any sense, and obsessively reflecting only left her feeling more fatigued. Like the shades of a window, Allora’s eyelids fell down, and within minutes, the girl fell into a deep, deep sleep.
* * *
A pounding headache greeted Allora when she awoke. As she sat up, the incisive pain in her hands quickly increased exponentially. This severe discomfort was followed by an extremely difficult itch on her back that she couldn’t possibly reach, especially with her bandaged extremities. She ran into her sister’s room, crashed through the doorway, and jumped onto Bell’s bed. “It itches so bad!” Allora wailed, dancing up and down, unsuccessfully reaching for the itch with her wrapped hands. “Please, Bell. Help!”
Bell was bouncing on the bed from her sister’s frantic footwork, but she finally got to her knees and used both hands to scratch her sister’s back.
Moaning with relief, Allora pleaded, “Mmm… keep going. Don’t stop.”
“Can’t you get some sort of back scratcher?” Bell asked, yawning from her interrupted sleep.
“That’s why I have you.”
Bell stopped scratching, crossed her arms and rolled her eyes, then left the room without a word, heading for the shower.
“Hey! Wait! I’m still itchy!” Allora yelled down the hall.
“Find yourself another slave,” Bell yelled back, then closed the bathroom door.
Allora hurried down the hall, still wearing her tank-top and purple polka dot pajama pants. When she found her Aunt May in the living room, reading the newspaper, Allora ran to her and begged for relief from the discomfort. Fortunately, her aunt was quite accommodating, and Allora found herself practically panting in relief like a puppy as May gave her a good, long scratch.
“Aunt May? You never mentioned any Sonorans who were able to produce fire.”
“That is because it is extremely rare.”
“So, what does this mean?”
Aunt May grabbed her hand, and began unwrapping the gauze. After a few spins, she pulled back the layer covering her hand, which pulled off the dead pink skin. Allora cringed, thinking that her hands were going to be grotesque. Opening her eyes, she saw that the skin underneath the peeling wound was completely healed. She quickly unwrapped the other hand to see the same result. Twisting her torso, she stared up at her aunt in astonishment.
“This means that your body has the ability to harness hadron energy at a whole different level, and your body is able to manipulate the molecular structure of fire. The heat from the flames doesn’t harm your body’s cells. It’s a rather fascinating ability.”
“Cool!” Allora responded, examining her hands once more.
“Totally cool,” Aunt May said, getting up from the couch, heading for the kitchen. “It also means that your training regimen just increased ten-fold.”
“Oh, come on!”
“I think that you’ll have time now. Not sure that you’re making the soccer squad darling.”
“Yeah, no kidding. Where is mom?”
“She’s out checking the security protocols around town with Sheriff Newton,” Aunt May replied, pouring herself some coffee. “Make sure that you feed the animals.”
“What about summer camp next week?”
“Yes, you’ll still be attending. We have to act like everything is normal.”
“What about my hands and the fire?”
“The fire was caused by a firework prank that went wrong. That is the official story, and you must be convincing. We can’t have any of these humans prying into our lives.”
“Seems like a flimsy story.”
“Got a better idea girl?”
“Not really,” Allora said, standing up and walking out the backdoor to the greeting of two extremely excited Labradors. She fed Rex and Cody, then went to the chicken coup to throw some grain. Upon throwing a handful in the far side of the coup, the grains slipped down through the cracks. She walked over, and saw the slightest tint of something reflecting from down below the floorboards.
“Hey,” Aunt May said, sticking her head into the coup, and rousing Allora from the curiosities below. “Can you let your posy know that we are going to be training early tomorrow morning? We are starting a more advanced training session since your incident.”
Allora nodded, and then left the coup to finish her chores.
That night, Allora laid in her bed, staring up at the skylight, wondering about which star held the secrets to her other life. Sonora was somewhere out there, beckoning, calling for her. Feeling anxious and overwhelmed, she decided to get some fresh air. She rolled off the bed, lifted the window sash, and squeezed through the opening. After circumventing the rhododendron bush at the base of the window, Allora quietly crossed the field, escaped the property, and headed east down the darkening road, a route she’d taken many times before. She jumped clear of the shrubbery and quietly crossed the field. With her home behind her, she walked a mile before turning left on Norman Court. At the end of the cul-de-sac, a trail zigzagged down a steep hill. The sun was going down, which
made the trek over tree roots and uneven terrain far more difficult, but even in the fading light, the trail was so familiar that Allora didn’t so much as stumble or trip once. After several hundred feet, she walked out of the woods, into a rocky clearing.
It was quiet, except for the constant swishing of flowing water that grew louder with each step. The briskly moving river glistened against the day’s last beams of light, and water tumbled over large rocks, into a pool at Allora’s feet. The sound of the rushing river was soothing, almost a lullaby, as Allora sat on a flat rock by the pool and recalled the odd series of events. She stared up at the full moon, the silvery orb inching its way up into the indigo sky as the brilliant sunset ended its splendor in the western hills.
Suddenly, a cracking noise reached across the rocky riverbed. Startled, Allora jumped backward, losing her footing on the slippery rocks. When she managed to pull herself upright again, she hurriedly scurried across the rocks and propped herself up against a sizable boulder. She fell silent, listening for any sign of movement as her heart thumped loudly in her ears, her panic increased with each passing second.
There was no time to reflect. She grabbed a large, smooth rock from the creek bed. A quick glance around the side of the boulder didn’t reveal anything, but the sound of pebbles grinding under the weight of a foot reverberated on the opposite side. When more footsteps followed, Allora squeezed her fingers around the rock in her hand, ready to strike. The sound stopped, and she knew her would-be assailant was directly to the right of the boulder.
Beads of sweat trickled down her forehead, and a chill moved down her spine. The footsteps started again, and a dark figure glided past. She made her choice in an instant and leapt onto the intruder, knocking the body to the ground, then raised the rock over her head.
As the figure turned over and screamed, the light of the moon revealed a familiar face.
“Tanner?” Allora asked in disbelief.
“Allora?” Tanner answered, equally shocked.
She threw the rock down, pushed off of Tanner’s chest, and stood over him.
He gradually got to his feet and brushed off the dirt from his shirt. “Are you crazy?” He asked, still shaking from the surprise attack.
Allora wasn’t about to take the blame for the situation. She glared at Tanner and said, “Yeah, well, what are you doing sneaking up on me like that?”
“What? I wasn’t sneaking up on you. I didn’t even know you were down here.”
After a few seconds of silence, Allora decided to give in. “Sorry. I guess I’ve just been paranoid lately. What are you doing down here anyway?”
“I come here a lot, whenever I need to think.” Tanner lowered his shoulders, releasing his tense muscles. “Are you all right?”
Allora lowered her chin, uncrossed her arms, and walked past Tanner to the water’s edge. She picked up a smooth, flat rock from the creek bed and skipped it across the water, trying to think of what to say. “You mean my hands?” she said, holding them up.
“What the…?” Tanner grabbed her hands. “There’s not a mark on you. How… what—”
“I know,” she said. “Weird huh?” Noticing Tanner’s bewildered look, she pulled her hands away from his judging eyes. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to. It’s just… well, what happened that day?”
“Your girlfriend decided to say a few things that got my blood boiling,” Allora said. “Next thing I knew, people were screaming, and I was on fire.”
“Oh. I had no idea. I’m so sorry. She can be pretty mean sometimes.”
“Mean? That’s the understatement of the century.”
Tanner rubbed the back of his neck and blinked in the semi-darkness. “I know. I’m not even really sure why I date her.”
The impromptu confession caught Allora off guard, and they stared at each other for a minute in awkward silence. The moonlight softly illuminated Allora’s natural beauty as they unconsciously inched ever closer, until their bodies softly touched. Just as each felt the other’s heat from the increased circulation, Tanner’s cell phone rang.
Allora stepped back while Tanner awkwardly searched his pocket for the beckoning device.
He flipped open the phone. “It’s Dax,” he said, giving an awkward half-smile.
Allora watched Tanner’s face. He seemed relieved for the interruption, happy to be saved by the bell. She decided to act accordingly and ignored their previous exchange. After a few grunts, he said, “What time are we training in the morning?”
“Aunt May said five-thirty so that you guys can get to tryouts.”
“Dax said that Katie decided to skip soccer this year,” Tanner added.
“Why?”
“She said that she wanted to train with you more, I guess.”
“Cool.”
Tanner hung up the phone after a few more grunts, and they left the creek bed, heading up to the road. They said goodbye at the crossing, stealing a few glances back as they headed home under the light of the moon.
Three
TRAINING
The next day, Milly shook her daughter awake, knowing the sleeping beauty would soon turn into a conscious, grumpy beast. Allora looked through the slits of her eyelids at her clock.
“Ugh,” she groaned, rolling to the other side and flinging the sheets over her head.
“Rise and shine. Training day,” Milly announced, pushing her daughter’s limp body. “Come on, honey. Take a shower and get dressed. Tanner, Dax, and Katie will be here in a half-hour. You don’t have much time.”
Reluctantly, Allora slid out of bed and stumbled to the shower like a zombie. Mornings were never pleasant. The alarm was a relentless enemy. After putting on a tank-top and shorts, there was a knock at the front door.
“Your friends are here,” Milly yelled from the living room.
Allora slowly moved toward the front of the house, turned the corner of the hallway and saw her friends standing in the front entryway.
“Hey, how you doing?” Tanner asked, moving up to look her over.
“I’m exhausted.”
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Tanner replied, his bright blue eyes staring down at her with affection.
“OMG, your hands are completely healed,” Katie said, grabbing Allora’s palms. “So, it is true. You’re an Elemental!”
Milly gathered the group and explained, “We’ve created a protected path to the portal. A little extra precaution. Just take the normal path through the back meadow. Don’t deviate. May will be waiting for you there.” Milly then hugged her daughter and kissed her on the cheek.
Allora and the others walked out the back door. Outside, the sun was inching above the horizon as the four teenagers made their way through the back yard. Morning dew covered the grassy field, and the birds chirped as the group reached the forest path.
A mile up, there sat a large boulder, oddly placed in the middle of a recess in the hillside. Allora walked up to the seemingly solid rock, placed a hand forward, and then pushed through the liquid barrier. The portal pulled the body like gravity, then a flash of light appeared and she was standing on grass. Enormous oak trees situated in a perfect, grid-like pattern surrounded them. Each tree had been planted in a line, as if in an orchard, yet it seemed too perfectly designed to be real.
“This is new,” Allora said, glancing around.
Aunt May stood in the middle of a round gravel pit in the middle of the orchard.
“I’ve changed our outer realm simulation to a more advanced environment. This is a replica of the same facility that myself and Milly used when we got to the point where we could harness hadrons, such as you did at tryouts Allora.”
“Hadrons?” Tanner asked.
“They are energized molecules that you focus into your cells, and project out in different ways.
Aunt May gestured to her left. On a small wooden bench were several colored robes. Allora grabbed a purple robe, Tanner chose blue, Dax preferred green
, and Katie selected pure white.
As soon as they were appropriately dressed for training, Aunt May asked them to line up in front of him. She smiled. “Do you all know why you chose the robes you did?”
The four glanced down at their new outfits, then back up at the older woman, puzzled; none realized the significance of their choices.
“You all picked a certain color robe without fighting or even realizing they were different.” She paused to let them contemplate their actions.
Allora had always liked purple, even though she’d never been sure why. Now, she wondered what her color preference had to do with her training.
“Sonorans have always embodied a distinctive color based on a number of factors, mostly having to do with emotions. Just like a ruby is red or a sapphire is blue, it is a part of you. This color is also what is produced when you perform a burst of energy. The colors of the fabric of your chosen robes will be the color of hadron you produce when you mature.”
“Are you sure?” Dax asked. “We haven’t even been able to produce hadrons yet.”
Aunt May gave him a knowing smile. “Call it women’s intuition.”
Before they began their physical training, Aunt May gave them a lesson in hadron focalization. “The manipulation of energy is very ancient practice and requires knowledge, strength, patience, control, and understanding. Hadrons are everywhere, even in the trees that surround us. Hadrons connect every living thing.” As she said this, Aunt May closed her eyes, and held out her palms.
Silence was followed by a rustling of the leaves, and then the oak trees began to glow with a tint of orange. A small, faint trail of orange light formed on the tree branches, wove its way down the tree trunks, and slithered along the ground like a snake, absorbing itself at the base of her feet, and then winding its way into her palms. Two circling balls of orange energy were hovering above her hand. She then opened her eyes, spun around while combining the balls of energy, and sent a hadron burst into a straw-filled dummy that had suddenly popped up from the ground behind her. The dummy exploded, sending pieces of wood and straw raining down. The four onlooker’s eyes were wide in amazement.
