The Shade Riders and the Dreadful Ghosts

by Bxerk

  Nova saw a flash of light. Leandra had her hand out, palm up, inside the ice. Nova could see a bright orange color on top. It looked like she was trying to form a fireball in her hand.

  “Come on, Leandra. Oh wait, Ahlon get over here and thaw this ice out too.” Nova dragged his arm and body over to the ice.

  “Form a fireball and release them.”

  Ahlon did not respond.

  “Ghost, form a fireball.”

  Ahlon’s body created a fireball and with the two of them creating heat eventually the ice was melted off. Ralf and Leandra were released from their bondage.

  They breathed easier and shivered violently.

  Nova led them over to the fireplace to warm up.

  “How are you two?” Nova said.

  “Cold, but all right.” Ralf sat on the hot stoop in front of the fireplace.

  “Freezing.” Leandra sat next to him. She talked with a slur so heavy Nova almost couldn’t make out what she said.

  Ralf pointed to himself. “Miss Nova and Mom, Melanie, very much.”

  Nova gave him a hug. “Well… worm… stopped… blood… you will live.” Leandra breathed hard and shivered.

  “Thanks, Leandra for helping,” Ralf said.

  Chapter 27 Home and Hosed

  It was over. Ahlon was gone, or may as well be gone.

  Leandra thawed out. After half and hour or so, the worm crawled back out of her father, leaving a tiny wound behind that would heal quickly. When they ventured outside, they found that Floret, one of the Seven Sages, ordered her people to catch Shade and that Captain Palherd was taking good care of Takeesha, Max Kim, and Benny. And she found her father.

  He gave Nova a tour around the fortress. Nova knew the Legislative Chambers, of course. Next, she was shown the Seven Sage council room, with a large table and chairs all around. Nova was shown a few VIP bedrooms with one for the Speaker and one for the Prime Minister, and a large kitchen with dining area. But other than that there was nothing else.

  Nova was treated to a four-course lunch with her dad, Leandra, Ahlon and The Seven Sages. –Benny, Max Kim, and Takeesha stayed with Captain Palherd. They served up a salad of fresh greens with homemade dressing, then venison and vegetable stew with chunks of bread and butter. Then they had an invisible fish casserole, which Nova found so delicious she couldn’t stop eating it. Nova was going to ask for more on her plate but decided to try the special desserts instead. If she still had room she was going to get more fish casserole, definitely. When she was done eating the chocolate truffles she skipped to get more of the fish dish, but it was all gone. The plate she was holding drooped and she frowned. “I hate when that happens.”

  Ralf came over and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

  “Do you know if my friends are doing all right?” she said.

  “If with Captain Palherd, then friends are in good hands. Trust with life. Want to show Nova something.”

  Nova started to follow Ralf out of the dining area and took a look at Leandra still seated at the table. She was in a heated conversation with her Neanderthal friends. She saw Nova and waved but didn’t bother to get up and follow along.

  Ralf took her to the Legislative Chamber. He showed her the pool of water he always watched her through. Nova grinned, realizing that he had been keeping an eye on her all of her life. “That’s so clash.”

  “Clash? What does that mean?”

  “It means ‘great’.”

  “Oh, Here, watch this.” Her father changed the picture to a new place in the viewing pool. Nova recognized the school library. He pointed at himself then and said, “Pulled Nova through library.”

  “Oh, so it wasn’t a ghost?”

  “No.” Her father shook his head. “Nova is Dad’s project to save Idealites and the Lower Echelon people. Only dated Mom to make Nova-a hybrid vigor. Nova is so powerful, even more than Neanderthal gods. Didn’t mean to fall in love with Mom and Nova.”

  Nova hugged him again.

  “Why did Ahlon have our socks on? How did he get them?”

  “Idealites are known to steal from the Lower Echelon people. Took my favorite fishing pole from Mom’s garage.”

  Then changed the location of the viewing pool again. “Look at this.”

  And there was Ned, dressed in a suit, going to a church office.

  “Ned was looking in a drawer for a butter knife to make a peanut butter sandwich when accidently cut finger, then Ahlon sent an evil sprite into Ned’s body to take control. After that, Ned did mischievous things—turning into a green hulk, having huge strength --and the worst part-- communication with Shade, but good thing Ned didn’t know or use it much. What Ahlon did opened Ned up for Ahlon to use to get to The Shade Riders.”

  Nova and her father spied on Ned for a while. He traveled from church office to church office dressed like an anthropologist trying to sell a skull he said was the only one in existence that would prove evolution. If the church bought it from him, they could destroy it, and no one would be the wiser. He received five thousand dollars each time. She and her father laughed at this.

  “I want to check on Shade, Dad. I think she needs some vetting.”

  “If anyone can do it, Nova can.”

  “Yeah, I watched and helped Mom so much. I’ll see you later.”

  Nova left the fortress, climbed down a long ladder, followed a dirt path and spent time with Shade, who was eating grass. Her horse nickered when she saw Nova. “Sorry, girl I don’t have anymore carrots. See?” Nova held out her hand. She stroked Shade’s nose and ruffled her mane. Nova gave her a hug around her neck and the horse seemed to give one right back by pressing her lower jaw up against Nova’s back. Nova checked her wing where she was hit, but it was already cleaned and bandaged. She wondered if Leandra did it.

  The army men who had been outside fighting had split up

  and had now gone their separate ways. Civilian Neanderthal people were picking up the dead and injured off the battlefield. Nova saw a rainbow portal nearby under another waterfall.

  She watched the various monsters and beasts come forth. A werewolf jumped out of the indigo color and showed its fangs and growled at her. Then it trotted back inside. A group of six fairies flying in the air and doing stunts came out of the infrared color, stuck their tongues out at Nova and flew back inside. Nova remembered that a sprite entered Ned’s body. She imagined how they would feel forced into a finger. She grimaced.

  A Kraken came out of the blue color and smashed the waves down with his huge fist, stared at Nova and then turned around and dove back inside. But She’d had enough and strolled back to Shade.

  Leandra came down the ladder and approached Nova. She petted Shade and looked at the wounds.

  “Looks like someone did a great job on healing her, Leandra.”

  “Yeah, I applied some herbs after the worms did their job.”

  “How did you even find me?”

  “Your watch was able to give me feedback of where you were located before it died. I’ll get you a new one, later. I’d like to stay in touch.”

  “Me too. Though, I wonder how my friends are. I hope they’re safe.”

  “Here, you can use my watch to call Takeesha on her Walkie Talkie and find out how everything is going.”

  Leandra showed Nova what buttons to push to talk into it.

  “Hello, Takeesha are you there? Over.”

  “Hi, Nova, we are on our way. How are you? Over.”

  “Leandra and I are doing really good. Ahlon’s body has been taken over by a ghost, so he’s not a problem anymore. Over.”

  “Clash! We will be at the government fortress in a couple of days. Captain Palherd and her army are keeping us company. Max Kim is entertaining with magic tricks. They love it. Weird, they can create fireballs, but he pulls a flower of their ear, and they can’t figure it out. Over.”

  “Sounds good. Can’t wait to see you all again. Over and out.”

  “See you then. Out.”

&nbs
p; That night, Nova was given a big fluffy bed to sleep in. And over the next couple of days, while they were waiting for the others, she spent as much time as she could with her father. They ate meals together, and he taught her how the society worked. The Seven Sages were going to have to have a consensus and decide who was going to take Ahlon’s Prime Ministers place. Nova was nominated but was too young. She also wanted to finish school. “Can I take a rain check?” Nova asked. The Seven Sages laughed.

  It was the third day and just starting to get dark outside. Nova was playing with Shade then thought about going to bed-- when suddenly she heard a noise in the forest. She turned to look. A huge crowd of rowdy Neanderthals came toward her. Nova began backing up into the forest. Then she saw Benny in his wheelchair clamped onto and driving the cart. Max Kim stood in front of the seat holding a long rope, which held the long poles in the front up. They zoomed by constantly pulling toward the left, forcing laughing Neanderthals to jump out of the way. Takeesha ran around, whooping and yelling.

  Nova ran out into the crowd and gave them hugs and high fives.

  “Hey Benny, to cancel out infrasound we need to use another obnoxious sound.”

  “I kind of thought as much,” Benny said.

  Ralf, Leandra, the Seven Sages, other Idealites and Ahlon-- who curtsied in a rather awkward way-- came out to see everyone.

  “Let Idealites and friends have a hero’s homecoming welcome and a huge feast,” Ralf said. “Cooks, another round for everyone.”

  People cheered.

  After the feast and a good night’s rest in the VIP bedrooms, it was announced that Captain Palherd would show The Shade Riders how to travel in the time/space continuum. Part of Nova didn’t want to leave her father, but another part couldn’t wait to finally go home, especially when she learned they would arrive at the same time they left.

  When they started to pack up, a group of about fifty Neanderthals came over and grabbed Max Kim and said, “Nova, Benny, and Takeesha can go. Max Kim will stay because like magic tricks.” The rest of the group of Neanderthals nodded in agreement.

  “No… He must come with us…” Nova said. Captain Palherd put a hand on Nova’s shoulder to calm her and said: “This man doesn’t belong here. Can visit to do tricks.”

  “No! Max Kim will stay.” They pulled out spears.

  Max Kim tried to get to the Shade Riders, but the fifty men and women caught him and took him back. Nova couldn’t hear what a Neanderthal with long light brown hair said to Max Kim, but he stopped trying to come over. Max Kim’s eyes showed fear.

  “A doppelganger would work just as well,” Captain Palherd said.

  The group of Neanderthals murmured among themselves, then said they would use a doppelganger and have Max Kim visit every once and a while.

  Captain Palherd strutted to a rainbow portal in a nearby waterfall and pulled something only vaguely human out of the color yellow. Max Kim and the being stroll into a VIP bedroom and closed the door.

  When Max Kim appeared half an hour later, he said, “Okay I’m done. I hope they’re happy.” Another Max Kim strolled out of the room and started doing magic tricks for the group of Neanderthals. The men and women sang and clapped their hands.

  “Max Kim,” Benny said, “is that… you?”

  “As near as I can tell, it’s like a three-dimensional Youtube video of me. I just taught it a couple of tricks to keep them busy.”

  Nova hugged her dad, The Seven Sages, and even Captain Palherd. The other Shade Riders taught a few Idealites how to high five. The Neanderthal people looked confused then smiled at the concept. They stood around the cart and Shade, who was still a filly. And Captain Palherd waved her hands around doing the sign for the space-time continuum. She stretched out her arm, like she was measured the sun with her hand. Then did a circle with her arms.

  An iridescent whirlwind full of fractals engulfed them causing their hair to blow around in the turmoil. The wind moved faster increasing speed until they couldn’t see anything but each other.

  The wind eventually died down, and Nova could see where they were. They were back at Leandra’s house.

  Nova just saw the tail end of the cart pulling through the rainbow and disappearing when the rainbow vanished in a flash of green light. Nova and Max Kim took Shade up the path making her big again. They put on the harness and attached the cart and took off into the sky. When they got her in the air, they circled the invisible house and waved to Leandra, who waved back.

  “I’ll see you, sprogs later. We’re home and hosed.” She entered her invisible house and disappeared.

  Nova flew to each of her friends houses to drop them off.

  “That was a clash trip! Thanks, Nova,” Benny said unclamping his chair, replacing it with the old one, and wheeling into the garage at his house. At Takeesha’s house, she gave Nova a hug. At Max Kim’s house, he gave her a high five. She took Shade back to the farm where she removed the cart and gear, then let her horse go into the dark pasture with the other horses. Nova put the cart back under the tarp in the garage.

  The next week Benny found that a tiger sound canceled out the infrasound that animated the ghosts nicely. The ghosts that had roamed the halls simply vanished.

  After being back a month or so, the Shade Rider kids approached Ms. Chilldress after the English class.

  “Ms. Chilldress,” Nova said, “we exorcized the ghosts from the school. Now you can teach science and the ghosts won’t bother you or the students.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Ms. Chilldress nodded and strode over to her laboratory. She grabbed a contraption out of her science closet and plunked it down on the table. This machine had a twelve-inch diameter glass wheel on top with a five-inch diameter glass wheel on the bottom. The top wheel had a crank on it on the right side, and there were two metal spheres about three inches apart on short poles on the opposite side. The whole thing was the size of a bread box.

  “This is called a Wimshurst machine. When I turn the crank, the wheels turn in opposite directions, and the metal carriers hold the charges, which are then transferred to the spheres. Watch. This should theoretically attract the ghosts back.”

  She turned the crank for what seemed like fifteen minutes. The machines whirred and hummed, and nothing happened. Then suddenly, what looked like a bolt of lightning ran from one sphere to the other. It sizzled, crackled and popped.

  “I’m creating a static electric charge.” She said. They waited, looking all around the room. Nova ran to the doorway and looked out into the hallway. Nothing. All was as it should be. The ghosts didn’t come back and harass her. “Well, I can’t believe it. After all this time, I can actually do science.”

  “Yes, you can.” Takeesha was wearing her African patterned outfit.

  “This is simply marvelous.” Ms. Chilldress started to dance around. “I’m going to ask for my old job back.” The Shade Rider Kids grinned, and Takeesha and Max Kim left the room. But Benny cornered Nova behind the classroom door.

  “I have one final test for you to pass or fail.”

  “What is it?” Nova said biting her lip.

  “I want you to read my mind and tell me what I’m thinking.”

  Nova stared into Benny’s eyes, and Benny stared back.

  A long moment later, Nova said, “You wish you could get out of that chair and ride on Shade, when she has wings, in the night sky.”

  Benny’s face crinkled up, and he wiped away a tear. “You pass.”

  Nova hugged him as his shoulders shook from crying. After he had stopped, he took a deep breath and showed Nova a newspaper.”Look at this.”

  On page sixteen, there was a story about Nocturnal Ned getting arrested for being a con man in the psychic business. P.I. Leandra Contrast found him beat up and homeless, living in a van. He surrendered without a struggle.

  Nova had to laugh. They strolled to class when the bell rang.

  Later Nova found out Ms. Chilldress talked to the Principal, and she was reinstate
d in a science class where she could teach whatever science she thought would benefit an eleven-year-old.

  When Nova rode home on her bike that day after school, she realized maybe she could use Wilha’s fairy dust to get a good night sleep. That night before bed, Nova pulled out the fairy dust from the dresser drawer and sprinkled some on her sister’s side of the bed. From that night forward Nova was able to get pleasant sleep in her shared bed with Wilha. And someday—someday soon—she would go back and visit her father again.

  About the Author

  Bxerk is married and has a son in middle school. This writer loves living in the country, in southern, Wisconsin, where horses, dogs, cats, rabbits and also plants can roam.

  If you want to see some art work go to www.Bxerk.net