by Marie Hall
Hunter's lips thinned. "Fine. I won't. Now come." He moved his hand in an arcing motion and a ripple of blue opened up—a swirling vortex of colors and shifting patterns of light. Dizzy, she stared at his face. He wore a satisfied grin.
"C'mon." He pulled her through.
She yelped, but didn't have a choice other than to follow. The only way to describe it was free falling while simultaneously feeling like every atom in your body was being ripped apart by the unbelievable pressure. One second she felt stretched to the size of a mile long noodle, the next like she’d been squashed into a golf ball. And just as she thought she could take no more, they were stepping through.
She gagged, huffing and panting. Bent over and dry heaving, desperate to shake off the sensation of being whipped through space and time at dizzying speeds; slowly she felt her reality and sanity return. She cracked open an eye, shocked to discover she was still in one piece. She patted herself.
“You’re all there. No worries.” There was humor in his voice and she had to fight the overwhelming urge to punch him.
“I do not ever want to do that again.” She spit, her stomach still queasy.
“It gets easier. You’ll get used to it.”
“Ugh, yeah. Don’t think so.”
He grinned, the type of smile that said clearly: you just wait and see.
She huffed and turned her back to him, walking away. But each step made her more and more confused because everything was familiar and yet nothing was the same. She stopped, turning in circles. The land, the flat grass she’d seen it all before. But there wasn’t a building. No chaos of bodies and charred remains from a supposedly large tremor.
There weren’t even any exposed beams or siding. A large, deep crevice where Fairfield should have been was the only thing that lent any sort of credibility to his story.
In fact, strange to say, but the place was oddly peaceful. A brook—gurgling and chirping with life—trickled merrily by a few yards off from where she stood. Jays and robins glided gracefully past.
It looked like someone had made anything man made...vanish.
“So do you believe now?” he asked from right behind her.
She turned on him. “What is this? Where have you brought me?”
He circled around her back, standing next to her and spread his arm. “This is Fairfield, about a week from when I took you.”
“Wait.” She held up her hand. That was impossible. Right? Right. Impossible But her mind was too messed up to really comprehend what she was seeing. Because, while it looked real, she’d cracked before. “Oh my god,” she breathed. “They gave me too much. I’m still strapped to that gurney. None of this is real.”
Her hands shook as primal liquid fear flooded her insides, made her knees weak. Disassociation, that’s what her doctor had called it. Squeezing her eyes shut she willed her mind to wake up, to stop this now.
“Sable,” Hunter growled, “you weren’t this obstinate before.”
“No!” She took two steps back. “You shut up. This isn’t real. And neither are you. I will not lose it.” She clenched her fists. She’d always feared this day would come. The day her mind would completely breakaway from reality. The day she really did go crazy. “Wake up, Sable. Wake up.”
“What do I have to do to convince you that I am who I say I am and this is really real?” And just as he finished saying it, she saw something in his eyes click into place. He bit his lip and she knew that whatever he’d just thought of, she wasn’t going to like it.
She squeezed her fists over her ears, drowning him out with her repetitious chant, “wakeupwakeupwakeup!”
Strong hands grabbed her, forcing her to look into a calm glacial stare. He wrapped her up and she was once again hurtling through time at a dizzying speed. The lights. The movement. It confused her mind. Scrambled her wiring and made her body forget to do its most basic thing. Breathe. Then they were out and she was hunched over and gagging, sucking in air like a woman starved.
It took two seconds to realize where they were at. The view from this side was strange and she couldn’t speak. For years all she’d ever dreamed about was this. It didn’t matter that rain pelted her face, that lightning struck dangerously close to where they stood, or that she could smell the sulfur reek of it in the air.
She was outside staring in.
Fairfield was a gray and morose structure standing boxy and imposing on the top of the hill before them. He stepped to the side of her. She swallowed the lump in her throat.
“What is this, Hunter?”
“If words fail to convince, then maybe seeing really is believing.”
She would have asked him to explain but then the ground rumbled. Her eyes grew and she jumped back. It was like someone had breathed life into the Earth. Deep fissures started to skate across dirt as the land separated from itself. Glass shattered and then the screaming started.
Hunter grabbed her, and she didn’t fight him. They were back in his tunnel, her hands clamped tight to his skull, desperate that he not let her go. When next she blinked they were back where they’d started, but things were completely different this time.
The rain hadn’t stopped, and Fairfield was a ruined heap. There were electrical sparks shooting up into the darkened sky. Exposed beams stuck out of the rubble like cracked ribs. There was not a moan, or a breath of sound.
He grabbed her hand, heading up the hill.
Balking and stuttering, she shook her head. “I… I… What did you do? I don’t want to go up there.”
Hunter yanked her hand harder. “You have to. Unless you look there will always be doubt.”
In the distance and very faint, she heard the first peal of a police siren. Help was on its way.
Walking in a daze, she watched as Hunter stepped over stones, his brows were set and he seemed focused on showing her something. This wasn’t real.
The stench in the air of metallic blood and the wafting odor of ozone had to be hallucinations. The moans and cries couldn’t be real. It just couldn’t.
She stared, disbelieving her surroundings. This had been her home, her prison for years. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Dust floated like volcanic ash, covering everything. She hacked as some of it flew up her nose, settled into her lungs.
Numbness spread through her limbs, her feet were moving, but it was almost like she couldn’t feel herself walking. She was floating, like a soul that’d just been tossed from its body. A ghost who didn’t yet know they were no longer alive.
But every time she coughed or sneezed, she knew she hadn’t died. Her senses were too sharp, too crisp for this to be imagined. She’d never be able to conjure up this type of carnage on her own.
To envision broken and mangled bodies strewn throughout the floors and lying like broken dolls atop heaps of rubble. It helped to think of them as the dolls they resembled because she recognized too many faces.
There was the black girl who’d shoved her from behind. Her body ripped in half, her face crushed beneath the weight of several cinder blocks.
An ache spread from her lungs, and up her throat. Because anywhere she looked she knew them.
The Latin nurse was behind beneath a table, a small body crushed in his arms.
She swallowed hard, damning the heat gathering at the corners of her eyes. None of them had been her friends, and yet… it still hurt.
“Look.” He stopped and pointed.
She squeezed her eyes shut, wanting to tune it all out. Sable had seen enough to last ten lifetimes, she didn’t need to see more. “No.”
“You wanted proof that I wasn’t lying,” he growled, “then look!”
He grabbed her chin and forced her face down. Her eyes fluttered open instinctively and she went still.
It was her nemesis, the fat bastard. His massive face was contorted, frozen permanently in death. The skin around his mouth was gray white, but the rest of him was a sick purplish red. It seemed like all the blood had pooled up to his chest and fac
e from his lower half. It probably had. An entire section of wall had crushed him from the waist down. But the thing she noticed was that he hadn’t changed his shirt, the crimson bloom was still on his collar.
Why hadn’t he changed his shirt? She frowned, realizing that maybe this was what shock felt like, because who cared that he hadn’t changed his shirt. She scratched her jaw.
The sirens were growing louder; she knew they were coming up the hill now. Tires squealed as the cars parked. Chaos moved below. People were yelling, feet were running.
They were seconds from being caught. But she couldn’t move.
Hunter’s hand was gentle when he grasped hers and yanked her away as the first fireman turned the corner. She was spiraling through the tunnel again, but this time it was a much shorter trip. It made her sick, but there were no words left in her, when they stepped out they were on the sidewalk in town.
He led her into an electronics store. She didn’t fight him.
“This is the news report from the next day,” he leaned in and whispered as he led her to a small T.V. in the corner of the store.
“Many lives were lost,” the man’s voice was professional, cool, “one of those being the daughter of the Senator, Marsha Ray.”
A large picture of Sable flashed on the screen. She flinched. She had no idea when the picture had been taken, but she remembered the day like it had been yesterday. It was one of the few days in Fairfield she could think of fondly. There’d been an ice cream social. Her hair was shorter than it was now, and gathered in two pigtails at her side. She’d turned 12 and had pretended the party had been hers. She’d eaten three bowls of mint chocolate chip and gotten totally sick from it that night.
“Sable Ray was 17 years old,” the man with the Ken Barbie doll haircut said. The scene cut away to a picture of her mother standing on the state capital looking calm and composed as always. She held a white Kleenex to her nose.
There were more wrinkles around her eyes and mouth than Sable remembered, but she was as flawless and beautiful as ever. Her brown hair was swept back in a chignon and the startling gray of her eyes—so similar to her own—were wide and clear.
“My family and I thank you all for your well wishes,” her voice broke and she dabbed at her nose. “Sable was a beautiful girl.” She touched the lapel of her pink jacket. A large button with her face, age 6, smiled back into the camera. “With a beautiful heart.”
She did the ugly cry thing again. Eyes scrunched and voice cracking. Sable shook her head. She knew there were so many things she should say. Questions tumbled in her mind like marbles. But the only thing she could think to utter was, “I’ve never seen anyone try harder to work up a tear.”
Hunter clamped his hand onto her shoulder. She tuned out the rest of the report and looked at him. “I hated that picture she wore.” She glanced down at the gray rug.
“I’m sorry I had to do this. It was the only way I could think...”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to stay here anymore.”
There was so much she needed to say. So much she didn’t understand. Like why he’d taken her from Fairfield to begin with. He’d said it was to save her, but then why did he kill her? And if killing her was the reason, then why bring her back?
But there was too much, and her brain couldn’t seem to latch onto any one question for long enough to ask it.
His hand took hers, the grip reassuring and conveying that he understood without her having to say a word. “There’s a lot to learn, Sable, and not much time to do it in.”
“Where are we going?”
“To where it all ended. Where you died.”
Chapter 7: The phoenix rises
250 years into the future
The land was black. Desolate and wasted. The soil was packed, hard, and void of life. Whatever grass there was, was brown or sizzled. The air stank of brimstone, that awful noxious odor of rotten eggs and char. There were no building. No trees. No life.
Even though Hunter had seen it happen, it never got easier. They’d screwed it all up. He blinked, trying to clear the stinging burn behind his eyes and couldn’t help but wonder if they were doomed to repeat the past.
“Where are we?” Sable asked, kneeling on the ground and letting the dirt sift through her fingers like the fine grains of sand in an hourglass.
“I think the better question is, when are we?” He stood tall, a sentinel in the wasteland of a world that’d once teemed with life and a magic that defied science. He looked down at her. Her face was smudged, the scrubs she wore looked worn and faded. “This is Earth, two hundred and fifty years from your time.”
A low rumble was the only warning they got when a large fissure cracked through the earth like a break in thin ice. Sable jumped back, barely escaping the large hole that appeared where she’d been kneeling seconds ago. Dark fumes sprayed out. She coughed and covered her nose, her eyes instantly teared up.
“How come you’re not dying like me?” she wheezed, snot running freely out her nose.
“I guess I’m used to it now.”
Her lungs rattled. “Well I’m not. Get me out of here.”
“Yeah,” he nodded, “let’s go.”
***
Present Day
Moments later—she was getting better at porting, this time she’d only suffered a minor moment of pulse pounding, mind welling terror, before she sucked in three drag fulls of hyacinth scented air.
Wiping her still snotty nose on her sleeve, she looked around. The land sparked with the most vibrant hues of the rainbow. The reds shimmered like flame with threads of gold. The blues were the deepest parts of the ocean. And the leaves on the trees, a green sprinkled with emerald dust.
She shaded her eyes, unused to colors that seared into her retinas. Oddest part was the land was in the ephemeral period between sunset and dusk. It shouldn’t be so bright.
Lightning bugs were beginning to come out of hiding, weaving and bobbing between large petaled tulips. A squirrel did its curling scamper up a poplar tree.
And that was weird that she knew what kind of tree it was. She was not a horticulturalist, or whatever the heck they called themselves. But it was like something inside her just...knew.
The place was verdant and lush. Full of what appeared to be hundreds of trees, stretching out for miles in every direction. It was so peaceful. So inviting.
It made it easy to forget what she’d seen earlier. She had to forget, had to compartmentalize it away, because if she didn’t, she’d go mad. She never wanted to remember fat bastard or Fairfield Inn again.
“Is this someone’s garden?” she asked, unable to conceal her wonder. She’d seen a picture book once of Alice in Wonderland walking through the flower garden. This reminded her of that.
She turned in a small circle, absorbing what she was seeing. A large tree, several yards off in the distance caught her eye. It was large, larger than any other tree out here. But that wasn’t what snared her and made her unable to look away.
It was the leaves, all in differing shades of red and gold. The bark gleamed like bronze out of fire. It was a hanging oak, but she’d never seen anything quite like it. The branches drooped, looking like long fingers the way it stretched toward the ground. She found herself drawn to it like a lover to its mate. She wanted to touch it, trail her hand down its rough bark and wrap herself up in the blanket of leaves.
“This is your home, Sable.”
She had to admit, his words made her feel an immediate thrill of mine, like it was right and meant to be. It did feel like coming home. But how? She’d never been here before. Or had she?
“I don’t understand.” She looked at him. He had his hands in his pockets, a habit of his she’d noticed.
Hunter jerked his head toward her tree. And yes, she’d already laid claim to it. “That’s a fire oak.”
“Fire oak?” she tasted the name and then frowned.
“It is part of you. Part of the phoenix essence. Your soul and
that of the trees is connected. It’s where you came when you were near death. It healed you, restored your balance.”
She hadn’t been aware she was walking toward the tree until she was within a few yards of it. It was hard to explain the inexplicable pull she felt to touch it. Like she and the tree were bound by an invisible tether that grew tighter and shorter, dragging her in.
Then she was there and she sighed not only with longing, but profound relief. She wrapped her arms around its thick trunk and pressed her cheek to the bark. The branches swayed, the leaves trailed along her skin like the warm press of lips.
Years of pain, years of neglect and abuse slowly leeched out of her. The memories were still there and just as vivid, but not quite so painful anymore.
The air was crisp, smelling of sappy resin and pine. The sweetness of fruit drifted lazily to her on a gentle breeze.
The fear and pain of killing her nanny dulled down to a quiet whisper. The hurt of having parents who didn’t care. The humiliation of being told repeatedly she was crazy, of having leeching, groping paws touching her and making her feel like she was nothing. A gentle flicker, like a soft lilting hum, infused her limbs.
“From now on, if you’re ever in danger or in pain fly back here. I’ve shown you where it’s at and you carry within you the instinct of your phoenix. She’ll always know how to find her way back. Follow the ley lines; you’ll be able to move between realms that way.”
She looked around. “But where is here and what in the world are ley lines? And did you just say realms?”
His smile was indulgent as he said, “Ley lines are invisible threads of energy that bisect our atmosphere, sort of like a giant tic tac toe. The lines are the bridge between our lands and that of the humans.”
“Our lands and humans. What?” She scrunched her nose. “You’re really making me feel stupid here. I don’t like that.”
He grinned, rubbing the back of his neck. “Here’s where this conversation gets mind numbing and scientific, so sorry if I confuse you in advance.”
She nodded with a quizzical frown.
