The Riser Saga

by Becca C. Smith

  Okay.

  Calmer now.

  Breathe.

  So what if it’s dark?

  So what if I’m miles underground?

  Panic. Panic.

  Breathe.

  Start with dark.

  Darkness is okay.

  Oxygen flowing.

  Gross slop food aplenty.

  Calm.

  Good.

  Okay, now think.

  Elisha is keeping me here for a while (at least she hopes so). Until I let her into the memory of my father’s death. Not going to happen. Okay. So. Escape.

  I closed my eyes.

  Now, first things first. I’ve defeated whatever this anti-matter compound was before, just in smaller doses. Good. So I needed to tap into the same jolt I felt when I broke through Turner’s corpses. It was hard to figure out the exact reason I moved past the barrier, I really didn’t even know what I was doing. Ever since I did it the first time, my brain seemed to remember the sensation of slamming through a wall, and I’ve been able to do it ever since. But why? Or more importantly, how?

  I tried recreating the sensation I’d feel when I’d broken through the corpse’s protective barrier.

  …Something…

  A thrill of excitement coursed through me. I definitely felt something. Of course, my excitement completely threw me out of concentration mode, but it gave me hope. And that’s what I needed at the moment.

  I tried a second time.

  SLAM!

  “Not going to happen, little one,” Elisha said in the darkness.

  Great.

  I had lost consciousness again.

  I was in my head.

  In the other darkness.

  Colors swirled around me like mixing taffy until I was standing in a grass field on a sunny day. Elisha stood in front of me, her expression only slightly amused. The sunlight, fake as it might be, hurt my eyes from the suddenness of the exposure. I was amazed I wasn’t completely insane from the constant visits from Elisha and Roberta, mixed in with… I don’t know…

  …BEING BURIED ALIVE!

  I’d say I was doing pretty well as far as the sanity department went. I just wished Elisha was really in front of me so I could strangle her.

  “Get out!” I screamed, trying to repeat my previous performance of kicking Elisha out of my brain.

  Elisha crossed her arms. “You caught me off guard before, but I won’t be pushed out a second time. I’ve been using astral projection for fifty years, what have you got? Two months? You can’t stop me, Chelsan, so just let me see the memory.”

  “She can’t stop you, but I can.” Roberta suddenly appeared behind Elisha.

  Elisha’s face went from triumphant smirk to real fear in about a millisecond. She tried to leap away from Roberta, but Roberta grabbed Elisha’s seven-year-old neck from behind and held her up like a mamma cat holds her young.

  “You’ll be leaving us now,” Roberta’s voice was fierce and commanding, and I was extremely relieved she wasn’t talking to me this time.

  Elisha’s violet eyes went wide as Grams squeezed her neck so hard that she literally popped Elisha’s head off like a dandelion.

  Elisha’s body disappeared entirely and Roberta and I were plunged into darkness.

  “Hang on,” Roberta said calmly. Almost instantly we were back in the oak forest. “Better?”

  “Better,” I said, still reeling at what just happened. “Is she…”

  “Dead?” Grams finished my thought and I nodded. “No, I’m afraid not, just booted.”

  Roberta was in her younger form, which I was growing used to. I never wanted to see her again in person since her feline form was so terrifying. It was almost as if the woman standing before me was an entirely different person from the killer I knew. I could almost pretend… almost.

  “I’ll get you out, I promise.” Roberta tried to comfort me.

  “I was close to breaking through the metal, wasn’t I? That’s why she rendered me unconscious.” I mused out loud, my brain back on escaping.

  Roberta smiled and sat down on the ground, motioning me to sit as well. “You might as well make yourself comfortable. She really did a number on your brain. You won’t wake up for hours.”

  I sat down across from Roberta and decided to enjoy the feeling of being outdoors in my favorite forest. I was fully aware it wasn’t real, but it felt real, and that was all that mattered at the moment. “I could almost sense something…”

  “Oh yes. The next time you regain consciousness you will be able to work your powers.” Roberta’s eyes were actually glowing with… pride? “You almost had it, just a few more minutes and nothing would have been able to stop you. Very good.”

  I kind of half-smiled back, still unsure how nice I wanted to be to Roberta. “And as soon as I came close, Elisha felt like she needed to jump in. That tells me there’s something in my powers I can use to escape. Maybe she buried me in the graveyard?” I was thinking out loud, more for myself than for any kind of pow wow with Grams, but she did just kick Elisha’s ass, so maybe hearing her opinion might be a good thing.

  Roberta nodded. “Maybe. Or maybe something else. Hold on, I’m telling Geoffrey and your friends now that you may be in the graveyard and to use the tracking surveyors to search there first.”

  My heart leapt and squeezed at the same time. Friends: yay! Working with Turner: terror. “He didn’t kill Jill, did he?” I didn’t want to ask it, but I had to.

  Roberta looked at me like I was insane. “Of course not. They figured out your little message and contacted us. We have a temporary truce until we can recover you safely.”

  “Don’t look at me like I’m crazy for asking. You said you were going to kill her, and you didn’t seem all that apt to changing your mind about it.” Then I leaned forward with as much threat and menace as I could muster. “If you lay one hand on any of my friends, I swear I will take you down or die trying.”

  Roberta groaned as if dealing with an annoying fly. “Yes, yes. Threaten away. Are you quite done?”

  I didn’t know how to answer that because I just couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that I was playing with evil. “Yeah, I guess,” I said. Oooo, very menacing. Then I smelled something horrible. “What’s that smell?”

  I awoke to the horrendous smell of ammonia.

  Guess Elisha didn’t want me talking to Grams.

  I stuck my nose up to the oxygen release valve, trying to clear my nostrils of the awful smell. I quickly realized that Elisha was pumping the ammonia smell through the same tube so I ended up with an extra dose of it, making me queasy beyond words.

  Maybe this was my chance. While Elisha was off guard. I needed to see if I could use my powers and get out of there!

  I took a deep disgusting breath and tried to see past the metal walls of my coffin.

  Nothing.

  Really?

  I tried again, recreating the feeling I had before.

  Nothing. Not even a something.

  I guess Roberta’s faith in me was seriously misplaced. It took me a moment to realize that disappointing her actually upset me. I grunted in frustration which then turned into a full-out scream.

  I was seriously going crazy.

  I had no concept of time or space or anything. The ammonia smell had at least dissipated which cleared my head a little, but my brain felt like it was about to explode.

  “I’m sending food down. This time I expect you to eat it,” Elisha’s voice was coming out of some kind of speaker.

  And as evil as the girl was, and being fully aware of the fact that Elisha was the one who put me down here, just having a voice say anything was a small comfort.

  This time I could hear the slop making its way down the long tube. As gross as it was, I cupped my hands and tried to catch as much of the food as I could. I was starving and even crappy food was something. The chunky mixture plunked into my hands and I almost gagged from the sensation. I never thought I’d prefer Brady’s intravenous fee
ding method: it was far less smelly and messy. I ate everything I caught in my hands and tried not to throw it all back up. It was beyond disgusting. I had no idea what the chunks were made of and I really didn’t want to. It stopped my stomach from growling and that was enough for me.

  “Sooner or later, your grandmother won’t be there to protect you and you’re going to have to let me into your memories again,” Elisha’s voice sounded like she was scolding a misbehaved dog. “You can’t escape. Only I can let you out,” she said it with such confidence, I almost lost hope. “Even if you could get past the metal barrier to use your powers, there’s nothing dead around you for ten miles. I made sure of that.”

  A dead zone.

  That was something.

  Something I could tell Roberta and my friends to help find me.

  But also…

  Lame.

  There were probably thousands of dead zones all over the world. Elisha could have me buried anywhere!

  Maybe, like Turner, Elisha forgot about dead plants, or trees. I could make dead tree roots lift me straight to the surface. I needed to ignore her and just focus on breaking through the barrier first. Then I’d figure out what to do.

  Or truthfully what I could do. If I could do anything at all.

  “No dead roots or anything like that either,” Elisha said with what I could imagine was a smirk. “I may not be able to get inside your head at the moment, but I know how you think. And I want you to know that you have nothing to connect to.”

  Of course she knew about me being able to connect to dead plants and roots. Not only was she on a Chelsan-brain-jamboree for the last couple of days, but Elisha knew more about my powers than I did, from the prison break and boiling that corpse’s blood, to making me connect to the teeniest, tiniest dead particle that released us from the giant electromagnet.

  I had been so distracted by everything that had been happening that I forgot about the magnet. Elisha had said I reversed the polarity. Whatever that meant. Roberta said my power was a combination of science and black magic.

  Did that mean I was connecting to atoms?

  And did that mean they were dead?

  I didn’t know enough about science to know if that was even possible, but my gut told me it was something like that. Something Ryan would know. My eyes welled up with frustration. Ryan was living his worst nightmare and everything I thought of was completely a guess. I was so helpless.

  “Why are you holding onto this memory so tightly?” she asked. I’m not taking your power away from you, I just want the spell to have the power myself. Did you ever wonder why your grandparents don’t want me to see it? It’s not to protect you: it’s to stop me. They don’t care about you Chelsan: they’re just protecting their own power and interests. The sooner you accept that the better.” Elisha’s voice was as genuine as she was capable of.

  A part of her argument made sense. Why was I keeping this memory from her? What did I care if Elisha had my powers? Like she said, I wouldn’t be losing my own powers, (though sometimes I wished I could get rid of them and live a normal life) I just wanted out of here! It would be so simple. Just let Elisha in and let her see that memory, then she’d let me go and I could be free.

  What was I saying? There was no guarantee that she’d let me go. Why would she? She could find out the spell and leave me here to die.

  Stop the oxygen.

  Stop the feeding tubes.

  I started hyperventilating again.

  Breathe.

  I screamed in the darkness.

  The only sound: a hissing from the oxygen tank.

  Elisha was a nut job. And nut jobs with powers equaled dangerous. Look at my grandparents. Elisha can’t have my memory. It would mean I’d die, of that I was certain.

  I wasn’t ready to die just yet.

  “Um… No,” I said out loud. I wasn’t sure if Elisha could even hear me, so I felt stupid talking to a speaker.

  “I see,” she said.

  Okay. She definitely could hear me. Good to know.

  “You can’t hurt me,” I said with a confidence I wasn’t feeling.

  “Well, let’s see how you like it without any oxygen,” Elisha said with resignation.

  The hissing stopped.

  “You can’t kill me! You’ll never get the memory!” I screamed desperately.

  “I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to break you.” She paused letting that little gem sink in. “You’ll do your part. Eventually everyone does what I tell them, even if they don’t realize it,” Elisha’s voice echoed in the darkness.

  The air was thin.

  I started to gasp.

  Running out…

  No.

  I probably had hours of time left. I was just freaking out.

  I tried to breathe.

  I tried to calm down.

  But the more I thought about calming down, the faster my heart raced.

  She can’t win.

  My breathing was short.

  I couldn’t get enough air.

  In the blackness…

  I couldn’t tell if I was seeing a swirling black hole forming in my chest. Was I dying? Elisha said she wasn’t going to kill me. Maybe she didn’t know that the lack of air this far down would kill me? Maybe there was some sort of carbon monoxide air pocket in the earth and I was being poisoned? Maybe…

  My brain couldn’t stop racing around in circles.

  Breathe.

  Can’t.

  “The air is back on, in case you’re wondering.” Young Roberta was sitting across from me in the oak forest.

  I was lying on the ground staring up at the low winding branches and the thousands of multi-pointed leaves above me. Even though I knew it was impossible, I actually felt groggy. I slowly sat up and faced my grandmother.

  “I’m exhausted,” I admitted. “And I’m starving.” My stomach was growling like crazy, even through my unconsciousness I could feel it. I groaned. “How can I be hungry? I just ate a ton of that slop crap.”

  “That was two days ago,” Roberta told me cautiously.

  I was alert now. “Two days?!”

  Roberta took a deep exaggerated breath. “Breathe.”

  I followed her advice and it made me feel a little better.

  “Your body and mind must have needed the rest. I’ve been keeping a protective barrier around you so Elisha couldn’t get her grubby paws in here.”

  I started to cry. It was too much. Knowing I was underground in a steel box and now sitting across from Roberta, a woman I loathed, but at the same time I didn’t. Seeing Roberta’s feelings for me grow was too conflicting. Too overwhelming.

  Roberta leaned forward and wrapped her arms around me.

  I wanted to scream. To push her away. To kick her. To hit her.

  But I just let her hold me. The hardest part about it was the fact that I knew she meant it. There wasn’t any manipulation or ulterior motive. My grandmother was holding me because I was in pain and she wanted to help.

  No. No. No.

  I pulled away. “I can’t. Not with you,” I said as I wiped away tears.

  Roberta nodded, but there were tears in her eyes as well. “I understand, of course.”

  “I wasn’t able to break through the barrier.”

  I needed to change the subject. I needed to calm down. I was also afraid of the disappointment I was sure to see in Roberta’s eyes at my failure. I kicked myself for even caring, but it was instinctual, no matter how hard I pretended it wasn’t.

  To my surprise she didn’t look disappointed at all. She simply raised her eyebrow in thought. “You’re trying too hard. I need to help you relax… and I also need to teach you how to keep people out of your head, including me.” She smiled at that end part.

  “That sounds good.” I smiled back. It was a start, and it was neutral. I needed to learn how to stop everyone from brain-knapping me.

  “Now, one thing I’ve learned about you is that when your back is up against the wall,
you tend to make your powers do what you want. We need you to accomplish that all on your own, without being threatened,” Roberta said.

  She was right, though I didn’t know why exactly. It seemed like I could do some pretty crazy things when I was running on instinct. Sure, I had always thought about learning how to control my power and the things I knew I was capable of, but I never seemed to have enough time to do it.

  Apparently being buried alive was just the kind of time I needed. Ha, ha.

  “If you break it down, it’s all about thought. As strange as this may sound, you have to use your imagination for this to work. You have to physically see yourself building a wall around your brain. It can be that easy. That’s what you’re doing when you’re tapping into your power. You’re seeing what you want to happen and your power does the rest. I have to rely on spells and black magic to control the dead, but the astral projection I can do without them. Anyone can do it if they know how.” Roberta sounded like Mr. Alaster giving one of his lectures, but this time I was all ears. “Geoffrey opened your mind to astral projection when he visited you after the Brady incident.”

  “The Brady incident?” Roberta’s casual reference to one of the most traumatic moments of my life brought me straight back to my anger towards my grandparents. “I wouldn’t call hiring a serial killer to murder me an incident. And it was my mother who introduced me to the astral thingy, thank you very much, just before you had your men exterminate her!” I was fuming.

  “Calm down,” Roberta scolded. “Things are different now. We wouldn’t send you to… well… to someone like Brady, again. And, I’m pleased to hear your mother taught you some things before she passed. It made you stronger.”

  “I’m completely reassured.” I hoped I said that with as much sarcasm as I felt. “And never talk about my mother again.”

  “My point being that once Geoffrey or your mother entered into your mind, your natural instinct was to do it yourself. The very next night after Geoffrey visited you, you traveled into my memories. Let me tell you: no one has ever been able to do that. Elisha is the most powerful astral projectionist I’ve ever know and she’s never been able to break down my defenses.” Roberta actually smiled at me as if she was proud. “But you, a complete novice, jumped right past my barriers and straight into my memories.”