by LE Barbant
Dr. Branton,
Please schedule a meeting with me within the week.
Thank you,
Dr. Stamford
Shit.
Elijah had worked as an adjunct professor for the better part of a decade. He had gotten a dozen of messages just like the one open on his screen, and the feeling in his stomach confirmed what he already knew.
They were going to cut his spring class.
He sighed while hitting reply.
Maybe this isn’t such a bad thing.
While the semester felt like his early days in front of the blackboard, it also added a stress to his life that he couldn’t currently handle. The accident had changed him in more ways than one. Maybe it also marked career change.
He thought about Julie and Bekah, the ways in which he saw them transform over the course of the last year. Even with their stodgy presentations, they had undeniably grown as scholars, and Elijah hoped that he had something to do with it. He couldn’t remember the last time he could say that about one of his students.
Deleting his reply email, he shut down the computer.
The chair could wait a few more days to give him the bad news.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Warm rays descend on her smooth skin from a perfectly blue, cloudless sky.
A woman in the distance raises her hand in a wave. Her gentle laughter dances in the air. She knows the woman well. It is her mother, young and beautiful.
Running toward her mother, she laughs too, free from care, from pain.
The notes of their joy mingle in wordless harmony, a perfect song.
The sound of peace.
But the more she runs, the farther away her mother appears. She pushes harder, pumping her arms and legs, but the wispy grass has turned to mud. It grabs her feet and claws at her skin. She looks to her mother for help, but her laughter has turned to scorn.
Her mother is mocking her, taking pleasure in her plight. The muck rises above her knees. She sinks faster as her struggle increases. She spreads her lips to scream, but mud fills her mouth and blocks precious air.
She is choking, dying.
The earth tastes of metal and of blood. It covers her face; she is consumed by darkness.
The nothingness surrounds her.
But then, red eyes stare at her through the black.
Fear grips her as they move closer.
They get larger and take on a serpentine shape. The face of the giant reptile materializes in front of her. It reaches for her with large, scaled hands. Fire erupts from its gaping jaws. She is surrounded by flames, her flesh is burning, but she can’t move, can’t cover herself.
The burning is all she feels.
****
Rita eased open her eyes. A wall of pristine white tile replaced the dragon. The steady sound of dripping water reminded her of something from her youth, but she couldn’t quite place it.
Where am I?
Shifting her legs, water splashed around her, echoing through the space. The cool liquid enveloped her body.
A bathtub.
She searched her memory in an attempt to configure her surroundings and how she’d gotten there, but her mind worked slowly, failing to put the pieces together.
Despite the pounding in her head, she nevertheless felt inexplicably peaceful.
Am I high?
Rita shifted weight to her elbows, attempting to sit up, but a burning pain shot through her back. She relented and lowered herself back into the comfort of the tub. The fire dulled. She made her body as small as possible endeavoring to quench the thirst of her scaled exterior. The waterline marked the boundary that separated comfort from pain.
That man. The explosion. Things came back slowly.
Even in the dark, Rita’s eyes could make out the bathroom’s features. It was small, but pleasant. A large mirror hung over two adjacent porcelain sinks. The tub had no curtain. A thick white robe hanging from the towel rack. She tried to remember where she had left her yellow raincoat.
Content that there was no imminent danger, she assessed the extent of her injuries. A dull sting covered her skin from her shoulder blades to her lower back. Swallowing, she felt a tightness in her throat.
A pair of large, meaty hands and foul tasting blood took over her memory.
As she tried to lift herself out of the water again the door opened, and light from the hallway flooded the room.
A woman with long black hair entered.
“Hello, Rita.”
“Sylvia?”
She turned on a small light adjacent to the mirror and knelt by the tub.
“You’ve been out for almost two days.” Concern was knit on the woman’s brow.
Her face looked older than Rita remembered—tired.
“What happened?” Her gargled voice was barely louder than a whisper. Her throat ripped with each word.
“You don’t remember, do you?”
Rita shook her head.
“You showed up covered in blood in the middle of the night and then collapsed on my garage floor. You were barely breathing. I didn’t know what to do, so I called Chem. He helped me carry you up here and gave me that.” She nodded to an unmarked, plastic bottle, balancing on the edge of the tub. “You’ve been soaking in it ever since. He said the solution and the water would help with the burns.”
Rita closed her eyes and imagined the wiry chemist cooking up a potion in his lab. She cringed, thinking about what it could contain.
Images came flooding back. “The suit…”
“I know. It was all over the news: the explosion at the Police Station and the missing evidence from the Dobbs case. What did you do?”
Rita stared at the ceiling. The memories rushed in.
“I got it for Skylar,” she said, turning to Sylvia.
The engineer looked down at her hands. “I know. I…” Sylvia wiped away a tear. “She’s barely left your side.” Sylvia laughed. “She was pretty pissed when I finally made her go to school today. Seeing you awake will help.”
Just talking about the girl raised her spirits. Skylar had given Rita a gift no one had: love and acceptance.
“The suit. Can she use it?”
Sylvia rolled back and sat with her knees pulled up to her chest. “I don’t know. I think so, in principle. The mechanics are sound although I’ve had to find a different power source. Your friends really did a number on it. The biggest hurdle will be reconfiguring its controls. There’s been some tremendous progress with neural-interfacing prosthetics—Skylar and I were already working on something similar—but a machine of this caliber has never been used that way before. I don’t have nearly the resources I’d need on my own, but with this suit I think there’s a real chance.”
“Skylar deserves it. She deserves a normal life.”
“Normal?” The edges of Sylvia’s mouth turned up in a sad smile. “I’m not sure I even know what that means anymore.”
Rita craned her neck and looked at her own body. She had nearly forgotten the beautiful, young person she once was. “I know what you mean.”
“Look, I’ll never be able to repay what you’ve done for my daughter. I’m grateful, I truly am, but Chem told me about the others. Tim and Willa. Then you, showing up like this.” She pursed her lips and searched for words. “While I appreciate your care, I just don’t want Skylar caught up in all of it. And after all we went through this year…”
Rita nodded though it carried pain through her neck. Danger had become a constant companion to Rita and the others. She knew that her just being at the Mumford’s house could possibly put them in the middle of things. Skylar was the last person in the world she would want to see hurt. But she also knew the girl’s stubborn nature and fiery spirit. If the exoskeleton could give her mobility back, left to her own devices, the girl would find enough trouble for all of them. “I want nothing more than to keep your daughter safe. But I don’t know if you or I can do that. Skylar’s the strongest person I know. Maybe all we can d
o is give her what she needs to protect herself—and walk with her along her path.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Solitary confinement would be acceptable if only she were given some books, a journal, and a pen.
With her recent pace of life, it may have even welcome.
But Guild warfare was more psychological than anything else. Willa knew they were trying to wear her down, to what end she did not know. Her conversation with the Grandmaster left her confused and angry. His general demeanor was polite and even encouraging to her as an individual. But that all went to shit when he mentioned the little detail about the necessary destruction of Tim Ford’ soul. In her more honest moments, Willa wasn’t sure if a person even had a soul. Naturally, in her field, the poets whom she admired the most wondered about such metaphysical issues. Many never seemed to reach a conclusion—much like herself. The romantic in her found it hard to believe she was only a body, electrical charges, and firing synapses, but the notion that humans were entities separate from flesh and blood able to attain a life in the hereafter seemed a bit too fantastical.
But she used magic, after all. Who was she to deny one’s fantasy?
Willa studied her room for the thousandth time. She could describe it in precise detail—the grain in the wood, the view from her window. The smells that wafted through the magical force field helped to chart the days. Garlic and onions seeped into her space, indicating the proximity of the dinner hour.
Her stomach growled. They treated her well, but dinner wouldn’t be delivered for another forty minutes or so. The Guild’s methods never varied. A few days in and she had charted their ways down to the minute. Not able to occupy her mind through texts—written or read—she hit the floor. After several repetitions, she watched a drop of sweat fall from her forehead onto the rough-cut barn boards beneath her. Pushups weren’t her preferred method of development, but they would have to do. Working out self-control and centering had become helpful means of self-control amidst the recent craziness. And it didn’t hurt in a fight.
The deadbolt clicked.
Thirty-seven minutes early, she thought.
Kristoff, the only person to visit her cell, stood in the doorway.
“Still holding out, I see,” he said. The man carried a tray with dinner for two. As always, his read hair was impeccably shaped. “Maybe we should change our tactics.” He smiled as he sat the food down.
“What’s this, a date?” Willa asked, looking at the extra portion. She had never spent time with another wizard her age, and despite the circumstances, she could at least enjoy his company.
“Yeah. The Guild frowns on eHarmony, so a man’s gotta take whatever chance he gets.” Kris pulled out a chair at the small table pushed against the wall. “Join me?”
“Do I have any other choice?”
“I guess you could watch me eat. But what fun is that?”
Willa slid into the chair across from the wizard. He dropped his chin to his chest and closed his eyes long enough to say the Pledge of Allegiance.
“I wouldn’t take you for the praying type,” she said, once he opened his eyes.
“Not so much prayer, but mindfulness.”
“Mindfulness, huh? So, like, if I think I can escape, I can.” Willa smiled.
The man laughed. “I believe in magic, not miracles. Mindfulness isn’t about changing the world, it’s about changing yourself. You know CS Lewis?”
“I am a lit professor, you know. Most in my circle see him as a bit of a hack, but the man could write one helluva children’s story. A bit too on the nose, if you ask me.”
The young man nodded. “I can see that. Years ago, in school, we read one of his essays. I don’t remember which, but there was a line I remember clearly. He wrote, ‘I pray because the need flows out of me—waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God—it changes me.’” He paused. “You’re into practices Willa. It’s half of what has you going mad cooped up in here. We know this. When I read those lines, even when I was young, I realized the power in the things we do to change us. So, I started reading some books about mindfulness.”
“Didn’t see you as a Tony Robbins man either,” Willa said, drawing an authentic laugh from him.
“Thank you. Taking just a moment to be thankful for what we have makes a difference—helps us realize that we have more than we know and sometimes it’s all out of our control.”
Willa investigated the lines in the man’s face and realized he looked older than he had before. There was wisdom in his eyes or something she couldn’t quite place. Comfort accompanied his words.
“I like that.” Willa closed her eyes and tried to be thankful for the food, but she just considered her friends—Tim in particular. Her eyes shot open, finding the man staring at her.
“Didn’t work?”
“I could only think about Ford, who is about to be eternally obliterated by your band of inquisitors.”
He smiled. It seemed forced. “The Guild does not think with a shared mind. Yes, most are still quite conservative. But there are others who want to challenge our old way. People you would fit right in with.” He sipped on his glass of blood-red wine. “Even I keep a few unorthodox views close to the chest. But it’s hard for any of us not to see Mr. Ford as guilty.”
“Guilty? He did nothing. One can’t be found complicit in something done to them outside of their volition. If anyone here is guilty it’s me.”
The man carefully cut his chicken breast and held a piece hovering in front of his face. “I suggest you don’t make that argument before the council.”
They ate in silence. Willa wondered if he were a friend or a foe. It was hard to tell. The last eleven months had taught her to trust no one—almost no one. Kris was attractive in many ways; that didn’t make him a friend. She thought of Rhett and his abilities. His persuasion taught her that she was vulnerable, and her situation created a context in which she wanted to trust in someone. In spite of all that had gone wrong in her life, Willa still wanted to believe.
She knew that made her weak.
As the two finished their meals, Kristoff dabbed the corners of his mouth with his cloth napkin. “Do you want to see him now?”
“Who?”
“Your friend.”
She searched his face for any hint of duplicity. There was nothing. He looked the same as the moment he entered the room.
“Yes. I do.”
“OK,” he said. “Let’s go. But you know not to try anything. Naturally, we’ll be monitoring you, and there are measures in place to prevent your escape. I wouldn’t test them if I were you.”
****
Willa’s eyes grew wide as she looked at Tim’s wilting form lying prostrate on the bed. She stepped toward him as the door gently closed behind her. Running to his side, she whispered his name. Tim’s eyes cracked open.
“Hey, beautiful. What’s shaking?” Tim groaned.
“You look like hell.”
“It seems I’m heading there soon,” he forced a smile, which took more energy than opening his eyes. He laughed through a raspy cough. “I’m not going to make it much longer.”
Willa ran her thin fingers through his sweat-drenched hair. “They’re coming, Tim. Don’t worry.”
His smiled faded. “I hope not.”
“What?”
“We’re not superheroes, Willa. We’re a couple of average Joe’s with a few tricks up our sleeves. Chem and Elijah won’t get in here. They can’t. It would be a suicide mission, and I hope they know that.”
Willa said nothing because she didn’t disagree. But she knew they would try, which wasn’t necessarily a comfort.
“Tim, you have to hold on. I can get you out of this.”
“Listen,” he said, “don’t do anything stupid. Let me go. Maybe it’s time I paid the price.”
Willa furrowed her brow. She searched for words, but Tim interrupted her before she could offer sympathy.
“Lying in this cell, I’ve been doing some thinking
. Between the wars and Blackbow and Anna, I’ve done so much wrong. Caused so much damage. I think they’re right.”
“Right about what?”
“I am an abomination. Maybe not in the ways they think, but I deserve to die. It’s coming for me, even if it’s not at their hands.”
“No, Tim. It’s not true.”
His smile came back. “Back to playing the innocent card, are you? Good. The badass I saw in City Hall, that wasn’t you. It was a shadow of who you could become, but it doesn’t need to be that way. Trust me, you’re better off without all that hate.”
Tim’s eyes closed. Willa took his hand in hers. It was cold and clammy.
“We’re going to get out of this,” she said. “We’ll beat them.”
“How?” he whispered in response.
“I’ve been talking with their leader—the Grandmaster. There’s going to be a hearing—a kind of wizarding trial of sorts.”
“They aren’t gonna throw me in the river to see if I can float are they?”
Willa laughed. “No. They're medieval alright, but at least they aren’t cruel. It’s more of a debate I think. I’ll represent you. I think I understand them, you know? Even if they are kind of crazy. But if I can convince them that you’re innocent, they’ll have to set you free.”
“And if we lose?” The words came through lips that hardly moved.
“They will destroy your soul.”
His eyes opened wider, despite the energy it took.
“Damn. Well, at least they’re thorough.”
Tim closed his eyes. After a minute of labored breathing, Willa could see that sleep had taken over. She knew it wouldn’t be restful.
“There’s one more person you need to meet.”
Willa jumped.
She turned, finding Grandmaster Harker standing in the doorway. She gave Tim one final glance, she thanked whoever might be listening. “Hang in there, friend,” she whispered. Then she followed the old wizard out of the room.
****
“I’ve debated telling you this,” he said as they climbed the stairs to what Willa guessed was the third floor. She tried to imagine how many levels the place might contain. The old man moved deliberately but handled the incline without exhibiting too much exertion.
