“What?” Jodi and Matt asked at the same time, but Jodi got the full word out much faster than he did.
“He’s got red tide sickness,” I said and leaned in closer to him to look him in the eye. They were bloodshot and a little yellow. “You need to go to the doctor and get some antibiotics before you start throwing up or get diarrhea.”
“Ew,” Jodi said as Steven said, “Awkward.”
“How do you-” Matt stopped again and worked his mouth open and closed. “How do you know that?”
“Because I’m a surfer and I know about red tide. This is what can happen when you go out into water that looks like that.” I pointed for emphasis.
“I was in the water?” Matt looked up at me in confusion.
“You don’t remember?” Jodi asked.
“No,” he said with a slow shake of his head. “Is that a symptom too?”
“Um, yeah, sure,” I said quickly. “Listen, you can’t drive like this. Steven?” I turned and looked up at Steven, who was still looking at Matt.
“What?” Steven blinked at me, realizing I was talking to him.
“Will you drive him in his car to a doctor? He’s gonna get worse really quickly and his reflexes are way too slow to drive himself.”
“Oh yeah, sure,” Steven said, reaching down and pulling Matt up to his feet carefully. Now that the connection between him and the creature was broken, I wasn’t afraid of Steven touching him.
“Make sure he drinks the rest of that water,” I said pointedly, and Steven nodded. “We’ll follow you to the doc and call his parents from there so they can come and get him.”
“Why was I in the water?” Matt asked Steven as he helped him through the parking lot and down to his car. I didn’t hear Steven’s answer, but Matt’s confusion was troubling all of us.
“Why can’t he remember being in the water?” Jodi asked me as we watched the boys walking to the car.
“Maybe he was in a trance or hypnotized,” I said.
“But when we pulled him out of the water, he knew he had gone out there.”
“Yeah, but that was before I had him drink that water.” I nodded towards them, even though they were too far away to see anything in their hands now.
“Oh, so you think, so long as he’s under that spell or trance, he can remember her, but since you broke the trance, he can’t remember her now?” Jodi asked again.
“Seems like it,” I said, draping a towel over the damp passenger seat for Jodi before getting into the driver’s seat.
“So we probably won’t be able to get any information out of him now,” she said with a sigh.
“Not necessarily,” I said, watching in my rearview mirror as Steven drove by in Matt’s car, and reversed out of my parking space to follow him. “Remember Jeremy’s brother, when Jeremy tried to drown him? He said he couldn’t remember anything, and I was able to get him to show me what happened anyway.”
“Think you can do that again?”
“I hope so,” I said, and we stayed quiet for the rest of the drive until we got to the only Urgent Care that was open on the weekends, not wanting to leave Matt in the emergency room for hours before he was seen. I took his cell phone from him, found his mother’s number, and called her to tell her what had happened to Matt and where he was now.
“Okay, let’s get out of here,” I said quickly, desperate to get outside. “I think we need to go check on Mark,” I said as we all climbed in the car.
“Why?” Steven asked.
“Because he was in the water with Matt,” I said and realized I sounded worried. We raced across town, slowing only through the areas I knew were speed traps. I drove past our part of the neighborhood and headed deeper in to where I had seen Matt dropping Mark off. I parked across the street from the house; everything looked exactly as it had when we had left, except now the driveway was empty. There had been two cars parked there.
“Do you think they’ve gone to the hospital?” Jodi asked.
“Easiest way to find out,” I said, opening my door and climbing out. Steven and Jodi followed me across the street and up the front walk to the door. I pressed the doorbell and listened to the echo of chimes muffled behind the closed door. We waited a few moments, totally silent, before we heard the scuff of slow, dragging footsteps coming nearer the other side of the door.
“Oh my god,” Jodi whispered, a hand flying to cover her mouth, as the door opened. Mark looked out at us from around the door, which he was clinging to for support. He looked almost as bad as Dale had at the restaurant last night; his cheeks were sunken-in, making his eyes bulge, and his skin had a gray quality to it that made me want to shrink away in case he accidentally touched me.
“Help you?” Mark asked in a small voice, the first few words of the question lost in his throat.
“Actually, I think you need our help,” Steven said from behind me.
“Are you talking about?” Mark asked, and I realized the first words in his sentences were lost in the sighing breath he had to visibly draw in before he could form the words. His hand slipped on the doorknob and his shoulders slid a few inches down the side of the door before his other hand caught his balance on the edge of the door.
“Mark?” Jodi said half to him and half to me and I nodded, letting her know she’d used the right name. “Are you okay? You look really sick.”
“Don’t know, just really tired,” he breathed.
“Can we come in?” Steven asked and Mark looked up at him, as if seeing him for the first time. After a moment, he gave a slow nod and took a small step back as if to let us in, but we still had to squeeze past him because he hadn’t moved back quite enough. I realized it was a little strange that both Mark and Matt trusted us so much for hardly knowing us. I imagined it was a side effect of whatever the water creatures were doing to them.
Mark’s house looked like so many of the other ranch style houses on this block. We walked into a great room, able to see into the living room, kitchen, and dining room all at once, and I knew if I headed down the hallway off of the living room, I would find three to four bedrooms and two bathrooms.
“Um, Steven?” I said, looking at Mark, who was still holding on to the door in the same spot, even though all three of us were through. Steven walked up and took Mark by the shoulders and stepped him carefully back away from the door, and I moved forward to shut the door and threw both of the locks out of habit. I would’ve moved him myself, but something about his behavior made me not want to touch him.
“Mark?” I asked, snapping my fingers a few inches in front of his face, and he blinked at the sound, looking past my hand at my face, but from the look in his eye, I had a feeling he had no idea I was standing in front of him. “Okay, get him to the couch or to a bed or something. I’ll be right back.”
I walked into the kitchen and began opening and closing cabinets until I found the one where the glassware was kept and took out a tall glass and filled it under the tap. I took in a deep cleansing breath and whispered the same spell I had used at the beach.
“Here we go,” I said casually as I walked back into the living room and handed it to Mark, who took it blindly. “Drink up,” I said when he didn’t move. I had to reach out and help him tip the glass up to his mouth, careful not to touch his skin as I did so. Mark took three long gulps of the cleansing water before he lowered his hand again. We all waited, staring at his face expectantly, and I knew we were all holding our breath, waiting for the color to come back to his face, but nothing happened.
“So it’s not the same thing that was wrong with Matt?” Jodi asked quietly, still staring down at Mark. I just shook my head, drawing in my lower lip and chewing on it.
“Matt?” Mark asked. Some confusion came over his face, but the interest in the question wasn’t in his voice; he just heard a name he should recognize and something inside him compelled him to reach for it. I stared at him and realized I should feel something from him; even lacking the energy to speak, someone so sick sho
uld have sent me reeling to reinforce my shields. But as I looked at him, I knew I was afraid to touch him because I had never been comfortable touching the dead. Part of me wanted to go running screaming from the house, but the bigger part of me needed to know why I couldn’t feel the pain of someone so physically starved, even if I already knew the answer and just didn’t want to admit it to myself.
“Do you think-” Jodi started to ask, but stopped. However, because we were all so tense and our emotions were so close to the surface, I could hear the unasked question in her mind. One she was afraid to give voice to, the same question I was so afraid of answering.
I closed my eyes and called on the swirling magic always waiting, hidden inside me, and pushed down through the floor of the house and down past the foundation until I found the pulsing power of the Earth and anchored into it, calling up the power I needed. I opened my hands in front of Mark and reached forward, stopping just an inch away from him. I should’ve felt his aura before then, but I didn’t; I didn’t even feel the heat of his body. At that point, I knew what I would see when I looked at him. With Jodi, she would have been an electric current of Air power and Steven consumed of flames and warmth, but I was terrified to look at the frail boy in front of me. Concentrating on seeing Mark for what he truly was—not what his body was on this plane—I opened my eyes.
I had to force myself not to rock back and scramble away from him in horror. I clenched my jaw tight against the scream trying to claw its way out of my throat. When I looked at him, I could see the same gaping black wound in the middle of his chest I had seen in Dale’s. The skin around it was ragged and should have been red with pain and blood, but the hole just sat there with no feeling. I closed my eyes again and let go of the power that the Earth gave me to see this way before opening them again and seeing Mark sitting in front of me, intact and without the mortal wound baring his chest to the world.
I had to force myself to look Mark in the eye, and saw no answering spark in the muddy brown depths. I knew his eyes were once a shimmering shade of amber with gold and honey flecks near the pupils, seeing a memory that wasn’t mine, but now all that was left was yellowing and muddy, without life. Mark’s soul had been ripped from him.
We called an ambulance and waited until the paramedics came to explain that we were friends of Mark and just happened to find him like this. I had decided the best bet was to go check on Matt since, even though he had been in the water like Dale and Mark, he wasn’t dying.
“Why wouldn’t they take Matt’s soul?” Steven asked from the back seat as we sat outside Matt’s house, waiting for him to get home.
“I don’t know,” I said, twisting my hands on the steering wheel.
“Maybe they plan to later, after he’s brought enough victims to them,” Steven said, looking back and forth between Jodi and me.
“Yeah, I bet you’re right. They can’t take his soul because he’d die too quickly to be of much help,” Jodi said.
“Then maybe he’s like Jeremy with that Sylph; maybe he’s possessed?” Steven offered.
“I don’t think a simple water cleansing would’ve banished a possession,” I said, shaking my head.
“But I mean, something was wrong with him, and then it wasn’t once you gave him that water,” Steven urged.
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “I’m just saying I don’t think it’s the same as that Sylph. I don’t think Matt’s being possessed.”
“You think he’s being hypnotized?” Jodi asked looking at me.
“I think that’s a stronger possibility,” I said.
About twenty minutes later, two cars pulled into the driveway. One was Matt’s. Matt got out of his mother’s car and she walked him into the house while his father stayed outside. A few minutes later, his mother came back out and the two of them got into their car and pulled back out of the driveway and disappeared down the block.
“They must be going back to the hospital to see Dale,” Steven said.
“You ready to do this?” Jodi asked me, her hand already on the door handle. I braced myself and nodded. All three of us got out of the car and crossed the street. We knocked on the door and waited. It seemed to take a while for him to answer the door. Matt stared at us for a moment, seemingly confused, before he gave us a tired smile.
“Hey, I remember you,” he said slowly. “You guys got me to the doctor, thanks.”
“Oh, no problem,” I said easily, smiling brightly. “We just wanted to ask you a favor, if that’s cool?” Matt finally looked at my face; I opened a channel between us as quickly as I could. I pushed into his mind, finding little resistance, we watched as all recognition slid from his face until it was a blank mask. He was effectively under my control.
“Sure,” he said mechanically. “Come in.” He took a few steps back, opening the door wide to let us pass. We all came in and I laid my hand on Matt’s wrist, feeling the magic jump between us before I touched his skin. He definitely still had his soul.
“Matt, I want you to come with me and lay on the couch,” I said firmly and watched as he blinked slowly before turning with me towards the living room. I heard Steven shut the front door and listened for the clicks of both the locks before I continued. I knelt on the floor next to Matt’s head and laid one hand on his chest, just over his heart, and one on his forehead. He closed his eyes immediately. Jodi came around to my side and knelt next to me, laying her hand on my shoulder to anchor to me, and Steven stood behind the couch, his power close enough for me to call on if I needed it, but allowing him to be fully alert in case we were interrupted by someone coming home.
Because Matt was sick and pumped full of medicine, his defenses were low and I didn’t need to go through the usual trust exercises to get Matt to lower his defenses; instead, the level of our power overwhelmed him easily.
“Matt,” I said his name and felt it ring with power, like a command. Matt opened his eyes and looked at me, open and trusting. “Matt, you must show me what happened to you in the water. Matt,” I breathed power into my voice, “you must remember.” I pulled on the magic inside of me and the electric magic reverberating between Jodi and me as I summoned the energy to complete the command. “Remember, Matt, remember.” His eyes clouded over and a spark of heat erupted between my hands and his body, and suddenly I was standing next to him on a moonlit beach. I turned my head up and down the beach, realizing we were standing on the shore of Rivermouth, the waves slow and rolling, and the wash of the waves was the only sound around us. The water was clean and clear. The moon was hanging full and heavy in the sky. It was three days ago. When I looked down the beach, away from all of the parking areas, I could see a lone figure standing in the shallows, facing the ocean. It was Matt. The Matt standing next to me took my hand in his and led us into the water to follow the retreating figure of the other Matt.
It was a bizarre sensation wading out into the water and not feel it soaking my skin and clothes. We followed the memory of Matt, but no matter how far we went, the water only ever reached our calves. Memory Matt was swimming full out now, going underwater every few strokes as if he were looking for something. Finally after we were twenty or thirty yards out to sea, I could see the head and shoulders of a figure floating in the water. Memory Matt seemed to see her at the same time and he stopped swimming, a broad smile lighting his face. I had to wait until the creature swam closer to Memory Matt before I could see the details of its face and body.
Unlike the creature that had dragged me under the water, this one was very obviously female with long, wet tendrils of hair glowing in the moonlight and fanning out in the water past her slender shoulders. She had large silvery eyes that were framed nicely with thick black lashes and her mouth was full and red, a perfect bow of lips. Memory Matt hurried to close the distance between them. She reached out graceful arms to circle his neck to embrace him. They kissed passionately. The moments stretched on and I had the urge to look away, feeling like I was intruding on something private. Memory Matt’s a
rms were under the water and around her waist. He lifted her out of the water slightly and I could see that she was topless, her firm breasts pressed against his bare chest. I really wanted to look away then.
I was suddenly aware of the aching pain coming off of the Matt that was holding my hand and turned to look at him. He was watching the lovers in the water with a look of longing. My heart thumped as hard as his with the desire to reach out to the girl in the water. I concentrated on the connection Jodi and I had, drawing on her power, feeding it to my shields, and in turn shielding Matt from his own emotions, reminding him he was looking at a memory, not reality. When I felt sure that Matt wasn’t going to try to run to the girl in the water, I turned our attention back to the couple and saw that they had finally broken apart, at the lips at the very least, and breathed a sigh of relief.
They were talking, but I couldn’t hear them. Seeming to understand the problem, the Matt that was holding my hand took a step forward, leading me closer and actually stopping as soon as we could hear them.
“My love,” she whispered to him, running a hand through Memory Matt’s hair lovingly. “I fear I cannot see you again.” Her voice was melodic, and even I had a hard time not letting it affect me, feeling my eyes grow heavy.
“But why?” Memory Matt asked suddenly, the fear evident in his voice. “Did I do something? I’m sorry it took me so long to come see you, I’ll do better, I promise,” he said quickly, desperately.
“No, my love,” she said soothingly, pressing small kisses over his cheeks, nose, and mouth. “No, it isn’t that. You are so very dear to me, I would never punish you.” Even though I had no idea what she was, I could taste the lie in her voice. “I am dying, my love, and I fear my time is coming much sooner than I had anticipated. I cannot see you anymore because I do not want you to watch me wither away.” I thought my heart was going to burst out of my chest at her words, feeling the tears springing to my eyes. I blinked them away and saw that Memory Matt was unable to blink back his tears. I called on more power from Jodi to help me.
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