“We need to eat this food!” Trip grabbed two hamburgers and took a bite from each one. “MMMmmm, Kate your brain is a good cook.”
Tara, Mel, and Donnie dug into the food with gusto. Corey took my face between his hands and looked into my eyes. “Happy thoughts, now. Concentrate on happy thoughts.”
Suddenly we were on our pink cloud and Corey was kissing me. We pulled apart and he laughed. “Okay, not that happy.”
I blinked, and we were back staring into our friend’s stuffed-cheek, startled faces.
“Eat fast,” I said and moved to cut the cheesecake. “I don’t know how well I can control this.” To punctuate my words a roar sounded in the distance. I whispered a prayer for protection.
“Where did the bird take you, Tara?” Corey asked with his mouth full.
“She flew me to a nest high on the cliffs,” Tara answered and pointed in the direction of the sea. “I think I was going to be breakfast for her baby monster birds.”
My face morphed into a horrified expression.
“Happy thoughts, there, Kate?” Corey leaned over and whispered.
“Mmm…yes, happy thoughts.” I scooped up a huge bite of cheesecake and shoved it into my mouth.
My team mates began stuffing their packs with the food and drinks. We each had a huge slice of the cheese cake and began licking our fingers. Trip patted his stomach and said, “Thanks, Kate,” then he leaned down and kissed me on the cheek.
Corey gave me a strange look. “That wasn’t me.” I held my hands up.
They all laughed and we turned to follow Trip. He walked about three feet and slammed into something. He pressed his hands against an invisible wall.
“You doing this, Kate?” he asked.
“I…I…don’t know.”
Corey pressed his hands alongside Trip and followed the wall toward the right and ran into a corner. Trip went left and followed the adjoining invisible wall all the way around us. They met in the middle on the opposite side and turned to look at me, with questions in their eyes. We were enclosed on four sides by an invisible wall.
“Can you wish it away?” Corey asked.
I concentrated on being free. Nothing. I pictured us all walking away, but we just slammed into the invisible wall. I tried everything I could think of, but the walls remained in place.
“Maybe she’s being too literal. She obviously didn’t wish us into a trap, there had to be some other thought behind it,” Mel suggested.
I had been concentrating on the food, trying not to think. Then I heard the Daddy monster roar again, and it hit me. “Protection, I prayed for protection,” I answered.
“Let’s see if there is a roof.” Tara climbed up on Trip’s shoulders and walked her hands up the wall. She whistled a three note call and Trip bounced her into the air, slipped his hands under her feet and hoisted her as high as he could reach. It was an impressive move, one you could tell they had rehearsed in the arena.
Tara pressed her hands as high as she could reach. “I think I found the top.”
“That is too high. There is no way we can all climb out of here. Someone will be stuck inside,” Mel stated.
“I could stay. I might figure out a way to make it go away,” I offered.
“No, Kate, you don’t have the strength to lift us to the wall. It will most likely be Trip who is left behind,” Donnie said.
“We will cross that bridge when we get to it,” Trip grunted. “Now, go. Everyone climb me and Tara like a tree.” He settled Tara’s feet onto his shoulders and they braced themselves against the invisible wall. It was the strangest sight.
Mel went first and carefully placed her feet to climb the bodies of Trip and then Tara until she was on the top of the wall. She looked down.
“It’s too far to jump,” she said. “We need something to break our fall.”
I imagined a deep pool of water on the other side. It appeared, and Mel gave me a thumbs up and then jumped in feet first. She bobbed to the surface and climbed out. I went next.
How strange it felt to climb Trip and Tara. Using a human body as a ladder? So wrong. I apologized about 150 times before I got to the top. Gah! Why didn’t I just wish for a ladder? My body quaked with fear at the height. I maneuvered my position over the pool, aimed and jumped in. The water was cold when I cracked the surface and the sensation of knives stabbed me. I pushed off of the bottom and broke the surface again. I immediately wished it the temperature of bath water. It warmed, but a rubber ducky also appeared. I crawled out and ended up beside Mel a few minutes later.
“Sorry about the cold water,” I apologized and wished us dry and warm.
“Thanks!” she exclaimed as she watched the water spots on her sleeves dry. Donnie jumped down behind us, and then Corey got to the top of the wall, turned and reached down to pull Tara up beside him.
They both turned and laid flat on the edge of the invisible wall. It looked like they were hovering in the air. “Can you jump up and grab my hand?” Corey asked Trip.
Trip frowned as he assessed the distance, attempted it, but fell way short.
“If I hang down, can you climb up my body?” Corey asked.
“You won’t be able to support both my weight and yours with your hands.” Trip shook his head.
I was busy trying to imagine things that would help Trip out. I couldn’t make anything happen inside the walls, only outside.
“Corey, hold out your hands in front of you,” I called out to him.
He held out his hands, and I imagined a rope coiled there. The rope appeared.
“Hey, Kate, nice job!” When he dropped it into the box it disintegrated into nothing. Like the molecules couldn’t hold together. The same thing happened with a ladder, a board, a chain link fence. Whatever we put into the box turned to ash.
Trip stepped back to the middle of the box and scratched his head while surveying the sides. Tara and Corey climbed down the ladder I had finally conjured for this side. Trip tried to climb the corners of his side, but the walls were too slick and he couldn’t make purchase.
“There has got to be some way to get him out.” I wracked my brain. As things would come to mind, they would materialize and the team would try to put them to use.
After several hours of futile attempts, we all sat down. Tara had taken up a post beside Trip with her hand pressed against the invisible wall. His hand was also pressed on his side and I could see there was about six inches between them. So the wall was about six inches thick. I wondered if we could somehow drill through it.
I discussed this idea with Donnie and Corey, but they said they didn’t think it would work. They were right. I could imagine things I had seen or touched or tasted, but I didn’t know anything about working parts and electronics, so any gadget that I imagined was just a shell and not functional.
“Instead of thinking of things to put into the box,” I started, “maybe I should be thinking about getting him out of the box.” I thought of a whirlwind lifting him up out of the box. We could see his hair and clothes being whipped around but there was no lifting.
“Okay! Enough!” Tara snapped at me. “You are going to beat him to death.”
“Sorry.” The wind stopped immediately. How ironic that the thing I created to protect us from the monster was the very thing that was hurting Trip. It registered somewhere deep inside of me. I created a protective shell inside too, to lock myself away from anything or anyone who would hurt me. All I ended up doing was hurting others. It didn’t protect me at all, but left me even more vulnerable as I berated myself for being poison and toxic to the people I loved.
My eyes locked onto Trip’s. Age old sadness seemed to seep out of my pores. “I am so sorry,” I mouthed.
He stepped up to the wall in front of me and placed his hand on it and shook his head at me. “No,” he said and fear tainted his eyes.
I hadn’t seen fear on Trip’s face since he told me about killing his stepfather. He was afraid of what I was thinking.
“Katie girl,
come here,” he said.
I stepped up to the wall, and he glanced at Tara. She looked back and forth between us, and then moved out of earshot.
“What are you thinking?” His eyes drilled into mine.
“Just that I have created a shell in here,” I touched my heart. “It was supposed to protect me, but it hasn’t. It has just hurt you and Corey and Tara, and anyone I have ever loved.” I ran my hand up the side of the wall and tilted my head back to take in the truth of the invisible barrier.
“You are going to have to bring the walls down one at a time,” he said. “Just like I had to unlock each room, you are going to have to bring down the walls that have trapped you, one at a time.”
I cocked my head to the side considering his statements. “I don’t even know what they are.”
“You will figure it out, when the time is right.” He leaned his head against the invisible barrier and gazed into my eyes. “Open your heart, Kate. You have shut yourself off from me, and I don’t like it.” His eyes sizzled into mine and I felt that familiarly pleasant tension coil in my middle.
How did I deserve such a loyal friend? I didn’t. That was an easy answer. The harder question was, what could Trip possibly see in me that kept him coming back? Impossible.
No matter what barriers I put up between us, he kept finding a way around them, over them or under them.
UNDER THEM!
It gave me an idea. My eyes popped wide and I stepped back from the wall. Trip shot a curious expression at me and backed up too. I began to picture the pool of water elongating and growing. It grew to a width of about three feet and slithered under the wall. I drew back on the outer edges, and it created a trench that ran the width of the wall and out on our side. It did not materialize on the other side, though.
“Hmm,” I frowned. “I really thought that was going to work.”
Corey walked up next to me and studied my attempt. “Wait, I have an idea.” He reached into his backpack and pulled out his knife. He jumped into the trench and swam under the wall and began hacking at the ground on the inside base of the wall. Trip saw what he was trying to do and began digging on his side.
“I should have made the trench bigger so we could help him,” I complained. “I am afraid to try to change it while Corey is in it though.”
They broke through in little time, and Corey came back out gasping for air. We pulled him out of the hole, and Trip kicked his way through the trench to safety.
Donnie and Tara pulled him out of the water and he scooped me up in a hug, whirling me around in a circle. “Nice! Thanks, Kate!” He sat me down and patted my head like a puppy.
He was crazy. I was the one who trapped him, not someone he should be thanking. I think the same thought passed through Tara’s mind, at least that was the look on her face.
Exhausted by the long day of trying to free Trip, we all lay on the grass. Tara reasserted herself into Trip’s attention, by pulling him into a hug. I ran my hands through Corey’s wet hair and kissed his forehead. He patted my arm and we closed our eyes.
“We should move soon.” Donnie yawned.
“Can’t we just rest a minute?” Mel said and crawled up next to him and snuggled into his chest.
“Why am I so sleepy?” Tara spoke heavily then just lay back on the grass.
My eyes were half closed, Corey hugged me to his chest, kissed the top of my head and somnolence claimed us.
I woke several hours later to a multi-moon filled sky and green fog blanketing us in cold damp chill. I wished for a fire. Nothing. I wished for a blanket. Nada.
I shivered from the cold and sat up, gathering my legs into my arms. Corey stirred, and I leaned down to kiss him awake. “Morning, sleepy head,” I said between kisses. My hair fell around his face, enclosing us in our own private moment.
“Mmmm, can I wake like this every day?” He drew me down to him and kissed my lips. Ah…there was my warmth.
“Be careful what you wish for.” Mel’s strained whisper clamped cold talons around me.
I looked around to find her, but it was so dark and foggy. I couldn’t make out what I was seeing. Corey sat up and we strained our eyes to see through the dark and mist.
I could see the sky above and the reflection of the moons on Corey’s face, but all that I could see around us was darkness and ghostly images as the verdant fog laced shapeless objects.
“Mel, where are you?”
“Up here.”
I lifted my eyes to where her voice sounded and slowly discerned a hulking figure. The clouds shifted and the moon struck the image. Mel was suspended between two of the large predatory birds. They each had an arm and leg and stretched Mel as far as she could stretch!
I filled my lungs to scream, but before the sound was made Corey wrapped his arms around me from behind and covered my mouth. He pointed to the opposite side of us. I followed his gaze and saw a mound growing higher and higher. I realized the pangolins were back and had stampeded over something, covering it completely. They shifted until Tara’s face showed, blank eyes staring, mouth open in a silent scream.
Out of the corner of my eye I caught movement and focused there. Donnie was suspended in an invisible tank of water, frantically kicking at the glass and trying to find an air pocket. A familiar snuffling sounded behind us and we whirled around to see the monster from the woods licking dark fluid from his claw. I looked at the ground beneath him to see Trip splayed unnaturally and the hind talon of the monster splitting open his chest.
“Be very still,” Corey whispered. “Don’t panic. You need to take your thoughts captive.”
His arms were still wrapped around me. “I don’t, I can’t.”
“Kate! Stop!” He whirled me around and took my face between his hands. The green fog swirled in our wake.
“Deal with the water first. What does the water mean to you?”
“Corey, I don’t know.” I glanced at Donnie and saw he was beginning to lose the battle. His arms and legs no longer kicked, bubbles started escaping from his mouth. Oh God! He was drowning in water, I was drowning in panic!
“Kate, this is your jump. You are the one we have to think about right now. Think…no open your heart and feel.”
I locked onto Corey’s strength and said. “Okay, okay. I can do this.” I took a cleansing breath and looked deep inside my heart. I closed my eyes and thought of the water, the invisible tank, the suffocating pressure on my lungs. I can’t breathe. “Trapped.”
“Yes, go on.”
“So many emotions trapped inside of me. I have cried a ton of tears, and the pain never goes away.” I pounded on my chest. “The weight of all that anger steals my breath and locks me in a prison of pain, a prison of tears.”
“Do you feel the anger now?”
“YES!” I curled over into a ball, pressing against my chest.
“Set it free. Speak it out. Give it a voice!”
“I am angry,” I squeaked and sat up to look at him.
“You can do better than that, Kate.” Corey shoved his finger into my shoulder.
“I am angry!” I said and rubbed the sore spot his poke made. “Ow!”
Corey shoved me again. “How angry are you, Kate?”
“I’m angry!” I snapped at him. I was really getting tired of his attempt at therapy, it hurt. “I am really, really angry!” My voice began to rise.
“What makes you so angry?” Corey shouted at me. I had never seen him act like this, and it was ticking me off.
“You are making me angry, right now.” I yelled back, but I knew this wasn’t about Corey. This was about me. This was about my family being splintered apart by that home-wrecking, sleaze puppy who stole my dad! No, it wasn’t even about her. It was about my cheating- two-timing-sorry-excuse-for-a-father abandoning us. Abandoning me! I hated him! I loved him, but I hated him more.
“WHY?” I screamed. “WHY DID HE LEAVE ME?” My voice ripped out of my chest in such fury. I hadn’t ever expressed this anger before.
I had cried over it, felt helpless, powerless, refused to believe it, but I had never let myself express my anger at him. The dam was breeched now! Anger poured out of me in a deluge.
“You left us! You left me! I was your baby girl and you just left me!” I wanted to lash out. In my mind I saw a large hammer and it materialized on the ground. I ran to the sledge hammer and lifted up and slammed it into the glass tank with every ounce of anger-fueled strength.
“Why?” I screamed! “Why wasn’t I good enough for you?” Again, I swung the hammer with all of my might into the side of the tank. It cracked. “Why did you give up on us?” I slammed it again. The cracks webbed down the sides.
“I. Was. Worth. Fighting. For!” I swung the hammer as I screamed each word, and the last time I hit the tank it exploded and crumbled around me. Salt water gushed out of my eyes and the tank, and Donnie crumpled to the ground. I dropped the hammer and the sound of breaking ice ricocheted from the place it landed.
Then a strange thing happened. Where the hammer hit the ground it shattered and jagged veins slithered all the way up to the sky line on the far side of the river and like a wall of broken glass it fell away into a vast blue sky.
I stepped back shivering from the adrenalin rush of my angry outburst and gaped at the sight.
Corey ran to Donnie and checked him for breath and a pulse, and then he looked at me. “You know what to do, now.” He nodded at Mel and the birds.
I whirled around and looked at the birds. Enormous beady-eyed creatures watched me carefully. What did they represent? A memory came to mind. I was small, about eight years old, and I found a nest in the bushes outside. I brought it in the house to show my mommy the pretty little blue spotted eggs. I remembered her words.
“Oh no, Katie Lynn. Now the mommy and daddy bird will reject the nest because it smells like humans. Quick honey, go put it back.” I did as she said, but the damage was done. The eggs had been rejected. They never hatched. I was so forlorn that I had done that to the baby birds. The idea of rejection had been planted in me that day. Every time I felt someone didn’t approve of me, I would hurt all over again for those baby birds. I learned to connect rejection and self-loathing. When someone rejected me, I understood it was because I was unlovable.
The Torn, Book One of the Holding Kate Series Page 23
