Shatterskin

by Beca Lewis

  What was I thinking? That I had a right to ask? Apparently not, because Pris got angry. Fast. I had forgotten how intense she could be. The first thing she did was fly to my face and beat her little fists on my forehead. “Ow, ow,” I said trying to keep from hurting her as I attempted to brush her away, or hold her still.

  It was interesting that in spite of my frantic efforts to get her to stop pounding on me, no one looked my way, or even showed a glimmer of interest. No one except Link who I could hear laughing in the background.

  Ignoring him, I tried to tell Pris that I was sorry, not sure what I was sorry for, but her little fists were like tiny battering rams. Hearing the noise, Cil and La came flying out of the woods like tiny bees ready for a fight. I was in deep trouble.

  Except they didn’t attack me. Instead, Cil and La grabbed Pris and pulled her away and put her on my shoulder. They were careful not to put her close enough so she could pull my ear. Once Pris had settled down, La flew up into a tree and brought back what turned out to be a dab of honey on her fingertip which she rubbed on my red forehead. It immediately felt better.

  “What did you say to her anyway?” Cil asked.

  “I just asked where you all went at night and why you weren’t riding with me as much anymore.”

  “Oh,” La said.“The Oracle didn’t tell you?”

  When I gave her a blank look, Cil added, “That explains it.”

  “Yep, it does,” La agreed.

  I was lying in a way because what the Oracle told me was starting to seep back into my mind. But something told me to keep quiet about it for now. Besides, I had asked Pris a perfectly reasonable question because I didn’t know where they were going at night. As far as I knew, the Oracle had not told me that.

  But I still didn’t understand what made Pris so mad. “Is it a bad thing to wonder where you went at night? You know where I am all the time.”

  “True,” Cil said. “We do. I suppose we trust that you will remember more about us soon. So, we might as well tell you, since you are a sister and all, what we have been up to.”

  A sister? Cil must have picked up that phrase from somewhere, but I went with it.

  Pris piped up, “If someone is going to tell her, it’s going to be me.”

  She had just opened her mouth to tell me when we all heard it. A shriek. Not as loud as we had heard them before, but it was definitely a shriek. If we weren’t sure what it was, it didn’t take long to confirm our fears. Within seconds birds and animals started coming our way, fleeing as fast as they could from something behind them.

  “That’s our cue,” Niko called and started running. Not away, but towards the shrieking. We followed him with our shields ready to be switched on. Within a few minutes, we were dodging every animal I had ever seen in the woods and more that were new to me. Maybe in the future, I would have a chance to get to know them.

  A pack of wolves headed towards Cahir. They stopped for a brief moment and then continued on past us. I heard Cahir’s thoughts. Hearing Cahir in my mind was another thing I hadn’t told anyone yet. After I woke up from seeing the Oracle, I could feel Cahir in my mind, and with a bit of concentration, I could see through his eyes. Although I knew I would only be able to do that when he let me. He controlled the switch that showed me what he was seeing. It was like a camera in his head, or back in Earth like a Go Pro. He turned it on or off.

  It was another example of how Erda and Earth were different. In Erda, they didn’t need a piece of equipment to do things. They didn’t need cars, computers, phones, or cameras. Somehow in Erda, they knew the source and tapped into it.

  I was getting closer to feeling it in the same way. I only hoped it would be in time.

  “There are only a few Shrieks up ahead. Cahir thinks that somehow they were separated from the pack, or perhaps they are scouts,” I yelled to the group.

  No one asked how I knew that. Everyone just accepted it. I realized that Princess Kara Beth must have always talked with wolves, or at least Cahir. That I remembered was probably wonderful news for them, but what was happening was more critical.

  “It could also be a trap,” Link said to all of us. “We haven’t heard of individual Shrieks separating from the group before, so be careful.”

  We were already closer than anyone had been to a Shriek without being incapacitated. But we had to get close enough to see the Shrieks to blast their sound back to them.

  Teddy and his friends had given us each one more thing before we beamed up: specially made noise-canceling headphones that they called earmuffs.

  The earmuffs deadened the decibels of the shrieking, but we could still hear each other talking. However, once we got close enough to shoot, the shrieking would be almost intolerable.

  But the earmuffs would deaden the sound enough to aim the shield and shoot. That was the plan anyway.

  Forty-Two

  “Something about this doesn’t feel right to me,” James said. For the past hour, James and his men from the village had been traveling through the woods on the outskirts of the core group.

  But almost as soon as Niko told us to move forward after hearing the Shrieks in the distance, James had taken up a position on my left side with Zeid on my right. I was not going to protest their protection. Beru was directly in front of me, and Aki was behind me with John, Kit, Mark, and Thomas. Niko and Ruta were leading us.

  I couldn’t see Pita and his brothers, but I never could. All I knew is that they were there somewhere.

  The Priscillas had flown off into the woods. I was terrified for them. They had no protection. But I couldn’t call them back. They weren’t listening to me. Why had they gone? Did I make them that mad? When they returned, I was going to have to apologize profusely to Pris. I held the word “when” to myself as tightly as I could. Not if. When.

  “What do you mean?” I asked James.

  We had slowed our running to a fast stealth walk, trying not to make any noise and alert the Shrieks. We didn’t have any idea what they could hear. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. We had so little knowledge about what the shrieks could do it was terrifying.

  “Something. Can’t put my finger on it,” James replied.

  I thought about what I could do if I could see more all the time and then asked a question that I had been pondering since the first time I pressed the star on my necklace.

  “James,” I asked, “you know what happens when I press your daughter’s star, don’t you?”

  “She has told me.”

  “Can you see that way, too. Can everyone?”

  “No, I can’t. And no, not everyone can. It’s a talent, a gift. Some people have that one, but not many. You are one. My daughter knew that you have it. She also knew that you didn’t remember, so she gave you the necklace.”

  “Doesn’t she need it anymore?”

  “If she gave it to you, it’s either because she can see without it, or because Liza wants you to be safe.”

  “She wants to make sure you are safe too, James.”

  “Agreed. And I still feel there is something wrong.”

  I jogged ahead a little and told Niko what James had said. Without a second thought, Niko raised his hand, and we all stopped. It felt as if everything paused, as if even the trees were holding their breaths.

  We could hear the Shrieks in the distance. They were closer than before, but not yet loud enough to stun. We looked at each other, waiting.

  Then nothing. The forest became silent as a tomb. Nothing moved. As we stood there, frozen, it felt as if we were the only ones left in the woods. All the animals, birds, and insects that could get away had gone behind us. They were counting on us to stop the noise.

  But the noise had stopped without us doing anything. There were no more shrieking sounds. Had the Shrieks turned away? Gone back? Why would t
hey do that? Where had they gone?

  Professor Link was quiet. There was nothing to do but wait.

  Suzanne, as Lady, was flying high above us, staying away from the Shrieks that could bring her down in a second. Still, she could see what we couldn’t see. Lady and her friends were our eyes in the air. She circled lower and lower, looking. On our common channel, Suzanne told us that she could see nothing other than the mass movement of forest life behind us. They were all waiting too. Probably wondering if they could return.

  Suzanne said she could see the Riff in the distance, but no Shrieks. Not even the few we thought we had heard. Yes, she agreed, something was wrong. There were Shrieks, and now there weren’t. What were we missing?

  I switched my thought to Cahir, and he showed me what he saw. Trees and plants, but nothing that could move. He was circling us, widening the circle and he still saw nothing. I asked him to stop. Even though he was so quiet no one could hear him, I was worried. He might be moving into a trap. I tried not to think about the Priscillas.

  There was no sound, only the rush of air in and out of our noses, although we did our best to muffle even that. Standing absolutely still was hard. My muscles started trembling, and I wondered how much longer I would be able not to move.

  “Stay still,” Link commanded.

  And then we all heard it. Something so quiet an insect crawling on the ground would have been louder.

  We moved in a circle, our backs to each other, looking for what was out there, and seeing nothing.

  Niko motioned for us to make sure our earmuffs were on and raise our shields. I pressed the star on my neck and almost screamed at what I saw.

  A split second later the forest exploded with sound, and shrieking green mouths surrounded us.

  If I had ever been afraid before, it couldn’t match what I felt in that moment. I held the match of anger to my terror, flipped the mirror switch, and fired.

  Forty-Three

  It got worse. The Shrieking. We reflected their shrieks back at them, and they screamed louder. I swear they grew bigger too. It became harder and harder to stay conscious. The noise was excruciating.

  We were invisible behind our shields, but I had no idea how long the shields would hold up, or keep firing. This was different then our practicing underground. Besides, having the mirrors on this long was dangerous. What was Abbadon seeing?

  The only positive effect that I could see from our effort was that the Shrieks were not advancing. Our tight circle held. Back to back, we shuffled sideways together. Each shuffle gave us a chance to re-trigger and fire at a new target. Plus moving helped us stay conscious. I could feel James’ shoulder attached to me on the left, and Zeid’s on the right. We held each other up. Feeling them there kept me firing, hoping that the next shot would stop the Shrieks.

  Each step sideways revealed yet another huge open mouth to point our weapon at and fire into. I was grateful that there were no other creatures behind them that we could hurt in the process.

  Then I noticed two things I almost wished I couldn’t see. Right before the Shrieks appeared, I had pushed the star. It seemed as if it was the best time possible to do such a thing. It was why Liza gave it to me, to keep us safe.

  That shift in the way I could see around me showed me something terrible. With every shot we took the trees took the hit too. The sound was wounding the trees. Ferns that grew at their base had already withered. At that moment we were killing the innocent. I didn’t know what to do but keep firing and praying when it was over we could heal them.

  I pushed the sorrow away because what I could also see was another wave of Shrieks behind the first one. Their mouths open, they were shrieking too.

  No wonder it was getting louder. There were more!

  I sent the image of the outside circles of Shrieks to everyone. I kept the picture of the dying trees and plants to myself. For now. Because if we didn’t stop these Shrieks here, Shatterskin would be right behind and destroy everything anyway. Forever. Then there would be nothing to heal. It would be gone.

  Teddy had shown us how we could widen our firing beam if we needed to. It was a dangerous move because there was even more of a possibility that people or other creatures would be killed if we missed.

  But in this case, the Shrieks had done us a favor by circling us, obviously not caring anymore if they killed each other, and we had applied one of Niko’s lessons of standing together as one. There was no chance of us hitting each other while we were in a circle together. It gave us a huge advantage.

  We widened our shooting beams, and that made a difference. The lessening of the shrieking told us that it was working. Although still standing, if being a green blob can qualify as standing, what was coming out of their mouths was at an increasingly lower decibel.

  Finally, there was silence. We had stunned the Shrieks with their own sounds. I sent a huge thank you to Teddy and his crew out into the universe. That part had worked. But now what? How long would they stay stunned?

  Then there was the next phase. Would it work? We knew even less about the effect of what we were going to do next because there had been no way to test it. Teddy and his crew had to guess what made up the Shrieks.

  They had taken the little information that they had about how the Shrieks moved through the country and made a few educated guesses. We were ready to try out a few of them. Hopefully, at least one would work before they recovered.

  We left the earmuffs on, just in case. Shields were turned off and slung over our backs. We didn’t need them for the next stage, but no one wanted to be without them.

  Each of us was wearing a backpack, but instead of clothes inside of them, we had bags of salt. Big bags. And containers of water. Since the Shrieks appeared to bypass areas of increased salt, like around what in Earth is known as Salt Lake City, we were hoping they did that because salt was not good for them.

  They also stayed away from bodies of water. Could it be like the Wicked Witch of the West and they could also be dissolved by water? That seemed too simplistic, but we were all ready to try anything.

  We stayed in our circle, backs to each other in case we needed to fire again. But we expanded our circle until each of us was standing directly in front of a green blob.

  Close up that blob was even scarier. I thought that all its sounds came from the large open hole that we called a mouth. It wasn’t really a mouth. These blobs didn’t eat. They only shrieked.

  However, what we found as we looked at them up close was that their entire body was covered with little openings. Their whole being was made to project sound.

  Niko was staring closely at his Shriek. So close it was terrifying. If it started shrieking, Niko was probably dead.

  “Okay. Salt first. Then add the water if nothing happens,” Niko said. “I don’t need to tell you that we don’t have that much with us, so don’t run out. There are more Shrieks here than we thought there would be.”

  My expanded vision had faded. The star seemed only to be able to hold me there for short periods of time. But I didn’t need it to see the Shrieks. Perhaps because they were stunned, they were all visible now. To everyone. At least a hundred Shrieks surrounded us. Not just the few that we thought we were chasing. How they managed to fool us was a question we would have to face, but this was not the time.

  It was the time to get rid of them. I took a deep breath, praying we were getting ready to kill the Shrieks and not wake them up.

  In one hand we each held a container of salt, and in the other, a bottle of water. I looked at Zeid. His azure eyes flared, and we turned together and poured.

  Forty-Four

  The Shrieks started moving. We kept pouring, working only with the inner circle. The outer ring of Shrieks remained frozen.

  “Don’t stop,” Professor Link commanded. “If they are not making a sou
nd, it might be working.”

  I wanted to be a smart ass and say, “You aren’t here. You don’t see these things moving around.”

  It finally dawned on me that they were swelling, not moving. The Shrieks were getting bigger and bigger. What if it opened its mouth? Could we survive it?

  And then one of the Shrieks burst. Totally, totally gross. Green stuff everywhere. After the first Shriek burst, we stepped away and let the rest of the first ring of Shrieks burst without green goo hitting anyone.

  Now that we knew it worked, we moved to the second ring and started pouring. Pour. Swell. Step away. Burst.

  What seemed like hours later, but must have been only a few minutes, we were out of salt. But there were still five Shrieks left.

  “Try the water,” Link said.

  Aki poured the last bit of water on them while the rest of us prepared for explosions of green blobs. Nothing happened. Well, something happened. The Shrieks started moving again. Not swelling this time. Instead, their mouths began opening. Most of us had taken our earmuffs off, and they were hanging around our necks. We slapped them back on, and Aki fired her shield at all five of the Shrieks as fast as she could.

  After what seemed an eternity they were frozen once more. Mouths open. Ready to scream.

  “Now what? We are out of salt and water. Plus green blobs are lying all over the ground. What’s to say that they won’t rise again? We need to get rid of it all,” I said.

  “Time to try the other thing we talked about,” I heard Link say.

  “What other thing?” Zeid asked. Well everyone asked as they turned to me expecting me to do something. Zeid was just the one who said it out loud.

  They thought it was me who knew? It wasn’t. I had no idea what Link was talking about.