by Martha Carr
Chapter Twenty-Four
Maggie dropped Taylor off at the station and he insisted on giving her a bear hug before he would head inside. "I'll be okay, go on. I have an errand to run. Go take a load off." She waved and gave him a tight smile hoping it was convincing. The young detective was headed home to see if there was any sighting of Wilmark. Something was wrong, she could feel it inside the hum of energy racing along the back of her neck.
She turned her car onto the narrow two-way of Walsh Street, just blocks from home, slowing down to let a boxy, silver Kia speed past her, a young man in a UT shirt with the bass on his sound system turned up so loud, Maggie could feel the vibrations as he went by the El Camino. He was bouncing in his seat, singing as he zipped past her. She was looking in the rear-view mirror, smiling until she realized the vibrations were continuing in her car even as he turned onto 5th Street. The smile dropped from her face and she quickly looked around, trying to see if there was a source to the commotion.
"No, no, no, no..." She looked down at her purse, clamping her hand down on it, but the shaking was becoming so violent it sent a shock of pain up through her elbow. She let go as the purse flew open and the puzzle box spilled out, shaking so fast it was becoming a blur. Maggie upended her purse, letting the puzzle box drop the floor of the car and quickly scooped up the rest of the contents, sliding the compass into her pocket. She clutched her phone as she pushed open her car door, blocking a green Camry coming down the other way. The driver honked her horn, waving her hands in the air, the silver rings on her fingers catching the sun. It wasn't long before her irritated look was replaced by panic. She locked eyes with Maggie and froze, gripping her steering wheel as the pavement began to shake, shifting her car slightly to the right, closer to a parked car.
"Get out of here!" yelled Maggie, leaning forward from her waist and waving at the young woman. She pushed with her arms, still looking into the driver's eyes. "Back up, back up!" The woman didn't move at first, and Maggie pulled out her badge, waving it at the woman. "Get out now!
The ground underneath Maggie rose slightly, bulging under her feet. That woke up the woman and she nodded, throwing her car into reverse, her short dark bob swinging back and forth as she looked over her shoulder, weaving backward in the direction of 6th Street. When she got to the corner, she took one last look at Maggie as the detective jumped from the rising pavement onto the hood of the El Camino and across to the sidewalk, landing easily and touching down with her hand momentarily to right herself, even as the ground shook. "Hello, Mother Earth, not in a mood to play nicely today." Maggie slid the strap of her purse over her head and pulled out her phone as she ran in the direction of the old furniture refinishing shop that had been there since before she was born. She knew she wasn't far from Carl Hopkins shop, if she could only make the next few blocks. "Please be there, please be there..."
Diana answered on the second ring. "Hello sister, what's all that noise? Why are you breathing so hard? Hang on, can you hold the phone closer? You’re on speaker phone."
Maggie could hear the sound of Disney theme music over the phone and knew Diana was in surgery. Someone would be holding the phone for her. It always calmed her down, hopefully it could work now too.
"The ship has figured out I'm still here, again. I need your help. My car is on Walsh between 5th and 6th and the puzzle box is in it. Take it and see if you can get to Bernie with it. Tell him I need help," she shouted over the roar of concrete and pavement coming to life.
"Maggie... I'm not the Elemental," she said, whispering the last few words. "It won't work."
"We don't know that for sure and right now, it's all I've got. The Earth is literally chasing me down." Maggie looked behind her and saw a seam opening up right behind her, rippling forward.
"I'm on it! Run Maggie, run! Remember that Halloween and we all got caught rolling Andrew Monroe's house?" Diana was talking as fast as she could, doing her best to sound encouraging and not full of the fear she felt in the center of her chest. "We got away because..."
"You only have to outrun the one behind you. I love you, sister." There's no one behind me. Maggie took the corner at 6th Street, crossing over as she dodged an old taxi and running down the side of a hair salon in an old bungalow. She was settling down, growing calm even as she could hear the sound of turf ripping apart behind her. She got to the alley, still clutching her phone, the sound of her sister's voice yelling, "Go! Run!".
She felt it before she saw it and leaped over a pile of boxes left behind a business, hoping it would buy her time. She landed just as the ground under her back foot rapidly opened up beneath her. "Take care of Mom," she said, too quietly for Diana to hear on the phone.
"What? What about Mom? What did you say? I'm coming, Maggie, I'm coming." She lay down the instrument she was still holding in her hand. "You close," she said to the surgeon standing on the other side of the patient as the phone went dead. She pulled off the surgical gloves and saw that the palm of her hand was vibrating, and she felt a slight tingle across the back of her neck as she ran out of the surgical suite, only stopping to grab her keys. "What the hell is happening?"
The ground opened up beneath Maggie's feet, spitting gravel and dirt in every direction and sucking her underneath. Let it be quick. She sucked in as much air as she could, looking up at the sunlight before it all disappeared. A Texas blue sky. The ground enveloped her as dirt filled her nose and she squeezed her eyes shut, the pressure of the soil weighing on her chest and making it hard to breathe. She felt a cool thread of energy pass through her head and snake down her spine. Bernie's voice echoed in her head. There's no need to do this alone. Help me, please. The Earth pressed on her from all sides, squeezing the air out of her lungs just as she passed out, still clutching her phone, the compass coming to life with her last thought and whirring in her pocket.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Maggie felt a thumping through her head and tried taking in a deep breath. Instead, she ended up giving off a great sneeze, dirt and snot spraying everywhere. "Oh, for the love of..." Dirt rolled around on her tongue and she rolled over, spitting it out as she brushed off her face, trying to open her eyes. "I'm still alive..." She looked up, even as more dirt rained out of her hair, causing her to blink as she caught sight of the smooth walls of the underground tunnel lit with a luminescent glow. "Deja vu all over again." She got to her knees and shook out her shirt, pressing her hand against the wall as she stood. "Oh Huldus, I'm home," she whispered. "Peaches, Bernie."
She stood up, finally slipping her phone into her purse, checking to see if she was injured and noticing the barrel of her gun was packed tightly with dirt, sending a shiver down her back. "You really were trying to knock me off your enrollment lists," she muttered, putting her gun back in the holster. She lifted her head at the sound of distant pinging and crept forward, looking around the corner for any gnomes. The tunnels were empty. She went in the direction of the pinging as the light gradually grew brighter and the dirt floors changed to the mosaic patterns in small tiles.
The sound grew louder, of metal hitting against metal till she was standing in front of a large system of pipes, woven together and heading off to different paths. The ping had grown to sound like a hammer against metal and Maggie saw the source of the noise where a short piece of pipe was banging back and forth between two fittings, collecting and delivering to either side. She covered her ears with her hands and marveled at the faces of the large dials, the pieces breaking apart and flipping over just like the compass.
She pressed her hand against the compass in her pocket and smelled the aroma of fresh sod rise up in the air, just like what trailed after Bernie all the time. "Bernie... Diana must have found you." She winced as the machinery clanged again and looked around for a different tunnel to try, choosing to head down an opposite path, moving faster to get away from the noise. She jogged across the tiled floor, realizing the patterns formed pictures of gnomes together in different scenes, but not underground. She c
rouched down and touched the tile, realizing what was depicted. "The original home planet," she said in awe. She stood up and looked at the different frames of gnomes and narrowed her gaze, backtracking back down the tunnel to one particular scene. She knelt down, resting a knee on the ground and ran her hand over the tile. Standing among the Huldus were similar creatures, only taller. "Tall bastards," muttered Maggie. "You weren't always enemies."
She heard a cheer go up from further down the tunnel and got up, walking faster in the direction of the sound. The light grew brighter and the sound of voices mixing grew as she got to the edge of the tunnel and looked down, her breath catching in her throat. She stood at a steep drop off in a large circular opening several stories above a bustling town just below. All around her in the vast, wide open space were moving, metallic bronze stairs that formed and reformed themselves, becoming a thick liquid cloud before reshaping again into stairs at one of the hundreds of openings. She watched as a Huldu came to an opening and waited patiently as the molten cloud floated up to him, forming into stairs and the gnome stepped out, walking down the stairs, even as they floated to his destination at another opening, further down the wall.
The compass, still nestled in her pocket began to whirr and click and she took it out, watching the pieces of the face flip over, again and again. "I wish I knew what all of that meant." She put it back into her pocket and stepped closer to the edge.
Maggie peered over the lip to the bottom and felt her stomach lurch as she tapped her fingers on the top of her disabled gun. From where she stood the Huldus seemed like small bugs, passing back and forth. A bronze cloud floated up to her, forming into a long stair and stopped just in front of her. She hesitated and looked behind her but stepped out anyway. "No going back at this point, might as well go forward.
She felt the solid metal under her feet and felt relieved, even as she started to take the stairs, gripping the rail as the stairs glided down toward the bottom, anticipating where she wanted to go. As she got closer she could see Huldus gathered in a square around a table drinking out of large steins and laughing, clapping each other on the back and sending up the occasional cheer. All around them were other gnomes making their way in and out of shops, carrying bags and going about their business.
The stairs alighted at the edge of the square and a Huldu looked up to see who was arriving, startled to find the Elemental in front of him.
"Radar?" asked Maggie, relieved to see a familiar face. "Is that you?"
"Maggie Parker? Maggie Parker! You're back! How'd you get here? Is Bernie with you?" He waved to another gnome and nodded toward Maggie. The other gnome took a look at the Elemental and his mouth formed an 'o' as he turned and raced off between two shops.
Maggie stepped off the stairs as the risers lost their shape, pulling up into a shining dark cloud, rising in search of the next traveler. "Bernie's not with me, not yet, anyway. Where exactly is here?"
Radar took off his glasses, polishing them, his eyes growing wide as he looked around at the passerby who were all staring at Maggie. "Oh, well, oh... Here is the center of town for this region. You're in region nine, deep in the center of things. I don't think a Peabrain has ever gotten this deep before, but you've been a few places no Peabrain has ever been." He put his glasses back on and gave her a wink. "Do you still have the book?" He put up his hands, already protesting. "No worries, I heard you are, Elemental, but keep it safe. You took a very, very, very old book. Never was able to figure out exactly all it had to offer, but I had hints." He tilted his head as if he expected Maggie to fill in the answers for him, but she said nothing, still looking around at all of the buildings and gnomes around her.
"This is amazing," she said, her eyes darting back and forth. "You've created your own world down here."
"Oh, well, we had to after a few years. I mean, a lot of this was already here because each voyage took a little while." He shrugged, making a face. "But after a few hundred years, we realized that this was home." He wove his fingers together, twirling his thumbs as he let out a sigh. "It grows on you after a few centuries, you know."
"You have flowers!" She stepped around him to a flower box outside of a coffee shop. "They're real! And coffee... Hey, do they take debit cards?"
Stairs came down to the square nearby and a gnome jumped off, hustling toward Maggie. "Let's hope a squirrel doesn't run by or you may take off."
"Bernie, you're here!" Maggie ran and hugged him as tight as she could leaving a dirt smudge across his forehead. He patted her back, sending up a cloud of dirt and waited till she let him go.
"You okay, kid? What's with the dirt routine? I thought that was my bit." He eyed her up and down. "What exactly happened to you?"
"You know what happened. You saved my life, again! The Earth showed up and this time didn't send an envoy of coyotes."
Bernie shook his head, shrugging. "What do the words you're saying mean?"
"Bernie, come on, the Earth swallowed me whole and smothered me. I was in a permanent dirt nap, lights out."
Bernie slapped his forehead and grabbed Maggie by the shoulders, squeezing. "You okay? Anything hurt? Radar, did you check her out?"
Radar's mouth hung open and he was wringing his hands as he shook his head. "I had no idea. She looks like she has the usual amount of a dirt layer."
"For a gnome, maybe!" blurted Bernie.
"I've seen plenty of Peabrains with even more dirt covering them."
Bernie looked at Maggie. "Well, he's got me there. I mean, Slim has me beat on most days." He smoothed out the front of his red and black striped sweater.
"That a present from him?"
"Yeah, you like it? Don't know how he finds them. Clever Peabrain."
"I think Slim may be the really magical one amongst us. He appears to be able to travel back to the 1990's. What are you doing?"
"What? Nothing, I'm standing in place," he whistled through his teeth.
"You're a terrible liar."
Bernie was clenching his hands into fists and letting go, looking at the dirt smears across her cheeks. He didn't say anything, pressing his lips together, his face getting redder.
"Take a breath, Bernie, I'm okay. Earth didn't win. But if you didn't get me out of there, who did? And Diana..." Her chest ached as she realized what it meant. "She doesn't know... I have to get out of here. I have to go!" The compass in her pocket began to whirr again and pushed against the fabric, trying to get out. Maggie pulled it out, and watched as it floated just above her hand, the tiny wings twirling in motion. The gnomes sitting at the nearby table got up to come and take a closer look, letting out a collective, "ooooooohhhhh."
"Never seen the compass this close before."
"And operating! I've only heard stories."
"Wondered if they were true."
"You must be the Elemental!"
A hush came over them as they gaped at Maggie, smiles spreading across their faces.
Radar stepped in front of them, smiling gently at Maggie, his hands folded together in front of his chest. "Don't mind them. Hope is a very powerful and painful thing at times and erupts when you don't see it coming."
"Not now, Radar," barked Bernie.
"There's no rule against telling her."
"There ought to be. I'll make one up on the spot. Rule number hundred and one! Don't tell the Elemental."
But Radar kept going as the compass whirred and hummed floating just in front of Maggie.
"What I was trying to tell you before is that no one ever really speaks of home, the old home anyway, anymore. You stare at the past for too long and you can get stuck there."
"I've heard that before," said Maggie as she looked at Radar's face.
"But seeing you..." he looked at the compass, a smile flitting across his face, "and the compass together, it awakens that very old and painful hope that maybe, just maybe we can go home, to that other home."
Maggie lifted her head, stepping back. "I'm just one Elemental, Radar."
&n
bsp; "Now, see what you've done. It's okay, Maggie. No one expects you to fix everything."
Maggie looked at the gathering crowd of gnomes, staring expectantly at the compass. "Don't be so sure." She looked over the crowd and saw that gnomes were coming out of the shops as the word spread, pointing and talking.
"I need to go home. I need to find my sister." As soon as she said it the cool thread of energy passed through her head and surged, spreading down her spine and out to her hands and feet.
"Sure, sure, kid. We'll figure out a way." Bernie shook his head and pushed at the crowd. "Get back! You're crowding an Elemental. Come on, you know better than that," he said, angrily, the words whistling between his teeth. Bubbles popped out of his nose with small fireflies that broke free and flew around his head, lighting up like a small halo. The scent of strawberries mixed in the air with the smell of damp soil as he smoothed out the front of his sweater.
"I want to go home." Please let me tell Diana I'm okay.
The compass began to twirl faster and faster.
"Let's get a staircase out of here and we can find Jack and figure out what to do. He's usually good for a few ideas. I mean, I should be able to get you out the same way I did before..."
"What's she doing?" asked a gnome standing in the front of the crowd.
"Look," said another Huldu, pointing at Maggie.
Maggie followed the direction of his finger and looked down at the bubbles forming around the bottom of her legs, encasing her as they rapidly climbed up her body. "Tell me this is a good thing, Bernie!"
"Looks that way, every indication," said Radar, mustering encouragement. The crowd of Huldus gasped in amazement and gave her a thumbs up in unison.
"I'll meet you topside," shouted Bernie as the bubbles covered her over, just as quickly disassembling and depositing her in the middle of Barton Springs pool. Maggie sputtered, swallowing water as she sank beneath the surface, a school of silvery sunfish abruptly changing direction and swimming around her.
