Both the boy and girl looked at one another.
“He punched you, did he?” The boy asked, angered, with his brown, short hair, wavering in the breeze.
I turned to them, putting my wrist to my nose when a voice echoed up.
“All competitors please jump down.” The voice reverberated upward for a few minutes before dissipating.
We all turned and keeping my mouth shut I knew I was going to be in trouble now more than ever. Without a word I slipped over the edge watching the world rush at me, when I landed in the net, the wind rushing around me until the magical creation stabilized.
Looking down at a height that felt staggering, the other two jumped down and landed on the shimmering magic net then the descent started. It was a mere second as the wall, that felt like hours to climb, went by before I could blink.
Dizzily, I stepped from the net onto the stage. The woman with the head piece handed me a cloth that I quickly put to my nose as I realized my hand was coated in blood.
My head fell as I shook it softly, knowing I was going to be in for it.
Yet, my biggest disappointment was losing to a boy like that, I thought. I looked up to see he held the winning gloves as the announcer applauded.
“He was not the real winner!” The boy beside me called.
The mirth on the boy with the mohawks face diminished and the girl with gloves, who looked pleased that he had won, glared over at the two who had helped me up.
The announcer turned and the crowd mumbled.
“What do you mean? The flag was brought out by this young man.” he said, the boy pretended to be kind as he looked over to me, his mohawk drooping from sweat that beaded on his cheeks.
“She was out when I got up there, must have hit her head.” he said casually and turned back to the crowd.
The girl with copper hair stepped forward and pointed at him.
“Then how did both your hands get blood on them when only one is cut?” She asked and folded her arms.
The boys lips tightened into a snarl and the announcer suddenly seemed to realize the boy he was hailing might be a fraud. Two staff members rushed up and examined the boy’s hands as he choked out a response.
“I must have grabbed my other hand while climbing, that’s why it’s bloody.” he said, but the cut on his left hand was too far over on the top of his hand to have even left a stain.
The two assistants looked to the announcer and spoke with him quietly as the crowd now watched befuddled by the turn of events. I wiped my nose that still bled and looked to the two who stood up for me at my side. They suddenly seemed to be more than two random contestants as I felt grateful they spoke up for me.
“We have come to a deliberation.” The announcer said as his people backed off to the side, “Please give back the gloves.” The announcer said and the smile of the boy drooped almost as much as his mohawk.
With a sneer, the boy stiffly handed them back, the announcer took them. They had some blood stained on them.
“Jack Wealc you are disqualified for the next two Skyjump competitions for such behavior and disregard for truth. This is a dignified sport.” He said, and shooed Jack off the stage.
He glared back at me and the two who had stood up for me with such rage I swear I saw red flames ignite in his eyes.
“Miss Deshion is our true competition winner.” He said, nodding as I stood in a daze, he brought me the gloves.
I held them in my hands as the crowd cheered. Smiling softly, I looked over to the two who had helped me. They smiled kindly and nodded with satisfaction.
Turning back to the crowd as the announcer thanked everyone for coming out to the competition a figure in the back of the crowd caught my eyes. All sound was gone as I met the eyes of my father.
I froze. He shook his head as his arms were folded and he moved through the crowd to get me with a path already laid out by his movements as people started to disperse.
“Sorry about what happ-” before the announcer could finish, I was moving past them all.
I was running off the stage and down the steps grabbing my things and nearly racing passed, Clara, who looked up to me with a sad kind of longing in her eyes.
I skidded to a stop before her and held out the gloves, I considered I was a goner whether I stopped now or not. She looked to me stunned and I nodded as she took them. Her eyes filling with stars, her parents of the little girl gasped. Before any of them could say a word I looked up to see my father on a direct war path for me.
Rushing off through the crowd that congregated around me, I met my father half way. His lips were taut and he shook his head disprovingly.
“To the truck.” he said, his breathing deep, and his brow slanted, hard as stone.
“But-” I tried.
“NOW.” He said harshly, and put a hand to my shoulder that was hard but not cruel as we started off.
There may have been a mumble from Clara or her family but I could not tell as I lowered my head and knew I was in for it now. I could not even glance back as we came to the truck. Opening the door I got in as my father slammed it shut.
Looking over to the crowd as they left I caught the two who had saved me. The boy with short brown hair and the girl with long copper hair looked after me with confusion.
A sudden pang of guilt hit me like an arrow in my chest as my father got into the truck, his voice stern and ranting as his words fell short.
I hadn’t had the chance to thank the two other competitors for standing up for some strange girl who showed up out of the blue, for a competition she should have never been in.
Chapter 4
“Driving and Hiding”
Scrunching my nose, I looked out the window at the nighttime landscape of the desert. We started to head up and out of it as the hues and shades of twilight created shadows against the rock faces. Putting my wrist to my nose it still came back with a puddle of red. I put the cloth to my tender flesh, wincing softly as the bruise on the crest of my nose was now formed and angry.
Glancing to the side I looked to my father whose eyes were on the road. His brow a hard line, telling me he was still angry though they softened every few seconds as he was becoming drowsy.
Turning my head back to the window I leaned into the door and felt the soft chill of the glass as my head swayed, taking in a long sigh.
My father had given me a lecture for what felt like hours as we had driven out of the city much faster than we had come in.
“Equila Deshion what in the world made you think that doing a SkyJump competition would be okay?!” he had asked, I had tried to get word in and explain the mix up but he spoke over my words until all I could do was fold my arms and take in his words silently.
“I let you go one time, ONE TIME! And this is what happens? You disobey me and wonder why I don’t let you go near any competitions.” he had clenched his jaw, it was normal that when he was mad he would not look to me as he spoke.
“It was a mistake.” I said placing my hands before me, “I had tried to get out of it but what other choice did I have? Turn into my SkyJump beast form and gallop away?!”
Shifting his gaze my father glared over to me and that’s when I knew he was serious.
“That city is known to have groups of Earthen brethren. Do you know what they would do if they found out a Skyjump descendent had been within their city playing around?” His tone was cold as he shook his head looking back to the road, but I could hear the catch in his voice as he must have thought of every bad outcome possible.
When I was young I remember reading a paper that talked about the murder of a Skyjump man my father knew it. Was beaten and hung by the Earthen Brethren, though the paper did not call them such. They were caught and given the death penalty for what they had done. That was the day I realized my father’s concerns were real, not just an over- reactive parent.
I had opened my mouth to try and protest but I felt the weight of what he had said bringing me down until all I could do was tur
n to the window. Wishing I could say I was sorry in that moment but knowing the wounds of what had happened were still too fresh to try and mend the hole between us.
We came over a rise as the truck softly sputtered, my father stopped his trance and glanced ahead on the road and then behind. I followed his gaze and found no one behind or coming toward us on the road.
“We’re going to stop off the road for the night, we will reach the school in the morning.” he said, turning on his blinker and starting us onto a bumpy road toward a cluster of jutting rock and bringing the truck around it to show that a small valley hid behind massive stones.
I sat up as the moon filled the small Eden with its array of pines and spruces with patches of grass and a small waterfall far off in the circular hideaway.
Turning my head, I looked to my father who seemed too tired to keep his brow a hard line as he looked at the valley with a calm glint in his eyes. My father always knew where to go in any of the cities we traveled and how to find places like this hidden in them. I wondered if it was a Skyjump trait or just his talent to know where Edens, as we called these places, were.
He pulled the truck onto a grassy spot behind another bolder so even if someone followed the trucks tracks they would look into the valley and see nothing but the lovely little paradise.
Moving the gear to park he took a deep breath and looked out. My feet wanted to run and dance along the grassy meadow that still had a dryer look then that of a lush forest, but anything compared to the desert that was now behind us looked wonderful and lush.
Grabbing for my bag I took out my camera and lowered my window. I leaned out and took a deep breath of the valley’s sweet air. I smiled, leaning out further and putting my eye to the lens, making sure the picture would be right where I wanted it and with a click and flash it started to develop a small photo popping out of the bottom.
Opening my right eye to take in the valley’s moon traced landscape, I wanted to go out and enjoy it. More than anything be out of the truck, but I doubted after everything that had transpired today I would be able to leave the truck until we reached the school; other than for a restroom breaks along the way that is.
Coming back inside from my seat on the window, I grabbed the picture that started to come into view on the white surface, as if smoke dissolving from a harbor in slow progression.
It looked as fantastic as I saw it presently. I tilted my head with a smile, but I knew it would also remind me of this day.
Glancing to the side I saw my father as he opened his window and leaned back his chair letting out a sigh, that was his way of de-stressing. Before he could close his eye’s I looked down and put my camera back in my bag. I held the photo while my own gold and black bracelet shimmering softly in the moon light that filtered through the dash.
“Dad, I’m sorry.” I said looking down, not really wanting to glance up, as I felt ashamed, “I honestly did not put myself in the competition. I was just trying to give a little girl who was kicked off the wall by another competitor my old gloves. Not that it means I shouldn’t have tried harder to get off the stage when I got called up.” I said, trying to ease my conscience as much as mend things with my father while I looked at the photo I held gently.
I knew he was looking to me when another long drawn out sigh escaped his lips, but there was a smoothness to it that was more like the wind than a harsh storm’s breeze.
“Quil, you can go run around the valley if you like.” he said nodding, as he sat back in his chair.
I looked up and smiled as I felt a weight lift from my shoulders, it was his way of saying he forgave me though I knew I would be reminded of it every time I went near another Skyjumping competition. If I was ever allowed near them again, that is.
Leaning over, I kissed him on the cheek then opened my door jumping out into the brisk night air. I held the side of the door taking a long, deep breath. Turning back to the truck I looked in, he was already snoring by the time I shut the door and started out.
Looking around, I smiled holding my arms wide and letting the breeze sweep passed me as it rustled the grass and trees.
I wanted to explore this whole little Eden, but I wished I could, suddenly I remembered my father had said I could run! With a smile I looked back to the truck and then to the valley.
Run was our code word for turning into the mythical Skyjump beast that most, if not everyone believed to be fictional.
Taking off my shoes I looked out and sighted the waterfall far off, that was where I wanted to go and once in my other form it would only be a short canter away.
Closing my eyes, I bent down and touched the grass at my feet taking a deep breath; to transform you had to be calm of mind and I still struggled with it. Starting to stand, I felt a burning coal in my chest start to spark brighter and brighter. I started into a run, my eyes closed until I jumped forward and felt my hooves grace the ground, my body become much stronger and my heart thrum within my chest as if I had already been running.
With a whinny, I reared up, pawing the air as I arched my neck. The weight of my antlers always new but never unwanted. I felt powerful in this form, though we rarely could turn into our beast forms it was nice when we could. Skyjump’s, like reindeer, all had antlers, male or female, though the one time I had seen my father in his beast form his antlers were wider and larger than mine by far.
Throwing my head up as my hooves pounded the earth, I shook my head and felt my dark chestnut mane sway and ripple across my neck. Looking to the small waterfall I threw my head and started into a trot and swiftly moved into a canter, the feeling was as if you one moment were walking and the next you were flying!
I swept across the grass and through the valley as if on wings. The night air rushed passed me as my ears caught every click and sway of bug and tree. A briar bush lined the way before me. I took longer strides until before I knew it I thrust my body up and sailed over the bush. My back hooves not even nicking the top leaves.
Landing, I felt my muscles catch and release in my legs as I kept my pace racing to the edge of the little pond that’s waterfall fell softly into the night. Prancing, I slowed until I reached the water’s edge where the pebbles below me shifted in almost a cooing fashion.
My sides heaved out breaths as I looked around at the valley. Far away by a cluster of rocks the truck still waited, though it now looked like a toy car in the distance. I pawed the earth feeling relieved to be able to run in this form again.
Turning back to the water I lowered my head and drank from the fresh water, letting it cool me from the inside out. I caught my swaying reflection in the water as the horse-like beast looked back with brown and grey markings and covered with a good layer of thick elk-like fur that swayed in the breeze. My antlers rose above my head in a grand mantle, I never wanted to have to use them as my great ancestors did to fight, but I always wondered how strong they were.
Looking into the water, I held my head up and remembered when I was younger, I had lost my first antlers and when I turned back into a human I cried to my father saying I wanted them back. He had laughed softly and coddled me as he held one of my antlers up, that unlike elks were almost a pure white color.
“They’ll grow back Quil, and when they do you’ll have even better ones. They’re like your baby teeth, they’ll come back better than ever as you grow.” He had said and then he picked me up in my little sun dress and swirled me around in a lush, coastal grove before we started out again to move to another town.
I leaned over the water’s edge and slowly felt the rush leave me as I let myself drift back to human. A soft light filtered through the air until only the clothed, crouching, barefoot, teen girl stood looking into the water back at me. Her eyes a pale green and her lips caught in a soft thinking way as her hair held next to her cheeks in a slightly wild fashion and her nose looked red but less bruised than I would have imagined.
Looking at myself I imagined what it would be like to have my mother with me and my father. I often
daydreamed as we drove about the conversations we would have around dumb things like the car in front of us with her chiming in, or the way she would be with us running as Skyjump beasts.
She was not a Skyjump so I always thought she might ride atop my father if we both were in our beast forms.
Slowly, I sat down next to the water and took a long sigh as I put a hand into the clear liquid letting myself feel the cool touch of its embrace.
If my mother were still alive it would be more dangerous than it already was for me and my father being Skyjumps. My mother was a direct descendent of one of the ten high mages who turned the people of SkyJump into beasts.
Looking into the water I could only imagine my father happier with her around even if she could not turn; I could just imagine prancing around as she laughed while my father held her close to him.
We only had one picture of all of us and it was one that was always within my bag in an album book of pictures I would not leave behind in any of the storage units we had across the country.
Looking over my shoulder to the truck I wondered if my mother would let my father send me to a prep school for a year or more if she was still alive. Deep within me I hoped she would fight to keep me with them as they traveled but I knew that with the danger as high as it was becoming across the nation with groups of Earthen brethren becoming more violent, SkyJumps were in more danger than there had ever been since the first battle so incredibly long ago.
Looking up to the waterfall I wondered what it would be like to stay in one place for a whole year. My life had never even been lived in the same place for an entire year.
I was starting to wonder if I might go mad from being caged within one building’s walls for months. That’s when a thought hit me as I looked into the reflecting moon-touched water. Would I be able to run free in my beast form or would I never be allowed to be free or go outside during my stay?
My eyes widened and I started to panic when I remembered what my father had told me about the school when he had tried to make it sound like it was going to be a nice change for me.
Sky Jump Page 3