Zap patted Ruaan’s back, brushing the ash dust off. Just as with the shoes, the dust circled straight up onto his sweatshirt. “It’s not coming off.”
Ruaan pulled away as though Zap had fleas or a deadly contagious disease. “That’s what I said, genius. Go pat yourself. You’re also covered. This mess is your fault.”
Kai clucked his tongue. “We’ll find the river. It’ll come off in the water.” Kai frowned. Ruaan was still touchy, but far more co-operative than he’d been the day before. Almost helpful. What had changed? Being in a dark graveyard was enough to make him value his companions.
Kai chuckled, shook his head and began walking, carrying their only source of light. Which way should he go when he didn’t have a clue? He just wanted to get out of this graveyard and then figure out what to do.
It was meant to be just him and Elden that came back to look for Bree. Now, because of some freak accident, he was stuck here with an odd collection of misfits that would take a lot of energy to look after. He wasn’t great at keeping other people safe, which was why they were here in the first place. He clucked his tongue and kept walking.
Evazee followed with Peta behind him. Zap skittered from the back of the small group right up next to Kai, chewing on his nails and fretting. “I’ve figured something out. You know why this place is so creepy? Hmmm?”
“Um, Pete? Open graves, self-engraving tombstones, ash instead of soil. I mean seriously, take your pick.”
Zap waved a dismissive hand, the whites showing all around his eyes. “It’s Zap, not Pete and psh, obviously. But apart from that…” He rubbed his hands. “No noise. Have you noticed?” He wriggled his fingers over his ears.
“You’ve got a point.” Silence, back home, was seldom truly silent. Crickets or wind or something was always blowing or buzzing.
“Listen. There’s no wind, no crickets. It’s like a vacuum, but so loud it hurts my ears.”
“I was just thinking that. Those exact two things.” Kai frowned at his friend. “You’re right, though. Being in space would be noisier.” More than the silence bothered him. He took the bottle light and checked the gravestone. “We’re walking in circles. Look.”
Ruaan pushed past Zee, took the light from Kai, and leaned in close. It was Zap’s grave. “What? That’s not possible. We’ve been going in a straight line.”
Peta stared ahead, eyes unseeing. “We will never get out of here.”
She spoke in a detached and hopeless tone. It was the first thing she’d said since they’d gotten here, and it sounded wrong coming from one so small. So cold, devoid of all emotion, it sent a shiver down Kai’s spine that ended in his stomach as the urge to hurl. “Not if I can help it.” He scrambled up onto the headstone, wobbling as he secured his feet beneath him and turned a slow 360 degrees. “There is something out that way, but I’m not tall enough to make out what it is.”
~*~
Evazee had fallen silent. Her attempts at drawing out Peta had failed until this moment, and now she wished she’d left the girl alone in her silence.
“Evazee come get on my shoulders. You’ve got good eyes. I think heading that way might break us free from walking in eternal circles.”
Evazee blinked at Kai, not sure she’d heard right. “You are insane. I’d prefer not to fall to my death in Zap’s grave, if that’s OK with you.”
Zap nodded, rubbing his chin sagely. “She’s got a point.”
Ruaan punched the top of his arm. “C’mon, we’ll hold her up. The sooner we get out of here, the better.”
Zap nodded again. “He’s got a point, too.”
Ruaan swatted the back of his head. “You’re wasting time.”
“Stop hitting me!”
Together they lifted Evazee, who was too shocked to protest. Zap, however, mumbled under his breath—snippets of words, punch bag, bully... Then Evazee was in Kai’s space, balancing on the stone, and all Zap’s mumblings faded into insignificance.
Her heart pounded loud in her ears and Ruaan’s clipped instructions blurred to a dull buzz of shoving hands and shaking muscles.
Kai crouched down, and she climbed on his shoulders. He lifted himself to a stand, supported on either side by the others, and then she was up.
Ruaan tucked the light bottle under Kai’s shirt. Darkness rushed at them and pressed close.
Evazee squinted. “There are definitely lights out that way. Too far to see what or who, but anything with light has to be better than this.” She slipped off Kai’s shoulders, and they helped her to stand on her own legs with muscles that quivered. She faced the right direction. It would be too easy to get mixed up.
Kai took the bottle out from under his shirt. “So we agree. We follow the light?”
Zap bounced on his toes. “Let’s do it, man. I want to get out of here.” A bead of sweat rolled down his temple. It slid down his face and dripped off the edge of his jawbone. As it hit the ash below their feet, a muted rustling broke the silence. It started as a faint whisper from behind, as if the air had grown skin and bones of metal. Something was coming. Zap’s wide eyes narrowed to slits, and he walked sideways, gesturing behind them with his thumb. “I don’t think that’s a good sign.”
~*~
“We should probably leave. Maybe even run. Now!” Kai took off, leading them, torn between keeping the bottle light out and attracting attention or hiding it and stumbling in the dark. The first open grave across their path persuaded him to keep the light out, regardless of the danger.
Swishing metal sounded closer now. Whatever roamed this place had the advantage of familiarity. “Stay close. Don’t get left behind.” Kai glanced back and wished he hadn’t. They didn’t have just one follower. He could see movement between all the graves behind them. There were many lumbering, shadowed lumps. He resisted the urge to count.
The creatures following them were getting closer. The shortest one was twice as tall as Ruaan even doubled over, running in a loping stride that ate the distance. Vaguely human in shape, they wore tattered rags that flew behind them and exposed hands like metal branches, long stick fingers reaching toward the group as they ran. Grave Keepers.
Anything their steel fingers touched turned to ash and crumbled. The ash was sucked into the vortex of wind created by the creatures’ movement and added to the swirling windstorm that was already building.
“Kai! Come on!” Ruaan grabbed and shook him from his daze.
Evazee held Peta’s hand in a death-grip, hauling her along and ignoring the girl’s reluctance. “Look! The boundary fence! There’s an opening. We’re nearly out!” Beyond the rusted metal of the fence stood a forest of tall, straight trees. If they could reach the trees...
They got to within ten paces from the gap. With a screaming rush of wind, the creatures swirled past them around the outside of the group and blocked the way out.
“You may not leave.” The tall one stretched to his full height, towering above them. His voice rolled over them, the hiss of water on hot coals. His eyes gleamed as pits of nothingness, twin black holes that could suck you in. His mouth, nothing more than a gaping hole spewing out words that rasped through the air like vaporous acid.
Zap squeaked in fright and hid behind Kai. Evazee dropped to her knees next to Peta, who stared ahead as if already dead.
Kai swallowed hard, hoping his voice wouldn’t abandon him. “It’s not our time. Let us pass.” The words burned fiercely in his chest, but they came out of his mouth as a whisper. He coughed and tried again. “It’s not our time! Let us go!”
A swishing hiss rustled through the ranks of ragged keepers. Kai could almost swear they were laughing at him. “Foolisssh, foooolish. You’re marked. You’re ours. You can never leave.”
Ruaan edged forward until he was next to Kai. He whispered, so quiet Kai strained to hear. “Use the light!”
Kai glanced sideways, wondering what level of idiot this kid was. He shut his eyes anyway and held up the tiny bottle, feeling like a fool. Then he thou
ght of Tau and the fierce love in His eyes. He pictured Tau in front of him now, standing between them and what they faced—a strong wall of unyielding resistance. Waves of liquid courage rolled through him, and he swayed on his feet, thrusting the light even higher. Dare he look? He felt the light as heat down his arm, over his skin.
He braved a glance through squinted lids. The Grave Keepers cringed away from the light, which seemed to shine straight through them, reversing their solidity so that they appeared as negative images, not real creatures that could turn someone to ash at a touch.
Holding the light high, he inched forward one slow step. They shrank back. Another step, a little bolder this time. They shrieked louder but backed away. Kai kept walking, thrusting the light out in front of him like a sword.
Eight steps later, he stood between two solid walls of screeching creatures. They hissed and frothed but didn’t dare come any closer. The way out stood open. “Guys, get out. Go!”
They squeezed past him and stayed as far as possible from the thrashing claws on either side. Ruaan was the last to get through the gap. Kai’s head ached from the high-pitched noise. He swung around, holding the light high and backing toward the gap, resisting the urge to run.
Kai cleared the fence, turned, and ran to catch up to the others. All along he’d assumed that the Grave Keepers wouldn’t be able to follow them out of the graveyard. Running with his back to them now, he furiously hoped his assumption was right. Judging by the dip in the volume of their noise, he’d been right. He reached a fork in the road. A tall tree stood between the two paths, dry and long dead. He hesitated for a moment. Which way would they have gone?
A ball of blue flame whizzed past his head, singeing his hair. It landed at the base of the dead tree, which erupted in a spectacular fountain of ash and blue flame. The dead wood yielded quickly to the fire, crackling and snapping in glowing surrender. Heat unlike anything Kai had ever felt washed over him from head to foot.
The second fireball popped with an ear-splitting whoosh before it flew past him and landed in a shower of sparks amongst the undergrowth. Powdery ash filled the air like dust. His throat burned from breathing it in.
There was no time to waste. He held his breath and veered right, instinctively following the path that led in the direction of the light he’d seen from the top of the gravestone. Ash and sparks landed on his skin, but he ignored the burns and kept running. The light bobbed and danced, dangling off the chain around his neck. He let it bounce and kept on. Another ash bomb landed somewhere behind. He glanced back and saw the forest path blazing, cutting him off from the fork. If the others hadn’t taken this path, he was on his own. There was no going back now.
Kai turned away from the burning chaos and ran. The explosions had messed with his vision. A vivid technicolour replay blazed across the inside of his eyelids when he blinked. He ran, rubbing his eyes and collided with someone. They stumbled together and grabbed arms to stop themselves from falling. Ruaan. He’d caught up to the others. Relief washed over Kai.
Ruaan let go of his arm. “You made it. For a moment, I thought you’d gone up in flames.”
“That was the tree, not me. Is everyone here?”
“We lost Evazee and Peta. I don’t know how—” Ruaan broke off in a coughing fit.
Zap patted him on the back and picked up Ruaan’s story. “Evazee and Peta went left. I didn’t even realize it until a moment ago. They must have taken the other fork. We can go back—”
“The forest is burning right across the path. There is no going back.” Kai swallowed bile at the back of his throat. Not again. Please, Tau. “The best we can do is keep going until we come out the other side and head left to find where the other path comes out the woods.”
Zap sniffed the air close to Kai’s head. “You smell like a barbeque. What happened?”
“I don’t know. The Grave Keepers went nuts. They started throwing blue ash fireballs at me. I dodged, but the first one was so close.” He motioned to them. “C’mon. We have to get to the girls.”
4
Evazee was wheezing from the run. The air felt thin here, as if they were high in the mountains. She doubled over to catch her breath and felt Peta do the same next to her. Without Kai’s light, the dark was deep and solid. Evazee reached out to Peta, and the girl didn’t pull away as she had been doing.
“That was too close. How is everybody?” Evazee’s words bounced off the trees and fell to the leaves at her feet. “Hello? Kai. Ruaan! Zap?” She stepped closer to Peta, slipped an arm around the girl’s bony shoulders, and waited for one of the others to respond. She checked the ground with her feet, but it didn’t seem as though anyone was there either.
“I think we went the wrong way. We’re going to have to go back.” Running from the graveyard had happened so fast, yet Evazee had a vague memory of the road branching off in two directions. They’d been the first ones out, and she’d stuck to the left without thinking. Now it seemed that all the others had probably travelled to the right. They simply had to retrace their steps, and they’d find them.
Evazee dreaded facing the Grave Keepers, but maybe if they crept quietly, they could move past undetected. After all, it was only the two of them, and they were both small and light on their feet. Peta said nothing but followed her without resistance.
They retraced their steps and soon saw flickers of blue flashing through the gaps in the trees.
“That doesn’t look right.” A few steps closer showed the forest blazing in blue fire. White ash filled the air and burned their throats and noses. A burning tree had fallen across the path, blocking the way. They wouldn’t be getting back to the others this way. Peta took in the flames with no comment. Another tree went up in flames, sending sparks flying in a shower of blue and white.
“Let’s get out of here. We’ll have to use a different path to find the others.” Peta stood rooted, her eyes on the fire. She still said nothing. Surely, she understood what this meant? A wave of homesickness washed over Evazee, but she tucked it away and turned back toward the dark path. She dragged Peta with her as though the girl had grown roots, mesmerized by the flames. Only once they were out of sight did she turn and follow.
They walked in silence, testing the perimeters of the path as they went. They could cut across the forest and keep walking until they found the other path, but Evazee broke out in a cold sweat at the thought of it. Straight lines had become circles back in the graveyard, and there was no way of predicting where they’d end up if they left the path. If they just kept on until they cleared the trees, they’d find the others waiting for them. Surely.
As they left the crackling fire behind, silence fell as deep and complete as the dark, until all that filled Evazee’s ears was the sound of her own breathing.
Her brain ran wild. The last time she’d stood in this place, she’d been full of light and could do all sorts of things. Now things were different, but what had changed? The possibility that she’d burnt out her gifting while opening the gate on the rooftop was becoming more real than the ground beneath her feet. It might come back to her with rest—
Wait.
What was that noise?
She kept walking as if she’d heard nothing, but she slowed her pace. There it was again—rustling in the trees just next to them. It could be the others coming to find them, or it could be something looking for a snack. Evazee had no intention of being eaten just yet.
Leaning down, she whispered in Peta’s ear. “Can you run?”
Peta did not respond.
Evazee tightened her grip and broke into a run with her arms stretched out in front of her as her only guide.
~*~
Kai couldn’t think straight. As they walked, thoughts buzzed inside his head like LightSuckers trapped in a bottle. If he were a superhero, his superpower would be losing things. Correction, people. He lost more people on any one day than others lost in a lifetime.
The three of them walked in a row, the path too narrow for
any other formation. Ruaan trailed at the back, humming a tune that Kai strongly suspected he might recognize if it had been anybody else humming it. Kai didn’t know what to make of this tall boy who had been ready to rip his head off back at the OS, but since then had been nothing but friendly and helpful. The fierce confrontation was still too fresh in his mind.
Something growled in the gloom behind Kai. He stopped walking to listen.
Zap inched closer. “Did you guys hear that?”
Kai shoved a finger to his lips, “Shhh!”
Ruaan coughed, “Sorry, guys. It’s just my stomach. We left before I could have breakfast.”
“Wow. Is that even normal?” Zap’s question was innocent enough, but it came out with as much force as if Ruaan had sprouted an extra ear on his head.
“What are you saying? Don’t you ever get hungry?” Ruaan’s voice dropped in pitch. He puffed out his chest and sounded more and more like the boy who’d solved things with his fists.
Kai had no desire to play referee for a daft argument. Diversion might work. “I’m wondering if we should cut straight through this forest to the other path. I’m not happy leaving the girls alone with no light.”
Zap shrugged. “It can’t be too far.”
Ruaan was already shaking his head as he eyed the tall trees. Deep shadows hung thick between the trunks, resistant to Kai’s bottle light. “Are you both nuts? We don’t know what’s in there.”
“Let’s rescue the girls. We’ll be like heroes.” Zap’s chin tilted up, and he stared off into the distance. “We need a theme song.”
Kai held the bottle up towards the trees. “We don’t know what waits at the end of this path either. We could be walking straight into a trap.” Kai shrugged. “Besides, it’s two to one. Sorry, Ruaan. You’re outvoted. Look, I’ll even carve a mark in this tree to make you feel better.” With that done, he aimed himself between the trunks and plunged into the thick. Zap followed him without question.
Resonance Page 3