by D. B. Green
ENCHANTERS
MERIDIA FALLS: SERIES ONE | BOOK THREE
D.B. GREEN
For my family:
Lorna, Brandon, Kara, Pebble, and Marble.
CONTENTS
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Logan’s Letter
Tuesday 4th October 2005
11:14 GMT-4
11:47 GMT-4
12:16 GMT-4
15:32 GMT-4
15:49 GMT-4
Wednesday 5th October 2005
08:04 GMT-4
08:27 GMT-4
08:46 GMT-4
09:22 GMT-4
13:21 GMT-4
14:03 GMT-4
15:27 GMT-4
Next Time
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More Books by D.B. Green
Author’s Note
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Copyright
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October 7th, 2005
Dear Cassie,
What can I say? The first day at Meridia High was eventful. My entire world changed in those few hours. Remember that girl in my recurring dream? Well, she’s actually a real person; I met her at school. Penny Summers. I never believed in love at first sight - until now. When we kissed, I could see her memories and she could see mine. It was like a vision of her life. I could feel all her experiences, like they happened to me. It was a connection… a magical connection. This happened after a weird vaccination they gave us at school. It kick-started this connection, but I think it had been there for a long-time. Waiting.
I met another friend at school, Marilyn Moreau (Maz to her friends). I also inherited her nemesis, Candy Steele - her stepsister. A nasty piece of work. Something strange happened with them both. When they touched my arm, I had visions. I was in their minds, but it was different than with Penny. This was more like their current thoughts and emotions, what they were feeling right at that moment.
A new teacher at the school started the same day as me, too. Miss Slayter. She had the demeanor of a catwalk model rather than a teacher. She flirted with me all afternoon, which was weird and embarrassing.
The kids at this school are far too trusting of the administration. They keep giving them vaccinations like the one I had. The school blame it on a tick infestation, but it feels like something else is going on.
My past didn’t stay secret for too long; in fact, I think it was revealed in world record time. First class - history. Someone messed with a presentation and everyone saw the news documentary about your kidnapping. ‘The white door kid’ was out.
At least after meeting Penny, the fact everyone knew about my past didn’t seem to matter anymore.
Penny has a secret contact that may help - a Mr. Cross. He had information about the strange white door. Cassie, it’s real. Not an hallucination. Those shrinks were wrong; I’m not nuts. Penny’s brother, Sean, was taken through one on the very same day you were taken. Yes, there are more of those doors. Me, you, Penny, and her brother (in fact, the whole of Meridia Falls) are connected. Somehow.
Cross gave Penny the GPS coordinates of a white door here in Meridia Falls. It was in Hellgate Forest, and never has a name been more fitting. On the night of our birthday (yet another strange connection between Penny and I - the same date of birth), we ventured into the forest to look for the door. We found it, but Maz and her boyfriend, Steve, followed us. As we all watched, Miss Slayter (the new teacher I mentioned) and a mysterious scientist drove into the forest clearing next to the door. They opened it and a bright light glared out from behind. They brought with them what looked like a floating block of ice. They both escorted it through the doorway. As the door closed, Penny sprang forward and stopped it closing. She had a look of shock on her face as she called us over to the open door. My heart was racing as we crossed over the threshold. It was like passing from one room to another. We came out into a church crypt. The place was huge, full of stone arches and more floating ice blocks. We found out they’re called Desino Lapses. Each one had a person trapped inside - in a frozen piece of time. I touched one of the blocks and it aged my hand until it looked like an old man’s. It hurt like hell, like my hand was burning up from the inside.
Escaping from the crypt, we discovered it was under the Meridia Memorial Chapel. Hidden away, while everyone went about their normal business above. I didn’t go back to Anne’s after we got out - I stayed the night at Penny’s instead. I was drawn to her. We connected in every way. I know it sounds weird, but I asked her to marry me. She said yes. I know I’ve only just met her, but it felt so right, so perfect.
Steve’s dad is a police sergeant, head of the local RCMP, and with him we all went back to investigate the chapel the next day. But there was no entrance into the crypt. It was sealed and the reverend denied all knowledge of there ever being a crypt, even though we’d seen it on the original plans.
Our trip through the door into the crypt didn’t go unnoticed. Penny was kidnapped and held prisoner inside a Desino Lapse. Frozen in time. She was taken back to the white door in Hellgate Forest. I followed with Steve and Maz to the forest clearing. This time it was Miss Slayter’s sister, Charlotte, who was there. She pushed Penny through the doorway into the crypt. I couldn’t reach her. She was gone. Then Charlotte discovered us and was about to kill Maz and Steve with magic. Yes, magic. I know this all sounds crazy, but I swear it’s true. She’d already used it to crumple a man up like he was a piece of paper she was throwing away. It was barbaric. Luckily, a strange ninja woman with a sword killed her. She said she was a friend before disappearing into the trees.
I almost fell into despair, but then I remembered that Penny had a set of the original plans for the crypt. There might have been an alternative way in. So, we rushed back to her apartment in the Meridian Cinema to get them. But the place wasn’t empty. Penny’s secret contact, Mr. Cross, real name Henry Church, his daughter, Victoria, and his advisor Stephanie Marcone, were waiting for us. Church said we had stumbled into something big. A magical experiment. We brought a file back from the crypt; Church said it had a magical tracker on the front. Stephanie used magic to burn it. I wish Penny could have seen it. A cinder set fire to my shirt. Maz put it out with her hand but touched my skin in the process. Once again, I was in her head, seeing through her eyes. Over my shoulder, through Maz’s eyes, I saw a ghost. Penny’s ghost…
TUESDAY
4th October
2005
11:14 GMT-4
LOGAN COLLINS
THE MERIDIAN CINEMA | MERIDIA FALLS
She’s dead. Penny’s dead.
But, she’s here, right in front of me. Staring straight into my eyes – Maz’s eyes. I brush away Maz’s arm and once again see through my own eyes. Penny’s shimmering outline stands in the corner of the room, next to the living room door. She’s still wearing my blue checked shirt; the metal lapse band is across her chest, glowing blue. Her arm reaches out, her fingers pointing straight at me. I reach for her hand but mine passes through hers, like she’s just the morning mist.
Maz screams. “Oh my god…. Penny’s dead!”
Rage suddenly erupts inside me. It’s rushing from my feet all the way to my head, like a fuse wire on a stick of dynamite. I’m shaking. No! It’s the floor, the cinema itself -
it’s shaking like we’re in the middle of an earthquake. The neatly stacked piles of paper under the windows tumble over, like a house of cards. My eyes focus on Penny’s ghost; she remains perfectly still while everything shakes. Penny.
I dig my fingernails into my palms to fight the rising anger, but it continues to swell inside me. Overpowering me. My ears throb and my vision clouds over. I don’t want to fight the rage anymore. I just want to lash out. Penny’s dead and the world will pay.
A mirror shakes free from the wall, smashing at my feet. My eyes sparkle orange again. Brighter than ever. They stare back at me from the splintered glass full of anger. My face. Orange veins spread out from my eyes across my cheeks, pulsing in time with my racing heartbeat. With every panting breath I take, the veins push further across my face, like spindly orange fingers scratching my skin.
“Logan, are you OK?” Maz asks, touching my shoulder.
I spin around, anger fizzing through my mind. Maz stumbles back, her eyes wide open with shock. She draws her finger across her cheek. “Your face… It looks like it’s on fire,” she says.
Stephanie jumps in front of Maz, knocking a cup off the coffee table. The cup smashes on the floor, spreading dark coffee over the floorboards. Stephanie holds her hand out in front of her. “Stay back from him,” she says.
“Shall I take him out?” The black suited man called Four aims his gun at me.
The rage bursts like an exploding balloon and sparks erupt from my fingers, like a glowing cloud of burning ash. I drop to my knees trying the fight the urge to scream. As I touch the floor, orange veins spread from fingertips across the wood, like glowing cracks.
“No, Four!” Church shouts. “He just needs to calm down.”
A soft hand falls on my shoulder. Soft like Penny’s. I spin around, gasping as the rage chokes my every breath. It’s not Penny. It’s Church’s daughter, Victoria. She avoids the orange veins on the floor and kneels beside me. Her innocent smile calms the rage a little.
She looks straight into my eyes. “Concentrate on me. Concentrate on my breathing.” Her eyes open wide, sparkling blue as she takes long, slow deep breaths. It’s like she’s sucking the anger out of me with every breath she takes.
Before I can stop her, she strokes the side of my face. I glide inside her mind, leaving the rage behind in my body. It’s different this time. Time doesn’t freeze. I see my face, the glowing veins moving across from my cheeks, and the sharp, glaring anger in my sparkling eyes. I feel Victoria’s heartbeat, slow and steady in her chest. And another heartbeat, fast and racing. That must be mine. I continue to breathe through her lungs while watching my face through her eyes. The glowing veins fade away.
I blow out a long breath through Victoria’s lips; it sends me back into my own mind again. Victoria stumbles back and Church lunges forward, grabbing her arm before she falls over.
“You shouldn’t have done that, Victoria,” Church says. “That was too dangerous.”
Victoria gulps. “It was the only way to calm him down… The only way.”
Steve steps towards me, holding out his hand, preparing to catch me. But I stand on my own. I turn away from Penny’s shimmering ghost. It hurts too much to see her like that. “What just happened to me?” I ask.
“That, Mr. Collins, was Affinity - Affinity at its most raw and powerful.” He glances at Stephanie. “If Victoria hadn’t consumed your mind, your rage could have cracked this place open like an egg. Who knows where it would’ve stopped.” He holds his daughter’s hand. “In the right hands, pure Affinity can unite the world. In the wrong, well, let’s just say, in the wrong hands it can bring the world to its knees.”
“What about Penny?” Maz asks, tears streaming down her face. “I saw her ghost.” She points a shaking finger at the door. “She was dead.”
I can’t look. I fear the rage will return if I see Penny’s ghost again.
Church turns sharply to face Maz. “Can you see her now?” he asks.
Maz shakes her head. “No. Just when I touched… Logan.”
Apart from Victoria, all eyes fall on me.
“It must be their connection,” Stephanie says, glancing at Church. “Like when they were kids. The dream-shift experiments.”
I close my eyes and take in another deep breath, then turn around to face Penny… Her ghost. She’s still pointing with her hand stretched out in front of her. Her big beautiful eyes staring ahead.
Church walks over to the closed living room door. He stands in front of Penny’s stationary ghost, waving his hand. It passes through her like she’s made of smoke. “Is she still there, Mr. Collins?”
“Yes. She’s still there.” I turn away. “And she’s still dead.”
“No, Mr. Collins. Far from it,” Church says. “Miss Summers is not dead. Well, not yet anyway.”
“What do you mean, not dead yet?” Steve focuses on the space where Penny’s ghost stands. He glances at Maz, shaking his head. “A ghost… Really?”
Maz nods.
A faint vanilla scent passes under my nose. The orchid. Penny’s orchid. Penny. My hearts pounds in my chest. She’s alive. I need to find her.
“So, Penny’s still in the crypt, under the chapel,” I say, unable to stop a huge smile spreading across my face.
“It’s an illegal extraction vault,” Stephanie says, shaking her head. “They’ll have closed it down now and cleared everything out.”
Church nods. “Yes. They’ll have moved her to another vault. We need to find a way to…” He turns back to the corner of the room, stroking his beard. “She’s reaching out to you. Maybe we can…”
The living room door suddenly bursts open, sending Four sprawling to the floor. A silver gun pokes through the open doorway, held by two shaking hands.
“Teddy!” Steve shouts. “What the hell are you doing here?” His eyes fall on the gun. “You’re only a desk jockey. Where did you get a gun?”
Teddy steps further into the room. The grin from when I met him earlier is gone, now replaced with a stern frown. He glances around the room, ignoring his friend. His eyes fall on Penny’s desk and he finally lowers the gun, sliding it back inside the holster. “A silent alarm was tripped,” he says, taking shallow breaths. “I tried to call Penny - Miss Summers - on her cell phone, but it went straight to voicemail.” His voice is still just as high, but it now has a serious edge that wasn’t there before.
Steve edges over to Teddy, Maz’s arm trailing after him. He glances at me, then back at Teddy. “Did you know Penny?”
Teddy looks around the room again. When his eyes fall on the desk once more, he sighs. “Yeah, I installed her alarm system.” He walks over to the desk and stands up her three fallen monitors. “I installed her computers too. Where is Penny? Is she OK?”
“She’s been kidnapped,” Maz says, glancing back at the door.
Teddy points at the top corner of the room above the red curtains. There’s an alarm sensor. “There’s a small CCTV camera under that,” he says, his eyes opening wide. “It records twenty-four-seven to Penny’s server.” He glances at Church. “She was always concerned that someone would break in.”
“Shame they took the hard drives, then” Stephanie says, sweeping her hand over the desk.
“We don’t need to watch CCTV,” I say. “We know who took her.”
Teddy spins around. “You do? Who kidnapped her?”
“It was Charlotte Slayter,” Steve says. “She took Penny.”
Teddy frowns. “The manager at the coffee shop?” He glances at Church again and then removes Penny’s notice board from the wall. He nudges a photo of a white door on a stone circle with his elbow. It drifts onto the desk, the pin dinging across the floorboards.
On the wall, behind the notice board, is a silver door, with a keypad next to a large handle. “The computers were just for show,” Teddy says. “The real hardware is tucked inside this cooled safe.” He inputs the code to open the door. “Penny even had an extra power line put in. This
thing needed the extra juice.” He tugs open the door and an icy cloud of smoke drifts out. He grabs a monitor cable and connects it to a shiny silver computer inside the safe. The nearest monitor flickers into life.
“Give me a second,” Teddy says, as he connects a keyboard.
Church and Stephanie stand close to the monitor. Victoria slumps back on the sofa, gulping in air, like she’s struggling to breathe. I walk over and sit next to her; the back of my neck tingles like there’s someone blowing across my skin. “Are you OK?” I say.
Victoria looks up and half-smiles. “I will be. It just takes a lot out of me, transferring my mind.”
“Is that what you did?” I ask. “I thought I was reading your mind?”
She tilts her head with a quizzical look and reaches for my injured hand. “Is that the Affinity magic?”
Her fingers touch my still-healing skin, but there is no memory vision. I stare at her hand. “Yeah. It usually works with skin to skin contact.” I reach forward and touch her cheek. Still nothing. “It’s not working on you, though.”
She half-smiles again. “I felt all your pain; your rage. It was intense. You were like a bomb ready to explode.”
“Thank you.” I glance over my shoulder at Penny’s shimmering ghost. My heart sinks. Penny. “I thought she was dead.”