Intangible

by C. A. Gray

  ***

  In the moonlight, the road stretched out in front of the Jeffersons’ BMW like a ribbon, winding and bright. It was a full moon and there were no other cars on the road. It was eerie.

  Towards the second half of the movie, Peter finally began to enjoy having the upper hand over Brock for once. He felt like he was paying Brock back, just a tiny bit, for his role in defining Peter as a social outcast.

  Now the silence was uncomfortable, though. Thomas didn’t seem to realize that anything was wrong, and periodically whistled to himself.

  Unexpectedly a pair of headlights appeared behind them and approached so rapidly that it almost looked as if he intended to slam into the back of them. At the last second, the other car zipped to the side and sped off into the distance.

  “Come on!” Brock shouted angrily.

  “Now, now, there’s no need to get testy, Master Brock,” said Thomas.

  “I’ll show you testy,” Brock grumbled. He was sitting shotgun and cast a venomous look in Thomas’s direction.

  *

  Kane waited, and tried to slow his breathing to a normal rate. He told his heart to be still.

  This won’t be a big deal, he told himself. The accident couldn’t possibly be too severe, since all Thomas could hit was the back corner of the car Kane had left parked in the road. Worst case scenario, both cars would spin a little. But if an accident happened at all, if Peter couldn’t prevent it, that would be enough to prove to the Watchers that Peter Stewart was not who they thought he was.

  *

  “Excuse me, Thomas,” Peter said nervously, “there’s a sharp turn up ahead. You might want to slow down –”

  Thomas began to hit the brakes, and he would have done so in plenty of time if not for the flash of silver that suddenly appeared in front of them. They only had enough time to catch a glimpse of it before –

  CRASH.

  The screeching wheels, the poof of the airbag, and the crunch of metal mingled with the sounds of five terrified screams.

  *

  Before Kane could process what was happening, suddenly the Land Rover was airborne. The BMW had clipped it just right, and now even from his peripheral view on the side of the road, he could make out all five of their faces, with mouths gaped open in terror.

  All he thought was, Oh.

  *

  So this is how I’m going to die? Peter thought, and at the same instant, he was vaguely aware that he was shouting a word he didn’t recognize.

  “Reoite!”

  Then, just at the moment when impact should have occurred, the entire scene vanished. Suddenly he was standing in a peaceful green meadow, with the image of a rainbow spread out before him…

  *

  Cole heard Peter shouting somewhere in the back of his mind, but it didn’t register until several seconds later. Or was it minutes?

  The Land Rover hovered over the windshield like a silver omen of death, but it hung. It didn’t fall. Cole heard Lily whimper. Then he turned and looked at Peter.

  Peter’s arms were outstretched toward the windshield, and his eyes were locked on the vehicle. He looked like he was in some sort of trance, but he was trembling all over, as if he was bench pressing the weight of the car with his muscles, and sweat poured from his forehead.

  Cole stared at Peter, whose eyes were still locked on the Land Rover. Cole made the only logical assumption and shouted, “Well, set it down then!”

  *

  Peter blinked. What did that mean?

  That was the moment Peter realized that he was the one holding up the Land Rover. By the looks of it, no time had elapsed at all. All at once he became aware of his body again, trembling uncontrollably from a massive surge of adrenaline. His lips started speaking again without his permission.

  “Droim ar ais!” Peter cried, and he twisted one arm over the other as if he knew what he was doing.

  *

  The Land Rover flipped right side up again. Kane heard a clunk somewhere toward the back of it where heavy objects, probably the spare tire and tool kit, responded to the demands of gravity, and then he saw the tires absorb the weight of the vehicle as it made contact with the ground again, ever so gently. With only a split second’s hesitation, Kane ran to the drivers’ side door and got in.

  *

  The moment the Land Rover touched down and Peter released it, he felt the familiar sensation of blood draining from his head and rushing to his limbs. They felt like they were made of jelly, and his heart threatened to leap from his chest. Cole clutched the seatbelt with one hand and the door with the other, still bracing himself for the impact from above that hadn’t occurred. He was breathing in quick, labored gasps.

  None of them knew how much time had passed. Lily began to move first, crawling over Cole and opening the car door almost as if she didn’t expect it to work. She tested her feet on the pavement, and once she was certain they would support her weight, she began to walk unsteadily toward the Land Rover. Peter spilled out onto the road behind her, still shaking.

  Lily turned around. “All right, Peter?”

  “Not really,” Peter admitted. “You?”

  “I’m… not sure,” she confessed. “We have to make sure the other driver’s okay.”

  “There was no other driver,” said Peter, trembling. “Just a guy standing right…” But he turned to where he had seen the face with the scar a moment before, and there was no one there. He bit his lip uncertainly. He must have imagined it.

  Cole and Brock reluctantly got out behind them, both leaning on the side of the BMW for support. Thomas was still sitting in the front seat, in shock. Brock recovered before Cole, but instead of joining Peter and Lily, he circled around to the side of the BMW to inspect the damage.

  “Bloody hell!” he cried when he saw the crumpled front end of the BMW. He pointed at Thomas accusingly through the windshield and shrieked at him, “Dad is gonna kill you!”

  As Peter and Lily approached, the driver’s side door of the Land Rover opened, and they both stopped short.

  The young man who stood before them looked to be in his teens, except for the expression on his face, which made him look older. He was skinny like Peter, as if his body had simply never filled out after his last growth spurt. He had a jagged scar across his right cheek, and he was wearing a full-length gray overcoat. But it was his expression that made Lily step back, right into Peter, who buffered her with his hands. The boy ignored her, but he glared at Peter with mingled shock and murderous hatred.

  Peter still stood with his hands on the backs of Lily’s arms as he met the boy’s eyes. He had intended to ask if he was all right, but what came out instead was, “Do I know you from somewhere?”

  Lily turned around and gave Peter an odd look, but no surprise registered on the strange boy’s face. Instead, he broke into a smile and gave a short, derisive laugh, his plump bottom lip revealing teeth spaced too far apart.

  “Do you know me?” repeated the boy, taunting. “Oh, let’s see. Maybe you’ve seen my face in your bedroom window at night? Or under the oak tree on the other side of the lake at King’s, watching you while you eat lunch with Mr. Richards? Or maybe you’ve seen me at the book shop where you studied M theory all last summer, sitting two tables down. But I doubt you’d remember any of that. You never pay much attention to your surroundings.”

  Peter’s eyes went wide and he stepped to Lily’s side in order to directly face the boy. “Who are you?”

  “Peter,” Lily whispered nervously, grabbing his arm.

  Alarmed by the urgency in her voice, he followed her gaze. At first, Peter thought the edge of the tree line had begun to move. Then he saw a head and pair of rounded shoulders as tall as the tree tops. All around and beside it, more shapes emerged from the shadows. Most of them were vaguely humanoid, meaning they had two arms, two legs, a torso and a head, but that was where the resemblance ended. Beyond that, their features varied, from one eye to more eyes than he could count; from dazzlingly
beautiful smiles to fangs dripping with green venom; from the size of a pixie to the size of a small house.

  And every single one of them stared directly at him.

  Chapter 7

  Peter froze, as if any sudden movements might provoke an attack. “Is that them?” he said to Lily, keeping his voice as even as he could.

  Before she had a chance to answer, a row of six bare-chested men broke ranks. They all stood about a head taller than Peter, and they moved very strangely. It took Peter a moment to realize it was because they had four legs instead of two… and fur covered the legs.

  Behind them, Thomas had apparently gotten out of the car, but his voice sounded weak, like he was in danger of fainting. “What… the hell… are those things?”

  “You can see them?” Lily asked, amazed. She looked back at the army approaching from the trees and bit her lip. She seemed to be trying to figure something out.

  “Here we go,” said Kane through clenched teeth. He pulled the edge of his overcoat back to reveal the scabbard of a sword, and squared off defensively against the creatures, ready to spring into action.

  Lily looked at the sword and then back at the creatures, and suddenly her expression cleared. “They have bodies!” she breathed. “Guys, RUN!”

  Peter spun and began to sprint in the direction of the cars, but Kane, who stayed right on their heels, called, “Not the cars! Get to the portal!”

  “The what?” Peter shouted.

  “Edge of the forest! Go! I’ll cover you, just run!”

  “Where?” Lily shrieked frantically. In front of them, Cole and Brock sprinted away from both the cars and from the army of penumbra. Thomas alone ignored Kane’s direction and ran back towards the BMW.

  All of the creatures advanced on the teenagers as one, but the centaurs moved fastest. They were only meters away from Kane, who lagged behind the other four.

  “Veer to the left!” shouted Kane behind Peter. “To the Grandfather Tree!”

  “What’s the Grandfather Tree?” Brock yelled.

  When Kane didn’t answer, Brock and Cole turned frantically to see what was happening. Just as Kane pulled his bloody blade out of the flank of one of the centaurs, a sallow creature with red eyes and razor-sharp teeth leapt for his throat. With one motion he slashed open its abdomen, but there were six more penumbra right behind it.

  Just then, four more creatures appeared. They were like the penumbra, except these were radiant, like enormous fireflies. Two of them looked like seraphs and the other two looked like elves, and they fought with Kane against the hoards of penumbra.

  Somewhere behind them all, the BMW sprang back to life and they heard Thomas’ wheels peeling out. Apparently, the penumbra had chosen to ignore him.

  Ahead of Peter, Lily stumbled in her haste to make it to the tree. Peter caught her and propelled her forward with one motion, even as he sprinted in the same direction.

  “That one!” Peter said, and pointed. “Has to be!”

  The tree about a hundred yards before them had a trunk that looked like five trees had all grown together and their roots had merged. It alone created a canopy that blocked the light of the moon.

  “Now what?” Lily whimpered as they came up short.

  Kane had apparently managed to extricate himself from the penumbra and ran toward the teenagers again, while the radiant creatures continued to fight off the penumbra behind him. “Run straight at it!”

  All four of them looked at each other in a mixture of fear and terror, certain they had misheard.

  “Do it!”

  One of the glowing seraphs broke away from the three hags he was fighting and ran towards the teens instead. Lily was closest to the Grandfather Tree, but she stood before it petrified and immobile. Before she could utter a word of protest, though, the creature picked her up and hurled her directly at the trunk. Just as Peter opened his mouth to scream, she disappeared.

  Brock hesitated only a second after Lily, but as soon as he understood what had happened, he ran flat out at the trunk and vanished also, with Cole right on his heels. Peter turned around to look back.

  Kane and the glowing creatures only just managed to hold the penumbra off, but the army moved closer to Peter and the Grandfather Tree with every passing second. Kane lodged his sword in the abdomen of a grayish creature with lumpy flesh, but then he couldn’t free it. Another half a second, and the remaining centaurs would trample him to death.

  One of the radiant elves threw itself in front of Kane, causing the centaurs to rear back on their hind legs. Shielded from one side, Kane whipped another glittering dagger from beneath the leg of his trousers just in time to bury it between the eyes of a creature with bluish-green scales, who lunged at him from the side.

  To Kane’s other side, the other lithe, shimmering elf drew back the bow he held and embedded a quick succession of arrows into the chest of a giant who closed in on them. Kane unstrapped a dirk from his forearm and in the next instant, he buried it deep within the chest of a beast that was almost upon him, and looked something like a lion with feathers. The beast collapsed, and several of the creatures behind it tripped over its carcass, landing heavily and narrowly missing Kane himself. Kane leapt to his feet and stumbled towards Peter.

  “Stewart!” Kane cried furiously, and Peter understood. Defying all logic, Peter sprinted as fast as he could directly at the trunk of the Grandfather Tree. When he was so close that he could not have stopped if he’d wanted to, he suddenly felt a peculiar and unpleasant sensation unlike anything he had ever felt before, like a hook grabbing his innards and yanking him forward. He wasn’t sure if it was more like an out-of-body experience, or a particularly nasty bout of the flu.

  The next thing he knew, Peter found himself face down in the middle of a hallway. His nose landed in a thick red upholstered rug, and he inhaled a load of dust and sneezed. He looked up and saw Lily, Brock, and Cole huddled to the side, eyeing him in alarm.

  “Better get out of the way, mate,” said Cole. “He’ll be right behind you –”

  “Oof!” said Peter. Cole’s warning came too late: Kane landed on top of him. “Get off!” Peter cried.

  “Oh, excuse me for saving your life!” Kane snapped, putting a knee roughly into Peter’s spine as he stood up. Peter cried out and scowled at him, certain he’d done it on purpose.

  “Can they follow us?” Lily asked anxiously, pointing at the wall. Peter turned, and saw that the hallway they were in was empty except for a long row of framed pictures, with small handwritten labels beneath each one. Some of the pictures were paintings and some were photographs of everything from bowls of fruit to impressionist scenes. The one that Lily pointed at was a photo of the Grandfather Tree, and beneath it sat the label, “Grandfather Tree, Enchanted Forest, East Anglia.”

  “Nope,” said Kane, brushing himself off. He definitely looked worse for wear: he was bleeding freely from his right forearm from what looked like a half-moon of identical puncture wounds (bite marks, Peter thought, remembering the creature with the sallow face and red eyes, and shuddered), and two large welts began to form on his forehead and cheekbone. He staggered to the side with a limp, suggesting an injury to his leg, as well. “Don’t worry, the portal is heavily guarded. Even though they watched us disappear, the penumbra will never find it.”

  “Guarded by what?” said Cole.

  “The sentinels,” said Kane, as if that explained everything. “The nimbi take turns protecting it from discovery.”

  “What’s a nimbi?” said Cole.

  “It’s the plural of nimbus,” Peter said dully. “They were the glowing creatures, I think. It means ring of light. Like a halo.” His head throbbed, and the blood still thundered in his ears.

  “You saw them?” Lily demanded of the group. “You all saw them, right? All the specters?”

  Peter stared at her, and Kane’s upper lip curled. “They’re called penumbra, sweetheart.”

  “Well, nobody else has ever seen them before!” she cri
ed shrilly. “And I’m not your sweetheart!”

  “How unfortunate for me,” said Kane dryly.

  “Where’s the forest?” Cole muttered, pointing at the picture of the Grandfather Tree. “I don’t understand. Where’s the forest?”

  “We teleported out of it,” said Lily matter-of-factly.

  “Ignore him,” said Kane, gesturing at Cole. “He’ll snap out of it.”

  Brock sank to the floor and put his head in his hands, ignoring Cole’s question. “I can’t believe Thomas just took off like that.”

  “But where’s the forest?” Cole persisted.

  “I think I’m dreaming,” said Brock.

  “I think I’m dreaming!” Cole echoed.

  Peter looked at Kane again. His face was a tightly drawn mask.

  “Who are you?” Peter demanded. “What is this place? What happened back there?”

  Kane’s eyes met Peter’s, their expression unreadable. “My name is Kane,” he said finally, “and I am the youngest member ever to be inducted into the secret organization known as the Watchers. This,” he gestured to the hall around them, “is what we call the Commuter Station. It’s in the second basement of the Watcher Castle.”

  “Watchers?” said Lily. “What are you watching for?”

  Kane’s mouth stretched into a bitter, tight-lipped smile, and his eyes narrowed in Peter’s direction.

  “Him.”

  Before Peter had recovered from the shock of that statement, they heard a crack like a sonic boom. All four of them jumped, and suddenly there appeared the ugliest creature any of them had ever seen (which, that night, was quite saying something). It, too, was solid as the creatures in the forest had been, and it resembled a glowing baby with the face of a middle-aged man. It hovered aloft by means of a pair of wings that looked much too small for its body, causing it to pant from the effort.