Broken Spells

by D. W. Moneypenny

  Growing frustrated, Mara couldn’t come up with a concept in her mind for controlling the flow of air in a way that would focus on the balloon, that would force the air inside. She envisioned filling her hand with air and punching it inside the balloon. She felt and heard a gust of wind whistle past her shoulder, whipping the hair on the right side of her head forward as it passed. The blast struck Ping in the chest, sending him to the floor.

  “Ping! Are you okay?” She leaned over the table.

  Ping was splayed flat on the round rug, his head extending onto the fringe and the wood planks of the floor. The wind had ceased. Blinking for a moment, he moved slowly and sat up, still holding the uninflated balloon. “I’m fine, but that didn’t work out as planned,” he said.

  “You were right about Wind being less concrete than Earth. It’s a tougher concept to wrap your mind around.”

  After checking the items on the table to make sure nothing had blown away, he picked up the book and flipped a few pages. “Some tips in here talk about how to conceptualize in order to invoke your abilities. Ah! Here it is. Broaden your scope of understanding of the elements through word association. Create a list of synonyms or relevant verbs related to each of the elements of Perception to help you expand your grasp of what is possible.”

  “Meaning what?” she asked.

  “We’re working on Wind. What are some synonyms?”

  “Air, gust, gale, breeze. That doesn’t help.”

  “Let’s try some verbs that are evoked by Wind.”

  “Blow, whip. Can we do air instead? That brings to mind breathing. Hmm.”

  “Does that help?”

  “Maybe,” she said. “Hold up your balloon.”

  He held it up, still pinched between a finger and thumb.

  Mara took a deep breath and exhaled. As she released her breath, the rubber surface of the balloon tightened and swung between Ping’s fingers.

  It expanded and emitted a screeching sound that changed octaves as Ping loosened his pinch. “I can feel air passing into the balloon as it inflates.” When its skin stretched thin and shiny, it stopped growing, and Ping tied off the neck. “Excellent,” he said. “Now let’s analyze the differences between what you did with the Earth and what you did with the element of Wind.”

  “I transformed the dirt from one thing into another. However, I only manipulated or moved the air.”

  “Correct.”

  “Is it possible to transform air?”

  “If you can conceptualize it in your mind, it should be possible. But please keep in mind that we need some air in a gaseous form to breathe, so don’t attempt anything that would prevent that.”

  “Gaseous.” Mara looked into the distance, thinking. “What if it wasn’t gaseous?” She moved her hand in front of her in a cutting motion, then examined the air. She poked at the air and felt something solid as the tip of her finger mashed against an unseen barrier.

  “What is it?” Ping asked.

  “Hand me that bowl.”

  Ping complied.

  She took it from him and raised it to the space in front of her where she had made the cutting motion. Releasing it, the bowl stayed in place, hanging in the air with no visible means of support.

  Eyeing the bowl, Ping asked, “Are you levitating the bowl by displacing it in Space? We’re not focusing on the elements of Reality at the moment.”

  “No. I’m not doing anything right now.” She grasped the bowl and lowered it to the table. With her knuckles, she rapped on the space in the air where it had been. A hollow knock sounded, as if she had hit a board. “I made the air here solid, like a shelf.”

  Ping leaned over the table and knocked on the air himself. Sitting back, he rubbed his knuckles and said, “Amazing. I suspect working with this book is helping you refine your abilities in ways we cannot even imagine at this point.”

  “What’s next?” Mara asked.

  Ping moved the unlit candle to the center. “You might want to make sure you return that patch of solid air to its normal state so someone doesn’t run into it later.”

  “Good point.” Mara ran her hand over the space, then tested it with a knock that struck nothing. “Done.”

  “Now we move onto Fire. Obviously we need to exercise a modicum of caution, so we don’t burn down the house.”

  “Agreed. What’s the point of the exercise?”

  “In the first two lessons, we transformed and manipulated the elements. In this one, I’m not providing you the raw materials. You need to generate the element from nothingness.”

  “You want me to make Fire.”

  Ping nodded at the candle. “By lighting the candle.”

  Mara stared at the wick of the fat white candle sitting in the middle of an earthen saucer. Once again, she sensed herself plunging into wick itself, seeing white tufty molecules that made up the tiny string. She visualized them bursting into flame and soon found herself surrounded by streams of red and yellow.

  “Excellent,” Ping said.

  Mara snapped out of her reverie, still staring at the candle. A yellow flame danced on the end of the wick.

  A trilling noise cut through the air.

  “What is that?” Ping asked.

  Mara leaned back and slipped her hand into her jeans pocket. “It’s my phone. I wasn’t even sure it would work in this realm. Holding it up, she looked at the screen. “It’s Sam.”

  She tapped the Speakerphone icon, and her brother’s voice rang out of the phone. “Bowraiths!” He made a gagging sound and screamed, “Help!”

  “Where are you?” Mara yelled into the phone.

  “Andrea’s,” he said, and the line went dead.

  CHAPTER 13

  Mara jumped up from the floor by the coffee table and ran for the front door. When she opened it and looked outside, she was taken aback for a moment because she did not see her car in the driveway. Turning to Ping, she said, “I don’t have a car. Where’s my car?”

  “I would assume your counterpart’s car might still be parked at the shop,” Ping said.

  Mara rapped the doorframe with her knuckles. “That’s right. For a second, I forgot where we are. We’ve got to get to Andrea’s.”

  “Do you know where Andrea lives?” Ping asked.

  Mara looked at him blankly. “No. I could call Mom and find out, assuming she dropped Sam off and continued on to the shop.” She punched the screen of her phone, then held it to her ear. “If Mom has the same number in this realm.”

  There was a ringtone, but no one answered. Groaning with frustration, she lowered the phone. “We’ve got to get to Sam,” she said.

  “You don’t need a car to get to him,” Ping said. “Transport us to him.”

  “But I don’t know where he is. I’ve always needed to visualize a place before I can manipulate Space,” she said.

  “Just because that’s how you’ve always done things doesn’t mean that’s the way it has to be. That’s the whole point of our lessons. Visualize Sam instead of the place, and let your abilities take us to him.”

  Mara closed her eyes and brought her brother’s image to mind. Adrenaline and a tightness in her chest conspired to distract her.

  “Take a deep breath. Now release it,” Ping said.

  Inside her head, Mara heard the sound of air escape her lips—until it was drowned out by an earsplitting scream.

  Her eyes snapped open, and she found herself and Ping standing on the edge of a large sunken living room in a house that didn’t seem to have walls. In the distance, she caught a glimpse of a kitchen, dining area and what appeared to be an office or library. Across the room, wrapped in leafy vines between two bowraiths, Sam’s eyes widened as he noticed his sister. However, his attention quickly flicked to the center of the room. Among the overturned furniture and shattered lamps stood a young woman clad in tight black leather with her hand held into the air. Three feet from her glowing fingertips, Andrea levitated, her back arched, shuddering in pain.

 
The young woman kept her hand—and Andrea—elevated but faced Mara. “I had a feeling you might show up before we finished. Mara Lantern, I presume.”

  Mara took a step forward, but Ping touched her arm. Without saying a word, she knew he wanted to communicate a warning. Look before you leap. She stopped before stepping into the sunken room and said, “Release them. Now.”

  “You are in no position to issue orders,” the woman said. Her almond-shaped eyes showed confidence and amusement. She nodded toward the levitating form in front of her. “I’ll let her live if you give me the prompter and leave here now.”

  Through gritted teeth, Andrea said, “Don’t do it. Don’t give her what she wants.”

  The woman twisted her wrist, and Andrea’s body twisted with the motion. She screamed and jerked in response.

  “Stop that!” Sam yelled, shaking his head and pushing leaves from his mouth with his chin.

  Mara raised a hand, and a bolt of lightning shot out of her palm, striking the bowraith on Sam’s left side. The creature erupted in a burst of flame that quickly receded, revealing a charred blackened hulk that fell over, its remaining vines still wound around Sam, pulling him and the other bowraith forward.

  “The next time it won’t be one of your plants,” Mara said. “Release them.”

  “You have no idea who you are dealing with,” the woman said. Lifting her other hand to meet the one she’d already extended, she made a motion, as if pulling a string between her fingers, and Andrea gasped.

  Still hovering above the living room, Andrea writhed as a ghostly image emerged from her body. As the hands of the woman who held her distanced themselves from each other, the translucent form slipped farther from Andrea’s body. When the woman’s hands were at shoulder width, the two floating figures separated—both were Andrea—one solid, the other ethereal.

  The solid form dissolved into black sand and poured onto the floor.

  The ghostly Andrea screamed, “Tran! This is blasphemy! You cannot use your gifts to murder.”

  The woman smiled and flicked her wrist, swatting Andrea backhandedly. The ghostly image of Andrea dissolved into a misty cloud that roiled for several seconds and disappeared.

  Mara went pale. “What have you done?” She had tried to stop Time, but nothing happened; events kept rolling forth as if nothing stood in their way. She glanced down at her hand and thought it looked a little ephemeral, but it solidified quickly.

  “I’ve given a traitor, an apostate, the destiny she deserves. Now it’s time to deal with the matter at hand.” She turned to the remaining bowraith and said, “Kill him.”

  Mara splayed both hands before her, and bolts leaped from them, converging on the center of Tran’s chest. As the lightning touched her, she appeared to flicker and fold horizontally, like an old television screen losing its signal.

  Tran laughed as her body solidified. “You are no threat to me.”

  Sam gagged. “Mara!” His face reddened as the bowraith’s vines tightened around his neck and pulled back, its woody skin leaving scratches on the half-wall behind them.

  Mara aimed her open palm at the creature, but Tran stepped into her path, absorbing the jagged bolt of lightning with a smirk. “You’re a one-trick pony, aren’t you? I thought you would have been more of a challenge by now, considering your recent travels.”

  Ping leaned toward Mara’s ear. “I don’t believe she’s actually here. She’s projecting her image into this room somehow.”

  “It’s not just her image she’s projecting. She’s able to project her powers as well. How the hell is she doing that?” Mara asked.

  Tran nodded at them. A wall of wind blew across the room, throwing Mara and Ping into the front wall of the room. For a moment, Mara thought Ping might disperse, but she caught his gaze, and he nodded to her. Through gritted teeth, she mumbled, “Projection? That means she’s made of light.”

  “What?” Ping asked as he pressed against the wall to stand up.

  Mara shook her head and didn’t answer as she got to her feet and glared at Tran, who nodded at them again. Another blast of wind came at them, but Mara raised a hand. She remembered her lesson from just moments earlier and built a wall of solid air around them. The gust of air whipped around them, shaking the walls of the house.

  On the far side of the room, Sam struggled, but, as his face reddened, his resistance lessened. His hand dropped from the vine around his neck, and he slumped.

  Mara turned to Tran, raised her arms and closed her eyes. Remembering her altercations with the beings of light in the realm of synthetic people, she focused on her skin and drew the light in the room to her.

  Tran’s shocked visage dissolved into a mass of glowing ribbons that snaked across the room and seeped into Mara’s skin, absorbed within seconds, leaving her with a momentary glow and a sense of energy and well-being.

  “Sam’s in trouble,” Ping said. He started across the room, but Mara grabbed his shoulder. She noticed her hand was semitransparent but getting more opaque.

  She turned to the bowraith and narrowed her eyes. With a loud keening scream, the creature fell back and shuddered. Its tentacles fell from Sam’s neck and torso; then it exploded in a curtain of flame that rose from the floor and flew to the ceiling in a single whoosh that consumed it, leaving a cloud of smoke and ash in its place.

  Sam staggered out of the sooty fog with smears of char on his face and neck. He hacked to clear his throat and wiped his darkened eyelids. Looking across the room, he said, “Couldn’t you have done something that wouldn’t leave bowraith ash all over me? What happened to pixelating people?”

  “I’m expanding my horizons,” Mara said. “Are you all right?”

  Sam nodded. He looked around the room and walked to an overturned end table. Next to one of its legs, he plucked something from the floor.

  “What’s that?” Ping asked.

  He held up the green glowing luminaire containing the soul of his counterpart. “Andrea and I had just started practicing making contact when the bowraiths busted in, and Tran popped in out of nowhere. Speaking of Andrea, where do you think she is? What did Tran do to her?”

  Mara glanced down at the black sand sprinkled on the carpet. “I don’t think Andrea’s coming back.”

  “What do you mean?” Sam said.

  “When people from this realm die, their bodies turn to dust,” Ping said, indicating the black material on the carpet. “Normally their souls are wrangled into luminaires, but it appears Tran may have dispersed Andrea’s in some manner.”

  Sam’s face reddened, and he turned to Mara. “Tran killed Andrea? Why didn’t you stop her?”

  Mara shook her head. “I don’t know what happened. I tried to stop Time, but it didn’t work. Why didn’t you prompt them to leave or to go to sleep or something?”

  “The bowraiths aren’t real people. They don’t have wills or thoughts of their own, so I can’t prompt them. They’re like the electricity guy who attacked me in the shop way back before you accepted being a progenitor. Remember?”

  “It took a bucket of water and making a big mess to stop him. That seems years ago,” she said. “What about Tran? Did you try to stop her?”

  “It didn’t work. She wasn’t really here.”

  “It’s interesting she decided to project herself instead of coming physically. That implies she may have perceived some danger in doing so,” Ping said.

  “I didn’t get the impression she felt threatened by me during our altercation,” Mara said.

  “You were not her target, and she had no way of knowing you would show up before she and the bowraiths had finished what they came here to do,” Ping said.

  “Tran was after Sam,” Mara said. “She offered to let Andrea go.”

  “She also referred to Sam as the prompter,” Ping added.

  “How could she have known that?” Mara asked. “Was Sam’s counterpart in this realm a prompter? Neither Mom nor the other Mara ever mentioned it. Did you get the sense tha
t he was a prompter when you were joined with him?”

  Sam shrugged. “Not particularly. I don’t recall any thoughts or memories on the subject.”

  “Whether Sam’s counterpart knew he was a prompter or not, metaphysically it’s likely he had the innate ability. The experiences of his life might not have revealed it to him yet,” Ping said.

  “That doesn’t answer the question. How did Tran know this Sam was a prompter?” Mara asked.

  They both looked at Sam, and he replied, “I don’t know, but why didn’t you listen to Tran and save Andrea?”

  “Your sister couldn’t barter your life for someone else’s,” Ping said, placing his arm over the boy’s shoulders and guiding him toward the door. “Mara could not have saved Andrea because she couldn’t know Tran was about to kill her. Besides, your sister had been using her abilities a great deal today, so she would have been unable to intervene had she realized what was about to happen.”

  As they walked out of the house, Mara said, “I don’t think that’s it. Somehow I felt blocked. My hands did fade a little bit, but I wasn’t wiped out and tired like before. Besides, I used my abilities after that to get rid of Tran and to dispatch the bowraith.”

  “Time is a higher ability than manipulating the element of Fire,” Ping said as they left the house. “Perhaps you were too drained to engage the higher-order powers.”

  They stood on the front porch, looking blankly into the empty driveway that led to the garage on the side of the house. For the second time that day, Mara realized she didn’t have her car. “We didn’t drive here,” she said.

  “Should we call Mom?” Sam asked.

  Mara shook her head and closed her eyes, envisioning the living room of her mother’s house. A moment later, she looked up, and the three of them stood in front of the fireplace. While Sam placed his counterpart’s luminaire on the mantel, Mara turned to Ping. “I felt slightly drained until I absorbed the light of Tran’s projection. It felt like it should have been enough juice to stop Time, but somehow she interfered.”