The phone call ended.
“I love you,” Zach said. It was such a chicken move. Zach knew Jade had already hung up. He was just testing out the words. Still he nodded with a sense of rightness and threw his phone onto the passenger seat.
His drive home was neither sedate nor lawful. Had a state trooper been on the road, he’d have a reckless driving ticket. Zach sped home. His house was up a gravel driveway just like the Gray’s. He took the corner too fast. The Escort slid sideways. Zach turned the wheel to correct and overcompensated. He found himself flipping end over end through the brush, his car banging against a tree. The airbags popped.
Zach sat stunned. His left arm was broken, maybe shattered. The driver’s door was blocked. It took Zach four tries to unhook his seatbelt. The last time was with a yell. Inching his way along, Zach held his arm to his body as much as possible to protect the injury.
His phone was on the floor with the screen broken. When Zach turned it on, he saw a bit of light but couldn’t make anything out. Climbing out of the car, Zach stumbled up the embankment, falling twice. It was at least a half mile walk to the house, nestled among the trees. Zach prayed that he wouldn’t be too late.
An earthquake rocked the forest knocking Zach to the ground. He winced, his eyes watering from the pain. With a grunt, he pushed himself up. His run to the house was more like a stagger. His heart was in it, but his body wasn’t working right. Zach’s head hurt and he was seeing double vision. The trembling earth didn’t help. Every time he managed a steady jog, the ground shifted and he lost his balance.
It was a shock when Zach turned the corner. At first he didn’t recognize the funnel of broken dirt as his home. He stood in shock. The house was completely gone, buried in a sink hole.
The forest was absolutely still, not a woodpecker or a chipmunk in sight. The birdsong had stopped. Zach held his left elbow in his right and crossed the gravel road. His Dad’s pickup was still parked in the same place but covered in dirt and debris. Stunned Zach lurched forward.
“Dad?!” Zach yelled into the silence. His voice carried through the quiet. He waited.
No one answered.
“Dad!” Running forward, Zach’s sneaker sank into what was once the front porch. The ground was unstable and his leg was suddenly trapped in dirt and wood. The jolt of falling caused more pain to his arm. His insides didn’t feel too great either. Zach figured he might have bruised some of his organs in the wreck.
With one foot caught and his home in ruins, Zach squeezed his eyes shut and prayed that it was only a dream. When he opened them, his home was still gone. He pulled his foot out, cutting his calf on a sharp splinter of wood.
“Ow,” Zach limped back.
He was lost.
Zach didn’t know what to do. His phone was unusable, the car destroyed, his body broken and his power gone. His dad, Claire, and Mindy were supposed to be here…somewhere. One guess. One terrible guess as to where they had gone.
Wiping his eyes with his sleeve, Zach reached out to the Universe.
Please! If you can hear me, please listen.
No one answered.
One of the patio chairs was lying on its side in the dirt. Zach righted it and sat down. He closed his eyes as another tremor shook the ground, jumbling him back and forth. This was where it started. He could tell by the violence of the shake. He managed to keep his seat.
The house was gone. But it wasn’t just a house. It was a home. Zach’s drawings, his drum set, the picture of his Mom and Dad at their wedding…a thousand small items that belonged to his family were now buried in rubble. Zach wouldn’t quite believe that his Dad was buried, too.
Closing his eyes, Zach called out again, I know you’re there. I reaped a thousand souls for you. Help me find my dad.
He hated being ignored, hated the silent treatment. He was only human, not some Demigod with careless whims and no conscience. Zach screamed, “I won’t apologize! Do you hear me? I won’t say I’m sorry again. I’m not. I’m not sorry at all. You’re supposed to keep the Void in line. Jade should never have been in danger. I’m not sorry!” He shouted the last words at the top of his lungs.
He broke down crying. He hadn’t cried like that since he was five years old and his brother pushed him off the merry-go-round. “Dad!” his voice broke high. When no one answered, Zach buried his hand in face and took a deep breath.
He wiped his eyes and with a courage born from being a son more than a former Death Keeper, Zach limped to the shed, pulling out a shovel. He studied the ground and the dirt.
There didn’t seem a good place to start, so he just thrust the shovel into the loose dirt where his foot had stuck and started digging. He couldn’t have known that at that very moment his father was more than a hundred feet underground or that even with a backhoe, they wouldn’t be able to penetrate the rock Earth had used as a shield to block the house.
Shoveling isn’t to be done with a broken arm. Zach only tried to use it once, accidentally, for leverage. A sheath of white dots crossed his vision, and he collapsed.
The world disappeared for a while.
A voice brought him out of the darkness, “Zach? Can you hear me?”
When Zach opened his eyes, Jade was leaning over him, her long hair tickling his forehead, a worried look in her eyes. “Zach? Are you okay?”
Groaning Zach lifted his head, “My dad is missing. I think he’s under the rubble. The Universe won’t answer me.”
The air smelled wet, like rain on foliage. Jade said, “I’ve called an ambulance. Fire won’t respond, and Aunt Bertha isn’t answering the phone.”
Zach closed his eyes, hissing. He didn’t want to be the one to tell her. When he realized she was holding his hand, he squeezed, “I’m sorry, Jade. I didn’t want to tell you on the phone. Bertha’s dead. Claire said they were attacked and my Dad was going to be killed if they didn’t stop Harold. They came here.”
He hated the moaning cry Jade made as she rocked back on her heels shaking her head in disbelief. Zach wanted to hold her, wanted to comfort her.
Instead he held her hand. It was nothing and everything.
~~ Jade ~~
“Bertha?” Jade sat, stunned. Then the next thought…the girls are here. He said the girls came here. “Zach, where is Claire and Mindy?”
Shaking his head, Zach looked like he might cry. In a strangled voice, he said, “I think they’re underground with my father.”
Jade pushed out to Earth, to Water. WHERE ARE MY SISTERS?!
Asleep. Sick. We need Air.
Grateful that she had at least some contact with Raven’s Element, Jade asked for Air. My sisters are trapped in the ground. They need to breathe. Can you help them?
I need your strength. Open yourself the way Raven does.
Jade had no idea what that meant. She thought. Open. Nothing happened. With an exasperated sigh, Jade waited. Still nothing. Desperate, she asked Zach, “Do you know how to open yourself? Air told me to open myself the way Raven does. They’re still alive, but they’re almost out of oxygen. I don’t know what to do.”
“Listen,” Zach said in a hushed tone.
Jade strained to hear. She thought he might have heard her sisters calling or his dad. She started to explain, “I…”
His face pale and strained, Zach said, “Shhh…Listen. Then tell Air you’re ready.”
The world sat in absolute stillness. Not even the buzz of an insect interrupted the silence. Jade listened to the quiet until the world fell away, until she was calm and focused. Something inside her relaxed. She said, I’m ready.
One of the Elements took power from her. The Element felt too powerful to be Air, but what else could it be? Jade felt the energy leaving her body. The hair on her arms rose and her heart beat faster. Closing her eyes, she tried to push the energy to Air to work it faster.
Air stopped her, Wait.
Waiting in silence, Jade allowed her energy to slide away, drawn to the very bits of the Universe that would save her sister
s’ lives. As Air slipped down into the Earth, burrowing deep, Earth shifted. Through dirt, wood, and stone, Air tunneled its way to the three bodies underground, the souls still housed within for now. These creations were also made of Air. They needed all of the Elements in the correct order to live.
Little Earth. Not the Element, but the Elemental was the worst. Curled in the corner, she suffocated slowly even with the Air pushing through the ceiling. She wouldn’t draw a breath. Not for lack of trying. Air pushed her, teased her, begged her to breathe, but the body had already been broken.
Her soul waited, confused, at the edge of Time, and watched.
Jade felt something of what Air was experiencing. It jolted her out of her meditative state. Hysterically she cried, “Mindy’s dying. We have to get to them. We have to save her.”
Air drew more energy, but Jade could see through Air that Mindy hadn’t reacted at all to Air. Jade dragged the shovel to a mound of dirt and started digging, tears soaking her face. Zach rolled and tried to move closer to her. He said, “Jade? What did you see?”
Her voice rising, Jade said, “Mindy’s not breathing. Air was in time for the others, but it’s too late for Mindy.”
Her heart broke, shattered into a million pieces. She screamed at Fire, “It’s your fault! You made the smoke that killed her.”
Thinking he was talking to him Zach said, “I swear, Jade, I didn’t.”
Crying and babbling while she dragged another shovelful of dirt out of the hole, too little to make a difference, Jade cried out, “Not you. Fire. I knew I couldn’t trust her. She killed my Dad and now she’s killed Mindy, too.”
Zach felt an electrical charge building. Earth shook, knocking him down. He said, “Stop, Jade. I can feel Fire. You’re upsetting her.”
“I’m not going to stop. I can’t get to her in time. No matter how fast I dig, it will be too late. Fire did this.” She wiped her tears with a dirty sleeve, making a dirty smear across her face. Zach grabbed his broken arm, rolling to his knees and forced himself to stand. The charge in the air growing more violent. He had to get to Jade. He had to protect her. Fire was angry. He couldn’t imagine what the Element might do.
The Earth shook once more and Jade fell into the dirt, striking her hip against a rock while Zach was thrown into a softer spot. The electrical charge suddenly unleashed, striking the ground and scattering a mound of dirt, then striking a nearby tree shearing the branches and scoring it with power.
I saved them. Fire protested. It wasn’t anger that drove the lightening strikes, but a desperate loneliness. Fire spent so little time with Her Elemental.
“You killed them!” Jade screamed dragging another shovelful of dirt away from the buried house. “Help me get to Mindy. Please, help me.”
Sirens blared in the distance, and Jade felt a weight of helplessness too deep to bear. The energy Air pulled from her was going faster and with the draining of energy, Jade’s emotions roiled. Despair. Fear. Sorrow. With an intensity Jade could scarcely bear, they crashed down on her until her chin was in the dirt and she could barely lift her head. The energy was gone. She was empty, with nothing left to give.
The tree that Fire had smitten was burning like an inferno, pushing out to the surrounding bushes and trees. The same thought played over and over in her mind, I have to get to Mindy. I have to get to Mindy.
“Shhhh…” Mindy’s voice sounded in her mind, a quiet whisper, a promise of hope.
Jade stopped crying. She tried to lift her head. Mindy?
“Time. It’s my gift and now I’m free.” Mindy hugged her sister. Even though Jade was face down in the dirt, she could feel the hug around her whole body. Mindy said, “You won’t find me under the house. Claire, yes, and Matt, too. But you won’t find me.”
“Don’t go,” Jade wailed. She fell to her hands and knees, scratching and scrabbling at the dirt until her fingernails were broken and bleeding. “Mindy!”
“Hush now. I have a secret.” Mindy giggled, and it was a happy, joyous laugh, the kind that was so rare these days. Jade sniffed. She realized how much she hurt. Not her hands, although they did a little, but her heart. This was a goodbye she had never expected, that she wasn’t willing to make.
“Will I see you again?” Jade asked. She knew the answer, at least she thought she did.
“Tomorrow or the day after,” Mindy promised. Jade felt the touch of a hand on her cheek, small fingers, just Mindy’s size and then she was gone. “But you can’t tell anyone. Shhh…to the world, I am lost.”
The Earth quaked and the ground vomited Jade out of the way, pushing up up up. Jade fell down the steep embankment, caused by Earth’s lift. It knocked the wind out of her body. Earth didn’t stop churning until Matt and Claire were lying in the dirt. They weren’t alone. A dog thumped its tail and whined, with too many injuries to lift its head.
A police car was the first to speed out of the forest. Jade recognized the deputy and knew his name even though they’d never had occasion to interact before. That’s often how it was in a small town. People knew each other.
Jade was at Claire’s side. Claire was unconscious, but still alive. Mindy was gone. Nothing felt real. Emergency vehicles filled the gravel driveway surrounding the huge disturbed soil where the house used to be.
It was impossible to explain. They asked. They all asked. Jade made up a story about a sink hole. Mindy was nowhere to be found.
Chapter 17
~~ Amy ~~
Losing Mindy eclipsed anything Amy had ever felt. Wandering from room to room, somehow she felt as if Mindy were just around the corner, holding her teddy bear and waiting. Everything passed by in one big numb blur. She identified Aunt Bertha’s body and answered dozens of questions from the police. She put the dozens of casseroles from townsfolk into the refrigerator and hunkered down, waiting for the next attack. The wolf stayed away.
Then it all stopped.
Aunt Bertha’s memorial service was over. That was hard enough, but Mindy’s service broke her heart. Jade told her Mom that she had heard Mindy’s voice. She promised Raven and Claire that their sister was okay somewhere. But it wasn’t the same. Amy needed to hear her daughter’s voice for herself.
Guilt pressed her heart to her backbone and she wondered how she could still walk, eat, talk, live. When Time nudged Amy to release her to Mindy while still in the womb, Amy agreed, never expecting that the Element’s presence would short circuit her daughter’s growth. Amy feared for her little girl, feared that in truth Petrodus had dragged her away and even now had taken Time and left Mindy dead.
She sobbed for hours, inconsolable.
“Mom, I promise she’s alive.” Jade looked miserable, but Amy couldn’t stop crying. She couldn’t believe it.
“I need to see her for myself,” Amy said, a box of Kleenex at her side, her eyes red and swollen.
“I don’t think she can. She says she’s lost to the world.” Jade’s explanation just sent Amy into another fit of sobbing. Even with Mindy’s problems, Amy loved her dearly. She missed her with every beat of her heart.
~~ Mindy ~~
Her mind was intact. Time pulled her out of Earth’s embrace rather forcefully, but Jade’s energy gave Time just what the Element needed to save the youngest of the Gray family…in a manner of speaking.
The dimensional plane had been broken and now Mindy was untethered. She saw the whole tapestry, the threads of her life and her sisters, her family and her father, all outside of time and yet they were still trapped in that strange restriction of the Universe, life lived in one direction.
In Time’s embrace Mindy healed, but she was more than she had been before. The missing part of herself slipped inside, connecting and complete, and she understood. Mindy told Time, “I have to go back.”
Time agreed. Only to your sisters and only for a short time. The Death Keepers and the Void felt me for the first time in centuries. They will be on the hunt. Come. See your new home.
The house was nestled in
a timeless valley of trees and rivers, secluded and in a place untouched by thinking creatures. It was a cozy little house with a kitchen and dining room, a bedroom already decorated to Mindy’s tastes and a living room with a sofa just like the one at home. The lights turned on and off, even if the technology was impossible without an electrical current.
Mindy said, “I don’t understand. I can’t stay here. This isn’t home.”
You must. No one will find you here. All of the Time Elementals stay here in the place outside Time. I will help you visit your family, but we will live here.
Mindy frowned. Earth never told Mindy what to do. Never. She crossed her arms, “No, I won’t. You’re more bossy than Earth. Take me home. Now.”
She thought there would be an argument, that Time would ignore her and force her to stay in this strange little house, pleasant though it was. Her family never let her choose. Never. Time did. Time picked her up and the Universe shifted.
Mindy and Time appeared in the living room while Amy, Jade, Raven, and Claire sat at the dinner table and picked at dinner. Mindy felt so out of place. Her thoughts were whole and complete, grown up for a seven year old, but when Amy rose from the table and ran to hug her, she was seeing her lost little seven-year old daughter who couldn’t form complete sentences. Mindy was more than that, more than a child.
“Mindy!”
The family all cried and hugged her, everyone talking at once.
Jade said, “It’s been two months. Where have you been? The whole town thinks you’re dead.”
Time whispered to Mindy. Mindy understood now. As Time flashed images of Mindy’s past and future, of where she had traveled and where she would travel, of the thousands of lives she would affect and influence, Mindy knew she had been chosen. If she chose to stay, all of their lives would be cut short.
She had been selected for a different path, a different life. Mindy agreed. She knew her purpose in life, her place. She told Jade, “They will always think me dead. They must. I thought I could stay here. I thought we could be a family again, but I can’t. I have to go.”
A Time to Die (Elemental Rage Book 2) Page 18