by Jason Letts
“This is stupid! I’ve already done this twenty times. Can’t we do something else?”
Shaking his head, Westley slowly put the pieces together. Vern hadn’t realized the smooth wooden shapes fit together and became a doll. He pursed his lips and jerked his head to the side, feeling the sting of his failure to understand.
“I’m trying to teach you how to work out your abilities on your own. You’ve got to figure out which of your boundaries can be broken, which of your limitations is an illusion created by your mind to prevent you from living up to your potential. Now I’m not saying you can put the doll together before it gets to you, but it’s a direction we can shoot for. Here’s another.”
He pulled the doll’s smooth, round head off and launched it out as far as he could. Instinctively, Vern leapt to the edge of the platform and swung his arm to catch it. As the round block arced down toward the waterfall, it’s fall slowed and it curved back to where it began.
“OK! Now let’s see if you can keep it perfectly still in the air. Go ahead.”
Vern, straining the muscles in his face, tried to figure out how to perform his mentor’s request. The round piece shot at Vern with increasing velocity, but gravity interfered and it dropped whenever he tried to slow it. Soon the block had crossed the cavern in a zigzag pattern and Vern had it just below the platform. It either ascended as he tried to control it or dropped when he didn’t. Vern couldn’t make it stay in the same place.
“That’s alright. I didn’t expect you to get it the first time, but it’s something to think about. And here’s something else to scratch your head over. Two years ago, this pit didn’t exist and the river up there flowed over rock and dirt no differently than what it passed over for the last hundred miles. One person possessing one power cut into the earth so deeply that we can’t even tell how far it is to the bottom. Maybe we’re lucky the whole planet didn’t get cracked in half. Can you guess what power made all of this?”
“Was it an earthquake?” Vern guessed, jumping to the first possibility his mind raised.
“That it was not. I imagine an earthquake would have split open the earth for miles each way. Would’ve been bad news for old Darmen Topside too.”
Vern took another look at his surroundings. He lifted his gaze toward the circular hole in the surface. The walls sloped inward at the top leaving all of the walkways in shade. Running his hand against the sidewalls, his fingers dragged over the rough surface. Dirt came loose and fell to the wooden platforms beneath their feet. Stones had been hewn in half, speckling the walls with crystals, cave drawings, and different colored minerals.
“Did someone drill it, someone who could make tunnels?”
“A possibility, sure, but that’s not what made this. I actually knew a kid about a dozen years ago who could tunnel. He wasn’t my shadow, but he had the idea that if he could tunnel to the top of Shadow Mountain he would win for sure. He made it near the top, but it took him weeks, and everyone had already gone home long before. Now there are holes criss-crossing all the way through. It’s riddled with all of his dead-ends and wrong exits. There’s always some fool every year who gets in there thinking they can outsmart the tunneler and make it to the top first with his tunnels. Sure enough he gets lost or worse. Don’t let that be you, OK?”
“OK, I’ll be sure not to. But I can’t figure out which power did this. I give up. Why don’t you go ahead and tell me?”
“Oh, that’s no fun. Holler whenever you have a guess.”
“No, I want to know. Tell me!” Vern whined, but Westley just laughed.
“Alright, let’s get back to work. I’ve got something else we can try, but we’ve got to go to the top.”
“Someone dug it!” Vern blurted.
“Nope. Do you see a massive pile of dirt anywhere around here?”
Irked that Westley wouldn’t give him the answer, he moped behind the tubby gentleman climbing the stairs. Taking the ladder to the top, they emerged into the sunny domain of day. It took some time for their eyes to adjust, but gradually they could take in the bright sky, the towers of Darmen Topside, and the birds flying above the grassland.
“So what’s your idea? I’m ready for anything,” he said, excited about the prospect of a new challenge.
“This is what I want you to do. You’re going to run and jump into the pit—”
“Let me stop you right there,” Vern interrupted. “I already did that when I went over the edge on a raft, and I wouldn’t exactly call it a fun experience. So I’d rather not do it again.”
Westley put his face in his hand and closed his eyes for a moment.
“Hear me out, OK? The longer you have a hold on something, the faster it goes, right? So what if you could slingshot yourself up as you reemerged? You might be able to get some serious height after you pass the roof of the cavern and the planet’s natural gravity takes over. Wouldn’t that be worth trying out?”
“But if I’m getting launched into the air, and there’s nothing for me to work off of other than what’s pulling me down, I’m probably going to hit the ground pretty hard. Wouldn’t I? Or maybe I’d just fall back into the pit. Or maybe it won’t work at all.”
“Exactly, that’s why we need to test it to see what happens,” Westley said, coddling him. “If it makes you feel better, I’ll be sure to catch you if you get too high. OK? How about we give this a try? Go ahead.”
Once Westley had convinced Vern, he backed away and left him to his task. Vern got into a running stance a fair distance from the pit, and he ran through what he would do in his head. Once he had jumped and sailed down, he would pull on the roof of the cavern and fly through the opening. Getting the signal to go, he clenched his fists when another thought struck him.
Vern remembered falling over the edge with Aoi and watching her plummet as he maneuvered himself to safety. The memory brought him pain, and the effort to block it out made him cringe. He took a deep breath and then ran for the edge. Pushing off, he soared into the open expanse over the abyss before the pull downward overtook him.
The water from the river hung in the air around him and the walkway levels flickered by in an instant, but he twisted back and reached for the blurry light source above. Gradually his fall slowed to nothing, he began to float upward, his arms outstretched to the cavern roof. In that moment, he realized the flaw of his plan. He couldn’t return through the hole because there was nothing to grab onto. Instead he curved just to the side of it toward the roof.
Westley yelped and the sand shook by his feet when Vern smacked into the underside of the cavern. Peering over the side, he squinted to see if Vern had plunged into the depths. If the impact made him unconscious, there would be nothing to stop him from falling forever.
“Vern! Vern! Can you hear me?”
A muffled moan made its way to Westley’s ears.
“Yeah, I’m right here.” His voice sounded woozy.
“Where? I can’t see you!”
Stretching his arms out, Vern remained glued to the roof of the cavern, just a few feet beneath where Westley stood.
“I’m on the roof,” he said.
“Can you get up?”
Struggling against his own force, Vern managed to pull one leg out from under him. Following with the other leg, he crouched on his hands and toes, rocking back and forth and trying to pull away from the stone while keeping himself tied to it. Bringing his arms to his side, he extended his legs. Little by little, Vern managed to stand fully upright upside down on the roof of the cavern. He gawked at the sky’s bright expanse below him with its endless blues. The river water shot upward into the blackness of the earth’s depths above. Westley and Vern stood erect on both sides of the thin sliver of ground just as they might if they were on opposite ends of the Earth.
Vern took a few careful baby steps to the edge, and he peered up into the eyes of his mentor who looked down on him from above.
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Westley chuckled.
A wooden sign hanging on hooks blew back and forth in the wind. It had a few thin lines etched into it, representing a wave of water and a gust of air. It rattled back and forth furiously before gradually settling to a quiet stillness. Another gust made it flap around until the wind died down and it stopped moving. Suddenly, a forceful burst of air swept by, knocking it free of one of its hooks.
A tall woman of middle age took a seat on a stool by her home. She cast a quick glance at the sign and then bent over, hugging her head to her knees. Her young son regarded her curiously while he played with a spinning top in the intersection. The woman lifted her head and let it bang against the clay wall behind her. A tear trickled down her face.
Will shuffled over to her. Blowing so much air around left his skin coated in sand, and he tried to brush some of it off as he sat down in front of her. Setting her jaw and sighing, anger and disappointment meshed with her every expression.
“I’m so sorry, Will. I don’t know what the problem is. I’ve never had this much trouble before and I don’t know how to deal with it. Gosh, why isn’t this working out?”
Wanting to find some way of showing his sympathy, Will reached out and touched her shiny anklet to get her attention. He thought her words had been more to punish herself than to inform him, because he already knew he wasn’t making any progress.
“Hey, so we’ve gotten off to a slow start. It’s not a big deal. There’s plenty of time left and I know it’s going to happen. You don’t need to beat yourself up about it, OK?”
But Cybil couldn’t look at him. The bright sun made her squint, which made the tears come more easily.
“Two weeks isn’t a slow start. It’s an early failure. I’ve taken shadows for ten years. I even kept one when I was pregnant. But never, never, never have I had so little to show for this much time. I won’t blame you, you know, if you go. It’s not too late for you to find someone to help you,” she managed before breaking down completely.
Will got up and stood by her side. He put his arm on her shoulder as she sobbed. In his heart, he knew the problem was not hers but his.
“No, no,” he said calmly. “I’m not going to find someone else. I’m going to stay right here next to you. I’ve just got to work harder. I’m not giving one hundred percent. We’ll figure this out,” he promised, trying to put the responsibility on himself while avoiding the painful likelihood that it was beyond his control.
“No,” she said. “You’ve worked so hard. We’ve been out here every single day and just nothing, nothing. I’m so sorry.”
Her words dissolved the excuse he tried to build, and there was only one remaining possibility. The power he had would be all he would ever have. He dreaded his growing suspicion that he had already reached its limit. His lungs could expel a blast of air, but it would never be enough to repel an attacker or lift him into the air. He knew the strength of different powers varied greatly, but he couldn’t believe his would be so one-dimensional and unimpressive.
“What about a whirlwind or a tornado—something like that? We could at least give it a try. What have we got to lose, right?” he offered.
Visibly swallowing the idea, Cybil rose and walked out into the middle of the roadway. Alerting him to watch carefully, she raised her arm and cupped her hand. Swinging it in front of her, she created a wall of wind that traveled forth until it collided with another building and faded. Raising her arm again, she flicked her wrist at the end of her slice, which created a cyclone of the sand in the street.
“So when I try and mold the wave using my wrist, it makes more of a swirl in the air. Maybe you can create that effect by blowing out of the corners of your mouth.”
Hoping for a tiny ounce of success, Will nodded and readied himself for the attempt. Contorting his jaw and his lips, he tried to figure out the best way to position his mouth. He pursed his lips as far to the right as possible, but the emerging gust was no different than if he’d blown from the center. He tried a few times, watching for the sand to tell him when he got it right.
“How about twisting your tongue? Maybe that will do something,” Cybil suggested.
Obediently, Will swished his tongue about while he piped air from his lungs through his throat and out his mouth. Using his tongue only served to block some of the air, making his gust even less effective. Scared another possibility would slip away, Will frantically wiggled his lips, making all kinds of silly faces in the hopes of stumbling onto something.
Cybil watched him intently, but any trace of hope left her face long before Will gave up. His jaw grew tired and he felt winded by the time he abandoned his efforts. Again donning the same defeated grimace, Cybil returned to her stool and slumped against the wall. Will took a seat on the ground next to her. He grasped at the sand with his hands and flung it away.
People passed them, glancing curiously at the forlorn pair sitting against a wall. The small boy slept on the ground, his arm wedged beneath his head. For Will, it seemed as though everything he’d hoped for had started to slip away.
“What happens if this is all I am?” he asked.
“If that’s the case then I wouldn’t recommend picking too many fights. You’ll find a way to make yourself useful. Maybe you’ll even open a little shop. No one will ever need a broom to sweep the floor when you’re around.”
“I was hoping for something a little more heroic,” he mumbled, flicking a pebble.
“Heroic? The only heroes are the ones who happen to get it right when everyone is watching. A hero without any fans is just a lucky duck.”
“You sound a little cynical about it,” Will grimaced.
“Do I? I guess that’s what happens when you spend so much time in a forgotten corner of a big city. I used to think I could change the world, imagining my gift from the web would allow me to do something great. But then time passes and you realize you’re just like everybody else. I’m sure there’s somebody out there affecting the course of history, but it’s certainly not me.”
Chapter 6: In the Dark
Watching the setting sun drop through the sparse trees, Mira walked in the long shadow Widget cast behind. The chirping crickets echoed through the warm air. The only thing preventing her full enjoyment of this moment called out to her from the bottom of her foot.
She had developed a blister where the sides of her shoes pinched her feet, and each step brought a dull, bothersome ache. Her shoes usually didn’t cause her any problems, but they had started to wear thin from the constant usage. That day alone, they had been walking since breakfast and had probably covered fifty miles.
Mira had wanted to ask him why they skipped her usual training. Her legs appreciated a break from the running, but she found it curious that he didn’t lecture her about his studies while they walked. They had so many more chemical compounds to discuss, as well as a conversation about the parts of the brain. Walking without talking just seemed a waste.
His silence left her nothing else to study but the white hairs on the back of his head and his subtle reading of the landscape. Every so often, he would stop to look around, sniffing for something like a bloodhound. Having spent so much time wandering, they could have been anywhere, but Widget appeared to recognize the tiny streams and the old trees.
Coming around a stone ridge that divided the hillside, the first unusual thing Mira noticed was a small cloud of smoke in the distance. Weaving between trees and bushes, Mira peeked over his shoulder and saw a wooden fence separating the forest from cleared farmland. Crops grew in one area and sheep grazed in another.
Though the day’s light faded fast, once Mira put her hands on the fence, she could see a farmhouse on the far side of the field. Its white paint contrasted with the red barn nearby. A light shone through one of the windows in the ground floor. It flashed for a moment, probably because someone walked by.
“What is this place? Did you know we were coming here?” she asked.
“Of course I knew,” Widget replied, ruffled by the implication he might no
t have known. “This has been our destination for some time now, and I think we should start to see how much you’ve learned.”
Her eyes wide, Mira took in his furtive smile and his restless agitation. He dared her, the tone of his voice goading her.
“This one is for real. There is danger within that country home, and you will have to face it if you are anything less than perfectly invisible. You see, there are some things you must retrieve from inside. If you aren’t able to bring them to me, I will fly from this place and you will never find me. Do not come out until you have them.
“The things I’m referring to are a pair of large farm pliers about this big with long handles covered in rubber, and a basic pickaxe. They’ll be among the rest of the tools, possibly in a locked storage cabinet. I’d give you more details if I could, but that’s all I know.”
“Wait, you want me to go in there and steal something?”
Widget did a double take, only catching the concern and confusion on her face the second time. She recoiled a little, folding her arms in front of her.
“Look, sometimes the world demands we break the rules to get what we need. I’m only trying to prepare you for what you’ll need to do in the future.”
“That doesn’t mean I have to steal! I asked you to help me train and study, not turn me into a criminal. Why don’t we just knock on the door and try to trade for it?”
“OK, OK,” Widget winced in frustration, “it’s not real. You’re not going to be stealing anything. The tools are actually mine, and I want you to get them back for me. The man who lives here, his name is Willard, and he comes to my house every week to drop off milk. When you came to my door and I ducked inside, I wrote him a note explaining he should take the pliers and the axe and we would come for them in the near future. He knows this is a training exercise, but he’ll still do everything in his power to stop you if you tip him off, including causing you serious physical harm. Are we clear?”