Five Elements #1

by Dan Jolley

  “Huh.” Kaz shoved his hands in his pockets. “Oh well. Guess it’s just me. Never mind, sorry.” Gabe looked around for the tour group and saw them about to enter the island’s central feature: the cellhouse. His eyes lit up. He was about to urge his friends to hurry up, but Brett beat him to it.

  “Come on, guys!” Brett’s excitement seemed to match Gabe’s own. “Let’s go, let’s go!”

  Gabe had never been anywhere even remotely like the Alcatraz cellhouse. He’d seen movies and TV shows with scenes set in prisons and jails, but walking down Broadway, the main hallway of the building, and looking into the individual cells made his skin crawl. Not because it was creepy, exactly, but because the place seemed so . . . hopeless. The drab beige paint, the rows of steel bars . . . he couldn’t imagine having to spend a week in this place, much less year after year. Gabe glanced at Kaz, the only one who was actually listening to the audio tour device they’d been handed on entering the building.

  Kaz seemed to know what Gabe was thinking. He tapped his earpiece. “This place was designed for the worst of the worst,” he said, just a little too loudly. “It wasn’t supposed to rehabilitate them. It was supposed to punish them.”

  Gabe eyeballed one of the tiny cells, furnished with little more than a cot, sink, and toilet. “How’d that work out?”

  “Inmates kept going bonkers.” Kaz pulled off the headset. “If this is where they had to spend at least sixteen hours a day, I can understand why.”

  Lily walked up to them and ran her hand down one of the bars of the nearest cell. “So, this place was a fort before it was a prison? What happened to the fort?”

  From a few paces away, Brett spoke quietly, his voice just loud enough to reach them. “Funny you should ask.” Brett was standing next to a window, the Golden Gates map unfurled in his hands. Gabe and Lily and Kaz joined him, and Gabe said, “You look like you found something.”

  Brett just pointed. Gabe peered over his shoulder at the map, and for the first time realized what part of it meant. There were bizarre illustrations all over the map, and notations in Latin and some other language he didn’t recognize. Gabe had thought the odd design over in one corner was just that: an odd design, like the rest. But now that they were all here, standing in the middle of it, the truth jumped out at him: it was a diagram of Alcatraz prison. More than that: a single golden thread wove through the diagram, like a path to follow.

  But follow where?

  “Oh my God,” Lily breathed. “That’s here, isn’t it? That’s this. Us. Alcatraz.”

  Kaz put his head so close to the map that his nose almost touched it. “So what’s with the miniature Yellow Brick Road? Where’s that supposed to go?”

  Brett set his jaw, glanced around to make sure no one was close to them, and said with a mischievous smile, “We’re going to find out.” Then he took off toward one end of the cellhouse, moving with determination.

  The other three followed after him, if a bit hesitantly. “Wait a minute,” Lily said. “Hey! Hang on, hermano! If we get caught in some restricted area, they’re going to arrest us! And worse than that, they’ll tell Mom and Dad!”

  Brett didn’t look back at her. “Following the map is what got us to the Friendship Chamber, down in the tunnels, isn’t it? Relax.”

  Kaz frowned. “Friendship Chamber? Since when are we calling it that?”

  Brett shrugged. “Since I just now decided to call it that. And it doesn’t matter. We need to follow this gold thread.”

  “Says who? Who besides you, I mean?” Lily’s dark eyes flashed. “Aren’t we going to put this to a vote? Gabe?”

  Gabe’s head was spinning. That golden thread in the map seemed burned into his retinas, and for some reason he couldn’t adequately explain, he was just as eager to see where it led as Brett was. He had the presence of mind to put on a somewhat apologetic expression when he answered Lily. “I kind of want to see where it goes, too.”

  Lily groaned. “Boys.” She speared Kaz with a glare. “I suppose you’re on board with this?”

  “If I said I wasn’t, would you leave Brett and Gabe here, and take the next ferry back with me?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Not a chance.”

  Kaz nodded. “Didn’t think so. I’m staying with the group.”

  Gabe hated that Lily wasn’t happy with the plan. The last thing he wanted before he left for Philadelphia was for any of his friends to feel bad about their last few days together—Lily especially. But he couldn’t deny it. He was dying to find out where the map led.

  Paying no attention to his friends, Brett slowed and finally stopped in front of a narrow metal door covered with peeling paint and a sign that read AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. He checked to make sure no one was watching, grabbed the handle, and pulled. And with a dull clank the door swung open.

  A set of worn concrete stairs vanished down into murky darkness. His white teeth flashing in a huge grin, Brett walked past his sister without a word and headed down the stairs. She growled, but followed him. Kaz and Gabe filed in mutely after her, Gabe glancing around to make sure no one was going to report them for not being Authorized Personnel. Gabe also made sure the door latch worked from both sides, and that it definitely was not locked, before he pulled the door shut with a clunk.

  The stairway smelled bad. Gabe tried to pinpoint the odor as he descended, and when one of his feet almost slipped on a patch of something slick, he decided it must be mold. He kept waiting for Kaz to complain about developing some sort of respiratory illness, but now that he actually had cause for concern, Kaz said nothing.

  Gabe couldn’t tell exactly how far down the staircase went. It felt like a long way, though, and when he and his friends stepped out into the tunnel-like corridor at the bottom, it seemed a lot like stepping into another world.

  Where the prison above was built of smooth concrete and unforgiving steel, the hallway where they now stood looked more like something out of a medieval European castle. The rough floor, the stone block walls, and especially the dark, dank, open cells with arched doorways all had a dismal, oppressive, Dark Ages feel, as if this were the kind of place where souls were imprisoned and forgotten. Abandoned to wither and die in lightless misery. An odd sensation crept across the back of Gabe’s neck, and he realized all the hairs there were standing on end.

  “What is this place?” Lily wondered, her voice tiny.

  “Part of the old citadel,” Kaz said, looking around owl eyed. “You asked what was here before the prison was built? Well, we’re standing in it.”

  She stepped into one of the arched doorways. “Yeah, but I mean, what is this place? Are these cells? How come they don’t have any doors or bars or anything?”

  Gabe thought about it. “I bet they were made of wood. And the wood didn’t last.”

  “Come on,” Brett said, studying the Golden Gates map. “Follow me.” He strode away, his back straight and his steps fast. Ahead of Gabe, Brett disappeared and then reappeared as he moved under the string of dim, widely spaced lightbulbs that dotted the citadel corridor.

  Gabe followed after Brett, wondering when, or at this point if, the skin-crawling sensation was ever going to leave him. This didn’t feel like their journey to the Friendship Chamber, as Brett called it. Gabe couldn’t help thinking, or rather feeling, as though something a lot more sinister than a dried-up old skeleton was in the fortress with them.

  “Wait up,” Kaz said. But Brett wasn’t slowing down, so Gabe didn’t either, and Kaz and Lily had no choice but to break into a jog to pull even with him.

  “We’re not running a race here, Brett!” Lily called out.

  Gabe took a breath to comment—and saw something dark flit across the corridor just ahead of Brett, there and gone in less than a heartbeat. He almost choked. “Brett! Stop!”

  Brett simply looked over his shoulder as he walked right past the spot where Gabe had glimpsed the . . . whatever it was. “Come on!” Brett called. “We’re almost there!”

&nb
sp; Gabe spun and walked backward long enough to ask Lily and Kaz, “Did you guys see that?”

  “See what?” Kaz asked.

  Cautiously, Lily said, “What did you see?”

  Gabe faced forward again and, staring into the shadowy cells and recesses around them, heaved a sigh. “Nothing? I guess? Maybe I’ve just been watching too many episodes of Ghost Hunters.”

  “Well, my dad does say those shows rot your brain,” Kaz said helpfully, before Lily elbowed him in the ribs.

  “You’re one to talk, Mr. Snoring Earth.”

  Ahead of them, Brett abruptly turned a corner and disappeared. “Hey!” Gabe shouted. “Brett! Wait!” But Brett didn’t acknowledge Gabe at all this time. Gabe broke into a run.

  Brett had turned down a narrower hallway. Judging by the holes in the floor and the walls, the entrance to this passage had once supported a large, heavy door, but now it gaped open. There didn’t seem to be any electric lights inside, and the bulbs in the main corridor didn’t even come close to penetrating the darkness. “Brett!” Gabe shouted. “Brett, are you in there?”

  Brett’s voice drifted back to him. “Of course I’m here. This is it. This is where the map leads!”

  Gabe pulled out his phone and turned on the flashlight. “Okay, okay! Be right there!” He looked at Lily and Kaz. “Ready to go down the weird, dark, scary hallway?”

  Their bright phone lights illuminating their path, Gabe, Kaz, and Lily made their way along the corridor, which curved around to the right. Brett soon came into view, simply standing in the middle of the hall, staring at the rusted metal door to a single cell at the hallway’s end. For some reason, he had the strange book from Uncle Steve’s office in his hands again.

  Gabe approached Brett. “Well? You said ‘This is it.’ What are we looking at? Where are we?”

  Gabe then very nearly jumped out of his shoes when an unfamiliar voice said, “Solitary.” Lily let out a short, sharp scream. Kaz tripped over his own feet and sat down hard on the stone floor, but just as quickly scrambled back up.

  A boy stood right outside the door to the cell at the end of the hall. He looked to be about ten years old, had very pale blond hair, and wore some sort of school uniform. As soon as Gabe saw him, he knew there was something familiar—unsettlingly familiar—about the boy’s face.

  “No visitors,” the boy went on. “No light. No contact. Imagine being in such a place for weeks.” The boy spoke in a very proper way. Sort of old-fashioned. Intense blue eyes peered out from under that blond hair and sought out each of them in turn. “Now imagine being trapped in such a place for more than a century.”

  Gabe started to say “Who are you?” but his breath tripped in his throat and fell flat.

  Because the boy standing in front of the cell was glowing.

  5

  At first Jackson Wright saw the children like candle flames through a curtain.

  He squinted, concentrating. Determined to see them, to see clearly for the first time in so long.

  The flames grew nearer, brighter, more distinct. One green, one red, one blue, one a dazzling silver. The thick, oppressive substance that passed for air in the Umbra, that had forced its way into his lungs for so many years, so many decades, more than a century, began to shift and thin and draw aside.

  The blue flame stood closest to him. The red, silver, and green ones approached slowly, as if frightened. Well, perhaps they should be.

  The red flame spoke. Tentatively, but with bravery behind the words. “What . . . what are you?”

  Jackson tilted his head a few degrees to one side. “I am a boy. Like you.” A lie, but not a lie. Just like he was here, and yet not quite here. Memories flitted across the surface of his mind. Memories pulled from the blue candle flame. Brett. And his friends were Gabe, Lily, and Kaz.

  Jackson suddenly felt his heart hammering against his ribs. It startled him.

  He knew exactly how much time he had spent in the Umbra, the ghastly, dismal, shadow-thick place that had served as his home and his prison. He could count down the years, the days, the seconds—and the tick-tocking of the clock in his head never stopped, never stopped.

  If only he hadn’t been taken. Betrayed. If only the dagger hadn’t speared through his heart.

  The candle flames finally resolved into the shapes of children. And yes, there, in Brett’s hand: the Emerald Tablet. One of the other boys had startling eyes of the same searing shade of green. This one had to be Gabe. It could be no one else.

  Jackson forced himself to breathe.

  In the years of his endless banishment in the Umbra, Jackson had found that this spot was the weakest. This place was where the walls were thinnest between the Umbra and—he scarcely dared to acknowledge the word—home. If he had any hope of returning, any at all, it would be in this wretched place, connected with these children. The presence of his grandfather’s ring, alongside the Tablet, should be just enough to let him dip a toe back into the world. That was why he’d worked so long to lure Brett here.

  Jackson’s foot touched stone. He could feel how cold it was through the leather sole of his shoe.

  Air—real air—flooded his lungs.

  The children stared at him with a mix of awe and dread. They looked so ordinary—remarkable only for the outlandish clothes they wore. No girl in my day would have been seen wearing trousers in public!

  Jackson wondered what they saw when they looked at him. He lifted his right hand and peered at it. He had forgotten the pale skin, the fine bone structure, the faint webwork of blue veins visible beneath the skin.

  It took him several seconds to realize that the cold, hard light flowing from his body was out of place. He still wasn’t human, but he was almost home. He was so close.

  The girl, Lily, crept up to the green-eyed boy’s shoulder, her own eyes, like Brett’s, deep and inky black in the dim light. “You don’t sound like a boy,” she said. “You sound like . . . like a professor or something.”

  So simple, their thoughts. Jackson knew how fortunate he was to have made contact with children. Extraordinary children, despite their appearances, but children nonetheless. And while he might still have the appearance of one their age, Jackson Wright was no longer a child. He knew how easily these young ones could be manipulated; he had been in Brett’s head for some time, visiting him in dreams, whispering and cajoling through the Umbra’s veil. He had bent Brett to his will, and now the other three would follow.

  Anything to keep them away from the mainland. The Dawn must be allowed time to do what it did best. To seek out its target. To perform the ritual. The Dawn must not be interrupted. And then I can come home. Finally!

  Since Jackson’s arrival, Brett had simply stood there, holding the Tablet, staring. His eyelids twitched now and then, and his brows drew together, but he hadn’t said a word. Jackson wondered idly what thoughts must be galloping through Brett’s mind. Fear? Excitement? Validation that the specter from his dreams was, in fact, real?

  But none of the others knew about their connection. Jackson had made sure Brett kept that bit of information to himself. Time to make some new friends, then. “My name is Jackson Wright. If I may ask, what are your names?”

  To Jackson’s mild surprise, Brett spoke up first, his voice as dry as dust. “Brett. Brett Hernandez.” With the hand not holding the Tablet, he indicated the girl. “This is my sister. Lily.”

  The short one cleared his throat. “I’m Kazuo Smith. But everyone calls me Kaz.”

  Finally the boy with the green eyes took his turn: “I’m Gabe Conway.”

  Jackson fought to keep one of his eyebrows from arching. Conway, you say? I think not. Not with those green eyes. But that was conversation for another time.

  “It is a great pleasure to meet you all.” Jackson gave a little bow. It made Lily giggle, but Jackson couldn’t tell whether she found the gesture amusing or was on the edge of hysteria.

  Lily spoke up. “I, uh, I think we’d better ask Gabe’s question again.
What exactly are you?”

  Jackson paced back and forth in front of them, relishing the sensation of his feet on solid ground. “Let me answer your question with a question. Have any of you noticed any strange occurrences in the last day or so? Anything for which you can provide no explanation?”

  Kaz exclaimed, “Yeah!” and it was as if a dam had burst. “There was a book and it had a gold cover, and after we touched it we all passed out, and when we went on the ferry to come here there was a . . . a rogue wave or something, and the ferry almost crashed, and then I kind of thought the, uh . . . the ground was . . . um, never mind about the ground.” Kaz paused for breath. He pointed at the Tablet in Brett’s hand. “That’s the book. It turned green while we were passed out. I should’ve mentioned that before.”

  Kaz had opened up like a punctured blister, but the other three children, even Brett, regarded Jackson with unmistakable suspicion. Gabe and Lily, in particular, eyeballed him as if he were a hornet’s nest, a bundle of swarming, stinging pain only waiting for the slightest provocation to explode. Jackson sighed. In his day children were not so mistrustful.

  The thought sent a sharp pain through his chest. Not a physical pain. It was more like the stab of heartbreak. He had forgotten many things about this world over the long decades in the Umbra, but the sight of his father’s face as he pulled the signet ring from Jackson’s finger remained just as fresh and clear and agonizing as the day it happened.

  I was a fool to trust my father all those years ago. These children would be even greater fools to take the word of a stranger at face value now. The thought gave him no comfort: if his nature had been more suspicious as a boy, he might not have been robbed of a normal life. He might not have been sentenced to more than a century in the Umbra.

  And if Brett had been warier, Jackson wouldn’t be here now. . . .

  Lily nervously kicked a pebble across the floor. It bounced and came to rest against Jackson’s shoe. Taking another deep, glorious breath, he continued. “I am not surprised you’ve noticed some oddities. The truth is this: you are all becoming attuned to the vibrations of the universe. This ability, this talent, is known as the Art. As your understanding of it grows, each of you will be able to use the Art to alter the very fabric of reality. This Art is a form of magick.”