The Elementalists

by C Sharp

Chapter 23

  Two Weeks of Tomorrows

  The morning frost crunched beneath Ezra’s boots as he strode across the field carrying a bushel of hay and a hoe on his back. They’d left the horses in the barn overnight; he was the first one to cross the dried grass and hardened soil that morning. At 5 a.m., it was just him and the land and the coming sun, the way he liked it. His body ached from football and manual labor, but he loved the immediacy of that dull pain, the twinge in his muscles and the slow loosening of his joints. It made him feel present.

  Ezra tossed the hay to the center of the field and took it apart with the hoe and his boot before turning back toward the barn. The darkened ridge of the distant hills claimed his attention, and a dream from earlier that morning came back all at once. In it, he’d stood in this field, just as he was, while lightning flashed in those hills up by Chloe’s house. It had been colder, full winter, with a thin layer of snow clinging to the hard earth, and he’d been carrying something heavier than hay over his shoulder…

  The sound of thunder rolls out seconds later, and somehow he hears Chloe’s voice calling to him in the far off rumble. It’s like she’s saying his name from right beside him, or all around him, or maybe even from within—and then the call is answered from below. At first, it’s just a gentle trembling in the soil. But the murmur gathers, as if reaching up to reply to the grumbled challenge that carried through the air moments before. The ground begins to shake as Ezra fights for balance.

  But he is not scared and he does not run; he just steps back from the center of the field as a fissure cracks open before him. A cloud of dust and steam rises from beneath the surface, and buried within the wrenching groan of the land is what sounds like a bestial growl. Ezra moves toward the fracture and heaves a giant saddle from his shoulder to his feet.

  Only then does he realize that the hand-stitched seat of leather and brass is maybe five times the size of a normal saddle—far too big for a horse, too big for an elephant even. And he knows then that he’s made it himself and that it’s for riding whatever is climbing up from below…

  With a chuckle, he shook off the clinging remnants of the dream and turned back toward the barn and the hungry, waiting horses within. Ezra was not one for interpreting dreams or giving weight to strange portents in the wind. He believed in things he could touch with his hands and the solid earth beneath his feet. His boots crunched back along the same path that he’d come, and he tried instead to remember the nuances of the Kendra sex dream that he’d woken with only a few minutes earlier.

  Still, it was the impression of Chloe McClellan that lingered as he slid open the heavy wooden door and heard the excited whinny of the horses. As he marched toward the first stall, he glanced to the worn leather and dangling stirrups that hung on the post beside it and saw again the design of the oversized saddle he had crafted in his dream.

  • • •

  Kirin didn’t call on Sunday morning. And though Chloe was just as grounded as expected, she hadn’t been prepared for the level of fury that her mother had reached after Chloe had refused to give a suitable excuse for the two hundred dollars of missing meat. It did not make matters calmer that Chloe had also been caught trespassing again on the private property of the company that had helped to ruin Audrey’s husband. Brent being the one to bring her home didn’t help either.

  After Chloe had shut her mouth and hung her head, Audrey had become apoplectic for the remainder of the night. She was red-faced and trembling as she stormed about the kitchen, slamming drawers and banging pots under the pretense of putting away the dishes. Chloe woke the next morning expecting to have her new Radio Shack flip phone taken away, but her mom’s temper had settled into an even scarier cold indifference. Audrey let Chloe keep her electronic contact with the outside world in what at first seemed like an act of kindness, but only proved to magnify her daughter’s pain throughout the following weeks of purgatory.

  That afternoon, Chloe was instructed to rake the yard and cart the leaves out to the compost pile a hundred feet into the woods off the side of the house. She was an experienced raker with years of practice, but since Ray McClellan had left, the first big raking of the fall had always been a mother/daughter joint effort…until now. Chloe estimated that to clear the yard it would take her about twenty trips with a large sheet’s worth of leaves dragged behind her.

  While she worked, she could feel her mother’s stern glances from the kitchen window as Audrey prepared her winter supply of chicken soup stock within. Even from outside, Chloe could smell the layered waft of onions, seasonings, and chicken broth simmering in the giant vat on the stove. Normally that smell filled her with a sense of contentment and belonging, but now she was afraid that she’d forever associate it with her mother’s boiling rage. The smell would linger in the house for days.

  Chloe was only on her second load of leaves when she heard the crunch of tires on the gravel driveway. Her legs cleared the distance to the side of the house as if with a mind of their own. Please be him! Please be him!

  She did not expect to see the beat-up white Ford Focus come to a squeaky stop at the end of the driveway or know how to react as Ezra climbed out and spotted her. He smiled and waved before starting his long strides toward her. Chloe glanced to the window, but didn’t see her mom watching. She moved to intercept him with her rake dragging behind.

  Ezra was wearing a black-and-orange sweatshirt with a charging black knight insignia on the front, and he was cradling a football in his right arm. Without warning, he took a lateral stutter step and threw the ball toward her in a perfect spiral. She didn’t have time to think as she dropped the rake and brought her hands up to catch the pass before it buried into her stomach.

  “Jesus! Are you trying to kill me?” she yelled.

  Ezra clapped. “Nope, I knew you’d catch it,” he hollered. He stopped before her with a flash of his pearly whites and held out his hands for the ball.

  She scowled and tossed it back before reclaiming her rake from among the leaves. “Maybe I should hurl a rake at you and see if you can catch it?” she challenged.

  He smiled and turned to look back at his car across the yard, gauging the distance to the rolled down passenger side window. The football twirled in his palm before he latched on with his long fingers. He wound up and rocketed a perfect bullet of a spiral into the back of the seat from thirty paces and then spun back around with a sly wink as he reached for the rake.

  That’s amazing! Chloe tried to play it cool as she handed it over. “Looks like you’re ready for the state championship game.”

  “I better be; it’s next Saturday.” He started to rake up long paths of leaves toward the sheet. He covered twice the distance that Chloe could with every sweep.

  She watched him for a long moment, temporarily struck by how his every move was strong and confident. It was as if the leaves moved ahead of his every stroke with the rake, governed by his commanding will just like all the kids at school. To anyone else, it would seem that he lacked the capacity for doubt or worry, but Chloe knew better.

  “Is there another rake?” he asked without slowing. “I’m not doing this whole yard by myself.”

  Chloe smiled. She’d leaned her mom’s rake against the old oak in the failed hope of enticing Audrey to join in. She claimed it for herself and looked back to the kitchen window. Audrey still wasn’t there.

  “Is your mom home?” asked Ezra, as if reading her mind.

  “Yup,” answered Chloe. “I’m grounded again and on a short leash.”

  Ezra chuckled. “For such a goody-goody, you sure do like to get into trouble,” he observed. “What was it this time?”

  “Let’s see: trespassing, lying, and stealing.”

  Ezra stopped raking and shot her a disapproving look. “That doesn’t seem like you.”

  “The trespassing was debatable; I didn’t actually lie, so much as plead the fifth; and the stealing was for a good cause,” she said in her defense.

  Ezra shook
his head and continued raking. “How long are you down for this time?”

  “This one could last awhile,” Chloe replied over her shoulder as she tackled the leaf-infested shrubs beside the house. The silence between them stretched on as the rhythm of the work took over—just the sound of the shaky metal teeth as they ripped through the grass and pushed waves of brown leaves and acorns before them. With two, the work went quickly, and in only a few minutes, they had the second full sheet ready for the dumping ground.

  “That’s too bad,” Ezra said, like no time had passed since her last words. “I was hoping you could maybe come to the game in Richmond and cheer me on next Saturday. It’d do me good to look up and see you in the crowd.”

  “Yeah, I’m afraid that’s not looking too likely,” Chloe muttered, swallowing the urge to make a petty comment about Kendra.

  Without needing any direction, he dropped the rake and gathered the four corners of the sheet into an overstuffed sack that he flung over his shoulder. “Where to?”

  Chloe wanted to tell him how much she’d missed him, but her thoughts lingered on Kendra and her mouth stayed shut. She pointed to the worn path into the woods. “Compost pile, about fifty paces that way.”

  Without another word, Ezra went, and Chloe couldn’t help but track his graceful strides across the yard until he slipped into the shadows of the trees. She waited for a moment and then checked her cell phone for any new calls or texts. Still nothing?

  Chloe slipped the phone back into her pocket, feeling the weight of someone’s attention on her again. She glanced to the barn for any sign of the dragon before looking over her shoulder to catch her mom’s gaze from the window. Audrey looked down into the sink and tried to play it off.

  Ezra was whistling something classical and dramatic on his return down the path. He emerged with the empty sheet dragging behind him and broke off from his tune with a big smile and a wave to Audrey.

  Audrey waved back with a bright yellow dishwashing glove on her hand and a fling of soapy water.

  “Now that’s what I call domestic bliss,” Ezra whispered for Chloe’s benefit as he laid the sheet back down for the third load.

  She leveled her stare. “You’re already on my shit list, remember?”

  Ezra turned the smile on her. “Yeah, how much longer are you gonna keep that up, anyway?”

  Chloe sighed; her presumed anger was already starting to falter. She remembered the way Ezra had defended her on Halloween and the surprising vulnerability she’d seen hiding behind Kendra’s veneer of perfection. “Until you dump Kendra, or until the end of the world…whichever comes first,” she offered.

  He thought about it for a moment and then nodded. “Cool, I can wait it out; according to the news, the end of the world will be, like, any day now.”

  Despite her building fears that his statement may have held more than just a kernel of truth, Chloe found herself laughing. Though Kirin made her want to experience life and know the world, and Stan kept her rolling her eyes at all the pitfalls and perplexities the world presented, only Ezra could keep her grounded and focused on the here and now. He made her want to meet whatever challenges lay ahead with courage and grace.

  Maybe he’s the one to help me figure out what to do? She considered walking him into the barn then and there, but she doubted his levelheaded brain would ever be able to accept the insanity of what lay within.

  “I’m sorry I can’t come to the game,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll be amazing as always. But even if I wasn’t grounded, how am I supposed to get back and forth to Richmond on a Saturday night?”

  “I don’t know; you’re a resourceful girl.” He shot her a reserved smile. “I kind of figured you could get a ride with Kirin.”

  Despite her initial impulse to deny and evade, Chloe found herself unable to respond to the unexpected utterance of his name.

  “So how are things going with the So-Cal lover boy anyway?” he pressed.

  Chloe could feel the blood rise in her cheeks. “What?” she said lamely.

  Ezra started to chuckle. “Ah, I guess it’s going pretty well,” he said before turning away and starting to rake again. “Hey, good for you,” he added with a bit of an edge and his back turned. “I hope he’s everything you’d hoped for.”

  Chloe snapped out of the deer-in-headlights routine and leveled her gaze. “First you say you don’t want me hanging out with Stan, and now you’re giving me attitude about Kirin. And all the while you’re spending your time with the underage bitch-slut from hell!” She wasn’t sure why she’d raised her voice. “Why do you even care what I do or who I do it with anyway?”

  Chloe planted her feet and held her ground as Ezra spun around in a fury and stepped close. He towered over her with his finger leveled toward her nose. “She’s not a slut; it’s just an act!” he shouted back. “And I care about what you do and who you do it with because I’m jealous, all right?!”

  Chloe stared up into the intensity of his brown eyes and searched for some sign of the punchline to follow. But there wasn’t one.

  Ezra looked away. “I still think you’re too young for me, and you don’t have a clue how to let loose and have fun, but no one else gets me the way you do,” he admitted quietly. “I miss you, Chloe. I just need you to be a part of my life.”

  “I miss you, too. I’m sorry I’ve been such a jerk,” she said just as Ezra enveloped her in a huge hug. She nestled into him, smelling the earthy undertones of the farm on his sweatshirt and holding tight to the strength in his back. She shut her eyes and squeezed tighter, feeling more secure in that moment than she remembered feeling for years.

  She barely even noticed that her feet weren’t touching the ground as Ezra stood upright with her still clutched in his arms. He nuzzled his face into her neck and kissed her tenderly under her ear. “Mmmm, you smell good,” he said with a hint of his old lasciviousness returned.

  Chloe felt flushed and confused. She pulled her head back with a nervous smirk. “You really are incorrigible!”

  His cocky smile returned before he eased her gently back to the ground. “What? I love women; is that so wrong?”

  Chloe laughed it off as she reclaimed her rake and tried to ignore the electric thrill that jangled through her body. “I just hope this doesn’t mean that you’re not going to help me finish the yard.”

  He took up his rake as well. “I told you, I’m a gentleman; I don’t just kiss and run.”

  They bantered and played and continued the work, and this time Chloe refrained from checking her phone for almost ten minutes…

  • • •

  …Kirin lowered his own phone and dropped it in the empty passenger seat beside him as Chloe marched away with another load of leaves. He watched as Ezra tracked her progression across the yard with his eyes blatantly locked on her butt. Kirin had seen enough. He turned the key in the ignition and started the Jeep with a roar that sent a few birds fluttering into the air from the trees above.

  He’d wanted to surprise Chloe, hoping that if he showed up at her house, her mom couldn’t so easily turn him away. He needed to ask her a hundred questions about what had happened the night before and what she knew about the Cow Thief. He’d planned on telling her about all that he’d been through in China and the feeling that something bad was coming.

  Above all, he had to let her know about the dream—the same spot just beyond the break as always, but this time it was Chloe who sat on the surfboard as he circled and nudged at her feet. It was as if he’d been called up from the depths by her presence. And as the dream continued, he realized that he wasn’t the shark, but something else, far bigger and older—a long, sinuous form and yet somehow also a part of the water itself. He swayed and swelled with the pull of the moon, and Chloe was his moon… It was magnificent!

  It had taken him almost three months to find someone that he was ready to let in and less than fifteen minutes of watching from his car to convince him that he’d been a fool for thinking it. Kirin had
been burned by girls plenty of times back in Santa Cruz, but it was the betrayal of his mother’s cruel death that came back now… Watching Chloe with Ezra, he felt the belonging of the dream stripped away—left empty-handed and abandoned once more.

  He reversed the car along the gravel pull-off on the road and did a U-turn. He had to get home to help his grandmother. He had to make sure that he could ace his midterms to get his father off his back. As he rolled down the winding, wooded street, his thoughts stayed with the ocean—the calming rock of the waves and the sun glistening across the water—where his real life had been left behind.

  • • •

  Kirin didn’t call or text the rest of the week either, and his short exchanges with Chloe in homeroom and lunch were subdued and even a little awkward. Maybe he’s just disturbed by what he saw in China? Maybe he regrets the kiss and wants me to leave him alone? By the end of the week, he’d begun to speak more softly and less often, and though his easy smile persisted, Chloe didn’t always see the warmth behind it.

  She could tell that he was in pain, but there was never an opportunity for her to get him alone to talk about it, and he seemed to go out of his way to avoid her whenever she made the attempt. She had Audrey drop her off at school half an hour earlier every morning before first period, but Kirin had begun to shuffle into class late every day. When she tried to isolate him at lunch, she found it impossible to get an extended moment away from either Stan or Cynthia, or both. The last two calls and three texts she’d sent him had either been ignored or answered with truncated deflections.

  Outwardly Kirin remained focused on his studies and the effort to make his grandmother feel at home. But still, as far as Chloe was concerned, this lack of post-kiss communication was getting to be ridiculous…maybe even borderline malicious?

  Even with all that there was for Chloe to think about—a dragon in the backyard, the increasingly mysterious disappearance of her father, the evil corporation that was haunting her every move, or the end-of-days prophecy that she may have inadvertently begun—all she could think about was kissing Kirin and if she would ever get the chance to do it again.