The Elementalists

by C Sharp

  Stan could offer her no solace or support. As threatened, Dr. Markson had taken the time that Sunday to call Mr. Strakowski and notify him of his son’s two counts of trespassing and suspected drug use. Stan had been on hard-core lockdown ever since. He would remain without car, phone, or Internet privileges for three weeks as he was shepherded back and forth to school every day by his scowling mother.

  Ezra was too focused on football leading up to the state championship game to give Chloe more than a cursory “hello” and a high five in the hallway. Even after he’d led the team to a squeaker of a victory with a scrambling quarterback touchdown in overtime, he was too caught up with Kendra and his hordes of adoring fans to break from the King Ezra persona at all.

  To add insult to injury, Uktena had also managed to be out the few times throughout the week that Chloe had escaped from her mother’s watchful eye to go looking for him in the barn. The dragon’s trophy cairn of antlers was growing steadily, however, and Chloe left a note sticking to the uppermost horn that strictly forbade him from returning to Richard Roberts’s bovine collection. Uktena had managed to stay out of the papers and blogosphere with his further hunts, and Chloe was determined to keep it that way for as long as possible. Still, his absence and the unanswered questions that surrounded his existence only amplified Chloe’s growing sense of isolation and helplessness.

  In an effort to hide from her life, she tried to retreat back to the pursuits of personal excellence, focusing as much as she could on pending midterms and the quickly approaching cross-country state championships. But even with those mental and physical distractions, she found her mind wandering back to the beautiful boy from California and the perpetually baffling sway of his moods.

  • • •

  Audrey wasn’t really sure what to do with the bizarre stand-in for her daughter. Every morning, and then again when she returned home after practice, Chloe had taken to moping about the house like a zombie. She barely touched whatever food was put in front of her and had started to speak in one-word sentences. Chloe’s hand remained perpetually wrapped around the unresponsive cell phone, and Audrey had spied her more than once with the same vacant, unblinking gaze that she’d seen before on her ex-husband.

  By the second week, Audrey’s rage had been replaced by worry, and she started to turn down the night shift at Pete’s in an effort to break through Chloe’s wall of melancholia. Aside from regularly coming home filthy and generally making a mess, Chloe had never really done anything wrong before the lightning incident. But now that she was keeping secrets, becoming increasingly reckless with the law, and stealing large quantities of meat without reason, Audrey wasn’t sure what to think.

  This grounding would remain open-ended until Chloe came clean about her reasons for stealing the meat. The close supervision was alien to both mother and daughter alike. Audrey decided to finally make a stand at Thanksgiving dinner, hoping to break through before the monthly headaches kicked in.

  “Chloe, have some of the broccoli,” she urged, trying to catch Chloe’s eye from across the heavily laden table. “I made it with the melted parmesan the way you like it.”

  Without looking up, Chloe stabbed her fork into one of the broccoli spears and dragged it toward her mouth with a crumbling of baked cheese across the tablecloth. She took a tiny bite from the stalk and plopped the rest down on the plate beside the untouched turkey and mashed sweet potatoes.

  “I take it that all of this has something to do with boy trouble?” Audrey suggested hopefully, finally putting aside her own anger to command Chloe’s attention.

  “What?” Chloe croaked.

  Audrey had decided to take a new tactic to get her daughter to open up. “You’re still pouting a week and a half later, so I’m assuming it’s got something to do with Kirin?” She took a bite of turkey slathered in cranberry sauce and waited for her daughter to come to terms with the conversation she was proposing. “’Cause as far as I can see, the only one between us who has any reason to be angry or sullen is me.”

  A small bite of potato hovered on the tip of Chloe’s fork. She put it back down and took a sip of water instead.

  “I’m just saying that if you want to talk about it, I promise to listen without getting mad this time,” Audrey offered. Chloe shrugged, but Audrey could tell that she’d gotten her attention.

  “He kissed me the other night,” Chloe mumbled. “But he hasn’t called or mentioned anything since… It’s been like two weeks. It’s like that whole night never happened.”

  “Oh, is that all?” Audrey had to play down the rush of relief that swelled through her, as she put away the worst-case scenarios that had been lingering in the back of her mind. “That’s just the way boys are sometimes, honey,” she said with a dismissive wave. “Their whole existence, especially in high school, is pretty much just to flail about, be confusing, and make girls’ lives miserable. But it sounds pretty clear to me that he likes you!”

  Chloe looked up with a momentary glimmer of hope, but it faded again as the weight of the world bent her shoulders once more. “I guess,” she muttered with an inadvertent hand on her cell phone. “I’m just tired of waiting for something to happen; it’s like I’m being held captive by my own life… I’m waiting to look the same age as everyone else, waiting to be normal and happy, waiting to understand how I fit in.”

  “Well, then stop waiting and do something about it!” Audrey interrupted. “What happened to the Chloe who can outrun or outsmart anybody and doesn’t care what people think?” Audrey challenged. “That’s the girl that Kirin kissed, and that’s the girl that got elected Homecoming Queen as a sophomore! You have to stop putting all these unnecessary expectations on life for whatever you think is supposed to happen. It’s not going to happen the way you want it to. You could spend your whole life waiting by the phone for someone to call with all the answers to your problems, but it’s never going to come.”

  Audrey sliced off another bite of turkey and watched as her daughter put the cell phone on the table with a crestfallen pout.

  “If you want something, you have to go out and take it. If you want Kirin, you have to make sure he knows it,” Audrey said.

  “Is it all right if I go to the anthropology building at UVA on Sunday morning?” Chloe asked hopefully.

  “Are you ready to tell me why you took all of the meat out of the freezer?”

  Chloe wanted to explain all that had happened, but still saw no way to confide in her mother. She opened her mouth to answer and then closed it without a word.

  “Well, I’ve got all the time in the world, and you’re going to be grounded until you tell me the truth,” snapped Audrey with the heat of her anger rekindling in an instant.

  “Mom, I want to…but I can’t.” Chloe dropped her eyes again to the table.

  Audrey abruptly stood to clear her plate and walked over to snatch Chloe’s phone from beside the broccoli. She slipped it into her pocket. “Then I hope you can solve all your problems between the hours of eight and three next week.”

  Chapter 24

  The Dragon Run

  Chloe walked through what had been the lush forest surrounding her home—now turned to a vast field of scorched earth, pierced by a maze of blackened spikes that had once been trees. Some of the charred trunks were little more than ash, waiting to be felled by a strong wind, but others were loosely held shells for millions of jagged little splinters.

  Chloe had found people stumbling blind with a hundred tiny wood shards in their eyes after getting caught without goggles in one of the freak storms. Others had been torn and skewered by falling branches. Sometimes their screams kept her awake at night.

  She passed by a particularly large tree spike and noticed the pockmarks that covered its entirety. All the trees and even the ash-grey earth were littered with the little divots. Chloe glanced warily at the dark clouds advancing across the red sky overhead. Gone were the days of blue skies and pleasant afternoon showers. The acid rain was getting str
onger, more concentrated. She moved on in a hurry.

  Every footfall sent up little dust clouds as she climbed a rise in the land, leaning on an old ski pole as she went, knowing she couldn’t trust the trees to help her. At the top, she looked down into the next little valley, where a spiderweb of cracks had split the ground. At the widest point, the rip in the floor was open fifteen feet or more, and a similar break had been estimated to drop a quarter of a mile down. Dr. Markson referred to them as stress fractures across the earth’s crust, and they, too, were increasing in number.

  Chloe would have to go around. She checked her watch; it was getting close to dusk, feeding time. She cinched the straps of her backpack as tightly as they would go and started to jog; the sound of her breath echoed back within the confines of her face mask. At first, she had found it hard to breathe through the rubber and plastic filters, but she’d gotten more used to it than she had ever thought possible. Given enough time, the human animal could come to terms with any level of suffering.

  Her feet carried her back down the hill, having also grown accustomed to running in thickly soled boots as opposed to the running shoes of her earlier days. But as she rounded the lowest fork of the crack, she heard the alarm sound from the hidden encampment below—high-pitched and piercing as it carried through the deathly still air. Almost instantly her eye caught the movement of a dark shape sweeping through the sky above.

  She jumped over a fissure in the ground and started to sprint as she heard a heavy wing flap behind her. Two strides later, a hot tail wind blew in, and the dust spiraled into little dervishes. She heard the massive leathery wings flap again, and she pushed her legs as hard and fast as they would go… But as fast as she was, she wasn’t fast enough. Trees crumbled apart on either side of her, and she felt a sharp pain in her thigh as a little avalanche of black shards tumbled down the slope toward her.

  The heavy flap sounded again, and a dark shadow came over her path. Still Chloe ran harder. She started to scream amid the sound of a slow, deep inhale of breath from above.

  “NO!” she screamed herself awake and was instantly slammed silent by the pain in her head. I’m dreaming! It’s only a dream. Chloe forced her eyes open to look up at the ceiling. She traced the familiar cracks in the paint, seeing for a moment longer the splintering rend in the earth from her nightmare. After a few more pulsing throbs in her temples and a threatening churn of her gut, her worries switched to more immediate concerns. Do I try to make it to the bathroom or go with the trash can?

  She breathed through her nose and stilled the urge to wretch, noticing only then how cold the room had become since she’d fallen asleep. She clenched her eyes and shivered, pulling the blanket up to her chin. One of her arms slipped free and reached blindly for the hot washcloth by her bed, but it had long since gone cold and clammy.

  With a slow breath, she forced herself to sit up and slip the rag back into the tepid water basin. The insulting sound of Shipwreck’s purring carried through the silence from the other side of the room. She glanced to her desk chair, readying to chastise the insolent beast, but her words caught in her throat.

  Uktena sat in the chair in his human guise, watching her. Shipwreck nestled contentedly in his lap. “The cat did not like me, but I have finally won him over,” Uktena said as he stroked Shipwreck behind the ears.

  “How did you get in here?” Chloe blurted with a rush of adrenaline.

  Uktena glanced to the open window in answer before his attention returned to the surprisingly tender treatment of the cat. Shipwreck shut his eyes and arched his neck for more.

  “You can’t be here! My mom will come to check on me soon!” Chloe hissed as another wave of nausea and pain washed over her.

  “Your mother will not wake until dawn,” answered Uktena with certainty. “I wished to speak with you. The torment of your dreams woke me from my slumber.”

  Chloe sat up and held her head in her hands for a moment as the pain edged back from the threshold.

  “Your anguish clouds my thoughts day and night; I cannot escape it,” he said with an undercurrent of anger. “This boy who longs for the sea…why do you not just claim him and be done with it?”

  This took Chloe by surprise. “What?”

  “All of this pining and indecision is insufferable. The human life is far too fleeting for such wasted time,” said Uktena. “All you need do is touch my head and ask; I shall charm the boy and give him to you.”

  “No!” Chloe blurted with an extra throb behind her eyes. “I don’t want him charmed… And why do you even care? I thought humans were insignificant to you!”

  “You are,” Uktena responded almost defensively. “But you have shown me kindness, and I would see it returned to you before…” he trailed off.

  “Before what?” Chloe pressed. “What’s going to happen?” She couldn’t understand how she continually allowed herself to forget about the prophecy. “Do these dreams show what’s coming?”

  “I do not know the future,” the dragon deflected. “If what you dream comes to pass, that gift is yours, not mine.”

  “No more riddles!” Chloe shouted, surprising herself. “No more forgetting!” Shipwreck unseated from Uktena’s lap and darted out of the room. “Before, on the hillside, you mentioned the Ascension.” She was trembling and tears started to gather in her eyes as she remembered the suffering of the nightmare world. “Tell me what’s supposed to happen next month.”

  For an instant, the dragon-man’s gaze flared with a spark of electricity, but then his face settled back into sad acceptance. “Soon others of my kind will return to the world of men—earth, air, fire, and water made flesh—called back from distant sleep to usher in a new age and erase that which has come before.”

  Chloe fought to catch her breath, feeling for a long moment like she was suffocating before the air finally came to her in a wheezing gasp. Uktena watched with a look of regret overlaying his normal cold curiosity.

  “I am sorry to tell you this,” he said with a slight dip of his head. “You have reminded me that not all of your kind is lost, but there can be no new beginning for our planet without first facing an end. Too much of the land’s blood has been leached out by your people. The coming cataclysm will refill the well again.”

  She struggled to gather her racing thoughts into words. “But you said that you didn’t know the future. How do you know what will happen?”

  “A series of events have begun, which I do not believe can be undone,” he answered solemnly. He closed his eyes. “Already I can hear the stirrings of my brethren as the time draws near.”

  “What can I do?” Chloe pleaded with a quivering voice. “How can I stop it?”

  Uktena opened his eyes again. “You can run and hide for a time, but no one can run fast enough to escape their fate for long.”

  He inhaled slowly, and Chloe heard the echo of her pending demise from the dream. She shuddered with a feverish tingle along her scalp.

  “I have come to realize that I am but the catalyst of what is to come, the forerunner to the doom of man. Just as it is your role to act as witness to my oracle.” As he exhaled, he suddenly looked old and tired. “I cannot outpace my part any more than you.”

  Chloe started to shiver uncontrollably, and it felt like her skull might burst. “No…no,” she found herself saying as she built toward a defiant shout. “No…NO! There has to be something!”

  Uktena stood, and the lightning stroke of his gaze flashed out to silence her instantly. She fell back to her pillow in limp unconsciousness as the dragon came to stand by her bed. He reached out gently and placed his pale hand on her brow, quieting the anguish within with a feeling of warmth he did not know was possible toward one of her species. “Run, Chloe McClellan. Run as fast as you can. That is all there is left to do.”

  • • •

  Chloe ran up the muddy hill, flinging clumps of dirt with every footfall. Her shins and thighs were already splattered with the spray from the other girls who jo
stled and heaved around her, and they were only a few hundred yards out of the starting gate. She’d led out fast as Coach Barnes had instructed, keeping on Angela’s heels, but not pushing it so hard that they’d spend all their energy too early. Plenty of girls were ahead of them, carried further along the path with a reckless use of adrenaline, but they would pick them off one by one over the next three miles. According to the coach, the real attack would come from the Richmond Raiders and two Northern Virginia teams called T.C. Williams and Lake Braddock. For now, they were all staying back and biding their time.

  The course was covered in a cool mist, and the ground was still wet from the rain the night before. Every leaf Chloe brushed made her skimpy black uniform wetter and heavier. The tank tops were mesh, see-through, and flimsy, and the shorts were little more than sturdy bikini bottoms. It was even worse than the uniform at gym, and the only consolation for Chloe was that everyone around her was dressed the same way.

  Deceptively deep puddles dotted the course along the muddy tracks left behind by the truck that had been used to mark the way earlier that morning. Chloe saw a girl stumble and fall with a splash of brown water about ten strides ahead of her. She leapt over the girl’s splayed arms and kept going.

  She loved the minimalist soles of her new racing flats—it felt like there was nothing between her feet and the soil. She vaulted, almost weightless for an instant, as if she might fly if she were to only close her eyes and forget to hit the ground. But when she did land, she dug in and kept going, reveling in the traction of the screw-in metal spikes that grabbed the earth like little claws.

  The crowd of cheering spectators was left behind as the runners came over the rise and were funneled into a densely wooded path. Girls collided and elbowed for position as they came together. Angela passed them going wide up a root ledge, and Chloe followed.