by B. C. Harris
I stop. Not too far away from me is a lifeless body stretched on the floor.
I know it’s my mother.
As I rush towards her, a terrifying sinister man appears on the other side of her, almost as though he’s walking through the fire.
I’ve seen this man before, but in the panic of the moment I can’t remember how I might know him.
“Mom!” I try to scream, but the smoke is so heavy that the word only comes out of my mouth as a cough.
I drop to the floor beside my mother.
The malevolent stranger hovers above us. Who is he? What does he want?
The ceiling creaks loudly.
There is a deep gash on my mother’s forehead. Blood covers her face.
“Mom, please be alive,” I beg.
There is a horrifying shudder above me. I look up. The ceiling is ripping apart.
The mysterious man reaches for my mother’s necklace.
Barely beating him to it, I grab the necklace with such force that I break it away from my mother’s neck.
Suddenly, the vile stranger grabs me and shakes me like I’m a weightless stuffed doll.
I clutch the emerald in one hand and attempt to use my other hand to push him away. It’s no use. He’s far too strong for me to fight against him.
As the ceiling collapses, he tosses me on top of my mother. He roars with repugnant laughter.
In the split-second before the flaming ceiling crushes us, I say, “Sandarium, my mother’s car.”
- 16 -
ESCAPE
I blink two or three times to make sure that I’m not dreaming.
I’m sitting safely with my mother in her car. Although she’s unconscious I hear her breathing. The emerald magically saved us. We escaped the horrendous fire.
I open the car door. With one hand firmly pushing on the car’s horn and the other waving in the air, I continue this action until a police officer comes running towards us.
“Why are you still in the parking lot?” the officer asks when he’s close enough for me to hear him.
“My mother’s hurt,” I reply. “She has a bad cut on her forehead.”
As the officer reaches us, he takes a quick look at my mother and says, “How long have you been here? How did she get hurt?”
“I’m not sure,” I reply. “I was in the building with her. Somehow we managed to escape and reach her car.”
I feel the emerald in my hand. I know there’s much more to my story, but I also know that the police officer would never understand. I decide not to say anything else.
In a moment of desperation, the emerald’s great powers mysteriously saved both my mother and me.
“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” the officer asks.
“I’m fine,” I reply.
I breathe a sigh of relief that we escaped both the fire and the evil man who tried to steal the emerald. I wonder if he perished in the fire, but I have a gut feeling that he didn’t.
His face was so cruel, yet so familiar.
Who was he?
“I’ll call for an ambulance,” the officer says.
For the first time, I feel the pain on my hands. Looking at them, I realize that both of them have suffered burns from the fire.
*****
Later in the day, after my mother and I were treated at the hospital for injuries that proved to be not too serious for either one of us, we returned back home. I knew I had a lot of explaining to do.
Although I stressed over what I was going to say, in the end my mother didn’t ask me anything about how we ended up at the hospital. It’s almost as if she understood that something out-of-the-ordinary had occurred, but she didn’t want to know the details. Or perhaps my mother knew a lot more about what had transpired over the past few days than I think.
When I asked her why she had texted me for help instead of fleeing from the fire like everyone else, she didn’t have an answer for me. I guessed it had something to do with the terrifying man.
Did he start the fire?
Did my mother text me when she realized she couldn’t escape the evil man? If so, why would she contact me instead of calling the police?”
Did she understand that the emerald had magical powers when it was in my hands?
I asked her about the mysterious man who tried to take the emerald necklace. She shrugged as if to say she didn’t know what I was talking about. When I persisted and said that I had seen him before, her face turned aghast like she had seen a ghost. I thought she was going to pass out, but in the end she said I must be mistaken.
Mistaken? I don’t think so. My mother is hiding something from me. If she won’t tell me what it is, I will find out on my own.
After a long emotional day, I finally drop into bed. Before falling asleep, I tighten my bandaged fingers around the emerald. Interestingly, my mother never asked me to give it back to her.
Although I’m far too exhausted to go to Tamor tonight, I know I will return soon to tell Capurni what happened.
- 17 -
A CITY OF GOLD
On Monday morning, after several life-threatening events last week, and after missing school on both Thursday and Friday, it feels good to be sitting safely in my classroom, even if I’m listening to an arrogant presentation by Martha.
A few steps away from Martha, Drew stands looking like a rock star. He is leaning against the wall as though he is posing for a magazine cover shoot. As Martha proudly presents, she glances in his direction every once in awhile and smiles smugly.
At the beginning of the presentation, I accidently catch Drew looking at me. I’m sure everyone in the class, including Ms. Kelly, must have seen the slight smirk he sent in my direction. Even though that was a few minutes ago, I still feel warm and slightly flushed. For the remainder of the presentation I’m determined to keep my eyes on Martha, but it’s hard not to let them drift towards Drew once in awhile.
It became quickly apparent during the initial part of the presentation that Drew served no purpose, at least not in the sense of contributing anything meaningful. A few minutes into the presentation and he still hasn’t opened his mouth.
Although I hesitate to look around the room, I suspect that every girl is mesmerized by Drew standing there. They likely haven’t heard anything that Martha has said so far.
To me, Drew is more like a celebrity than a classmate. My head can’t get around the reality that he’s an actual person that I can reach out and touch. Even more difficult for me to accept is that he might actually like me.
“Imagine a place where the streets are paved with gold, where statues are made of solid gold with precious jewels set in them,” Martha states.
I want to shout out that such a world really exists, but I bite my tongue. Would anyone believe my story about Shinti?
I look at the screen at the front of our room. There’s a picture of a solid gold tray with beautiful sculptured figures and what appears to be a solid gold drinking cup.
“In 1636,” Martha brags as though she was actually there, “Juan Rodriguez Troxell wrote about a South American tribal chief who covered his body in gold dust and then sat on a raft that was pushed out into a lagoon. On the raft was a great pile of gold and precious emeralds. As part of the ceremony to please the gods, the chief would drop the gold and emeralds into the waters of the lagoon. The chief, who was covered in gold dust, was called El Dorado meaning the golden one. It is thought that the legend of El Dorado began from these actual facts.”
I start to daydream. I recall my visits to Tamor. What I discovered there is far more interesting than any tale about some chief covered in gold.
“In 1531, Diego de Ordaz, part of the Spanish expedition into South America, claimed he had been rescued from a shipwreck and taken inland to meet El Dorado,” Martha continues in her typical know-it-all manner.
l wonder if Drew is ever going to speak. Did Martha let him help with any part of the project? Not that she might be completely blamed for his lack of participation. Drew isn’t e
xactly a school project kind of guy.
“For the next two-hundred years, many European explorers headed for South American to look for the great empire of El Dorado. Although the golden empire was never found, many experts today believe that it might be located at the bottom of a lake. It’s even possible that an earthquake or a volcano caused the land to shift causing the fabled empire to sink beneath a flood of waters.”
The lost world of El Dorado sounds a lot like the story of Shinti. It’s almost as if the legend of El Dorado is based on the ancient empire of Shinti. Is it possible that somewhere in the past that there was some contact between someone from El Dorado and someone from Shinti?
“One of the most famous expeditions in the search for El Dorado occurred in 1541 when Francisco Orellana and Gonzalo Pizarro explored the Amazon River. Although they never found El Dorado, they heard many stories about a city made of gold. In 1595, the famous English explorer Sir Walter Raleigh prepared a map showing the existence of El Dorado near the legendary Lake Parima in South America. Although other explorers searched in this area for the famous city, it was never found.”
Every time Martha presents another fact, another explorer, or a map of the area she is talking about, or even a priceless golden artifact that had been discovered, it is shown on the screen at the front of the room. She doesn’t even allow Drew to push the button on the remote control to change the pictures.
The amazing thing about Drew, through all of this, is that he doesn’t look bothered by the fact that he isn’t a part of the presentation. It’s as though he’s comfortable just standing there with all the girls gawking at him.
I wonder what Ms. Kelly thinks of Drew’s lack of involvement. I guess this is really nothing new. The only time I’ve ever heard Drew speak more than a few sentences in a row was once when he was telling another teacher about a motorcycle he was fixing. Perhaps, in my mind, that was the moment when I cast him into the role of the black leather motor cycle rebel, the James Dean of my generation.
James Dean and Marilyn Monroe: movie stars who were both dead before my mother was born, yet she’s obsessed with them. How many more Marilyn Monroe movies was I going to have to endure? What is it about adults that they have to cherish the lives of faded stars? Elvis Presley is another one, as are Princess Diana and Michael Jackson. Do people like my mother believe in famous celebrities to somehow bring meaning into their lives? Are the mythical connections that they create between themselves and people they never knew any different than those who are fascinated with legends like Atlantis or El Dorado? Long before movie stars, did people have the need to create legends to connect them to something greater?
As Martha talks about the dangers that the early explorers faced in their search for El Dorado, her next picture shows a huge anaconda, one of the most powerful snakes in the rainforest.
“An anaconda can be as long as our classroom,” Martha boasts. “Sometimes they quietly crawled out of the jungle rivers at night and wrapped themselves around explorers while they were sleeping, crushing them. Then, the massive snake swallowed its victim whole.”
Suddenly, there’s a loud crash. I almost jump out of my seat, as does everyone else in the room.
There’s a cry of pain.
I anxiously turn to see Michael rolling on the floor in apparent agony a few desks away from me.
“It’s got me. It’s got me,” he cries out. “The anaconda is crushing me.”
When Ms. Kelly reaches Michael, he stops pretending that he has been attacked by a giant snake. There’s an outburst of laughter in the room as everyone realizes that this is another one of Michael’s pranks.
“Michael,” Ms. Kelly says sternly.
“Ms. Kelly, I’m sorry,” he says with feigned sincerity. “I must have been daydreaming. A huge anaconda crawled under my desk and pulled me to the floor. I’m sorry Ms. Kelly, but snakes frighten me. Martha’s presentation is scaring me.”
As Ms. Kelly calmly leads Michael to an empty desk at the back of the room, I turn to look at Martha. She’s seething with anger at Michael for daring to interrupt her presentation. Drew, on the other hand, is slouched against the wall as though he could care less about what is happening.
I stare at Drew, something I rarely allow myself to do. An unexpected glimpse flashes through my mind of Drew accompanying me to Tamor. As quickly as the thought occurs, it vanishes.
“Okay, Martha and Drew, you can continue your presentation,” Ms. Kelly says in a tone of voice that clearly suggests that she will not tolerate any more interruptions.
“Before I was so rudely interrupted,” Martha begins, her eyes firing hatred in Michael’s direction, “I was talking about some of the dangers the explorers faced in searching for El Dorado.”
Did they ever face a sethaurus? I wonder. Or a pazu? My mind begins to drift.
During the past few days, my mother has avoided talking about the fire. She never even made a comment on Friday morning, the day after the fire, when I discovered that my hands were completely healed from the burns I received in the fire. The only plausible explanation for the miracle was that I had been holding the emerald in my hands during the night and it must have healed my burns.
The same day, my mother took me to a jewelry store to have the clasp on the emerald necklace repaired. The whole time she never said anything about the fire. Nothing about how we managed to escape the burning building. Nothing about the strange man who tried to steal the emerald necklace. And most difficult of all for me to understand, she never asked me to give her emerald back to her.
I’m convinced that my mother knows much more about the emerald, but for some reason she doesn’t want to talk about it. It’s almost as if she has blocked out some past tragic event that is connected to the emerald.
I’m anxious to visit Tamor again. I want to tell Capurni about the fire and the hideous man who attempted to steal the emerald.
Finally, Martha and Drew finish their presentation, or should I say that Martha finished her presentation. Even though there aren’t any questions for them, Martha manages to keep on talking for another few minutes before Ms. Kelly walks to the front of the room to officially end the presentation.
As Martha and Drew walk to their seats, Ms. Kelly looks in my direction and says, “Emily, although Jamie and you were scheduled to present today, with you being away on Thursday and Friday, I have rescheduled your presentation for Wednesday.”
I nod.
Jamie had called me on Friday night to tell me that our presentation had been rescheduled. He also said he missed me on Thursday and Friday and hoped that I was feeling better. I guess my mother must have called the school and told them that I was sick.
Throughout the weekend, Jamie and I constantly chatted about our project. It was so easy to work with him that we could have still given our presentation today.
To be safe, we decided to get together tomorrow after supper at my house to finalize our project.
- 18 -
A DANGEROUS MISSION
After supper, Jamie and I chatted online about our project. Although the impression that I had previously formed of Jamie was that he’s always serious, I’m finding that he’s fun to work with on our Atlantis assignment. He listens to my ideas about our project. At times he even makes me laugh with his dry sense of humor. Although I once heard someone say that girls can’t have boys as friends, because boys will always end up expecting more than friendship, I think Jamie could definitely be one of my friends.
As I rest in bed, I wonder if Drew was my partner on this project whether he would be coming over tomorrow evening to work with me. How would I handle that? It was interesting today at school because Drew didn’t contribute anything to Martha’s presentation on El Dorado, yet Ms. Kelly didn’t say anything to him about this. Was that because Martha was so dominant that Ms. Kelly knew he wouldn’t have been given a chance to contribute? Or was it something else? Although Drew has been in many of classes during the past three years, I have
never heard him give a presentation. I think that Ms. Kelly and some other teachers often altered their expectations for Drew.
When I walked home today after school with Jasmin, she said that she saw Drew looking at me during the presentation. I reminded her that Michael always looked at her after one of his comical outbursts in class, but she quickly changed the conversation back to Drew.
In Jasmin’s mind, she is already in a relationship with Drew, so she is sensitive to him looking at anyone else, however harmless it might be. For my part, Drew and I have never even spoken to each other although he’s always been kind to me, opening doors and things like that.
While I’m attracted to his great looks and the sensual presence that he exudes, I don’t think my attraction to him is at the same level of craving as most other girls in my class, especially Jasmin.
In a novel I was recently reading, a girl very similar to me became one of the most sought after girls in her school because she had a fling with a guy like Drew. Is that what I needed to do? If Drew and I were in a relationship, would I instantly be the girl that every boy was attracted to? Is that how it worked?
As I think a little more about Drew, my fingers touch the emerald necklace. It feels comforting.
In one corner of my bedroom, hanging from the ceiling is a model of our solar system. A year ago, I became quite interested in our solar system. It began when my mother and I were camping on a vacation. At night, we saw a sky of endless stars which we had never witnessed before in the city. My mother knew more about the night sky than I expected. She pointed out some constellations to me and some planets. A few shooting stars cemented my interest.
When we returned home from our vacation, she took me to the Smithsonian in Washington which is about a forty-five minute drive from our house. In the gift shop at the Smithsonian, my mother bought me a replica glow-in-the-dark solar system that now hangs from the ceiling in my bedroom. The model has motorized arms that revolve the planets around the sun, although I rarely turn the switch on anymore to do this.