Back From the Brink - Part One

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Chapter Five: Back From the Brink - Part One

Winter’s Bark:: (Drimys winteri) Native to tropical locales, this slender evergreen tree or shrub has a cinnamon-colored, aromatic bark. Its name is derived from Captain John Winter who used the bark to treat his crew who were suffering from scurvy. It’s also used as an anti-inflammatory and a stimulant to promote healthy growth. It is often considered to be a symbol of peace and is planted near one's house for good luck and protection. It can also be carried or burned to ensure success in difficult times.

Flax

“Shut up, shut up. Shut. Up!”

“Excuse me?” Flax heard Lenten said, indignant at the boy’s reaction.

Flax just laughed, warming to the library rat who’d shocked such a prim and proper, Lenten-eqsue reaction from the maudlin manager.

“It’s not funny, Flax,” Lenten snapped, pointing Olive’s little doll at him.

Flax didn’t agree, but knew better than to argue. “Ready to go look for the kids now?” he let the look he gave Lenten say I told you so. “I’m sure they’re around here somewhere.”

“I’d like to know what’s going on.” Lenten straightened his suit — his usual reflexive reaction to indignities he thought were beneath him. “I’d like to know what we’re dealing with first before barging in on something that could be perfectly harmless.”

Logical Lenten.

A good sign to Flax’s mind. So he shut up, waving the other man on.

The Elysium manager suddenly turned unsure, holding tight to the tiny porcelain copy of his niece.

“You’re doing better than me, boss,” he reminded him.

With a sigh, Lenten took a step closer to the boy before thinking better of it. Decidedly, he took a seat at one of the long, cherry wood tables, placing the petunia’s toy on the shined wood surface before gesturing for Flax to do the same.

He did.

When both were seated, Lenten turned back to the boy, now a couple of steps up the ladder, hovering over them at what military men call the point of advantage.

“Calm down, Leander.” The man’s voice took on more of its usual authority and assurance — even if it did sound a bit forced. “Try to remember which books Rowan took with him.”

Flax raised his eyebrows. Neat trick, working with the boy’s strengths.

Weaving his long limbs around the ladder, the boy sat down. His thoughts visible on his face, he stuck his tongue out to the side and looked up to the left. Leander pondered that. “An anonymously authored Irish Gaelic-to-English dictionary from 1607.”

“Anything else?”

Leander thought some more. “Gillian Drury’s diary.”

“Gillian Drury?” Flax asked. “Drury, like Rowan Drury?”

“His aunt,” the boy answered. “Mother of Jack Drury, the only other male Drury child of a similar age as Rowan. The book was her ninth journal. Chronicling years 2012 to 2015.”

“What else?” Lenten asked. “What other books did he check out?”

Flax watched the kid frown in consternation, the memories just not all there. Kind of like the kid.

“Nothing else.” 

“Nothing?” Lenten repeated, disappointed. “Are you sure?”

The boy nodded, sending his cloud of dark curls flying.

Well, shit. A dictionary and a diary. Not exactly the best of clues.

“Nothing else,” Leander repeated proudly, “on that day, at least.”

“On that day?” Lenten echoed. “But he’s checked out things before?”

Leander cocked his head. “He has five other books on loan.”

Good Lord above, it was like trying to talk to a dog. “And those are?” Flax asked the boy impatiently.

Leander bit his lip, starting to look anxious again.

“Stop making him nervous,” scolded Lenten, dismissing him.

Well, shit. Flax rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. When had this mess become his fault?

Lenten turned back to Leander. “What are the five books Rowan already has checked out?”

The kid’s twitchy, stone-colored eyes flicked between the men. “Heart in the Hearth, Spells for the Home,” he listed, counting them off on his fingers, “From Birth to Death, A Magician’s Walk, Domini Sorrel, the Master Metamorphist, Stephen Hawking’s The Nature of Space and Time, and John Wheeler’s Annals of Physics.”

Hmm. Flax raised an eyebrow at the jinx’s choice of reading. Two magic magic books. A book on stage magic. And two quantum physics books.

What on Earth were those kids up to?

“Oh God.” Lenten tensed. “I know where they are.”

“Who,” Flax asked, “the kids?”

“Yes.” He stood up quickly — or as quickly as he could on shaky legs. “I know where they’ve gone.”

“Where?” Flax asked.

Lenten gave him an ominous look full of frightened knowing. In a grave voice, he said, “The third floor.”

Flax frowned. Was that supposed to mean something? If so, he hadn’t a clue as to what. “Okay, I give.” He held up his hands in mock defeat. “What are they doing there?”

Turning back to the table to grab Olive’s doll, Lenten made his way determinedly to the door. “Recreating the rip.”

* * *

Calla

Pisces: You can't hide from your troubles; they will always find you. But, sometimes, running away from your problems means running toward something better.

Nausea and desolation bled and blended into searing agony as Calla felt the flicker of herself — the her still actually tethered to, however faintly instead of terrifyingly trapped within, her physical body — wetly gasp, choking on her own blood.

“Can you hear me?” a paramedic’s clipped voice asked as she shone a blinding light into Calla’s eyes.

Calla tried to answer. She tried to scream. Cry. Wail in overwhelming pain. But the tortured roar only echoed within the broken walls of the body holding her captive as it lay twisted and bleeding on the pavement. The chaos of flashing lights and harried voices made the misery gripping her body somehow infinitely worse. She wished she could close her eyes or plug her ears. 

But, even if she’d had control of her body — wasn’t some spectral witness unwillingly lurking just behind her own eyes — she didn’t think her body capable of even that simple relief. Her limbs felt both strangely too heavy and disconnected, feeling only truly a part of her when even the slightest movement as the paramedics examined her excruciatingly racked her entire body. Even breathing made her want to sob as she felt her ribs stab with each rise and fall of her chest. 

This was why she’d been brought to The Elysium. This was why.

She hadn’t known.

She swore hadn’t.

Maybe — in the back of her head — maybe some reflexive, reptilian part of her psyche remembered something. Some glimmer — some spark — of understanding. But she’d avoided prying at it, secretly afraid of what she’d find.

“Pulse is weak and she seems conscious but unresponsive.”

Now she knew.

“I don’t think she’s surviving the ride to the hospital.”

Unavoidably knew.

“Pretty sure, given the state of her, even if she does, it’d be better if she didn’t.”

Undeniably understood.

“Doesn’t matter; we save every life. Until we can’t.”

Lord, she wished she could cover her ears. Shut her eyes. Sever whatever unnatural, abhorrent thread the spell they’d done created between her and this devastated, dying husk still clinging to a life clearly already gone. She didn’t need paramedics’ gallows humor or some hospital’s clinical prognosis to know there was no going back again. 

The spell might have brought her back to her world, but now she worried it wouldn’t allow her to leave. She’d be stuck in this shell that was beyond repairing. Definitely for longer than she should. Part of her — the part that half-believed in and fully feared hell — was afraid she’d be here, trapped in these ruined remains, forever.

And it was all her fault.

Because, like always, she’d done too much. Gone too far. Never noticing the warning signs. She should never have left the hotel. Should have clung to the safety it offered like the gift it’d been. She needed to get back. Needed to find some way away from here. 

Wake up! She screamed. Demanded. Begged. At herself. At God. At fate or destiny. At whatever witchy power Rowan wielded. At whomever at all could hear her. Please! She couldn’t stay here. Like this. Forever.

A flicker of movement caught her attention.

“Sorry, mate, you need to step back.”

Benji.

Standing there on the sidewalk, just staring down at her as a cop held a hand up as if to stop him. But he wasn’t trying to move toward her. He hadn’t come to help her. Didn’t seem interested in seeing if she was all right. He didn’t seem sorry or even smug.

His face was frozen in that cold, detached expression, as if he were studying her — like the specimens they’d observed in the labs — rather than truly seeing her. She could see it in his eyes. She wasn’t his friend anymore. Not his crush, or whatever. She wasn’t his lab partner or classmate. She couldn’t even find the humanity or horror a person would normally extend to a complete stranger, another human being who instinctively inspired some sort of surface sympathy or basic kinship.

Betrayal burned through her as she looked deep into his eyes — into the eyes of the person whom, if asked an hour ago who she’d felt closest to, she’d have chosen without a single doubt. She felt flayed by that gaze, raw and ashamed for every warm, comforting feeling she’d have sworn they shared. What a fool she’d been. Reflected clearly in his dark eyes, she saw herself.

And she was nothing.

 * * *

Lenten

How could they have been so reckless? Lenten stormed up the stairs.

Reckless, headstrong, and stupid.

And to involve Olive! She was eight years old, for Pete’s sake! She relied on the people around her for guidance. And those two — Calla and Rowan — had led her straight into danger.

“Why are you so sure they’re on the third floor?” Flax yelled out behind him, puffing on the stairs. For such a seemingly fit man, he really wasn’t very healthy. Surely, it was all the drinking and carousing.

Lenten shook his head, unwilling to let the out-of-shape man slow him down. No, he had to find them. He had to stop them.

Before they did something incredibly foolhardy to endanger themselves and everyone else at the hotel.

He jumped the last few steps up to the third floor, almost running into Olive as she raced down. “Olive?” He reached out to grab her shoulders.

“Uncle Lark!” she yelped through her tears. “They aren’t waking up! I tried to wake them up, but they’re just lying there.”

“Who?” Flax asked.

“Calla and Rowan.” She wept. “They stepped up to the window. I thought they were supposed to go through it, but they just stared into the glass and then collapsed.”

“Collapsed?” Lenten frowned. “What do you mean?”

“They fell on the floor.” She let out a scared, helpless whimper. “They fell and, at first, I thought they were sleeping. They were breathing and everything — I checked. But then they started screaming—”

Flax interrupted, “Screaming?”

Olive nodded, her orange hair bobbing about her face. “And crying. I tried to wake them up. I tried shaking them and calling and yelling their names, but they wouldn’t wake up.” She threw herself into her uncle’s embrace, burying her face in his shoulder. “I was so scared.”

“Shh,” he cooed and held her, pulling her close. He squeezed her once more, before he pushed her away slightly. He wiped the tears from her eyes before he reached into his jacket and pulled out Daisy. He handed her back to Olive. The little girl grabbed and hugged the toy gratefully. “Show us where they are?”

Olive nodded, wiping her face on her doll’s dress as she inhaled Daisy’s sweet, familiar scent. She grabbed her uncle’s hand and hurried down the hall, Flax following them as they went.

They stopped in front of the windows near Suite 315. Two bodies lay limb-twisted and convulsing on the carpet. Lenten leaned down next to Rowan, turning him over. The boy was crying, a look of sheer horror plastered on his gaping face. “Rowan?” He shook the boy. “Rowan?”

“Calla!” he heard Flax yell when a loud, piercing, pain-filled scream erupted. “Calla, stop!”

Lenten turned and saw Flax trying to subdue the girl’s flailing limbs as she shrieked, her desperate, grasping hands clawing at the man, threatening to tear cloth and even skin. Flax, with hard grips on her wrists, was trying to hold her down, flatten her to the floor, which only made her fight harder.

“Flax,” he said, rushing to his side, “just let her go.”

“What!” he exclaimed. “She’s trying to kill me and you want me to just let her go?”

“She’s a girl, Flax.” 

“A really strong girl,” he argued, still struggling with her.

“A girl,” Lenten insisted. Pushing him aside, he sat next to Calla. “Calla?” He reached out to just gently touch her shoulder.

“Ugh,” he grunted when she grabbed a fistful of his hair. Hard. Ow. “Get her off me!”

“You sure?” Flax sneered. “She’s just a girl, right?”

Shooting Flax a glare, he forced her fingers open, freeing himself. Which was easier said than done. He snorted and straightened his glasses. “Just check on Rowan.”

“Check on what?” He waved a hand at the boy. “We can’t do anything to get them out of this. And you know it. It’s hocus pocus rules; they got themselves in this mess, they gotta get themselves back out.”

Lenten turned to see Rowan curled in on himself in the fetal position, rocking slowly while he wept. He backed away from Calla who clung to the smooth tile floor, in search of some kind of handhold.

“So what do we do?” He looked up to see Olive, crying in earnest. She clutched her doll to her chest and peeked around the corner of the hallway. They couldn’t leave them like this.

Flax shrugged. “Pray?”

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