Chapter 8

  Amber Jane Eddison

  They dried Lizzy off with paper towels from a restroom in the mall, and AJ bundled her up in her own dry jacket. AJ assembled all of her sister’s hair and bound it into a ponytail. She tried to wake Lizzy up, but just as the two strangers had said, it was impossible.

  AJ watched the strangers as they stood over by the frontal windows of the mall. The short one, Elmer Sky, capered about with exaggerated animation while the tall woman, Amelia Shape, tried to explain something to him with an air of weary resignation. Both of them looked out and up at the tremendous and sudden storm. They had emerged from that maelstrom bearing Elizabeth, with only the most incoherent of explanations about what had happened.

  “Vell,” said AJ to her unconscious sister in a thick Russian accent. “Eet looks like ve are having an eenteresting day, da?” AJ stroked Lizzy’s forehead as she watched the other two.

  She began flipping through the diary, or notebook, that Elmer had given her. It had Lizzy’s poetry in it. She would hate having anyone read it, but sisters don’t count.

  AJ periodically touched the phone at her side. Should she call? Would she be bothering him? And would it even go through? She hadn’t been able to reach her mother. She blamed the storm.

  Another one of those strange cracking sounds reverberated through the mall, which was rapidly emptying of people. Cracks decorated the skylights above when she looked up. She had moved herself and Lizzy out from under them in case they broke. It actually looked a little like it wasn’t the windows that were cracked, but the stormy sky above them. A weird optical illusion, for sure. But it reminded her of the painting she’d found, the one by Jimothy.

  Her phone vibrated, and she had it at her ear almost before the first vibration had faded away.

  “Hello?”

  “AJ? This is Mike.”

  Relief flooded through her with such an unexpected force that she froze for a moment. “Uh…yes! Verily. Mike. Doubtless. Are you guys okay?”

  “Yeah, we’re good for now. But Jim’s asleep and he won’t wake up.”

  “Lizzy is similar.”

  “But you’re okay?” She heard genuine concern in his voice. He was asking if she was okay even though he was talking to her. “I was worried,” he continued. This made her heart beat a little faster. She would have to think about this later. Later.

  “I am endeavoring not to panic. Should I take Liz to the hospital? It’s such a storm outside. Apocalyptic.” Thunder cracked overhead, startling those two with the funny names.

  “I don’t know. I don’t…really think that will help. Listen, we might not be able to keep talking on the phone for much longer. I’m kind of surprised I got through to you on only my fourth try.”

  Four tries? Only?

  “So before we keep going, just let me say, what you need to do is get something called ‘chime’ on your phone. It’s what Jim and Liz and the rest have been using. I heard that it’ll keep working even after other communications fail.”

  “Chime? Verily. I think Lizzy told me about that.”

  Elmer and Amelia, seeing AJ on the phone, wandered over to observe.

  “Do you know Alan Sheppard?” asked Michael.

  “I don’t think so. Who is that?”

  “Something weird is going on, and I think you might be involved. Stay away from October Industries. They just tried to get Jim and me, right before the, uh, the Cascade. And run away from anyone called Abraham Black. He just…” He paused, then continued in a thicker voice. “Apparently…Isaac is dead. You remember Isaac?”

  AJ put a hand to her mouth in shock. Of course she remembered Isaac. He had intelligently discussed music with her when he was at her house. He had accompanied her, and that was a special bond.

  “I’m going to meet up with Dwayne Hartman,” he continued, “and somebody named Jacob Hollow.”

  “Meet up where? We can’t just…” She trailed off as she realized that the connection had cut out.

  She continued to hold the phone to her ear for a moment before lowering it and meeting the curious gazes of Elmer and Amelia.

  “Why, whoever was that?” exclaimed Elmer.

  Amelia sighed. “Obviously it was her lover, Elmer. Do pay attention.”

  “Ah! I see!”

  AJ suddenly felt very warm. “Negative. Just…it was Jimothy’s brother.”

  “But my dear, then why are you blushing? Ah! Young love…”

  Amelia gazed dramatically up at the skylights above. “Obviously, she does not wish to discuss it, Elmer.”

  “Oh, dear! My sincerest apologies, indeed!” Elmer bowed low, removed a handkerchief, and dabbed sweat from his forehead.

  AJ blinked at them. She knew nothing about these two characters, besides the significant fact that Lizzy trusted them, but she had a difficult time imagining that they meant her, or Lizzy, or indeed anyone, any harm.

  “Now, Jimothy…” said Amelia, tapping a finger to her cheek as she continued gazing upward. “That name…”

  “An unusual name indeed!” Elmer proclaimed as he stroked his moustache. “And it rings upon my recollection, I daresay!”

  “You know Jimothy?” AJ asked. “Jimothy Whyte?”

  “Whyte!” they cried together.

  “Of course,” said Amelia. “The painter.”

  “He was like you, wasn’t he?” asked Elmer to Amelia.

  “He…what?” said AJ.

  “We shall explain on the way!” Elmer declared. He turned on his heel and began marching toward the door.

  “On the way?” AJ asked Amelia.

  She nodded dolefully. “Didn’t you say we were meeting up? The painter’s brother…I wonder what he’s like.” She also turned to follow Elmer, but then came back and scooped Lizzy’s limp body off of the bench. She carried the sleeping form with ease, despite her slight frame. “You have a vehicle, Amber Jane?”

  “Yes,” Elmer said with excitement, suddenly at hand again. “Have you…a motorcar?”

  “Verily,” said AJ, to the obvious delight of Elmer. “You can call me AJ. But I didn’t hear where to meet. Or why.”

  Amelia sighed, and it was the most overdone, theatrical sigh AJ had ever heard someone be serious about. “Well. I suppose we ought to move along before those men find us. Anywhere will do.” She turned and moved back to the entrance.

  “Quite so!” said Elmer. “But…do you suppose we have time for a cup of tea before we depart? It would do just the trick in this kind of weather! Or that other beverage…what was it…”

  “Hot chocolate,” said Amelia.

  “Of course!”

  “No,” said Amelia wearily as she gazed out into the rain. “Our margin is already up.” She carefully deposited Lizzy in Elmer’s arms and trudged to the door. “Do prepare the vehicle for departure while I take care of this…” She held out her hand and a grey umbrella materialized in the air. She took it without looking and stepped out into the storm.

  “Oh dear…” said Elmer. He watched Amelia in evident distress.

  “What is it? And what men? Is somebody after you?”

  “Well, yes, I suppose you might say so. Quite. However, and I must say I find it deeply regrettable to have to be the one to inform you of this, for after all it is a rather unpleasant and quite a shocking business, at that, and of course after all one can hardly be—“

  “Elmer!” said AJ, taking a page from the Amelia Playbook. “Tell me.”

  “I am afraid they are after Elizabeth as well! And they did make such a mess of your home, I fear…But! Not to worry! Amelia Shape ought to make short work of them! Unless of course that Black is around…in which case…perhaps we ought to ready the vehicle, as she said?”

  AJ bundled up Lizzie in the coat before hurrying with Elmer out of the mall, into the downpour. Lightning flashed to their right as they ran to the car. It flashed repeatedly, and in various colors, and with gunshots instead of thunder. AJ stopped to look. She thought she saw the scarecrow figure of Amelia at the far end of the parking lot, but she saw nothing else through the gray curtains of rain except for flashing lights. And now she heard screaming.

  “Amber Jane!” called out Elmer. “Which is it?”

  She ran to the car, unlocked it, and helped Elmer safely deposit Elizabeth inside. Once again, AJ’s sister was soaked. This car would warm right up, but Lizzy would want some dry clothes when she awoke. AJ hopped into the driver’s seat, and Elmer climbed enthusiastically into the passenger side.

  “I say,” he said, “you don’t suppose one of these days you might let me have a crack at it?” He gestured at the steering wheel. “Not now, of course, considering we must away. And speaking of which…” He began peering up at the sky through the windshield. “Hmm…”

  AJ started the car, put the heat on…and then sat there wondering what to do. “Should we wait for her?” she asked.

  “Oh, she’ll be along shortly,” Elmer assured her. “But perhaps we ought to be ready to depart at that very moment!”

  AJ pulled out of her parking space and stopped, still unsure. Should she drive over to where she thought Amelia was? Had those really been gunshots? What had her sister gotten herself into?

  The answer was blindingly obvious when it struck her a moment later. Callie. It was strangely easy to forget, growing up with that cat, how bizarre and extraordinary it was to have an overtly supernatural entity in their home. They had simply grown used to it. They had kept Callie’s true nature a secret, which was not difficult since Callie herself appeared to share that goal. No other extraordinary thing had happened in AJ’s life, and no clandestine government spec-ops team had ever dropped from helicopters to reclaim their escaped experiment the way that AJ used to imagine they might.

  Yet it suddenly seemed obvious that something, someday, had to happen. Someone would eventually come for their stainless, immortal, teleporting pet lynx. That day had arrived, and both AJ and Lizzy had been caught completely, foolishly, off-guard.

  The question was: if both of the Eddison sisters were in this car, and armed men were outside evidently still searching for her, then where was Callie?

  She didn’t realize she had been absorbed in these thoughts until Elmer tapped her on the shoulder. “The doors!” he whispered. At the same time, someone knocked on the back window of the car.

  AJ checked to make sure it was Amelia, then unlocked the doors. The vehicle was a four-passenger Subaru, so Amelia’s first act upon climbing in was to set Lizzy upright and buckle her in. Amelia dropped the umbrella. It disappeared at once. Something dark stained the right side of Amelia’s blue shirt, and her jacket above that area had a small hole in it.

  AJ gasped. “Were you shot ?”

  “What, really?” Elmer exclaimed, twisting in his seat. “My dear, are you all right?”

  “Just drive,” said Amelia. “I will be fine, Elmer.”

  “What a relief! But how did they manage?”

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  “Misfortune alone, dear. I couldn’t see all of them because of the rain.”

  “Oh dear…”

  AJ pulled up to the entrance of the parking lot and hesitated. Left or right? Where were they even going?

  “Not back to your house,” said Amelia. “I’m sorry, but you can’t return there. And there isn’t much left.”

  “To the left, then,” AJ whispered, allowing her driving instincts to kick in. Emotions boiled internally, but she suppressed them for now. Now was not the time to have a breakdown. Although she could really have used a hug from Callie.

  “Elmer, look at this,” said Amelia as she reached forward with something in her palm. AJ glanced at it and saw that it was a crumpled, bloody bullet.

  “Egads!” said Elmer. “Is this the one that got you?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Amazing! We must find you some music, get you fixed up right as rain! Right as rain, Amelia! Ha! Ha!”

  “That’s not how it works here, Elmer. They have…medics?”

  “Ah, but things are different now…” He pointed up. “Boundaries blurred! I think some music might do the trick. You are a singer, aren’t you?” He asked this to AJ. “I believe your sister said as much.”

  “She’s a singer too,” AJ replied, still distracted by thoughts of not much of her house being left. At least their mom was out of town… “She’s embarrassed about it though, even though she has a beautiful voice.”

  “First, we need a hilltop,” said Amelia.

  AJ pulled abruptly onto the shoulder of the road and put the vehicle in park. She rested her head on the steering wheel. She breathed deeply.

  “Oh dear!” said Elmer. “Is something amiss with the vehicle? What inconvenient timing, I say.”

  “She is just upset over losing her home, Elmer,” said Amelia. “It is quite understandable.”

  “Oh, yes! I should think we ought to have been rather upset, about losing our home, that is, if we had but remembered it of course.”

  “Elmer, dear, I believe that–“

  “Quiet!” shouted AJ, her hands splayed open on the steering wheel. “Just…quiet, for a moment, please.”

  Elmer opened his mouth to say something, but Amelia reached up and stopped him with a hand on the shoulder.

  AJ lifted her head and dropped it once more onto the steering wheel. She needed to think. What should she do? What would Michael do? The Subaru rocked slightly in the wind, and rain pelted the roof.

  “Amber Jane,” said Amelia after a moment. “I don’t mean to rush you, but we are in some danger. Would you like me to drive? No, Elmer, not you.”

  “…no,” said AJ after a moment. “I can drive.” She cleared her swarming thoughts and settled on a nice, simple, temporary solution: trust these two strange individuals who seemed to be on her side. A hilltop? That’s what they needed? She could do that.

  AJ pulled back out onto the road, switching the windshield wipers to maximum speed. The torrential rainfall had worsened even in the short time she had been pulled over.

  “I can’t say about anyone else, unfortunately,” said Amelia in her most soothing tone, “but you can be sure that your sister is quite fine. She is here, alive and well. But we must keep her that way.”

  AJ nodded. Amelia Shape and Elmer Sky, Lizzy’s odd new friends, clearly had some idea of what was happening. So did Michael, for some reason. She leaned over the steering wheel and peered ahead at what she could see of the road. She had never seen a storm this bad, and probably should not be driving in it. As if to confirm this, she heard a great crash through the thunder and rain to her right. A tree had come down off the road nearby, she guessed.

  “Goodness!” exclaimed Elmer. “A mite blustery, I say!”

  “Indeed,” Amelia said, back to her typical lugubrious tone. “What on Ardia did you do? Call in a hurricane?”

  “I was a bit non-specific, I admit. As were you, dear! You only said ‘storm!’”

  A hilltop. No need to think about what they were saying, or Lizzy in a coma, or ‘chime,’ or the fact that someone in her car had just been shot, or that the people doing the shooting were after Lizzy. A hilltop. She knew one.

  “Best hurry, dear,” said Amelia, laying a hand on AJ’s shoulder. “I believe they’re behind us.” Thunder overwhelmed part of her sentence, but AJ understood. “I’ll slow them down a moment.”

  Amelia turned around. A glance in the rearview mirror revealed headlights not far behind. A brilliant light flared behind them; AJ cried out in alarm. The Subaru shuddered in time with a peculiar ripping sound that AJ felt in her bones. Her vehicle skidded for a moment on the wet surface of the road, causing Elmer to whoop in delighted surprise.

  When next AJ looked, she did not see any headlights behind.

  There was a bare hill on the golf course, which itself was located on a rise just north of town. Would that work? “A hill,” she said. “Golf course. Will it work?”

  “A what now?” said Elmer. “ Golf? Is that a type of food?”

  “As long as it has a horizon on it, dear,” said Amelia. “A clear view of the sky.”

  AJ could not think what this meant exactly, or why it mattered. In fact, she could not think a lot of things at that moment. But she thought the hill in question fit the criteria. She nodded as she turned off the main road onto the one that passed by the golf course. She still saw no headlights behind. In this rain, she doubted whoever had been following them would have any idea they had turned off the road at all.

  Something cracked again, not thunder but a deep resonant snap that made her cringe and bite her tongue. The pain of it snapped her back to full awareness. She paid close attention to her driving, and she swerved nearly into the ditch when another vehicle came zooming dangerously down the road in the other direction. Stupid, AJ thought. At that speed, the other car would hydroplane if it tried to hit the brakes.

  “There,” she said when they came alongside a tall wire mesh fence she could hardly see through the downpour. She pointed into the rain-soaked greenish blur that was the golf course.

  “Stop,” said Amelia.

  “Oh, we’re not there yet,” said AJ. But she stopped. She almost missed the chopping motion that Amelia made with her right hand. A flash of light, easily mistakable for lightning, illuminated them briefly from the direction of the fence.

  “Now go,” Amelia continued. She sounded tired. “We haven’t much time. And it’s rather dark here.”

  “I’m most terribly sorry, dear,” said Elmer. “I am trying to lighten it up a bit, but you know how it is. I just wasn’t thinking !”

  AJ saw, through a gap in the sheeting rain, that the fence separating them from the golf course lay in pieces on the carefully manicured green grass beyond. She didn’t gawk. She didn’t question. She slipped her car back into drive and veered right into the golf course, over the pieces of fence, and then left toward the hill she had in mind. Driving a Subaru across the fairway of hole #3 was, of course, against the rules. She didn’t like this; it was disrespectful to the hardworking landscaping crew of this golf course. But then, they would have other things to worry about, like half of their trees being uprooted by the blasting wind. AJ veered around the fallen giants. Gusts blasted her car from side to side, sliding it over the soaked grass.

  They skidded to a halt at the bottom of a hill that was quite steep for a golf course. The green of hole #12 was up there, and it was one of the most frustrating holes in the entire course because of how easy it was to over or under-shoot. The top of the hill was only barely visible through the downpour. “Will that do?” she asked, pointing. It was a useless gesture; the crown of the hill was invisible in the storm.

  Elmer took a delighted glance from the passenger side. “Marvelously!” He popped right out of the vehicle and went back to open the door for Amelia.

  “We had better hurry,” said Amelia as she unbuckled Lizzy and dragged her out into the rain. “They are nearly on us again. And I am getting tired.”

  “Right-o! Right, yes, quite, of course.”

  AJ turned to Amelia and remembered that the woman had just been shot. With how matter-of-factly the two of them had dealt with that detail, AJ had nearly forgotten about it. But the stain on Amelia’s sky-blue shirt had grown unnervingly large.

  Elmer dragged the unconscious body of Lizzy from the car and struggled to carry her due to his stature. AJ stepped forward and scooped up her sister. She staggered with the weight. When had Lizzy got so heavy , anyway? AJ remembered flinging her little sister around like nothing, not so long ago.

  “If there is anything that you need,” said Amelia, “bring it now.” She waited, but Elmer had already started a slippery ascent up the hill.

  AJ had automatically taken her handbag already, and couldn’t think what else she might need. The only thing of great importance was limp and heavy in her arms already. She shook her head.

  “Then go,” said Amelia. “I will join you two once you’ve opened the door.”

  Door? There was no door up there. But AJ saw something approaching now, as the rain momentarily lessened from a torrent to a steady pounding. Several large, black, boxy vehicles, like humvees, tore across the course, and their headlights were all off. That detail chilled her to the bone. The lack of headlights, in this storm, triggered dire alarm bells within her, somehow even more than the fact that Amelia had been shot. Danger. Very real danger.

  That gave her the strength to charge up the hill after Elmer. She dug one foot after another firmly into the thick, soggy grass, thankful that she was wearing shoes with grip. Lights began flashing behind her as she climbed, accompanied by scatterings of gunfire and stranger sounds she did not know. AJ did not look. She kept going.

  She caught up to Elmer near the top, where the wind was fierce. He had stopped a dozen paces below the green. Nothing could be seen over the curvature of the hill but the storm-ridden sky beyond. AJ realized at last that something was amiss with the sky. It was cracked like glass. This baffled her, but it was no match for the astonishment that struck her when Elmer stepped forward, reached out a hand, and pushed a section of the sky back. It swung inward like a door, a rectangular slice of the sky directly in front of Elmer, hovering a foot and a half over the ground. Golden sunlight streamed through in a huge, solid beam, illuminating the glistening, beaming face of Elmer Sky so brightly that AJ shut her eyes against it. All the falling rain in a long, solid sunbeam behind him turned to lines of shining jewels.

  An explosion sounded behind her, and the ground below shook so badly that she nearly slipped back down the slope.

  “Quickly!” cried Elmer. “Through the–”

  Something bright and blue swept around AJ and Liz, enveloping them in the blink of an eye like a stiff, rubbery blanket. It jerked AJ into the air, pushed her sideways and forward. AJ screamed out of sheer confusion, holding so tightly to Lizzy that she feared hurting her but unable to stop.

  Then: brightness, warmth, and the soft impact of falling.

  “Close it!” Amelia shouted.

  “Yes, of course,” said Elmer. There was a sharp hiss and a faint ringing noise, like a distant chime.

  The sound of panting came from nearby, followed by a strained grunt of pain. She opened her eyes. There was no storm. Lizzy, in her arms, was soaked through, but they lay on warm, dry grass. The sky above was clear and blue with scattered clouds. The clouds distorted where they moved over the cracks in the sky.

  AJ left her sister on the grass and rose to her knees. Amelia knelt nearby, and Elmer was fussing over her. He was so short, and she so tall, that though he was standing she could have looked down on him by straightening up. But she was hunched over in pain, her teeth bared, hugging herself tightly. AJ’s eyes went to Amelia’s visible hand, clamped down on her side. Bright blood leaked through the cracks between her fingers.

  “Amber Jane,” said Elmer, “would you mind, perhaps–that is, if you think you could manage it–or perhaps even if not, I mean–”

  “Sing,” said Amelia through gritted teeth. “Please. Try singing.”

  “Sing what?”

  “Something beautiful, dear,” said Elmer. “Something that heals you.”

  Something that heals you. Several came to mind, and she chose one at random: Laurie’s Song, by Copland.

  She imagined herself in a practice room–no, onstage–and she heard the imaginary piano accompaniment begin, and she sang. And something was different about it. Her words had weight; the notes rippled in the air with a tangible pressure. Her eyes closed, she tried to discover where this feeling came from, what it meant. She concentrated on keeping pitch, on her breathing, her rhythm, the flow and line, the diction–all the little things that made the music. She made the music, and the music carried her. It struck her with an emotional force that she had rarely experienced before. It moved her, and she sensed it moving others.

  The sensation was remarkable, but not unfamiliar. She felt this way on rare occasions when performing, but now the sensation was amplified, concentrated, distilled. It left her breathless when she at last finished.

  “Lovely!” Elmer declared almost as soon as she had finished, which broke the mood somewhat.

  “Very good, dear,” said Amelia. “That was a great help.”

  Amelia had stood and now began straightening her jacket. She looked exhausted, but no longer tense with pain.

  “What…? Are you…”

  “I’m fine, dear, or I will be, thanks to you. The effects of the breaking are still fairly weak, it seems, but the bleeding has stopped. I feel much better.”

  AJ looked at Liz next, sprawled out on the sunny grass. Then she took her first good pass at their surroundings. It was a hilltop, and a grassy one, but the rest had changed. No golf course. A partly cloudy sky overhung a hilly green landscape of verdant grasses and patchy clumps of trees. From this vantage she spotted several rural farmhouses and a small town between hills in the distance.

  “Where have you taken us, Elmer?” Amelia asked.

  “Oh, not too far,” said Elmer. “West, somewhere.”

  West, somewhere. It did look like the Midwest. Somewhere. Distant cattle grazed beside freshly plowed fields.

  AJ took some time to make Lizzy comfortable. She pulled off the wet blanket and jacket and laid her out in the warm sunlight to dry. She removed Lizzy’s shoes and socks. The girl had a few bruises developing, and her phone was in her pocket.

  AJ then sat and turned to face Amelia Shape and Elmer Sky. “We have to talk,” she told them. Elmer seemed delighted at this prospect; Amelia sighed in resignation.