A Time to Die (Elemental Rage Book 2) (4 page)

She called a few
times in her mind.  Then Raven spoke aloud, “What I said about being numb…since
the Void thing touched me, I can’t feel Air.”

Jade reached out
for Fire. Tinkling laughter was the reply.  Fire was delighted with the fun
they’d had.  Jade then reached out for Air.  Air answered in a whispering voice.
They took her from me.

“That’s weird,”
Jade said. She was on the highway now with both hands on the steering wheel and
looking straight ahead.  If she had watched Raven, she would have noticed that
Raven was shaking from cold.

It came out in
Raven’s voice, “What?”

“Air just told me
that they took you from her,” Jade said.  She flipped on the heat for Raven. 
Touching the void hadn’t exactly been a warming experience for her, either.

“Tell her I’m
here.” Raven said.

Jade was quiet for
a moment before replying, “Air says she can see and hear you, but that you
can’t experience her in any way.”

Raven remembered
the little girl’s wish that Air would leave her alone forever. That was so very
long ago when she remembered the burst of Air that pushed fire toward her
father.  Raven knew even as a little girl that her actions had caused her
Daddy’s death.

Now when she had
finally reconciled with Air, Raven felt the loss of her Element keenly, more so
than her father who had been gone now for seven years.

Chapter 3

~~ Claire ~~

Saturday morning,
Claire and Mindy played at the kitchen table with art supplies strewn
everywhere.  Aunt Bertha sat in her rocker in the living room crocheting a
blanket. Yawning from the night’s exertions, Jade grabbed her volleyball gear. 
She leaned down to kiss Aunt Bertha on the cheek. Her skin seemed soft, but so thin.

“Kick their butts,
Dear,” Aunt Bertha smiled, and there was a hint of fire in her eyes.

“Thanks,” Jade dropped
her voice to a low murmur.  Claire straightened up and turned her head,
straining to hear, but missed Jade’s warning to Aunt Bertha, “We ran into the
Void creatures last night.  Raven can’t talk to Air.”

Aunt Bertha nodded,
her mouth pressed into a firm line, “I’ll deal with it.  Go to your game. It’s
important that we keep things as normal as possible.”

Nothing would be
normal until Mom was home.   Jade just said, “Thanks. I have to go. The team is
counting on me.”

Claire and Mindy
waved goodbye to Jade and then returned to their drawing. If Claire couldn’t
get the information she wanted by eavesdropping, she never hesitated to ask. 
She said, “What did Jade say?”

Aunt Bertha was
deep in thought.  Claire almost started to repeat herself when Aunt Bertha
replied, “We’re going to go on a spirit quest next week.  Jade has a home game
next weekend, so it will be a better time. We need to embrace our Elements.”

Claire smirked. 
She was a bit of a know-it-all.  She not only embraced her element but could
become it, turning into Water at a whim.  It was a dangerous practice that only
the most advanced of the Elementals could do.  “Water and I are very close,”
Claire said proudly.

Aunt Bertha peered
at Claire over her glasses and with a sharp tongue said, “Yes, well, you could
do with a bit of Earth.  See what you can conjure with that element.”

Mindy giggled.

Claire’s initial
reaction was to flare up with annoyance, but then Mindy said, “Mud.”

Claire started
giggling, too. Maybe she could be friends with Earth.  She would try.

~~ Raven ~~

Raven dressed
slowly and carefully.  She couldn’t place this strangeness inside herself. 
Something was different, but it was abstract, distant.  She felt numb from the
inside, out, cold in a way that didn’t shiver, as if she’d passed the point of
hypothermia to death.  At least Raven could move now.

She walked down
the hall noticing the house for the first time, the way the floor creaked under
the carpet under the picture of the whole family, taken when Mindy was tucked
away in her Mother’s womb.  Jade was a solemn little girl of nine, standing
beside her mother.  Raven, just a year younger, stood with eyes sparkling, her
Dad’s hand resting on her shoulder. 

As she recalled,
he’d just made the kind of lame joke that kids love to get them all laughing. 
Claire held Raven’s hand.  She had a faraway, day-dreamy look.  Claire had
always been the loner of the family, always off by herself exploring the world.

Raven hesitated at
the end of the hallway.

Frightened.

Closing her eyes,
Raven had to give herself a stern talking to.  It made no sense being afraid of
her sisters, of her great aunt.  It made no sense at all.

As Raven stepped
into the living room, she felt like crying.  Her throat was parched, her mouth
dry.  She could barely squeak out the words, “Good morning.”

She felt so
awkward.  Raven waited for Aunt Bertha to ground her or yell at her for keeping
Jade out in the middle of the night.  During the ride home, Jade had told Raven
that she’d awoken Bertha in the middle of the night to tell her what had
happened and where she was going.

Of course you
did, straight-laced sister of mine.

Aunt Bertha waved
Raven over, a smile on her face, but her eyes, oh, her eyes looked so
disappointed, so sad.  Raven felt worse for that sadness than for anything else
she had done.

“Sit.”

Raven took the
edge of the couch, nearest Bertha’s rocker.  She didn’t exactly want Claire and
Mindy to hear her dressing down.

Aunt Bertha
carefully set her crocheting aside, “You’ve got trouble, Girl. More than any of
us can deal with.”

Raven stared at
the ceiling, willing the tears away.  She kept them at bay as she said, “Aunt
Bertha.  I’m not an alcoholic.  I swear. I left the party without having a drop
to drink.”

Bertha barked a
laugh, the kind that isn’t as happy as it sounds. She said, “Oh, Honey, your
problems have nothing to do with alcohol.  The Void has its claws in you deep. 
We need to get them out, and it’s no easy task, let me tell you.”

Raven grabbed the
pillow at the edge of the sofa and covered her face with it. Trying to keep the
pain out of her voice, Raven said, “Is that why I can’t feel Air anymore?”

Bertha hardly had
the strength to pull herself out of the chair, but she did.  She moved to the
sofa next to Raven, pulling the pillow away from her face. Bertha said, “Yes.
Fight against the numbness you feel.  Fight against the darkness. The Void will
want to take you now that it’s seen you once.”

Raven wiped the
tears from her eyes and turned her head to see if Claire and Mindy were
watching.  Claire quickly glanced down, and Raven saw how disturbed she was. 
Mindy held an Elmer’s glue bottle in both hands and was making a mountain on
top of a piece of construction paper.  It was funny and not.  In a normal
family, some nervous mother would have taken that glue bottle away long before
so much glue would be wasted. In this family, glue mountains weren’t so bad.

Raven leaned into
Bertha’s hug. She whispered hoarsely, “I’ll try.  For everyone, I’ll try.”

“Do it for you,
too, Raven.  The cost is your soul.” Bertha clung to Raven. 

Aunt Bertha
sounded so haunted, so frightened that Raven put her arms around her aunt and
comforted her.  “I’ll be okay.  I’m strong.”

Raven didn’t feel
strong. The numbness seeping through her body took on a new quality.  She
recognized it now as an interloper, like a skin disease that slowly crept
across a person, not part of the body, but so connected that it felt impossible
to defeat.  This disease was inside her, infecting her mind, affecting her
spirit.  Raven hoped she was strong enough.  She had to be.

With a sigh, Aunt
Bertha hugged her niece.  She had one more piece of advice, “Honey. You’re
strong with the Empty space where energy and matter are created.  No one, and I
mean, no one, can force you to move from one dimension to the other without
your approval. As a matter of fact, if you find yourself being dragged along,
you can redirect the energy.  Use it to go where
you
want to go. No one
can take your soul without your permission. This is a fight you can win,
because your soul is powerful. Understand?”

“Sure, Aunt
Bertha.”

Raven didn’t
understand at all. Maybe she should have paid more attention in science class. Not
that Void creatures figured prominently in any sphere of education. There was a
time when Raven enjoyed learning about the Universe and her part in it. Maybe
someday she would enjoy it again…if she could just hang onto her soul.

~~ Jade ~~

Jade’s serve
smacked into the net.  She avoided a glance at the coach as they rolled the
ball to the other team and ran forward to get in position.  The other team
served and she managed to get under it in time…barely.   Her game was off.

The coach rotated
her out and Jade took her spot on the bench while one of the other juniors
stepped in.  She usually played longer before sitting the bench.  Some games
she hardly sat at all. 

She watched with an
unsettling disinterest, her eyes following the ball back and forth across the
net.  Usually her competitive nature would have her eager to get back in the
game, even on her worst night.  She couldn’t stop thinking of the night before
and seeing that strange formless face shadowed under a reaper’s hood.

“You okay? I heard
Shelly was busted last night.  Your sister wasn’t caught up in that, was she?” 
Cindy Mason sat the bench with Jade.  She was a sophomore, the same grade as
Raven, but they ran in different circles. Cindy was one of the two sophomores
who played varsity.

Jade shook her
head, “No. She wasn’t.”

The news had been
the talk of the bus ride.  The cops had raided a party in Barton and arrested
Shelly, Kirk, Paul, Jenny, and Tyler.  Had Raven not left the party when she
did, her name probably would have been added to the list.

Cindy was an odd
girl.  She had a growth spurt and her pants were all high-water which led to
more teasing and taunting than a girl her age should probably bear.  While they
weren’t exactly friends, Jade didn’t shun her either.  Jade never fit in
herself anyway.  Jade was relieved when Cindy got called forward and subbed
into the game.  Jade wanted the world to fade into silence.  She wondered if it
was something the Void did to her.  She felt so quiet inside.

They lost that
round. Jade rotated in again.  She did her best, making more mistakes than usual. 
At least they won.  She was returning with her team to the locker room when
Zach ran across the gym, “Hey, Jade?”

Snapping out of
her reverie, she blinked, “What?”

“Next Saturday is
a home game.  I thought maybe we could go out to Red’s Steakhouse for dinner?”
Zach was wearing a button-up short-sleeve shirt and new jeans.  Jade tilted her
head.  This was a first.  She was actually being asked out on a date.  Zach’s
cheeks started to flush the longer he stood waiting for an answer.

Jade was flustered. 
She looked around as if he was talking to someone nearby and said, “Me?”

Zach had an extra
long bit of hair for bangs that hung a bit over his eyes.  It made him look
cute. He blurted out, “If you want. I mean, if you’re up for it. I don’t want
to get in the middle of any plans or anything.”

Jade wiped the
sweat from her palms onto her shorts and then realized how stupid that probably
looked.  She said, “No. No plans.  I mean, I’d love to go to dinner with you
next Saturday.”

If anything Zach
looked terrified at her agreement.  He squeaked, “Really?  That’s great.  I’ll
see you then.  I’ll wait for you outside the gym in between the two doors after
your game next week.”

She said, “Sounds
great!” Jade’s teammates were long gone, having bustled into the locker room
without waiting. 

She chanced a
single look back before fleeing inside.  Zach was walking away, his vivid blue
shirt crisp and new.  He dressed up for her. Jade slid through the door.  A
random thought occurred to her. Maybe it was a prank.  Maybe he was going to
stand her up while laughing with his buddy out of sight.  Just like Tom Peters
did in seventh grade.

Maybe he lost a
bet.

Jade had a hard
time believing that Zach really wanted to date her. Maybe it wasn’t a
date…maybe.  Maybe it was.  Jade pulled her kneepads down and leaned on the
counter, looking at herself in the mirror.

The girls were all
changing in the locker room, removing shorts and pulling on jeans.  Jade could
stare into the mirror all she wanted and the view would never change.  When she
looked into the mirror, Jade saw ugly—too big a nose, too strong a jaw, brown
hair that didn’t match her mothers or her sisters for that matter. 

She grabbed a
bench and quickly untied her sneakers, yanking them off.  Some of the girls
were already dressed.  It wouldn’t do to keep the bus waiting.  Scrambling to
catch up, Jade was grateful for the girls who had to take one last minute to
tease their hair in the mirror.  Even though she normally watched them with one
part jealous and two parts impatience, today she was glad.  She pulled on her
t-shirt and then rushed to get her street shoes on.

Jade felt a little
awe as she picked up her bag.

She had a date.

Chapter 4

~~ Jade ~~

When Jade walked
through the door, the house was quiet in a weird way.  Everyone was on edge. At
least the house smelled warm and inviting with the scent of garlic and
spaghetti sauce in the air.  Jade’s stomach growled.

Aunt Bertha
suggested dinner in front of the television which was so out of character that
Claire said, “The television?  Are you sick?”

Aunt Bertha
laughed, but Jade thought she looked a little panicked when she said, “I think
we could use a change of pace.”

She was hiding
something.  Something huge.  Aunt Bertha didn’t want a family discussion
because she was afraid of giving something away.  Jade said, “What is it? Did
you hear something about Mom?”

Mindy was playing
with an hourglass, moving sand up and down, up and down.  It was a game that
fascinated her for hours.  She looked up sharply.  Jade bit her lip.  She
should have known better than to say anything in front of Mindy.  Mostly she
forgot Mom, but when she remembered and wanted her, Mindy would cry for hours.

Aunt Bertha leaned
against one of the kitchen room chairs, “No, of course not. I would tell you.”

“Okay,” Jade
thought about asking what Mindy would do for dinner.  She imagined the carpet
covered in spaghetti sauce, but one look at Bertha’s pale face and the way her
hand shook as she clutched her cane and Jade decided against it.

“How’d the game
go?” Claire asked. 

“We won,” 
No
thanks to me.
Jade thought.

“Cool.”

Jade knew she had
to tell her sisters about Zach, the sooner the better.  She expected merciless
teasing to follow when she said, “I have a date next week after volleyball.” 
She meant it to sound casual, but Jade winced at the excitement in her own
voice.

“You have to
cancel,” Raven said.  Her normally straight shiny hair was stringy and
unkempt.  Jade wondered if her sister even showered that morning when she woke
up.

“It’s with Zach.”
Jade said as if that would explain why she really
really
couldn’t
cancel.

“We have a family
outing planned,” Raven crossed her arms and set her jaw in that way she got
when she decided to be intractably stubborn.  Jade felt betrayed.  After
rescuing her sister last night and sacrificing her own sleep and the game for
her, Raven didn’t even have the decency to back her up.

“This is the first
I heard about an outing,” Jade said, “So, I’m going with Zach after volleyball
next week, and that’s that.”  It was funny.  If Aunt Bertha had brought up the
family outing first, Jade might have canceled with Zach.  She sometimes had an
authority-pleasing mentality.

She recognized it
within herself even as she heard Bertha say, “We’re going camping next week.
I’ll send notes for you girls to get out of school Monday and Tuesday.  Raven,
we’ll let your sister go on her date.  If we can wait a week, we can wait a few
hours.”

“What if I can’t
wait a week?” Raven said. 

Jade frowned.  Why
was Raven so frantic about this family trip? And why couldn’t it wait? 

Aunt Bertha waved
her finger to the empty plates on the counter, “A little help please.” 

Raven pushed up
from the chair like a lobster just pinched her butt.  She wasn’t to be
dissuaded. She said, “What if I can’t wait a week?”

Aunt Bertha
gripped the chair, and Jade could see that it was a struggle for her to stand
upright.  She put the plates she had just grabbed down and went to help Bertha
to a chair.  Bertha smiled at Jade gratefully.  She said, “It’s a full moon
next week and preparations must be made.”

What she said made
no sense to Jade, but must have made sense to Raven because Raven nodded with a
pained expression on her face, “Okay.  I can wait a week.”

~~ Mindy ~~

It was Saturday
night. 

Jade was home safe
from her game. 

Raven was cold and
wrong. 

Claire was
Claire. 

Mindy stared at
the ceiling.  The shadows scared her.  The feeling of being watched frightened
her.  She wanted to wake up Claire and ask for help.  To say, “Please, help
me.”

Even though Claire
no longer teased her like she had before, Claire still didn’t respect Mindy,
not enough to believe her when she asked for help.

Earth heard her.

Mindy asked for
help.

The Void waited
outside.

The Void waited for
Raven, guiding her steps.

Raven turned the
doorknob.

Mindy screeched
and then immediately clapped her own hand against her mouth, her heart beating
wildly.  She was seven years old.  She wasn’t a baby anymore. 

She couldn’t wet
the bed.  She wasn’t a baby.

Earth said,
I
will hide you.

Mindy rolled off
the bed onto the carpet and crawled underneath as Raven stepped into the room. 
Her eyes were open, but she wasn’t there.  Mindy reached her arms out to Earth
and let herself sink, sink, sink, under the carpet, under the floorboards, down
through the basement, down through the Earth.

She couldn’t see
what Raven was doing, but Earth could.

Raven tore the
garlic down, throwing it to the floor.  She grabbed handfuls of silver and
sage, bringing the curtain rod down with her. 

Claire sat up,
“What are you doing?”

But Raven never
answered.  She just kept tearing at the curtains, mumbling, “Have to find time.
Have to find time.”

Mindy sighed with
relief. Raven didn’t sense her.  She was safe inside Earth.  The Void couldn’t
see too far into Earth’s depths.  The Void and Gravity didn’t get along.  The
Void could skim along the surface, but couldn’t stay for long and couldn’t go
too deep. 

When Claire
started screaming, “What are you doing?”  Jade came running.  She turned on the
lights.

That woke Raven. 
Raven blinked twice and then looked down at her hands.  A thing trail of blood
ran down her palm. She shook her head, a confused look on her face.

~~ Raven ~~

Seeing the blood, Raven’s
first thought was that she had killed someone in her sleep.  “Jade? I don’t
know what happened.”

She felt lost,
confused.  Claire sat on her bed, wide-eyed and staring at Raven like she had
grown a second head.  Jade stood in a long t-shirt and pajama bottoms, with
bed-head hair.  “I think you were sleepwalking. You’re bleeding.”

Raven held her
hand up.  A drop of blood dripped onto the carpet.  She shook her head, “I don’t
remember coming in here.  I don’t understand.”

Claire piped up,
“You were ripping down Aunt Bertha’s protections and then you started at the
curtains.  I was afraid you were going to go through the wall.”

“Where’s Mindy?”
Jade stepped toward her youngest sister’s bed.

Claire said, “It’s
okay. I saw her crawl under the bed before Raven came in. I thought she was
going to start screaming the way she does when she hides, but she stayed quiet
as a mouse.  She’s probably listening to us now.”

Jade sighed.  Well,
if Mindy was settled, she could take care of Raven.  Sometimes she felt more
like a mother than a sister.  Maybe that was just what happened to older
sisters when they turned into teenagers and had younger siblings.  She said,
“Let’s get you bandaged up.”

Raven never seemed
as needy as she did at the moment when she followed Jade meekly to the
bathroom.  When they were out of earshot, she whispered, “Jade, it wanted me to
grab Mindy.  I saw the blood and I thought…”

Raven choked up on
the words.  While she was sleepwalking, she had seen both sisters and the Void
implanted a violent urge within her to take Mindy.  The memory came back as a
realistic dream.  She was to pull down the garlic, the silver, and the sage
protection and then take Mindy to the Void.  Raven told Jade what she had
intended.

“You are being
controlled?” Jade remembered the frosty fingers on her temples, the cold
presence in her mind forcing itself through her memories.  She shivered at the
thought of the creature being permanently lodged in her head.

Raven turned on
the water and held her hand under the faucet, watching the red wash down the
drain. She closed her eyes and whispered, “Yes.”

Jade grabbed the Band-Aids
out of the cabinet. “Why would the Void be after Mindy?”

“They haven’t
touched her yet.  It knows the rest of us don’t have the gift of Time.  Mindy
is the only one untested.” Raven leaned against the counter, staring at herself
in the mirror. She leaned forward, checking her eyes to see if she could find
that cold presence.

There was nothing
there.

Jade glanced over
Raven’s shoulder to the empty hall, “Is Mindy safe?”  

Raven took a deep
breath, holding it for a moment before she expelled in a huff, “I think so, but
she’s…yes, she’s safe for now. She’s hiding.”

Raven’s eyes had
dark circles under them, made all the more prominent by the color of her hair.  Looking
in the mirror, she saw a haunted girl.  Haunted. Hunted.  A hunted girl.  Raven
squeezed her eyes shut and focused on breathing.  Aunt Bertha said that when she
started to feel her soul go cold to breathe in, breathe out. The spirit that
warms the universe would warm her breath.

Jade took her
hand.

Raven was so out
of it, she didn’t even feel.  She was just breathing.

The goop from the
tube felt cool and smelled like eucalyptus.  Jade smoothed it over Raven’s hand
like she was a child.  Raven remembered Jade doing the same thing for Mindy. 
She said, “You’ll make a great mother someday.”

“Thanks,” Jade
murmured.  She kind of thought she made a great mother now.

“I’m lost,” Raven
admitted.  She didn’t mean to say the words aloud.  She was just trying to hold
it together.

Jade squeezed
Raven’s shoulder, “One day at a time,”

Raven nodded, the
ragged edges of her thoughts barely focused enough for the moment.  “I’m going
to bed.  Can you check on Mindy?  And make sure those protections are back up. 
They are important.  I’m not sure why, but the Void can’t come into the house
without them.”

Jade walked her
sister back to their room.  “I will. Get some sleep. You look terrible.”

Sisterly love. 
Raven gave a sarcastic, “Thanks.”

That was when
Claire screamed.

~~ Claire ~~

Claire closed the
door behind Jade and Raven.  The night light cast a cheerful little glow around
the room, dispelling some of the gloom.  Mindy hid beneath her bed.  Claire
thought about coaxing her out.  At least Mindy wasn’t making any noise.

The huge swath of
black outside the window made it look like a gaping mouth.  Claire inched
forward on the bed.  She didn’t want to look outside, but it seemed important. 
Vital.  Claire settled her foot on the floor. 

The carpet
welcomed her foot, the window not so much.  Claire’s fear grew as she thought
of all of that emptiness outside, all of that darkness, and the certainty that
something was waiting for her.  

Inching toward the
window, Claire’s heart beat faster.  The pile of curtains made a small dark
shadow next to the window. It looked menacing. 

Help me.
 

Claire thought the
words as she reached the window, gazing into the darkness.  She wasn’t sure
what she expected to see.  Her face reflected back from the pane like a ghost
haunting the window.  Claire thought about putting the curtain rod with the
blinds and the curtains back up.  They lived out in the boonies.  There was
probably nothing out there.

Claire leaned
against the window, so close her breath fogged up the glass.  The window was
cold on her fingers and nose.  She peered into the darkness, waiting.  The
night felt pregnant, alive.  Claire could see glimpses of trees as giant
shadows waving in the breeze, the stars twinkling in the night sky above.

Water spoke.
Get
back, Claire.

There was just a
hint of movement and then a shadowy figure blocked out the stars.  Claire
jumped back with a scream.

The shadow stepped
through the wall.  Claire threw herself on the carpet, her hands scrabbling to
find the charms her aunt had hung on the wall.  Her hand closed on a clove of
garlic and one of those little cloth bags.  She held it up, her hand extended
out pushing it in the creature’s face. 

The Servant of the
Void recoiled, moving back against the wall.  It tried to step sideways. 
Claire moved to meet it.  She said, “You’re not getting past me, Eraser-face,”   

Jade ran into the
room.  Raven was right behind.

Claire yelled,
“Grab the little bags Aunt Bertha made.  It hates those.”

Raven grabbed her
head and sank to her knees.  Through clenched teeth she gasped, “It wants me to
find Mindy, to deliver her to it.”

“Where
is
Mindy?”
Jade asked.  She flipped on the light. 

Claire had that
kind of magical thinking that expected the Servant of the Void to disappear the
minute the light turned on.  And it did….sort of.  The Void monster faded, but
it was still substantial.  The Void faced Raven, ignoring Claire and Jade. 
Feeling braver, Claire thrust the hand holding the bag of Aunt Bertha’s charms
in front of its face. 

The shadowy figure
smiled.

A featureless face
should not be able to smile.  As if the creature was a Mr. Potatohead, a wicked
smile with teeth too sharp to be human, too numerous to be polite spread across
the blank face of the Void’s servant.

Claire felt her
hand go numb as it brushed against the Void. The bag dropped.  The creature
threw her back. She tumbled, hitting the corner of her bed before smacking her
elbow against the floor.  The cold spread down her hand and along her side.