For I Could Lift My Finger and Black Out the Sun (36 page)

14

My senses began to come back. My peaceful state began to dissipate. I began to step back into the normal world.

My ears began to hear. The throaty yell of wind howling through the canyon. The endless peppering of rocks and sand thrown together, blasting each other to nothingness.

My eyes began to see. The world was almost completely dark. The storm had come, and it had blacked out the sun.

My skin began to feel. The wind scraped at me. In my head, I heard the screeching sound I associated with the thorns in my cells. They were screaming, dying as each layer was peeled away.

I stood amid the howling hell of the sandstorm as it tore apart the world around me, and tore me apart with it. I blinked once, twice.

“Holly! Where are you?” I shouted. Sol had said she would die in the storm; she must be near.

I turned and tried to run, away from the dead end of the box canyon, back to the spot where the two branches split. I had to fight against the wind, coming from all directions at once, pushing me forward and pulling me back, making any progress nearly impossible. Still, I pressed on.

In a narrow crevice, something bright stood out against the grey and black and orange and brown of the world around me. Bobby.

His body was pulling itself back together, healing after his fall, but slowly, as he’d been pummeled nearly into pulp by Sol’s blow and the hard fall into the canyon. I made my way to him and hefted his irregular form up and onto me as best I could, and we staggered together, leaving the left branch of the canyon and entering the right.

It twisted through ever-narrowing passageways, partially blocking the storm’s harsh winds and providing us with a little relief. Making it a little easier to move. Then finally, the passage opened onto a clearing, the dead end of the box canyon.

Through the deafening roar of the storm, I could sense a single note, a beacon. Nothing like Sol’s, more like Bobby’s, which I had mostly come to ignore. But a new note, one I’d never heard before.

The canyon walls were hard to make out in front of us, just patches of orange in the darkness. High on the far wall, I thought I saw a human form, climbing up and away from us. I squinted my eyes to block out the flying sand, but it was impossible. The figure, if had even been there to begin with, disappeared into the distance and darkness of the sandstorm. The new beacon in my mind diminished.

“Look,” Bobby said through a still-mangled mouth. He couldn’t point with his hand, but his eyes were focused. I turned to follow his gaze, lower, closer.

And I saw my sister, sitting alone in her wheelchair near the middle of the box canyon, the wind spiraling around her, building little dunes against her tires, in her lap. Her head was down, hair raised up and whipping like black fire above her, and I couldn’t tell if she was alive or dead. Lowering Bobby to the sand, I ran for Holly.

But my feet were swept out from under me almost instantly. The sandstorm was a fury, circling through the canyon, picking me up and spiraling me around. I was only a few feet from Holly, but I couldn’t reach her, instead spinning around and around her, out of control.

Then the storm’s winds changed and I was flung directly toward my sister. I grabbed hold of her wheelchair on one side, still thinking I would save her, when I couldn’t even save myself. I pulled myself toward her, into a huge hug, tapping my forehead against hers, hoping she was still alive.

As the skin of our foreheads touched, Holly looked up at me.

She was alive.

And yet…

Her eyes were different than I’d ever seen before.

Holly wasn’t just alive, she was ablaze, seething with rage. Tears streamed down both cheeks, only to be instantly caked with orange sand. She looked like she’d been painted with a warrior’s mask, pagan and mysterious.

“Holly, it’s me, John!” I shouted above the din of the storm.

The chair came loose in the sand. The winds converged on us, and we were lifted off the ground, only inches at first. Me, Holly, and the wheelchair. We spun upward like a balloon accidentally let go from a child’s hand.

“Holly! I’m trying to save you!” But even as I said it, I knew it was foolish. I was a fool. I had come so far, across the country, face to face with a madman, and for what? What was I doing beyond simply hanging on? “I’m trying to save you. But I don’t know how. I’m sorry, Holly. I love you, but I don’t know how to save you.”

Our foreheads were still pressed together, that old ritual that used to give me… what? Peace? Reassurance? A sense of connection to my sister? Yes, but more. It meant we were there for each other. In these last moments, did Holly feel the same? Her eyes continued to sparkle with rage, the tears still falling, tracing through the grime on her face.

“Holly, can you hear me?” I’d always thought she could, on faith. But…

I realized that I had another way.

I reached out with my mind and gently touched hers.
Holly, can you hear me?
Of all the times I had pushed minds with my powers, I had never before tried simply to speak to someone else. It felt like I was a ship, floundering on rocky seas, a lighthouse in the distance. And when I called out to Holly, the light turned toward me, quickly, like an accusation. A beam so bright it obliterated all darkness.

First, there was only a sound. A tone, like a single, clear note played so loud I thought I would never hear again. Then a word came through, erupting out of the intense sound.

WALTER!

I fell back in shock, nearly losing my grip on her and the chair. “What?”

Holly’s mouth quivered, so tense, so full of hatred.

The storm spun us around and around, higher and higher, straight up above the canyon floor, so that I could only barely see it anymore in the darkness and spiraling winds. I was dimly aware that skin and cells were continuing to be flayed from my body.

Holding tightly to Holly, I reached out again with my mind, bracing myself. But now, instead of that feeling of floating in darkness, everything was white. The tone filled my senses. The complete focus of her attention was waiting for me.

WALTER!

I shied back, but wouldn’t let myself fall away again.
What, Holly? Walter Ivory?

Louder than before, near deafening in my mind’s ears, she screamed. A horrific banshee cry.
WALTER IVORY!

The words blew over me, stronger than the storm around us.
Holly. What about Walter Ivory?

HE DID THIS!

Still spinning, I could no longer see the ground. We were somewhere high in the storm, dull and formless hues all around, wind still stripping away cells, gradually pulling me apart, gradually pulling us both apart.

He did what, Holly? Made this storm? I don’t understand
.

The whiteness I felt inside of Holly grew hot.
HE DID THIS TO ME!

I exhaled powerfully, with the sort of deep regret that only suffering can bring. Suffering for so long, so many years. Walter Ivory was the root of Holly’s isolation, the catalyst that took her from us so many years ago. But he was gone.
Holly, Walter Ivory is dead. I watched him die myself. He can never hurt you again
.

The white light flickered, the tone faltered, like her concentration waned.

And we fell from the sky, plummeting down into the storm, toward an unseen end.

Just as abruptly, we stopped. The light that was Holly focused on me once more.

BUT. DADDY?

Did Holly know what had happened to our dad? I suddenly felt filled with guilt, to add to my regret. It was hard to breathe.

We were going up again. Quickly now. Far too quickly, going far too high.

It was hard to breathe.

I didn’t answer her. What could I say?

WHERE IS DADDY?

Still, I didn’t answer, and her rage grew twofold. We were speeding into the thinning air. Holly was doing it, I realized. Holly was the sandstorm. She was all those earthquakes. She was the unknown power Sol had feared. Living right in front of him for so long now, his ego unable to see her.

Nor could I. Holly, my sister, right under my nose this whole time, had power greater than I could comprehend.

And in her rage, she was killing us both.

He…
I began, but lost my courage.

WHERE IS DADDY?
she screamed again in my mind.

There was almost no air left. I was becoming lightheaded.

He’s dead, Holly.

She uttered a scream so loud I thought my mind would burn away. And the physical Holly, the one clutching the chair, uttered a wailing, pitiful moan.

Our speed increased, toward the edge of the light.

I had to tell her. We were going to die together, so she deserved to know.

Dad’s dead because I killed him, Holly.

This time the scream was like fire. Something inside me snapped and was burned away. But I continued.

I can never say I’m sorry enough, Holly. It was an accident. I… I didn’t know my powers and I was just trying to punish some kids who had hurt me. I didn’t even know Dad was there, but then, there he was. It was a car accident. He died in a car accident that I’m responsible for, even though I never, ever meant for it to happen.

We flew higher and I was fading from life. There was no air, no atmosphere at all. I saw nothing but darkness above us. And dots of light. Stars.

Holly, I didn’t know how to control my powers, and that’s what killed Dad. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. For however long I live, I will be filled with guilt and regret. But I came here to try to do something right. To try to save you. But your powers are about to kill us both. Please, Holly.

I may have just been losing consciousness, imagining the worst things I could, but it seemed her rage began to tear apart everything, even time and space. Flashes of light appeared and died out. Bolts like lightning crackled past us.

To my left, the darkness appeared to rip, and three giant shapes fell out from the gap, plummeting to Earth below like huge fireballs.

Still we climbed, and despite my powers, I was at the end. I was going to die.

I’m sorry, Holly. I am so sorry. I loved Dad so much and never meant to hurt him. Or you
.

And in that moment, something dawned on Holly. Something changed. The whiteness of her rage became brighter than a thousand suns, and then… diminished.

We stopped climbing and then gravity reversed our direction in a slow arc. We picked up speed, falling back through the atmosphere, air gradually returning.

My consciousness came back slowly, and along with it came the very real fear that we were falling, perhaps farther than any living soul had ever done before, with no idea how to stop. But something held the friction of the air at bay, keeping us from burning to ash in the atmosphere. Holly’s power.

All I could do was hold on.

I wouldn’t plead with her again. She was my sister. It was hers to decide. I had killed our father in a terrible accident. If Holly chose to do the same to me, I couldn’t do anything to stop her. I didn’t want to.

We fell, faster and faster.

The landscape became familiar. The box canyons were below us, now free from the dissipating storm. Their orange and brown walls were brightly lit by the afternoon sun, and we fell to meet them and our doom.