Sable Book 1 of Chaos Time (Chaos Time Series) (7 page)

“
My family and I thank you all for your well wishes
,” her voice broke and she dabbed at her nose. “
Sable was a beautiful girl
.” She touched the lapel of her pink jacket. A large button with her face, age 6, smiled back into the camera. “
With a beautiful heart
.”

She did the ugly cry thing again. Eyes scrunched and voice cracking. Sable shook her head. She knew there were so many things she should say. Questions tumbled in her mind like marbles. But the only thing she could think to utter was, “I’ve never seen anyone try harder to work up a tear.”

Hunter clamped his hand onto her shoulder. She tuned out the rest of the report and looked at him. “I hated that picture she wore.” She glanced down at the gray rug.

“I’m sorry I had to do this. It was the only way I could think...”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to stay here anymore.”

There was so much she needed to say. So much she didn’t understand. Like why he’d taken her from Fairfield to begin with. He’d said it was to save her, but then why did he kill her? And if killing her was the reason, then why bring her back?

But there was too much, and her brain couldn’t seem to latch onto any one question for long enough to ask it.

His hand took hers, the grip reassuring and conveying that he understood without her having to say a word. “There’s a lot to learn, Sable, and not much time to do it in.”

“Where are we going?”

“To where it all ended. Where you died.”

Chapter 7: The phoenix rises

250 years into the future

The land was black. Desolate and wasted. The soil was packed, hard, and void of life. Whatever grass there was, was brown or sizzled. The air stank of brimstone, that awful noxious odor of rotten eggs and char. There were no building. No trees. No life.

Even though Hunter had seen it happen, it never got easier. They’d screwed it all up. He blinked, trying to clear the stinging burn behind his eyes and couldn’t help but wonder if they were doomed to repeat the past.

“Where are we?” Sable asked, kneeling on the ground and letting the dirt sift through her fingers like the fine grains of sand in an hourglass.

“I think the better question is, when are we?” He stood tall, a sentinel in the wasteland of a world that’d once teemed with life and a magic that defied science. He looked down at her. Her face was smudged, the scrubs she wore looked worn and faded. “This is Earth, two hundred and fifty years from your time.”

A low rumble was the only warning they got when a large fissure cracked through the earth like a break in thin ice. Sable jumped back, barely escaping the large hole that appeared where she’d been kneeling seconds ago. Dark fumes sprayed out. She coughed and covered her nose, her eyes instantly teared up.

“How come you’re not dying like me?” she wheezed, snot running freely out her nose.

“I guess I’m used to it now.”

Her lungs rattled. “Well I’m not. Get me out of here.”

“Yeah,” he nodded, “let’s go.”

***

Present Day

Moments later—she was getting better at porting, this time she’d only suffered a minor moment of pulse pounding, mind welling terror, before she sucked in three drag fulls of hyacinth scented air.

Wiping her still snotty nose on her sleeve, she looked around. The land sparked with the most vibrant hues of the rainbow. The reds shimmered like flame with threads of gold. The blues were the deepest parts of the ocean. And the leaves on the trees, a green sprinkled with emerald dust.

She shaded her eyes, unused to colors that seared into her retinas. Oddest part was the land was in the ephemeral period between sunset and dusk. It shouldn’t be so bright.

Lightning bugs were beginning to come out of hiding, weaving and bobbing between large petaled tulips. A squirrel did its curling scamper up a poplar tree.

And that was weird that she knew what kind of tree it was. She was not a horticulturalist, or whatever the heck they called themselves. But it was like something inside her just...knew.

The place was verdant and lush. Full of what appeared to be hundreds of trees, stretching out for miles in every direction. It was so peaceful. So inviting.

It made it easy to forget what she’d seen earlier. She had to forget, had to compartmentalize it away, because if she didn’t, she’d go mad. She never wanted to remember fat bastard or Fairfield Inn again.

“Is this someone’s garden?” she asked, unable to conceal her wonder. She’d seen a picture book once of Alice in Wonderland walking through the flower garden. This reminded her of that.

She turned in a small circle, absorbing what she was seeing. A large tree, several yards off in the distance caught her eye. It was large, larger than any other tree out here. But that wasn’t what snared her and made her unable to look away.

It was the leaves, all in differing shades of red and gold. The bark gleamed like bronze out of fire. It was a hanging oak, but she’d never seen anything quite like it. The branches drooped, looking like long fingers the way it stretched toward the ground. She found herself drawn to it like a lover to its mate. She wanted to touch it, trail her hand down its rough bark and wrap herself up in the blanket of leaves.

“This is your home, Sable.”

She had to admit, his words made her feel an immediate thrill of
mine
, like it was right and meant to be. It did feel like coming home. But how? She’d never been here before. Or had she?

“I don’t understand.” She looked at him. He had his hands in his pockets, a habit of his she’d noticed.

Hunter jerked his head toward her tree. And yes, she’d already laid claim to it. “That’s a fire oak.”

“Fire oak?” she tasted the name and then frowned.

“It is part of you. Part of the phoenix essence. Your soul and that of the trees is connected. It’s where you came when you were near death. It healed you, restored your balance.”

She hadn’t been aware she was walking toward the tree until she was within a few yards of it. It was hard to explain the inexplicable pull she felt to touch it. Like she and the tree were bound by an invisible tether that grew tighter and shorter, dragging her in.

Then she was there and she sighed not only with longing, but profound relief. She wrapped her arms around its thick trunk and pressed her cheek to the bark. The branches swayed, the leaves trailed along her skin like the warm press of lips.

Years of pain, years of neglect and abuse slowly leeched out of her. The memories were still there and just as vivid, but not quite so painful anymore.

The air was crisp, smelling of sappy resin and pine. The sweetness of fruit drifted lazily to her on a gentle breeze.

The fear and pain of killing her nanny dulled down to a quiet whisper. The hurt of having parents who didn’t care. The humiliation of being told repeatedly she was crazy, of having leeching, groping paws touching her and making her feel like she was nothing. A gentle flicker, like a soft lilting hum, infused her limbs.

“From now on, if you’re ever in danger or in pain fly back here. I’ve shown you where it’s at and you carry within you the instinct of your phoenix. She’ll always know how to find her way back. Follow the ley lines; you’ll be able to move between realms that way.”

She looked around. “But where is here and what in the world are ley lines? And did you just say realms?”

His smile was indulgent as he said, “Ley lines are invisible threads of energy that bisect our atmosphere, sort of like a giant tic tac toe. The lines are the bridge between our lands and that of the humans.”

“Our lands and humans. What?” She scrunched her nose. “You’re really making me feel stupid here. I don’t like that.”

He grinned, rubbing the back of his neck. “Here’s where this conversation gets mind numbing and scientific, so sorry if I confuse you in advance.”

She nodded with a quizzical frown.

“This is one of the vanished realms. The earthquakes you all assumed were just earthquakes were in fact the evolution of a new Earth. When I snatched you, Sable, the Earth was beginning its rebirth. Soon, places will vanish. People, tons of them, will disappear and everything is going to be chaos.”

“Not following.” She wrapped her arms tighter around the tree, for support, or just from of nerves, she didn’t have a clue.

“Things change, they must to survive,” his arms opened, “this planet is no different. Humans without our special adaptations are unable to see what’s happening. To them it’s madness and will remain so until the day they die, to them it will seem like places and people have disappeared.” He shrugged. “In reality nothing’s going to disappear, it’s evolving. Becoming sentient. The land will call to like.” He pointed to his chest. “People like you and me.”

Oookay
. Not at all what she’d expected to hear, but she’d promised to listen with an open mind, even though this was testing her resolve a lotta bit. “And this happened how exactly?”

He seemed to be searching for the right words. “Do you know anything about cancer cells?”

“As in the human disease?” At his nod, she cocked her head. “Not really catching the connection here, Hunter. What does cancer have to do with places disappearing?”

“Not disappearing. Altering. A healthy cell becomes damaged when the genetic information is destroyed or corrupted, when the body can no longer fix the cell it morphs and becomes cancerous. That’s what happened to our world. Did you ever hear about the Starfish Prime project in the ‘60’s?”

She laughed. “Way before my time.”

“Okay, the project was a government space race type deal. The Soviets were leading the charge for space dominance. Then in ‘61 they set off a couple of nukes at high altitude. The nukes were strong, but nothing compared to the one America blasted off as a show of power and a very clear message of: we’ve got bigger, better, and badder. It was Starfish Prime and the fall out was beyond anything anyone had expected.”

This sounded like really bad science fiction and she wanted to laugh at him. She really did. But she was good. She held it all in and nodded and listened and tried, really really hard to accept the fact that the world she’d thought she’d known was nothing close to reality.

“Radioactive particles descended to Earth and accumulated in terrestrial organisms, fungi and lichen. The genetic code of those sub life forms mutated, when animals came along and ingested it, they also began to change. Eventually those animals were eaten by humans who procreated and passed those genes along to their offspring and,” he rolled his wrist, “fast forward a couple of decades and like cancer, it’s spread and what you see now is the result of genetic mutation.”

“And all my weird powers? Part of the mutation too?”

“Ahh,” he wagged his hand, “kind of. No one is inherently magical. DNA is a really complex thing, strands and strands of code. Each strand is responsible for one aspect of who we are. Those of us with the mutation,” he finger quoted, “had a recessive gene already in place that flipped like a switch.”

Sable hadn’t gone to a traditional school, hadn’t even gotten much learning in all actuality...but she wasn’t stupid. “So what you’re saying is the potential was always there, but—”

He nodded. “Something had to kick start the process. It’s different for each person and I couldn’t honestly tell you what does it, only that that’s how it’s done. Starfish Prime flipped the switch not only on humans, but the land as well. That’s not to say however that there weren’t already altered humans before that, there were, but not nearly so many. Prime was a cataclysmic event that spurred on a cataclysmic change.”

Maybe she wasn’t hiding her confusion so well after all, because he forked his fingers through his hair and said, “you’re lost.”

She nodded and pinched the bridge of her nose. “You’re right, that was mind numbing.”

He laughed. The sound rich and deep, like velvet coated in honey. Against her will she felt her lips twitch, she wanted to hate him, but it was so much easier to like him. That was something about Hunter that felt so familiar. Too familiar. Like she’d known him all her life, only she’d forgotten, until he showed back up but instead of things being awkward they were right for the first time in her life.

“How do you know so much anyway?” she asked, pressing her back further into the tree. He confused her, all of this confused her. She didn’t like it, but what she’d seen back there… ignoring this wasn’t the answer.

“Time hopper, remember.” His brow quirked. “I’ve got the benefit of being able to travel to the start of all creation and see the very first blade of grass form and shoot from the earth.”

“How do you do that anyway? Time jump? Is that part of your magic?”

“Magic is nothing more than science unexplained.” His lips twitched, he was clearly enjoying himself.

“Whatever. You know what I mean.”

“My powers,” he stressed with a twinkle, “are matter manipulation. Einstein’s relativity theory set the speed of light as the universal speed limit, showing that distance and time aren’t absolute, but instead is affected by one’s motion. Basically, imagine space time as a large two dimensional surface that I fold into a third dimension creating a bridge.”

If brains could get charley horse’s hers was in the mother of all cramps. She was tired of saying huh, what, explain that. She felt like he should be wearing one of those shirts that read: I’m with stupid, and an arrow pointing right at her. She plastered a smile on her face and nodded dutifully, pretending she had a clue what he was saying.

He clucked his tongue. “Your eyes are going glazed on me. You don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, do you?”

She scratched the back of her head. “Sure I do, you’re a time hopper. ‘Nuff said.”

Memo to her, if he ever mentioned that something would be mind numbing again she’d run far, far away.

“So now do you believe, Sable?” he asked.

“I’m confused. But I can’t deny what I’ve seen. Part of me believes, how couldn’t I? But...it’s so much to digest.”

“I know.”

She sighed. “So, I guess maybe you should tell me the rest, but please do me a favor.”