Chapter Six

 

ELEIRA

 

The sudden heat blasting from the ducts around the room surprises me. Nonetheless, I’m grateful.

I thought they’d meant for me to freeze to death in here.

After James and Raul left, I tried my hardest to take off the bracelet. But whatever strength was left in my arms was not enough. If I had a sharp object, maybe I could slip it underneath and…

But, no. No good wishing for things that don’t exist.

The encounter with the two men has left me shaken. Now I know who my captors are, and I’ve never seen them before.

I’m sure if I had so much as glimpsed James or Raul in the student body at Stanford, I would have remembered them. They are both very distinctive.

Anxious hours pass as I rack my brain for a way out. I don’t see it. The circular dome is extraordinarily strong. Even if I had a piece of furniture to throw at it to break the glass, I know it wouldn’t work. I saw how hard Raul had hit it, and the effect it had: none.

Besides, with the string linked to the bracelet around my ankle, I can’t pass the circumference of the room anyway.

All I have to help guide me are my memories. But they’re not worth jack. It’s like a block had been put up on events that transpired after I set up in the library. When I try to think of them, all that comes is that flash of red — and a dull pain in the side of my neck.

I crane my head this way and that and hear my spine crack. The strange bump is almost all gone. I wonder what caused it. The way the two men spoke, I can almost believe the most ridiculous thing:

A bite, from a…

Vampire.

I shudder and shake my head. No. No, that’s not possible. I’m just letting childhood fantasies get the best of me. Vampires don’t exist. The supernatural isn’t real. Whoever is doing this to me is just having a grand time feeding into my fears.

And yet… A memory of a long-forgotten summer comes to me.

 

I’m seven. Or maybe eight. My best friend Michael and I are exploring the woods. My dad took us up here, to a remote cabin in the Northern reaches of British Columbia, for a week in the summer. Michael’s mom is here, too, but not my own. His dad stayed home as well.

There’s a lake close to the cabin. Dad’s out fishing on a little boat. He sees me and Michael run along the shore. He waves at us.

“Where you going, princess?” He calls out.

“Michael said he found something cool in the woods!” I exclaim. “We’re going to go see!”

My dad laughs. “Don’t stray far. There’s bears and wolves and all sorts of wild animals out there.”

“I know, I know,” I say.

Michael tugs my shoulder. “Come on,” he urges.

I laugh with him and speed away.

Once we’re hidden from view, Michael turns on me. “Are there really wild animals?” he asks, a bit meekly.

I giggle. “Look around, dummy. Do you see any?”

He shakes his head. Michael’s always been the cautious one, whereas I was more impetuous.

“Dad’s just kidding,” I assure him. “Animals don’t come out around humans. They’re scared of us.”

Michael blinks. “Really?” he asks.

“Well, duh. Especially during the day. Now come on, what did you want to show me?”

That gets his excitement back. “It’s just over this hill,” he points.

I nod, and we both race there, not caring how dirty our feet get in the mud from last night’s rain.

We top the crest. “There,” Michael points.

Far away, past the overgrown bushes and shrubs, is an enormous stump of a tree. The top is blackened and charred, as if it’d been hit by lightning.

“What is it?” I ask.

His eyes twinkle with newfound mischief. “You’ll see.” He grabs my hand. “Come on!”

We reach the stump. It doesn’t look so special, aside from being big. Really big, like you could fit a family of gnomes inside.

I giggle at the thought.

“Here,” Michael leads me to the other side. “This is what I wanted to show you.”

When I see it, I gasp. There are all sorts of strange markings on the wood. They look like ancient symbols.

Below them, there’s a tunnel that leads into the earth.

I give a cry of surprise when Michael drops down and starts to crawl through. I thought I was supposed to be the reckless one.

“Where are you going?” I hiss. I know Daddy would be mad if he found out what we were doing.

“Relax,” Michael says with a strange sense of authority. “I’ve been here before. Inside is something really, really cool, I promise!”

That’s pretty much all the convincing I need. I get on my hands and knees and follow him.

“It’s dark,” I say as we crawl.

“I know,” he answers. “That’s why I brought this.”

A flashlight comes to life in his hands.

Suddenly Michael disappears. But then his face pops up in front of me, illuminated by the light. “We’re here.”

He helps me down, out of the tunnel.

We’re in… some type of room. An underground cavern. The walls are made of packed dirt and rocks. The floor is tough mud. There’s a little table, and an old — a really old — rocking chair in one corner.

I get goosebumps. “What is this place?” I whisper.

“I don’t know,” Michael says. “But I don’t think anyone’s been here in years.”

He pauses for effect.

“I don’t like it,” I say. “Why’d you bring me here?” There’s something about the room that feels very much off. It gives bad vibes.

“Look!” Michael exclaims. He rushes forward, leaving me in the dark. I stumble after him, not wanting to show him I’m scared, but not wanting to be left alone, either.

He shines the light on a trapdoor in the floor. He motions for me to lift it.

“Michael, I don’t think we should…”

“What, are you chicken or something?” He asks.

I narrow my eyes at him. “No,” I say. “But —”

“Bwack, bwack, bwack,” he interrupts, making the appropriate chicken clucks. “Bwack bwack bwack bwack. Eleira’s nothing more than one big chicken!”

“Fine,” I say. “I’ll help. But after this, we’re going back out.”

Michael grins. “Deal.”

It takes some effort but we manage to lift the trap door. I cough when a mix of dust and mold puffs out.

Michael shines his light down through the opening. There are stairs.

He looks at me. “Ready?” he asks.

Reluctantly, I nod.

He hesitates for a moment, then sticks out his hand. “So you don’t get scared and run away,” he explains.

I huff, but in truth, I’m grateful. I take his hand.

Together, we make our way down.

The steps are made of stone. They go a long way. At the bottom, they level out to a flat, smooth floor. It’s made of the same river stones, polished and sanded and pressed together.

Michael shines the light around us.

“Whoa,” I murmur. “Now this is cool!”

The walls around us are tall and made of grey stone blocks. They make me feel like I’m inside a castle. There’s a shelf in the distance. I see books on it. There’s also a table with the stub of a burnt out candle. There’s a small cot on the floor, long-since rotted.

I walk to the shelf holding Michael’s hand. There are cubbies carved in the walls, and they hold all kinds of curious instruments and objects. There are jagged crystals, bits of rose, measuring scales, metal cups and decanters — I gasp — even a rodent skull or two.

“What is this place?” Michael asks reverently.

I don’t answer. My eyes are drawn to the spot just beside the bookshelf. There, I see mystical carvings on the walls. Runes, not unlike the ones I saw outside.

Something pulls me toward them. I release Michael’s hand and crouch down. I feel… almost a resonance to them. A type of suction, however faint, that makes it impossible to look at anything else.

“I think,” I say carefully. I don’t know what draws the words out of me, except that they feel right. “I think… this is the lair of a witch.”

Michael scoffs. “A witch? That’s crazy. That’s—”

I don’t hear the rest of what he says. At that moment, a sort of trance falls over me. The runes beckon. I reach out with one hand, fingers trembling, and trace the outlines of the very first symbol.

A jolt runs up my arm. I gasp. Michael says, “What was that?”, but my focus is all on the walls before me. My hand passes to the second symbol, an upside-down triangle with three swirling lines through it.

As soon as I touch it, the ground shakes.

Michael grabs my shoulder. “We should get out of here.”

“No!” I jerk back. I’ve never felt such affinity toward anything in my life. My attention shifts to the final symbol. I have to touch it — I must.

Michael tries to yank me away, but I’m consumed by the need to know what the third symbol will do. I snarl and rip away from him. My fingers brush the intricate lines…

A blazing blue light explodes from the wall. I’m thrown back as if hit by a force field. I land hard on my hip and cry out in pain.

Michael’s on the ground beside me, but he’s quickly picking himself up. The whole room begins to shake. An earthquake! Dust and gravel rain down from the ceiling.

A huge chunk of rock collapses right in front of the wall. It crashes to the floor not two feet in front of my legs.

I scream.

Next thing I know, Michael is grabbing my arm and hauling me up. He drops the flashlight in the commotion. It hits the ground and breaks.

We’re trapped in the dark.

The shaking continues. “This way!” Michael yells. We scrambled blindly toward the stairs. I trip and almost fall but Michael catches me again. He pulls me forward. “Here, here!” he cries.

I find the entrance to the stairs and run up, together with him. The tremors throw us from side to side. I hear more crashing behind us. I know the roof is caving in.

Frantic, we reach the top. We’re inside the stump, but it’s impossible to see. Fear grips me. I hold on to Michael for dear life. The shaking continues.

“Now where?” I scream.

“I don’t know!”

Panic threatens to swallow me whole. We’re going to die down here. We —

Suddenly the darkness parts, and for a flicker of a second, I see the way out. It’s framed by that strange blue glow.

I grab Michael’s hand and race toward it. I shove him into the tunnel and quickly follow.

We both emerge and collapse on the ground. A low sucking noise sounds from behind us. I yelp and jump away, then turn just in time to see the entire stump being swallowed by the earth.

And then it’s over. Everything is still. A dreary silence falls over the woods.

It takes both of us a long time to catch our breaths. When we do, Michael asks, “Did that really happen?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know,” I say.

“That flash of light… what was it? Did you cause it?”

I just repeat the same three words. “I don’t know.”

He looks at me. His expression is hollow.

“Now what?”

I take a deep breath. I look into his eyes. “We can’t tell anybody about this.”

He nods vigorously. “I agree.”

I give him my little finger. “Pinkie swear,” I say.

We join fingers and seal the bond. After another few minutes, we get up and wander back to the cabin, shaken and dazed.

 

Wow. I look around. I haven’t thought of that summer in ages. In fact, I’d pushed the memory so far down that I wasn’t sure if it were real or just part of a dream.

And yet… something about it feels very, very real — and very, very immediate to what’s happening now.