Glory Alley and the Star Riders (The Glory Alley Series) (94 page)

Glory
hesitated a
mom
ent, then opened
her
arms wide. “Stick ‘em to me.”

"As ye wish.”

The Thunderbone, Nightburner, and Paraplume began to glow faint green. The Elboni seemed to bend the light, and
the stone itself
seemed to disappear, leaving a black a void.
A ribbon of rainbow snaked out of
the
void,
reaching toward
Glory
.
Mesmerized,
she
barely heard White Feather's warning:  "To bring your mother
back
to life again, the
Elboni
tells me that
Tullah
will be ordered as if she
had
never died
.
Ye will have lived yer life up to t
his mom
ent, but
the
rest of your world will have lived up to anot
her mom
ent
.
Ye will be coming home to a different reality and there be no guarantees
that
it'll be a better one
.
May
the
magic
of
the
Elboni
be with ye
.”

The
Wybbil
’s voice echoed and grew distant as the colors started at
her
ankles, coiling up
both
legs and around h
er
waist and arms
.
She braced for another cosmic
light show.
The ribbon squeezed like a
constrictor going in for the kill.

“
What’s happening to her?
”
She heard
the panic in Clash’s voice. “Make it stop!”

“
T
oo late
for that
,” White Feather said
.
“
T
oo late
for
her, too late for
you, too late for
Tullah
!”

Floating
beans
of light
fire
worked from the Elboni, filling
the cemetery,
floating across the land as far as the eye could see, clinging
to Clash, sticking to the
grass, tombstones, fence
posts, trees,
and
everything
that
she could see
,
except the Wybbils
.
A rumble came from deep below
Tullah
and the whole world shook
.

“It
stings
!
”
Clash
groaned
as the beans of light seemed to devour him. “W
hat have you done
?
”

“I take it back, I take it back!” Glory screamed, but the ribbons kept coming and the glowing beans fell upward from the stone like rain gone wrong. The beans totally engulfed Clash.

“
Oh,
crap!
”
she heard him call out,
just before
he
implod
ed
with a bang, leaving not a trace.

Glory
tried to fight
the ribbons
of light
, but h
er
body no longer obeyed
.
The ribbons lifted her body
off the ground
and
spun h
er
around like the second hand on the face of a clock
.
She
scrunched
here eyes
and
closed
her mouth
tight,
but the ribbons
filtered through h
er
skin like water
invading a
sponge, filling
Glory
’s insides
until
her heart, kidneys, lungs
, and
every organ
seemed to
expand
.
A sound like a thousand teakettles s
creaming at once ripped
open
her eardrums
.
Pain poured in
to every fiber, vein and artery until she thought she’d burst
.
Oh, Great
Elboni
, she begged
.
Remove yourself from me
!
The pressure didn’t stop
.
Sure she was going to die,
she
finally
exploded into a billion tiny stars, dissolving into the universe
.

As fast as it happened, it
ended
.
Her body was whole again.
Everything looked the same.
Except
Clash
was
nowhere to be seen
.
The monument was
n’t there anymore.
The
sky riders
were gone
.
No trace of the Elboni remained.
All was quiet in the graveyard
.

She
teetered in the snow
.
Warm blood
trickl
ed
from
her
eyes, nose and ears.
When s
he touched her head
, f
ingers came back
covered in blood.
So weak…o
ne knee collapsed
…and then
the other
. C
rawl
ing
a little ways,
she
tried
to stand
, but t
he effort was too much
.
She
fell over
onto her back.
Metallic-tasting sp
ittle
filled her mouth and drooled over her
chin
.
The
first rays
of dawn appeared like a bubble of light against a
velvety
black horizon
. She lay
there on
the cold
hard
ground
unable to rise.
Snowflakes silently
spiraled down from the sky
blanketing her in white.

A plastic mask covered her nose and mouth.
The white lights overhead were so bright she felt like they were burning her retinas.
Tubes dangled
above
as strangers in blue scrubs wheeled h
er
down a corridor
on a gurney
. Amid the sea of unfamiliar faces
,
Dad’s whiskery chin came into view
.
She
wanted to call for him, but h
er
voice wouldn’t
cooperate
, so
s
he reached
for him
instead
.
His
warm hand embraced h
er
s and t
hen
everything faded
to gray.

Time passed, but
s
he didn’t know how much
.
Steady electronic blips sounded
from somewhere far away
.
Eyelids flickered, but
the effort to keep them open
ed
quickly waned.

S
omeone
nearby was speaking. H
is voice started out has muffles,
but gradually became clearer
.
Brandon?

"When
she
didn’t show up for supper we didn’t think much
of
it
,” he said. “Y
ou know how
s
he likes to wander
.
W
hen bedtime rolled around and there was
still
no sign of h
er
, we called the police
.
She kept having dreams about Queen’s Mesa, couldn’t stop talking about it, so I thought maybe she went up there and got lost. Guess I was wrong.”

A girl
spoke next, although
her voice was
vaguely familiar, she couldn’t quite place her name.
“
Don’t be too hard on yourself
,” Glory heard her say. “
I thought
the same thing. We went up there together last week, so I thought I might be of help.
”

Am I dreaming
?
Glory
wondered. Where am I?