Of Gaea (22 page)

T
he sun streamed
through the
win
dow brightly and Ari could hear the sound of birds. And the
unfamiliar sound of traffic. Startled, she jerked awake the rest of
the way and found that she couldn’t move.

The room was completely white, so was the metal bed frame
that the leather straps held her down to.
Ari recognized the scent of a
hospital easily enough. There was no mistaking where she
was.

Before Ari
could begin to panic she heard footsteps and hastily closed her
eyes as the door opened.

“It’s a shame really.”
A man was saying. “There’s no way to know
the damage until she wakes up.”

“I want to know she’s completely okay before we move on.
It’s so great for her to be going to college out west, and where
she goes I go. I’m just so stressed this happened.” Ghita’s voice
was part excitement, part worry, part tired. She played her role
well.

“All the tests look normal. All she may suffer is a bump on
the head.”

“I just can’t
believe… well, I suppose I’ve been too lenient, but she’s such a
good child.”

“You shouldn’t blame yourself.” A pen scratched across a
piece of paper. “I really think she’ll be fine once she wakes
up.”

“But why has
she been asleep so long?”

“It’s only been three days since you found her. Until she
wakes up we won’t actually know if she was trying for suicide or if
it was an accident of some kind.”

Ghita sighed. “I guess you’re right. I just… I’m worried
she’ll be like Lyris. There’s nothing wrong with her tests
either.”

“Everything looks okay here, still. Let’s go to my office.
We can discuss some stimulants to try and wake her up.”

“Very well.” It sounded like her feet dragged and she was
being led out.

Ari counted to ten and listened to their footsteps recede
before slitting her eyes open to see if someone stayed
behind.
The
room was blessedly empty.

She studied the straps and tried to recall everything she
heard Kleisthenes tell Sasha when they were tanning animal
skins.
Heat
hardened, they sometimes boiled the skins to strengthen them. Cold
water could damage it. It would expand. Ari had no idea how to
accomplish such a feat strapped down as she was.

“We are the elements.”
Gaea’s statement came back to her
unbidden.

Then theoretically she should be able to make the leather
cold.
Somehow. Ari racked her brain for ideas and
stopped.

It was like she had cargo containers of filing cabinets
overflowing her mind.
It was the only way she could describe it. If she
had to explain it, it was similar to how books were categorized.
Horror here, romance here, history there, Gaea back there. How did
she access what she wanted? Did she have to go through everything
just to find one piece? Or could she scan through them?

Maybe if she thought really hard on what she actually
wanted the way one thinks really hard to recall a memory it would
come forward. Ari didn’t know how long she lay there, thinking
really hard on how to create ice. It was kind of like channel
surfing. Or flipping through a card catalogue.

She gave up when there was no end to the
information.
It wasn’t the information she was looking for, but
interesting none the less. Gaea used the ice age to cleanse the
world the same way the good book tells of a flood. She had intended
for some of the creatures to die as they were getting out of
hand.

There was other stuff on ice.
It was generally the third or fourth
thing a Wiccan learned to do, fire was always first but it didn’t
exactly say how or why. Druids could, with Gaea’s help, adjust
their body temperatures to the cold and not be bothered by ice.
Fascinating really, but not what she needed.

Ari huffed out a breath and gasped at the sudden cold on
her lips.
Was that all she really needed? Intent?

Testing she turned her head towards the leather strap and
while she thought really hard about ice, she blew out a breath. And
amazedly watched the frost form. Ari repeated the
process.

The leather warped before her eyes. As it continued to warp
it began to crack and split until it finally snapped. Ice crystals
tinkled to the floor with some bits of leather.

Ari didn’t cheer.
She sat up quickly and undid her waist and legs.
Then she looked around.

There was no wheelchair in the room.
She had no escape. Something
Ghita had probably seen to.

Ari turned her hands over to look at the tops and two
graceful tattoos stared back at her.
Ari pulled up the nasty medical hospital
pant legs and tattoos stared back there as well. Leonidas had
finished. She had lines of script wrapped and swirling all
over.

Ari yanked her shirt up just to make sure. Four tattoos
marked each of her chakra points. They were beautiful, but she
didn’t think she had time to study them at the moment.

She used her arms to move her legs to the side of the
bed.
Moment
of truth. Ari let her feet rest on the floor then pushed herself
up.

She swayed, but her legs didn’t give out.
Ari took that as a
good sign and tried to take a step. She felt like she was dragging
her feet through molasses. It was probably how a baby felt taking
their first steps.

Ari fell trying to cross to the window and it took a few
tries to get back on her feet.
She really wished she had more time to
relearn how to walk, but she didn’t. She wanted out.
Now.

Slowly, so she wouldn’t fall again, she crossed to the
window. There were no bars on it (probably because she had been
secured to the bed) but she couldn’t see a way to open it either.
Ari was on the second floor and looked out over what she really
wished wasn’t a familiar park. There was no one walking on this
side of the park; she really didn’t blame them. Who would want to
see this eyesore on what was supposed to be a peaceful
walk?

Ari rested her head against the glass and inhaled
deeply.
Then
thinking of ice, exhaled heavily. Startled she jerked back when the
cold reached her forehead. Laughing inwardly at her stupidity, she
inhaled again and exhaled. Like a lake frozen over with too must
weight on it the glass cracked then shattered. The glass was made
for cold, they were in the mountains after all, but she doubted
that kind of cold.

Ari gingerly pulled her legs over the broken glass.
There was no ledge
outside the window just the narrow sill. She was going to get glass
in her butt. She just knew it.

“Gaea protects the Faithful.”
Ari muttered and jumped.

T
he alarm
started some seconds
before Ari landed on the
not-as-hard-as-she-thought ground. The wind wasn’t knocked out of
her as much as she was surprised by the sudden stop.

Ari didn’t linger.
It wouldn’t take long for them to find her. It was
kind of obvious she had jumped out the window.

She tried to run but it felt — and probably looked — like a
Quasimodo lope.
Ari felt people staring as she gimped passed. She slowed to
a jog that was semi-passable and the attention seemed to
fade.

Ari didn’t know where she was going. The brief time she had
been here, she had a sharp object to her neck. Lyris had said the
park was walled for a few blocks. There was probably no way out,
and the walls were probably watched.

She knew what she wanted though.
Ari wanted to be in trees that were
familiar. She wanted her bow and camping gear. She wanted
Sasha.

Ari frowned to herself.
Sasha couldn’t save her from everything.
Though he tried. Ari knew he did. She had to figure this
out.

Ari slowed as the tree grotto came into view.
She hadn’t realized
she had traveled this far already. She shouldn’t have even been
able to recognize it.

All the trees were blackened stubs.
There was a circle of ash in
the center that looked like a fire raged. She stepped into what
were once beautifully old trees.

These trees had been at the very least fifty to a hundred
years old.
They had seen more than most of the people inhabiting this
compound. And they were gone.

Filled with sorrow Ari knelt in the center and bowed her
head.
Sitting there she could almost feel the heat that destroyed
them. Ari could almost feel the screams of the trees.

A soft breeze blew through the carnage, almost mirroring
her sorrow.
What she wouldn’t give to be that air. Imagine if she could
be air. Ari could just follow the air up and out and travel on it
back to the Valley.

Almost before the thought had completed she felt
off.
Dizzy.
As if gravity had shifted. Ari closed her eyes for a second,
inhaled carefully and reopened her eyes.

Then laughed like a lunatic.
There was no other way to describe the
giddy sound that escaped her. She danced through the sky as the air
itself.

Ari was back on the ground in seconds.
She stood on her camping cliff
looking over the valley. She studied the landscape for a moment as
she thought.

She wondered if she could instantly move from place to
place like that.
Like dissolve in the air and reappear in the air. Wouldn’t
that be cool?

When the trees crackled behind her, she whirled into a
crouch.
In a
few heartbeats Nasya appeared in the tree line and stepped out. Ari
jumped up and ran to her.

“Nasya!”
She launched herself at Nasya and pulled her into a tight
hug. “I’m so happy to see you.”

She laughed. “And I you. You look… different.”

Ari laughed giddily again and released her. “I am. I need
your help. I need you to teach me. To show me. Gaea said you
could.”

“Did She? You’ve seen Her?” Nasya sat on the ground and her
skirts spread out much in the same fashion as Gaea’s had been at
the fountain.

Ari couldn’t sit, she was still too giddy.
She told Nasya
everything, from Leonidas to the tattoos. Nasya was a great
listener. She didn’t interrupt or even seem surprised as Ari
started to practice air jumping.

Ari found that she could still talk, and Nasya could still
hear her even when Ari was the breeze.
She also figured out, that yes, she
could, instantly jump. As long as she knew where she was jumping
to. Handy that.

“So if I could recap?
You have your tattoos, you slept the length of the
full moon, but you were actually with Gaea, and you escaped the
mental institute.”

Ari nodded. “Pretty much.”

“You know you
can do that with the earth, too.”

Ari stopped what she was doing and looked at Nasya.
“Huh?”

“Here. Jump me.” Nasya stood up and held out her
arms.

Skeptical, Ari leaped at her and shrieked in shock when she
landed on a pile of dirt. Laughter floated behind her and Ari
turned in time to see the earth rise and take shape.

Nasya dusted herself off.
“The dust is the only put off to doing it
that way.”

“Gaea said I was the only one left.” Ari jogged over to
her, and noted she wasn’t limping anymore.

“You are the only Child of Gaea left, yes.
I am not a Child of
Gaea.” Nasya gave her a patient look. “They will be looking for
you. And you know it won’t take Ghita long to send someone here to
find you. If she hasn’t already called ahead and Sasha isn’t
already looking.” Nasya turned and walked backed towards the
trees.

“But, how can you do that if you’re not of Gaea?” Ari
fumbled after her. “I mean, I know Wiccans, and Druids and what not
have skills, but they can’t actually turn into the element until
death.”

Nasya glanced over her shoulder. “How do you know
that?”