Chapter 11

Grandma told us to be careful with what we wished for, and I wished I took her advice.

Two hours before sunset, the wind picked up from the south, and thick storm clouds darkened the sky. The flattened forest provided little cover, but after finding a hole under a fallen tree large enough to squeeze into, I stacked dried branches on either side to create a roof.

The sky opened, dumping buckets of rain, and dropped pea-sized hail that stung in the driving wind. Soon, even my shelter filled with water. The sticks and leaves did nothing to keep me from the rising mud, and the frigid water left my hands numb and body shivering. I wished for it to pour, and so it did.

I, Amy Sullivan, became a modern-day rainmaker.

Icy drops trickled through the gaps between my stick roof, which the wind destroyed from time to time, and bursts of lightning created monsters in the corners of my eyes. Every tree root in the distance and rock by its side wanted to attack, wanted to make their way into my shelter. But after enough flashes, I wasn’t sure they were just shadows.

With each passing minute, with each lightning strike, the creatures grew bolder. Each burst of light created a better picture, a different angle, sometimes nearer, and sometimes further away. The beasts moved closer. They threatened to enter. But they couldn’t. As long as I stayed awake, they couldn’t.

Whatever they were, whatever watched me kept its distance. However, if they entered, I didn’t know how many I could take before they overran me—before they stripped me of my safety.

As the rain continued, my shelter shrunk. It might have been the wood absorbing the water, or the ground rising, but my hovel tightened around me with every passing moment. Every second, the walls constricted. The walls encased me in a tomb and made each breath harder than the last.

A bolt struck the ground nearby, and the earth shook beneath me. I jammed my rear deep into the hole and dug at the ground to bury myself further. It was no use. The thick tree roots snaked under the soil like a spider’s web. I had no way to escape. I needed to calm down.

The vice around my heart loosened, allowing it to pump again, and my jaw relaxed. They couldn’t be real. Real beasts wouldn’t circle without eventually attacking. No, they had to be imaginary.

My nest flooded, making it impossible to dry off. But the storm flooded everything with water—there were no dry areas. I was sitting in a mud puddle without a raincoat. Only my feet and head stayed dry.

The icy water made my hands purple, and I couldn’t keep them warm. I didn’t know when hypothermia set in; it didn’t take much. I spread essence throughout my body, hoping to fight the chills. Unfortunately, the moment I stopped, the cold seeped through my skin and drilled into my core.

Another bolt fell from the sky and kicked mud towards the creeping shadows. I placed my hands under my armpits and rocked, then swayed, back and forth, side to side. The motion settled my mind and removed me from the stormy weather. Whistles in the wind drifted from my ears, and the freezing water evaporated beneath the warmth of my blanket.

Mom hummed in my ears, a lullaby she sang to Lia and me. I never remembered the lyrics, and Lia didn’t either. Mom had a soft voice that matched her eyes. Her hums filled my helmet, and I was in my room.

Mom sang next to the dolphin lamp on the nightstand. Light from the shade sparkled on the ceiling and mimicked the night sky. She combed her fingers through our hair on the white headboard covered with cupcake stickers, and she sang. The Frozen snow globe sat on the windowsill, and cocoa, the stuffed bunny Lia and I shared lay between us.

Lia held cocoa; she was with me. I hadn’t felt her since I stitched the priest, but she was with me again. Mom continued to sing, and I wrapped my arms around Lia. She wasn’t allowed to leave again; I wouldn’t let her go. Lia was mine.

Mom’s voice became a whisper, and she kissed us on our foreheads. Mom always kissed us before we fell asleep. She pulled me into a hug, and her warm bosom purged the fears from my heart. Mom held me tight, and placed her lips next to my ear, then roared until the ballerina’s dancing on the wall liquified.

The alert in my helmet screamed; the ground vibrated, a pulse, and a wave rippled through the world.

Beneath me, the floor dropped and bounced like Earth became an elastic band. Another deep roar wrinkled the ground, and I didn’t dare to look. Something wasn’t right. The next breach was months away. Creatures like that should be in their holes, hibernating. Real essence beasts hibernated and fed on the world after the breach’s opened, not before.

The pounding grew stronger; each bounce grew until I thought the planet’s foundation would crumble.

One more bellow and two explosions went off in my ears. Everything turned silent.

I think I screamed, but I didn’t know for sure. My mouth opened, my chest vibrated, and I heaved, but the hot liquid pouring from my ears blocked any sounds, and I lost any sense of direction.

My head landed on the ground, and water filled one side of my helmet. Regrettably, my stick barrier became a floor to ceiling window. I switched to night vision and saw a wall—an unmoving wall of green and nothing else. I removed my helmet and touched my ears, painful and wet, then turned the vision to essence view.