Van Bender and the Spirit Tether

  “No you won’t. Because I’m here.”

  I look up to the space where Bobby had stood when I entered the cove. On the same rock a little higher, Mom now stands.

  She has a black eyeball on her forehead. Into her palm, she’s pouring a glowing red substance.

  Oh crap.

  * * * *

  Chapter 11: Stones come tumbling down

  Only Richie could find a way to put himself between a bunch of stone titans and fragile rocks.

  -Elizabeth Van Bender

  Things happen so fast I can hardly follow them. I begin to stand, ignoring the dizziness and nausea from the third eye.

  Mom jumps down from her perch, leaping over the rocks. Bobby runs to my left, toward the fin with sunlight hitting it. He pockets his blue brink, and produces a vial of yellow. By the time he reaches the stone wall with the titan inside it, he has the lid off, and the brink poured into his hand.

  Mom sets her feet and draws two circles next to each other, touching. She adds a triangle in each. It takes her less than two seconds.

  “Mom,” I say. “What’s going on?”

  Bobby slides his hand across the sandstone. It leaves a yellow arc of brink.

  “Bobby,” Mom says, “don’t do that. You’ll kill us all.”

  She has a lighter, and ignites her spell. It burns faster than the blue stuff Bobby has been using. It flares bright red. A bar of humming white light shoots straight from the shape, directly toward Bobby. He ducks out of the way. The white light misses, and with a screech dissipates as it hits the wall.

  The stone titan shifts, turning its head enough to look down at us. The fin groans as if under extreme pressure.

  Where Mom drew her spell, the burnt brink becomes ashes that flutter to the ground.

  Bobby jumps back to his spell. He draws foot-high circles in a row beneath the arc. They glow yellow against the red stone. Mom runs closer, stops ten feet away, and draws two more circles in half a second.

  “Richie, you need to get out of here,” she says.

  As if that’s going to happen.

  “What’s going on?” I ask.

  “We’re fighting!” Mom says. She draws a triangle inside one of the circles. “You need to get out!” She puts a triangle inside the other circle.

  “No kidding,” I say. My back hits the shaded fin. I haven’t realized it, but I’ve been moving backward, away from the fight. “But what’s going on?”

  Is this fight really about me? Is Bobby trying to liberate me from something good or bad? Is Mom trying to protect me from something I really should have been a part of?

  I’m beginning to second-guess the wisdom of breaking Mom’s rules.

  Bobby finishes his spell, six circles in a curve beneath the long arc. He lights the circle on one end, and as the shape burns along the rock, he leaps to the other end, drawing a line out behind him, trailing it like a fishing line. The fire races around the six circles and up the arc, then out into the air along the line extending from Bobby’s hand.

  Mom finishes her second spell, and lights it. It burns in red curling flames before turning incandescent and shooting that beam of white at Bobby.

  He ducks and rolls across the ground, dragging the brink through the air so it creates a hoop. The white bar of humming light passes right through the center of the hoop as the fire spreads along it.

  “Richie,” Mom says, “you’ve got to run!”

  She’s already started drawing the spell a third time. Is she daft? That spell has already failed twice, and she’s going to try it again?

  “How can I help?” I say.

  Right now, I don’t really care who’s good or bad—it’s not a luxury I can afford. I have to help Mom if I can.

  “Richie,” Bobby says as he gains his feet, “do as she says. Run away. As fast and as far as you can.”

  The fire burning along his yellow brink reaches his hand. With the entire spell alight, it transforms from flame to a golden rope.

  On the stone, the circles and arc change. They sink into the rock. I wouldn’t have been able to see it except for the eye on my forehead. They surround the body, four legs, and neck of the stone titan. Like shackles and a collar. The golden line extends from the collar through the air, to Bobby’s fist.

  It’s a leash.

  He grips it in a fist, and yanks. The stone titan responds with a groan. It moves inside the rock, turning toward us and standing. Muscles ripple beneath rough skin as the head swings out of the stone above, and hovers back and forth in annoyance. The stone cracks. Dust and pebbles fall away and the fin sways.

  Bobby pulls again. The leash stretches tight. The stone titan responds with a roar. It’s not the roar of a dragon. And it’s not the cry of a lion. I’ve never heard anything like it. It’s like the sound the Earth might make just before imploding. It shakes my bones. I stand frozen with my back against the cold stone that, fortunately, isn’t moving even though there’s a stone titan inside it.

  I want to run. But not only can’t I, I’ve also got to save Mom. I’ve got to get her out of there.

  She’s drawing that same ineffective spell, and almost has it done.

  Bobby yanks on the golden tether a third time, and this time the stone titan responds with an even deeper groan. As it steps out of the rock, the fin shatters. It breaks into massive jagged boulders with sounds like lightning striking. I flinch, expecting to get a face full of stone, but instead of collapsing toward us, the fin falls the other way. Rock grinds on rock, sending clouds of dust into the air. The ground rumbles. It shakes.

  The stone titan’s gangly legs end in what look like enormous dog paws, one of which falls not ten feet from Mom even as the fin is still collapsing. The stones the titan steps on turn to powder that puffs into the air. The spirit towers over Mom, its head reaching at least forty feet high.

  “Elizabeth,” Bobby says, “don’t make me do this. Just step away and nobody gets hurt.”

  That, I decide, is the threat of a bad guy if I’ve ever heard one.

  What have I done? What have I gotten us into?

  The fin is still collapsing. Mom has finished drawing her spell. She lights it, and dodges as a boulder bounces at her.

  Bobby yanks on the tether again, forcing the creature toward Mom. But this time he’s too focused on controlling the stone titan. Mom’s spell finishes burning, and the white light strikes Bobby right in the chest.

  He doesn’t cry out. He doesn’t convulse. He just topples backward, onto his backpack, eyes blank. The tether slips from his hand, and the stone titan lets out another roar as the shackles and collar fade to ashes.

  The fin lies in rubble across the way from me. My head rings from the noise, but now the stone titan steps toward me. Its foot lands two feet away. The smell of earth and dust almost overpowers. I want to run.

  “Richie, hold still!” Mom says. She’s already drawing in the air, again.

  I stand there, my back against the fin as the stone titan steps into it. The spirit already in the rock shifts and grumbles, making room for the second creature. They seem to talk with each other in a series of rumbles and cracks similar to the sounds of the fin collapsing a few moments before. With each step, the ground shakes.

  In a few seconds, the stone titan has stepped into the fin behind me, and settled. It looks down at Mom and me with its long, horse-like face as if we’ve offended it greatly.

  Bobby lies in the midst of rocks, staring at nothing. Mom has finished drawing another spell. It’s an oval with a squiggly line down the middle.

  “What just happened, Mom?”

  “How long have you been with Bobby?” she asks.

  “How long have you known about brink?”

  “How long, Richie?”

  “How long, Mommy?”

  She purses her lips, narrows her eyes at me, and lights her spell.

  In a second, the entire thing burns. It flares bright red. The center of the oval becomes a sheet of shimmering white?
??but only for a second.

  Dad’s face replaces the white.

  “David,” Mom says. “Code red.”

  Dad’s eyes widen. “Again!”

  Mom nods. “I’ll draw your zip code.”

  “On my way.”

  Mom swipes her hand across Dad’s face, and the image disappears. The brink turns to ash.

  Mom draws a diagonal, jagged line with practiced speed. “What did Bobby tell you?”

  I look at Bobby. He still lies on the ground, frozen. His eyes stare straight ahead.

  “I see you have a third eye,” Mom says. She turns to me, hands on her hips. “How’s that working out for you?”

  I nod at her forehead. “You have one, too. But I had to learn about all this from Bobby Fretboard?”

  “Richie, you have no idea what you’ve gotten into. No idea. You’re not supposed to learn about this for several more years. And what is that in your hands? An iPad? Where did you get that?”

  I’m not about to throw Sandra and Kurt under the bus. “You’re worried about an iPad? Magic is real, and you’re upset about me having an iPad?”

  I’ve never seen her look so serious—with her eyebrows so high and her lips so tight.

  “Richie David Van Bender.”

  I’m in such deep crap.

  But she doesn’t say anything else. Instead, she turns back to the diagonal jagged line and lights it.

  A moment after it finishes burning, there’s a single pop, like popcorn. A purple door flashes into existence, and Dad steps out.

  * * * *

  Chapter 12: My dad, the teleporting maniac

  I’ve almost lost track of how many times we’ve had a Code Red. I’m getting just a little tired of it.

  -David Van Bender

  Everyone says I look just like Dad. He’s wearing a black t-shirt and light blue denim pants. He has light hair and stands six feet tall.

  And he just teleported in. From D.C.

  I stumble back in surprise, and almost fall.

  “Dad!”

  The doorway disappears and the brink turns to ash. The smell of burnt cinnamon is heavy in the cove. Mom turns to me, and pulls another little vial of brink out of her pocket.

  Dad nods at me. “Richie, good to see you.”

  Through Mom, I’d emailed him right before our trip. He’d told me to be safe, to not do anything crazy.

  “What the heck, Dad? Did you just teleport?”

  He turns his back to me, and starts drawing a large shape. “I zipped, Richie. I zipped. I’d love to stay and chat, but I don’t have time. I’ve got to get out of here before . . .”

  “Before what?”

  Mom stands in front of me, drawing a spell. It looks like an eyeball with a circle around it, and a line through it. Like the street sign for no U-turns, only no eyeballs. Her face is calmer, now. She doesn’t seem as upset.

  “Richie,” she says, “everything will be clear in just a few moments. Just be quiet.”

  “You’re going to explain everything?”

  She nods. “Hold still so I can fix what Bobby did to you.”

  “And you’ll tell me everything?”

  “Just be patient.”

  Mom has just defeated a rock star in some funky magical battle, I’ve almost been squashed by a stone titan, Dad has just teleported in from across the country—and I’m supposed to be freaking patient?

  Dad’s about done drawing his shape—some type of rectangle, taller and wider than him, with spikes jutting out at each corner. Mom’s added an arrow that points from the anti-eye symbol to my face. She has a lighter up to it.

  “Uh, is this going to hurt?” I say.

  She shakes her head and lights the spell. “Nope.”

  In a second her entire spell burns in red flame. With a sizzle like frying bacon, a jet of red light extends from the arrow to my face. I have my natural eyes open, so when it hits me, my vision shifts. The contrast all around me goes way down. The stone titans disappear. The sky shifts back to its usual blue.

  The spell turns to ash, and floats away.

  Mom is drawing another spell. Two circles.

  “You got rid of the third eye,” I say.

  “Very observant,” Dad says. He grins at Mom. “We really are raising a genius.”

  He lights his door, and by the time the entire thing burns, he’s stepped over to Bobby and slung him over his shoulder. A shimmering white sheet of light appears inside the doorway.

  “I’ll be in touch,” he says to Mom.

  “I sure hope so,” she says without looking at him. She draws squares around the circles.

  “Are you going to wipe his mind, again?” Dad asks.

  Mom doesn’t look at him. Or me. “Of course.”

  “It’s got to stop, eventually,” Dad says.

  “What do you mean, ‘again’?” I say.

  I’m starting to feel the fringes of panic.

  “He’s not ready for brink,” Mom says.

  Dad raises his eyebrows at her in a skeptical expression. “He will be soon, though.”

  “I’m ready now!” I say.

  Dad looks over his shoulder at me as he heads for the door.

  “I don’t think so, Richie,” he says. His eyes sweep over the rubble. “This proves it.”

  “I didn’t do all this! Bobby did!”

  “Try not to get into too much trouble.”

  “Dad, wait!”

  But he’s through the door. With a purple flash, it disappears. The brink turns to ash, and floats down to the red rock.

  Mom lifts her lighter. She’s finished drawing her spell. No longer distracted by Dad, I see it’s the same spell she’d used on Bobby, except this time she’s given it a little tail, about a foot long.

  I start to back away. My heel catches on a rock and I nearly fall. “What are you doing?”

  Mom lights it. “I’m sorry, Richie.”

  Her spell finishes burning.

  I’ve seen this spell three times, already, so I know what to expect. I dodge aside as the jet of white light shoots from the spell, missing my arm by a few inches.

  I’ve had enough. I won’t let Mom do this to me.

  I turn and run.

  * * * *

  Chapter 13: Hostage negotiations

  He always runs.

  -Elizabeth Van Bender

  I grab the iPad as I run. In three more seconds, Mom has drawn and lit her spell again. As it finishes burning, I dodge to one side. The light sizzles past me.

  “Get back here, Richie!”

  I ignore her. Naturally. There’s no way in Hades I’m stopping so she can wipe my mind. Before she finishes her next spell, I dart out of the area, around the nearest fin.

  She pursues. I dart down alleyways made by the towering fins, cutting this way and that, trying to lose her, never quite able. Her shouts turn into screams, and I can tell she’s growing more desperate with every footfall. But I’m too fast, and she can’t catch me.

  Until I find myself at the end of an alley, with a forty-foot drop ahead of me. No sunlight comes down between the two fins. The air is cool and damp. Where I stand at the end, breathing hard, heart thumping, I only have a foot of space on each side of me.

  I can’t climb down the cliff. Scooting to the sides won’t work, either. It’s too sheer, worn smooth with centuries of weather.

  Mom runs into the alley at the far end, and stops.

  “Richie, you have to stop running.”

  “Don’t come any nearer, Mom. I’ll jump.”

  She raises a hand and starts drawing those circles.

  “Stop!” I yell. “I’ll jump if you try and light that!”

  Before I finish talking, I’ve positioned myself at the very edge of the cliff. She’s already drawn the triangles in each of the circles, and given the spell a little tail. She half lifts her lighter to the spell.

  But she stops.

  “Richie, don’t do anything stupid.”

 
“I’ll jump, Mom. I swear it. I don’t want my mind erased.”

  “Richie, I have to do it.”

  I almost can’t hear myself, from how the blood rushes in my ears. “I’ll jump and break my legs if I have to. Maybe my back.”

  Facing her, with one hand holding onto the wall, and the other still gripping the iPad, I lift one foot over the abyss. It’s dark below, but I can make out jagged rocks at the bottom.

  “Lower the lighter.” I sound like a terrorist, like I’ve taken myself hostage. “If you cast that spell, I’ll fall backward off this cliff.”

  The red light of her spell casts a ruddy glow on both sides of the alley, and illuminates her face. With my third eye gone, I can no longer see hers. She frowns and furrows her eyebrows, shakes her head.

  She lowers the lighter.

  Licking my lips, hoping I can do this, I step all the way onto solid ground.

  “It’s just not time, Richie. You’re not quite old enough. You need another few years under your belt before I’m willing to let you use brink.” She shakes her head. “Intersoc. SOaP. The Sunbeams. They would all try to use you. The best way to protect you is to keep you away from all of it.”

  I have so many questions, but most importantly, how can I get out of this without having my memory erased or breaking my freaking neck? Maybe there is no way.

  No. I have to get out of this without losing everything I’ve fought for.

  “How many times have you erased my memory?”

  She shakes her head, as if ashamed. Her shoulders slump.

  “Five times.”

  Five times! What has gone on in my freaking life that I don’t even know about?

  There has to be a way.

  Her shoulders had slumped. She’s tired of this, of erasing my brain.

  That’s my leverage.

  “Mom, I’m never going to stop trying. You’re probably going to have to lighten up on my rules, or I’m going to keep trying until I get myself killed. Or worse.” I didn’t know if there was a worse, but maybe she could imagine something.

  “I’ll be here to protect you.”

  I lift one foot back over the edge. “I’d rather risk it than have you erase my memory.”

  “Don’t be stupid, Richie.”

  “You can erase my memory, but I’m going to run again. I’m going to try and break the rules again. It’s just what I do.”

  She shakes her head, half lifts the lighter.