An uneasy moment of silence followed the heavy moment, not a single person finding words to adequately follow the violence. Jim paused, glancing at the table he just threw, then at Caly, his eyes of fury leaping between the two as if they were on fire. The next instant he was bolting towards the door. Tom leapt up to follow him, but he had no chance in catching him. Sarah rushed over to Caly, quickly kneeling down.
“Are you alright?” She asked, her voice shaking. Caly shook his head and pressed his palm against his knee to stand.
“Yeah, yeah I’m okay.” Jasmine glanced over at Beth, who’s face was as white as a sheet, she remained unmoving. She could only figure the girl was in shock, or maybe she just cared about Caly less than Sarah did. The whole pairing always did confuse Jasmine, none of it seemed exactly right.
“I’m so sorry.” Sarah said, tears again escaping her eyes. “It’s my fault. I’m the one that did this to him.”
“NO!” Jasmine intervened. “Stop saying that. It’s not your fault. It’s not anyone’s fault.” Sarah just shook her head, but in her eyes Jasmine could see she still didn’t believe her. She glanced over at Beth, who was still trembling.
“I- I want to go home.” Beth finally whispered. Jasmine frowned slightly. This was the time for all of them to work together, to save Jim from what he was going through and even themselves. “It’s not happening to me, I want to go home.” She repeated. Jasmine’s jaw dropped. How could this girl sit there and be so selfish? Didn’t she care about everyone’s fate, just because it wasn’t happening to her doesn’t mean she shouldn’t care! Then again Jasmine understood what it was like to be afraid, so afraid that nothing but a bubble could possibly make her feel safe. Her face softened.
“Tom, why don’t you drive Beth home? Caly and Sarah and I will try to work more on this thing.” Tom tilted his head in slight suspicion, but nodded.
“Yeah, okay. I’ll do that. You guys can do more of the research thing.” Beth gratefully stood up and headed towards the door. Tom paused in front of Jasmine.
“See you tonight, don’t work too hard.” A quick peck on the lips, and he was off again in pursuit of Beth. Jasmine sighed, her shoulders sagging a little bit. Why was Tom so eager to get out of doing research? Did he still not believe all of this, even after what Jim did? Or was he just shaken up by it too and eager to get some fresh air? Jasmine wanted some fresh air too, but people could be in danger, and danger doesn’t get time-outs. She turned back towards Caly and Sarah.
“What do you guys think? We already have the book, where else should we try?” There was a moment of silence.
“Well, the person we bought it from, he seemed to know about Shiniquah. Maybe we should tell him what’s going on. Maybe he can help.” Jasmine shifted.
“He seemed sketchy about the whole idea in the first place.”
“Jas, it might be all we have. If he can help us at all, we’ve got to try.” Caly nodded in agreement.
“In fact, I think this person knows an awful lot of information he could offer to us.” Jasmine raised a brow.
“You weren’t even there.”
“I didn’t have to be. I can feel it.” Jasmine nodded, she did in fact trust Caly’s judgement, and he was intelligent and since the ritual, seemed to be even more in tune than before. That was his ‘improvement’ she guessed.
“Alright, then let’s go.” She responded, grabbing the keys and heading towards the door.
The ride back to the magic shop was rather sullen, as if they were driving to their own impending doom and no one could find words adequate enough to replace the fear and dread hanging above their heads. When they arrived, Caly practically slammed on the breaks and skidded directly into the space. Sarah and Jasmine were slightly jarred. “Sorry.” He mumbled. “A little on edge here. I can feel it. I can feel it and it’s not good.”
Frowning slightly and casting a look of sympathy towards Caly, Jasmine opened her door and climbed out, followed quickly by Sarah who took a deep breath, as if gathering the courage to actually do this.
“We can do this.” Jasmine assured her. “We have to.” Caly nodded in agreement, and the three of them made their way towards the magic shop.
The same man was there, as Jasmine somehow unconsciously figured he would be, and he raised an eyebrow in recognition when he spotted Jasmine and Sarah. “Ah, you’re back.” He greeted, his voice less than enthusiastic. Caly cut right to the chase.
“You sold them a book about Shiniquah. We’re in trouble and the book doesn’t have enough information. We need help.” The man shifted his weight behind the counter, his eyes frantically bouncing around the room as if he was afraid someone or something would overhear. Finally, he stepped out from behind the counter and sighed.
“How much trouble are we talkin’ here?”
“One of our friends has gotten extremely violent, and refuses to believe we made a mistake.” The man took a step backward, his head tilted in suspicion.
“What exactly did you kids do?”
“We found the scroll in an abandoned barn.” Sarah began to explain. “We thought it was just a joke, something for fun. We- we read it out loud. But then all this stuff started to happen. I can do this.” She paused, pointed her finger towards a wall with bottles on it, and one of the bottles slowly lifted into the air, held up by some invisible force. Jasmine’s eyes bugged out. She had no idea Sarah was telekinetic! The bottle lowered itself, and Sarah shot Caly and Jasmine a look of apology. “After what happened to Jim, I didn’t want to use what I could do. I’m scared it will taint me, too.”
The man was speechless for a few moments, then finally seemed to find his voice again as he cleared his throat. “She’s got you kids.” Another backward step was taken. “You’re all in serious danger.”
“Then help us!” Caly demanded, not yelling but his voice definitely stirred. “Tell us what you know. Tell us how to stop all of this.”
“You’ve set everything in motion already. I’m not sure there’s anything I can do.” Jasmine leapt forward, sick and tired of this man’s hopelessness. If anyone had a right to feel that way, it was them, not him. And Caly was right; he definitely knew something.
“W-well, I can tell you what I know, but it’s not much and I’m not sure it will help.” The man finally agreed.
“Please try.” Sarah said softly, curling her hands into fists as if she were afraid she might do something else with her fingers exposed. The man motioned to a round table towards the back of the store and glanced at the three.
“Go, sit. I’ll tell you what I know.” Jasmine and Sarah exchanged looks, but Caly began moving forward towards the table so they both decided to follow suit.
The man folded his hands together and placed them on the table, his head lowered as if he were about to do a holy confession. Jasmine was simply waiting to hear the ‘bless me father, for I have sinned.’ But instead, he started from a different angle.
“I’ve lived many years, kids. Beyond time it feels like sometimes. And I’ve encountered many things along the way, good and bad. I wish you all had a chance to enjoy your youth free from bad things, but you’ve chosen through ignorance to put all of your lives at risk. May God help you.
“Shiniquah, is one of the most dangerous and manipulative beings out there. I’m not sure how you stumbled upon her confinement. Maybe it was fate, or maybe pure chance, but either way you kids were exactly what she needed. Young, gullible, and apparently two of you fit the criteria to be perfect vessels.”
“Two?” Sarah whispered with confusion. “The book said that one of us had the power to bring her to manifestation. I thought,” She hung her head in shame. “I thought it was probably me. Because I practice magic. Because I insisted we read the scroll. It has to be me.” The man narrowed his eyes, regarding her closely before he spoke again.
“You’re looking at this from the wrong angle, girl. Just because you encouraged her awakening, doesn’t mean you’re responsible for it. Someone else amongst you knows much more than they are saying. Someone wants to bring her forth.”
“Jim..” Jasmine whispered, exchanging a look with Caly. “It has to be Jim! He’s the one that’s happiest about all of this, refusing to accept that it’s bad! And he’s gotten mean, violent. He almost hurt Caly today. He’s desperate to keep his powers.”
“There’s more.” The man intervened. “There’s more than just the person whom she can manifest in. There’s also one amongst you with the power to stop it.”
“How do you know that?” Jasmine inquired doubtfully. After all, why should she trust this guy that no one even knew? Maybe he was part of the conspiracy. Jasmine paused, and blinked. Wow, she was getting paranoid.
“None of you know your places, that is part of your problem, your ignorance. Kids, thinking they can play with forces they have no understanding of. See, Shiniquah can only manifest in equality. There has to be someone she can use, directly use as a vessel, and also someone who holds within them the power to stop her. She must get past this person in order to have the ability to bring herself forth. Do you understand?”
“Well, how will we know which one of us that is? And how do we stop her?” Jasmine asked eagerly, leaning forward in her chair.
“What about Beth?” Sarah offered. “She’s the only one of us that hasn’t developed any sort of magical power because of this. She must be the one that can stop Shiniquah." Caly regarded Sarah, tilting his head.
“I don’t know. I don’t know that Beth has no ability, maybe she just hasn’t exercised or found it yet. That doesn’t automatically mean she’s got the power to stop this.”
“But it makes perfect sense!” Sarah argued, obviously desperate to find solutions to this problem before it was too late. “I think we should go talk to her. Maybe she’s been so edgy because she knows more than she’s saying!”
“Look, I know Beth better than you guys, plus I’ve got this intuition thing. I’m telling you I don’t think its Beth.”
“Caly, it’s not that we don’t believe you, I do trust your intuition. But we’ve got to cover every angle, and Sarah did make a good point about Beth. I think we should at least check it out.” She turned back to the man. “So, any idea how to stop this thing once we’ve figured out who’s who?”
“The only person who has the power to stop it is the free spirit, the person who has the ability to awaken it. Not the vessel, but the counter-part.” Jasmine shook her head in confusion, some sort of memory was trying desperately to poke through the holes of her mind, but she couldn’t quite grasp it. Some reason that she thought Beth was the counter-part, something specific.
“I know something.” She finally blurted out. All eyes turned to her, and she hesitated. “I don’t know what it is that I know. It’s like something’s scratching at my brain. Some reason. Some sort of-” Bethany. That name suddenly stuck in her mind, and suddenly bits and pieces of her dream came flooding back to her. “I know! I had a dream! And- and she was trying to warn me!”
“Who?” Caly softly demanded, leaning forward in his seat with anticipation.
“I- I can’t remember. But her name was Bethany. Bethany. Beth. Don’t you see? Maybe it’s all connected!” Caly and Sarah remained silent for a second.
“You can’t remember anything else about the dream?” Caly asked her softly. She closed her eyes tightly, trying desperately to make full pictures and words out of it, but every time she was close to grasping something substantial, it seemed to fall through the cracks of her memory again.
“Ugh, I can’t, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I think we know enough to at least have a pretty good reason to think its Beth. We’ve got to go to her, talk to her. Help her if we can, maybe she knows things or maybe it’s instinct, I don’t know.”
“Good luck to you kids. If you don’t succeed, god help us all.” The man stated, rising from his seat. He was obviously done with his charitable information. Jasmine sat up as well, followed by Sarah and Caly.
“Thank you for your help.” Jasmine said graciously. The man nodded sullenly.
“I hope it did you kids some good. If she manifests, we’ll all be in a lot of danger.” All three of them nodded in silent unison, turned and headed towards the door.
The ride back was just as uneasy as the ride there, the silence like a dark cloud announcing a storm not far behind it.
“What are we going to do about Beth?” Sarah asked Caly meekly. Caly sighed.
“We’ll do what we have to do, an intervention. I don’t want to assume she knows things, she may be just as much in the dark about all of this as we were. But you never know. I thought I knew Beth, but I wouldn’t have thought her to be so afraid and uninvolved when something bad is happening, so it makes me wonder. Maybe she does know something. It’s up to us to find out either way, and then I guess we’ll help her in any way we can.”
“But the man said that only she can stop this.” Sarah again spoke.
“That doesn’t mean we can’t back her up and support her 100%.” Jasmine paused, aware that no one was paying attention to her at the moment, but her attention was on Caly. She never noticed before how incredibly strong he was. Calm, level headed, yes, but the inner-strength that he had rose above all of that. It was powerful, like a beacon of light that could illuminate a dark cave for a mile ahead. She wasn’t sure how she ever missed it.
Then Jasmine’s thoughts drifted back to Tom. He was mostly good at keeping his inner-cool too, but there was something different about him than Caly. The way he’d gaze at his mother’s crystal horse, the raging hatred and anger he kept buried inside of him, that little boy desperate for love but at the same time pushing it away. She shuddered, the memory of his intensity frightening her a bit.
Tom used to preach to Jasmine before she arrived in Washington how much he loved her. How he wanted to spend the rest of his life making her happy, and he had so much to offer her. Not physically, but inside of her soul. He said he saw something special in her, something amazing and no one had ever said that to her before.
Jasmine closed her eyes at the memory, the sound of his voice on the phone making all these promises and declarations she was so eager to believe because she’d had so little love in her life. The fact that someone saw her that way made her feel special, important. That meant the world to her.
But now, what was between them? Had things changed simply because they were no longer in the fantasy world of the phone and the Internet? Where did Tom’s anger come from, buried so deep but rushing to be let out like a tidal wave pouring out of a dam. Why didn’t she see it before? When he looked at her, it wasn’t with those warm blue eyes gazing into her soul and soothing it, it was more like he was seeing through her, devouring her from the inside out like a hungry lion.
Maybe it was just her imagination. Her fears of letting someone love her and reality interfering with her fantasy. Maybe there was nothing wrong with Tom, or different about who she thought he was. Maybe she was just being silly and paranoid because everyone’s lives were in danger. That was it, she was sure of it.
Snapping out of her daydream, she realized Caly had parked the car, and he and Sarah were both staring at her with fear and expectancy. Gulping, she slowly dragged herself out of the car. It was now or never.