Page 6 of Rescued By the Great Grim

The air is cool and crisp. It feels like it’s cleaning out my lungs as I pull in breath after deep breath of fresh mountain air into my body. At the southern end of the lake, the over-ten-thousand-feet-high peak of Mount Regan rises majestically against a clear blue sky. Patches of snow cover the north-facing side of the mountain, despite the late-summer season. I haven’t spent much time in the mountainous wilderness, so I visually drink in the spectacular views as I keep breathing the clean air.

I met Johnny and Miriam in the lobby, dressed in a similar outfit to what I wore yesterday. But after they explained the higheraltitude, and I saw what they wore, I put on warmer pants, socks, hiking boots, and grabbed a fleece jacket before we set off. I huddle into my outer garment now as I wait for the others to decide what we’re doing today.

Johnny pilots the small boat across the glass-clear and smooth surface of the lake. Miriam sits beside him, staring over the edge of the boat. Occasionally, she glances at a map on her cell phone. Maybe she’s looking for geographical coordinates. There’s no cell phone reception up here, but GPS signals transfer via satellite.

Finally, she taps Johnny’s shoulder and points to her screen. We must have arrived at the correct spot. For what, I don’t know, but Johnny’s practically vibrating with excitement.

He turns toward me, a weird glimmer in his eyes. He rubs his hands together as if he’s the villain in a movie. Unease unfurls along my spine. “Right,” he says, “time for another lesson. We’re doing pretty much what we did yesterday, but on a bigger scale and from this boat.”

Miriam’s not looking at me. She keeps staring into the water as if its depth contains the answer to a question she’s grappled with for a long time.

“How do I center myself and connect with my element if I can’t touch it?” I’ve never worked magic without actually physically connecting with water.

“Ah,” Johnny says, shooting Miriam a sideways glance. She’s still mesmerized by the water. “You’ll reach out with your senses and connect with the water on the psychic plane.” This seems so straightforward that I’m surprised I haven’t tried it myself before. “Close your eyes,” Johnny tells me. “Picture the three ofus in your mind’s eye, but also put us in the configuration we had yesterday.”

I didn’t know that I could manipulate positions on the psychic plane, but I incorporate what I saw yesterday with where we are today. Soon, the two images merge so that we’re now sitting in a triangle similar to yesterday’s. “Now what?” I ask.

“Watch what Miriam and I do.”

Just like yesterday, Miriam glows intensely, but some of the light rays flow downward, through the boat and into the water. Johnny’s neon-blue threads also spread through the boat and into the water. I mimic his pattern and, to my surprise, immediately feel the calm that always spreads through my body when I’m connected to my element.

“Great,” Johnny exclaims. “Okay, Miriam. You’re up.”

I’m focusing on keeping my connection with the water on the psychic plane and don’t open my eyes to see if Miriam is making another whirlpool, but I feel the boat moving in what feels like a circular pattern. Around and round, we go in lazy circles. If we traveled any faster, I’d probably get dizzy and puke.

This time, Miriam siphons energy from me but in a small but steady stream. She doesn’t grab and pull the way Johnny did. Instead, it feels like power gently trickles through me, cleansing me as it travels from the lake to Miriam.

After a while, the gentle rocking of the boat and the steady funneling of energy lulls me into a trance. And I’m startled when the boat abruptly stops. My eyes fly open to see the boat resting at a slight angle against the exposed lake bottom. Walls of water surround us, and they’re so tall I can no longer see the peak of Mount Regan. Eerily, the swirling liquid walls make no sound.They silently rotate, and I have to look away to avoid getting dizzy.

Johnny’s stomping around the bottom in boots covered in mud. “Where is it?” he shrieks, and water barriers weirdly absorb the words. “You said this is where it would be.” He advances on Miriam, who’s also standing at the bottom of the lake right next to the boat.

She looks at the gadget in her hand. “According to the coordinates, it should be right here.”

“What are we looking for?” I ask, but the other two ignore me.

“It’s obviously not,” Johnny snarls. “Figure out what went wrong and try again.”

“Is it under the mud?” Miriam asks.

“I could help,” I say. “If you told me what it is we’re looking for.”

“Shut up,” they both shout.

And so, with a huff and maybe a small pout, I do. But that unease that started earlier now tingles much more along my spine. What the hell is going on, and what are they looking for?

Johnny comes back to the boat, and his face is so angry that I pull back. He takes no notice of me, however. Instead, he rummages around on the bottom of the boat and lifts out a long pole with a metal hook on the end. I think it’s for manually pulling a boat closer to a dock.

He angrily stabs the hook into the river bottom at regular intervals as he moves in a spiral pattern from the outside of the circular shape toward the center.

“You’re going to damage it if you use the metal end,” Miriam says.

“Shut the fuck up,” he throws over his shoulder, but he flips the pole around and now pokes with the wooden end instead.

Miriam starts to shake. “I can’t hold this whirlpool much longer.” Her voice sounds brittle.

Johnny doesn’t even glance at her as he answers. “Use the conduit.”

It takes me a moment, but when Miriam turns those violet eyes my way, I realize he’s talking about me. I’m the conduit.

---