Chapter Twenty-One
On the cot, Aidan huddled with the quilt wrapped tightly around his frame, and a bowl of canned chili keeping his hands warm as he took one bite after another. The room had cooled quite a bit since sundown. The light from the ventilation pipe was absent, and he could feel the cool air penetrating the stone walls.
“I’ll probably freeze to death,” he kept saying to himself as he struggled to stay warm. He had tried the swirling orb, but he was afraid to heat it up too much – Holly told him it could explode, and he definitely did not want to risk that.
For now, the orb merely took the edge off the icy cold, and Aidan was reminded of the time his dad took him tent camping in the snow. He loved the ice fishing in the morning and the jokes at the campfire, but sleeping in the winter night and hearing the crunch of snow from animals scurrying about outside the tent that creeped him out.
Now he would do anything to hear one of his dad’s lame jokes. He wondered how his dad was faring in Utah, packing up his family’s life, unaware of the otherworldly problems creeping into the Tanner family.
He set his bowl of finished chili in the bathroom sink and shuffled to the cabinet, the tattered quilt still wrapped around his shoulders and trailing behind him on the stone floor. Rummaging around, he finally found what he was looking for – a checker board complete with the red and black plastic disks.
He laid the board out on the floor, taking his time to perfectly place the checkers in their designated spots. He imagined his dad sitting across from him, pretending to not know how to play the game at which he was really a master.
Minutes passed, Aidan playing both sides of the board. “King me,” his voice whispered, the vapor from his warm breath billowing for a second and then dissipating.
As he reached to place the red checker on top of the other, another hand intervened out of nowhere and placed it for him. A voice sang, “Kinged.”
His eyes shot up to see her standing there in the room, her red hair gleaming in the faint glow of the dying orb.
“How did you—” he turned to look at the door, but it was closed, and he knew he would have heard the rumble of the exterior door if she would have come from that direction anyway.
“I have my ways,” Erin smiled and sat across from him on the other side of the board. “Mind if I play?”
Aidan shrugged and didn’t reply. He just let her make a move and then he mechanically moved his own pieces. His mind was filled with unanswered questions.
It was hard enough to believe that there was a group of magical creatures who wanted to sacrifice him – that went against all of his logic and knowledge. Then to think that this woman, Erin, could manifest out of the air defied all sanity.
But he’d not believed that mountain walls could move and open up with the touch of a hand, and he’d seen that happen.
“You know that this place is a prison, right?” She held a black checker between her long fingernails, bouncing it along to capture two of his checkers.
“Maybe it once was, but I’m safe in here.” He didn’t know what Erin was. For all he knew, she could be one of those Sidhe that Holly warned him about. Had she somehow broken through the defenses and was here to finish him off? That thought didn’t leave his mind.
“What did she tell you? Someone is trying to kill you and that she will protect you?”
Aidan moved one of his checkers and sighed. “What else should I believe?”
“Well, you could start by not doing whatever it is that she tells you to do. That would be a great start.” She moved one forward, right across from the one he just moved.
“And if I don’t do what she tells me, then what happens to me? What happens to my family?” He took his turn without lookup at her.
“Destiny. That’s what happens.” She moved another black checker diagonally from Aidan’s, setting him up for the kill. “So do you do what she tells you, or do what you feel is right?”
He stared at the board and thought of the paths that lay before him. One, he could stay in this room as Holly told him, and she could take care of everything else. Two, he could beg her to let him out, which she probably wouldn’t, and three, he could try to fight against what appeared to be magical forces. “It seems I don’t have much of a choice, really.”
Erin stood and walked to the orb. “I think this cold is chilling your mind. Let me turn this up a bit.”
The swirls of the orb burned orange, heat emanating across the room and warming Aidan. The room actually warmed to the point where he no longer shivered, and he could actually remove the quilt.
“Now, Aidan,” she sat back across from him, awaiting his move on the board. “Not all things are determined in life, but you have a very important decision to make here. Holly has entranced you, and you must break that spell. You must see past the visage she has placed in your mind. If you don’t, life as you know it will never be the same, regardless of whether or not you live or die.”
He looked down at his hands, unsure of what she meant and especially untrusting of the woman who had obviously entranced his own father. “Maybe you’re the siren here,” he shot at her.
Erin just looked at him with kindness in her eyes. She didn’t even flinch, didn’t even become angry. “I assure you, I’m no siren. I’m many things, but siren I am not. If you decide to stop following Holly, I will come back and help you escape, but not until you decide that it’s what you want. Until then, you will be on your own.” She stood and pointed at the checker pieces, still in line for the kill. “But you’ll have to decide tonight. In fact, here she comes.”
Erin’s form began to fade, like an apparition departing from a dream. All the particles which made up her form shrank, disappeared, or flew to a center point which would have held her heart. And then she was gone and a grain of light floated mid-air, but her voice echoed in the chamber. “Decide for yourself, Aidan Tanner.”
The speck of light floated upward through the ventilation grate until Aidan could no longer see the beam of its light.
He stared back at the black and red squares, hearing the faint rumbling of the rock wall above. A minute later, the heavy door slid open and Holly trounced in, her bracelets jingling, and her face full of warmth.
“How has your day been, Aid?” She waited for him to answer, but when he didn’t she kept on. “Well, mine was busy. You cannot believe how hard it is to juggle five things at once. Be grateful that you’re just a kid so you don’t have to worry about things.”
“I worry about plenty,” he muttered, too low for her to hear.
She hefted a reusable shopping bag onto the trunk by the cot and started unloading sodas, candy bars, bags of chips – all of the things Aidan normally indulged in, but he couldn’t get Erin’s words out of his mind.
Seems she’s placating me to keep me quiet.
“You playin’ some chess?” Holly asked over her shoulder, still unloading junk food.
“Checkers, actually. Where are Fallon and Kaylee?” He continued to stare blankly at the board, listening intently to the tone in her voice – maybe she would give up some information in the subtleties of her words.
“Oh, yeah.” She said it like the status of his siblings had totally slipped her mind. “They’re with Quinn and Keiran. No problem there.”
“I thought Quinn was protecting my mom and dad?” Aidan asked, hoping to not sound too accusatory.
“Yeah, but when he heard what was happening, he just came home to help keep your brother and sister safe.” She turned around, grinned at Aidan, and tossed him a bag of cheesy puffs. He caught them before they hit the checker board.
“And my mom and dad? What’s being done about them?” he pressed further.
“Well I gave them a call and they’re just fine. I called the local chapter of… well, folks like me… and they said they’d look after your mom and dad.”
“So you called two chapters?” Aidan asked for clarification, sure he’d caught her in some kind o
f flub.
“Oh, well, yes. Of course I called two chapters. One in New Mexico and one in Utah. Now,” she moved the rocking chair next to Aidan and offered it to him, “why don’t you eat up so that you can get your little mind off of them for a while. If you sit here thinking about it too much, you’ll just make yourself sick.”
He didn’t bother correcting her this time. He knew his grandparents lived in Arizona and not New Mexico. Apparently Holly wasn’t as smart as she liked people to believe – or at least whatever plan she had laid out wasn’t as airtight as she believed.
“You can sit there. I’m fine on the ground.” He indicated the rocking chair she offered to him.
She reluctantly sat down, “Well, I guess sitting for a minute won’t harm anything. But I do have to be back soon.” Her mind seemed to wander and then she looked back at Aidan. “To help with your brother and sister.”
Another fake smile. He was getting used to spotting those.
“Okay, whatever you need to do is fine with me.” He pinched the sides of the orange bag, popping it open, the processed fake cheese wafting in his nostrils. He loved the smell of a fresh bag.
Holly rocked the chair forward and looked down at the checkerboard on the floor. “So, are you like those chess masters who play both sides of the board, or what?” she teased.
“You could say that,” Aidan muttered between bites of air-puffed sin, his fingertips turning orange with each piece he finished.
“Seems it wouldn’t work too well for checkers,” she remarked, leaning back and sighing.
“Well, I don’t have anyone else to play with.”
“True.” She glanced about the room and an uncomfortable silence followed.
“Well.” She stood from the chair and grabbed her green-cloth bag. “I should be going.”
“Already?”
“It’s almost bedtime for you, anyway. Besides, you need your rest. Tomorrow will be a busy, busy day. Enjoy the snacks, and I’ll see you in the morning.”
She twiddled her fingers in a playful wave goodbye as she went out the door, sealing it behind her, and the rumbling from further up the mountain’s interior followed shortly after.
Aidan popped another cheese puff into his mouth, chomping loudly in the otherwise silent room. He picked up his red checker and jumped the black disc.
“Game on, Holly.”