Read The Crystals of Tlalli: Awakened Affinities Page 4

the fog was muffling her voice.

  She walked cautiously up the hill and slipped on the wet brown grass. She caught the tree next to her and stopped, the bark was rough under her cold wet hand. Rica shivered. Listening with all her might she tried to hear the people again.” Thump ssssss.” The sound had come from the left of her down from the hillcrest. Well at least she had made it to the top; the cabin wasn't too far away now, if this was the right spot. It was so strange to be out in the woods at night in the fog. Everything looked different and sounds were weird and scary. That’s it she was just scarring herself. She took a deep breath and stood up straight. This was not a horror story and she was not the girl who would be ripped apart by some weird crazy guy with a mask on. Stop it!! She told herself. Just breathe.

  Rica started down the hill and fell when her foot caught on a dead fall. Ouch! Pushing herself up Rica cautiously started making her way down the rain-drenched hillside. Rica was wet and covered with dead leafs and grass now. She picked off the dead leaves from her knees only to have them stick to her hands. Rica shook them off and rubbed the mud off as best she could on her wet jeans. She was cold her hands ached with the chill. The smell of damp earth and wet leaves surrounded her with each squishing step. “BAM”, a blinding, blue light lit the fog with an iridescent glow as it hit the water molecules, making a rainbow ring in the fog. The sound seemed to go right through her making her bones ache and the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. Rica stepped forward and the ground under her foot felt liquid. Her foot slipped out from under her. Rica grabbed at the tree branch along her side and stopped. She looked down at the cabin and stared. There was a clear sphere around the area as though a soap bubble had been blown and had settled on the ground. The sides of the bubble glinted with wet rainbow swirls when the light hit it. Rica was close enough to see that there were two men near the cabin. There was a fire burning off to the side in the mud, Rica stared at the fire, it was blue and was burning on the mud but there was nothing there to burn. THUMP! Rica looked back at the men. One was tall and younger looking, dressed in robes that came to his knees with silk pantaloons and tall dark boots. The other was older dressed in fancy renaissance like garb with a quilted dark vest and puffy sleeves. He had tall dark boots on over leather looking pants.

  The men on the hill were focused on each other and didn’t see Rica there. Rica flicked off her little flashlight and put it in her backpack. As she watched the younger man threw what looked like blue fire at the older one and hit him on the shoulder, which caught his vest on fire. The fire was blue but seemed to burn just as well as any other fire. The older man cried out in pain and gestured putting the fire out. He staggered, then called out and thunder rumbled and then lightening shot out from his hand at the younger man making him duck and slip in the mud. Rica tried to back up away from the hill so they wouldn’t see her. The muddy ground gave way and Rica pitched forward and fell heavily sliding downward toward the light and the sound. The sound and the movement of Rica tumbling down the hill drew the older man’s attention.

  He looked back at her and yelled. “Ulrica!” The voice sounded familiar.

  The man threw something on the ground in front of her. Rica fell forward unable to stop she tensed to hit the ground hard, only she didn't hit but seemed to keep going into darkness so dark it was darker than a moonless cloudy night. Silence! Even silence is not the lack of all sound there is always something but this was utter silence. No sound, nothing!

  She kept falling.

  2 – Rescued

  Rica moaned and tried to roll over. It was hot, so hot. She closed her eyes tighter the sun was so bright even through her eyelids. Rica felt stiff her muscles cramped. The memory of the light show on the rain-drenched hill by the cabin came back in vivid clarity. Either the fight she had witnessed was a weird dream or she was losing her mind. Rica could feel the roughdry ground beneath her cheek and hands. Waking up would be good. Rica tried to go back to sleep, rationalizing that if she fell back to sleep she would wake up in her own bed and not here, wherever here was. Rica could feel the skin of her cheek grow hotter as she lay there. Her discomfort grew. Something was definitely wrong with this whole scenario. The ground was sandy and smelled hot. Even the air was hot. Cautiously she opened her eyes, and closed them again hurriedly. This was not right! Where were the cabin, the trees, and the two people she had seen? Rica pushed herself up to sit and opened her eyes again. She was on a ledge about ten feet above the ground. The ledge was attached to a cliff with a straight vertical face that seemed to continue up a long way. Rica looked around. There were rocks and sand as far as she could see! There was something about the sky that just felt different but she couldn’t place what it was.

  This looked like the desert. How had she gotten here? The two people! That was it. They must have kidnapped her and taken her to the desert. Rica laughed out loud at her fantasy. Why would they do that, because you saw their light show? Now that was just nuts. Impossible, no one can throw light. Rica reached up and felt her head for lumps or cuts. No, nothing. Anyway she had seen them throw something before she fell. Rica laughed again. Maybe it had been a flashlight she had seen. No matter what had happened last night today was what she had to worry about. Rica decided that getting her bearing and finding help to get back home was the most important thing.

  Rica opened her backpack and looked inside for any snack or something useful. One stick of gum is all she found and her library books and history notes, her little flashlight and the red envelope her father had given her. The flashlight would come in handy until the batteries ran out, but there was nothing else in there that could help her out of this mess. Rica held the envelope in her hands, staring at it, her father and mother had been acting so strange when they had given it to her. Rica slowly broke the seal of wax and untied the tie. She opened the envelope and looked inside. There was a bracelet with a big blue cut jewel in the center of it with some kind of engraving all-around the edge of it. The bracelet was of woven silver metal about two inches wide it was beautiful. When Rica held the bracelet the jewel in the center glowed. Rica sat and looked at it slowly the glow subsided. She opened the clasp and put it on her left wrist. It felt heavy and warm. When she tried to take the bracelet off again the clasp was gone! Rica looked at the bracelet trying to find the clasp, but there was no clasp anymore, the metal was seamless. Rica sat on the hot ground wondering what to do now.

  First things first, find a way down off this ledge. She looked around and decided going up was out of the question down might be better. The rocky ledge was about ten feet across and slopped gently down. The lowest part of the edge was maybe nine feet above the desert floor, an easy jump. Rica stood up putting her backpack on. She was a little stiff but no injuries that she could see. Her pants were still damp where she had lain with leaves and mud from her slide down the wet hillside so she knew she hadn’t imagined it all. She walked to the edge and sat down. Rica slid forward on her bottom and hopped down, so far so good.

  There didn’t seem to be any roads or trails around the area that she could see so Rica picked a direction and started walking. The ground was rocky and hard to walk on. Soon Rica took her jacket off and stowed it in her backpack. She was thirsty and had no idea how to find water. The sun was a merciless orb and seemed to get hotter as she struggled along what she imagined was a path of some kind. She looked up at the sky and shook her head, she must be seeing things, it looked like there were two moons in the sky. Maybe she was seeing double.

  After a long time walking and falling she told herself over and over that she would soon find a road and someone would stop and take her home. It was a game she played as the hours went by. She made up different scenarios on how she would be rescued. After a time she came to realize if she was going to be rescued it was herself that would do it. As she walked farther she came to a canyon and a path leading into it. Rica’s back hurt, the books in her backpack seemed to grow heavier as the day wore on. Time to lighten the load,
sighing Rica took her books and notes out of the backpack and sat them on the sand. The flashlight was small so Rica put it into the pocket of her jacket and tied the jacket around her waist. The backpack might come in handy so she slung it back on. The piece of gum she chewed and it helped a little with her thirst, but soon she found the sugar made her even thirstier.

  Rica followed the path for some time, the shadows were getting longer, day seemed to be drawing to a close and there was nowhere to get out of the wind that had come up. Rica could hardly see the landscape around her and thought it best to stop before she broke something falling off a cliff in the dark. Taking her little flashlight out she flicked it on. The light was dim and flickered until it went out all together. The batteries had died. Sighing in resignation and exhaustion she put her back to the rock wall and hoped there were no scorpions to sting her as she slept. Though as long as she had walked in this forsaken place she had not seen any sign of life, no insects, no birds, no slithering or crawling things of any kind. No plants not even dead ones. Too