Sky Lands: The Gift Stones Read online

Huddled under the umbrella, we scurried across the campus grounds. I tried to hold the umbrella steady as the wind swept across us in sudden bursts of fury, threatening to tear the umbrella from my hands into the unsteady sky. Mostly, we were too busy jumping puddles and avoiding the streams of rain on the sidewalks to have much conversation. The wind blew away our words anyways, so we were lucky to have heard each other’s names.

  “Audrey.”

  “What? I thought I heard something like ‘Audi’!”

  “AUDREY!”

  “Oh! I’m Kevin.” I reached out a hand. She took it with a moment’s hesitation, seemingly unwilling to compromise her warm embrace around herself by stretching out her arm. Her hand was slender, but she had a solid handshake – the grip took me by surprise. Her fingers were cold from exposure to the night, but her skin was smooth, pale and polished – the handshake like a marble embrace.

  After a while, the wind died down, leaving only the splattering of rain on the taut umbrella fabric and the swishing of water beneath our feet. We took the path towards Bancroft Way, the stone outline of Hearst Gym rising to the side of us. On the other side, a parking structure was visible through the downpour; it was sheltered from the storm by a low ceiling of concrete supported on broad posts and fringed with cluttered bushes.

  As we walked past, the bushes rustled unnaturally. A thick boot splashed into a puddle in front of us. The man was so close I could see the mud speckled on the tan leather of his shoe. I lifted my eyes. He was an enormous man. His physique was apparent even beneath the dirty black sweater he wore. The rain slid across his jacket, dripping from his shoulders onto the ground. He had brown eyes and thick lips, but that was all I could see of his face beneath his ski mask. His hands were massive and gloved in leather, holding a gun pointed at us.

  “Step inside.” He jerked his head, indicating the parking lot. “After you,” he said again, when we only stared back. He motioned with his handgun. I looked at Audrey. Her features were expressionless.

  We walked ahead of him beneath the damp cover of the parking structure. I could feel the stare of the gun on my back. The splatter of his footsteps was right behind mine, as though he might step on my heel. Once or twice, I felt the gun nudging my backpack. Perhaps my thick textbooks would save me from a bullet. A hollow laugh echoed somewhere in the back of my mind, but it disappeared quickly into the darkness of fear. In the lot, a few vehicles were still parked along the sides, but otherwise the place was empty. I looked behind me and saw only the rain falling on the bushes.

  When I turned back, another masked man emerged from behind a parked car. He wore jeans and heavy shoes like his partner, and a sweat-shirt that covered a noticeable thick build, though he was shorter than his companion. “Nice of you two to join us,” he said easily.

  The first man pointed the gun only an inch from my chest. “Give us your money.”

  “I don’t have cash on me.” It was the truth. I’d spent my last dollars on the hot dog. “You can see for yourself.” I reached for my backpack.

  “Slowly!” he shouted. His voice was a boom, so loud I hoped someone would hear him and help us. But it wasn’t until then that I noticed how tense he was. Carefully, I took off my backpack and handed it to him. “Don’t move,” he said. There was a nervous edge to his tone. He knelt on the pavement and unzipped my backpack, rifling through the contents.

  Beside him, his partner stepped forward, confident. Audrey stiffened as he grabbed her wrist and pulled her towards him with, “Well, what have we here?”

  “Hey,” I said, turning to them.

  The next thing I knew, the first man had leapt to his feet, his arm straight in front of him, his gun pointing right at me. “I told you not to move!” he cried. While firing the pistol into my chest.

  I heard a scream. I thought it was Audrey. But then I realized it was the other man, shouting at the same time, his voice small behind the firing explosions, “Fuck! Ray! What the fuck! You lost it, man! You blew your cool! Jesus Christ!”

  And then Ray stopped shooting. For a single moment, everything was suspended in a silence I’d never heard before. The rain stopped falling. People stopped moving. I stopped breathing. And looked down at my chest. There wasn’t a single mark there.

  Slowly, I moved my hands over my body, rubbing my shirt to feel that my chest was completely intact beneath it. I took a deep breath. Nothing was wrong. What happened? I looked up. The two men were staring at me, their eyes so wide, nearly filling the holes of their ski masks. “What the fuck,” the second man whispered.

  Ray swept the gun from side to side. “What the fuck! What the fuck!”

  His gun swung to Audrey. I leapt to push her out of the way. But I was flung backwards, as if I’d run headlong into the side of a huge balloon. I expected to crash hard onto the pavement, but fell on something soft. I looked down. My hand was on the ground and the pavement felt nothing like the slab of stone it should have been. It looked like concrete but had a bounce to it – sleek and chilly, like a film of water.

  Audrey. For a moment, I’d been so preoccupied with the concrete I’d completely forgotten everything else. I looked up to see her walking towards the two men, who both took a step back. Ray’s gun was still pointing at her. His finger tightened on the trigger. In a single movement, Audrey pulled out a silver flash of light that arced through the air and sliced off the end of Ray’s pistol.

  Ray looked at his gun, cut neatly in half. He gasped and dropped it to the ground. The other man took the chance to swing his fist at Audrey’s face. But she caught his fist in her hand. In her other hand, she held a thin line of silver the length of her arm.

  I leaned forward and my face came in contact with the same slippery texture as the pavement beneath me. Astonished, I touched the air. It felt like the concrete had felt. I let out a slow breath. My breath materialized in a fog – but instead of escaping out, it formed a slight circle just beyond my lips, as if there were a curving window of glass in front of me. The mist grew with my breathing before I fell back, confused. I watched as the edges of the circle thinned into a translucency, my solid breath dissolving smaller and smaller. Beyond the disappearing whiteness, I saw Audrey.

  The man whose fist she’d caught was now clutching at it in agony, cursing loudly. The silver line was nowhere to be seen. Ray held a pocket knife, slashing it at Audrey. She dodged him effortlessly, running up a car’s windshield onto the roof. Ray ran to the side of the car and she kicked him across his face, with such violence that he collapsed to the floor. The knife flew from his hand.

  Ray’s partner followed Audrey up the car and tackled her from the side, throwing his whole weight onto her so they fell from the roof onto the concrete. I thought he must have crushed her – she was buried beneath him – but she threw him off, as easily as one might throw back the blankets in the morning. He flew across the lot and landed heavily on his side, groaning. Ray was already a running figure fleeing in the distance, his form barely visible beyond the garage posts. The other man got up and sprinted after his partner, disappearing with a slight limp in his run.

  Audrey watched them go before walking to me. I looked up at her. The air that had held my breath white against it was once again completely clear. But still, all around me, I could feel an invisible film that stretched when I pushed against it, like the inside of an icy bubble.

  Audrey sighed. She reached over and I saw her hand pressed against the space above me, the flesh of her palm flattened. It was as if the bubble had burst and I fell forward onto a concrete that was as hard as stone.

  Audrey knelt, a worried look in her eyes. No more than an hour ago, everything was normal. Now I couldn’t understand what was happening.

  She had a deep gash above her eyebrow, cutting straight to the edge of her temple. She was so close, I could see my own face reflected small and scared in her dark eyes. My cheeks were drained from shock, my hair tangled with perspiration. Looking out from my reflection, I noticed the skin around her eyes
was creased with emotion – worry, or pity maybe.

  “Let’s get you home,” she said.

  Chapter 3