The Crystal Bridge (The Lost Shards Book 1) (6 page)

Chapter 7: Wormhole Songs

A
ren stared at the back of Kaden’s head wondering what was going on inside. His shiny black hair reflected the fluorescent lighting, but no mirrors made an appearance today.

Tracy looked over her shoulder, caught her gaze, and frowned. Aren turned away from her contemplation of Kaden and smiled at Tracy, absorbing some of the surface thoughts of her friend.
She’s mad, but she won’t stay that way. She just thinks I’m still angry with Kaden, which is far from the case, very far from it.
Aren blushed at the thought and coughed into her hands in an attempt to hide the rush of blood to her face.

“You okay, Aren?” Tracy crinkled her forehead. “You’re bright red. Are you getting sick again? You have a fever? My uncle died from an infection after a hospital visit.”

“I’m fine, Tracy. Thanks. And thanks for visiting me. It did make me feel better.”

“Didn’t seem like it.” Tracy sounded like she was trying to seem upset, but she beamed at her friend. “I’m glad you’re back though.”

Aren nodded.
Tracy likes to feel that she makes people happy, which she usually does.
“I’m glad to be back too. I didn’t like—”

“Excuse me ladies, is there something you want to share with the class?” The teacher had called them out and everyone turned to look at the two girls.

Tracy’s smile vanished. “Aren coughed and I was making sure she wasn’t dying! Okay, Mr. Sorensen? Right out of the hospital and all. You know my uncle died from an infection after a hospital visit? Are you trying to kill her?”

Mr. Sorenson’s nostrils quivered with anger, memories bubbling to the surface.
He doesn’t like students talking back to him. His children treat him with contempt and he feels powerless at home. He thinks keeping control in the classroom will help him find control at home.

“I’m fine, Tracy. Sorry, Mr. Sorensen.”

Mr. Sorenson raised a shaking finger and opened his mouth to say something but at that moment met Aren’s storm filled eyes. The fight went out of him and he spluttered, “Oh…yeah…that is…uh…fine. Glad to have you back, Aren. Hope you’re feeling well.” He attempted a smile, shuddered, and looked away.

Aren sighed.
Another typical reaction.

The rest of the class turned back to their studying, snickering at the teacher’s response, except Kaden. He looked back at Aren, met her eyes, smiled, and gave a small wave.

Aren didn’t see any mirrors this time, but she felt a tiny electrical shock pass back and forth between them, prickling the back of her mind. Aren frowned and looked down at her book, then smiled to herself as he turned away, shaking his head in obvious frustration.
I may enjoy this more than I thought I could.

Aren’s eyes scalded like fire on the back of Kaden’s head. He could feel her staring. He’d glanced back and caught her several times. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he contemplated what it might mean.
She must have seen something and is just waiting for me to confirm it
.

He didn’t dare glance back again, feeling like he’d drawn too much attention with the half dozen looks already. Instead, Kaden sat rigid in his chair, staring ahead, but his mind was behind him, tracing every curve of Aren’s face.
She’s so different
.

Kaden wrenched his mind away from the girl and glanced at Mr. Sorensen who looked as bored as his students.
Nothing new
. Someone off to the right yawned, setting off a cascade of stretching and strange noises as the yawn spread like a plague around the room. Kaden couldn’t take the boredom. His mind itched to open his Egg.

Time to just go for it. It would be the perfect experiment, a way to prove once and for all if she saw something.
The idea wavered in his head for a moment before the decision firmed. His Egg came open, filling the room and his mind with shimmering light. He heard an audible intake of breath behind him and to the left.
So she can see it! Might as well give her a bit more.

He pulled a couple images around, feeling them out as he did so. The sensation always surprised him, like being in a dark cave one instant and then in full sunlight the next. Every image overwhelmed him for a brief moment before his brain made sense of all the sensory input.

A circular image hovered before him. He tasted crisp air, heard the sound of the wind rushing through silvery leaves, heard bits and pieces of English mixed with odd, musical sounds, and felt the warmth on his skin from the rising sun as two moons danced along the horizon.

He paused.
English? Never heard that before
. He closed his eyes and mapped in his head more or less where this image hung on the interior of the shell. They tended to shift on him even when his Egg wasn’t open, but he was fairly sure he could find it again.

Maybe I’ll show this one to Aren, find out how much she can see. If she doesn’t run screaming when I turn around.
Kaden frowned. He hadn’t thought of that. He’d been so worried about whether or not she could see the Egg, he hadn’t thought that the experience might scare her away forever.
I guess it’s all up to Aren now.

He glanced back to gauge her reaction and froze as he saw her widened eyes, her mouth open in disbelief. He tried to smile nonchalantly and shrug to give her confidence, but his terror had partially petrified him. His confident shrug and smile came out as a twitch with a weird face.

She didn’t seem to notice. Her eyes danced along the Egg, shifting from image to image. Her eyes stopped and focused just past Kaden, over his shoulder to the glimmering image he’d pulled to the forefront. She leaned forward.

Kaden felt a shift. He glanced toward the interior of his Egg and saw the image he’d been studying glide toward him.
Wait. What?

It was Kaden’s eyes that now widened in shock. Everyone turned to look at him as he shot back in his seat with his eyes crossed, focusing two inches in front of his face. Someone laughed. Kaden felt his extremities tingle as the image touched him and then the world tilted sideways, slipping as Kaden fell through the hole in reality.
Trip number six. Unexpected.

Aren ran her eyes over Kaden’s hair. She’d begun to memorize every feature along the back of his head. It was the first time she’d been allowed to dwell on someone’s features so long without any of the internal landscape bleeding into her mind.

She found it both disturbing and alluring, like standing on the edge of a cliff overlooking the valleys below. It felt beautiful, exhilarating, and frightening at the same time.
So tempting to just jump.
She couldn’t help but let her mind follow the curve of the horizon off into nothingness.

He’s hiding something.
No, everything
. She sighed to herself.
About time someone did!
A girl could go crazy with all this stuff in her head.
She smiled at his rigid pose.
Do you know I’m watching you? Do you?

The air wavered as though a sudden heat wave had erupted in the middle of the closed and air conditioned classroom, Kaden at the epicenter. Aren realized that she hadn’t closed her eyes for several minutes. They felt tight and dry. She blinked, and when her eyes opened the shimmering had gone, but what replaced it sent a rush of air through her teeth as she gasped with shock.

Light blossomed around Kaden, a golden sphere that pulsated and shimmered with warmth and life. Her eyes followed the contours as it grew brighter, gaining strength with each second. The air outside the sphere shifted and swayed.

The sphere sprouted thousands of silver, translucent tentacles that weaved out into the ceiling and walls around them. It reminded her of a sea anemone, though the sight before her put the beautiful animal to shame.

One wispy arm of light passed lazily by her face and wiggled its way out the closed window. She could see it continued on, unbroken, until the trees outside blocked it from view. Some of these waving tentacles were barely visible, tiny wispy threads. Others slashed through the air with massive, tree-trunk sized limbs.

No one else in the classroom reacted or noticed as the silver tentacles intertwined around one another or pierced walls, desks, ceiling, floor, and even bodies as they spiraled away at every angle.
They don’t seem dangerous.

The silver limbs danced around Kaden as though caught in a mild current or invisible breeze. Aren could hear them singing as they swayed past or through her, fragments of a high, sorrowful melody that blended into the hum of the fluorescent lights and the flow of the air conditioner, the counterparts melding with the bustle of life around the room, deepening the beauty of each breath, of every nervous pencil tap, of every cough.

She imagined the silvery arms passing through everything they touched and carrying their songs forever outward into the emptiness of space, a never-ending beauty that only she and Kaden shared. A drop of liquid hit her clasped fingers and she looked down to see that unfelt tears had flowed down her face and puddled on her desk. She blinked them away, noting the images stayed with her even with her eyes closed.

That’s cool.
Aren closed her eyes and hummed to herself, watching the silvery strings around her pulse and sing along with this new sound.
Is this what Kaden sees? What is it?

She opened her eyes and wrenched her attention away from the singing tendrils, forcing herself to look back at Kaden. He sat at his desk in the middle of his golden sphere, encircled by the waving tentacles of light.
He looks comfortable too, very much like he belongs there in the center of all reality.

Aren glimpsed images along the inside shell of light that sprouted out of the base of each of the larger columns that waved around him. Her eyes widened again. She’d been so preoccupied with the limbs themselves, she’d missed this detail. Light danced across Kaden’s face as the images swirled around him without even a touch, his eyes seeming to send them flying. This movement also powered the swaying motions of the tentacles as their bases bounced around the shell like pieces on a game board.

One image arrested her. Kaden held it in front of him longer than the others. She could see a rolling ocean below purple stone, a forest so vast that it could have been a whole continent, and a sky the color of her mother’s eyes with a great red slash through the middle.