The Elementalists Read online

  “One of them is grounded so often that he can’t make any other friends, one is fawned over so much that he has no one else to see through his BS, and Stan is too confused and terrified to let anyone else in on his secret.”

  Audrey threaded Chloe’s arms through the holes and pulled the dress into place, tying the waistline into a thin bow at her back and tugging out a couple of kinks in the skirt. It reminded them both of the way that Audrey had dressed Chloe as a child and filled them both with unspoken contentedness. Next Audrey grabbed a brush and started in on Chloe’s tangle of hair. Something about the methodical working of the teeth through her locks robbed Chloe of her intent to protest further.

  The dress fit perfectly, and Chloe turned her head slightly to get a better look, noticing the little victorious smirk on her mom’s face. The satin band cinched at Chloe’s slim waist made her well-defined shoulder line pop, and the high bust line was countered by a sexy crisscross of straps that ran down the back. The skirt flared perfectly in delicate, overlapping layers of silk that masked Chloe’s spindly legs, but not so much that it looked overdone or impeded her easy movement.

  With her hair brushed out and the intricate silver bracelet that had been her grandmother’s clasped at her wrist, Chloe had to admit that she looked pretty good.

  “See,” said Audrey, going for her long-unused makeup kit.

  For once, Chloe had no ready retort, unable to suppress the stir of excitement that the image in the mirror brought out of her. Audrey returned with a dab of rouge for both cheeks, which she worked in gently with her finger. Chloe shut her eyes and relished the feel of her mom’s calloused, capable hands. She stood at silent attention as Audrey moved in with a little eyeliner and a few gentle strokes of mascara and lipstick.

  “Now open your eyes and take notice of the gorgeous young woman in the mirror,” Audrey commanded from behind her.

  Chloe did as she was told and added a little more natural red to the makeup on her cheeks. She doubted she had ever looked so good in her life, and the long imprisoned girly girl inside her blinked into the sunlight.

  “I guarantee that when you walk into that dance tonight, every guy there is going to notice you, too,” added Audrey with an impromptu kiss at Chloe’s ear. Chloe caught her mother’s proud gaze in the mirror, and both were glassy-eyed and swelling with emotion in an instant.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t get you a new dress, honey. That’s what you deserve,” said Audrey with a tear spilling down her cheek.

  “No, Mom. It’s perfect,” Chloe said, trying not to unleash a flow that would ruin her makeup. She stared at the ceiling and exhaled dramatically.

  As Audrey delved back into the closet for matching shoes, Chloe turned to admire her back in the mirror, standing on her toes and looking at the curve of her butt through the fabric. Once Audrey was completely buried in the closet, Chloe even allowed herself a quick spin, just to see how the skirt flared midtwirl.

  I’m making this too easy on her. “Hey, Mom, don’t bother,” she said. “I’m just gonna wear my Chucks.”

  Audrey emerged from the closet with wide eyes and flaring nostrils before Chloe broke into a giggle.

  • • •

  Despite the peep-toe heels, Chloe bounded down the stairs two at a time.

  “You’re going to twist an ankle!” Audrey warned from her bedroom.

  Chloe ignored her, leaping to the foyer with a little wobble and a smile. She was feeling less apprehensive about the costumed role she’d agreed to play that night and had even consented to getting dropped off at Stan’s house so that she might do her part to sell his false heterosexuality to his parents before the mortifying main-stage event.

  Shipwreck was watching from the back of the sofa with a look that said, and what are you supposed to be? The cat had kept an uncharacteristic distance for several weeks.

  Chloe gave him a spin. “Hey, buddy, how do I look?”

  He just stared, then yawned.

  “Who asked you, anyway?” she challenged before heading out the back door. Audrey had to get ready for the night shift at Pete’s, and Chloe wanted to take a quick head-clearing walk around the bend before it was time to begin the torture.

  It felt oddly liberating to be walking out in the sunlight for anyone to see her in the fancy getup. It was almost like Halloween, her favorite holiday.

  She looked back to see Shipwreck slink out of his cat door and start following in feline stealth mode. Ever since she’d nursed him back to health, he’d been a little less graceful than he thought he was. He hunkered among some spindly weeds by the barn and tracked her movement as if he were stalking her from a point of total concealment.

  Chloe rolled her eyes and headed for the street, wanting to get a better feel for the uncomfortable footwear before she’d have to make a public show of it. She brushed a wayward strand of hair from her face as she stared along the pavement with a little extra sway to her step. Ahead, the streetlight came into view from around the curve in the road—something about it drew her forward.

  She stopped beneath the pole and stared up at the pristine metal of the arching lamp arm—not a speck of bird crap or graffiti in sight. Littered in the grass around the base, she found shards of plastic from what might have been a shattered bulb cover, but she couldn’t be sure. She glanced around to catch Shipwreck’s question mark tail following through the tall grass by the storm drain, but her attention was drawn across the street toward the little pull-off beside the trailhead.

  There, beneath the dappled shadows, the pavement was gouged and cracked. She crossed and knelt to examine a series of marks that tore at least six inches deep into the concrete. They looked like puncture holes… Chloe moved to a large rock by the side of the road and climbed up to get a better vantage. Her heels wobbled on the uneven surface, but from above, the pattern was instantly recognizable as animal footprints.

  She’d once spent an autumn tracking and sketching various animal prints throughout the woods along the trail. But then she had been following raccoon and deer tracks over muddy and moss-covered ground and not what appeared to be some giant thing across pavement.

  Each print had five thick, hooking claws. The last set, closest to the center of the street, was surrounded by spiderweb impact cracks in the pavement. Recognition stirred from deep within her subconscious. Five claws, just like Dr. Liou said…

  Curiosity took control. She hastily jumped down and followed the prints back toward the woods. The same pattern of deep gouges in the gravel ran along the side of the road and then again through the leaves and dirt at the edge of the trees. A large patch of bark was shorn from the trunk of an oak about ten feet up and then again on an elm, where scrapes of blonde, sap-covered wood had been exposed.

  Chloe stepped to the rough terrain at the forest’s edge and grabbed a tree branch to keep from toppling over. She was reaching down to unbuckle her shoes, when she sensed a large form in the street behind her. She spun quickly with a feral yell, only to snap her mouth shut as Kirin’s eyes went wide from within his familiar Grand Wagoneer.

  Chloe righted herself awkwardly and smoothed back her hair as Kirin lowered the passenger side window and raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I was just driving by and…what are you doing?” he asked with a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

  What am I doing? “I was just…looking for my cat?” she offered with more of a question than she’d intended.

  Kirin looked across the street and pointed to where Shipwreck was sniffing around the base of the streetlight. “Is that him?” he asked as Shipwreck stiffened and met Chloe’s gaze from across the street. The cat took off like a bolt back toward the house before Chloe could respond.

  Typical. “Yeah, that’s him,” she responded, stepping closer to the Jeep and suddenly starting to feel self-conscious about the outfit.

  “I think he’s getting away,” he joked, though he was staring at her intently.

>   She swallowed. “It’s okay, he’s headed home; I live right around the corner.”

  Kirin’s eyes drifted down her body in a way that sent a tickle up Chloe’s spine. “I thought you didn’t believe in going to Homecoming?” he added quietly.

  “I don’t,” she blurted, “It’s just that I’m doing Stan a favor by going.”

  “Oh, wow, to what does the lucky Stan owe this great honor of your presence?”

  “I didn’t mean it like that!” Chloe was flustered. “It’s just that he likes someone else and wants to go to save face or something, and he asked if we could go as friends.”

  Kirin laughed and put up his hand to silence her. He reached across the seats and opened the passenger door for her. “Get in, I’ll drive you home.”

  “I live right there,” she said.

  “I know, but it looks like you’re having trouble in those heels, and I came here hoping to find you, though I wasn’t expecting…this.” His cheeks turned a little red and he looked back at the road.

  Chloe climbed in and slammed the door a little too hard, hearing Liz’s voice in her head, counseling her to flaunt the natural curve of her back and accentuate her butt. Instead, she shifted uncomfortably in the seat and felt the exposed skin between crisscrossing straps stick to the faux leather of the seatback. She, too, stared straight ahead.

  Kirin glanced over, like he was going to say something, but then he switched gears into ‘DRIVE’ and started to roll.

  “Wait!” blurted Chloe, bringing them to an abrupt stop.

  “What?”

  Chloe pointed at one of the giant five-clawed prints in the road before them, needing a final confirmation that what she saw was really there. “What does that look like to you?”

  Kirin stared at the pavement for a long moment as Chloe held her breath. “What, you mean the holes in the road?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know.” Kirin seemed genuinely baffled. “A dinosaur crossing?” he suggested.

  Chloe exhaled slowly. “That’s what I thought, too…kind of weird, right?”

  Kirin chuckled. “Hey, maybe it’s one of my dad’s dragons?”

  A shudder passed through Chloe, and she started to laugh nervously. Kirin was looking right at her, and she immediately lost the nerve to delve any further into that subject. “How are you out and about anyway?” she diverted. “I thought you were under house arrest for another week.”

  The Jeep started to roll again, and in moments, Chloe’s house came into view. She could see Audrey bustling about the back of the Honda CR-V, now wearing the dress whites of Positive Pete’s.

  “My dad let me out to buy groceries for a mandatory father/son barbecue tonight, and I’m taking the long way around.” He snuck another glance at Chloe out of the corner of his eye. “How are you getting to the dance anyway? Is Stan picking you up? I heard his van got pretty messed up a couple weeks ago.”

  Chloe wondered how much of that story Kirin might have heard. “He’s going to borrow his dad’s car, but my mom is dropping me off at his house first. He wants me to play it up a bit in front of his parents or something.”

  Without needing direction, Kirin steered the Grand Wagoneer into the leisurely turn from the road and bumped down into the gravel driveway toward Audrey and the CR-V. Chloe met her mother’s gaze through the windshield and watched as her initial confusion at the Jeep’s arrival gave way to a little smile.

  “That must be your mom,” he said as he turned off the ignition. “She looks just like you.” He got out without prompting and walked toward Audrey, extending his hand for a shake.

  Yeah, right! I wish. Chloe scrambled to catch up.

  “Sorry to barge in, Ms. McClellan. I just found Chloe walking through the woods in a cocktail dress and thought I’d bring her home.” He and Audrey shook hands. “I’m Kirin Liou, a friend of Chloe’s from school.”

  “Oh, I know who you are, Mr. Liou,” Audrey said playfully. “You’re the one who got my daughter to cut class for the first time in her life.”

  Chloe shot her mom a look of warning. Audrey laughed.

  Kirin responded with a guilty but charming shrug. “Yes, that was me. But I want you to know that after countless hours of grounding, I have seen the error of my ways and reapplied myself to my studies,” he declared with a mischievous smirk.

  “I hope not,” said Audrey. “Chloe could use a little more reckless fun in her schedule,” she added with a conspiratorial whisper.

  Kirin broke into his disarming laugh, and Chloe could see that he’d won over her mom then and there. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Well, it was very nice to finally meet you, Kirin. I’ve certainly heard a lot about you.” She turned to see Chloe wince—already aware what her mother was about to say. “And I really hate to cut this short, but unfortunately, I have to get to work soon. Honey, you about ready to go face the music?”

  Kirin spoke up. “I could drop her off at Stan’s if that would be any help. I’m headed that way, and this is probably the only nonfamilial human interaction I’ll get all weekend.”

  Audrey glanced back to Chloe with big eyes and registered her daughter’s faint nod. “Yes, that would be very helpful,” she said. “You see, honey, maybe you should dress up more often?”

  • • •

  They drove down the winding street above Charlottesville in relative silence. Chloe held the Googled directions to Stan’s house, and her voice called out the first turn with focused purpose, but her stomach was buzzing with a nervous spark.

  Kirin’s fingers thrummed an anxious rhythm against the top rim of the steering wheel. He tried to focus on the twisting road, but Chloe could feel his glances out of the corner of his eye. The air between them seemed to vibrate as the Jeep came to a trembling stop at the first traffic light. There were no other cars in sight, and the first few seconds ticked by like minutes.

  “I’m really glad I found you,” Kirin said, breaking the expectant silence. “My uncle located my grandmother—just today, in a makeshift shelter in Xining.” His smile was genuine and full of relief. “She’s banged up and hungry, but otherwise okay.”

  “Oh my god, Kirin, that’s amazing.” Before she knew it, Chloe found her arms wrapped around him and her face pressed into his shoulder. He smelled like the beach in summertime, and the little spark in her gut instantly spread throughout her extremities.

  Thankfully, he let go of the wheel and hugged her back, with his cheek tucked in to the top of her head, and his hands pressed to the spaces between the straps at her back. She was keenly aware of her own skin, appreciative of its existence in a way she’d not known before. The delicate tickle of a static charge gathered in his jacket and her hair.

  The curt blast of a car horn ruined the moment, and they disengaged with matching self-conscious looks. Together they glanced to the impatient man in the pick-up truck behind them, and then to the waiting green light ahead.

  Kirin straightened with a chuckle and drove through the intersection into a more residential neighborhood. “My father is trying to work it out so that she can come here and live with us for a while until the region stabilizes a bit.”

  “I’m so happy for you,” Chloe said. “It must be such a relief.”

  “Yeah, we’re celebrating tonight, but you were the first person I wanted to tell… I feel like we haven’t gotten a chance to really talk in a while.”

  “Me too,” she said. “I’ve missed talking to you.”

  “Me too.” His eyes met hers for just a second before returning to the road, but there was a lot of look in that moment.

  Chloe focused back on the directions. “Take a left at Vanderbilt.”

  “I was wondering, have you been back to the pond since we went?” he asked mid-turn.

  “No,” Chloe answered, feeling the loss of her favorite place more acutely by acknowledging it. “Ever since cross-country started, I haven’t been able to find the time to do much of anything, let alone extr
a running in the woods.”

  “It’s too bad,” said Kirin. “I only went there that once, but for some reason I find myself thinking about it sometimes. I even tried to find it once on my own, but got turned around in the trees and had to backtrack my way out of there,” he admitted.

  “Really? You should have called me; I would have shown you.”

  “No, I mean it’s too bad that you haven’t been back,” he amended. “I feel like that’s your spot, you know—your secret place where the weather changes and the animals gather just for you… I kind of had a spot like that in Santa Cruz, a certain wave break that only I and a couple others knew about, where things just seemed to happen for me, you know?”

  He looked at her for a moment and then back to the road. “It’s what I miss most about California. I kind of feel like I betrayed that spot in the ocean, or maybe I betrayed myself by leaving.” He smiled, trying to diffuse the seriousness of his words in case she thought it was weird. “I just feel like you shouldn’t make that same mistake, just because it’s scary or because strange things happen when you’re there. Maybe that’s the land trying to talk to you?”

  Chloe was quiet for a long moment, trying to wrap her head around the perfection of what he’d said. “Thanks, Kirin.”

  “I still dream about that spot in the ocean almost every night, but the last time I went surfing there I was bumped by a pretty big shark, and I totally lost my nerve to go back for the last couple months we were there. It’s my biggest regret.”

  “I’m not sure I would ever go into the ocean again after that,” Chloe admitted with wide eyes before looking back at the directions. “Turn right at the stop sign. It’ll be the third house from the corner.”

  Kirin turned. “Why not? The shark was at home, more at home than I was there, and it came up to say hello. I feel like it was just acknowledging my presence, maybe even welcoming me, and yet I reacted with fear. Now in my dreams, I think it’s trying to talk to me, and I can almost understand what it’s saying, right up until I wake up.”