Erasing: Shadows (The Erasing Series) (2 page)

***

“Mira,” said Michael, once they were alone in their bedroom, “you remember what to do and where to go, right?” As distraught as he felt, Michael was still the cautious one. Michael recalled that Mira had always had more of the spirit of adventure in her. That was one of the things he loved about her. But now…

But now she looked defeated, tears still in her eyes. The trauma of seeing Brandon taken right in front of her seemed to have rendered her helpless. He couldn’t stand to see her like this. It wasn’t like Mira at all. This wasn’t the first time in her life she had lost someone, and Michael wondered if that was having an effect. He didn’t bring it up, however.

“Sweetie,” Michael asked again. “You remember the McArthur house in the other world, in the astral, right? The study? It’s just like the one here. And if anything goes wrong, we go to the Emergency Meeting Place.”

“Yes, Michael,” Mira finally answered. “I remember.” But her head dropped low, and she sounded distracted.

“And you remember how old to be, right?” said Michael with a worried look at his wife. He picked up her hand again and held it gently. Concerned, Michael asked, “Are you sure you’re up to this? I could just go.”

He could see that Mira was obviously still distraught, complete with tears running down black with mascara. Lack of complete concentration in the astral world was dangerous. Michael hoped he could make up for the distracted state Mira was in, but it had been a long time since they traveled to the astral. Traveling was something from their youth that they did with their old gang. They were settled down into family life and had been for a long time.

“Stop worrying about me!” Mira frantically shook his right shoulder. “We can’t wait another minute, and you can’t go alone. We never travel alone, you know that.”

Michael kissed his wife on the forehead. She did remember the safety rules they had created in the past.

“Okay,” Mira sighed. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”

And with that, Michael Mason Ross and his wife Mira lay down, closed their eyes, went into a deep meditative state, and moved their consciousness elsewhere from their bedroom.

Chapter Two

And Now I Am Nine?

Mira was falling. She didn’t know where. Her arms were hitting rocks. All she could see as she tumbled was a dark and foreboding sky. Then a dark forest. She closed her eyes. She smelled…hay.

The next thing she knew, she was sitting on the ground cross-legged. The gravel underneath her legs dug into her skin leaving imprints. A gentle breeze blew. The nighttime scenery was no longer scary. A full moon out blazed across the sky, and she could see a line of pretty oak trees down a lane. Some sort of creek or pond lay just beyond

Not quite sure where she was...searching her mind for memories, but only a jumble rattled around. She was nine? Was this a dream? If so, it certainly felt real. Taking stock of herself Mira saw her shoes were scuffed. When she reached to smooth her hair, her fingers got tangled. Then she touched her face and realized smudges were all over it, having had her hands on the ground.
Way to go.
Was she even nine? How did she know she was nine? The oak trees above her had no answers. The gentle moon peeking out from behind the clouds made the surroundings look magical.

She surveyed the landscape. Now she remembered. It was her family farm. Her house was right over the hill, which meant she must have been playing and fallen down for a minute. She got up and wiped some of the dirt off of her pants. Then nine-year-old Mira headed to the place she knew as home without any thoughts of future husbands in her head.

Coming up on the old chicken house, she saw Paul, her older brother. The smell of the old boards and manure of other animals was unmistakable. Then the chicken feathers, they had that musty stink of their very own.

Something…information…memory…flashed in her quickly but then disappeared. She ran up and hugged Paul.

“What’s that for, kiddo?” asked Paul. And then, “Wow, you look a mess! You have smudges all over your face and dirt all over your pants. What have you been into?” He stopped for a minute to gaze at her.

“I don’t know. I was just lost,” she answered.

“You get lost every day, kiddo, the way you wander around, and you’re out way past dark.” His face looked disapproving, but his tone showed that he was failing miserably at sternness. Mira knew Paul played out in the wild as much as she did. She gave him a hug.

Everything felt normal again with Paul by her side. She knew that next there would be hot chocolate while everyone sat around the living room and laughed and talked until bedtime. Still, an uneasy feeling she couldn’t quite put her finger on, stayed with her.

When she went to bed that night, under the quilts her mother had made, the uneasy feeling almost disappeared.

But then she dreamed.

Mira was sitting on the ground again, not quite sure where she was. She was nine. She searched her mind for memories, but it was a jumble. Was this a dream? Just as she had earlier, she smelled hay, and the gravel underneath her legs was leaving imprints. Her shoes were scuffed, and her hair was tangled. Was she nine? If so, how did she know?

Only this time a boy approached her. She looked up quizzically. He didn’t look familiar. He had brown hair and was kind of short, but she could tell he would grow quite a bit with age.

“I’m Michael,” he said, as if she were expecting him.

“I’m Mira.”

At that, he looked concerned.

***

Michael had waited and waited at the McArthur house replica then finally came over to the Emergency Meeting Place.

“What’s your last name, Mira?”

“Thomas,” she answered. “Why?”

Thomas was her maiden name. Looking even more concerned, Michael asked, “How old are you, Mira?”

“My, aren’t you nosy!” she said good-naturedly. “I’m nine.”

Michael felt sick. Mira didn’t even realize she was at the Emergency Meeting Place. He figured she probably just astral traveled from her astral family farm too.
Damn.

Michael surveyed her physically. She was supposed to be at least twelve, if not older. He was kind of surprised that he, himself was only twelve and not sixteen, which was his age the last time he traveled. However, it had been a long time since they had come here. All those trips together and for what? He supposed he had regressed a bit since his last time out too. Except Mira was a prodigy. There was no way she should have been nine years old.

“I’m twelve. I thought you might be twelve too,” he said carefully, so as not to upset her.
Why hadn’t she been at the study as we planned?

“Hey, I know a lot for my age!” Her lip protruded in a pout.

“Oh, I don’t doubt that. Well, it was nice to meet you, Mira. I have to go find some of my friends,” said Michael, rushing away to hide his fright
.
This has all gotten out of control!

“Are you sure you have to go?” Mira asked before he had gotten away.He turned around. “Yes, I’m sure, but maybe we’ll see each other again. Right now, I have to go help a friend in trouble.”

“Oh.” She seemed to understand that.

“Well, I hope everything turns out okay. Thanks, Mira.” He all but ran over the hill. He wanted to hide his facial expression from her. He was close to tears. Or perhaps it was just teenage emotions having their way with him. Either way, Mira had obviously lost all recall of the situation. She was not in the real world. She was not nine. She was actually astral traveling and the world she was in was only a replica—to a point—of her real world. Worst of all, she had forgotten that Michael was her husband, though somewhere far, far away.

He doubted very much she’d think their encounter more than a dream. Despite the fact she had been astral traveling since she was four, she hadn’t remembered him, or that this was not the real world. He bet in a few minutes she would be back at her mind-conceived farmhouse, asleep. He hadn’t figured out how to counter-act that yet. He needed his friends. And God, maybe even Stu. But no, he didn’t trust him. In any case, it had just been too long since he and Mira had traversed these realms.

***

When Michael returned to the real-world Ross house, exhaustion swept through his body. A train wreck of emotions played with his stomach. He looked beside him to the empty space next to him on the bed and hung his head. He guessed the trauma had been too much for Mira. It was still bright afternoon here, as time in the two worlds moved at a decidedly different pace—something novices learned right away. Time could go by in days, weeks, or even years in the other world, though few had experimented that far, while only hours passed in real-world time. It was the real-world time that one had to keep track of, and simultaneously, or one could accidentally go missing in the real world after just a few minutes in the astral. And it was never the same. Hence, their previous travels had all been short jumps. Sometimes they found they’d been gone minutes. Other times, they’d missed dinner.

He opened the bedroom door. “Kids?” he called. “Is Brand—”

Madison, who had returned from swim practice, interrupted him. “He’s fine. Morgan is in the living room feeding him Cheerios.”

“Thank God,” he sighed. “Is your mother here anywhere?”

“Mom? We thought she was with you,” Madison replied.

The sick feeling stirred again in Michael’s stomach. His fears were confirmed. “Well, she was—”

At this point, Morgan, who had come to lean against the kitchen door, said, “Dad, have you lost Mom now?”

Michael replied. “I’m just not sure what she’s up to. Let’s give it a few minutes.”

Madison spoke. “Give it a few minutes? She’s
missing
! And apparently while I was gone, B-R-A-N-D-O-N,” she spelled out his name so as not to alarm the baby “went missing too!”

Mrs. Ross, who sat in the rocking chair crocheting, looked up. “She’s lost is she? You know Brandon just appeared in the living room, wanting Cheerios—
that
problem hasn’t been solved yet either.”

Brandon came toddling in and took hold of Morgan’s hand. “Where’s Mama?”

Michael picked up Brandon and swung him around. “Mom will be home soon, slugger.” He forced a smile on his face. Michael could tell from the look in his daughters’ eyes that they didn’t believe him. They were right. He didn’t believe himself. Not at all.

***

After waiting a half-hour amidst dirty looks from his mother, Michael Mason Ross decided it was time to enact crisis mode. “Everyone, I need your cooperation. Not everything I do is going to make sense to you, but I need you to bear with me and do what I say. We need to get your mother back.”

His tone was serious, and everyone nodded assent. Mrs. Ross looked up and nodded her head approvingly.

“Where exactly is she?” asked Madison.

“No time to go into that, dear,” said Mrs. Ross. “When you’re older.”

Madison looked thoughtful.

Michael gave a grateful look to his mother. She really was on the ball sometimes. “Mom, can you look after the kids? I need to go out and round up some troops.”

“Of course, dear.” She kept crocheting.

“Madison and Morgan,” he said in a serious tone, “keep a close watch on Brandon.”

“We will, Dad,” Madison answered for both of them. Morgan took Brandon’s hand and led him back to the T.V.

“Mom, I’ll be back as soon as I can,” said Michael. He went to the kitchen and threw down a couple Tums.

“I know, dear,” said Mrs. Ross. “Go find your friends.”

Michael looked at his mother. He could swear sometimes she knew more than she was letting on. Then he went out the door.

Next he headed to the nearest quiet place he could find—a park down the street—and took out his cell phone. He scrolled down to numbers he hadn’t called in years, though they often still texted each other. He called his brother first. “Jon, yeah it’s Michael. It’s a code MSG.” The surprised gasp on the other end traveled clearly down the phone line—code MSG was an unexpected occurrence from anyone they knew. They only hung out with experienced travelers.

“It’s Mira. Something went wrong.”

“What in the world was Mira doing traveling at her age?” asked Jonathan.

Michael heard the concern in Jonathan’s voice. Jonathan and Mira had always gotten along well. “I’ll explain more when we meet up,” said Michael, kicking at an old fence over and over. “Can you get Zac and meet us at the old place? I’ll gather up Lu and the girls.”

“What about Stu?” Jonathan asked.

“I don’t trust that guy.” Michael wasn’t ready to admit that maybe Jonathan was right.

Jonathan didn’t give up. “Michael, I’m telling you, personalities aside, that guy knows more about this than all of us put together. I know you don’t want to hear this, but Stu and I have kept in touch over the years. I swear he’s like a teenage Yoda.”

‘”Jon, he’s barely older than Madison. I don’t care what he thinks he knows, and I don’t want him along.”

“Fine,” said Jonathan. His tone didn’t hide his disagreement, but now wasn’t the time to argue. “I’ll just get Zac. But remember, we weren’t any older than Stu when we started.”

Michael knew Jon had a point, but he didn’t give in. Not after the attitude Stu had pulled on him the last time they met. Stu, only sixteen then, and Michael, thirty-five, had a large disagreement during a conversation about metaphysics. Stu had acted as if Michael was ignorant, when actually, Michael had been traveling far longer than Stu. Only Mira was more advanced. Michael had no time for overconfidence or prima donnas. This was too important.

“Jon, listen,” he said, hanging his head. “My overconfidence in my and Mira’s ability is one reason we’re in this predicament. It’s all my fault.”

At that, Jon stopped arguing. “Fine, Michael. Meet you guys in an hour.” He hung up.

Michael called Lu to round up the rest of the girls. Though really, they weren’t girls anymore. Michael just still thought of them as he had known them back then, when they were a gang of friends that hung out in real life and traveled together to the other world secretly. He tucked his phone in his pants pocket and headed to the old skateboard park.