The Glass Man by Jocelyn Adams Page B

with static. The trees around the rim of the valley leaned inward, reaching their spindly arms toward my plight. The grass whipped around my feet, and a cloud of dust billowed up from the driveway. The sky sent shadows across the barn and the house but not me. My skin morphed into its natural golden cream as I dropped my illusion. A subtle glow came from beneath, my own personal sun shining an aura of light so bright I could barely see around it. The air shivered and pulsed with a heart of its own.
    I ripped the lid off the well of my mind.
    Clancy dropped the gun, babbling something unintelligible as he ran.
    I placed my hands together in a prayer position, knelt and shoved them into the ground. The surface spread open like butter under a hot knife. A rumble spread out before me. The earth opened beneath Clancy’s feet with a crack, much louder than the gunshot had been. He fell in to his chest, wedged so tight he couldn’t move.
    With my hair still whipping around my head, I strode to the gun and snatched it from the ground. Clancy watched as I bent the barrel into a misshapen ‘s’ with a mere thought. I cracked him against the jaw with the butt of it.
    “I’ll deal with you later,” I said in a dead voice.
    His bleeding head lolled to the side. Faint whimpers rattled in his throat. He blinked a few times as if trying to fight off unconsciousness.
    “Sleep,” I said.
    His eyes closed, and his head tipped forward.

7
    Blood pooled in the gravel beneath Liam’s motionless body. I ripped his shirt open, pressed one hand flat against his mid-section where his heart stumbled within, and the other against his clammy forehead. My eyes closed, and the wind picked up again. I forced all thought and emotion deeper into me as I put out a call upon the breath of the earth.
    Moments later, the silence shattered beneath the shrieking of thousands of birds. The whap-whapping of their wings drummed against the air above me. A symphony of crickets began a crescendo, yips and howls bellowed from the forest all around, and the screeching of an owl came last. I’d never had so many answer my plea.
    The air quivered as I soaked up energy from every bird, every furred creature that wandered the woods, every blade of grass, every insect. The heartbeat of the earth reached up through my body and joined with mine as I opened my mind to the man before me. I searched for the wound with my energy. The bullet had nicked his gallbladder and ripped open his liver. Imagining his body healed and his heart beating strongly, I forced my will down my arms and into the fading body in my grasp.
    A gurgling scream burst from Liam’s lips. His spine bowed as my mind wrapped itself around his wound and knitted his flesh back together.
    Ruby patches of blood remained on Liam’s chest, but the bullet hole had disappeared. The wind fell silent as the well of energy emptied. The ones who had answered my call faded into the forest.
    It had taken over five minutes, though it seemed like it had happened in a blink. He’d be sore, and he’d be terrified of me, but he’d live.
    Why then did my heart burn as if it had been crushed?
    I fell back on the gravel, my energy spent, hot tears trailing down my cheeks, and faced the sky until all went black.
    When I opened them again, the sun had risen farther into the pale blue sky.
    Clancy still slumped over his earthen prison a few yards away.
    Where were the other guys? They must have heard the gunshots and my yelling. Had Clancy killed them first?
    Please, no. Not Garret. He’s just a boy. My heart raced.
    I turned and shook Liam.
    He sobbed with his eyes crimped shut as my own tears fell again.
    Why the tears?
    “You’re okay now.” I tugged him into a sitting position. “We need to go into the house. Come on, help me.” I pulled his right arm across my shoulders and heaved him up.
    We stumbled through the bent gate and up the front steps to the house. I laid him out on the sofa, covered him in a gold