This was the way it always happened when he woke from the dead. He just knew certain things, although he drew big blanks on other questions.
He shook the phone and pushed a button. It turned on, but the screen wasshattered. He couldn’t control it or make a call. He could, however, turn on the flashlight by making a karate chop motion.
“Ah. Light. We’re getting somewhere, Griffin,” he said. “Griffin? Anyone around?”
Was his name Griffin, or was he with someone named Griffin? Things didn’t always make sense. Just like the fractured sequences of a dream, his mind focused on one thing and thenthe next. There was no logical sequence that he could tell.
He swept the light in an arc. He appeared to be at the dead-end of a low tunnel. The wall ahead of him was made of rough-hewn stone. A broken fishing rod was stuck into a crack between the rocks next to a glittery crown sparkling with rhinestones and silver.
Did a fairy queen drop it?
He picked it up and examinedit. Wisps of red-brown hair curled around the ornaments, and a vision of a radiant woman with blazing-red hair, gem-green eyes, and bow-shaped lips flashed on an imaginary screen.
Brigid?
No, Clare.
Her name was Clare.
A backpack was flung against the wall. He grabbed it and put the tiara and fishing rod inside. Now, he needed to get out of this place. Since he wasin the dead-end, all he had to do was walk the opposite way.
He listened carefully for footsteps, but all he heard was his own labored breathing and his shuffling footsteps. He was wearing some sort of fancy two-toned shoe, and the sole of the left one had come loose, so every step he took made a slapping sound.
His entire body shook with cold, but he had to make his way forward.His fingers were stiff and numb, and his head swam with dizziness. He lurched and swayed, making his way forward, hunched over to avoid hitting his head, and stumbling like a drunk.
Clare. Clare. Clare. Clare.
The name echoed in his mind, so he chanted it. There was another name more important. Could it have anything to do with the stone he’d found?
He retrieved the egg-shapedstone from his pocket and held it to the fractured cell-phone. The light glinted off a facet, and he sucked in a breath so fast, he coughed.
It was composed of six-sided crystals, purplish and red, and it had a special meaning that eluded him.
He closed his eyes, trying to picture where he’d seen it before, but nothing came to him through the pounding pain in his head and the acridtaste in the back of his throat.
The mystery of the stone, the tiara, and the fishing rod would come in due time. He had to believe it and be in the moment. Mindful of everything around him.
He took a step forward, breathed in and out, then another step. He was going to be okay. His memories would return. He had friends out there. He knew someone named Clare. She left her tiara,stone, and fishing rod.
Even though pain owned his head, and ice froze his veins, he believed in luck like he believed in love.
Or did he?
An iron gate loomed ahead. He gathered a surge of energy and raced toward it. Falling against the bars, he shook the gate and reached for the latch.
It was stuck.
Or locked.
He shook the bars, rattling it like chainson the dead, but the gate refused to budge. He was trapped like a frozen rat below the hold of a sinking ship.
Breathe. In. Out. In. Out.He heard a female voice chant.Calm your mind, be in the moment. Look around and take stock.
He pointed the fading flashlight on the pebbly ground and let the images come into focus. Footprints. Someone had been here recently with him.
He traced the outline of hiking boots and the scuffing of something being dragged. A shiny glint sparkled from beyond the bars of the gate.
A key.
