Alexie Aaron - Checking Out

“I say let’s give it a go,” Cid said.

Mia bent down and kissed her husband goodbye. “I promise to tell you all about it when I get back.”

“Details, remember the details,” Ted said, his eyes watering. “No smasharoo.”

“I’ll put it on my don’t list,” Mia said, pulling on the thermal gloves before getting settled into her cocoon on the lounge chair. She sat down and wiggled into the sleeping bag. She took a look at the men in the truck one last time before closing her eyes.

Ted was about to ask Mia what would happen if she couldn’t get back in time to talk to the house, but she had already bilocated.

“You married a gutsy broad,” Burt said.

“I know. She’s lucky to have me,” Ted said and sat down at the console. He brought up her vitals and briefly put his hand on them as if he could connect with her that way.

Burt looked at Cid. “Find me something to do. This waiting is going to make me nuts,” he said.

“Maggie needs a walk…”

Upon hearing her name, Maggie raised her head. Her eyes were alert, and she scrambled out from under Mia.

“Come on, Maggie, Uncle Burt’s going to take you for a walk.”

“Ah, Burt,” Cid said, getting his attention.

“Yes?”

“Walk her on the other side of the road. I wouldn’t want the inn to grab you when you weren’t looking.”

Burt shook his head. “I never thought of that. Good thinking, boss.”

Cid smiled and waited until Burt left before sitting down. He looked over at Ted who was avoiding looking at him.

“You’re not mad at me are you?” he asked.

“No. I think you made the right call. It’s just tough. The wait, I mean. I realized that Mia was hell-bent on doing this. I’ve learned to support her efforts, but I still worry,” Ted admitted.

“She’s lucky to have you, dude, and she knows it. Don’t worry, she’ll be back with a story that will curl all of our toes, but she will be back,” Cid said with growing confidence.

“She has just under nine and a half hours to do it in.”

“Nine hours twenty-six minutes and thirty-four seconds,” Cid corrected.

Ted looked over at his pedantic friend, knowing that every second that Mia was gone was being counted by Cid too.

Entering the ley line wasn’t difficult but working against the pull of the inn was. Mia and Murphy held on tight to each other as they trudged the first hundred yards. Mia thought it felt like wading through flood waters. Murphy imagined it was what salmon must be feeling as they worked their way upstream to their spawning spot. After they pulled away from the gravitational pull of the house, the line shot them forward at a comfortable pace. Mia didn’t know what the end of the disrupted line would be like, so she had taken the time before they entered to work out gestures of communication with Murphy. One squeeze meant to stay put; two, jump to the right; three, the left.

Traveling ley lines at night was scary. Unless you had the benefit of the iridescent lights from a city or a moonlit sky, you traveled in darkness, except for the eerie greenish glow that seemed to permeate the energy stream. Mia didn’t have time to think much about why the energy was always green because soon they were experiencing turbulence. Murphy squeezed her arm once. They clung to each other as the line pulled them around and around as if they were looping. As soon as they straightened, Mia felt they were moving southeast instead of northwest. She squeezed Murphy’s arm twice, and they jumped free of the line.

Mia found herself in snow. This was expected. The depth, however, was surprising. She moved upward and looked for Murphy. He stood studying the ley line. He pointed out the loop of energy. They moved past the loop and saw another loop start up, heading northwest through the tall trees.

“The disruption has to be here somewhere,” she said, wading through the deep snow of the small clearing between the line segments. She mentally marked off the area, not having the ability to even move a flake of snow in her bilocated state. She pondered whether or not she could use telekinesis but reasoned now was not the time to experiment.

Murphy found a large piece of bark and began shoveling down to the ground. He smiled, waved at her and started to sink through the frozen ground.

“Show off,” she said. Mia wasn’t jealous, but she envied the things a ghost could do. Physics professors could argue all they wanted about how it was impossible to do what Mia had seen ghosts do with her own eyes. And a ghost powered up like Murphy was amazing. Good thing he was a friendly ghost. She started humming the theme from Casper the Friendly Ghost to herself, partly in fun, partly to keep her sanity in the dark woods.

She was looking up when an arm pushed out of the snow and grabbed her leg. She didn’t have time to protest as she was pulled under the snow through three feet of soil and tree roots until she landed on top of Murphy in a cave of some kind.

“Damn it to hell, Murph, you could have warned me,” Mia said, getting up.

“Which one?” Murphy asked, tapping his axe on top of a pile of rocks.

Mia thought back to the display of meteorites the Field Museum had assembled over time. “It isn’t going to be pretty. It will be very heavy. She bypassed the large rocks Murphy was looking at and knelt on the ground. Bilocation had is benefits, but it also left her without the ability to feel, taste and smell outside of the ley line. She had to depend on the light Murphy was able to generate in order to navigate around the small cave. She took a moment to study the structure they were in. It was conical in shape. The roots of the trees joined above her, giving a ceiling to what would have been an open pit at one time. She closed her eyes and envisioned meteorites hitting the earth and the craters they left. She opened her eyes and moved to the middle of the western wall of the cave and pointed. “Here, dig here. It shouldn’t be far,” she instructed.

Murphy motioned her away and took a swing of his axe and cut into the hard, frozen ground. Slabs of soil fell away and slid to the ground. He swung again, and the axe almost bisected him as it bounced back with such force. Murphy scrambled to retrieve the axe while Mia examined the wall as the earth fell free. There, resting in what Mia assumed was the core of the former ley line, was a rock that resembled a large slice of burnt pizza. “Such a small thing. Iron, oh crap, no wonder you couldn’t touch it. It’s probably mostly iron and perhaps nickel?” Mia guessed. “Anyways, we’re fucked.”

“Mouth,” Murphy warned Mia. Even underground he didn’t appreciate her use of swear words.

“Sorry, but who the ef is going to hear us down here? Give me a moment to think this through. It’s in the heart of the line. The iron deflected the magnetic flow. But it’s so small?” Mia got up and backed away. “I wish Ted was here. He’s so smart. Wait!” she exclaimed, rushing to the wall. “You could dig a channel on an angle under the rock and take another swipe at it. If we’re lucky, the rock will tumble away from the heart of the line,” Mia presumed. “Do you have enough power to do this?”

He studied the wall and asked, “Which way?”

“That would be up to you, Paul Bunyan. You know trees and how they fall. Perhaps the physics is the same. Just make sure the rock moves at least a few feet in either direction.”

“What happens when it falls?” Murphy asked.

“Good question. I don’t know. I think we should beat feet away from here just to be safe. I have no idea… The line may simply be reconnected. There could be fireworks. Perhaps a small explosion when the normal line tries to blend with the meteorite-enhanced segment. Or it’s quite possible, it’s been too long, and the segments will no longer join. In that case, it’s back to plan A. I’ll have to talk to the house.”