Emilia woke before everyone else. She’d been dreaming, and though she couldn’t remember what her dream had been about, she had a song by Skyshredder running through her head.
Between school and summer camp, her father had taken her to see Skyshredder, live, in concert. It had been awesome. They’d played a little Hendrix, a little Vaughn, a little King—Zenith Niall told stories about getting her start playing blues and rock covers—but mostly they stuck to originals. Hurricane Showdown was one of Emilia’s favorites. It started high and walked down low, then did it again: just a hint, just a taste of the coming storm. It built slowly, taking its time, building upon its promise.
Without moving, so she wouldn’t creak the bed and wake the others, Emilia reached to the headboard shelf where her jeans from yesterday were folded. She slipped her hand into the back pocket and fished out the guitar pick Zenith Niall had given her. In her mind, the bass picked up the thread and the drums kicked in and Zenith Niall let loose her guitar.
Lying in bed, Emilia let her fingers run up and down an imaginary fretboard, guitar pick dancing along imaginary strings. She imagined she was Zenith Niall, just as she’d imagined she was Frankie Crabtree and Mr. Northam. Emilia didn’t know the first thing about playing a guitar, but as the song built in her head, as she imagined she was on stage, her fingers knew what she didn’t. They moved of their own accord, picking out a melody, building to a frenetic crescendo.
Outside, the wind picked up and swirled about their cabin, rattling windows, shaking the door, and making the metal roof shiver. Emilia could hear the girls in cabin 12 snuffle and shrug as the wind woke them. She stilled her fingers but kept the guitar pick clenched in her right hand.
A pitiful cry came from across the room. Emilia sat up in time to see Cindy slip off the top bunk across from her and kneel beside Terra on the bottom. It was difficult to see in the shadows, but she thought Cindy was rubbing her little sister’s back, then heard the older girl speaking softly. Though Terra was quiet about it, Emilia could tell the girl was crying.
Emilia slipped the pick into the pocket of her pajama pants and dropped from the top bunk. She approached, then paused, awkwardly. “Is something wrong?” She asked quietly.
Cindy looked up. It was difficult to see in the deep shadows before dawn, but Emilia thought Cindy might be crying too.
Cindy shook her head. “She’s all right. Just a bad dream. Sorry to wake you.”
“It’s fine. Anything you need?”
Terra said something but it was so soft Emilia couldn’t make it out. Cindy bowed her head over her sister, then looked up at Emilia. “Are there still cups by the sink? Perhaps a cup of water?”
“Sure.”
Emilia went to the sinks against the back wall of the cabin. After a bit of fumbling, she found a plastic cup from the cafeteria. The cup wouldn’t fit in the sink but she angled it under the faucet the best she could and filled it. When she presented it to Cindy, Terra was sitting up in bed and Cindy sat on its edge. She handed the cup to Cindy who handed it to Terra who took it two-handed. Terra was not a large girl, but she looked especially small in the shadows.
“Keep it down over there.” The cranky, grumbling voice came from Maria’s bunk, below Emilia’s.
Emilia glared at the girl through the shadows, even though she couldn’t see Maria. She wanted to say something but bit her tongue. Instead, she slipped her hand into the pocket of her sweat pants and gripped Zenith Niall’s guitar pick.
Emilia’s ears popped and the cabin creaked. Emilia hunched just before the wind picked up again, a great gust that pushed through Camp Arrowhead, startling sleepers and rattling buildings. The girls of cabin 12, shifted. Terra whimpered and Cindy hugged her. In a moment, the wind settled and everyone relaxed. Emilia pulled her hand from her pocket.
It was silly to think a musician’s guitar pick was anything more than a bit of plastic, but Emilia, with her foreign knowledge and shifting skin color, wasn’t about to rule out an oddity just because it seemed silly.
It was still dark, and the other girls of cabin 12 pulled their blankets tighter, whether to go back to sleep or at least make the attempt. Emilia was awake and knew she wouldn’t go back to sleep easily. Instead, she changed into a clean tshirt and jeans. She made sure to tuck the guitar pick into her left back pocket, and slipped out the door. The air was still as she made her way past the Commons. There was no evidence of any damage from the sudden gusts. She wondered if any trees had fallen.
In the courtyard, the stone box stood clean and uncovered. Dawn was coming and it was just light enough to see there was no trace of spray paint on the stone. She reached out to pat the box affectionately, and though she expected to feel only smooth, cold stone, at her touch the wind picked up again, it snapped at her shirt and pulled at her hair and threw dust against the walls of the Main Hall. She staggered away and the wind settled. Blinking rapidly, Emilia stared at it, stunned. And if her touch summoning the wind hadn’t been enough, a faint, pale yellow light was etched upon the lid of the box in the shape of a sixteen-point star, a compass rose.
She wanted to talk to Eddie, to look at that poem again, but she couldn’t remember what cabin he was in and girls weren’t allowed on the boy’s side of camp.
The compass rose faded to nothing, and when no further wind picked up, Emilia went into the Main Hall. Ms. Amy, she knew, would already be preparing breakfast and she needed something to do until she could find Eddie.
Ms. Amy was a heavyset, pale skinned woman with florid cheeks and a cheery disposition. She looked up, surprised, when Emilia came in, then smiled.
“Wind wake you up?”
Emilia nodded. “Since I’m up, I figured I need something to do. Anything I can help with?”
Ms. Amy had Emilia wash her hands and put on gloves before setting her to work. Emilia loaded a large dish rack to put through the giant dishwasher, filled the metal dispenser at the end of the line with orange juice from large boxes, and set stacks of dried trays at the front of the line, all while Ms. Amy cooked eggs, bacon, and waffles.
Ms. Amy declared them ready just as Mrs. Fir came into the kitchen. The old woman looked as alert as ever but went immediately to the large coffeemaker at the back of the kitchen and filled herself a mug.
Emilia found herself at loose ends, uncertain what to do until Eddie arrived. Then she gave herself a mental slap upside the head. She knew where Eddie kept his backpack. Perhaps the journal was still in it. It was worth checking at least. She hurried from the kitchen. The courtyard was lit by soft, predawn light. She made her way to the Commons and up to the library. In the hall, she could see the light was on in the back left room and was unsurprised to find Eddie there, sitting cross-legged on the couch, flipping through an old text book. He looked up, eyes startled behind his glasses, then relaxed.
“Wind wake you up too?” Eddie asked.
Emilia nodded and joined him on the couch. “Do you have that journal? The one with the poem in it?”
“Sure.” Eddie closed his text book and Emilia read the title: On Parahuman Combat by Estella Goldmane. Eddie reached into the space between the couch and the closet wall, rummaged for a bit, and withdrew the old journal.
As he did, Emilia explained: playing air guitar along with music in her head, potentially summoning a windstorm, and the pale yellow compass rose on the lid of the stone box.
“You met Zenith Niall, the Guitarist, one of the Four Heroes of Humanity?” Eddie’s expression was a mixture of awe and envy.
Emilia nodded. “I’ve been listening to her music my whole life. Dad took me to a concert and I met her backstage. Got to shake her hand.”
“Wow. That’s… wow.”
Eddie’s gaze went far away and Emilia gave him several moments before gently waving a hand in front of his face. He blinked at her, then blushed.
“Right. Sorry.” He cleared his throat. “You said you were playing air guitar, that your fingers knew what to do, but you just met her once. You don’t know the Guitarist as well as you know, for example, Mr. Northam. That puts a dent in my theory.” Eddie’s face went far away again.
“But I like the band. I listen to their albums all the time. I know that song, Hurricane Showdown, by heart.”
Eddie nodded. “If you know something or someone well enough, you can mimic the skill or the look. Maybe. I think. That makes some sense.” Eddie tapped the cover of the old journal stamped with the compass rose, but didn’t bother opening it. “Well, I’m convinced. You’re the hero in the poem. You’re the one to open the door, which I assume means the lid of the box. Air is one of the four Aristotelian elements, also mentioned in the poem.”
“What does Zenith’s guitar pick have to do with it?” Emilia asked.
“Sound works by vibrating air,” said Eddie.
“Okay, so it’s an element. Four fours, right? What else is there?”
“Well, the other three elements—“
Emilia shook her head. “I don’t think that’s what it means. I think it’s one each of the groups.”
“All right: four cardinal directions to a compass rose. Four seasons. If I had to guess, summer would be associated with fire, because of heat, winter with water because of snow.”
Emilia blinked rapidly, feeling on the cusp of solving a puzzle. “Earth would be spring because that’s when things grow, right?”
“Sure,” said Eddie. “So that leaves autumn and air. Which I suppose makes sense. More or less. Metaphorically.”
“Last autumn there was a big windstorm. It knocked some trees out of the ground down onto the amphitheater,” Emilia said.
Eddie smiled suddenly. “Do you know which direction the amphitheater is from the center of camp?”
Emilia shook her head.
“It’s north,” said Eddie. “North. Autumn. Air...”
Emilia bit her lip uncertainly. “All right, so... now what?”
“The poem says four fiends to test the mettle. I imagine that means you’re going to have to fight one of the bullies at the amphitheater... next autumn? Maybe we should go check it out.” Eddie’s voice turned enthusiastic. “We could poke about the amphitheater and see if there are any fiends hanging about.”
Eddie put the journal and text book back into the space between the couch and the wall. They hurried down the stairs and out to the courtyard. A few kids made their way to the Main Hall, through the courtyard, giving the stone box wide berth. Sitting upon the box, one knee pulled up, the other leg dangling over the edge, was Aaron Drake, one of the four fiends.
He was dressed oddly for camp, dark slacks, a pale yellow button up, and a long, dark coat that folded around his waist and draped over the side of the stone box with dramatic flair. He held a cigarette in his right hand. When took a drag, the end glowed pale yellow, and when he exhaled a cone of yellow smoke billowed forth, far more than could have been produced by a cigarette.
Emilia and Eddie stopped at the Commons’ front door.
“Does that seem strangely ominous to you?” Emilia asked.
This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.
“Maybe we can go out the back and circle around?”
“Good call.”
Slowly, trying not to attract attention, hoping the lingering shadows hid them, they backed up the stairs into the Commons, cut through the living room to the game room with the pool table, and slipped out the back door. They avoided the girls’ cabins and circled around back of the Main Hall, passing by the archery range and making for the amphitheater.
“So, it’s starting, right?” said Eddie. “The bullies really are the fiends. I’m not just jumping to conclusions, right?”
It was surreal to think a summer camp bully was actually a parahuman villain, but based on what they knew, it was hard to dismiss. Emilia nodded.
“And it makes sense,” said Eddie, “that a boy named Aaron Drake would be the Fiend of Air.”
“Why?”
“’Air’-un. Aaron. Get it?”
“That seems… convoluted, doesn’t it? To hide a treasure and require the exact right bully whose name is a play on words, and the exact right parahuman just to retrieve it? Besides, it’s not even autumn.”
But as they hiked through the light wood, crunching through undergrowth, it was a bit chillier than a summer morning ought to be, a bit dimmer. And the smell was off. Rather than the warm greenery of early summer, the wood smelled of falling leaves and... cloves. The wind picked up; orange, red, and golden aspen leaves scattered about them, dancing this way and that.
• • •
They emerged from the wood behind the backstage shed of the amphitheater. Emilia hurried down into the little vale to the back door, which hung open. It was dark inside and she pushed through the next door to the stage, heart humming.
The stage was clear of fallen trees.
Standing at the top of the far end of the valley, above the seating, was Aaron Drake in his long, dark jacket and pale yellow shirt. His eyes glowed yellow and smoke curled from the corner of his mouth. The trees behind him and surrounding the amphitheater were in full autumn.
Aaron, or whatever this thing that looked like him was, lifted to hover a few inches off the ground, then floated slowly into the little vale, smile widening, smoke drifting, eyes glowing.
“Shit.” Emilia looked at Eddie. “What do we do now?”
He shrugged. “Prove your mettle against the Fiend of Air?”
“How do I do that?”
“Use your powers?”
“What am I going do, shoot a free throw at him?”
“We should have stopped for bows and arrows.”
“Nice thinking. A little late, but...”
A cool, autumnal wind plucked at the edges of the amphitheater, kicking up dust and leaves. The Fiend of Air laughed, like thick wind chimes in the distance. He spread his hands and pale yellow smoke issued forth.
“Maybe now’s a good time to run away,” said Eddie.
Emilia nodded. They turned as one for the door to the backstage shed. Eddie was closer and pulled the door open only to have a sudden gust slam the door closed again. Emilia turned to find the Fiend of Air halfway down the hill to the stage. He was grinning, taking his time, playing with them. Wind sped around the edge of the amphitheater, the swirling dust and leaves, the high-pitched roar, making it clear they stood in the center of a cyclone.
“Emilia! Your butt is glowing!”
Emilia knew a moment of embarrassed surprise, a moment later she realized what he meant. She could have kicked herself for being such a clueless idiot. She’d already realized Zenith Niall’s guitar pick was somehow connected to this morning’s wind. She reached into her back left pocket, and when her fingers closed on the bit of plastic, Hurricane Showdown by Skyshredder, filled her mind.
It started high and walked down low, then did it again.
The Fiend of Air slowed, his wide smile fading just a touch.
“Not a fan of music?” Emilia called.
His expression turned to a scowl. He thrust his arms up and out and the yellow smoke billowed to join the force of the cyclone, isolating the amphitheater in a yellow, smoky, conical wall of wind and debris.
Emilia’s muscles froze and her mind stuttered. The song in her mind faltered.
“Don’t stop,” said Eddie. “Keep playing.”
“Playing?”
“You couldn’t hear it? The music. Look at your hands.”
Emilia looked. Her left hand was curled as though gripping the neck of a guitar. The right held a guitar pick and itched to pluck strings that didn’t exist. The pick glowed with a pale yellow light. Whereas the yellow of the Fiend of Air’s smoke was sickly, the yellow light of the pick was the soft glow of predawn, the crisp air of an autumn afternoon, light and clean.
“He didn’t like the music. Keep playing,” said Eddie.
“But I don’t know how.”
“Yes you do. Picture her like you do the others. A mnemonic. A mental trick. She could be a trading card and all her skills and accomplishments are listed on the back. You know the song by heart. You’re the hero. Keep playing.”
Emilia’s teeth chattered and she bit her tongue to stop them. She tried to take a deep breath through her nose, but the whipping of the wind made it hard. She tried to focus again on the song, but it remained just out of reach. The Fiend of Air floated closer, smile widening again. Emilia and Eddie backed up, putting their backs to the wall.
“Start high and walk it low,” she whispered under the cyclone.
She tried to do as Eddie suggested, creating a mnemonic, a set of trading cards for rock stars. She imagined Zenith Niall: long dark hair, brown skin, bolero hat low over her eyes. The confident guitarist of Skyshredder stood on stage, under the lights, like it was easy. She grinned at the crowd as she cradled her guitar. She slapped the metal strings in a rhythmic four beat. And on four, the music came to her. It was like a physical force blasted from a guitar of nothing, striking the Fiend of Air in the chest.
The being with the glowing yellow eyes and the shape of a bully, twisted this way and that, shoved back on each downbeat of the song. The wind around the amphitheater picked up speed, whistling disconcordant counterpoint to the music blasting from Emilia’s guitar pick. The power of the song shoved the Fiend of Air to the wall of the cyclone. He struggled against it, but could make no headway. Still, all she had done was stop his advance. She hadn’t defeated him.
“What do I do now?” Emilia called to Eddie, fingers working automatically. She wasn’t sure she could stop now if she wanted.
“I don’t know,” Eddie shouted over the wind. “What happens at the end of the song?”
In her head, the bass and drums kicked in, adding heft to the melody. “It just builds and builds until it reaches this thunderous climax and ends really suddenly on a high note.”
“It’s got to mean something!” said Eddie. “This specific guitar pick, this specific Guitarist, a Hero of Humanity...”
The Fiend of Air reached his hands out and back, dipping into the whipping yellow smoke of the cyclone. The wall of the cyclone bucked and rippled. Emilia’s ears popped and the temperature dropped a few degrees. Still, her fingers played on. The solo was approaching. It was one of the best parts.
Just behind the Fiend of Air, the wall of the cyclone pushed back to reveal a small copse of trees whipped of their leaves by the cyclone. There was a tall douglass fir and a bunch of spindly aspens. He made a scooping motion with his arms across his body and a great gout of air pulled the copse from its roots, hurling them at Emilia.
“Don’t stop!” shouted Eddie.
Eyes wide with fright, Emilia plunged on. The solo came, a roaring riff from high on the neck to low, pulling a frenetic arpeggiating wail, a lightning fast cacophony, from a guitar made of air, magic, and willpower.
A burst of power leapt from her in an arcing dome that scattered the uprooted trees into the walls of the cyclone where they splintered to nothing. The Fiend of Air winced and the cyclone slowed. A bit of wind picked up around Emilia, contrawise to the cyclone around the amphitheater.
“That’s it!” Emilia shouted. She looked back around for Eddie and found him slumped against the door to the backstage. His breath was labored. He tried to say something, but it was lost to wind and music. He gave her a thumbs up.
Emilia walked to the edge of the wooden stage and stepped off onto the earthen floor. She felt grounded there. Strong. Confident. She walked up the gentle hill, up the center aisle between wooden benches, toward the Fiend of Air who struggled and snarled against the power of Zenith Niall’s music and the yellow, glowing guitar pick.
The Fiend of Air put one hand against the rushing wall of wind as though to steady himself, though the wall continued to ripple. His eyes flared yellow, and he thrust his other hand at Emilia. Yellow smoke issued forth. Emilia chose not to falter. Despite the clove-scented smoke spewing at her, she pushed up the hill, fingers dancing upon wind and sound. Dirt kicked up around her personal contrawise cyclone.
The smoke struck and the power of her sound and fury shunted some of it this way and that, but not all. It enveloped her, it clogged her eyes her ears her nose. The music of Zenith Niall was muted but not subdued. Emilia coughed and coughed again, tears springing to her eyes, but still she marched up the hill. She tried to take shallow breaths and turned her head against the smoke. Still she played the music in her head, approaching its conclusion. The base line thumped up and down her spine, each foot fall was a kick-base, each breath a high-hat. Her chest was heavy; her lungs filled with smoke. Still, she pushed on. She could feel that last high note straining to be freed. She knew if she could just keep pushing, striding against the putrid smoke of the fiend, she could reach that note and this would all be over.
Her contrawise cyclone grew with each step, pushing outward, clearing the air until suddenly the smoke dissipated and Emilia McIntyre, wielder of Skyshredder’s Pick, stood against the Fiend of Air, only a few feet separating them.
The wind shrieked.
The trees shuddered.
And the Fiend of Air sneered.
Hurricane Showdown ended the way it began, but in reverse. Instead of the high notes walking down to the low, the low notes sprinted to the high. Seeing one of her favorite bands at a live concert had been one of the highlights of Emilia McIntyre’s fifteen years. She knew every song by heart. She knew how they made her feel. She savored the melancholic, celebrated the joyous, and she let the empowering show her how to feel strong. At the last bar, the fingers of her left hand pressed against the frets of an invisible guitar: high on the neck, low on the notes. They danced and sprang and fought their way down the length of the neck, shortening strings of metal, magic, and nothing, until she hit that last, high note, screaming her defiance, not at the Fiend of Air, but a bully who stole food.
Her contrawise cyclone met his and the atmosphere exploded, a shockwave scattered the undergrowth of autumn through the forest around the amphitheater. Silence followed. The Fiend of Air blinked, the yellow light of his eyes disappeared. He staggered back and tripped over nothing. Before his body could hit the forest floor, he dissipated into nothing, the force of his fall no more than an autumn leaf.
“He discorporated.” Eddie stepped up next to her and they both looked where the body of Aaron Drake should have been.
“That’s…” Emilia cleared her throat. “That’s not a word.”
“Do you know what it means?”
“It means he… he’s no longer… corporeal.” She waved her hand vaguely where Aaron should have lain.
“If you know what it means. Then it’s a word.”
Emilia looked at him, brain afuzz. Eddie looked at her and breathed a laugh.
“Did I kill him?”
“No, I… I don’t know.”
Emilia swallowed hard. “Now what?”
“Now we go back and put that thing in in one of the stone box’s keyholes.”
Emilia looked where Eddie pointed at her right hand. Instead of Zenith Niall’s guitar pick, she held a large, oversized, old-style key with smooth teeth, a long haft, and a filigree pommel. It was light and shiny, like polished brass.
Emilia let Eddie lead her back down into the amphitheater, across the stage, through the door into the shed, and through the next.
• • •
On the other side of the second door, it was summer again. The air smelled crisp and green and clear. The sun shone and the day was warm. They walked to the courtyard where kids meandered, most of them leaving the Main Hall for other Camp Arrowhead destinations.
“Maybe we should wait,” Emilia said. “I don’t want people knowing we’ve got one of the four keys. I think that’d cause… headaches.”
Eddie nodded. “That’s right. We’re being circumspect.”
“So, when?”
“Tonight, after dinner when there’s less likely to be people around?”
They caught the tail of breakfast, and Emilia offered to help Ms. Amy clean up. She and Eddie helped load trays in the dish machine, separate out the recycling, and sweep the floor. Afterward, Emilia didn’t feel much like archery or hiking or anything else for that matter. She and Eddie made their way to the Commons. They were at the door when he stopped her with a touch at her shoulder. He nodded toward the courtyard and Emilia followed his gaze to see the four fiends, Aaron Drake among them, headed for the soccerfields. She focused on Aaron, watching him at the back of the group. As far as she could tell, he seemed normal. Emilia sighed, relieved. For all that he was a bully, she didn’t want to have hurt him.
The two climbed the stairs to the library. Eddie assured Emilia he didn’t mind spending the morning, or the whole day for that matter, in the library. Emilia selected a likely looking book with a yellow cover and a fantasy feel. She sat on the couch, sinking into the cushions with relish. She felt sore all over, like she’d spent the whole day playing basketball.
She struggled with her eyelids through the prologue but by the time she got to the first chapter, she put the book on her chest and rested her eyes for a few minutes. When she woke, she was sprawled across the couch, head clear, stomach empty, and comfortably relaxed.
“Awake?” Eddie asked.
“Mmm. Is it lunch time?” Emilia turned her head to find Eddie sitting cross-legged on the floor, a text book in his lap.
“Dinner time. You hungry?”
“Ravenous.”
The cafeteria was full when they entered. Dinner was mashed potatoes, turkey gravy, green beans, stuffing, and a roll. They sat at the end of a table, almost by themselves, and ate in quiet companionship. Emilia went back for seconds. No one bothered them. The cafeteria began to empty and Emilia went back for just a little more stuffing.
Something about the confrontation with Aaron seemed off. She sat and voiced her concern. “All I did was play through a song in my head. It was like my fingers were moving without my input. I don’t think I really did all that much.”
Eddie looked at her from where he was wiping up his gravy with a bit of roll. He gave her shoulder a nudge with his.
“You’re superhero, Emilia. Don’t talk yourself down.” No one was near and the cafeteria was nearly empty, but he spoke quietly nonetheless.
“It just seemed... kind of... easy?”
“You call that easy? You utilized parahuman powers you’re only just now discovering, wielded a magical guitar pick, and faced down an entity of unknown origin.”
Emilia bit her tongue. It had been intense to be sure, but it had also felt a bit convenient, like she had walked a road laid out for her, like she was playing a part in a show.
Emilia offered to help Ms. Amy with the cleanup, so Eddie stayed to help too. When they were done, they stepped into an empty courtyard. Emilia gave Eddie a look and he nodded. She pulled the key from her pocket. The key was cool and smooth in her hand. It smelled faintly of cloves and dried leaves.
“Which keyhole does it fit?” Emilia asked.
As though in answer to her question, the keyhole on the left glowed pale yellow. With a quick look around, to make sure the courtyard was empty, Emilia inserted the key. It slid home with barely a scrape and turned almost without prompting, as though whatever was within was eager to get out.
With a great whomph, a gust of air mushroomed from the box, kicking up dust and ruffling Emilia’s hair. She shielded her eyes until it passed and took several steps back. Eddie sneezed then coughed.
The key disintegrated into light and air in her hand, filling the yellow keyhole. The sixteen-point compass rose reappeared upon the lid of the box, etched in light. For several moments the yellow light shone bright and strong. Then it faded and the stone box was nothing but stone again.