Chapter Eleven

 

I hunched over my knees, coughing like crazy to hack up seawater from my lungs. I thought about the citizens I saw take to their boats, hoping to ride out the current. I remembered the soldiers, dressed in full regalia, struggling to save their fellow civilians. And I recalled my last view of Gaia’s land bridge to guide her and Shannon to safety. It was possible others had found it…if they had made it that long.

“Did any Atlanteans survive?” I squeaked through my parched throat, burning from the mouthfuls I’d swallowed of the salty sea.

“Very few,” Pele said grimly. “Even fewer believed their tale. Still, the survivors passed down the story orally, eventually transforming it into a lesson for future generations about the inherent dangers of excessive wealth and power. Little did they realize the actual cause for the city’s destruction.”

“See…that’s what I don’t get,” I told the goddess. “When I was in Pompeii, I once overheard people talking about the lost city of Atlantis, only it sounded like it had been swallowed into the sea nearly ten thousand years before. But my method of locating Shannon dated the catastrophe at a much more recent time period. How could there be that much of a discrepancy? Had I messed up the date? Did Shannon actually drown the real Atlantis? Or was it just another city that shared the same name and tragic fate?”

“I might have had a hand in that,” Pele admitted, blush rising high in her cheeks. She wound a lock of hair around her finger in a sultry way.

“What do you mean?” I said, aghast. “You changed history?”

She shrugged. “It didn’t take too much work to convince one of the ancient storytellers to alter the facts…conveniently before he related the story to the classical Greek philosopher, Plato, of course,” she said in an innocent tone. “So when Plato documented his account in 360 BC, nine hundred years had already passed since the destruction of Atlantis. My friend, the storyteller, stated the event had occurred nine thousand years before. He simply added an extra zero, that’s all. But that minor change helped keep the great island shrouded in mystery and served as the perfect excuse to protect the general public from understanding the powers of the Elementals.”

“So you intentionally changed history,” I repeated, my shock turning into awe. “Why would you bother to go through the effort? Just for us?”

“I do enjoy a challenge from time to time,” Pele said dreamily. “Besides, I see great potential in Elementals. You simply need a little help and direction at times.”

“But if you changed history, why can’t I? Why can’t I go back in time and reverse these events? I could prevent Shannon’s tsunami from sinking Atlantis or Gaia’s volcanic eruption from burying the town of Pompeii. I could save the ones I lost—like my parents, my sister Sarah, my friends Lucius and William, and the poor little girl Monifa.”

“When the Four Elements first bestowed their powers upon living beings to create the Elementals, they feared the temptation to abuse those powers and alter the course of history,” Pele explained. “As a condition to limit the Elementals’ control, you can travel through time within the realm of your element, but could not revisit any specific period. Once you entered a portal, it would seal itself off, preventing your future reentry.

“Think of it as your time continuum represents a really long hallway filled with doors, each opening into a different time period. Once you pass through a door, it locks from the other side, never reopening to you again. That’s how you can return here to the same time and place you had just left, but never a minute sooner. This limitation guarantees you will not encounter your former or future self in any of your travels through time.”

“Like a backup clause written in fine print?” I said, disheartened.

“Exactly. It’s for your own safety. Otherwise, the temptation to right the wrongs of the past would be too great to overcome. You would spend your entire existence trying to fix the past, and in the end only create unforeseen problems.”

My shoulders slumped forward from the weight of her new insight. “So what’s done is done,” I said in a solemn tone.

The goddess nodded. “I’m afraid it is.”

I had to look away, unable to believe how much death had occurred from a single act of fear and defiance. Worse, there was nothing I could do to change the past. Nothing, no matter how hard I trained or how many new skills I learned. Nothing could bring back the ones I had lost. I could only look forward, only hope to save others from suffering a similar fate in the future. Still, that knowledge did little to ease my heavy heart.

“Now, for your next skill.” She glanced at the sun, sinking toward the horizon. Pressed for time, the goddess began, “I want to teach you how to create a flash blast.”

“A flash blast?” I asked, pushing the stabbing pain to the back of my heart. I forced myself to concentrate on the future to prevent the horrors from repeating themselves. “What’s that?”

“It’s a powerful weapon when used correctly,” Pele explained. “If you focus your energy within your core, you can turn your entire body white hot like the sun. This allows you to melt through everything you touch by radiating the intense heat to your extremities. Or you may momentarily blind your opponent by containing your heat within and permitting only an intense beam of light to escape. Whichever you deem necessary at the time.”

For a second, I flashed back to my dream in the hospital where I had melted everything within my reach. Seconds before I stretched my deadly fingers toward Gaia’s helpless arm, I had woken in a pool of sweat. “I don’t know if I can do that,” I admitted, both skeptical and nervous at the same time. “You ask too much.”

“Of course you can. The magic is inside of you. All you need to do is accept your Elemental name, Pyr, with your whole heart and soul.”

I shook my head. “I can’t. It’s not me. I’m tired of running, tired of living so close to death. I want to be Jordan and only Jordan.”

“Why bother training at all?” she challenged.

“So I can protect my family and friends from the other Elementals, that’s why. My powers also represent the curse I bear. I’m tired of having others suffer because of me. I only wanted to learn how to defend myself from the other Elementals so they’d leave me in peace.”

Pele’s face turned down in pity. “Unfortunately, that is not your lot in life. You must understand that you won’t progress until you believe in yourself.”

“I know,” I sighed. “I just wish things were different.” I couldn’t stop dwelling on my failure to save so many innocent lives from their untimely fates.

Worse, a small part of me had actually begun to pity Hydros. I had destroyed her without realizing all Shannon wanted was to protect her family. The Irish girl who eventually assumed her Elemental name of Hydros wasn’t any different from me, was she? I had started to believe I’d taken out the wrong person and should’ve gone after Gaia instead. The way I saw it, Gaia was the root behind all my issues and the center of all my woes. Yet there was a problem. Like Pele had said, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t change the past—instead I could only live with the consequences that burdened my soul.

“Since you lost your amulet and still managed to find your way back here, I believe it is time for you to master the use of white fire,” Pele declared, snapping me from my thoughts.

“I was thinking the same thing,” I muttered in a melancholy tone, reminded of the surging waters of Shannon’s tsunami covering my head.

“Jordan, you must commit your heart and soul fully, and believe you can do this with every ounce of your mind.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” I replied halfheartedly.

“You did it before, you can do it again,” she reminded me.

I shook my head. “But things are totally different right now. At the time, I was scared, desperate, out of options. I didn’t want to die.”

“Sometimes that desperation proves a valuable ally,” Pele explained. “Besides, you’ll need to master this skill before venturing on your next mission.”

I gulped. “There’s more?”

“Surely you didn’t think you were already done!” Pele guffawed. “But since you have your doubts, I will intentionally skip you ahead in time. So while you had a respite from Gaia and a chance to settle into your new life in Pompeii, Gaia followed Shannon through time. All the while, Shannon created maelstroms, ice storms, flash floods, and mudslides in her own desperate attempt to avoid Gaia.” Pele handed me yet another outfit for my upcoming trip and a wad of outdated foreign currency.

“In this new mission, you’ll travel to England, about a decade after the turn of the century. This time I anticipate you will notice a change in the dynamics of their flawed relationship—a change that will provide crucial insights into understanding Shannon’s past and Gaia’s motives,” she added, and I slipped into the clothes she had provided—a long skirt, high-collared blouse, and a plain pair of boots.

“Now all you must do is believe that you are one with the fire,” the goddess finished.

I sighed. “Okay.”

She gave me a reproachful look. “No. I mean it. You must truly believe.”

“Okay. I will,” I repeated with more confidence than I felt.

Pele nodded. “That’s better. Listen carefully and commit each and every word to memory.”

She began to chant:

Ke ahi kea

Ikaika o ‘uhane

Lawe mai a a‘u a ku‘u ‘aina hou.

White fire,

Strong of spirit,

Bring me to my new land.

“Now say it with me,” Pele requested.

The first two lines weren’t too bad, but my tongue twisted in multiple knots when we reached the last verse. “I’ll never be able to remember this,” I admitted with a heavy sigh.

“Of course you can. You only need to try again.”

And so we did while dusk then darkness descended upon the land. Over and over until the words permeated the depths of my memory, infiltrating my body until I could feel them grow as steady and strong as the beats of my heart.

“Ke ahi kea, ikaika o ‘uhane, lawe mai a a‘u a ku‘u ‘aina hou.” I hadn’t realized Pele’s voice had stopped guiding me until I reached the final word.

I blinked at her with surprise. “I did it! And you know something, I think you’re right…I actually felt a little different inside.”

“Eventually you will sense the power of these words so you can achieve this feat without uttering the chant aloud. But for now, you should know them by heart. And the more you believe, the less pain you will feel until the entire process becomes as effortless as Gaia’s. Now, try it for real.”

“The white fire?” I asked, doubtful I could accomplish this feat regardless of knowing the chant.

She nodded. “Begin.”

I took a deep breath, accessing my bottled-up frustration and sorrow for the growing list of lost lives. As my lips repeated her chant, I channeled that power outward from my core, devoting all my strength to the growing heat inside of me.

“You’re close,” Pele said, giving me a rare smile of satisfaction.

I felt my eyes glow from a warm orange to a blazing white. An agonizing scream strangled in depths of my throat as I forced the last of my reserves outward. I couldn’t wait until this whole process became as painless as she claimed. Still, her methods worked and my hands began to glow a brilliant white.

“Now that you have reached this stage, all you will need to do is envision your new destination, commit to it, and you will be there. Think of Southampton on the tenth day of April in the year 1912.”

I replayed her words in my head as my lips muttered the chant, softly at first, then increasing in strength. White flames licked my body with intolerable heat. Before I knew it, Pele’s form disappeared as I rocketed back through time.