The Adventures Of Ivory Arrow & Jackson Bale

Chapter VIII

Baking a cake is a lot harder than I expected. "JACKSON!" I yell from the kitchen. He came sliding in gracefully. He asked 'what's up' and I respond with a sob. I looked at him and cried, "we are out of butter. There's no butter for the cake." He sighed.
"Well sorry doll. But the market is closed due to the eminent weather warnings we've been getting. They say they don't want people to leave their houses today." He shrugged and went to sit on the couch. I sighed and picked up my tray, full of glasses of lemonade. He smiled. "Lemonade, the best remedy for hot weather." But I tripped over the corner of the carpet and stumbled. The tray fell from my hands and landed on the floor. The glasses all broke and the juice was burning through the floor quickly, eventually falling through a tunnel that went several meters down. Only big enough for one of us at a time. "Welp," he cheered, "you don't fear the fall. It's the landing that's frightening. So, in we go!" He jumped through the hole. I followed. The fall was several minutes, but the landing was like all the rest, Jackson landed like an Olympic champion, while I fell flat on my butt. It was peaceful until a small voice was screaming, and was getting louder by the second. And when it sounded like it was right on top of us. I looked up in time to catch Valor who seemed to not know what happened. He just fell through the hole.
"What happened?" See? He looked around. I had him sit in my backpack while we wondered down the tunnel. Jackson was opposed to letting him come, but it wasn't like I was able to chuck him hard enough to get him all the way back up the tube. So he stayed with us. "What's your favorite color?" Valor asked. He's been asking questions to pass the time for an hour now.
"Um, brown I think. A golden brown. Like your hair." I answered. He smiled widely and patted my head. "Hm, what's your favorite song?" I asked him. He laid his head against the back of mine.
"I really liked a song, that a def elderly lady sang one time, it sounded like," he hummed the tune. It was a lullaby that I heard when I was just a girl. I listened, then hummed along. "You know it?" He set his chin on my shoulder to see my face. I nodded.
"Okay, you two are cute and all. But I see light." Jackson pointed to the end of the tunnel and we walked over to it. I've seen where we were before. But when I was about to think of it, a tourist on a donkey rode over to us. The cave was half way down a canyon. It was extremely hot outside and cactus were sprouting everywhere you looked. The tourist greeted us. "Hello. Where are we, may we ask." The tourist chuckled, wondering how we couldn't know.
"Why, your in the Grand Canyon strangers. Welcome, I guess." He trotted away. I looked at Jackson smiling, we both knew who lived here, but I don't think he likes her very much. Her name is Jamie. She owns the warehouse at the top of the canyon to the west. We walked that way, while I gave Valor my water bottle. I got a little worried, so I flipped my pack around so he'd sit in my shadow. "Jamie?" I called, walking into her garage. A brown braided, tan lady walked into view  from her back room. Her freckled face wrinkled when she laughed.
"Well, if it isn't my favorite couple of canyon hoppers. Got somewhere to be Young Ones?" Her voice was cheerful. But then she noticed the child strapped to my chest. "Hm, who's this?" She came up to Valor, who snugged into the bag. I pulled hi out and held him in my arms.
"This is our son Jamie, we call him Valor." She blinked a few times.
"Wow, it's this long? I missed the wedding?! And you two having a son?!" She pounded her fist gently on her desk. "Fine, would young Valor like a lollipop?" She held out a small red Lego shaped sucker, which Valor politely took and licked it. Come to think of it. I don't think he's had sugar before. He was cheerful for the rest of our catching up. "So, the only reason you came to me was to get a chopper from me? I mean, wow, you find a tunnel leading you straight here. And all you wanted to do, was leave? I'm offended." She crossed her arms and looking away.
"Will you give us a ride, or not. We can take our business elsewhere if that's how you feel." Jackson guiltripped. She tapped her fingers on her desk, eventually turning to face us and to jingle her keys in front of us.
"Fine, but no way in hell and I gonna let either of you drive my baby." I covered Valor's ears and scoff at Jamie. "Let's go." She eye rolled. Jackson sat in the backseat holding Valor on his lap. I sat next to Jamie in the passenger seat. "Where to madam?" Jamie looked around. Staring up the engine and letting the blades start to spin.
"We're going to have to take that tunnel back home. But I'd much rather do it above ground and not walking.." Jamie nodded in understanding. But the moment we started taking off, the chopper started to shake, and Valor squealed in the back seat, scrunched up against Jackson.
"Hey Arrow?" Jackson said in the back. I looked at him. His face was worried. The helicopter was now surrounded by gray fog, and the pouring rain made Jamie nearly blind. "Remember the reason the market was closed, and why we decided to stay home today?" I remembered him mentioning that.
"Shoot." I hissed, using censorship for my five year old. "Jamie, we need to turn around and land. Earlier we found out about eminent weather warnings. We're going right into the storm, we should land and wait it out." Jamie looked like she was going to vomit, but when she turned to look at me. I screamed. She turned her head back to the windshield, seeing the cause of my fright.
"It's a," Jackson grabbed the back of my seat and leaned forward. "When would it ever rain in the canyon? Aren't we in a desert or something?" I nodded. But we turned are attention from fact and remembered the tornado storm that was ahead. Six of those twisters were spawned on a blank open plane.
"Sorry Kids!" Jamie yelled when our aircraft was getting pulled into one. Jackson was securely hanging onto Valor, I pushed against the dashboard, keeping still.
Darkness..
I woke up to weak shaking, and a blurry picture of Valor was what I came to. His face had blood run down the right side, I quickly sat up and inspected his wound. He pushed my hands away and pulled me to the helicopter. It was lodged in the crook of a rock ledge. Jackson was hanging upside down, trying to get out of his belts frantically. "Jackson, calm down. Let me help you." I stepped inside, the shift of the chopper made a silent cry escape him. "Are you okay?" I then thought that would've been better to ask first. I saw him look at me funny while I searched for a wound. "Well are you?" His face was covered in blood and dirt. And his right arm was bloodied too.
"That wasn't me Arrow." I then remembered the fourth party. Valor was already at the cockpit staring at something inside sorrowfully. He finally opened the belt buckle and fell on his stomach with a thud, followed by a groan. "Ouch."
I went around the broken off door, and gasped to find Jamie in the pilot seat, large metal stakes lodged through her shoulder and side. "Jamie." I went to her side and smiled sadly. "You'll be okay. I'll get help to come get you out of here." She shook her head slowly, I could tell it caused her pain.
"Arrow, you need to help your kid. He has a concussion and fractured wrist. He'll be okay if you help him now." I looked at Valor who was picking up a scrap of cloth to wipe away some blood from Jackson's face, so he could see out of his eyes again. Another helicopter could be heard in the distance. Surly looking for tourists that were caught in a landslide or something like that. She was taken out of the vehicle with a lot of effort and time. Valor was treated for what Jamie said was wrong with him. And Jackson was said to have long term memory loss for a while.
"I don't want to play this game again." I sighed when he was about to get his cards out for the sixth time. "We've already played a bunch. I just want to know how Valor is doing, then we can leave." He sat up quickly, regretting it when he held his head. He squinted at me.
"Oh My God what happened to Valor? Is our son okay? What happened? Oh, wait. You told me. Let me think. Hang on." He held his head again. I rubbed his back soothingly. "A crash?"we were sitting on the ground outside the med hut in the canyon. Valor was walking out, with a cast on his wrist, and a bandage around his head. I cried when I saw his smile missing from his face.
"Ma, please don't cry. I'm okay." He came over to me and sat in my lap. He walked with a limp but no crutches or very noticeable injuries. Just a few cuts and bruises on his arms and face.
"I'm a terrible mother. Letting you come along. It's bad enough of what happened to Jackson. I'm sorry." I cried. Valor left my arms, he went to Jackson who was sitting idol in the corner, grabbed his arm and dragged him over to me gently. He hugged us together.
"You two be the best you can be, and I will love you as you are. So you better love me back. I'm sorry too." We sat curled into a family ball, before the doctor cleared his throat. I saw his face, that had a tear falling down his cheek. He sighed.
"I love how close you three are. I lost my family, the same was you lost your friend." I stared at him. He gulped once he realized what he said. "I'm sorry. Did the nurse not tell you?"
"You don't have a nurse. No, we weren't told, what happened?" Jackson stood up. I picked up Valor and stood next to him. "Tell us Doctor, Jamie didn't make it, did she?" The doctor shook his head.
We were all treading quietly when leaving the medical hut. Sadness and dark skies were obscuring our way. Jamie was gone, she would never be there on the cliff ready to serve our needs. She has been a trusted friend for years. I met her in kindergarten even, Jackson met her in a bazar in Asia somewhere. Fluke accident. They hit it off, always fighting for the top spot. And I could see they would be good friends once they found their differences a good thing. When she moved to the canyon, I haven't seen much of her. "Where is she now? Did she go to heaven?" Valor laid his head on my shoulder again. I nodded.
"Yep," I looked back at him smiling slightly, "she was a good person. She's in a better place now." He smiled like me. While I was looking at him, I didn't see Jackson stop, so I ran right into his backpack that he always over packed. "What the heck dude?" I rubbed my nose, slightly erasing the redness.
"Look," he pointed to a cave that was glowing on the inside. "What is that?" He ran over to its entrance and carelessly went inside. I sighed and reluctantly followed suit.
"Ma, look." Valor started to call me that more and more now. I hope that means he's getting comfortable with us as his 'parents.' But I followed his line of sight and gasped at the amazing paintings that ran up the wall and to the ceiling. One painting was of people bowing down to a ship, similar to the UFOs that kids dreamt about when their parents told them stories of the aliens. Another painting was a man, women, and child standing near a cross. They were all holding hands, and then I noticed the man hovering above the cross with wings.
"Jackson." I called to him, he was far ahead. Examining the glowing liquids that ran like a creek through the entirety of the structure. I caught his attention however, and he ran over to me. "Do you see this? These are all, paintings of stories that people believe in without proof that they existed," I trailed my finger down the line. "Jesus, aliens, Greek gods, fairies, and kings and queens of sugarplum castles." Valor chuckled. I said that last one just for him. Jackson admired them a bit longer before turning to me.
"Yeah, but that's not all." He ran away from the entrance again. I decided to follow him closer this time, so I had to sprint to keep up. We stopped in a large room. The glowing blue liquid ran around the edges of it, and along the walls were pedestals that held urns, vases of flowers, and a tiny mirror sat on the farthest one from us. But the one that caught my eye was a little broach, with a faint yellow glow to it's humble stone. And inside of the stone were three wisps, whispering something inaudible. Jackson meanwhile, was picking everything up to touch it, placed it back down, and found something else to touch, eventually dropping one of the urns.
The mirror suddenly lit up and scolded him. "Watch what your doing hot head, or I'll have to place a curse on you and your family." Jackson jumped back, but quickly got up to it and held it in his arms. "I'm not a baby you bafoon. Put me down!" I took the mirror com Jackson and smiled at the reflection of a man inside.
"Hi." I smiled. "You must be the magic mirror. That refuses to hang on the wall. Can you tell me what this is?" I asked about the beautiful broach. The mirror's face nodded, slightly turning red for some reason.
"Yes, ma'am." He looked at the broach for a bit before answering. "That's the wisps' prison. There are three still left inside. On them, you may make a wish." I gave the mirror back to Jackson happily, and returned to admire my find. "I SAID PUT MY DOWN YOU OAF!" The mirror fumed. Jackson was swinging it and tossing it around, up until he found something better. He nearly dropped the mirror putting it back to look at a clay potion bottle, with old writing on it that Jackson couldn't read. He threw it in the air, with lots of objections from the mirror. The potion broke and the green dust that was inside fell on top of us. I laughed when I saw Jackson turn into a crow, so befitting of him. I turned and found Valor, a tiny puppy sitting in my pack. His eyes opened wide when he saw me.
"What happened?" Jackson squawked, looking at his wings and feeling his beak. "I can't believe I'm a pidgin!" He crowed. I chuckled, but when I stood up. I stood far taller than before and on four legs? Of course if I was exposed to the same thing the boys were, I am an animal too. I looked down at my golden doodle puppy.
"Hey," he looked up, way up, at me with scared emotions flooding about his features. "What am I?" He looked at me, taking in my features. Confused. I could tell he didn't know.
"I think you're a deer." He nodded confidently, "yep, definitely a deer. That's you." He smiled all puppy like, wagging his tail. Jackson was flying about the place scared and unable to figure out how to fly right side up.
"Will you relax a bit Jackson, we should get out of here before we cause any more damage." The mirror was laughing at us, down by his pedestal. "What's so funny?" I said, making him immediately stop his laughter.
"You are a funny bunch. I will tell you now that the cure to that is in the vile, on the shelf, next to the pedestal, that you found the potion on." Jackson quickly flew to it, and dumped it on himself.
"That was a weird experience entirely." He was back to his normal self. He dumped the powder on Valor and then to me. "Let's just get out of here." I grabbed the broach before we left. There was no way that I was going to give up three wishes, but I needed to be careful with them, of I could end up causing some harm.
"I will like by my rules from now on!" Valor declared the moment he came through the door, after his second day of school.
"Is that so?" I asked him, amused, but also afraid he'd loose interest in abiding by our own rules.
"Yep, I've decided to live Three Ds that are Death, District, and Derrière. Yes Seri, I'm going to fix Death. Put him in his place and make sure nobody I love will die. The second is District, my home and family, must be protected at all costs. And finally Derrière!" He said that was self explanatory, but I insisted that he'd go on. "Derrière, protecting my own hide while also keeping everyone else alive." I awed.
"So, you've got a lot on your plate then. I guess you don't want any cake huh?" I smiled at his face. He looked pained, as if I wouldn't give him any. He sighed.
"Alright, I might just drop one thing for the cake." He went to eat a piece. "By the way, why de we have came?" I smiled.