Mystical Mermaid Trunk
Warning sirens wailed.
Lightning struck the central cell tower. A Herculean hurricane landed onshore, bringing gale-force winds fifty miles inland and flash floods all the way to the small town of Portlatch, Georgia. Opaque gray clouds covered the afternoon sun, descending over rooftops, welding together to form an ominous funnel so big that it plowed into the earth.
The twister of destruction carved a path about two-hundred and fifty feet wide and two miles long, moving through miles of corn and wheat fields. Power and phone lines dangled freely after getting clipped. The lights went out. Radio towers toppled. Windows exploded from the extreme drop in air pressure as the tornado drove into the country. The two-hundred mile per hour winds tossed pickup trucks into the air like toy cars. It even severed the three-story brick school building in two and flung cows in its wake. At the John-Deere dealership, the entire inventory of thirteen-ton combines tumbled end over end.
Seventeen-year-old Cora O’Neil shouted at her friend, “TJ Washington! Don’t stand at the door! Get inside! The funnel is behind yeh!”
Travis Jerome Washington stood outside, frantically waving his friends toward his grandparent’s barn. The ground rumbled beneath his feet, the noise so deafening he couldn’t hear her over the shuttering barn timbers, nor the howling winds. Why are they here? Especially after what happened today. What’re those fools thinking…why come here? Why not stay with their own families? He knew his brother was safe with their grandpops. They left yesterday for the annual tractor show in Florida.
Racing alongside, Andréa Ramirez grabbed Cora’s arm to catch up and reach TJ. “I got a beef to settle with TJ before my Pai finds out.”
Dodging flying debris, the girls sprinted through the threshold. TJ used his lean, muscular frame to slam the thick metal bars through their slots, securing the wooden doors behind them. A year ago, he had to leave Harlem, not that he’d had a choice in that. He ran past the swaying pitchforks, shovels, and rakes fastened to the walls but stopped in front of his prized oak treasure trunk in the back corner of the barn. He didn’t know if he would survive this storm, but somehow, he didn’t care. It just didn’t matter what happened to him. Absently fiddling with his pocketknife, he constructed a new plan that might keep them alive. He huffed, throwing his knife into the wooden eye of a carved mermaid. His wiry arms thrust open the lid, yanking out the heaviest of his carved wood collection.
Fighting against the winds, the girls ran to help TJ. A sheen of sweat dripped off his round scalp. Wiping his moist hands over his drenched baggy shirt, he shoved blocks of wood out of the way.
TJ worked faster when he heard the winds slamming against the barn. He pulled out the largest wood pieces, some chiseled, others plain. He mumbled to himself, “I know we’ll be safe in here.” He hurled a carving against the old barn wall, splintering it. His quick, frantic movements jostled them until he yelled out, “Come on! Help me move my wood stash. We can push the trunk into the deep bay my grandpops uses for oil changes on the tractors. Then we can all fit in here.”
The air pressure dropped. Thunder crackled above them.
Cora, momentarily dazed by the small stow size, hoped the inside had more room than it appeared. Shaking her head, she pushed up her sleeves and dug into the woodpile. She brushed her creamy white arm against his light-brown skin. Her heart melted. TJ, the object of her obsession, had a safe place for them. She clutched the face of her panda T-shirt against her chest to still her thumping heart. Then straightened her black skort and tossed her red hair. One whiff of his sandalwood-scented man-ness sent her into a tizzy.
The sharp smack of something slamming into the barn doors from powerful gusts startled her back into the storm’s threatening reality. Forcing her mushy feelings to the side, she focused on the trunk. A tight, stretched sensation filled her belly. She couldn’t imagine how or why this chest would save them. Her hypersensitivity to touch turned the moment her hand grazed against the beautiful mermaid paintings along the sides. Then, as if in a trance, her fingertips traced the etched carvings of a fantastical coral world, scenes of tropical fish, seals, sea lions and merfolk. Goosebumps covered her arms. She pulled her hand away and squeezed her eyes shut when a painted mermaid winked at her. Prying one eye open but seeing nothing unusual, she shrugged it off, thinking it, her imagination fueled by the constant battering against the barn walls. She dashed past the swinging ropes to see the divot, analyzing the dimensions. “Aye, a tight fit, I’d rather be home with my Ma and Da in our bunker.” Andréa needs me. These two are my best mates. I have to keep the peace, or I won't have any friends. TJ was wrong today, his actions at school…everyone makes mistakes.
Thunderous wind and rain whipped at the barn.
Andréa ducked past swinging pitchforks. Loose hay swirled around her head, mixing with her long black hair. Andréa heaved the remaining carvings with ease. She’d check to see if—even hoped—one would pop TJ in the head. Enough to give him the concussion she thought he deserved. The storm outside matched the storm that raged inside all seventeen years of her. No one had ever made her as mad as he did today. Not even her five Argentinean brothers. “Mi irmãos Mãe, Pai. Oh, no!” She pulled her cell phone from her cargo pants pocket but didn’t see a signal. She yelled out, “Aaahh! No!”
Rain pummeled the roof like a hail of bullets, matching the pulsing blood pushing against her temples.
TJ yanked on her hoodie.
She screamed at him, “What! Vato?”
He yelled, “Andréa, help me push the chest into the bay!”
Within three pushes, the trunk tipped in. “Yeah, that’s how we roll.” TJ shoved Cora in, knocking off her clogs. Following, he yanked his knife from the mermaid’s wooden eye. Droplets of water fell from the painted mermaid trunk. Man, I wish I weren’t stuck with them. Might be over quick. Either way, I gotta show Andréa I’m better than that dawg Deruk, assistant Coach or not…maybe she’ll be chill and forget about what happened at school.
Water seeped into the barn, flooding the floors. Struggling to move against a rapidly forming current, Andréa felt something slimy brush against her leg and thought it
might be a fish, but she didn’t know how that could be. Painted fish adorned the mermaid trunk, but a sudden pungent fish odor filled the air. Andréa scrunched her nose, burying her head in her red hoodie to block the smell.
The ground rumbled. Both her sneakers got sucked off her feet from the mud on the barn floor when she flung herself into the trunk. Bumping around, she struggled to grasp the lid of the chest. Heaving against the forces, she used her own brawn and yanked it shut. Then slumped against TJ.
Crammed together, the three cowered, listening to the sounds of the farm disintegrating around them.
Outside, the rumbling grew louder and louder. Thunderous wind and rain whipped around the barn. Planks of wood ripped off the side. Shingles on the roof flew off as if they were feathers. The front doors of the structure tore off minutes before the barn flattened to the ground. The twister sat on Portlatch, Georgia for eight-minutes, grinding up homes, cars, and trees like an enormous wood-chipper.
TJ, Cora, and Andréa wedged into the chest. They never felt the rumble, tumble, or crash of the barn collapsing on top of them. Instead, the sounds of rushing water terrified them as it spun the trunk around and around. Flash flooding all over town seemed directed toward the mermaid trunk.
A strange, high-pitched female laughter echoed from within the trunk. Andréa and Cora exchanged frightened looks and tried to see where the sound came from.
TJ sat, inwardly wound as tight as cable wire. Outwardly, he held his favorite wood carving, a small wooden copper-colored dragon. His thumb just rubbing it back and forth.
A jolt grew to a spin, their stomachs flopped when they felt the trunk spinning faster like water draining down a sink. Their limbs went limp, and their eyes grew heavy. The laughter slowly subsided, lulling them into a deep sleep, preparing them for their future.
The mystical mermaid trunk had a destination all its own. The water gave way to a current into the open ocean. A funnel formed around the trunk. Sucking it down through the Bermuda Triangle portal and into the heart of the Alpha realm.
Breathe TJ, breathe TJ. Sweat poured from his bald head. Seconds later, his wood carving quivered, cracking open along the finely chiseled lines like an eggshell. A tiny copper dragon clawed its way out.
Now flesh instead of wood, it grabbed TJ with its talons, tossing him onto its back. They rode out of the sea, joining the celestial nebula through the portal of the mermaid chest with beating wings. Cloaked in darkness, hovering close while remaining invisible, TJ bared witness to a scene he did not understand, as if he were in a different dimension.
Mythological chimera beasts battled against two fierce dragons. TJ could feel the heat from the fireballs around the fleeing dragons. He quaked at the lightning spewing from the black dragon’s forked tongue aimed at the rebel forces driving toward them. TJ felt himself pushing against the strong whipping winds generated by the mighty green and black dragons they followed.
TJ’s copper dragon ducked past the searing flames coming from the mouth of the green dragon as blazing fire formed a thick, protective circle around the two dragons. The copper dragon folded his wings around himself and his companion for protection, while remaining close enough to feel the energy of battle.
The black and green dragons sped toward a closing portal, and TJ heard their words.
“The ancient prophecy is materializing fast,” the black dragon said. “The hole in the Alpha Realm’s ozone widens as we speak…we must stop the revolutionaries from winning the war…this is our one chance to find and destroy the prophesied humans.”
Clenching his jaw, the brutish green dragon roared at his companion. “Your destiny is to stop them from reaching our realm!”
The black dragon snorted foul steam, spread his wings, and then slipped through the impenetrable portal seconds before it resealed.
Breathe. Andréa, breathe. Her gray eyes staring into the black eyes of a wolf had taken her breath away. Burned into her memory, the explosion, her family’s ranch in Argentina consumed in flames. This red wolf had saved her life. In the lucid dream state, she felt haunted by the night of the fire and terrified about the hurricane. Natural disasters had affected her family twice in the last three years. She wondered if the earth hated her or her family. A blinding bright white shone. The wolf morphed into a mythical creature, a pure white stallion with a horn.
No.
An unusual horse stood inches away in a thicket of lush forest greenery. He had both a horn and wings. She had read about the Pegasus, and unicorns but not a combination of both. His snort turned her face to meet his. Hot air puffed from his nostrils, his breath brushed against her face like a torch, a guiding presence, both fiery and glacial. She felt her hot, dry skin become cool, even moist.
One hand knowingly glided over his nose. Her fingertips stroked his horn. In doing so, he pulled her into a different place. A beautiful castle overlooking the ocean. On his bare back, they ran toward it on the beach. A rocky outlay stopped the ride. The horse dipped its horn into the sea.
Receding waves foamed fast into a swirl, going faster and faster, much like water circling a drain. Her mind’s eye witnessed a hole break the matrix of the earth’s crust beneath the ocean. Her body lurched forward on the horses back, the castle shrouded into the darkness.
“That was when a knowingness you could feel but not describe had brought you off Earth.” explained the Pegacorn,. A deep sadness her mind didn’t comprehend filled her heart.
Dipping his horn into the moat in front of the castle, he repeated the words, “A power of three, heals the land, air, and sea.”
Breathe. Just breathe, thought Cora. An Egyptian goddess appeared before her. A sun disk headdress adorned her head, with a bronze cobra on the crown. She pointed to hieroglyphics inside the pyramid, then traced the symbols in the cold underground alcove. The goddess touched Cora’s ear with her fingertip, a soothing melody swelled around them. Delighted, Cora hummed the sound, mimicking it. The sensation felt alive on her lips. Singing the notes she had never heard before; the goddess revealed the message written on the wall. “A power of three heals the land, air, and sea.”
On the wall were images painted of two young girls, one with black hair and one with red. A handsome boy with golden green eyes stood between them. TJ.
