Inertia (Gravity Series, 3.5) (The Gravity Series) Read online

  THE GRAVITY SERIES

  BOOK 3.5

  ~INERTIA ~

  by Abigail Boyd

  Copyright ©2013 Abigail Boyd

  http://abigailboyd.blogspot.com

  http://www.boydbooks.com

  DISCLAIMER:

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  COPYRIGHT:

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the author, except for use in review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  NOTE

  Inertia developed out of short sketches that I made during the writing of the Gravity Series, to know what the other characters were up to and what their motivations were. Since people often want more light shed on the story, I thought it would be interesting to develop them. We’ve been limited seeing through Ariel’s eyes, and there are just some things she doesn’t know about. I consider this collection of chapters to be sort of the deleted scenes of the books.

  There are some spoilers for Uncertainty and Luminosity in Inertia, but I think it sheds the most light on the happenings in Gravity. If you’ve just read the books and are going, “Huh?” then read further for some answers. For those who enjoy the characters and the town of Hell, this is a chance to spend more time with them and see different scenes through their perspectives as well. I hope you all find it an insightful and entertaining addition to the series.

  Content Warning: Recommended for readers 14 and up. This novella contains strong language, drug use, sexuality, and violence. A little less clean than the other books in the series. Not everyone in Hell is an angel.

  1. ELEANOR

  Bernhardt Medical Asylum, 1967

  ELEANOR WATCHED THE pendulum swing back and forth, performing its endless motion. The dark stuffiness of Doctor Wallace’s office always made her drowsy and docile, which she suspected was his intent. She’d had mandatory sessions with him twice a week ever since she had been committed to Bernhardt—or Bernie as the staff and inmates called it. She dreaded the sessions the instant she started walking down the ghastly, sick-green hall towards his closed door.

  The doctor sat behind the safety of his desk, the squiggle from his cigarette smoke a white ghost in the air. She could barely make out his face through the smoke, only the shadows of eyes, nose, mouth.

  “You’re quiet today,” Dr. Wallace observed, tapping his ashes in a tray.

  “I don’t have much to say.” Eleanor squirmed uncomfortably, pulling at her itchy gingham dress—standard uniform for female patients of the asylum. “When can I go back to my room? You and I both know we’re not going to make any great revelation.”

  “Your time isn’t up yet.”

  “Is that all these sessions are for? Filling time? Because me rattling my thoughts off doesn’t seem to be doing any good otherwise.”

  “Now, now, Eleanor.” His leather chair made a hideous squeal as he shifted backwards, and even the shadows of his features fell back into a gray void. “You’ve lived at the asylum with us for nearly three years. We’ve had hours of these talks. Tried so many treatments. The latest, the electroshock…I was sure it would cure you of your ailment.”

  Eleanor shivered as she remembered biting down on the rubber mouth guard, the pressure of the instruments against her temples.

  “But yet you’ve found no relief,” the doctor continued. “You still see the ghosts, as you identify them, isn’t that correct?”

  Eleanor nodded, biting her cheek hard enough to draw coppery blood.

  “You told me that when all else failed, we’d try the medication.”

  Eleanor knew it was coming, but his suggestion still hit her unprepared. She sprang out of her seat and backed up towards the door.

  “I don’t want to talk about this.” She covered her ears with her fists. In the corners of the room, she saw the shadows stirring and taking form, responding eagerly to the sudden heightening of emotions. Dr. Wallace’s cigarette continued to smolder, masking them. Her eyes darted around as she tried to hold the shadows still with her willpower, but it wasn’t working.

  “There is no other option,” Dr. Wallace insisted. “Unless you want to live the rest of your life and die here, you have no other choice. Look at yourself.”

  “I want to go back to my room!” Eleanor shouted hoarsely. The ghostly shadows were creeping closer. Why couldn’t he see them? Why couldn’t he—just for once—see them? She backed up so that her body hit the door and cowered, still with her hands over her ears. She couldn’t get her emotions under control enough to stop the figures.

  Then the doctor was holding her up by her elbows. He stared into her face with a look of concern that seemed impossible to fake in his pale eyes. “What are you so afraid of?”

  “Losing myself,” Eleanor said, and fainted.

  ###

  After she’d regained consciousness and been sent back to her quarters, Eleanor sat in her room alone, staring out of the steel bars to the courtyard below. There were rows of hedges, lined up in what almost looked like a maze from this angle. The sky was dull and lifeless, the trees still bare even though it was the first week of March.

  There was no decoration in her room—Bernie rules—except for a thin wooden vase full of plastic, pastel colored flowers on her nightstand and a Bible in the drawer. The walls were stone and cold. Nothing home-like about the place. Like an evil old castle, she’d thought the first time she’d laid eyes on it.

  Of course, back then she’d been in much worse shape. At least she no longer saw ghosts every moment of the day now. Most of the time she knew what was real.

  From out in the hallway, she could hear the screams of other inmates. Unless you want to live the rest of your life and die here… Could it really come to that? Of course it could. Her foster parents had been horrified when they’d found out that they’d adopted a bad apple, especially since her rotten core hadn’t come to light until her seventeenth birthday. She’d kept her visions a secret for two years prior to then.

  But during her birthday party, monsters and shadows had begun to creep out of hidden crevices and joined her friends and family on the dance floor. She had felt her brain melt like ice cream fallen to a hot sidewalk, and she’d confessed everything she’d seen through a storm of tears to her parents while the other guests trickled out uncomfortably.

  She was almost twenty now. She would have to make it out there in the big, intimidating world on her own. At least Bernhardt provided the safety and security of knowing she had a bed and hot (or lukewarm) meals. At least…

  A flock of birds shot across the gray sky outside, causing her to sit up. The birds were all black and moved in an unnatural formation, fast but jerky. They were Eleanor’s signal. The birds came to show her things.

  She fished her necklace out from inside the plain pillowcase. For a moment, the shapes in the corners began to wiggle and twitch. Stay put, Eleanor shot fiercely with her mind, and the shadows obey
ed her.

  The necklace had been with her for as long as she could remember, one of her only possessions at the foster home where she’d grown up. She’d worn it every day until she was fifteen, but then she’d realized wearing the green stone made the visions stronger.

  At first, she’d fought it and kept the necklace up in the attic at home. She couldn’t bear to throw it away, though—it was the only thing of any value that was really hers. Her foster parents were wealthy and generous enough, but they were also strict and noticed any stray hair out of place. The necklace felt like a part of her true self.

  It hadn’t been easy to stay away. She felt herself drawn up the little set of stairs, up to the attic where she’d hidden it away in a cigar box. She’d planned on taking it out of its hiding place and just looking at the vivid green stone, but couldn’t resist the urge to put it back on.

  In the beginning, being in the world of ghosts was volatile, but over the months she had begun to control her journeys. She could even slip her spirit out of her body and walk around in between worlds. But then she’d lost her grip on reality and the ghosts had invaded.

  The birds had come in the last few months. It seemed like they were trying to show her something. Maybe even help her escape.

  She slipped the necklace onto her slender neck and held her breath as the room around her shifted. She blinked and the plain stone walls now showed vines growing through them, breaking through even though it was impossible. She tugged herself up onto wobbly legs, feeling the disconcerting shift as her spirit pulled away from her body. Turning back around, she looked down just to make sure. Her abandoned body sat still and catatonic on the bed, staring off into space with its hands on its knees. The orderlies had seen her in this state several times and thought nothing of it. Eleanor’s deep thoughts, one had remarked later.

  Wasting no more time, Eleanor passed through the locked door and into the hall. The entire asylum had changed, vines and weeds poking out of the stone all over. The wails of the inmates were drowned out by the screams of the dead, and it frightened her as she passed by the doors. She began running down the hall, eager to get away from the sound. The world was alive around her—but there was nothing natural fueling it.

  The locked doors that made up the sanitarium were no match for her powers, and she quickly shot through them without even thinking about it. She raced through the room known as the observatory—a wall of thick glass windows looking out onto the outside hedges. The vines were thicker here, covering the gray stone in a mass of twisted green. Ugly purple flowers bloomed from the stalks. Little creatures crawled around in the dark, and mud oozed out of the bottom of the walls and almost covered the floor.

  It was hard to draw her feet up from the muck, but Eleanor crossed the floor and passed several patients who were milling about, muttering to themselves during their fresh air time.

  She burst out of the building and ran down the pebbled garden path to the hedge rows. There she froze. The purple sky above was much darker than the daylight she’d seen looking out of her window earlier.

  The birds came across the sky again, shot down in front of her, and swooped into the maze. Seeing them erased her doubts. She tried to pass through the first towering hedge, but it was solid. She patted the leafy green wall, oddly hard and unyielding.

  Instead, she rushed through the beginning of the hedges. They twisted off and to the right. She went the only way she could, already getting impatient. But what she’d taken for granted was that they’d look the same as they did when she wasn’t in this dark world. She’d gone on trips before around the grounds, but she’d never chanced the hedges. She’d thought it looked spooky and forbidding, more so than the rest of the spirit world.

  Everything felt more powerful right now and it surprised her. But she felt like she was tugged into chasing the birds. She looked down and the necklace was glowing, and it felt hot on top of her gingham dress.

  She ran but could not find her way. It really had become a maze, too tall to see over and casting shadows that confused her further, not straight rows of hedges. The sky above her grew darker still. Fear pulsed through her. She’d made a terrible mistake. The hedges twisted and turned, and several times she ran into dead ends. She wondered if she would get trapped.

  A strong surge of heat came from up ahead. She could hear the birds cawing, and slowed her steps, breathing harshly. The green stone on the necklace burned hotter than ever. She walked around the next row of hedges.

  There was a woman clothed in a bright red dress standing in the middle of an open area. The dress flowed around her like the wind was blowing only on her. The woman was beautiful, with full lips and bright eyes, and there was also something familiar about her. Like she was a relative, a sister. She glowed with golden, otherworldly light.

  Eleanor was entranced and moved closer. Then she also sensed the pain and anger coming from the woman. The golden, shimmering light around her turned to a bloody red. A shot of fear ran through Eleanor as the woman reached out for her. Her lovely, young expression was tainted with hatred and anger. A spark of desperation leaped around in her eyes.

  Who are you? Eleanor wanted to ask, but she had no voice. Fear flooded her, making her shake. Worst of all, that familiarity hadn’t gone away.

  Without thinking, Eleanor reached up to her throat and ripped the necklace off, just as the woman’s hands were almost upon her.

  Eleanor was back in her asylum room instantly, panting and scared, standing up on her feet. She patted her body to make sure it was solid and real, and was relieved to find she was in one piece. The necklace lay discarded on the floor, looking deceptively harmless. She ran to the window and looked out at the gray day—there was no sign of any red in the hedges. No birds, either.

  She tore the case off of her pillow, shoved the necklace inside, and made a knot at the end. There was a loose spot in one of the floorboards—she pried it up with her fingers and dropped the bag inside. She never wanted to use it again. It was a trap—the birds were just leading her to that awful woman. Part of her told her that it was important for her to go to her, but it was too dangerous.

  She didn’t know if she’d be strong enough. But she had to be—the angry woman in red threatened to show her dark truths about herself, of that she was certain.

  Dr. Wallace was right. It was time to try the medication. She couldn’t go on like this. She sat back down on her bed and ran her hands through her short bobbed hair. She would never wear the necklace again. She promised herself that.

  And she didn’t…until the day she died.

  2. JENNA

  SOMETHING STRANGE TRAVELED in on the wind in May. Something had changed. Jenna couldn’t put her finger on it, but as the winter departed and spring marched towards summer, a chill settled in her bones. Usually she was geeked at this time of year, when school was about to let out, but her anxiety grew instead.

  Part of it had to do with her parents fighting. They had always squabbled, but now there were serious threats of divorce because of their money situation. More than once, Jenna came home to see her mother waving a bill in front of her father’s face.

  Another reason for the strangeness was her mother, Rachel’s, sudden insistence that Jenna hang out with the popular girls in school. Rachel knew that Jenna hated even being near Lainey and Madison, but she thought it would be good for their image. There was a group in town called the Thornhill Society that Rachel was itching to be a part of, even if meant disregarding her daughter’s wishes.

  Jenna already had friends. She wasn’t interested in cultivating new bonds with old rivals.

  “Bad news,” her best friend Ariel told her over the phone one weekend. Jenna had just been preparing to go out the door and head over to her house.

  “What’s up?”

  “My parents roped me into helping with the yard sale. So no go today. But we can still go see the movie tomorrow, if you’re up for it.”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m sorry,
” Ariel said. Ariel was always much more concerned about having a schedule and planning things; Jenna didn’t much care. She preferred to fly by the seat of her pants.

  “No prob, Bob. Have fun selling crap.”

  Jenna hung up the phone. Rachel was in the kitchen and had figured out the entire conversation just by listening in, which irritated her instantly. Her mother never gave her any privacy and had no problem snooping through her stuff.

  Sure enough, Rachel practically shot her own cell phone at her daughter. “Why don’t you give Lainey a call? I have her number right here. You girls can figure out something to do.”

  Jenna made a split second decision to just get it over with, to get her mom off her back. Maybe if she saw how little Jenna and Lainey got along, she would stop bugging her about it.

  That’s how Jenna ended up at the mall an hour later. Since it was a Saturday, the mall was packed with crowds doing some recreational shopping.

  After Lainey and Madison tried on clothes at numerous different stores and compared their sizes, the trio wound up at the food court. Lainey was on a new vegan diet, and loudly proclaimed that she was doing it for health reasons only.

  “My doctor actually told me I needed to gain weight,” she informed the other girls.

  “Yeah, right,” Madison declared to Jenna when Lainey was out of earshot, scoping out a table. “It’s only a matter of time before she says her doctor told her to add cheeseburgers. She’s just gonna throw it all back up again anyway.”

  Now they were sipping on neon ice slushes at the tall table. Lainey watched other girls pass and sniped at each of them while Madison provided the laugh track. The three girls compared their radioactive tongue colors.

  “It looks like you gave a Smurf a blowjob,” Lainey declared to Jenna, and she and Madison giggled. Jenna gritted her teeth and resisted the urge to reach across the table and smack Lainey square in her smug face.

  Did they do this every day? Just sit around and bitch about other girls’ weights and slut ratings? It was the first time Jenna had truly hung out with them, and she didn’t see the appeal. She’d always thought the popular girls’ lives would be full of glitz and glamour. This was pathetic.