The Stone Elevator

The Stone Elevator

I stepped into the stone doorway and watched the heavy doors close behind me. I was happy to leave the training grounds, where I’d been preparing for a battle with spirits, but I knew I would be trading one battle for another in the next realm I visited.

The brass buttons were dashed across an intricately engraved plate on the wall. There were nearly 100 of them, all set at a diagonal, so they formed a large chevron. They were sparsely numbered and mostly out of order with some numbers repeating. After staring at the wall for too long and wondering why interrealm travel had to be so tedious, I gave up and pushed one of the two #8 buttons. When the elevator stopped, I stepped off, clutching the illusive book I had finally found to my chest. I was not in the building where I’d meet my mother, but in a park. “Yep, wrong one!” I thought to myself. I turned around to get back on and try to arrive in the right realm, when I heard a voice behind me, “Wait! Hold the elevator!” It was a young man in a greyish blue jacket. He had smooth chestnut skin and the most perfect smile I’ve ever seen. I slid my hand across the closing door and let him into the car. We both stood in the elevator for a moment, neither of us moving or talking. I didn’t realize he was being courteous and allowing me to choose my floor first, until he eventually rolled his eyes and pressed the other number 8 on the panel. I sighed in relief and explained, “Sorry, I just don’t know how this thing works.” He sighed.

“First time?”

“No, I was born here.”

“Really?” He twisted his face. “It doesn’t seem like it.”

“Well, I haven’t been back since. I was sent down to the flat realm as a kid and my mom stayed here to work in the ward.”

He nodded his head. “That makes sense. So you’re an academy kid?”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“Depends on who you ask, I guess.” He had a smirk on his face. He was taunting me but I couldn’t help but notice the sparkle in his eye.

“I’m asking you” I retorted. He paused to think. His smirk dissolved into a genuine smile. He continued, “I guess I just assume you’re pretty smart… Which leads me to this. You gotta learn how the elevator works.”

He explained the system. The numbers move backwards then forwards towards the center. There was a line down the middle of numbers that corresponded with great warriors master numbers and then several were added haphazardly on the ends as the other realms expanded and split in halves. If I had a diagram, I think I would still be lost.

He was mid lecture when the elevator screeched to a halt. “After you!” he said as the doors slid open. He dashed off in one direction while I looked around. The room in front of me was familiar. It was more like a hallway. There weren’t many lights and all of the doors were heavy and metal. On one end of the hall were double doors and across them in large white block lettering read, “Intervention”. That was the ward where my mother worked. I hadn’t seen her in years.

Seeing her was like seeing a familiar stranger. There was not a lot of pomp and circumstance. We had been able to write letters to each other over the years. We occasionally would have a video call or send holograms on holidays. When she saw me she smiled and hugged me tightly.

In my 22 years, I could recall hugging my mom only 3 times. When she was in academy, she dedicated her life to serving as a doctor in the medical center in the Blue Realm, where people who were cast out from the other realms were sent. She hadn’t planned on children, but when I arrived, she raised me to age 7, then sent me to the Flat Realm to attend the Academy of Arts and Conjure. She wanted to raise a warrior who could live an exciting life, helping others and traveling between realms, so she sent me to do just that and never wavered on her decision.

“I hope the elevator didn’t give you too much trouble, Senaya!”, she said in her sing-songy voice.

“Not too much…” She looked over her glasses at me. She knew I was lying.

“I don’t understand the buttons, Mama. But I got here safe and--”

“Oh that’s easy enough to fix! The top rows are--”

“That’s okay, Ma!” I rarely interrupted her but couldn’t take another painfully confusing explanation of the ancient pulley system.

“A man jumped on after me and showed me the ropes. I’ll learn.”

“A man? Hmm...” She sucked her teeth and gestured for me to follow her.

“Did you bring the book dear?” she asked me in her doctor voice, shifting away from her motherly tone.

“Yes, Mama!” I squeaked. I handed her the heavy black leather notebook I’d been toting. It had to be at least 100 years old. It looked constantly on the verge of falling apart yet vibrated with it’s own energy. It contained remedies for ancient illnesses and ailments, spells that had been banned, and spells that were sacred, like the ones that freed our ancestors from enslavement on every continent in the Flat Realm. I don’t know where she got it, but she needed it now because an old illness had reappeared in the ward.

Our people fought to keep a balance between the spirit worlds and the mortal worlds for centuries. Up until now, our intense training and studying was more of a cultural practice and precaution than a necessity. But in the last year, 2 new (well, old) illnesses had appeared in our world and ancient monsters that we’d made peace with were reappearing with renewed violent agendas.

“Come now, I want to introduce you to someone. She is going to help me decipher some of this text!”

My mother grabbed my hand and walked me across the hallway to what looked like a large bedroom. The carpet was emerald green and the walls had intricately textured pink wallpaper. When I looked inside the room, there was a canopy bed draped in golden curtains that seemed to take up half of the large room. I looked on and there was a small person tucked underneath the covers.

“Hello, Mama Oneh” my mother chimed.

We crept into the room like the floor was made of glass.

“Hello, Seerah” the small figure replied in an accent similar to my mothers.

I couldn’t help my widening eyes. Most everyone I have heard speak to my mother called her Doctor Ife; she insisted on it.

“Is this your daughter?” Mama Oneh gestured her hand at me, smiling a bright smile.

“Yes, it is. She is just visiting. She’s helping me with studying the illness.”

“Another Doctor?”

“She is studying at the academy to be a warrior actually, but she brought us the old book.” Mama Oneh nodded and smiled. She was an esteemed elder. I could tell because of the way my mother spoke to her.

“My grandson, Chike, will be attending the academy in the spring.” She gestured to her bedside and almost out of sight, on a velvet chair, sat the man from the elevator.

“Might be attending. I still have to petition to return to the Flat Realm.”

“That will be no problem”, another voice said. The woman who entered had to be Chike’s mother. She had the same smooth skin as he and Mama Oneh, and looked at him sternly like only a mother could.

The women greeted each other and proceeded to talk about me and Chike like we weren’t there. I sat down on a settee by the door, exchanging glances with Chike as we shared our embarrassment. Then the conversation pivoted to “sending him back”. From what I gathered, Mama Oneh’s family had been exiled to Blue Realm because of her husband; a radical who defied the government publicly on many accounts. He believed that ancient texts should be studied and ancient temples should be revered and left untouched. Most temples today were connected to academies and were used by students to summon creatures to study and battle. None of his lineage had returned since. They want Chike to attend the academy to represent their family and restore their status. Unfortunately, because of the gross patriarchal policies that have been kept in place, it has to be a male heir who breaks the exile sentence and Chike is the first. He is older than they would have planned because one has to be sponsored and accompanied to return to Flat Realm and that is hard to come by in Blue. Most people that come there are there to stay, and anyone else just doesn’t come.

After much conversation, his mother said, "Why doesn't he go with Senaya? She can be his chaperone. She's smart and finishing academy. They are the same age but she is a serious girl. We will set her up with the house and the cars and whatnot so that they can go together to and from school. She can look after him while he finishes his studies. We can give her a stipend of course, perhaps $20,000 each semester to pay for food and such. ”

I didn’t know what to say. Or if I should say anything. I looked to my mother for her reaction and she was attuned to the conversation, nodding her head in consideration. I supposed she would make a decision for me. I tried to justify the possibility of a new house and car just for being this man’s babysitter. The chatter finally ceased when my mother said, “Okay, yes. I think that will be fine. Right, Senaya?” I nodded.

It would be too conspicuous to leave Flat Realm with a book and to come back with an exile, so I had to stay for an extended period of time there, to lessen suspicions. My friends back home were confused and I couldn’t tell them what had happened. It was risky to chaperone an exiled citizen. If we were thought to be strangers doing a favor, then it would not bode well for either of our families. I wrote that I was dedicating myself to the children's center, which I was. My mother had secured me a position tutoring children.

On off days Chike and I would get to know each other. We walked to the cafes, museums, and beaches and talked about his grandfather’s manifesto and how he wanted to change Flat Realm to honor our ancestors. We became a team, and best friends. We even managed to both pass our exams and were preparing to tell our families the good news. We could now both return to Flat Realm, without the burden of being students. Chike would be admitted easily as a matriculated warrior.

One afternoon, I snuck off to the cellar where he’d been attending his courses. As I peered into the room I could see his silhouette. He was talking very seriously with Professor Rampersad, when he sensed my presence. He glanced back at me and turned away, not acknowledging I was there. I waited in the doorway until finally, he bowed his head, stood, and walked towards me.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Professor Rampersad and I have been studying the elevator, and new realms are appearing everyday. That’s just not normal. We think we know what’s causing it but we have to do something… unorthodox to stop it.”

“Unorthodox?”

“When we return to the Flat Realm, we’ll recruit a team, seal the entryway to the elevator, and ride the elevator back to the year my grandfather was exiled.”