Twin Flames
A High School Musical fanfiction
by
GimmeABeat
beta'd by karazoel
Chapter 2: I've been a good girl...
"I've been a good girl... I've never lied... Except when necessary. I've always bought my parents expensive gifts... Using their credit cards, of course!"
- Sharpay Evans, High School Musical 2
Even someone new to the area had to admit, Albuquerque was a strange city. At the edges of the far west side, designated the West Mesa, where tract home subdivisions sprang endlessly out of the desert landscape, an anachronistic volcanic escarpment laid untouched by the greed of modern land developers. Managed by the state and the city of Albuquerque to protect the estimated 17,000 petroglyphs was a 17-mile-long basalt ridge which was home to the 7,100 acre Petroglyph National Monument.
200,000 years ago, the long-quiet Rio Grande Rift opened here, and released wave after wave of lava from a massive fissure. The lava flowed over the soft sedimentary land that surrounded the fissure, then filled canyons and surrounding hills. Five volcanic cones rose up to dominate Albuquerque's western horizon, and then all grew quiet again. Over the millennia, the remaining sedimentary earth was slowly washed away from around the harder basalt of the lava flows, leaving the dark mesa that rises above the present Rio Grande Valley today.
Now, the city of Albuquerque filled the expanse between the escarpment and the river, and the world had changed in ways that would have seemed inconceivable a mere century ago, let alone when those first petroglyphs were carved.
This dramatic and beautiful landscape has drawn people to it almost as long as there have been people in the area. Possibly as far back as 800 BC, the ancestors of the Pueblo Indians who still live nearby began to visit the escarpment, and to place ritual marks and images upon the black boulders that litter the mesa's sides. Circles, spirals, and abstract lines were the first petroglyphs that would eventually come to define the place.
=/\=
"Wow", commented Gabriella as she opened the squeaky door of Troy's truck. "That's really impressive." Chad and Taylor came tumbling out after her, both of them grumbling about the cramped, hot trip to the historical escarpment. Chad was complaining most loudly due to the fact that he was forced, for some unexplainable reason, to be pressed thigh to thigh next to Troy.
Gabriella insisted that Taylor and Chad accompany them on their impromptu field trip to the Petroglyph National Monument. She knew Taylor would want to study the carvings and compare them to the one she found at Lava Springs and Chad, of course, would want to travel with his girlfriend. The fact that this completely shut out Sharpay from riding with them was the definition of serendipity. Sharpay and the recently recovered Ryan followed them in her Mustang.
"It's just how I remembered it", Troy commented while Chad was leaning against the truck bed trying to stretch the kinks out of his back.
"I don't remember being all squished up in the school bus the last time I was here", Chad grumbled.
"Let's go pick up a trail guide", Troy said to Gabriella and the two of them starting walking over to a nearby modified mailbox which held the free visitor's guides.
Sharpay and Ryan drove up and Ryan, who had forgotten his sunglasses, was squinting against the harsh afternoon glare. "Where's the bathroom?", he asked. After determining that his earlier illness was due to dehydration, Ryan had been guzzling water all afternoon.
"There isn't one, Ryan", Taylor told him.
"You'll just have to go against a scrub", Chad added.
"That's disgusting", Sharpay commented as she watched Troy and Gabriella. They were standing away from the group and Troy had his arm wrapped tightly around her waist as she giggled wildly over something he was whispering into her ear.
"When Mother Nature calls, you have to answer, Sharpay."
Sharpay looked at Chad in confusion. "Huh?"
"Okay people", Taylor announced. "Those petroglyphs aren't going to come to us. Let's move."
=/\=
After a short walk from the parking lot, they found themselves suddenly surrounded by petroglyphs. Ancient images with sacred significance were displayed liberally along the dusty trail, carved randomly into the black volcanic rock.
Taylor was in her element as she began a guided tour of the etchings.
"This is the Rinconada Canyon. We're walking up the canyon floor now. Archeologists believe Ancestral Puebloans made most of the 1200 petroglyphs in Rinconada Canyon four to seven hundred years ago; although, Pueblo elders believe the images are as old as time. They also believe that the petroglyphs choose when and to whom they reveal themselves. Maybe one of us will be considered special enough for the petroglyphs to talk to us."
"Ooooo", Chad wailed in his best spooky, otherworldly voice, "go buy my image on a postcard, ooooo. I think I hear a rock talking to me now."
"Very funny. Just ignore him", Taylor said as she did just that. Turning to Gabriella, she continued unabated. "Earlier, Gabriella... you called them cave paintings, but that's not precisely correct. Petroglyphs are literally images carved in rock. They aren't painted on."
Gabriella looked embarrassed and shyly walked a few feet away to study a particularly beautiful spiral pattern cut into the rock. Normally, she was the expert on any given subject. She hated not knowing. Silently, she vowed to google petroglyphs as soon as she got home and study up on them.
"Most of the petroglyphs were made by pecking. An early method of pecking may have been accomplished by striking the basalt boulder directly with a hammerstone removing the dark, desert varnish on the boulders surface. Later, a more controlled execution was..."
As the enthusiastic young woman continued to drone on, Sharpay took this opportunity to stand closer to Troy who was studying a stick figure which was vaguely reminiscent of the one Taylor had showed them that morning.
Sharpay had changed clothes from her morning golf lesson; after all, she couldn't go hiking in Spandex. Each piece of her outfit was chosen with Troy in mind. She wore a pink tank-top, trimmed in feminine lace which encouraged the eye to linger on her breasts. Her low-riser denim shorts were so short the pockets hung down past the ragged hem and they barely covered her rear. The pink Merrell hiking boots were the only part of her ensemble that wasn't designed to attract that certain blue-eyed hottie. Sharpay was hoping that her fashion styling would show him her ability to be sexy and still dress appropriately for the situation. She noticed with much satisfaction that Gabriella had just thrown on a pair of shorts over her Lava Springs bathing suit. Plus Sharpay knew those flip-flops could actually be quite dangerous in an area littered with rattlesnakes.
"Hey", Sharpay coquettishly brushed her shoulder against Troy's arm as he stood stooped down, staring at the drawing.
He looked up at her with a raised brow. "Hi, isn't this amazing? I mean... I don't remember these things being this impressive when we came here in fifth grade with Mrs. Nichols."
Sharpay followed Troy's eye to the figure on the stone and was stunned. It didn't look like the stick figure it at first appeared to be. It seemed to come alive as she studied it. "Yeah...", she murmured while reaching out a hand to trace it on the rock surface. "She's gathering water from the river. See there... on her head, she's carrying a clay pot. That girl had to walk over half a mile to reach the water and then carry the full container all the way back to her village."
Troy seemed to understand exactly what she was saying. "Yeah, yeah, I see it. She's the oldest daughter in her family and it's her responsibility to bring the water."
"That's right", Sharpay nodded enthusiastically. "And her name is ..."
"... Butterfly", Troy finished for her.
They both turned and looked silently at each other, cerulean blue meeting milk chocolate brown.
"Troy, there you are", Gabriella ran up, breaking the spell. "We thought we'd lost you. Come on, we found some really cool drawings around that boulder." Gabriella grabbed his arm and started pulling him away.
"Gabby, wait a second." Troy pulled away from her and turned back to Sharpay. "Sharpay?" He held his hand out to the petite blonde.
Sharpay hesitated a second and Gabriella, once again, started to pull Troy away. "Troy... the others are waiting." Her voice was insistent and edged with a slight doze of grouse.
"It's fine, Troy. I just need a second", Sharpay told him quietly. "I'll catch up."
=/\=
Sharpay watched as Troy walked away, still reeling from what just happened. He and Gabriella walked up the trail and turned to the right around a large boulder. Troy looked back at her one last time before disappearing around the corner.
What just happened?
She had just shared a flashback? a memory? a something … with Troy Bolton. Any other time and she would have been thrilled that he seemed to be interested in actually talking to her. Sharpay wasn't stupid. She realized that thus far in their relationship she was the only one actually pursuing any relationship.
But now... they had shared an experience where a cryptic figure carved in a volcanic rock had actually spoken to them, told them her tale. At first it was just a drawing, but then the figure became clearer and clearer until it was like she was staring at a photograph. Then, the photograph became more like a video and Sharpay could actually see the girl going through her daily chores, living her life. And more importantly, Troy must have been able to see the girl too. Butterfly... he had said her name was Butterfly, so he must have heard it too. No, heard wasn't right. It was more like the girl's name was whispered into her mind.
She looked back one last time at the girl and for a second she could have sworn she smiled at her, but then it was gone and there was only a stick figure chiseled into the rock.
=/\=
"Don't you think we should wait for Sharpay?" Troy kept looking back down the trail as Gabriella led him away.
"Don't be silly, Troy. She knows where we are. What were you two talking about, anyway?" Her voice sounded casual, but her eyes told a different story.
For some reason Troy didn't want to share his experience with her, even if she was his girlfriend. He shrugged instead. "Nothing much, just talking about the petroglyphs."
"Then why weren't you talking to Taylor instead? I am sure she would have loved to discuss it with you. What does Sharpay know about anything other than herself?"
Before Troy could comment or even process her caddy remark, they had come upon Taylor, Chad and Ryan. The trail had narrowed to a single file and then opened up into a field of petroglyphs littered over dozens of basalt rocks. It was a treasure trove of human-like figures, intricately carved animals, and geometric designs. The gang were scattered around the area each of them having found something which interested them.
Chad saw Troy approaching and stood up from where he was intently studying an etching. "I found him, Troy", Chad announced proudly while Taylor rolled her eyes.
Troy was still reeling from his experience with Sharpay and wasn't following what Chad was talking about. "Found who?"
"You know... the man", Chad replied knowingly, his voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. "Kokopelli."
Now Troy rolled his eyes. Back in elementary school, it was a huge bragging right to be the first boy to find the petroglyph of Kokopelli. He was the ancient Pueblo Indian's fertility god. The humped-back flute player, which symbolized the southwest on everything from keychains to wine, was also the trickster god and represented the spirit of music. He wasn't always drawn anatomically correct, but when he was, he had an unusually large and erect penis. That, of course, was why Chad was behaving in such an absurdly adolescent manner. Troy remembered one year, the vice principal had accompanied their class to the monument so he could stand guard at the drawing with a towel draped over its offending part.
"Chad...", chastised Taylor, "you are such a doofus." She chose to completely ignore him as per usual and began to walk further up the gently sloping trail.
"What is it?", Gabriella asked innocently as Chad stepped aside to show her. The young Hispanic woman squinted slightly at the stick figure which was crudely carved into the black rock. Then, her eyes went wide as she realized what she was seeing. It was the body of a man with a curved back, holding a stick which symbolized a flute in his hands. At the junction of his legs, however, lay that appendage which made Gabriella blush.
"Is that...", she started to ask.
Chad was practically rocking on his heels. "Yep, my man, Kokopelli, is very well endowed."
"That's disgusting." Gabriella wrinkled up her nose.
"I'd better catch up with Taylor. I think I've reached my quota of dumb remarks for today", Chad told Troy and Gabriella as he left in the direction Taylor had taken.
Gabriella started to follow Chad, but then stopped when she realized that Troy wasn't with her. "Troy?"
"Uh?" Troy had been looking back for Sharpay again. "Oh, just a minute Gabby."
"Hey, Troy? Where's Sharpay?", Ryan, who had been ahead of them, came back for his sister.
"She's supposed to be right behind us. Maybe we should go check on her", Troy suggested.
Gabriella heard this exchange and turned back to Troy, harrumphing loudly. "I thought she said she'd been here many times. It seems to me that she should be able to find her way around."
"Gabriella..." Troy's voice sounded slightly strained. "What's your problem?"
Ryan's eyes quickly darted between the two and realized this was none of his business. He quietly disappeared back down the trail to look for Sharpay.
"What's my problem? Sharpay is my problem. She's basically offering you a college education just for singing with her in the talent show. How can I compete with that?" She tried to push past him, causing Troy to lose his balance and crash into the Kokopelli etching.
"Damn", he muttered as he scraped his palm on the rough volcanic rock.
Shocked by how she had behaved, Gabriella rushed to help him. Troy pulled back his stinging hand and looked at it, surprised by how much it was bleeding. The volcanic rock was razor sharp.
"Oh Troy, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have have done that." She quickly pulled a tissue out of her purse. "Here, let me see your hand." Troy held it out to her and she pressed the tissue to his bloodied palm.
Troy looked down at her and said quietly. "Gabby, there's no competition between you and Sharpay. You are my girlfriend, not her. You're the one I want to be with." He pulled their linked hands up to his mouth and gently kissed her knuckles. Gabriella smiled up at him in obvious happiness and relief.
They walked together to catch up with rest and neither one of them noticed the small spot of blood left on the petroglyph of the trickster.
=/\=
"I'm sorry, Shar", Ryan quietly told to his sister from where they stood unnoticed just a few yards further down the trail.
Sharpay bristled slightly. "Why, Ryan? Despite what he just said, he did promise to sing with me and I know he won't break his word. Beside, I'm not interested in him that way", she lied. "I just want a singing partner who will insure I'll win the Star Dazzle Award."
"What about me? What about our act?" Ryan whined back.
"What about me?", she echoed back at him in singsong voice. "That's awfully selfish of you, Ry."
"God, Sharpay! You're driving me crazy. I try to offer you comfort and you throw it back in my face. Tell the others I'll meet them back at the parking lot." An angry Ryan stormed off, leaving an equally seething Sharpay standing alone.
She stomped further up the path following in the direction the others had taken, away from her brother. When she reached that infamous drawing of the humped back flute player, Sharpay had just about had enough. She desperately needed to expel some of this anger on somebody, but no one was here. Then she noticed Kokopelli and instantly the cryptic message that that old Indian woman said came flooding back into her.
"Beware the stone! Beware Kokopelli!"
Maybe this was what she was talking about. This drawing had been the site of her two worse events this summer. First, she'd witnessed a disturbing exhibition of PDA between her Troy and that interloper and then, she's had a huge fight with Ryan. Because, despite what she had said about Troy, she wasn't giving up that easily. He would be hers, but that didn't mean she wanted to alienate her own twin.
That's how she decided to kick the carved image of Kokopelli.
"This is all your fault! You Goddamned, mother effing, son of a..."
She pushed her rhinestone bedazzled sunglasses up on her head and prepared to let loose on that sex-crazed etching. Leaning forward slightly, she put all her weight on her right leg as she pulled her left leg back and … her foot connected with the exact spot where Troy's blood still sat. Her eyes went wide when the surface she expected to be hard, turned out to have no tension at all. Her foot went straight into the rock surface and she instantly felt a strong pulling on the rest of her body as she was pulled into the stone. Sharpay let out a muffled scream as the rock itself seemed to open up and swallow her, leaving nothing behind except her bright pink sunglasses lying on the sand.
=/\=
Troy, having made amends with Gabriella, explained how he felt responsible for leaving Sharpay behind. After all, as he explained it to her, they all worked for the Evans family. Therefore, she didn't complain when he told her he needed to go check on the boss' daughter. He was just coming around the corner of the large boulder when he spotted her standing next to Kokopelli. At first he thought Ryan was with her, but then Troy realized she was yelling at the fertility god ... or at least, his image.
He stopped and smiled at the sight. Boy, did he pity that flute player. Troy started to walk forward when Sharpay suddenly swung back her left leg and kicked directly at Kokopelli. He started to chuckle at the sight... until he realized she was falling … into the rock!
Troy tried to call out when he heard her scream and later, he would never be sure whether he had actually yelled anything or not. He was just too stunned.
"Oh my God! Sharpay!!" After she had completely disappeared, he definitely called out and loudly.
=/\=
The gang was back in the open area of the canyon within minutes. They were unilaterally shocked by what they saw. Troy was on his knees in front of the Kokopelli glyph, clawing frantically at the rock.
"What happened, man?", Chad asked his distraught friend, who didn't seem to realize he was there.
"There has to be a way in! There has to be!", Troy shouted, without stopping in his search. "I have to get her back."
"What's going on?", Ryan asked when he arrived slightly out of breath from the parking lot. Troy's voice echoed through the canyon walls and came booming out to reach Ryan as he was almost to the car. Looking around, he immediately noticed someone was missing. "Where's Sharpay?"
"Troy, Troy... you need calm down and tell us what happened." Chad grabbed Troy's shoulders and pulled him away from the rock, spinning him around to face them. Chad surprised himself at how calmly he was handling this strange situation. The girls were frozen and didn't seem able to help at all and Ryan had just arrived, so Chad had decided to take charge.
"Let me go! There's got to be some sort of trap door or hidden latch or something, so we can get inside. Who knows if she can even breath in there?"
"In where? What are you talking about?", Chad enunciated each word slowly, hoping it would calm his friend down and help him understand. "Troy, you've got to stop and help us all here, man. We want to help, but we don't understand what's happening. Take a deep breath and try to talk calmly."
Troy closed his eyes for a second and did as Chad instructed. He took a deep breath and let it out in ragged spurts, but at least he wasn't trying to dig his way into a rock anymore.
"Okay... okay... you're right. I'll try to tell you what I saw." He relayed the whole story of how Sharpay disappeared into the rock face, falling into it as if it wasn't solid rock at all.
Chad straightened up and stared at Troy for a full ten seconds before responding. Then, he said with a grin, "You're shittin' me, ain't ja?"
=/\=
The reaction which his explanation evoked should have been expected, but it still surprised him. All four of them stared at him like … well, like he'd just told them he saw someone get swallow up by a rock.
"Wha... No, I swear it's the truth", Troy said plaintively. His eyes lit up as an idea struck him. He pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and dialed 911. "The fire department! They have huge axes. They can dig her out."
It wasn't until he finished the phone call that he noticed that both of his hands were dripping blood, the results of him banging and clawing on the jagged volcanic rock. Gabriella, for some reason, didn't seem overly enthusiastic about coming to his aid this time.
=/\=
A disorienting nothingness swept over Sharpay. She was falling and she wasn't. She was freezing and she wasn't. She couldn't breath and she could. Suddenly, the world righted itself and she landed hard on her hands and knees right next to the Kokopelli glyph. Using the rock, she pulled herself up and realized with disgust that her hand was touching the grotesquely oversized phallus of the humpbacked flute player.
"Eww..." She pulled her hand back immediately. "Had to be a guy who thought up that one."
Movement off to the left caught her attention and she turned, expecting to see … hopefully, Troy or probably, Ryan. Instead, her voice caught in her throat at the sight of two short but muscular men wearing little more than loin clothes and high moccasins that reminded Sharpay of her own Ugg brand sheepskin boots. Their straight, shoulder-length ebony hair was held down with white cloth headbands, and they were each carrying a bow with a quiver of arrows worn crossed over their backs. They looked like extras from a cowboy and Indian movie.
The two Indians approached her slowly, murmuring to each other in a language she didn't recognize. While she couldn't understand the language, she thought she was beginning to understand the situation and she wasn't pleased. Who did these protestors think they were? First, they blocked the entrance to the country club and now, they're running around dressed like Indian braves.
Standing up straight with her hands on her hips, she exhibited much more confidence than she felt. Sharpay cleared her throat and delivered her lines in a voice with which Ms. Darbus would be proud.
"I don't know what you think you'll gain from this, but my father isn't going to think this is very funny … and neither do I. He owns that land and if he wants to expand the golf course on his own property, then who are you people to say otherwise?"
They looked at her quizzically, but didn't stop their slow advance. The little blonde began feeling a little unnerved by the two men and slowly backed up … right into the muscular wall of a sweaty male chest. Sharpay whirled around to find herself staring at a much taller and much more intense Indian. He stood at well over six feet tall --- about the same height as Troy, she noted. And the serious look on his dark face made the other two look like idyllic children. His face was sharp with high cheek bones that jutted out at severe angles. He also had a prominent forehead and heavy brows which left his deep-set black eyes in perpetual shadow.
The big man barked a command, and the other two wasted no time in grabbing Sharpay by her arms and roughly dragging her down the trail toward the parking lot. Except...
They rounded a curve in the path which led to the top of the trailhead where the large parking area was visible and Sharpay stopped kicking and screaming as she took in the sight before her. Where she had parked her pink Mustang thirty minutes earlier, there now stood … absolutely nothing. It wasn't that her car was gone. Oh no, the entire parking lot was gone. The visitor's center, the parking lot, the picnic tables … it was as if they had never been there. There was nothing but flat, brown desert. Sharpay pulled with all her strength and jerked away from her captors, but she didn't try to flee. Instead, she slowly turned around, trying to find some logical explanation for why her world had suddenly vanished. She faced east and immediately found comfort in the ever present sight of the Sandia Mountain. Soaring to over 10,000 feet, the panoramic mountains were Albuquerque's most prominent feature. They allowed city inhabitants to always find their bearings by referencing its peak.
Even with that constant landmark in view, Sharpay knew things were very wrong. She should have been able to see the nearby housing development or hear the sounds of engine noise coming from the small air field nearby. This close to two major interstate highways, I-25 and I-40, there should have been traffic sounds. The only thing she heard, however, was the squawking of a solitary eagle as it flew in lazy circles above them.
Sharpay felt like Alice, having just fallen down the rabbit hole.
TBC
Author's Notes:
Since I've done all this research and stuff, I'll try and let you know what's real and what I've made up.
The Petroglyph National Monument is real and it really is in the middle of a subdivision on the western edge of Albuquerque. However, I don't think there's a Kokopelli glyph there, but there are Kokopelli etchings at other locations in New Mexico. And yes, there really is Kokopelli wine, in case you're wondering.
With respect to Troy's height... since he is a high school basketball champ, I always picture him as being significantly taller than Zac Efron. Plus, yeah... I like tall guys.
Please R&R. Thanks, j
