by Mary Ramsey
The waterfall seemed to shake, tremble, making guttural noises. Was it trying to reply? The waves started to form what could only be described as tentacles. It coughed up something on the opposite shore: Canada’s shore. “Hello? Is anyone there?”
A shadowy figure stood up but not in a normal way. It started as a toddler, looking around with fear and curiosity. Within moments it became a child, standing on its own two feet. And just as quickly, a teenager with slouched posture and shaggy, shoulder-length hair. Finally, the figure became a tall, muscular adult. It was either Bobby or a longhaired female. I’m dreaming, I know I am.
“Are you sure about that?” The voice that echoed in my mind was not my usual internal monologue. It sounded female, digitized, and seemed to be coming from the waterfall itself.
“Where am I?” I looked down at my hands, no longer able to make out my features. Was I even still in Raven Miller’s body? It had been my intention to fall asleep, resting in Adam’s arms. I’d never tried to induce a lucid dream (they usually just came on their own), but the idea seemed like my best option. So though meditation, prayer, while gripping one of my spirt charms, I apparently found myself stuck in the land of perpetual night.
Dreams were windows to other worlds, times, realities. They were doorways with locks that needed to be opened with just the right key. Of course, that was knowledge even a casual Wiccan would be aware of.
“A casual Wiccan?” asked a new voice. It was still digital, still coming from the waterfall, but it seemed deeper and more menacing. “You mean like those goth chicks with black eyeliner?”
“Yes, Adam, like the chicks with the eyeliner.” Or was that Bobby’s voice? But if it was Bobby’s voice, was he speaking from across the falls? I was too far gone to tell. Through dreams you can shape your reality, learn about your past, and dive deeper than you ever thought possible. Was that what was happening? But sometimes the truth is what causes nightmares.
“The truth? What does a little girl like you know of truth, beyond what you read in the latest Neil Gaiman books?”
“Ok, that has to be Adam.”
“Do I sound like an Adam?” The voice was laughing, changing with the sound of static, until it was clearly female.
“What is truth anyway; male, female, black, white?” I knew my truth; my past, present and future. I had nothing to fear, because I’d already danced with the devil and lived to tell the tale. (Technically I’d danced with the devil and then stolen all her stuff.)
“Well, aren’t you a cocky little witch.” It was the same female voice but somehow closer.
Who said that? Probably just my imagination. “Fuck it, I’ll find you myself.”
With confidence and grace, I fell down the rabbit hole. One step, two steps, then darkness, as the waterfall swallowed me whole.
“You fucked up bad, little Raven.” Was I talking to myself, or was that the voice?
I tried to force words from my throat, but my body had no form. I was simply a conscious mind, or maybe a ghost, as I floated through the vast darkness of the abyss. There was only night; black, blue, and purple, like the inside of my eyes. Am I inside my own brain?
The world felt cold, wet. But I had no skin, no muscles or nerves. Somehow, I felt the sensation all the way down to my cells. Then out of nowhere I felt a gust of wind coming from a very distinct direction. I knew that in movies, this signifies a way out of a cave or other enclose space. I felt movement, a force pushing me towards something. An exit, hopefully.
I could I see a light, and then another. Were these stars? No, they were too evenly spaced, racing by at a constant speed.
“Can you hear me, dear sister? Can you see me?”
Bobby? No, I can’t see anything. Where are you?
The lights came faster and faster. They were clearly street lights, creating a straight path. But to where? With the lights as my visual guide, I realized I wasn’t moving in a straight line; it was more like I was falling alongside the lights. Where am I going?
“Welcome home, my dear daughter.”
Was this my mother? Intense fear gripped my soul. No, my mother was destroyed.
“You really think you hold that kind of power, little Raven?”
My heart was racing, causing my breath to freeze. But I still had no form; no mouth, no lungs. But now I saw signs. One after another, some were speed limits, while others seemed to be locational markers. I was someplace.
“Do you know fear?”
No!
“No?” the voice replied with a chuckle. “Well, then you’d be the first.”
Who said that? Show yourself! I was screaming as loud as my inner voice could conjure. But I heard no actual sound; for all I knew, my ability to speak was nothing more than a whisper.
“You got that right, Raven Miller. You are but a drop in the bucket that is the universe.”
Tell me something I don’t know.
“I know that you’re not going to make it to Niagara Falls.”
Why do you say that? I didn’t even want to go there, but her presumptuous attitude was pissing me off.
“You didn’t want to go there? Not even to save your brother?”
Save my brother?
“I’ve known so many like you, including my own mother. Cocky, headstrong females who fail to live up to their potential.”
Well, you don’t know me!
“Actually, I do. The angels are assigned to mold you like their little arts and crafts project. They showed you love, compassion, family, and now they’re trying to take you to the falls to save your soul.”
Save my soul?
“Those two actually think their pathetic little plan is going to work. I mean, really?” She laughed a villainous laugh. The sound seemed to drift into a digital sound. “Oh, that Leo, he always had such innocence.”
You know Leo?
“Oh, yes. I’ve known that flower-child for a long time, and his mother before him. And her father before her. And before you ask, yes, the armies of Heaven and Hell employ both genders. It’s not men versus women, it’s good versus bad; intellect versus fantasy.”
Intellect versus fantasy? Let me guess which side you’re on.
“Go ahead, I’m waiting.”
There was probably some kind of philosophical logic that she assumed I couldn’t comprehend. “If you are what you say you are, then you represent fantasy, because fantasy is not what is fake but rather what is real but cannot be proven by current means.”
“That’s a very Miss America answer.”
Yes, and? Miss America is the smart-girl pageant, right?
The voice was laughing.
You think you know me, but you don’t. Hell, I don’t even know if you’re real. What do I even call you?
“You can call me…” The sound started to distort, turning to static as the world became bathed in light. “BEC-ca.”
Chapter 5
“I never knew fear before I met Becca.” The words echoed in my mind from an unseen source. It was multiple people; men, women, young and old, with accents from all over the world. Who or what was Becca?
I opened my eyes; I was back in the truck, resting in Adam’s arms. Only it wasn’t Adam. The man wore a military uniform. He turned to me, silently caressing my face. He had Adam’s icy blue eyes and hair the color of dark sand. I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out. Looking out the window, the sun was intensely bright, blinding my vision. As I leaned forward, desperate for shade, I felt my stomach. I was noticeably pregnant.
I blinked my eyes. I could see strands of blond hair near my cheeks. This was not my hair. This was not my body. I was a blond female. I needed to look in a mirror, but I was also noticeably shorter (or the rearview mirror of this truck was much higher).
This felt wrong. I didn’t want to be here. I had no idea why, but I just needed to wake the fuck up. Staring down at my hands, the strange woman’s pale skin and chipped nails, I took a breath and screamed. There was no sound. “Shit!” I
screamed again, making sure to punch myself in the chest. Ok, I could feel pain. This gave me a dash of hope: I just needed to cause my body a massive amount of pain. I took a breath and punched myself right in the stomach.
Adam’s doppelganger grabbed my arms, holding me close. “Barbie, please.”
My name is Barbie? I wanted out of this body, this world. I screamed again, punching myself harder. I closed my eyes to try to focus my mind, and then I opened the passenger-side door. Darkness.
“Open your eyes, little girl,” said a shrill female voice. Somehow, I knew this was the same disembodied female spirit who had tracked me from the void.
“What do you want from me?” I shouted. I could hear my actual voice. I was back in my body. “Is that you, Mom?” I opened my eyes to the sight of fog.
“What the fuck, kid?” Adam asked. He still had his arm around me, but not in the same way as the soldier in my dream.
I opened my eyes, looking at my hands—Raven’s hands. This was real. “Oh, thank God.” Adam and Leo were exactly where I’d left them. And the truck was the one I was familiar with. Looking out the window, I could see only fog. “Where are we? Pennsylvania? Silent Hill?”
“Still on the backroads,” Leo replied from behind the wheel.
“So, we’re nowhere?” Looking out the window, the fear was building in my chest. Something was very wrong. Had this ‘Becca’ person followed me?
Adam put his arm around my shoulder. “Go back to sleep, little princess. There’s nothing to see here.” His voice dropped, and his eyes went wide. That was when I knew Adam saw what I saw. “What in the hell?”
In the middle of nowhere, a second vehicle was fast approaching our truck. It looked like a stereotypical white van, the kind favored by kidnappers, rapists, and killers. And it was gaining speed at an unexplainable rate. I shrieked. “Holy fuck, it’s going to ram us!”
“Hold on to me!” Adam put his arms around me, bracing for impact as the van slammed into our truck’s bumper with a sickening crunch.
The usually calm and collected Leo muttered a swearword under his breath as he struggled with the gearshift. “This is bad.”
“Can she hurt us?” I asked, hoping for a comforting response.
Instead, Adam turned my head to face him. “Raven?”
“What?”
“How do you know it’s a she?” he asked in an accusatory tone.
“There’s something in my head; I can’t tell if it’s male or female, but it keeps telling me to beware of someone named Becca.”
Leo sighed, taking his foot off the gas pedal. “I’m going to try to make contact. At the very least I’ll be able to determine what she is.” He repositioned his hands, gripping the steering wheel firmly. “You might want to hold on to something.”
Before I could ask any further questions, Leo slammed on the brake. The truck jerked forward so hard it flew up on two wheels, staying in that position for at least a good five seconds. I expected the van to run us off the road, but that’s not what happened.
The van passed through us in what felt like slow motion. With a lack of immediate pain and death, I felt safe enough to open my eyes. The two vehicles were passing through one another, shapes and colors mixing like powdered pigment. It was as if we were on two different planes of existence.
For a brief moment, by the light of a street lamp (or whatever was lighting the sky in this world), I saw a blond woman with rainbow streaks in her hair. Her eyes were covered by retro oversized sunglasses. She turned to me with a raised chin. “Fly away, little Raven; you have miles to go before you sleep.”
Before I could get a reaction from Adam or Leo, the white van pulled past us. The roar of the decaying engine was leaving behind a trail of what I could only describe as starlight. The thick smoke from the exhaust was a bright mix of blue and purple with speckles of white. But the white specks were growing larger.
“Leo?” I asked from the safety of Adam’s arms. “What is that?”
Leo looked genuinely stressed. “She’s forcing open the dimensional wall!”
I filled in the rest. “She’s trying to force us back to the mortal highway.”
Leo nodded, gripping the gearshift. “On the count of three, I’m shifting to neutral, but you’ll want to hang on to something.”
“Ok,” I replied with a nod, already knowing that Adam and possibly the seat were my only options in terms of hanging on.
“Three!”
“What!” There was a flash of light. Before I could even move, our truck landed on a busy freeway, facing the wrong direction. I shrieked, covering my face with my hands. Falling out of the truck was the last thing on my mind. “Motherfucker!”
“Not helping!” Leo said, more annoyed than anything.
Adam put his arms around me, holding my body in a bearhug as he gripped my hands. “Just open your freaking eyes, princess.”
Opening my eyes, I could see that although all of the cars were swerving dangerously, NONE of them were actually hitting us. Some were even phasing through. It was like we were protected by a bubble of electricity, leaving behind a trail of horrific carnage. “What’ll we do?”
“I’m going to jump the median, point us in the right direction,” Leo said confidently.
I, of course, felt much less confident about that idea. “Is that because you and Adam are already dead?”
“Unless you’d like to be as well.”
“Fair enough.” I held on to Adam, preparing for the worst.
It took Leo only a few seconds to cross the barrier, leaving a stream of metal and plastic in his wake. “We’re good!”
Now that we were facing the correct direction, I was able to make out the signs. We were in New Jersey. Apparently, the whole ordeal had put us back on track to Niagara Falls. I felt slightly calm, until I looked over the median to the side of the road we’d just been on. I saw a massacre; blood, bodies, smoke, fire. I couldn’t look for more than a few seconds. For whatever reason, I crossed myself. Cupping my hands in prayer, I asked God to help those poor souls. (Yeah, I kind of forgot who I was riding with.)
Leo made a sharp turn, barely making the off-ramp of the next available exit. “I think that woman, Becca, is a timelord.”
“A timelord?” I shouted over the roar of the engine. “Like Dr. Who?”
“Or James Bond or any other character who changes their face the way most people change pants.” Leo parked the truck under an overpass. We were just far enough from the scene of the accident to allow us to disappear into the shadows. “We can talk more on the hike.”
“The hike?” I asked.
“Of course,” Adam said as he opened the passenger-side door, placing me on my feet. “We’re not abandoning these innocent people.”
We hiked back to the scene of the crash, climbing up the barrier wall through the mass of trees. With the sun already set, all I could see was fire and smoke. While I stood in awe and horror, I managed to lose sight of my teammates. “What the fuck, guys?” Leo and Adam moved quickly, disappearing into the bloodbath. The two split up and soon vanished out of sight. The two seemed to already have a plan. I wish they’d been polite enough to share. “I guess I’m on my own, then.” Where to start?
Visually I counted sixteen vehicles. There were a few pileups, a few cars even having flown off the road. From where I was standing, I couldn’t see the close-up details, but somehow my mind filled in the blanks. Even with my eyes open, my vision flickered between frames; fire, metal, trees, and blood, but not all of it was from the crash. Somehow, I was seeing a place that was miles away. This new location was full of exotic plants the color of darkness. It was more than a little creepy. What am I seeing? Bobby, is that you?
My mind shot back to the scene of the crash, just in time to see a little girl grip my leg. She was crawling on the ground, covered in blood and soot. “Mama?” What I heard was my daughter’s voice. But this creature was not my daughter.
I took a step backward, then anothe
r and another. With every blink I saw more of the foreign scene; gray stone, multicolored leaves, and vines? What am I supposed to be seeing? With the last step, I fell, hitting my head on a metal railing with a loud clang. My ears were ringing.
I instinctively tried to grip my head. My hands felt larger, stronger, but the moment I tried to move, I realized my hands were pinned to the wall. I was back in my brother’s body, and he was someplace very unpleasant. Bobby, where are you? Where are we? I could hear my wife and daughter screaming. But my head was pinned in place, forcing me to look at the dirt-crusted concrete ceiling.
“Uncle Bobby’s awake,” my toddler shouted. “I just saw his eyes!”
“Raven, are you in there?” my wife asked, her voice breaking with tears. “Can you hear us?” Annie had survived warzones, but this was the first time I’d heard such a sense of fear and lack of hope.
One thing was certain; they weren’t in the crash. The destruction of the New Jersey Turnpike was just a diversion. But for what? Did the mysterious ‘Becca’ have my family captured in a sewer, a jungle? It could have even been a zoo. I needed to be certain. “Focus, focus, focus.” I forced myself to blink, faster and faster until I was back in my female body. As Raven Miller, I stood up. My head was pounding, and my vision was blurry. I was in a horrid amount of physical and emotional pain, but I knew I had to keep going. Because I couldn’t save my family from a highway in New Jersey.
I suddenly heard laughter all around me; young, old, male, female. “Show yourself, Becca! Or are you too much of a coward, like my mother!”
A car door opened and a corpse emerged. All I could tell was that the ‘person’ was a female. Naked breasts hung from a blood-covered torso. But there was nothing left of her face. “Let me teach you something about yourself. You, Raven, are the kind of person who believes in karma, love, loss and redemption. as if the universe is even capable of such balance.” She took a few steps forward, limping on what remained of her left leg. “You think yourself powerful, but your heart is rooted in earth’s flawed reality.”