“Geo. Who are these men?”
But when I turn my eyes to Geo, he stares back at me with wrinkled eyes. It isn’t Geo anymore.
“Japha?”
The old man steps forward. “Remy.”
The ground shakes and the cold is reaching for my heart. I can’t breathe. The blur ahead of me comes into focus. Navin is staring at me with his granite eyes, angry like the first night. Instantly, I fall back onto the quaking earth. Navin turns to the old man. “Get her out of this!”
Within seconds I realize it is my body that is shaking, not the ground—my eyes close—and the cold is gone.
“Willow . . .” I hear Arek’s voice.
My heart is a brick of ice.
“Willow,” Geo forcefully commands in my ear, “the shaking will go away when you take control of where you are. Figure out the truth, Willow. There are ways to separate yourself from this physical body. If you think this is real, you will lose.”
The men with weapons turn into monsters . . . the kind that paralyzed me as a child. They stand higher than seven feet, their skin pasty white and flaky, but the most terrifying part of them is that they have no faces. They walk like the dead, and moan with deep anguish. Their wailing mimics their lost souls. They are difficult to even look at, so I bore my eyes into the ground. Yet, I can feel my body and mind moving—changing with no regard to the comfort of my being.
Suddenly, we are no longer in the forest, but a dark, dilapidated house. Everything is the color of charcoal, with no windows and no doors. Broken floorboards beneath me catch my attention—the small cracks coming alive. It isn’t until looking closer that I realize there are fingers, dirty and rotting, reaching up through the cracks for me. I spring to my knees and crawl away.
“Get me out of here!” I yell.
“If it’s not real, there’s no way for it to hurt you,” Geo calls from somewhere beyond.
As the beings work on breaking up the floorboards to get to me, I begin to focus on my body and try to regain control of my movements. Channeling my mind toward regaining discipline, my chest stops constricting and the pain in my head quiets.
Then unexpectedly Arek feels near. “Arek?” I beg.
“You’ll have to do this without me,” he answers quietly.
Just as a floorboard begins to crack at the pressure of the demon’s hands beneath, and dark gray fingers wrap around the weathered wood, I wrap my head in my arms to shut off the world around me. I can hear the monsters crawling to me. “Stop!” I beg.
“Open your eyes,” Geo instructs. I am back in the comfort of the cabin, yet my heart has not let down. Geo steps forward. “Unfortunately, that’s the easiest Tracing you’ll get.”
“Tracing?” I ask.
Geo nods, “Tracing the lines between your subconscious and conscious mind. Velieri have learned that the subconscious mind only devours the information in our life that is emotional and raw; therefore it stays in our subconscious until the conscious calls on it. Emotion, while necessary for everyone, is also one of the weakest states of being that any of us can ever remain in. So the elders of my line studied this quiet yet crucial part of a being and they found that it’s the line between the conscious and subconscious that’s the easiest way in. There you can control what someone sees, what they believe, what their mind tells them to feel.”
“Why did I see all of that? None of it made sense.”
“When you are in such a vulnerable state, your fears materialize into reality, and you—Willow, not Remy—live in a state of fear. As most Ephemes do. People can use that against you and the only way to battle this is the Void.” Geo answers. “The Void, is where the mind finally releases control over how much one sees, or how much one feels in order to protect them from excess. The Void of our own trenches where we lie in wait for the next tragedy or the shackles of our own fear.”
“Can she get past that in the time we have?” Sassi asks as she sets a hot drink in front of me.
Geo shrugs his shoulders. “I’d like to believe that I’m that good.” He grins, then continues, “Willow, until you realize it is fear that keeps you from having control, there is no way to fight it. You have to become your own enemy.” But even with Geo’s explanation the tension is palpable.
For hours I try to learn. Every time my fear overwhelms me, the beasts keep getting closer and closer. Just to hear the difference between voices takes all night. Fatigue, as though I’ve been in battle, begins to mount when they continually have to pull me out of the subconscious.
“I’m not Remy,” I whisper.
“What?” Geo asks.
“I’m not Remy,” I say louder. “You all expect me to miraculously become her, to be fearless. That’s why she was so powerful right? Because she was fearless?” I give a sardonic laugh. “Well welcome to Willow’s world, where there is nothing that doesn’t give you fear.” I stand up. “I need a break.”
Sassi touches my arm as I pass, “Willow, we need to do this.”
I shake my head and exit through the front door. Instantly the wind chill of negative-twenty takes my breath away as I step off the porch to the snow-covered ground.
“You’re doing well.” Arek is behind me, most likely with his arms crossed and a serious expression, but I don’t want to know.
“I can’t do what you’re expecting of me. And I can’t go back into every fear of mine . . . facing them again and again.”
“Yes, you can.” He walks within inches of me just so that we can see each other in the dark forest. “Discernment is the main difference between Velieri and Ephemes. Knowing how to make the divide from emotion to fact and knowing when to take action or be still is a fine balance. Immaturity muddies the waters and makes all action and emotion the same.” He hesitates, “Do you want to know what the Red Summit was?”
“I don’t know.”
“One thousand four hundred and ninety-three men, women, and children who were a part of the Reds—a group that has sworn to protect us for years despite knowing who and what we are—were all gathered together under the illusion that the Powers and Prophets wanted to discuss the future and what it held for the Velieri and Red contract. In the middle of the night at the camp where everyone was supposed to stay, every single person but two—a man and a woman—were slaughtered.” He sighs deeply at the memory, which I am sure is like the Twin Towers of 9/11 for me. “They were gated in so they couldn’t leave, then one by one were demolished in grotesque ways. All because they were Ephemeral. One little difference between our brain and theirs was enough to slit their throats. They had chosen to protect us, yet Navin and Japha didn’t care. They hate anyone who’s not like us. You chose to stand for something else. It didn’t matter that you agreed with them that we shouldn’t have to hide. It mattered most that you didn’t agree with their hatred.”
“So, I knew about the Summit?”
“You were obsessed to prove that they had done it with help from someone in the government. Instead, they sent you to the Cellar and to your death . . . and I had no time to prove it.”
“I don’t know how to just turn off the fear. You’re asking me to do something that I don’t know how to do. Some memories have come back, but that’s it! I’m every bit of Willow as I ever have been, and I don’t see that changing.”
With quick hands, Arek suddenly takes a knife from his pocket, the ting of the blade echoing as he opens it. He presses it across his palm, slicing the skin.
“What are you doing?” I ask, grabbing his wrist.
Then unexpectedly he grabs my hand and slices my palm in the same way. It stings.
“Arek!” I pull my bloody hand away.
“Look!” He grabs my arm forcefully and presses his bleeding hand on top of mine, then he pulls my chin to look at him while blood drips on the white snow. “You’ve convinced yourself of who you are but the truth is here. It’s in your skin, your blood, your DNA. You were born to us again because there are things to do. It’s who you are, and you have
to accept that.”
Just then he lifts his hand and shows me his healed skin, then just as quickly, he wipes the blood from my palm with his thumb to reveal the thin red line that is no longer an open wound on mine.
“This is not Epheme . . . it’s Velieri. It is not your choice. You are what your DNA says you are.”
I run my fingers along the skin.
Arek closes the distance between us and runs his hand along my cheek. “We can do this. We need to get our lives back. We have to try.”
The moon is half the sky and a blue haze casts a glow over the unfamiliar body of water in front of me. Its smooth crystal top carries a reflection of the stars.
With every step, my bare feet sink deep into the marshy land. The quiet isn’t so quiet with crickets, frogs, and swaying reeds, until something small splashes in the empty water beside me. My pulse quickens when the water ripples.
Then just ten yards away the waist-high grass shakes like something is in it. It moves several feet forward, then several feet to the side, coming closer inch by inch. A strange white and rounded back—not much different than that of a whale—peeks out from over the spear-like tips of grass. Slowly it moves, slithering closer. I don’t want to wait to see what it is. And just like that I press my toes deep into the marsh and run. It gives chase—faster than expected. When the grass shortens, my eyes catch sight of it. Somehow the white body is shiny and dull at the same time. It is possibly a spider, but the size of a human. It runs harder and faster than I can.
“You can’t outrun it,” Geo yells from somewhere in the distance.
I trip over a root, take a tumble, and instantly feel the skin on my knees burn. Scrambling to my feet seems impossible on the uneven ground.
“You can’t, Willow!” Geo yells.
“Remy!” Arek yells at me from the trees beyond. They are Tracing the realm between my conscious and subconscious and once again, fear manifests into these creatures too horrible to understand. Yet I know they are going deep. Hard. Aggressive. I turn back to the creature, stand to my feet, close my eyes, and search for the rhythm. I speak fast, creating my own beat and tone, breaking theirs, saying whatever comes to mind. At first the Tracing is hard to hear because of the torment within me, so I break the fear down one at a time—the loneliness, the darkness, the unknown, their ability to hold strength and power over me.
“Keep going.” Geo’s voice is so close to me that I open my eyes. His handsome eyes stare into mine. This is the first time I have been able to see him. So, I keep at it, breaking the Trace. Geo and I stand together while the world around us changes from darkness to light until we are sitting in Kilon and Sassi’s home. For the first time the world is not spinning. I am not sick to my stomach. Rather everyone is looking at me with eyes the size of the moon in that strange world. They are all silent, while smiles form on their faces.
Geo shakes his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever been able to teach anyone that fast.”
Peter claps his hands together. “Welcome back Remy.”
“Can you do it again?” Sassi asks.
I think for a moment. “Yeah, I think I can.”
Arek smiles at me from across the room.
Years ago, Ian and I fought for two weeks straight, cascading between forgiveness and anger quicker than flipping a coin. “You’re never there for me,” I had said, the pain of his retreat from uncomfortable situations manifesting into an inability to trust him. “It’s always about you . . . everything.” Even at that moment, my words had been lost on a man whose eyes were watching the television on the other side of the room, making sure that he didn’t miss the basketball game. Ultimately this had been the cause of our relationship’s demise—he could only think about himself.
I thought of the man who had angered me beyond anything I’d ever felt before and the look of his tortured body and face as Navin used him—the video of his torment spreading poison like kerosene on a fire. Was it to make a point?
“Yes.” Arek’s serious voice interrupts my thoughts as we sit in the back seat of the SUV. “It was meant for all of us.” He sees my inquisitive look. “I’ve spent my years studying you—don’t you think I should know your thoughts?” He looks away while I study his profile, perhaps trying to read him. Until finally his deep voice breaks my concentration, “You can try but it won’t get you very far.”
The cars turn up windy back roads of Nepal that are so steep I tighten my abs for leverage. Yet there seems to be no leveraging the bipolar weather outside. The sky is a solid layer of gray and the mist in the air is leaving droplets on the window that changes direction with the moving car; yet there are moments when the sun shines through.
“Will he know we’re here for him?” I ask.
“It’s possible.”
We stop at the side of a road where there is nothing but trees and a steep mountain on each side.
“We’re meeting here,” Kilon says from the passenger seat.
The mountains and long eternal road are quiet. I look around inquisitively, “Where?”
No one answers; rather, they each step from the car. The smell of pine sweeps up my nose, just as the frost bites, and needles pop and crackle beneath my boots. Then I hear the call, a whistle echoing through the trees, the reverberation telling us that it isn’t too far away.
Arek whistles back. “Let’s go,” he says as he hikes into the dense wood.
Then one by one the forest begins to move; beyond the sway of the branches or the sweeping motion of falling leaves, dark figures creep out of hiding, dressed for the cold as if they’ve been there for hours. Puffy jackets and fur-brimmed hoods can’t keep these new faces from turning red. The closest man—with ears that point at the top, his nose twisting a bit to the side like he’s been in too many fights, and his beard not quite growing in all the way—has an Irish accent to compliment his toothy smile. He wears very little clothing for how cold it is, but his slightly curly hair wraps thickly around the bottom of a ski cap. Arek smiles bigger than I’ve seen in some time, and his eyes relax in a way that only trust and friendship can exalt. He and this man clap hands and hug, then share breath by placing their foreheads together.
“It’s always you, Diem.” Arek taps Diem’s cheek with his palm.
“Aye, always. Don’t ever want to let my leader down.”
“Your leader?” Arek tests him.
“Leigh never was and never will be my leader, I can promise you that.” Diem notices me standing there and suddenly everything changes. It is like he’s seen a ghost. “As I live and breathe. I knew it was true, but it’s another thing to see for yourself.” Diem puts out his hand for me to take in a greeting. “Welcome back, Remy. We’ve all been waiting.” His hands are rough and scaly, and his grip is strong.
“It’s nice to meet you, Diem.”
A woman appears behind the others, confidently emerging with a thin-lipped smile. She grabs Arek around his back, her hand landing on his pant pocket, and she looks him in the eye with a mischievous grin.
“My second husband.” When her eyes fall on mine, she takes no time in doing the same to me. Soon, her nose is within inches of mine while her hand holds just below my back. My eyes grow wide, “And my second wife.”
Diem shakes his head in a bit of laughter, “You wish, Gal.”
Arek places his hand between her chest and mine until she looks at him, “It’s nice to see you Gal, but she doesn’t know who you are.”
“That’s better,” Gal’s rich Irish accent matches her pale face. “Then she doesn’t know I’m already married to that guy.” Her thumb points over her shoulder to Diem.
Diem gets serious. “We have about sixty here. Couldn’t get more than that on such short notice and especially after the memo from the Powers.”
Arek looks at him, confused, “What memo?”
Diem swallows, “They told everyone, if we were to help you and Remy, then there would be repercussions.”
Arek clenches his jaw.
&n
bsp; “But brother, I’m here . . . we’re here. Just like old times.” Diem squeezes Arek’s shoulder.
Diem turns to the men and women and whistles. Unexpectedly they kneel to me—their eyes falling to the leaf-covered ground. After a few moments they raise their fist to their chest and pound three times.
With my eyes, I beg Arek to save me, but he only grins. “You’re the One, my love.”
Two men in black coats, their faces masked from the cold, come into view once the crowd returns to their feet. It doesn’t take long to recognize Mak’s gait coming my way.
I smile and touch his covered face, “You’re here.”
Mak reaches up and pulls the cover from his mouth and nose. “I had nowhere else to be.”
“All right, let’s go!” Arek yells.
We hustle at a quick pace, turning my lungs into hot coals. I bite my lip and push through.
After an hour, Diem pulls out his phone to show Arek and Kilon a map. “Here’s the boundaries of the Bryer, and here’s the place he’s set up.” He shows a small dot on the screen. “We found it a few days ago. I think he’s been here for many years. They have everything they need—computers, internet—it seems they’re building. It’s hard to get in and it’s hard to get out. Let’s split up. Half this way and half that way.”
Arek nods.
Every one of my party remains by my side as we trek through the forest a bit longer. Finally, we reach a hill where Arek points ahead. “There it is.”
On the mountain just ahead stands a massive dilapidated stone structure, a castle—old, but impressive. I recognize it from the one we viewed in Leigh’s office.
“Just a bit farther,” Arek says with a sideways glance.
The heat in my cheeks declares how out of shape I am as my mouth clams up for water.
We move through the quiet forest as if we are alone. Arek is silent. The others are silent. The swish of plants and trees being pushed out of the way is the loudest sound. To my right, Geo helps Beckah over the stumps of the giant arolla pines. Sassi and Kilon are not far. Peter walks with his fellow Protectors. Mak stays just ahead of me, his gun and knives tethered to his back, stamped with his home’s emblem.
Out of the Shadows: Book One of the Velieri Uprising Page 21