by C. J. Anaya
I turned to him in surprise. “You never told me that.”
“I was afraid if I did, you’d get another part-time job at a boxing gym where you could secretly heal people to your heart’s content.”
“What an accurately freaky description of Hope’s thought patterns,” Tie said.
“Oh shut-up. I don’t absolutely have to heal someone for every little cut and bruise they receive.”
“But you want to, and therein lies the disturbing difference.”
“Back to our discussion. Am I going to try connecting to my father and Kirby today or what?”
“I’m actually not ready for a mind meld at the moment,” Dad said. “Do you think we can consider attempting it as we get closer to Japan?”
I took note of his strained expression and wondered how I could have already forgotten how stressed out and exhausted he felt. There were still so many unknowns and variables concerning our future. We had a plan of action, but I didn’t delude myself into thinking that our plan was without flaws. It was chock full of them, and we needed to be ready and well rested for whatever Kagami had to offer us.
“You’re right, Dad. Let’s just get some sleep for a few hours and then see how you feel after that.”
His look of tired gratitude made me feel like the worst daughter in the world. I was despicable. I really should have been paying more attention to how all of this had affected him.
Angie didn’t seem to be faring any better. I had no idea what memories she’d recently downloaded. What possible ghosts had we unearthed by my thoughtless inattention to the details of Angie’s reawakening…if you could call it that? I had a feeling I’d eventually find out.
“There is one thing I’d like to clear up before we all hit the hay,” Angie said. She moved over to Victor and pulled him up from his seat. Then she circled him. It looked like she was searching for stray lint on his clothing.
Victor looked perplexed. “Angie, what are you doing?”
“Well, I’m certainly not checking you out, if that’s what you’re insinuating,” she shot back.
Victor folded his arms over his chest and refused to move when she tried to turn him around to study his back.
“Angie,” I said. “What gives?”
“I’m just trying to figure out where these guys stash their weapons.” She unfolded Victor’s arms and lifted them out in front of him. It was comical that he allowed her to do it.
“I’ve been wondering the same thing,” Kirby said. “You never have a sword on you, but whenever we get attacked, wham, suddenly you’re pulling these crazy weapons out of thin air.”
Victor held up a hand to stave off Angie’s continued perusal of his body when she started getting a bit too personal.
Tie stood up and moved to the head of the plane.
“Our weapons materialize in our hands as an extension of our power.” He threw his hand forward and an ebony blade appeared in his grip.
“If the weapon is an extension of your power then why does it look like a weapon from the underworld?” I asked.
“Because it is a weapon from the underworld,” Victor said. “We’ve been collecting them as we’ve dealt with each new threat from Amatsu. It’s the only way our enemies can be killed. Our regular swords have no effect on them.”
“Yes, but how are you…I don’t know…how can it be an extension of you if it is evil?” I pressed.
“The weapon isn’t evil, Hope. The evil comes from the one who wields the weapon. Its purpose is to defend and mete out death just as our regular weapons do. It simply does it in a different way.”
“So all you have to do is think about the weapon you need and suddenly it’s there?” Angie asked.
“One of the perks of being a kami,” Tie said wearing a lopsided grin.
“You mean only kami can conjure weapons out of thin air?” I asked. I was seriously disappointed. “There isn’t a way you can teach us to produce a weapon with a flick of the wrist?”
“Even if it were an option, we wouldn’t allow you to handle any weapons from the underworld,” Victor said. “What if you accidentally cut yourself handling the sword?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Are you freaking kidding me right now? How am I supposed to defend myself?”
Tie and Victor shared a miserable look, as if they’d dreaded having this conversation with me.
“You’re not going to fight, Hope. We need you to allow us to protect you. One scratch from a weapon forged in the land of the dead is certain death for you.”
“You guys are really serious about this aren’t you?”
“It’s the only way to ensure your safety,” Victor said. “You must see reason, Hope. Out of everyone here, your role is one of the most important, and even though we have no idea exactly how you have to accomplish the veil’s healing, without you, Amatsu will most definitely win. The veil doesn’t have much time left.”
I felt sick at this pronouncement. Of course their worry made sense and I understood their need to protect me, but Victor had never once given any of us an actual timeline as to when the veil would fail. It made arguing with them about whether or not I should be handling a sword seem highly unimportant, but I still needed to defend myself.
As if reading my thoughts, Tie said, “We will still train and practice in the event that you are forced to defend yourself, but we want that to be a last resort. Remember, Hope, not all of the nekomata we come in contact with will be there to kidnap you. Some of them just want you dead.”
I let that chilling reminder slither across my skin, giving me an unsettling sense of foreboding. Just how many more nekomata were we going to run into before we even reached Kagami? And when and where would we run into them tomorrow when Angie said Kirby would be killed by one?
I wasn’t going to let that kid out of my sight.
“I think now would be a good time for Hope to continue attempting to sense the veil,” Ms. Mori stated.
“Let it go, Chinatsu,” Tie said. “She’s been trying ever since she woke up from that coma.”
“Am I the only one who feels as if we’re running out of time, people?” Ms. Mori stood from her seat and crossed over to me. “I understand you are tired, but without your connection to the veil you will never understand how to heal it.”
“I know that—”
“Then sense it. Connect with it. It is just like any other human being you connect with, child, there are simply more ki at your disposal.”
“But that’s part of the problem,” I argued. “I’m trying to pinpoint one specific ki. I’m trying to see how one specific energy signature bounces off the veil from this side of it.” I rubbed my neck in frustration. “I don’t know how to recognize that connection between thousands of ki all at once, especially when they are on the other side of the veil. It’s impossible. I need one familiar spirit to latch on to.”
“Do you remember when you were three and you became so overwhelmed with the energies within the palace that you couldn’t sleep at night?” she asked.
I stared at her in puzzlement.
“No. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You used to be able to feel everything.” Ms. Mori looked at her hands. “It was becoming too much for you. You were a healer and an empath and you couldn’t handle it. I used to rock you to sleep every night, trying to help you focus on one energy signature. Just one. Just mine.”
I held my breath, watching Ms. Mori as she wrung her hands in a nervous gesture, the cold façade slowly crumbling to reveal a heartsick mother reliving memories she probably wished she didn’t have to.
“It took a very long time for you to learn to block it all out, but we worked together on your focus. We did exercises to help you pinpoint one ki at a time until you no longer felt overwhelmed by the energy and emotions surrounding you.” A single tear trickled down her cheek and she quickly wiped it away. “And once we accomplished that tiny goal, your father forbade me from ever going into your room again. H
e wanted you isolated. He wanted…control over your powers.” She stiffened her spine and finally met my gaze. Chin held high she said, “I think you are still blocking as I taught you to, but that self-defense maneuver is no longer needed. You must trust yourself, Hope. The mind can be a scary opponent when trying to overcome our own internal struggles. Maybe you need to connect and focus on several ki at one time.”
The silence within the plane seemed to wait with bated breath for my reaction to her revelation. She was a puzzle to me. As Ms. Mori sat there discussing our history together, I almost believed there was one moment in our lives when she’d actually cared.
I considered her advice carefully and thought back to the high school students I’d connected to all at once the very first day I met Tie and Victor. Maybe that was something I had been capable of doing all along. I just blocked it all out as a defense mechanism Ms. Mori taught me in my first life.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll try it.”
She gave me an imperceptible nod and waited.
“I’ll need you all to come to the front of the plane and stand in a circle around me.”
Everyone obliged, though the spacing was a bit cramped.
“Just place one of your hands on my shoulders and I’ll connect with all of you at once.”
My father’s hand went to my shoulder first, giving it a loving squeeze while simultaneously conveying his worry through our connection. They were all worried, all concerned about what this might do to me emotionally, and all hopeful that I might succeed.
I closed my eyes and started with my father, latching onto his soul and imprinting his energy within my mind. I couldn’t see his colors like I saw Tie’s, but I hoped I could recognize his ki once I opened my eyes. I did that until I was connected with all of them. Then I opened my eyes and watched as Tie’s aura, the only one I could see, began to lift and dissipate above his head. Once again, I waited for the energy to completely disappear, but this time around I noticed a strange darkness hovering just above Ms. Mori and Tie. It looked as if there was a fissure within…well, space I guess. The air around them wavered in and out, and I reached just above them to grab it, fully believing that I had finally sensed the veil through all of their ki.
But when I made contact with it, I didn’t sense the veil. I sensed the absence of it. A deep abyss of virtually nothing. Then a dark oppressive force slipped into its place and lifted me from my feet, pulling me toward its gaping maw.
“What the hell?” Tie exclaimed. He grabbed me around the waist as my feet levitated from the ground and held me in place. When Tie started to levitate everyone grabbed hold of us and pulled us down while I fought to retrieve my own hand from the grasp of whatever unseen force had me.
“What’s happening?” Kirby shouted.
“I don’t know,” Victor said. He grunted as he strained to help pull us back down. “The veil has never behaved like this before.”
The increasing pressure on my arms and legs spurred me to find a solution before my body was torn in two. I reached out my other hand to the side of the hole for something to grab hold of, and when my arm made contact with the wavering space to the left of the hole, impression after impression downloaded into my brain. I’d inadvertently hit part of the veil and thousands of ki within it began to communicate with me.
They certainly succeeded. The fissure wavered again and then gravity took hold of me, allowing me to sink into Tie’s arms. Then the hole closed and our group collapsed to the floor of the jet.
“I’m pretty sure levitation isn’t part of your makeup, so what just happened?” Tie said in a wheezy voice.
“It was the veil.”
“The veil made you fly? Wait, you were able to sense it?” His excitement was short lived when I shook my head.
“No. The veil is failing, Tie. It took a moment to communicate with me, but it isn’t the same thing as actually sensing it. The veil was trying to tell me something extremely important.”
“What?” Ms. Mori asked. She pulled herself into a sitting position and the others followed suit. I soon found myself in the middle of a circle surrounded by people who were hoping for some good news, something that might help us in our quest to heal the veil.
I seriously hated being the messenger.
I swallowed hard. “It’s dying. Pockets of the veil are being swallowed up by the Underworld. One opened up just above your head and I was nearly sucked into it. The veil reached out to save me, but it isn’t the same as me actually sensing its presence on my own. It had to intervene and give me a timetable.”
“A timetable. As in a deadline? I hate the sound of that,” Angie said as she folded her arms over her chest.
“We have to get that prophecy as soon as we can,” I said.
“How much time do we have?” Tie asked.
“Five days.” Bile rose to the back of my throat, but I kept it together long enough to give them the bad news. “The veil is going to fail on my eighteenth birthday.”
My equilibrium faltered and I fell into Tie’s arms.
Darkness…again.
These dreams were beginning to get on my nerves. Any normal teenager tended to dream in color. My subconscious felt the need to black out the world, which would have been fine if it had simply allowed me some peace.
My eyes searched the darkness for even a pin-prick of light to guide me. And then I felt that pull, that demanding, relentless insistence that I move forward toward something I knew I absolutely could not live without. Memories from my previous dream washed over me, and I slapped my cheek and pinched myself to snap me wide awake before the one person I didn’t want to see sensed my presence.
All at once, green flames rose up on either side of me, revealing the same cavernous room I had somehow managed to escape the night before. I squinted at the sudden brightness even though the green iridescent light wasn’t blinding in any way. As my eyes adjusted, I took in the handsome figure standing in the middle, arms at his sides, eyes locked on me with a fervor that bordered on obsessive need.
“I’ve been waiting for you, Hope,” Amatsu said in a rough whisper. He cleared his throat and took a few steps toward me as I swayed between the urge to go to him and the need to flee from him. “It pains me that our bond is not yet strong enough to bring you to me when you are conscious and aware of what is taking place.”
“I thought this was just a very bad dream. I didn’t even remember it until you brought me back here.”
His eyes glittered shrewdly as he took me in. “The bond brought you back here, but your inability to remember me when you are awake is interesting. You mean to tell me that you haven’t been able to warn your companions about the connection we now share? That definitely works in my favor.”
I cursed myself for inadvertently sharing that helpful information. I could have bluffed and said that Tie and Victor were working on a way to break the bond. I could have given him real cause to worry.
“I know what you’re thinking, Hope, but whether Tie and Victor know about the inevitability of our union now or later makes little difference since there is absolutely no way to reverse what’s been done.”
“There has to be a way to reverse it. It isn’t real. It isn’t what I want,” I shouted. My voice echoed off the walls and drifted back to me weary and pathetic.
“Are you sure you don’t want what we could have?” He brazenly moved forward, his white robes gliding silkily along his muscled frame until he stood mere inches from me and reached for my hair. His hands grasped nothing and I breathed in a gulp of air, feeling both relieved and frustrated at the lack of physical contact. My body and emotions rebelled against my true thoughts and feelings, making me wish I had the power to crawl out of my own skin…or possibly throw myself off the nearest cliff.
Amatsu’s own frustration clearly showed through the tight lines around his mouth and jaw. He scrutinized my pained expression and gave me a sympathetic smile.
“I know, my love. This inability to touch and h
old what is mine is the kind of exquisite torture I never imagined I could experience.”
“I’m not yours, Amatsu.”
“But you would like to be.”
“You don’t have any idea what I would like to be, what I really want or what I really need. This falsified form of love is only proof of how selfish you truly are.”
His eyes flashed an angry shade of red and he stepped closer until his lips were just inches from mine. I couldn’t begin to express my gratitude for my insubstantial form because his proximity made me want to let go of every single inhibition I had, give up every single thing I believed in, and succumb to the bond that worked even harder to draw us together. How long would this last before my body solidified in his presence and he was able to touch me without any obstacles to impede him?
What could I possibly do then?
“I’m not the monster your precious soul mate has painted me to be. And contrary to what you believe, I know absolutely everything there is to know about you.”
I managed a disgruntled snort, but the pain of withholding myself from him caused rivulets of sweat to inch down my back. If this was a dream, and I was merely here in spirit, then why was I having such a strange physical reaction like sweating? It didn’t make sense. I had to hold myself completely still and barely allow myself shallow breaths to keep from growling in frustration at our current separation.
I fixed Tie solely in my mind’s eye and did my best to block out the intoxicating man mere inches from me.
Amatsu lifted his hand and rested it against where he might have touched my cheek if anything about me had been solid and substantial. He left it there as his eyes zeroed in on mine and held me prisoner.
“I know you are kind, Hope, and a talented empath. You feel far more than anyone should. The pains of others are your sole concern and you would move heaven and earth to take that pain from those you love and those you barely even know.” He lifted his lips to my forehead and I held my breath hoping and dreading that he might find purchase there, but I felt nothing before he was staring into my eyes again, making me believe that the only person in the world who would ever matter to him would be me.