A Song of Redemption

by Lillian I Wolfe

  I nodded. “Here's the problem. I think the fur guy would be safer at your house while we're gone.”

  “Safer?”

  “Well, more comfortable. Since we haven't been at Gavin's for more than a couple of days, he's not familiar with it and—”

  “He won't be familiar with my place either. What did you mean by safer?”

  I bit my lower lip. “We've already seen a yiaiwa at the house. Orielle tells me that they've known about Gavin's place for a while so it might be better if you don’t stay there with him, but take him to your place.”

  His face clouded with concern, his eyes narrowing, and lips tightening. “Who's to say they won't follow him to my place? Is your house warded against them?”

  “Yes, triple wards in place.”

  “Then, it's the safer place, babe. I'll stay there with him.” His mouth tightened to a thin line. “But I don’t like that you’re staying there either.”

  “It wouldn’t matter if it was your house or this one. They follow me and until we can stop them, it’s going to be a problem.” I sighed, not ready to have another argument with him. “I just hoped they wouldn’t bother you or Nygard if he were at your place. I can put wards on it.”

  He swallowed as he thought about it. “Nope. I think I’d rather not risk it. I’ll stick with Gavin’s house. How long will you be gone and when are you leaving? Dare I ask where?”

  “We’re leaving on Tuesday. Not sure yet on the return date. I expect it would be Saturday or Sunday. We’re going to Europe. I can’t give you any details yet except it has to do with getting some information and possibly help to fight the yiaiwa.” I rubbed my right ear and realized I hadn’t put my earrings in yet.

  “But you can’t tell me what country? This is bullshit, Gillian. It’s like saying you don’t trust me.” His eyes blazed as he scowled at me.

  “No, it’s not.” I lowered my voice and hissed, “It’s more like I don’t know if demons are listening and I don’t want to risk it. I’ll tell you later, okay?”

  The fire left his eyes, but he didn’t seem happy. “Fine. I’ll talk to you later then.” He turned to go, not even a hug for me.

  “I’ll call you,” I added weakly.

  He barely acknowledged me and went out the door.

  Yep, I’d ticked him off. Maybe he thought I was jerking him around.

  Chapter 15

  SITTING CROSS-LEGGED on my bed, I held the gardening glove in my hand, feeling the New Zealand dirt in it and concentrating on the other half of the pair that Elly held in her hand. My laptop sat opened to the chat window we’d set up so we could make adjustments in the plan if needed. So far, I hadn’t sensed much from the glove except for a slight floral scent, possibly rose, that was embedded in the fabric. Elly held the other glove in her hand and tried to open her mind to the contact, which meant trying to keep any other thoughts out. Not always easy to do when you were attempting this sort of thing.

  I took another deep breath and focused on conjuring her face in my mind, reaching out to her. I could sense something akin to standing at the edge of a cliff and reaching out to the sky. It was there, just beyond my fingertips, but I couldn’t grasp it. At the moment, I thought we might need to try another approach, then I felt a tug at my soul, a pull that attempted to sweep me out. My conscious mind fought it. I had to let go of the automatic fear I felt at being pulled this way. It was different from going from the piano to the interim graveyard or even when I made the leap to the Canary Islands. This was unknown territory in my mind, and the pull felt different as if I wasn’t in control.

  “Talk to me, Elly,” I said aloud, my voice carrying through the internet to her.

  “I’m here. I can almost sense you with me, but you haven’t made contact. Don’t we need to picture my transitional place?”

  “You’re right. You need to focus on the destination so I can follow you there. I was trying to make the shift without knowing where I was going.” I felt stupid.

  We’d talked about this. Elly needed to direct us to her cemetery, and I would follow her there via the connection we were trying to establish. Instead, I was focusing on her. I pulled my concentration back to the glove in my hand, willing it to find its mate. Strange as that sounded, it seemed to work.

  I felt a stronger tug, then in a moment...

  I stood in a beautiful garden filled with an assortment of gorgeous flowers, some of which had a tropical look to them. The colors were vibrant, so rich that they didn’t seem real. I turned to look around and just behind me, I saw Elly standing with one hand on her hip and the other waving her glove half, or the spirit essence that somehow came with us, in her hand. I glanced down to see the matching mate in my hand.

  “It worked,” I said with excitement. This crazy idea seemed to work again.

  “It did. Good as gold, girl." She grinned broadly, her bright emerald eyes twinkling.

  Standing a little taller than me, she had an athlete’s body that looked comfortable in a pair of knee-length khaki shorts and a tan sports shirt with her floral business logo on it. Her friendly face bore the freckled look of a fair-skinned woman who spent more time in the sun than she should have. I liked her right off and closed the distance between us quickly.

  “This is amazing,” I said as I waved the arm with the glove in it to indicate the lush-looking garden. “It’s so beautiful.”

  “It is rather spectacular, isn’t it? I actually love to come here. It’s seldom a sad place. Most of the spirits I’ve seen here seem soothed by it. Is your cemetery like this?”

  I shook my head as I pictured my interim stopping place. “Not as abundant with flowers, yet very green and peaceful in most places. But it’s suffering now with the incursion of the lower level spirits. Are you seeing any evidence of that here?”

  Her eyes took on a concerned look. “No, not that I’ve encountered. Come on, let’s take a walk, and you can see for yourself.”

  I fell into step beside her as we strolled along the silver path, a similar one to my own. Like my cemetery, fields of headstones, flat to the earth, formed unobtrusive rows across the hedge-separated sections. But here, many of the headstones bloomed with outlines of flowers, some even crossing over them. A few displayed blossoming sprays of flowers like a funeral garland, but alive and vibrant.

  “These flowers grow everywhere. The headstones in mine look positively bleak by comparison.”

  She paused and pointed at one where a spray of delphiniums in various shades waved from the base of a grave. Luscious violets blossomed around them, growing toward the stone. “About a week ago, I made a delphinium spray for that lady’s grave and even though the spray is nearly wilted there, here a representation of it still blooms and will for a long time.”

  Dumbfounded, I said, “Does this always happen with your funeral flowers?” What an amazing gift she had.

  “Most of them. Some don’t flourish here. I’m not sure why.” She shrugged.

  I looked closer at the headstones. Unlike mine, many still bore the names of the deceased that had passed through. Why the difference? Did it have something to do with the portal to the lower level being in my graveyard? But the other one I’d been to in Tennessee was like mine. Unless...

  I thought back to the cemetery where I’d seen the Civil War soldiers. It was like the surroundings at Shiloh, so maybe it reflected where the soldiers had died. What if it was another section of my cemetery—one I accessed by my presence in Tennessee? It, too, had a dark part and shades. Was there more than one portal from the underworld?

  Elly and I walked along the path for a while longer where I saw more of the same beauty and felt the positive energy of the place. She was right that it didn’t seem to have a gate for spirits to pass through, and I saw no indication of dark vines or overgrown thorn bushes. This space appeared to be idyllic and pristine. I envied her.

  As we looped back in the direction we’d started, I came to a halt. “Are you ready to try something else?” I asked.r />
  “What do you have in mind?”

  “I’m going to try to transport us to my cemetery. Are you game?”

  “Sure. Let’s see if it works.” She pulled the hand with her glove to her chest, and I knew she’d done it with her physical body.

  “I have to warn you that there may be some danger. Since mine has yiaiwa on the level, we could encounter one. If that should happen, I want you to return to your body. I will drop the glove so it should break our connection. My guess is that you will be returned immediately to either your cemetery or to your body.”

  A look of concern crossed her face. “You don’t want me to stay and lend a hand?”

  “Oh, I don’t plan to fight any if I don’t have to. For now, I am more concerned with your safety and getting us both back unharmed.”

  I thought about it a moment, then added, “Do you have any skills other than growing flowers and projecting here?”

  “Not that I know of,” she replied. “But watch this.”

  She pointed to a small vine with golden flowers at the edge of the path and concentrated, a warm glow of light emanating from her hand and flowing over the vine like a beam of sunshine. As I watched, it pushed out more green runners streaming a couple of feet along the path. Within seconds, buds formed and blooms erupted like exploding popcorn.

  “Wow... that is awesome, girl,” I gasped out. “That could be a handy skill.” My mind was already devising ways we might be able to use her talent if she was powerful enough to do it on a larger scale. For now, travel was on the agenda.

  I held out my hand almost touching hers. Physical contact wasn’t possible, but our energy could make a bridge to link us. At least, I thought that was what would happen. I held the glove close to my chest and focused on my interim cemetery. For the first time, I noticed swirls of silvery energy in an interlocking pattern forming around Elly and me. Was that from our connection or was Elly generating it?

  At the same time, a different thought popped into my mind. Were the yiaiwas able to follow me on these astral excursions? Had I brought one through when I took Astrid to the Canary Islands? Would I risk opening a pathway now by transporting Elly? Following my instincts, I murmured a protection prayer for the two of us as well as a sealing ward for her cemetery. As I spoke the words, more silver patterns formed into an intricate web-like pattern, creating a barrier next to the initial weave surrounding us.

  “Do you see that pattern?” I asked Elly.

  She squinted at me, “What are you talking about?”

  “You don’t see a silvery lace-like wall around us?”

  She rolled her eyes as she looked again and shook her head. “Nope.”

  I looked at the energy connecting our hands, so similar to what Nygard and I shared, yet different. “Here we go.”

  I began to hum the first bars of “Amazing Grace,” and within a few notes, we transported to the darker green, plainer-look of my cemetery.

  Elly seemed to stumble a little as we arrived, an illusion caused by the sense of disorientation that came with the shift. Her eyes grew wider as she gazed at the deep green open fields of headstones, none showing any details. She turned in a slow circle observing the surroundings of the tall hedges and trees that formed the barriers within it.

  I had thought it beautiful the first time I’d seen it, but now I noticed the subtle changes in it as the colors deepened and the shrubs bore fewer blossoms. Without a doubt, I knew the influence of the evil woods infected this place on a larger scale than I’d realized.

  I joined her and led her to my silver path taking the direction to the gate and the light. Better to show her the good side before the bad. As we walked, I took the opportunity to learn more about the New Zealander. “How did you discover your power to grow plants like you do and to reach the next plane?”

  She chuckled, a short sound, as she tucked her glove into her pants pocket. I figured that might be a regular routine for her, but it seemed like a good idea, and I slipped the half I carried into the waistband of my jeans. I wanted it within easy reach, but keeping my hands unencumbered seemed a good idea.

  “Well, I always liked growing things, even when I was little,” she said. “My mum showed me how to plant and tend to them. So, as time went on, I decided I’d like to be a florist, raising my own plants, and selling the blossoms. I focused on agriculture and horticulture in school, eventually getting a job with a florist in the city. While I had a green thumb, and my plants were healthy and produced beautiful blooms, they grew at a normal speed, not like they do in the cemetery.” She paused, flashing a small smile at me.

  “Then how did you end up being able to go to the cemetery?”

  “That’s...a little different. I had set up my greenhouse in my family’s backyard. I was raising exotic flowers in it. One day, I was working with a batch of monkshood, which is poisonous. I hadn’t realized I had a cut on my hand. I wasn’t wearing gloves, so the toxin got into my bloodstream. Long story short, I grew very ill from it and ended up in hospital. I think I may have almost died for a short time as I had a hallucination where I went into the light.” Elly paused and waited for my reaction.

  “Okay. I got it. Go on.”

  “Here’s where it’s really strange. As I walked into this weird tunnel, I heard a melodic male voice that told me I had work to do, and it was not yet my time. He said I had received a gift and when the time came, I would learn to use it. Isn’t that just wankers?” She barked out a little laugh like she was covering up her embarrassment at relaying such a story.

  “Not so odd,” I said with a little smile. “My own story is just as strange, a head injury and the next thing I know I’m singing at funerals and standing in this cemetery. So, when did you discover you could get to yours?”

  “About a month after I recovered, I created a flower arrangement for a funeral. When I delivered it, I was running late and barely got it there before the service started. I stayed around for a bit, and in the middle of the service, I seemed to step right into the cemetery where the gravestone was decked out with my flower arrangement. I thought I imagined it until it happened again when I brought another arrangement to the gravesite.”

  We turned the curve in the path. A short way beyond it, we could see the rock wall that marked the boundary. Turning to parallel it, we continued on.

  “This is amazing,” Elly said looking up at the top. Although it looked like blue sky continued on the other side, it was an illusion.

  “Do you interact with the deceased?” I asked as I watched her running her fingers on the wall’s rock-looking surface unable to actually feel anything, but still sensing the solidity. Real or not, it provided a barrier no soul could breach.

  “Sometimes, but most of the time they just arrive and go on from there. A few times, the person seems confused, and we chat for a bit, then they realize what’s happened and leave.”

  “But you don’t have a gate or a light tunnel?” I found this part confusing. Why wouldn’t that way station have the access path this one presented?

  “No, not that I’ve found. You saw for yourself that it’s a small area and a single big loop. Maybe my dead are just passing through and not needing an escort. I don’t even know why I’m there except I seem to be waiting.” She shrugged, then she spotted the gate, and her mouth dropped open.

  “Oh...my...God! Look at that gate! And the light!” She came to a dead stop. “I don’t freakin’ believe it.”

  “Well, you should. Welcome to the other side...almost.” The sweet, teasing voice popped in before Janna did, literally arriving in front of the gate, and looking as fresh as a daisy.

  Eyes popping, Elly’s eyebrows disappeared behind her bangs. I’d gasped in surprise when Janna first spoke, but now I’d settled down. Even though I figured she could be around, I wasn’t expecting that entrance.

  “Elly, meet Janna, my now-deceased best friend.” I shot a glare at Janna.

  “Elly, of course. You’re the one from Down Under. Gill
y mentioned you a few times.”

  I gritted my teeth. “Janna, why don’t you show Elly how you can go through the light tunnel?”

  “Naw-uh... you’re not getting rid of me that easily. I told you. I want to stay and help.” A pout formed on her perfect lips and she crossed her arms in defiance.

  “I’m not kidding. If you get snatched by a yiaiwa, I don’t think I can do anything to save you. It’s not a joke.”

  “I’ll be careful.” She smiled and turned to Elly. “It’s nice to put a face to the name. Do you have special skills like Gillian?”

  Before Elly could say anything, I cut in. “Janna, listen to me. If you’re not going to cross over, then stay out of this cemetery. I know you can go to other places. Zoe showed me. So, pick a safe spot and stay away from here.”

  Janna’s mouth tightened, and her eyes narrowed, stubborn setting in. “Gillian, you need all the help you can get in this battle. Why are you shoving me away?”

  “What do you think you can do?” I said biting the words out. “Do you have skills to contribute? I don’t think they need to be checked into a hotel or maybe you’d like to help with their logistics?” My words were cruel, but I wanted her to get away from me and this cemetery.

  “Is that all you think I can do?” she shouted back at me. “Maybe I have skills you don’t know about. Maybe I have some talents here that I haven’t discovered. Instead of trying to work with me, you’d rather cut me down.” Her voice choked at the end, and she whirled partway around and disappeared.

  I felt like the biggest jerk in the world and the worst friend. I closed my eyes and compressed my lips, unhappy with this outcome. I didn’t know where she went or if she would come back. While I wanted her to pass to the next plane, I hadn’t wanted it to be with her angry at me.

  Swallowing my anguish, I looked at Elly, who stared at the gate looking uncomfortable. “I’m sorry about that. I said some things that were harsh, but I’m worried about her.”

  Elly turned her eyes back to me. “I understand. She doesn’t understand the threat. At least, I’ve seen one of them, even if only briefly.”