by E. E. Holmes
It seemed she could not resist such an invitation. She looked around, but no one was visible beyond the barriers of the enclosure. “You must cut your bonds here,” she whispered, indicating the place between the third and fourth knots that Flavia had shown me.
“Yes?” I said, my heart beating so frantically now that the rhythm felt like a hum. “But the words! What are the words, Irina? What do I say?”
She beckoned me forward on the crook of her finger and said, “In the old tongue, and so that the spirits of old will hear you, you must speak it here,” she placed a fingertip on my mouth, “and here,” she moved it over my heart.
“Sínim uaim thar dhoras mo choirp
Ach an eochair coinním fós,
Bheith ag siúl tráth i measc na marbh
Agus filleadh ansin athuair.”
As I fought to remember the words without knowing what they meant, a wind swept through the structure, whipping around us and tossing Irina’s hair into a frenzy around her face which was now aglow with anticipation. Then, without another word, her spirit burst forth and her body fell in a lifeless heap at my feet. As I watched it crumple, I was struck by the truth of it; though it looked the same as it had a moment before, there was nothing left of Irina there. Everything that made her who she was, was now soaring above my head. I looked up.
The joy. She was flying through the air like a bird, arms outstretched, her face alight with a happiness I could not comprehend. It was this, perhaps, that gave me the courage to take the soul catcher and the blade between my trembling fingers.
I will choose to come back, I told those same trembling fingers, my breath, my racing heart.
“Sínim uaim thar dhoras mo choirp
Ach an eochair coinním fós,
Bheith ag siúl tráth i measc na marbh
Agus filleadh ansin athuair.”
And I cut through the soul catcher with a single decisive swipe.
12
Glimpses
AND I WAS GONE.
Or I was really here for the first time; it was hard to tell which.
Gone was every physical sensation. There was no pain, no frightened fluttering, no connection to anything physical at all. It was an unfathomable relief I never even knew I needed, as though I’d been in pain all my life without knowing it, until suddenly it stopped, and I felt what it was to be really, truly at peace. I was nothing but weightless, floating, consciousness, and I was completely at my ease, in this small, quiet bubble of solitary contemplation. I did not see. I did not hear. I just… was.
It did not disturb me at all to be completely stripped of my senses; I found it natural, in this state. I didn’t seem to need them to experience my surroundings fully. But as I thought of my senses, I thought of my body, and as soon as I did that, I found myself wishing I could see.
The moment I wished for it, I gained a sort of vision. It wasn’t like seeing things with my eyes, but I could see, nonetheless. I took everything in, gauging my own relationship to them. I seemed to be hovering very close to the top of the dome the Travelers had built to contain us. I knew I could not touch it the way I had when I had a physical form, but something about the energy radiating from it stopped me from trying. Even as I floated near it, part of me wanted to cringe away from it. I focused instead on the space below me and saw a figure lying on the ground. It took a moment to associate that figure with myself. I knew it was my body, but even mere moments after vacating it, it felt entirely foreign to me. Was that really what I looked like? Was my hair really so dark, my skin so pale and drawn? Was my face, so young in comparison to others, really that careworn and sad?
I looked for a long time at my right hand, open and reaching, in the overgrown grass. Living was a sad and empty thing, sometimes, that hand seemed to say.
I felt a twinge of longing to rejoin with that hand, to fill that body so that it would not be so empty, so alone.
“Isn’t it exhilarating?” a voice said from nearby.
I tore my attention from the body below and focused instead on the other spirit now hovering level with me. Irina was alight with happiness, her form expanded with energy like an inflated balloon. As I watched, she soared around the perimeter of the enclosure, looping and diving and weaving like a stunt plane in an airshow.
“Yes,” I admitted. “It certainly is.”
She looked as I had remembered her, and yet she looked entirely new; a shining, rainbow-colored version of her human self, glowing and pulsing with unrestrained energy.
“You don’t look like a ghost,” I told her.
“I’m not a ghost,” she said. “A ghost is an imprint, an echo. I am so, so much more than that. Imagine a ghost with the energy and vibrancy of the living, but unfettered by a human body. That’s what I am. That’s what you are.”
“What do I look like?” I asked, more to myself than to her. I held up a hand before my eyes. I shone and gleamed in a spectrum of color, pulsing and flowing, trailing an aura of light from my fingertips as I wiggled them back and forth. I looked down at my body, or rather, at this new representation of my body. How strange it was to have a form and yet feel nothing physical. And if I was up here, then who was down there?
I looked down at my body again. It drew my eye with some kind of powerful attraction, and I felt the urge to approach it, to study it more closely.
“Why are you looking at that cage? Forget about it. Let yourself go!” Irina laughed, flitting about so fast that she seemed to be in three places at one time.
It’s not a cage, I thought. But when I looked away from it, I understood why it would have been so easy, in that moment, to forget about its existence entirely, down there in the dark blanket of the grass.
I will go back, I told myself. I will go back. But first I would feel what it was to really Walk, since I’d gotten this far.
“Irina, how do I… move?” I asked. I had no real control over myself in this purest of forms. I couldn’t understand how to propel myself through a physical space now that I no longer had a physical existence.
“You must stop thinking as though you have a form that must be moved with muscles and bones. You control your movement with your being,” she said, soaring past me.
“Do you think you could be a little more specific? I don’t seem to be able to control anything with my being, probably because I have no idea what the hell that means!”
She actually laughed, and I saw in her spirit face the girl she really was, the girl she could never be again down in her body. It was beautiful and sad at the same time. “You must will yourself to occupy each new space. Visualize yourself in it, and you will begin to move.”
“That sounds like a lot of work,” I said. “Couldn’t I just float, or something?”
“It’s not work. It couldn’t be easier. Just try it, Northern girl,” Irina called.
I focused on an empty patch of air across from me in the enclosure. No sooner had I pictured myself in it than I was there, with no clear perception of how I had done it. I tried again, this time focusing on a thick patch of grass in the corner. Again, I found myself instantly upon it, and disoriented at the speed of my own travel. I reeled, feeling a sort of mental dizziness.
“No, no,” Irina giggled. “You must envision the journey itself, not just your final destination. You must imagine yourself existing in every step along the way, or you will never know what it is to fly!” And she soared past me in an arc, her arms spread like wings.
I gathered myself for another attempt, though I could already feel myself tiring. Or at least, I think I was tiring. If I were a light, I would have been dimming. My colors seemed to fade as I watched them. My eye was drawn to my body, only about ten feet away from me, and it no longer looked foreign anymore, but inviting. It looked like my bed might have looked after a very long day, or the way a coffee might have looked after a classic all-nighter.
“Should I be tired already?” I asked Irina.
She stopped rocketing around for a moment, t
hough she looked annoyed. “Yes. It is very hard, at first. Returning will perhaps seem easy this time, but do not be lulled into a false security. When you truly Walk, when you embrace it with all you are, your spirit will thrive on it, and that earthly body will reveal itself to be the prison it really is.”
I did my best to ignore those words. I couldn’t worry about that now. I had work to do. If I couldn’t control my path while I Walked, the ability was useless. I needed to be able to propel myself into the Gateway without getting tired or disoriented, or what good would I be in the struggle ahead? I focused instead on the practical part of her advice, imagining myself occupying each step along my path to my next destination.
I started to move and then quite suddenly, lost all momentum. It was too much. I’d already tried to do too much, and I could feel myself starting to drift, without control of where I was. As I hung, suspended, a terrible thought occurred, flooding me with panic. What if I couldn’t get back to my body?
It wasn’t physical panic, of course. I had no “physical” anymore, and that further thought only deepened the panic, which was a sort of a buzzing of the mind, a scattering and shaking of my thoughts. In my fear, I concentrated on the one thing that was anchoring me: that body, lying immobile in the grass below. As I did so I expressed a wish, more fervent than any I’d ever expressed before, to somehow find my way back into it. Even as I did so, it was as if my body, answering my call, began to do the work for me, casting out an invisible net and ensnaring me in it. The bonds tying me to my body were starting to tug and tighten, to reel me back in. And as I watched Irina in her glory, I envied her, and yet I pitied her, for I knew that to go back for me would be a relief, and for her would be utter torment.
I envisioned myself, not flitting around the vastness, but back below, tucked safely inside the body I’d left behind. I allowed the vision to fill me, to spread through every shining, multi-colored particle of myself, and imagined the ties that bound me to my physical self winding me closer and closer, pulling me back. I did not fight against it, but embraced it.
I will go back, I told myself again. It is home. Home is where you return to.
My body moved closer, or rather I moved closer to it. I could see the tiny beads of sweat trembling on my brow, could see the light glimmer on the tips of my eyelashes.
We… I… connected.
I drew a breath that filled every inch of my being, sucked it in like I’d been submerged in water until the very moment I could hold my breath no longer. I was awash with disorienting sensations, an onslaught of the return of my five senses. Smells attacked my nose. Lights popped and exploded in front of my eyes. Every pore was afire with feeling. I was overwhelmed to the point of terror until I remembered that this was what it felt like to be alive.
“She’s back!”
“I can see her! She’s moving!”
“Jessica! Jessica! Are you alright? Someone get her out of there!”
Rough hands seized me and dragged me backwards by my arms through the opening of the enclosure and into the soft, dewy grass in the clearing.
“Jessica! Are you okay? Say something!”
“I… I think I’m okay,” I gasped with difficulty. I tried to remember how to focus my eyes, and Dragos wavered into view above me, alongside Anca, whose hair was hanging down around my head, blocking out the light. A poking and prodding at my arms and legs revealed a number of other Travelers marking me with runes in dark, dusty charcoal dust.
“What are they doing?’ I asked, still panting like I’d run a marathon.
“Protective runes, to make sure your spirit doesn’t attempt flight,” Anca said. Her expression was already transforming from concern to wonder. “Aren’t… don’t you want to Walk again?”
“Not particularly,” I said watching now as every visible patch of skin was marked up. “Hey! Watch it!” I cried, slapping away one woman who was attempting to lift my shirt to mark my midriff.
“Stop!” Anca said. “Stop warding her! She’s… fine. She has reconnected.”
I swatted another hand away and tried to sit up. My body was reluctant to obey my thoughts, and Dragos, seeing what I was trying to do, helped me into a seated position.
“We weren’t sure how long to let you go, so we began the casting to pull you back, but you returned before we could complete it. Did you return by yourself?” Anca asked. She was still looking into my eyes like she couldn’t believe she was seeing me look out at her from behind them.
“Yes,” I said. The dizziness and disorientation was fading. I began to gently move individual fingers and toes, testing my control. It seemed to be returning. “It was exhausting. That was as much as I could do, for a first try.”
Anca’s face split into a grin. “It was miraculous to watch.”
A scuffling nearby drew our attention. Milo, Savvy, and Annabelle were struggling to get through to where I was sitting.
“Oh, I know you did not just try to expel me,” Milo was shouting, in full-out fierce mode. “I am this girl’s spirit guide, do you hear me, and you will let me do some guiding or I will haunt your ass until doomsday!”
It was my turn to grin. “Let them through, please,” I called.
The protective circle that had formed around me broke apart and Milo blasted through it, Annabelle and Savvy right on his heels. Annabelle looked pale and shaken, and Savvy’s mascara was smudged suspiciously under her red-rimmed eyes, but Milo was smiling from ear to ear.
“’Atta girl!” he said when he spotted me. “I knew you’d be a natural. Never doubted it for a second.”
I smiled back. “I couldn’t let you have all the fun in spirit form. Now I can annoy you even without a body to dress in clothes you hate.”
He chuckled gleefully. “No worries, sweetness, I’ll just find something else to rag on you about.”
It was the first time he’d ever used his signature pet name on me, and I didn’t take it lightly. He winked, as though to say he’d meant it.
“Blimey, Jess, that was… well, I’m glad you’re back because you gave us all a bloody heart attack.” Savvy said tremulously.
Annabelle managed a smile. “Well done. Truly.”
“I must agree. Well done, indeed.”
Ileana had appeared as well, the Travelers having parted like the seas for her and her trail of pipe smoke. “What brought you back? We didn’t need to force you, I see.”
“No,” I said. “I wanted to come back.”
“Wanted to? You mean you could actually feel the connection with your body?”
“Yes. I was free of it, but I could always sense it there. It was still connected to me.”
Ileana flashed her wide gold toothed smile with an approving nod. “The prophecy did not lie. You are truly meant to do this. Perhaps a Durupinen in a century could exist in the spirit form and actually want to return. It was always a struggle, even in the earliest days, for Irina to return. It was a shorter Walk than I expected, though. Why did you return so quickly?”
“Walking is… well, I couldn’t do it for very long, at least not this time. It takes a lot of energy. Irina said it would get easier; she certainly had no trouble with it. But it’s going to take some practice before I’m good enough at it to do anything useful.”
“Well then, practice you shall have,” Ileana said. “This structure and all the assistance we can give to you are yours to use, until such time as you feel ready to Walk on your own. Our Scribes will continue to find anything they can that might assist you.”
“Great,” I said, as a wave of exhaustion worked its way from my soul into my body, making both feel as though they were suddenly made of lead. “I’m going to need all the help I can get. And speaking of help,” I glanced back at the enclosure, inside which Irina was still rocketing around like an escaped firework, “what are you going to do about her?”
“Do you still require her assistance?” Ileana asked.
“Yes, definitely.”
“Then we will k
eep her there, inside the enclosure, until you no longer need it.”
I continued to watch the cage, sure I could see her gleefully flitting about. “And then?”
“Then she will need to return to her body,” Ileana said.
“She won’t go voluntarily, I can tell you that right now,” I said.
“We are prepared to assist her.”
“To force her, you mean,” I said.
Ileana eyed me beadily. Her silence was answer enough.
“It seems so cruel,” I said. “Can’t you just… let her go?”
“No,” Ileana said. “It wouldn’t be right or safe. She is much more a danger to all of us if she is allowed to roam free. I assure you, after all these years, she is a formidable force. She has long since forgotten her allegiance to the Durupinen. She fears and hates us now, and I cringe to think what she would do if she were free of us forever.”
“I know,” I said. “I just hate to think of her like that again.”
Ileana looked to the enclosure; her expression, though resigned, was not unkind. “As do I. I knew her before she became what she is now. She was a great and powerful woman once. It gives me no pleasure to keep her bound and trussed like some kind of sideshow attraction, but there is no other way, especially if the Necromancers really are looking for you.”
“So when my practice is over…”
“She will return to the existence she led before you came. She cannot ultimately be free until death, but she will never truly die if her body lies abandoned and unaging. It is regrettable, but not all that we regret can be changed.”
I nodded, and as I did so, I thought about Evan, and Pierce, and my mother. No, some regrets would linger, and we would simply have to learn to live with them.
13
Connection
FOR THE NEXT THREE DAYS, I Walked.