The Ethereal Vision

by Liam Donnelly

CHAPTER 16 — APPARITION

  Nora returned to Dublin and went straight to her house. She had no idea what to do. Jack had her sit on the sofa in her living room as he made tea. She and Jack had searched the area for hours, but had not been able to find any trace of Jane. After this period of looking for her daughter, a quiet sureness had come over Nora that she should return to Dublin; it seemed obvious that Jane had been captured by the men pursuing her, and Nora knew of nothing else to do but return home.

  She didn’t know where the men had taken Jane, but rumours suggested that the main facilities were located in Paris, the United States and Hong Kong. Lucas was American, but in the distant memory from all those years ago, she could not recall him giving her specific details that she could use to her advantage.

  Nora had been sitting slouched over the sofa, seconds away from crying again, when she heard a heavy thud from the kitchen. Her head jerked in that direction. At the same time, the lamps in the living room flickered dramatically. After a few seconds, the bulb in the tall antique lamp in the far left corner of the room exploded, sending shards of glass flying into the air. Nora jumped to her feet and ran from the room towards the kitchen.

  When she entered, she found that the lights were out, and Jack was lying motionless on the floor below her. She gasped and yelled his name as she knelt to check whether he was okay. She turned his body over, listening for his breathing; she could hear the steady flow of air. She leaned back and looked at him again but could see no obvious sign of injury. The only thing she could think of was the first aid kit she had stored in her bathroom upstairs, and the smelling salts it contained, so she moved to retrieve it now. She dashed from the kitchen and bounded up the stairs, running down the long, dark hallway to the guest bathroom.

  Inside, she opened the cupboards and emptied their contents onto the floor. It wasn’t there. She remembered then that she had stored the salts in her own bedroom and ran back down the hall towards it. Halfway down the hallway, the lights overhead flickered once again. She came to a complete stop as her heart leapt inside her chest. She slowly looked up at the lights in the ceiling. Now, along with the strange flickering, she could hear the sound of electrical buzzing that flowed inside the circuitry: a sound that did not belong there.

  Nora looked to her bedroom door, only ten feet away, and slowly began walking towards it. As she did—and looking at the darkness of her room beyond—a pre-emptive feeling came over her that something profoundly unusual was happening. She stopped again, only five feet away now, and realised that she had experienced these feelings already today. It was the same sensation she had experienced on the beach earlier that morning.

  After Jane had scrambled away on the bike, Nora and Jack had run to the beach to see if they could help in some way, but they had found nothing. There was no trace of the men who had been pursuing them, and her daughter was gone. All they found was the bike Jane had left there, stashed in the bushes atop the first dune on the right side.

  There was a second thing she had seen. She had resigned herself to leaving with Jack and searching elsewhere, but something drew her to the precipice. As she reached the top, she looked down into the distance. At first, she saw nothing as she scanned to the left and right of the silvery line that ran down the shore. Then she saw him, just as she was about to turn away, and she flinched and looked back. There was a man standing in the distance, perhaps three or four hundred feet away. He appeared to be dressed in black and was standing right on the shoreline.

  She shivered as she set eyes on him. The odd feelings he evoked in her were otherworldly. Strangely, he reminded her of a feeling she sometimes experienced when Jane was around and something happened. There was, at these times, the feeling of a door opening and a distant and unknown—but beautiful—light shining through. She knew, without even a second of consideration, that this man did not belong there. Figment was the word that came to mind. He seemed to be out of time and out of place. A semblance of memory had come over her then of something far in the distance: something long forgotten.

  She didn’t want to think about this strange figure or the otherworldly feelings he evoked in her, but they came back to her now as she once again approached the door of her bedroom. She looked around the corner into the room, then crossed the threshold of the door, feeling as though she had been pulled into it.

  She stepped forward only to stop in the centre between her bed—which was in the far corner of the room—and the door behind her. The room was freezing, and she could see her breath in front of her. She had turned the heating on when she arrived home. Now, though, she began to shiver.

  She looked around the room slowly, as it seemed to have altered in her absence. It was darker, and there now seemed to be tendrils of mist flowing through it. She experienced a sensation of movement as her thoughts swirled with images from the past. The name came into her mind before she had a chance to form any other conscious thoughts: Max.

  That was the name her daughter had mentioned during one of the nights after the accident when they had stayed up drinking cocoa and watching…what was it? Bug something—doesn’t matter now—why am I thinking about—oh my god, there’s somebody else here—oh holy—

  She turned slowly to her left to see the tall, beautiful man sitting in the chair in the corner of her room. Her breath caught in a half gasp as her heart rate jumped, but she could not move, could not take her eyes off him. He gazed out at her from strange, glacial eyes. Somehow she found the nerve to speak.

  “You’re Max, aren’t you?” Her words echoed flatly in the still void of space her bedroom seemed to have become. She was aware on some level that it was an illusion—that her mind was doing its best to comprehend the information she was receiving.

  “Yes,” he replied simply. His voice was firm and confident, but there was a sweetness to it that made Nora’s body ease a little, and her muscles unclenched. Then she said something that she had not prepared for.

  “Thank you for your help—all those years ago.”

  “I was just doing what I could to protect Jane.”

  The air in the room was cold. Solid tendrils of mist flowed around them with a strange, slow life of their own. She became aware suddenly of the fact that they were frozen somehow, as though time itself had stopped.

  “I’m not supposed to be here,” he said in a gentle, earnest voice.

  She found she understood him quite well. His words echoed in her mind softly, but she could hear them audibly too. It was a surreal yet beautiful experience.

  “Why not?” she asked. Then she answered her own question. “You mean you’re not supposed to be in our world…interfering.” How do I know that? she wondered.

  “That’s right,” he replied. “But I think it’s okay for now. This particular incident has become the focus of attention for…a power that is greater than either of us.”

  She couldn’t imagine an entity more powerful, more present in the universe than him. It was as though his personality radiated from the mirage of a body he presented to her. She could feel it as it permeated the room around her, as though it were something tangible. She could sense previously dormant parts of herself come alive now in some strange, unknown fashion. As she communicated with this being, her mind was opening, her awareness expanding in a way she had never before experienced. There was a glow in the centre of her chest that had begun to radiate outward, and now it surrounded her body. She wanted to drift off, away from his gaze, and explore this new, beautiful awareness, but she didn’t have time for that. This man—this being—might know where her daughter was. This fact kept her grounded in the moment like a solid weight.

  “Why did you…” she said and hesitated, trying to find the right words. “Why did you come to us?”

  “Your world is at a pivotal point in its historical process. When Jane lifted your car the spike it created on the plane where I exist was like an explosion—greater than anything that had come from your world before. I noticed it, of course. That is
one of my functions: to monitor the development of cultures that are standing on the brink of these evolutionary processes. But I saw that Jane had also, unfortunately, attracted the notice of other parties whose intentions would not be as benign. So I decided to…intervene.” He paused and looked into her eyes, then continued. “Which was not a decision I took lightly. It’s like interfering with a flower before it has fully bloomed. Do you understand, Nora?”

  She was surprised to find that she did and nodded at him.

  “However,” he continued, “there’s not much I can do, as I am, in this…form,” he said, raising his arms out, gesturing towards his body. “But taking human form requires a lot of energy. So I have to choose the right moment. At present, I am limited in the ways I can help.”

  She considered what he had said. Only one question came to mind. “What are you if you’re not human? How did you get your name?” She could still hear, as though in the far distance, the muted sound of electrical buzzing from the lights in the hallway.

  He looked at her for a moment without responding. Everything had fallen silent. There was no traffic outside even though there should have been at six o’clock. She wondered briefly how that was possible. The entire scene had a sticky quality to it; it was as though the earth itself had slowed in its motion. She focussed hard and pulled herself back to the present moment.

  “I was human once. I had a human existence. Max was the name I took, and when I left humanity behind, it seemed as apt as any, so I kept it.” He paused and his face seemed to shimmer for a second.

  Nora thought she could see regret in the new lines that formed on his face.

  “I and others like me are the end product of various races that have existed across the universe throughout the aeons: the ultimate product of their evolutionary processes.”

  Nora thought she could hear a little bit of regret in his voice now. She didn’t say anything for a moment; she just looked at him. His coat was beautiful. She thought that she had never seen a garment so magnificent in her life. It closed around him perfectly, like a mirage or a veil of the most perfect material she had ever seen. Golden clasps fastened it to the left side of his torso, and it fell over his crossed right leg at an oblique angle.

  “Where is Jane?” she asked, her voice firm.

  “They’ve taken her to a facility in New York. I know your instinct is to travel to that location, but I’ve appeared to you here, now, to dissuade you from taking any such course of action. Also, I made a promise to Jane to make sure you’re kept informed of what is happening.”

  “Okay, but…what are they going to do to her?”

  “Well…”

  She saw him hesitate, more so than before, as he seemed to actually struggle with what he had to say to her.

  His body and face seemed to shimmer again just slightly as he gathered his thoughts. “It’s hard to explain,” he said finally.

  “Try please,” she said without forethought.

  “You see…they want something.”

  “Something?” There was that hesitation again. She found she was losing her patience a little bit. “Max…” she said curtly, tilting her head to the side.

  “This isn’t just about people, Nora. There’s a tangible object that has come into play—something that has been on your world for a long time. It’s only recently that they’ve become aware of its existence, and they’re falling over each other trying to get control of it. It seems they believe Jane could be the key.”

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “That’s beyond the scope of this discussion.”

  She looked down at the floor, trying to ignore the impatience growing inside her. “Okay,” she said. “Is what they believe about her true? Is she the key to finding this…thing?”

  “Yes.”

  “So she’s in danger then?”

  He paused briefly before answering again. “Yes.”

  She felt fear grip her as the image of Jane’s face flashed into her mind. She thought that she could hear thunder somewhere at a vast distance, as though in another world.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t let it come to that.”

  “I have to go. I have to try to find her.”

  He stood up and as he did, the room seemed to move with him. She heard the floorboards creak and heave beneath her. For a second, it seemed as though the image of the room was represented to her at an oblong angle. She automatically took a step back. Illusion. It’s an illusion, she thought automatically, though she knew this was only partially true. Max was having some kind of physical effect on the room, if only in a small way, and, she thought, unintentionally. She felt as though she were standing in the presence of some kind of electric colossus.

  He gazed at her from eyes as deep as any memory she could ever recall. Looking into them gave her the sense that she was looking into time itself, infinitude. A memory came to her, through his eyes, of her father lifting her into his arms, smiling widely. The warmth of that embrace spread through her veins, and her cells beamed with light. She gasped almost inaudibly in the dark.

  The memories continued to flow. Now she could tell she wasn’t seeing the past, but the present. She was looking at other people around the world like her daughter. She saw them in their houses, under bridges, lighting fires with their thoughts to keep warm. She saw them pulling psychic tricks to stay off the streets. Then the tide of images began to shift and she saw a presence—someone darker, someone desperate, an entity of immense psychic ability. She saw further, beyond that, and her eyes grew wide at a tremendously bright vision of the universe: images of indescribable beauty, far beyond her comprehension.

  She gasped as she was given a brief glimpse at the enormity of what her daughter had been drawn into. She looked away from his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. When she looked back up, he smiled at her. His eyes did not hold that same depth now, but were nonetheless filled with warmth.

  “Do you see, Nora? Do you understand what could happen if you go?”

  “Yes.”

  “There are other forces at play…” he said and paused. “You would be in very serious danger.”

  “I can see that now, yes.” She walked to her bed and sat down. “You know the location of the facility, don’t you?” she asked.

  “Yes, but it’s heavily guarded.” He walked over to her and stood in front of her. “Don’t worry,” he said, and smiled again.

  She stared at the odd yet beautiful sceptre in his right hand. She hadn’t noticed it before. Did he have it before? she wondered. She thought he had not.

  “Do you trust me?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She trusted this being with all her heart. She had trusted him from the moment she laid eyes on him, not just in her room, but from a three-hundred-foot distance, back on the beach, on the shore below. She could sense the warmth coming back into the room. Distantly, as though from another world, she heard a car horn. Max was stepping backward; his presence was fading. The remaining daylight was returning through the window on the left.

  “Will you do something to help her? I know…” she struggled, trying to find the words through her desperation as he disappeared. “I know you’re good, I can feel it. I know you’re powerful. There must be something you can do.”

  Then he did something that she thought oddly human and somehow inhuman at the same time: he tipped his hat to her, as though he had walked straight out of another century.

  “I will tip my hand to these people if and when the time is right, and don’t worry; they’ll know all about it when I do. In the meantime I’ll watch Jane from a distance and try to communicate with her.”

  The room was once again filling with light and heat, the mist evaporating. An arc of clear sunlight came through her window and she could clearly hear the traffic outside. She glanced at the window, distracted by the noise, then looked back.

  He was gone.

  It was as though there had been a power cut across the city and electricity had just been res
tored. The world whizzed to life again in front of her like a film that had transitioned from slow motion to a regular pace. She turned around and stared at the now-vacant chair for a moment, noticing that her heart was actually beating in her chest and that her breathing was rapid. She sat there, listening to the sounds of the world as they once again flooded her awareness.

  “Nora?” She heard Jack’s strained voice call to her from below. She stood immediately to check on him. She had only one thought as she exited her room and descended the stairs: she wasn’t going anywhere, and her daughter’s protection now lay in Max’s hands.