“I love you too Chrissi,” her mom responds with slight concern. “But you are not allowed to do that again, you understand?”
Her mom is serious now and seriously laying down the law. She worried that night, was still awake, waiting in Chrissi’s room when her daughter finally returned.
“Where have you been?” Ame jumped up from Chrissi’s bed where she had been sitting, calling every parent listed in the town phone book trying to locate her daughter. “You are grounded forever!”
“Mom!” Chrissi rushed to her and hugged her hard. “I’m so glad to be home!”
Suddenly Ame worried something dreadful had happened, “Why? What’s wrong? What happened?”
Chrissi hesitated, wondering if her mom could handle the truth. She stepped back, looked her mom in the eye and saw terror and relief that lingered from the initial sight of her prodigal daughter.
“Oh my! Your gloves! Hold on honey, don’t touch anything! I will find some!” Ame frantically throws open drawers rifling for gloves.
“Mom, I…I went on a journey.”
“A what?”
“A journey,” it wasn’t going well so far, Chrissi thought. “And, and I’m healed!”
“A journey in one night? Chrissi tell me the truth! I have been worried sick all night long, I didn’t sleep a wink!” Her mom tosses a pair of gloves at her. “…You’re what?”
“One night?” Chrissi sat on her chair at her desk, dubious. “No mom, I was gone for…weeks, two at least.”
Her mom knelt down in front of her, fear painted on her face, “Chrissi, honey, I saw you a few hours ago. You’ve only been gone one evening. What do you mean you’re healed?”
“Oh mom…wait until you hear this…”
Ame had been understanding, once she was passed the shock of it all. She brushed aside the skeptical thinking that told her Chrissi had obviously taken some drug and was coming out of a very vivid hallucination, or that she had been at some party and was too scared to come clean about it. Eventually, Ame knew something big had taken place to and in her daughter and certainly couldn’t argue with the healing of Chrissi’s hands. She decided instead of fighting it any longer, she would nurture what her own mother attempted to teach her. The King was coming home soon. Roi was alive and as powerful as he ever was. The King was coming home and her daughter was already playing a very important role.
“I understand mom,” Chrissi says, breaking her mom’s train of thought. “But…I just can’t make any promises. Roi hasn’t revealed the rest of the plan to us yet and I don’t know how much of it will take place here.”
“Oh, I imagine it will all take place here,” her mom replies with a faraway gaze. “It’s meant to; this is home.”
With that her mom left, heading to her own bedroom.
Chrissi turns back to her homework and sighs again, defeated. She twirls around in her chair a couple of times trying to energize herself. Stopping opposite her desk her eyes find the old Roswell poster. It seems so foreign to her now, a completely different Chrissi tacked that poster on the wall and she isn’t here anymore. Chrissi takes the three strides across her room and carefully pulls out the tacks from the bottom two corners of the poster. Joyful tears begin to fill her eyes as she takes one last look at it—a last look at a life full of bitterness and insecurity. No longer confused or directionless, this is her silent goodbye to the old Chrissi Camden and a welcoming to Zoe. She takes out the last two tacks and throws it all in the mini trashcan by her desk before giving up on homework and climbing into bed for the night.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Running.
Breath caught in chest.
Complete darkness.
Light shines dimly, permeating the darkness just around the edges.
A shadow looms ahead.
Am I alone?
Loose gravel under feet.Through a gate.
Rocks. Tombstones.
Graveyard.
Am I alone?
Jogging. Running. Heaving. Fear.
Reach a tree. Hand rests on a rough trunk.
Yellow gloves.
Hand. Power.
Where is she? Am I alone?
Nowhere else to go. Lean against the tree.
Eyes land on big pink, granite headstone.
Read aloud,
Here lies Chrissi Lee Camden; traitor.
Kesil bolts up in his bed, in his room, at his parents’ house. Sweat pools above his brow and on his upper lip. One image remains in his mind—Tok, standing tall and triumphant on Chrissi’s grave.
EPILOGUE
Lesia closes her locker and gives the combination a good spin before walking into English class.
“Hi Mark! How is your aunt, any better?”
“Yeah, thanks! She is home from the hospital,” Mark exclaims from his front row seat.
Lesia takes her seat in the very middle of the classroom. She sheds her corduroy jacket and hangs it on the back of her chair. Her two girlfriends, Jennifer and Ashley, sit in the corner farthest from the door, and everyone else.
“Oh look, do gooder Lesia come to save the day!” Jennifer mocks from her ephemeral sanctuary.
Lesia pays them no mind and waves to Phil as he walks in donning the most ridiculous fur hat and trench coat.
“Hey Les, how’s it going?”
“Um…what are you wearing?”
Phil is silent at first, “Just ignore it OK? My grandma went a little cooky this Christmas and she is still in town which means I HAVE to wear it. OK?”
“OK, OK. Well, it’s only morning but my day is pretty good. We have the first peer-counsel training of the semester today, don’t forget.”
“Right.”
“You’ll be there?”
“Mm.”
“Phil!”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be there.”
“Hey! Did you know that the Book prophesizes about a battle between good and evil—on our plane?”
Lesia’s jaw drops, “Our plane? But how can that be?”
“Well you know we have experienced battle since we returned from the journey, just in a different way than on the supernatural plane.”
“Like what exactly?” Lesia is suspicious and fearful at the same time. No hideous creatures or rabid animal-like things have come after her here. At home.
“Well, I can’t be certain but I believe your two old friends there turning against you is part of the battle,” Phil begins to speak faster so Lesia can’t interrupt in protest, “and I think your relationship with your sister, the fact that it is better, is part of the battle. I think how I was sick when we were supposed to meet with the principal about starting the club was part of the battle. And I think Kesil going missing is too. Things were more visible on Roi’s plane. While we don’t see Tok’s followers I think they are here just as much as they were there. I think…I think everything that happened on our journey, on the supernatural plane, is just as capable of happening here, we just can’t see it the same way.”
Phil takes a deep breath, unsure of what Lesia’s reaction may be. She stares at him for a few seconds, mouth agape and eyes wide.
Then she narrows her eyes, “You’re so right Phil!”
Phil sighs, letting his deep breath out.
“Wow, I can see it now. The illness, the anger, the bitterness and then the healing, the joy and the peace. We are in battle here just like we were on the journey. Just like Roi said,” she agrees.
“Yeah,” Phil says staring out the classroom window at the tree where their journey together began, “just like Roi said in the Book.”
“Ew, does that mean those nasty creatures are here too?”
He laughs and opens his textbook.
Forty-five minutes later they head to their next class together and meet Chrissi in the hallway. She jogs up to them, meeting at her own locker.
“Hey guys! How’s it going? Excited about the club meeting this afternoon?” Chrissi turns to her locker and begins spinning her combination
with a gloveless hand.
“Yes!” Lesia says as Phil sighs slightly.
“What’s wrong Phil?” Chrissi asks as Lesia balks in his direction.
“I’m just nervous about talking to a bunch of people.”
“What?” Lesia asks. “You never said that! Why? You’re just telling them what you know. You do that to…er with us all the time.”
“Yeah, wait…what?”
“Chill guys!” Chrissi laughs interrupting their impending tiff. “Phil, Lesia is right. You know your stuff. You’ll be fine! It’s just nerves.”
“Oh my gosh!” Lesia gasps so loudly Phil and Chrissi jump. “It’s the battle Phil! That means you HAVE to do it!”
“What?” Chrissi looks back and forth between them, confused.
“The battle!” Lesia repeats herself. “It’s different but the same as the other plane. Basically we’re still fighting here just in a different way. Like when Phil got sick for our big important meeting with the principal—”
“Or you hugging that girl yesterday who was hysterical,” Phil says off handedly as he struggles flipping through his notes.
Lesia grabs his notes, “You’ll be fine!” then continues talking, “Yes, like that. You hugged her and healed her!”
“I wouldn’t call that healing,” says Chrissi, shutting her locker door and turning to walk down the hall towards her next class. “We only have like a minute before the bell rings.”
“Ugh, bell schmell!” Lesia waves her hand as if waving off the bell or the need to be punctual.
Phil snorts, “Good luck with that Lesia. My class is this way and I will not be late!” He runs off in the opposite direction from the girls.
“OK, so maybe it is similar,” Chrissi says.
“Just different!” says Lesia as if it all should make sense now.
“Sure, I think I get it. Roi said himself that Tok fought on our plane but was limited.”
“And that we aren’t alone!” Lesia pats the pocket-size version of the Book she carries with her at school.
“Right,” Chrissi smiles as they part ways to their classes.
Chrissi takes her seat in Ms. Weston’s history class, still pondering all her friends’ had said, confirmed really. She has been uneasy since their return and Kesil’s disappearance. He has not been to school or contacted any of them. At school rumors began to spread—boarding school, boot camp—but Chrissi isn’t so sure that Kesil is actually gone.
About a week after their return home, Chrissi went to visit him at his house across the street from hers. His parents answered.
“You!” his mother, her principal, yelled, index finger in a threatening position towards Chrissi’s face. “You shouldn’t be here! Go home, go die!”she continued to scream, never leaving the threshold.
Mr. Pike walked up behind his wife in the doorway, “How dare you show your face here?” he spit at her, literally.
“I…I…” Chrissi stuttered but very quickly gained resolve, “I want to speak to Kesil. Where is he?”
“None of your concern!” Mrs. Pike retorted at the same level of volume.
“Well I am concerned!” Chrissi said, desperation in her voice. “I am concerned for my friend. Please let me speak with him.”
“No!” Kesil’s father answered with finality. “This isn’t over little girl. My son may have failed his first task but he won’t mess up the next one.”
“Yes, now that we know who the real threat is!” Mrs. Pike added pointedly towards Chrissi.
Before Chrissi could respond the door was slammed shut. She walked home quickly, scared and uneasy about what took place.
Chrissi dwells on the encounter even now, months later. It was not anywhere close to the conversation she had envisioned in her head. Kesil’s parents spoke as if she was the threat. The threat, perhaps, that Kesil was ordered to take care of. She shivers in realization.
Hours later at the end of the day as Chrissi walks home, she still ponders the encounter and where Kesil really is. She walks straight upstairs, through her bedroom and to her window on the opposite side, overlooking the street and Kesil’s own window across it.
Is that his curtain that just moved?
Chrissi shakes her head. Probably not…but perhaps.
“I’ll find you,” she whispers to her phantom friend. “You aren’t alone Kesil. You never have to be alone.”
###
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April Lynn Newell
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About the Author
April Lynn Newell is a proud life-long Texan, currently residing in Boerne with her husband, John, and daughter, Emalyn. She loves pizza, nature walks, chai lattes, and diving into adventures of literature or film. The Overcome Trilogy has been her passionate project for several years. After The Reconciling, April’s debut novel, follows two more adventures in the Overcome Trilogy as Chrissi, Lesia, Phil, and Kesil learn what this journey of life is really all about.
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The Reconciling [Part 1] Page 19