A Song of Forgiveness

by Lillian I Wolfe

  I stood in front of Roger’s final resting place and gazed at the small vault section bearing the brass plaque with his name, birth, and death details on it. He’d been cremated, his ashes now in this outdoor section of the Memorial Garden, surrounded by two dozen strangers, although the one on the right appeared to be empty for now. A small plastic flower display of three yellow rosebuds tied with a green ribbon was attached to the little holder alongside the plaque.

  Behind me, a concrete bench provided a place to sit, which was now occupied by Ferris and a kitty carrier with Nygard in it. Although a clear day, a gentle breeze chilled the air enough that I’d bundled up with a fleece coat and hat to make this visit.

  I rubbed my hands briskly, preparing to sing a final song for the man who had stalked me. He’d been so infatuated with me that he’d chosen a woman who resembled me in all the superficial ways and tried to pretend he was marrying me. Even with all that, I didn’t hate him, but our connection had ended on a sour note when he’d stepped out of line at his engagement party. At least it had proved an eye-opener for his fiancée.

  I turned back to Ferris, walked over to sit beside him, then caught his hand. “You can let Nygard out on his leash. He’s used to it and that way you can pet him while I’m in this trance.”

  He dragged in a deep breath, the only indication that he still disapproved of this plan, and pulled his hand from mine. But he opened the carrier door and let Nygard out as he slipped the leash clasp onto his halter.

  The cat took advantage of the freedom and jumped down to come to me, putting his paws on top of my thighs and butting his head against me. He mrowed a couple of times, the deep tone ringing in the garden area, then he went to investigate a plant that struggled to bud out.

  “This is it,” I said. “I’m going to start singing. Keep a close eye on him.”

  Ferris nodded and clasped my offered hand in his right one keeping the leash in his other hand. “Be careful. If anything seems off, come right back.”

  I dipped my head in acknowledgment, then started singing, “No Tears in Heaven”, the song Roger’s mother had begged me to sing for his funeral, his final request. A difficult song to sing without leading me to tears, I knew it would carry a lot of emotion and if anything could take me to him, it would do the trick.

  Within the first few bars, I made the transition...

  No chill in this place, I felt the warmth immediately and accepted that my clothing was lighter weight in the illusion as well. Looking straight ahead, I saw the rich greens of the grass, shrubs, and trees along with the rows of neat white gravestones that usually filled the transitional cemetery. Could I expect to find a marker for Roger in the vault here?

  Turning to the left where the elegant white marble building stood, I almost tripped as I saw the decayed-looking garden from my dreams beginning to creep up on the building. Behind the outer edge of wild-dark growth, the separating hedge of thorn bushes, black vines, and dark roses appeared even thicker and broader than the last time I’d been here.

  I gulped, caught my breath, and walked toward it, my feet dragging with reluctance. The vault itself was not yet touched by the encroaching evil, but the distance separating them had halved. Keeping my eye on the hedge, watchful for any yiaiwas, I began to circle the vault to see if Roger’s name was on any of the drawers there. One after another, I checked them and they showed nothing. Not unexpected, since I came seeking only one, but all of them were blank.

  I turned back toward the hedge and took cautious footsteps toward it. Ferris would be angry with me if he learned I didn’t turn back as soon as I saw this wild growth. What was I doing?

  Somehow, my song continued in the back of my mind as my body functioned totally without my consciousness present, an automaton back at the cemetery, singing. I also knew time was moving at a different speed here; what was minutes here was only seconds on Earth.

  I kept darting glances along the hedge, looking for any undulating blobs that could materialize at any moment. Still giving the vines that crawled and waved toward me a wide berth, I made my way toward the gate area I’d seen in my dreams. Within a couple of minutes, I found it and gaped at it, shocked to see how thick the growth on it was now. Only a small area allowed me to peek through into the dense, dark wood of twisted and mutated trees beyond it. Like an artist’s convoluted imaging of an evil forest, this took it to the extreme in the disfigurement. If anyone imagined an entrance to Hell, this was the embodiment of it.

  “Roger? Are you anywhere here?” I called out, turning in a circle, repeating the words, and hoping to get an answer from this side of the nightmare. He didn’t answer. In my heart, I knew he was behind the hedge, just as my dreams had shown.

  I turned back to the gate and yelled out, “Roger, I am sorry I didn’t come sooner. I’m risking a lot by doing this. I hope you can hear me.”

  I consciously started singing aloud on this side, wanting him to hear the song if he was still within hearing distance. The words were even more poignant now and I tried not to choke on them.

  “Gillian... Gillian.”

  A faint voice barely slipped through my singing. I stopped, listening.

  “Gillian. Help me.”

  The voice was definitely Roger’s. I took another step closer to the hedge, wary as the vines rustled and twisted, eager to get to me.

  “Roger. I’m at the gate, but I can’t get through it. It’s blocked. I don’t think I can help you.” Unexpected emotion caused a break in my voice as I spoke.

  “They’ll destroy me,” he called back, urgency evident in his voice. He sounded closer and seemed to be moving toward me.

  “I am so sorry. But I don’t have the power to help.”

  I tested a light blast on the gate that seemed to shock the vines and the bushes. They retreated about ten feet and shriveled back like they were wounded. I shot a second blast at them and watched them pull back even more. The limbs forming a barrier across the top of the gate waved frantically, twisting and untwisting into random knots.

  Maybe I could do something. I started forward, moving into the area, but the vines rallied and new growth burst out to fill in the area they’d vacated. I stopped, stepping backward again. The branches hadn’t recovered yet and behind the fence, I spotted Roger’s pale, harried-looking face peering out at me, eyes pleading.

  “I’m trying to prove you didn’t kill yourself,” I told him. “But it seems something else has already judged you and found you guilty. I can’t get to you.”

  “I’m so sorry, Gillian,” he sobbed. “I never meant you any harm. I loved you. Please just say you forgive me.”

  I took a deep breath, sadness pulling at my heart like a rubber band around it. “I forgive you, but Sonya is the one you wronged. Not me.”

  Vines wrapped around his body, working up from the ground to catch his arms. In a flash, a yiaiwa appeared behind him, ready to engulf him in its inky chill embrace.

  I cried out and sent a focused blast toward the demonic spawn that struck it near its eyes. It shrieked and withdrew, wriggling in distress. The vines whipped away from their grip on Roger. In shock and fear, he shot a glance at me, then bolted into the woods.

  I prepared another blast as the yiaiwa recovered and lifted off the ground toward me.

  “To me,” I whispered. Almost instantly, I felt the weight of my cat and the bigger body of his spirit animal on my shoulders.

  “Now,” I said and released the open-handed, fingers-flayed blast as the creature almost touched me. Gold and silver light burst out like a fireworks display from my hand and pierced the yiaiwa in a hundred or more places.

  Molten red oozed out as it screeched and whirled like an erratic top in circles, then vanished. Along the hedge, the vines and roses went frantic, twisting and leaping toward me. I sent another mixed energy blast into the nearest batch and they shriveled, then crumbled, crisped. A foul odor permeated the air and I choked, stumbling back away from it.

  As I retreated one of t
he vines twisted around my left ankle, a ring of thorns piercing my skin. I aimed a pin-point bolt at the clump where the vine originated and blasted it. The vine shriveled and fell. I turned, ready to break into a run, and I glimpsed someone else on the other side.

  A familiar face, a beautiful face in a white casual suit, peered through the small window of an opening in the twisted limbs.

  Zac?!

  How could that be? Confused and fearful, I ran with Nygard loping alongside me...

  I tumbled forward, Ferris grabbing me before I hit the ground. He knelt beside me, caressing my head and talking to me in an urgent voice. His arms went around me, lifting me half-way into his lap.

  “Gillian. Do you hear me? Come on, baby. Talk to me.”

  Beside me, I felt Nygard shoving against me. He’d made it back okay. I gathered my strength, and my wits, and managed to croak out, “I’m here. A minute...”

  An audible sigh of relief told me Ferris had been holding his breath, then he rose to his feet, pulling me up with him. Clinging to him, I wrapped my hands in his coat, twisting it around them and burying my head against his chest. My left ankle hurt where the thorns had pricked. Surely a phantom pain, the dregs of the ethereal attack to my spirit, but not a physical one.

  I could die here if I was killed there, I remembered. I was chilled for days after the previous battle in the ethereal cemetery. Would I feel the pain from this battle for days also?

  Ferris set me on my feet and the left almost buckled under the sudden stab of pain. Catching me again, my guy held me close to him as I clung to his neck.

  “What is it?” he asked, a line of worry creasing his forehead.

  “I think I hurt my ankle,” I answered, evading the whole story.

  He helped me to the bench and lowered me as I sat down. I peered down at my feet, seeing the socks and sports shoes I’d put on as my jeans lifted a little above the ankle. Nothing exposed here, but I hadn’t had them on in the transition. Had I unconsciously changed clothes because it was warmer? I didn’t recall ever doing that before.

  Ferris watched me, concern still etching lines on his face. “Was it the thorns?”

  His question startled me. How did he know about them? “What?”

  “Those vines grabbed you, didn’t they? They had thorns and I thought they drew blood.”

  At my stunned look, he continued. “I saw what happened, Gilly.”

  “How?”

  “Apparently, there’s a connection when I was touching—”

  “Did it happen before?” I blurted out, interrupting whatever he was about to say.

  “No.” His lips curved into a rueful expression. “I was going to say I was touching Nygard. About mid-way through the song, he went crazy again and I picked him up to try to calm him, then he went limp. I was still holding him and it was like I was seeing through his eyes. I saw that thing the two of you were fighting.”

  “One of the yiaiwa,” I supplied, a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  “I thought you were going to retreat at the sign of anything amiss. From what I saw, there was plenty that was wrong.” His voice didn’t hold accusation, just worry and disappointment. I think that might have been worse.

  “You’re right. But I had to look. I had to try to find out if Roger was there... and I couldn’t help him.” My voice cracked as I admitted my failure.

  We were silent at least a couple of minutes that felt much longer. Was he angry with me? I broke the silence. “I’m sorry. I know you didn’t want me to take any risks. I just had to find out how bad it was and to see if my ‘skill’ would have any effect on that hedge.”

  He lifted his head and gazed at me. I didn’t see anger. I saw love, and worry, and fear in his eyes. Then he pulled me into his arms, holding me tightly, and kissed my cheek, running a line of kisses along my jaw until he reached my mouth. He locked his lips with mine, uniting our mouths in a deep and passionate joining that left me breathless and craving more.

  When he broke off, far too soon in my reckoning, he slid his arms under me, lifted me off the bench, and started to carry me back to his van. My arms circled his neck in eagerness, but we’d forgotten something.

  “Wait,” I said softly into his ear, and he paused, a question in his eyes. I loosened my grip a little, leaned away and called, “To me.”

  Without hesitation, Nygard leaped and landed lightly on my chest, wrapping his body part-way around my throat. Now we could go.

  As Ferris set me down in the van, I leaned my head back against the seat, weariness and the throbbing pain making me drowsy. Nygard climbed down from my shoulders and settled in my lap, curling up with his head resting on my arm. While Ferris went back to get the cat carrier, I slid my phone from my jeans pocket with my unencumbered hand, flipped it open, and tapped on the most recent text message from Orielle. Hitting reply, I keyed in a short message: We failed. Barrier is intact.

  I didn’t need to say more than that. She’d understand. I closed my eyes, listening to the soft rumble of Nygard’s purr and relaxing. So many thoughts jumbled in my mind that I wanted to just blank them out for a while before I began trying to sort through everything to make sense of it if it was possible.

  In spite of efforts to shove them away, one image remained clear—that last brief glimpse of Zac, as beautiful as ever, on that side of the barrier. Was he a captive there or had Gavin been justified in being suspicious? Had I assumed that beautiful man who came in my dreams was an angel when he was really a demon?

  Tears slipped from my eyes at the hurt that thought caused. I still hoped I had been right about him and he was stuck, but the most recent dream and this encounter indicated otherwise. “Now you should be fine,” he’d said. Not hardly.

  I heard Ferris put the cat carrier in the back of the van, then come around to the driver’s door. I dropped my head against the window, hiding my face from him and feigning sleep, something that occurred shortly after he started driving.

  I woke with a jerk as he shook my shoulder and said, “Gilly, we’re home.”

  Already awake, Nygard stood on his hind legs on my thighs, front paws pressed against the window, staring out at the little two-story house we called home. As I straightened up, he dropped back to my lap, waiting for me to open the door.

  Ferris slid out his side and came around the front to help me. The pain in the ankle had subsided a little, but I wasn’t sure about putting weight on it just yet. I handed Nygard to him and he lowered him to the ground, still holding his leash.

  “Can you walk?” Ferris asked, holding out his hand to help me down.

  “I’m not sure. I think so.” I put my right foot down solidly, then moved my left to the ground, putting a slight bit of pressure on it. It still hurt, but it wasn’t anything like it had been earlier. I put on a small smile that I hoped was reassuring. “It’s still a little painful, but more like a hard bruise. I can manage.”

  In spite of that assertion, Ferris stayed at my side, ready to support me. I took it slowly, putting my weight on it cautiously and growing more confident as it felt more stable and manageable. Once we were inside, Ferris released the cat, and I eased myself on the sofa, lifting my leg onto it.

  “Do you need to see a doctor?” he asked.

  I almost laughed at that, a short snort coming out instead. “No, I don’t think so. It’s getting better. If anything, I might need to talk to Astrid.”

  He looked confused. “Astrid?”

  “This isn’t a physical injury,” I explained. “I took the hit in my spirit form and while it burned and hurt me, it’s on a psychic level. I don’t know how it works and it might be some kind of magic that the demons use. Heaven knows, in that place, everything is supernatural. The pain is real, but it isn’t permanent.”

  “Tell that to Gavin,” Ferris said. “Or is it because he was attacked on this plane? Is it more real when your physical body is attached?”

  Annoyed with the comparison, I snapped back, “Gavin’s physic
al body is fine. But he took a hard hit to the soul. We’re dealing with otherworld creatures here, Ferris. We don’t know the rules, but we can recover from the attacks.”

  As soon as I said it, I had my own doubts, but I wasn’t going to admit it to him. Why wasn’t Gavin pulling out of it? What if he didn’t? What could we do next?

  We didn’t have a plan B.

  To be concluded in Funeral Singer, Book Five,

  A Song of Redemption

  Continue to an excerpt from this book.

  A Song of Redemption Excerpt

  A few scratches on the dark blue and gray surface indicated it might have scraped a few trees or rocks in its journeys, but nothing I could see suggested a serious accident. Overall, the snowmobile appeared relatively undamaged except for the front left ski and support that had been bent and twisted. This side had been buried under the snow, when my boyfriend, Ferris, and I had found it buried in the snow.

  “Did he hit a rock?” I asked the man who stood beside me in the impound lot.

  Egan Moss, a detective from the Sheriff’s Office, raised a hand above his eyes to block the morning sun and ducked his head a little as he peered at the damage. “That’s the conclusion from our investigation. It’s easy enough to hit one when they’re covered with snow. It probably caused the snowmobile to veer and flip over. But it traveled about twenty-five feet from the boulder that likely did it. We didn’t find anything conclusive on the stone that indicated the ski or the body hit it, so the stone won.”

  I quirked my lips into a sideways smirk at the bit of humor in his statement.

  “May I touch it?” I asked, confident of the response since I had requested this a couple of weeks earlier.

  “Sure. Knock yourself out, Foster,” he answered taking a step back.

  Sliding the glove off my right hand, I squatted beside the damaged metal and reached out, pressing my fingers on the cold surface. To be honest, I figured this was a long shot and the metal wouldn’t be likely to hold any memories or emotions from Roger Mitchell, my now-deceased stalker. For over a year, Roger had followed my band from gig to gig because he had a crush on me. I’d actually joked that he was a stalker, until he asked the band to play for his engagement party and I got a look at the Gillian Foster lookalike he planned to marry. That had sealed it. Relatively harmless, but creepy. Still, I would never have wished his death.