by Kim Cormack
Kayn was an infant, on the beach with Chloe, sitting in the sand. Their mother was sitting in front of them talking gently about whatever was in her hand. She was so beautiful with her wild curls flowing in the light summer breeze. This was how Kayn always wanted to remember her because she looked like an angel. Matty was running around them with their father who looked tanned and young. They were flying a brightly colored kite. Her sister kept trying to pick up the sand only to have it slip right through her chubby little fingers. Each time that Chloe cried, Kayn could remember sobbing out of empathy for her simple plight.
Kayn snapped back to reality and looked at the dust left from the handful of sand which had slipped through her fingers while she had been lost in her memories; it seemed fitting. Her hand was the hour glass. There were only a few grains left so she clung to them tightly, just in case. The man stood smiling, as if he had also seen the memories in her mind. Kayn took a look around, noticing that the circle of sand they stood on was now a vast beach with water faintly in the distance in every direction. Her bare feet were toasty warm in the sand. She wiggled her toes again, smiling because it felt incredible.
He said, “Better get rid of that water all together. Hate to be hit by a forty-foot wave or something, because believe me, that can really wreck your day.”
He ran his hands through the air in a flat line and the scenery around them became one large beach as far as they could see. She noticed for the first time that her white lacy dress had grown with her in size. She was still wearing it. Perhaps she was still a child. She looked down at her chest and thought, no; I am my own age again. She noticed her dress was already dry. This is completely insane, she thought.
“I prefer to think of it as sanity challenged,” he smiled as he answered aloud her private thoughts.
He leaned over to look in her eyes, saying in an almost flirty voice, “You do have pretty eyes, Kayn, and you are definitely not hard to look at. Do men come on to you a lot?” The strange man was sitting cross legged right in front of her with his hand over his mouth like he was trying to stop himself from saying something more. He made her feel somehow like a science project for which he was collecting data.
No, they don’t. They come on to my sister though, she thought.
Once again he answered as if she had spoken aloud to him, “Well, they will be hitting on just you now, obviously.”
“I doubt that,” Kayn answered aloud and gave him a look of disbelief.
“She’s dead, you’re not. Get with the program,” he answered coldly.
“Chloe’s dead? What happened to her?” Kayn’s eyes filled with tears, and she started to hyperventilate. “I just saw her. We were talking and she was right here.” She began to sob.
He looked around him as if someone might be coming. After he saw that the coast was clear, he quickly added, “They are all dead. Your mom, your dad, your sister … it was pretty gruesome stuff.” He told Kayn about her family’s deaths as if he were telling her about the weather. He seemed to be reveling in her raw emotional reaction. He cocked his head to the side and grimaced at her with blatant distaste for her humanity.
Kayn felt as though she would throw up. She kept repeating, “No, no, no,” and sobbed.
“Yes, yes, yes,” he said, almost as a song. He chuckled aloud. “Mortals … always so emotional, he said. “He was giving her a strange look and then almost a bit of empathy crept in.
“You’re sort of dying, if that makes you feel better for surviving that absolute blood bath.”
Kayn stared at him wide-eyed with her mouth agape and then passed out cold.
As Kayn awoke she could hear a female voice speaking in a scolding manner. “You, my brother, are an asshole,” this voice was also strangely familiar.
“Well, I would imagine she freaked out in that over excessive way because she thought that shell was coming to finish her off,” said the rude man’s voice.
“As I said, you’re a giant asshole. You should have left her to me,” the female voice scolded again. “You get a scared, completely traumatized one and you treat them like an ant under a magnifying glass in the sun. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Kayn was afraid to open her eyes, sure that she didn’t want to know whatever messed up facts they had ready to throw at her next. She lay there quietly pretending to still be unconscious.
The female voice said, “It’s okay, dear. We know you’re awake.”
Kayn opened her eyes to blinding bright sunlight. She was again lying in the grass. The grass was again full of buttercups, but this time it was monarch butterflies … thousands of them. They took off in flight all at once causing her heart to surge with joy. Kayn squinted and sat up, groggily putting her hands over her eyes to shade them. She got on all fours to push herself up to a standing position and had a moment where she felt as though she should have been kneeling before them, not standing.
As Kayn took a moment to absorb her new surroundings, it was the lady standing in front of her, not the sun that was causing the brightness in the sky. She seemed to be standing at the bottom of a brilliant and blinding beam of light attaching her to the sky above. Kayn was afraid to speak. The woman seemed to be gentle, yet also exerted a feeling of royalty that was emotionally overwhelming.
Sensing Kayn’s hesitation to speak, she spoke first, “You, my dear, are not supposed to be here.”
Kayn, still afraid to speak, thought is this heaven? Are you God?
The man in black started to giggle uncontrollably as he stood beside her.
“No, I’m definitely not God,” she whispered, as though Kayn were a child who had said something silly, yet adorable.
She smiled a warm, almost maternal smile as she stared into her eyes. Kayn felt all of a sudden as though she were standing there naked. She felt as though this woman were looking directly into her soul.
“Who are you?” Kayn asked, She could sense her gentle nature and knew this woman was not out to hurt her.
“I’m like a benefactor of chances, a giver of choices, but I have a small predicament as far as you’re concerned, Kayn.” The woman took a step toward her, and then said, “I can step towards you or away from you. That part is my choice, but once I take you into my arms you will go one of three places.”
Kayn listened intently, but she suddenly could hear a Rascal Flatts’ song playing in the distance. She turned toward the sound of music. She loved this song. Her mother had played it in the car all of the time. They would sing to it, even Matty. Kayn tried to focus on what the beautiful lady was saying for she was still talking.
“There are some things you should know about your unusual situation before making any decisions.”
The song in the distance changed to “Don’t Call Me Baby,” her running song. Kayn looked back toward the lady standing in brilliance before her. She felt warmth and an unbelievable feeling of calm as she stood before her in her splendor. The lady began to tell Kayn a story.
“Your mother and father adopted your older brother. They were unable to have children. She was told it was completely impossible for her to conceive a child.”
Kayn listened intently, wondering why she had never before heard any of this from her parents. They had never been told they were adopted.
“Your mother, Claire, was driving home from work one night and saw a woman lying by the side of the road. She had been badly beaten. Claire pulled over to help her, but the man who had beaten the woman was still watching from the side of the road. He was hiding in the bushes waiting for her to die. This woman was one of us in a mortal shell. He was one of us as well. The woman in question, Freja, tried to get your mother to leave her there. She was pregnant, and desperately in love with a mortal. She knew that she would never be allowed to give birth. She would be forcibly brought home and reprimanded for her actions.”
The lady in the light paused and carried on with her story. “Your mother would not hear of leaving her. She waved her arms trying to flag down cars tha
t were driving by. Freja was touched by your mother’s gentle spirit as she attempted to help her. Freja knew your mother could be killed simply for interfering in the situation. The man was coming out of the bushes to finish them both when a police car pulled up.
Your mother touched the woman’s stomach accidentally, realizing at that moment that she was pregnant and that she would probably lose her baby from the beating she had endured. Your mother began to cry for her with empathy so powerful that it took Freja’s breath away. Freja had the ability, as we all do, to read your mother’s mind. Claire’s deep emotion surrounding her inability to carry a baby to term was sitting near the surface. That emotion was raw and powerful. Freja wondered why she would care this much about a total stranger with so many painful issues of her own.”
The angelic lady was speaking in such a melodic and gentle tone that as she spoke, no matter what came from her mouth, Kayn felt at peace. The angelic voice paused for a moment and then continued softly telling the tale.
“Freja had the ability to fix your mother’s infertility with a touch and gifted your mother with her baby’s soul. Freja knew she would be killed the moment she was left alone, and the baby she had grown to love would be killed as well. As Freja felt her unborn child moving within her womb for the last time, she touched your mother’s stomach, willing her unborn child’s soul to switch wombs. Your mother found out she was pregnant the very next month.”
“Freja managed to escape and visit your mother to bind the pregnancy. This was her calling, her job, as you would say where you live. She would give a baby to a family or be summoned to take a baby away. Now something unexpected happened, your mother’s egg split to create identical twins. The baby had been bound to Freja, so without Freja taking the baby or babies in this case, you could not die or leave this realm but as one. So you two became somewhat of an experiment for those of us who knew your situation. One soul became shared between two bodies.”
She paused again, waiting for questions, yet Kayn remained silent, so the luminescent lady continued her story.
“Now, new souls can grow. This is a human being’s whole point for being in this state, on this earth. Are you following all of this Kayn?” the elegant lady asked in a peaceful voice.
Kayn was mesmerized by the lady and was quietly listening to the story. She felt as though she were being told a bedtime story that could not possibly be true. “Yes, I understand, I think,” Kayn replied quietly. Her need to make some sort of tangible sense out of this insane situation was keeping her silent and she was trying to piece together her part in this story.
The angelic lady took a step toward Kayn, the brilliant, luminescent light following her step. Kayn remembered what she had said about the steps toward her or steps away and she smiled. That was two steps toward her, she thought as she listened intently to find out what happened next. The lady smiled back at her. Kayn remembered that the lady knew what she was thinking.
“Only three of us know what Freja did that night. If you understood how hard it was not to think of this in front of anyone else for seventeen years, you wouldn’t be smiling,” she said in a stern motherly voice.
“Sorry?” Kayn apologized, a little afraid the divine being would take a step backwards.
“It’s okay, Kayn. I don’t mean to alarm you, but you have to be fully prepared before you make any choices,” she asserted quickly.
“Now, souls grow each lifetime from newborn to adult as your bodies do. So in your case, one soul was split between the twin embryos. This was both a miracle to us and frightened us to our very cores. It was obvious from the start that you had split unevenly in the conscience and morality department. We were worried about violent behavior, but our concerns in that department were completely unwarranted. You both were opposite sides of the coin, meant to be one person. The person that you were meant to be was not a murderer or a violent person so we stopped worrying that Chloe would do anything extremely evil.”
“Nobody knew about any of this until your sister’s gifts began to surface as she discovered her abilities. Chloe used her gifts recklessly to control things and people. You, on the other hand, had no powers to speak of—simply natural kindness and athletic talent. We saw Chloe beginning to stretch her morality farther and farther into the darkness. We began to worry that your sister Chloe could become dangerous, if left unattended. As time went on we understood that her side of the morality and conscience was the polar opposite of yours. Her power was growing stronger by the day and she acted as though she believed that she had no human rules. She began to control men daily and was not setting them free after, causing a few to go mad. In all fairness she had never been allowed the chance to learn how to control her gifts.”
“In third tier law, any human with abilities that alter a life path, has committed an offense punishable by Correction. This sentenced Chloe and her entire family line to death. They had to wait until after her sixteenth year. You get a chance to fight back. Those are the rules.”
The lady in the light continued her story, “Once your sister reached the age of Correction it was only a matter of time. Certain souls were not meant to exist here on this plane. If one somehow gets through, they must make a Correction. Your family was a Correction that had to be made. It was an obvious decision. They have no close genetic connections. Both sides of the family are without grandparents or any close Second Tier connections. The easiest way to cause the least ripples was to remove your genetic line. Your older brother is still alive because he is not genetically related to you girls. We are pretty sure they did not know about Freja’s part in this, or about the one soul splitting into two souls. They simply knew a soul slipped through with some immortal abilities. They had to exterminate your parents on the off chance one of them had passed on the traits. They could not risk any further reproduction between the two. The shell would have killed both twins to be sure the genetic line was capped off.”
She paused again and then continued with a tone of warning. “Now, here is where the complication lies. Your souls are actually one soul. They have grown strong and full apart. Almost as strong as one complete soul but they are bound together. Your sister is dead. You are hanging on between life and death only because you cannot leave here without understanding that joining your two souls back into one is inevitable. When you return she will follow you back and gradually rejoin with you. There is a chance you will become more like her, losing a part of who you have become in the process. The strongest soul often will be the dominant one.”
“There are three clans of Second Tier souls that are allowed to dwell in this realm. If you return, they will come for you and they will provide you protection and training. Providing that you survive until your eighteenth birthday, you will become enlightened. The clans’ job is to stay under the radar and keep order on earth by keeping the supernatural in check—kind of like bounty hunters for the In Between.”
As the song ended in the background behind her, Kayn thought of running and how it made her feel. Her sister had gifts and she didn’t. How could she win in a battle of dominance? Not once in sixteen years had she won a single battle of dominance with her twin in her everyday life. Her mind raced through all of the information she had been given. Then in a moment of unselfishness, she thought if she could have saved her sister, she would have given her life for her in an instant. So what would really be the difference in allowing her to live through her? As Kayn was lost in thought, the lady in the light took another two steps toward her.
Kayn looked up unafraid as she said, “Yes, Chloe can join with me because I love her. I would have given my life for her, if I’d had the choice.”
The lady in the light stood before her now. She reached out and touched Kayn on her shoulder gently and whispered, “One more warning, very often when people return from this place the ability to see the dead is triggered within them. Your sister will not be the happy child or the beautiful mirror image of yourself that you remember. She will be in her last
earthly image as she was at the time of her death. You may be afraid of her, and she may be scared or angry with you. You must not let anyone know, if any abilities surface. You need to understand your survival could cause ripples that may need correction again. They may send another shell to tie up loose ends. You can tell nobody about this as it will put them in danger. You must join with the first clan that comes, for you will not survive on your own.”
“I understand,” Kayn said solemnly.
She was thinking about her brother. He was all alone, and Kevin would be a wreck. Kayn understood things would never be the same, yet as a child she just wanted to go home. The lady in the light stepped toward Kayn and opened her arms to embrace her. The warmth of unconditional love enveloped her very being. The brilliant light exploded around her and she shut her eyes tightly. Kayn held on and she had the feeling they were moving together. Then she took a deep breath and tried to sit up. She lay in a white hospital room, eyes open, looking directly at Kevin who stood with his mouth wide open in shock.
“It’s okay. You’re in the hospital. It’s okay, Kayn,” he said softly. Then he ran to the door and he screamed loudly, “She’s awake!”
Chapter 8
Sleeping Beauty Awakens
Kayn opened her eyes. Where was she? There was so much white. She found herself squinting at the brightness of the strange room, her eyes straining to focus in on something … on someone. Kevin was there. She could hear his voice.
Kevin began yelling, “She’s awake. She’s awake!”
Kayn felt panic mixed with confusion. Where am I? She thought, while trying to turn her head which wasn’t cooperating. Her head felt strangely heavy and her muscles uncooperative as she made a feeble attempt to get up. Her hands twitched, and her fingers moved, although even that felt like it took effort and concentration.