Parallel (Mortisalian Saga Book 1)

by L. J. Stock

  That was encouraging.

  “Where is he?” I may have known he was meeting us with the truck, but I’d just assumed that even leaving after us, he would have beat us here.

  “Taking a shower, but I could hear you pacing so I figured we'd get a head start,” she said, looking around at the picturesque setting. “I guess I should explain how first, huh?”

  Alexa moved to the edge of the water and lowered herself slowly until she was crouched as close as she could get to the edge without falling in.

  “The first thing you need to know is that water is by far the easiest form for crossing between dimensions, mainly because you can immerse yourself in it. Theoretically, air should be the same, but that's a lot more complicated as it's tied in with the wood nymphs.

  “How many types of nymphs are there?” I asked, feeling a little ridiculous for not having asked much earlier. It should have been something I’d found the answer to in Acantha’s book.

  “Hundreds. To narrow it down, let me give you a snippet. Acantha is a lake nymph. There are so many more, however. Stream, river, ocean, pond, brook – would you like me to go on?”

  “No, I think I get the gist of it.”

  “You can always ask if you need more information,” Alexa said, running her hand over the surface of the water.

  Smiling, I nodded in thanks and waited for her to go on.

  “You've only ever experienced brief glimpses into the parallel world. That's really because you never had any energy to attach yourself in Mortisali. Crossing without an energy anchor can be done easily with experience, but you have to know your destination, tap into its source and will yourself through.”

  “Will myself through?” I asked, blinking in confusion and watching as she ran her hand through the water, her fingers immersing themselves in the liquid. They'd told me there was a certain amount of mental power needed to do this. That was exactly why I'd been building up my strength these last few weeks. I guess I'd imagined there'd be a little more physicality to it all.

  “It's not a crawl space you can shuffle through. It's why we use the elements. Elements are the same on either side of the dimensions. Water is water, air is air, ans so on and so forth. Because part of your genetic makeup is from a nymph, you're more attuned to the energy each of the elements gives us, the Vis Liberi. By allowing yourself to tune into that particular element, you can bend the veil between the two worlds and slip through the weakened barrier Apollo made when he forced Acantha through with his Godly magic.”

  “So it's like becoming water?” I asked. It seemed like the only feasible explanation for what she was saying. The thought itself was alien to me, but then none of this was really the norm.

  “I guess it could be seen that way. I'm not sure how it works because I really don’t understand physics. It’s something to do with the vibration of molecules, and to be honest, you're never really conscious of it when you translocate, so it's hard to say exactly what happens during the process. At first, you feel a slight tugging, and then everything shimmers. There is no pain in the process at all. You start in one place and end up in another. I think the shimmer is exclusive to the element of water. You have to put a lot of thought into it in the beginning. You have to focus on your target so you have a clear landing space. Destination translocation is a little harder, but once you’ve mastered the focal point you can go pretty much anywhere.”

  I wasn't sure I liked the thought of becoming water. It all seemed a little strange to me. Fantastical even. I wasn't a great brain when it came to physics and biology, so I couldn't ever imagine a body changing its form to become a natural element.

  The human body is made up of a huge percentage of water, but how could that break down? How could it compress the rest of the body and change its form? Did the body dissolve into the element? My main concern was coming back together and losing a finger in the process. I wasn’t sure that was even possible, but with the reality of coming apart and then back together, it seemed like a logical concern, although I wasn’t going to tell Alexa only to be laughed at.

  The rumble of a diesel engine pulled my attention away from my internal monologue. I could hear it slowly making its way through the trees, fallen branches cracking under the pressure of the tires. I looked back to Alexa who stood up and wiped her hands off on her jeans.

  “The other elements are all slightly different, and we can tap into them to communicate with the other dimensions, but not to cross. There are rare cases where both parents are descendants and they can use both of their inherited elements. Each element is different. We’re both largely water nymphs, which means it’s the main one we will be working with. For other elements, like Zander, crossing is always different and depends on the element itself.”

  As the truck pulled to a stop, Alexa took a breath and smiled.

  “Finally. We can get started on the physical part of the training now.”

  The excitement inside of me suddenly overpowered my inquisitiveness. To me, example was much better than theory. Everything Alexa had explained made some sense, but at the same time, it seemed physically impossible. Maybe in this case, seeing really was believing, and watching her do her thing would make it easier to wrap my mind around what she was telling me.

  “Did I miss anything?” Zander asked as the truck pulled up close to the banks. He walked around and opened the passenger side door pulling out towels and blankets and the small bag with a change of clothes I had packed before we left.

  “Nothing you don't already know.” Alexa grinned, giving me a nod.

  “Excellent.” He chortled, setting the pile he’d gathered on the ground next to me before kissing Alexa briefly on the lips in greeting. He offered me a wink and dropped down on the grass, crossing his legs at his ankles.

  “This is exciting,” he mused aloud. “I haven’t seen anyone train other than Alexa and me, and I was a little self-involved trying to figure it all out.”

  “Oh, thanks. That gives me a lot of hope.” I whimpered, suddenly feeling a knot of uncertainty furrow itself into my stomach. I hadn’t thought about having an audience for this particular humiliation.

  “You’ll be fine.”

  I wasn’t so sure, but as Alexa moved to start the lesson for the day, I just gave him a set of raised eyebrows that made him chuckle in response. Looking on the bright side, at least it was Zander and not Acantha here to see my degradation.

  “Okay,” Alexa said thoughtfully, her hands running through her light hair. “I guess we should start with how much you know for now. Could you explain what happens when you touch water?”

  “Just touch it?”

  Alexa inclined her head, her teeth worrying her bottom lip as though she wasn't all that sure of how to proceed.

  “Have you done this before?” I asked nervously.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “You look just as speculative as I do.”

  She barked out a laugh and pulled her hair into a ponytail before letting it drop again. I could see she was trying to find the words to reassure me, but I didn’t think I would need them. Even if this was her first time out of the gate, I knew she would do the best she could.

  “It’s my first time teaching someone else in practice, but having been trained and translocating most of my adult life, I know pretty much everything there is to know. Acantha’s also brushed me up on everything else. It’s not as difficult as it may seem. I’m just trying to get a feel for how much you’ve figured out on your own.”

  Made sense.

  “Really it's like a television screen with bad reception,” I finally replied, my eyes landing on the fast moving water. “Just a drop and the image flickers. I can see the people, and the buildings, but it's transparent, a ghost of what’s there. When there's more water, like a shower or rain, things become a lot clearer, but it's still only translucent images. They're more constant though. When I'm in a bath or a pool or something, it's like I'm aware my body is still in place, but the pictures I
see take over.”

  “Excellent. That means I don't have to have you focus as much because you're already so aware. Zander,” she said, looking down at him, “pass me the bottle of water in the bag, please.”

  Her confidence in me was enough to make me nervous again. I appreciated that she thought I would be a natural, but that was a lot of pressure to actually deal with. At the same time, I almost felt proud that I wasn’t a complete lost cause after I’d been left alone for twenty-four years.

  Zander obliged her request without saying a word, throwing the bottle her way. His fascination was almost as intense as my own.

  Alexa cracked the top of the bottle before spilling a tiny pool of its source into her palm. Handing the bottle back to Zander to recap, she took a deep breath, and smiled at me. Then her whole body shifted, the edges shimmering gently before flickering; her body dissolved around the cupped palm quickly after that, as though the small puddle of water in her hand was drawing her in. Within seconds, she was gone.

  Zander leaned forward and handed me the bottle of water with a nod, and it took me all of a second to realize Alexa was talking to me, even though the sound was faded – a phenomenon that still hadn’t been explained to me. As I poured a small amount of water into my hand, the liquid seemed to amplify everything from the other dimension, including the songs of the birds.

  “Cass? Can you hear me?” Alexa asked, her disembodied voice sounding odd as I’d only heard Damon the last couple of weeks. With such a small amount of water in my hand, she flickered like a ghost, barely discernible. It was unusual interacting with her like this. It wasn’t different if you weren’t looking for it; there was just a quiet patterned echo around the edges of her voice.

  “Yes, I can hear you.”

  Before I had time to blink, I saw her emerging from the river, shivering, while Zander jumped into action next to me. One of the large fluffy towels was in his arms as he closed Alexa in his embrace. She continued to shiver, her muscles tightening and releasing in a wave down her body. Her arrival had been immediate, and there was no shimmering or re-forming – she was simply there again.

  “I didn't think that through, did I?” she stammered, her teeth chattering.

  “What do you mean?” I asked curiously as I stooped to pluck a blanket from the floor to hand to her. She took it gratefully, shuddering from the bitterness of the water that seemed to cling to her clothes.

  “Well, I've been doing this for years. I don't need much water to shift between the dimensions, which is why I could move through with the water in my palm, but I only left myself with one way to get back,” she said, nodding at the river. “For you, it will be easier this way. Having a big body of water means you don't have to focus on such a small amount of energy for now. After you've passed back and forth a couple times, you'll get a feel for it, and you'll be able to do the translocation with a more focused target.”

  “How else could you have passed back? Could you have used the water bottle?” I asked, feeling a little naive for not understanding.

  “Closed container, there's nothing to draw from.”

  “So how would you get back without it?”

  “You focus on the closest energy. I had a choice before coming back. I could focus on the river and come straight back through that way, or I could focus on somebody and find the water closest to them. The re-form of the translocation needs to have a larger body of water than that of the original translocation, because it needs to have enough water to make up our structure.”

  “Which would be?”

  “Bath, shower, water hose, pool, river, lake. I've even had to come through the horse’s water trough. That wasn't pleasant but it can be done. The transfer doesn't need to be direct, either. I could pour the water in my palm and end up in the pacific if I focused on its energy. The elements are a huge part of both worlds, so there's always somewhere to go.”

  “You mean we could travel this world by doing that?” The possibilities seemed endless when I thought of it that way. Maybe I could actually visit Steven once I’d learned enough to get there. I would have to know the mechanics of it so I wouldn’t end up in someone’s pool, but it was a possibility if I could go anywhere in this dimension using translocation.

  Alexa grinned and nodded. “That’s exactly it, and it's why Acantha always has running water somewhere. If you'd been trained beforehand, we wouldn't have needed the cars to get from the hospital to here.”

  “So once I know how to focus my energy, I can pretty much go anywhere with water?” I reiterated out loud. My excitement seemed to make the anticipation of what I was about to do all the more prevalent.

  “Pretty much.” Alexa laughed, rubbing her arms to get warm. “Okay, so how about we get this dog and pony show on the road?”

  Anticipation buzzed through me as I realized I was finally going to be getting a little hands-on experience. I still wasn't sure how to focus all of my energy on one thing, but I figured I would get that with the lesson.

  I had several other things to master. Like learning to block out the sounds of Mortisali and, in turn, learning to channel selective voices while Damon was around and they dimmed, but that would all come with time. I was sure that once I had grasped the art of crossing between the dimensions – or translocation, as they had been calling it – the rest would come easily.

  As I stood waiting for instruction, I wasn’t without the echo of fear I'd always held at being so close to water. There was nothing around here that haunted me as it had for so long back at home. I showered easily, nothing but empty fields holding my vision as the water beat over my skin – something I hadn’t done in years – but the droplets that had beaded against my skin earlier had been one thing. This river, all of that water rushing past, the current, and all of the possibilities of what could go wrong robbed me of my bravado from earlier.

  It made me feel dizzy to think about all the water, but I wasn't giving up. Not now. Not ever. If I could learn to control my fear of water like Alexa had then I would be fine. I just needed to get educated, to listen and learn and master the art of translocation so I could move on.

  “If you're not ready, we can try again tomorrow,” Damon said, finally breaking his stoic silence. He hadn't said a word since he'd shown up at Acantha's house this morning. I was beginning to think he wouldn't speak at all, worried that his refusal to teach me any kind of combative training was going to hinder his help in my training to translocate. Not that it mattered. Now he was just showing exactly how little faith he had in my ability to do this. Irritation was like a prickling on my skin as I purposefully stepped forward toward the water, my eyes trying to find the source of his voice.

  “I'm fine, thanks,” I replied coldly. Unsure why I snapped, regret seeped into my stream of consciousness, frustrating me all the more. “Sorry. I just... I can do this.”

  “Of course you can,” Alexa tagged on, her smile encouraging as she held out her hand. “Rome wasn't built in a day, Damon. I need you need to be more proactive so she can focus on your energy.”

  “You misunderstood me. I have no doubts you can do this, Cass,” Damon said gently. I knew he realized why I'd stalled. Water had been an element of fear for so long, it was hard to just let that go.

  “I'm really fine,” I emphasized, feeling a small trickle of confidence. “It's just water, and there's no one around here.”

  Silence reigned for a while and I could feel all of their eyes on me. Each one seemed to receive my words differently. Zander was simply amused, which really wasn’t all that surprising considering everything seemed to amuse him. Alexa was confident and seemed to understand that I needed to do this, and Damon, while I couldn’t see his expression spoke volumes in his silence.

  At least, that’s what I thought.

  “I'm here waiting,” he whispered somewhere close to my ear. I shivered a little, as though his breath blew over my skin, even though I knew physical contact was impossible. Unfortunately, thanks to the exchange, I was
now worked up for an entirely different reason, and if that wasn't motivation to make this work, I didn't know what was.

  “Okay, where to start…” Alexa said, her finger drumming on her lips as she thought about it.

  “I have to get in there, don’t I?” I asked, again feeling the wave of nerves working through my body.

  “You don’t have to go in too far yet. I just want you to get to where you can see Damon clearly.”

  I nodded and reluctantly pulled off my shoes and socks. The grass was cold between my toes and the dew clung to my skin, making Damon’s figure flutter in and out of focus. Moving prudently to the edge of the river, I took a deep breath as I rolled up the legs of the pants I was wearing. I was procrastinating and everyone knew it, but Alexa’s reaction to the cold water hadn’t really done much to build my confidence.

  I started by dipping my toe into the flowing water and bit back a yelp of surprise as the ice-cold stream numbed it almost instantly.

  “I know it’s cold – that’s why I asked Zander to bring the truck. It’s okay. We’ll work in increments.”

  I nodded, even though some of the training had lost its appeal. I wandered into the water, my jaw clenched tight as I tried not to react. I was up to my ankles before I stopped. Damon was clear as day on the banks of the river, his smile encouraging.

  “Okay, I see Damon clearly.” I grinned, waving at him, unaware if he could see me, too. I was almost surprised when he waved back.

  “Concentrate on him. Take in his features until every part of you is attuned to him.”

  That wasn’t difficult. I was always aware of Damon when he was close. He’d always garnered all of my attention, especially since I’d started seeing him in the flesh. Without argument, I focused all of myself on him. I took in every line of his face, the color of his eyes and how they couldn't seem to decide what shade of green they wanted to be, and the determination that seemed to call out to me from behind them. I was waiting for something to happen, my mind torn between wondering what I was doing wrong and the man in front of me, so I continued to stare at him freely, relishing in the ability to do so without anyone judging me for it.