by Jamie Magee
“Morning.”
She smiled a sleepy smile at me.
“When did you come in here?”
She looked around the room, seeming shocked to find herself there.
“I don’t remember.”
“Are you hungry?”
She nodded.
“Then let’s get you dressed. I think we have company downstairs.”
“I like Livingston. He’s nice.”
She was doing it again. I’d assumed we had company, but she already knew.
We heard laughter coming from the kitchen as we walked downstairs. Joy owned the vibe in the cabin.
“Ah, there they are,” Dad said proudly.
Everyone was at the table—Ashten, Landen, and a man I assumed were called Livingston, all dressed in black.
“Good morning,” Landen thought, smiling at me as he got up from his chair and walked toward me with my favorite playful grin. Kissing me softly, he sent a tingle through my soul. I blushed. He was still real…
“You left me,” I thought teasingly.
He shook his head, showing a playful pout. “Never.”
I could feel everyone watching our wordless communication; it was embarrassing, spotlights were not my gig under the best of circumstances.
Livingston raised his brow as a grin spread across his face when Landen and I approached the table. He was slightly older than my Dad and Ashten, and he had dark brown hair with a hint of silver tracing through it. He also shared their same trait of dimples and blue eyes.
“Willow, Libby, this is Livingston,” Dad said.
“Have a seat, girls. Breakfast is ready,” Mom said.
Libby asked if she could have her breakfast in front of the TV. Usually, that would have gotten an instant no, but sensing the direction of the conversation, mom gave in.
“Willow,” Livingston began when Libby was successfully distracted. “They tell me you can sense emotions, stronger the most empaths. Is it difficult to understand who is feeling what in a crowded room?”
I shrugged. “Sometimes it's easier just to say a room has a vibe.”
“What's my vibe?” Livingston asked with a mystified grin.
“Nervous.”
Livingston shifted uneasily in his seat and looked cautiously at my father and Ashten. Landen noticed the exchange and stared at Livingston with his piercing blue eyes, judging his every move.
“Fascinating,” Livingston finally said. “It does seem like your insight is advanced. More so, it complements Landen’s insight.”
I smiled at Landen, losing myself in his gaze.
“Can you explain how you travel,” Livingston asked.
This was so awkward. I felt like was being interviewed by a college board or something. “I see people who look like they need help, I feel a tug—this unknown force. I touch them, and then I’m there.” I glanced to Landen. “But after seeing what Landen did yesterday with the string, I don’t think I’m all the way there. They don’t see me, and when I let go, I’m home again.”
Dad sat forward. “I’ve followed Willow before. She makes a path where one doesn’t exist. I was able to see the way back. If she's taught how we travel, she’d be able to see it, too.”
“How far does she go?” asked Livingston.
“Mostly she stays here, but she’s gone as far as Olecence before. More recently, she’s gone further than I’d care for.”
“Wait, what do you mean I ‘stay here’? You can jump around in one dimension?” I asked.
The room erupted into laughter. It must’ve been a funny question to those who could travel, the usual way. Mom and I didn't get it.
“I’m going to show you the strings today. You’ll see that Livingston is just in awe of you…they’re only laughing because you have no idea the kind of the power you hold.”
I turned crimson.
“Willow, I don’t mean to upset you, but your mother told me something that I find just as fascinating. She said you couldn’t feel anything coming from Drake. You told her he was a void,” Livingston said, leaning forward in his seat.
Landen gave me a curious glance. I had zero guilt to hide.
“Nothing there,” I said. “That’s what made me uncomfortable. Drake was just a guy.” A dangerously sexy guy who looked at me like I should know the script he was reading from—not cool.
I kept staring at Livingston. His emotions didn’t match the room or the circumstance. He was broken, lost, weary.
“Are you ready?” Landen thought.
“Is it safe?”
“We’re going to stay close. I’m going to show you my way, and then you’re going to show me yours.”
“I bet my way is cooler.”
“I want to go, too, Willow,” Libby said as she walked into the kitchen. Everyone looked at her with bemusement.
“Well, Jason, Ashten,” Livingston said, sighing and staring at Libby. “I would have to say that you two have a very talented bunch on your hands.”
Like my father and Ashten, Livingston was holding something back from Landen and me. He was holding something back from all of us.
Landen saw it, too. He gave his father a daring look as we left the cabin. As we walked along the river’s path, he tried to prepare me for what I would see in the string.
“Have you ever swum in open water?”
I’d lived in a landlocked state my whole life. The few times that we had vacationed at the beach, I never went in any further than my knees. “Not exactly…do I need to be a good swimmer or something?”
He laughed as he searched for a different analogy. When he couldn’t find one, he began again. “When you’re in the string, it’s like swimming in natural water. You’re going to feel something like a current. It’s easy to walk through, but I don’t want it to scare you.” He glanced down at me. “Everything but the passages is going to be white.”
When we reached the place where I’d found him, I breathed in deeply, feeling my unease and his excitement.
“Can you see the string?” he asked.
I could, but I still couldn’t figure out why they called it a string. It looked like a ripple in the air, and you could see everything behind it. It reminded me of the glare coming off a scalding hot road in the summer’s sun. I nodded, he took my hand, and we stepped into the ripple, the string.
Everything was a glowing light, and there was no depth or height. I could feel solid ground beneath me, though the ground shared the same white glow. I felt the gentle current. It didn’t scare me; it was very relaxing. The air wasn’t cold or warm—it was perfect. I could hear a mesmerizing humming sound. A smile eased across my face.
Landen reached to trace my bottom lip, grinning at the delight he saw in me.
“You’re so beautiful.”
I blushed. “I’m just happy.”
He leaned down and gave me an innocent kiss, but the string, the energy behind the current, enhanced everything. I felt his lips hum against mine and gasped. When his hands moved down my sides, my head spun, it felt like we were falling inside each other. I broke away knowing if I didn’t I’d lose any trace of modest I had.
With his forehead against mine, he said, “That’s your soul reaching for mine.” He steadied his breath as his eyes glinted with the same obsession I felt. It was like we feared we’d never find each other, now that we had, we feared something was going to rip us apart. That fear was driving us forward, dousing every touch-kiss in anticipation. “I’m going to give you the world, Willow.” I was melting on the inside for this boy. His lips touched my forehead. “Ready to explore your kingdom?” he asked with a shy smile.
I bit my lip then took his hand. As we moved, the scenery never changed. “How do you know where you’re going? Do you visualize it, like my dad?”
Landen grinned down at me. The string enhanced the blue of his eyes; it was like a light was shining through from behind. “I follow intent. I can feel it through the string. When it changes, I know I’m either entering anoth
er part of the dimension that I’m near or approaching a different one.” He scanned my expression. “Can you feel emotions from here?”
I was so distracted by the beauty of the string that I hadn’t noticed. But, in the background I could feel others. They were common emotions: worry, happiness, and sadness. I nodded.
“I think that when you learn the cultures of the dimensions, you’ll be able to use your insight of emotion to help you navigate.”
“How do Clarissa and Brady navigate?”
“Brady has a lot of Aquarius in his birth chart. He can hear music through the string. He says that every dimension has its rhythm. Clarissa is dominant in Taurus, and she’s known for her voice. She says that she listens to the tones of the voices through the string.”
My eyes widened. I was beginning to see that they relied heavily on the Zodiac in the dimension of Chara.
“What’s a birth chart?”
“A map of the heavens at the exact moment that you were born. When the planets align a certain way, they can highlight a dominant trait. They set the vibe. Our reaction and intent create reality. The stars are a guide. A forecast that can help you navigate through your life, a valuable, timeless, tool. ”
“Does Esterious study the Zodiac like Chara does?”
Disdain shimmered across his stare before he nodded once to answer me. He was not a fan of Esterious. “Chara looks to the heavens to find a positive way to impact the world around us. Esterious looks to the sky to find a way to control others.”
“Drake knows I’m a Scorpio,” I thought, remembering that my father had said the people in Esterious had predicted my birth.
“I have a feeling that Drake knows more about what’s going on with this Blue Moon than you and I do,” Landen thought.
He wrapped his arm around me, and we began to stroll through the string. All at once, I could see a purple haze on the right side of the string. “It’s turning purple!” I shouted.
He jumped at the sound of my voice. Laughing at my excitement, Landen pulled me closer. “Okay, purple is good, this is a natural path.”
“Do you know where it leads?”
“I do,” he thought as an amused smirk emerged on his lips. We walked for at least fifteen more minutes before we reached the purple haze. The color resembled a summer sunset. I felt like I was standing on a rainbow.
“When you come to a passage, always step through it with caution—you don’t ever know for certain what you’ll step into.”
A wary look came across my face; Landen pulled me close as he moved us into the haze. A tingle teased my skin; I felt a burst of humidity and heard a loud roaring noise. I focused my eyes as the haze fell behind us. I couldn’t believe what I saw: a huge waterfall. It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen.
“Where are we? Niagara Falls?” I asked completely humbled by this display of nature.
He grinned. “This is Victoria Falls.”
“Where is Victoria Falls?”
“Zimbabwe,” he thought, ducking his head slightly to catch my gaze.
I couldn’t fathom how we’d gotten there. “It’s beautiful…so big…”
“It’s over a mile wide and ancient.”
“How old?”
“One hundred and fifty million years. It’s a powerful natural source of energy, and that’s why it was so easy for you to see. We passed several other passages before we reached this one.”
I didn’t ever want to be alone in the strings. I was sure to be lost.
“Are they all this beautiful?”
“Everything that you see will amaze you, even if you’ve been there before. Each place has its own story to tell. If you listen, you can hear it and feel it.”
True. I could feel this place. I could feel that all those who knew it, loved it, and respected it. The waterfall itself knew it was powerful…it was a life force all its own.
“Can you see your way back?”
I looked behind us, but there wasn’t a purple haze or a wave in the air.
“No...”
He didn’t seem surprised by my answer. He stood behind me, wrapped his arms around me, and held me tightly.
“Close your eyes and remember the way you came. Remember the feeling you had as you passed through, find the energy.” He thought as his hands moved up my sides.
“I wish I knew you were real before yesterday.”
“You doubted that I was?” He asked as he turned me in his arms. Concern was masking his playful image.
“Deep down I believed you were, I did. There was always a lingering doubt that I had fabricated you to get me through each day. It was so exhausting to feel so much, to see what I saw for no reason, and not understand it. Closing my eyes at night and seeing you made it worth it.”
“They never talked to you about your insights?”
“No, but I never asked either. They were worried enough about my sleeping patterns.”
His hands squeezed my waist. “I struggled, too. They look at me like they know something I don’t, but at the same time like they think I know some cosmic secret. I ran away, a lot. I searched for a way to find you. I fought every rule they put before me.”
I don’t know what would have been worse, not knowing we were more than just dreams or knowing and not being able to do anything about it. “How worried do I need to be about us right now? What secrets are they hiding? Do you think they kept me hidden because of that dark dimension? I mean, are they expecting something out of us?”
His jaw clenched, he glanced away. “Chara can be just as superstitious as any dimension. I’m more worried about how our dimension is connected to Esterious, what Drake wants with you.”
“Is it wicked there?”
“Wicked doesn’t begin to describe it.”
A shiver ran down my spine.
“I’m not going to let him hurt you, or our home. I swear that to you.”
“I trust you...” I thought as I glanced longingly at the massive waterfall before I turned in his arms. “Okay, I remember how we came here, what the passage felt like,” I said as I closed my eyes.
“Focus on that for a second or two.” He swayed his hands against my arms. “Now open your eyes.”
When I did, the wave was there again.
“I can see it!”
“Lead the way,” he thought as he laughed aloud.
I strolled through the wave. The roar of the waterfall was gone, and the air was perfectly still again. Only the haze remained behind us.
“How come it wasn’t there at first?” I asked, looking back at the haze daring to reach out and feel the color of the air.
“It was there—you just were never taught to see it. The strings are in every dimension. You’ve walked by more than you could ever know. Our eyes can see them. You just have to learn to call on what you were born with.”
I glanced around the string, and to my right, I could see an array of colors that seemed to stretch out for miles in every direction. They looked like they were blocking our path.
“Is this a wall?”
“This is where the string divides. Focus on the hazes, and you’ll see that the more dominant hazes are framing different paths.”
I studied what I thought was a wall in front of me, and as I stared, I could see that the darker hazes outlined three passages. The colors of the three passages were so bright that they spilled out of their paths and joined the others. It looked like every color that existed was blended perfectly together. They flowed on the gentle current I was feeling. The glow of the white passages reflected on the hazes, looking like diamonds.
“Three paths,” I thought softly.
Landen grinned. “Aggressive flows of energy in the storms create more passages. When our parents were young, storms were rare. They only really occurred once a year. Around the time we were born, they were so fierce that only the most experienced travelers were able to navigate through them.”
“My father said his passage to my mother closed. Is
that normal?”
His eyes told me no. “In our entire history, it’s only happened to your father. My grandfather, August, said that everyone searched endlessly for the gifted healer.”
“That’s a little scary,” I thought.
Disdain touched his expression. “I just wish they would have brought you home when they did find you.”
We began to walk. I wasn’t sure, but I thought we were going back the way we had just come. I searched the glow all around us, looking at all the hazes that had been absent to me before.
There were little speckles along the sides of the walls of the string. They were all different colors. Some small as dust, others as large as a doorway. We stopped before one of the large yellow doorways.
“I told you that purple was a natural path. Why do you think the color to this one is different?” Landen asked.
“Could be natural, not as strong, maybe?”
Landen held his arm out, telling me to lead the way. My steps were cautious. He may have known where it led, but I didn’t. For all I knew, I could have been in Australia, and a big scary snake would be at my feet when the yellow haze left me.
When the mist passed, the same tingle as the last was there. The feeling was growing more familiar. As the mist faded, we stood on a rocky cliff overlooking a beautiful, deserted, white beach; the water was so clear. Suddenly, I heard a loud noise, and I turned to see the water crashing through a hole in the rocks. As I stood in absolute astonishment, I could feel the energy leaving as the water fell.
“Do you want to stay here for a while?” he asked, laughing at my reaction.
I did, but I was hungry for more. Feeling proud of myself, I pulled Landen back into the string.
“You’re quick. It took me almost ten times before I could find the string alone.”
“I’m sure you were only a little boy. It’s not the same for me.”
All of a sudden my smile faded. I could feel someone in the string with us.
“Landen…”
He was looking past me with bright eyes.
“Landen, is that you?” a deep voice said.
Out of the bright light, an image came forth. Dressed in all black was, a young, eye-catching boy. He was tall like Landen with wavy brown hair, and his eyes were so dark, but they had the same glow behind them as Landen’s did.