by Cege Smith
“We couldn’t take you to another way point. That would have been too dangerous,” Lila said. “It isn’t safe to take you to Heaven or Hell, plus all the sectors will be on the lookout for you.”
“So take me to the Bradford waypoint. That is exactly where I want to go,” David said. His head was throbbing.
“I’d rather thrust hot pokers into my eyes than to take you back there,” Dane said.
“Then why did you take me away from Purgatory at all?”
“Lillian Bradford is the only opposition between me and my place on the waypoint Council,” Dane spat. “Anything that makes her look bad is good for me. Right now, I’m the one who has you, not Lillian.”
“But you’re going to help us, right?” Lila said.
“I will not help you until we get some answers,” Dane said. “I don’t blindly dive into something that I don’t understand.”
“What exactly does that mean?” David stood. As much as he hated to admit it, now that he was on a way line, he needed Dane unless Lila figured out some way to move without the man’s assistance. He could see Lila’s frustration and knew that it was mirrored on his own face. “Ellie needs me. With Mikel on the loose, she is in trouble. I’m certain he’s on his way there now.”
“Mr. Mitchell, at this point you are no better than Lila. Running off half-cocked with no plan and no thought about how you are going to do this thing that you think you are going to do,” Dane said.
Dane’s words hit right where they were intended, squarely into David’s insecurities. “So I take it that you have a better idea?”
“Don’t you think it makes sense to figure out what you are and what you can do before someone else does? Maybe be able to use that to your advantage?”
He hated to admit it, but Dane was right. “You can help me do that?”
“I can try.”
“Why would you do that? You said before that you wanted to turn me in yourself. I still don’t feel like you’re being upfront with me.”
“He will help you to ensure that Lila doesn’t get hurt,” a new, yet familiar voice rang out. Peter had arrived. “As will I.”
David looked at the three transports. He knew that they were at full power together. He could use them. A chill ran down his spine. He hated it when he thought like Lillian.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Ellie crossed the room in less than three steps and threw herself into Melanie’s open arms. She laughed and squeezed Melanie tight. “I can’t believe it! You are real!”
Melanie laughed. It was a loud brash noise that Ellie realized she missed more than she could ever describe. She gave Ellie a tight squeeze and then released her. “Please. I’m as real as this table.” She knocked a fist on the table. “Sit, sit. I can’t wait to hear how you’ve been.”
It was surreal. Ellie found herself settled into the seat across from Melanie as if she had never left the Other Side. But Mikel watching her from across the room ensured that she was constantly reminded that her two realities had collided. That was when it finally hit her. Melanie wasn’t acting surprised to see her. She wasn’t asking where she had been. A sinking feeling wrapped around her middle.
Ellie looked around the room, deliberately sliding her eyes past Mikel. “Is Kevin here? I’d love to see him and let him know that I’m okay.”
Melanie cleared her throat. “No, sorry, Ellie. Kevin isn’t here, but you aren’t really here either.”
“What do you mean?” Goosebumps rose on Ellie’s arms.
“We’re here, in your shop, but not on the Other Side. Think of it like there is an invisible barrier that divides the Other Side from the Afterlife. If you look closer, you’ll see subtle differences, other than the obvious lack of people. I thought you’d be more comfortable talking here.”
“More comfortable for what?” Ellie’s voice rose a notch. “What aren’t you telling me, Melanie? You’re dead too?”
“Look, doll, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover and not a lot of time. I thought you’d like to be in a familiar environment. No, I’m not dead. I’m not exactly alive either.”
“You better start explaining what the hell you are talking about, Melanie, or else I’m leaving.” Ellie was ready to try Lucy’s spell and go back to the waypoint, but something kept her rooted in her seat. As frustrated as she was, her curiosity was winning out.
“Okay. I get that you’re upset,” Melanie had her hands up and was making soothing strokes through the air. Ellie hated that Melanie looked exactly as she remembered.
Since the day that Ellie opened up her coffee shop, Melanie had made a daily appearance the moment the store opened and stayed until mid-morning. She had always told Ellie that she was an aspiring novelist who had a day job in freelance journalism. She was short and had crazy curly hair that frequently stuck out in inane directions. Her clothes were always bright and vibrant; just like Melanie’s personality. She had been someone that Ellie never questioned being there, and there she had been, under Ellie’s nose, for years.
“You’ve been spying on me.” Ellie didn’t bother to keep the accusation out of her voice. “You’ve been spying on me for him.” Ellie didn’t look at Mikel. It was obvious who she was talking about.
“For him?” Melanie’s expression of distaste seemed genuine. “I don’t even think so. Give me some credit.”
“Why?” Ellie shot back. “So far, I’m finding my life was full of liars.”
“I’ve never lied to you, Ellie,” Melanie said with a huff. “I may have omitted some facts, but quite frankly, at the time they weren’t relevant.”
Ellie’s head was starting to hurt. “I think you’d better start at the beginning because I don’t understand this at all.”
A broad smile blossomed on Melanie’s face. “You are finally speaking some sense. Hallelujah!”
Ellie’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you from Heaven?”
Melanie swished her finger in front of Ellie’s nose. “You said start at the beginning. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I told you that I was a freelancer. That’s the truth. Most of my work is with Heaven, yes, but I’ve had a much bigger job when it comes to you. Let’s go back further though. Mikel said that you wanted to know about your parents. That’s why you’re here.”
The surprise hit Ellie like a ton of bricks. “Did you know my parents?”
Melanie’s face softened. “I did, although I knew your dad a lot better.”
Something in Melanie’s face made Ellie feel comforted. She had wanted to know about her parents. That time had finally arrived. She just hoped she was ready for it.
“Tell me,” Ellie said.
Melanie took a deep breath. “Have you heard of Pure Ones yet?”
Ellie shook her head.
“So those of us who are born in the Afterlife are called Pure Ones. We didn’t come from the Other Side. We were never human in the traditional sense. It’s a strange anomaly, and one that isn’t encouraged for good reason. The thing about Pure Ones is that our souls aren’t wedded to any particular sector. Now, most chose the sector of their parents. Then there are those of us who don’t like playing by anyone’s rules, even though our values and beliefs generally align better with one sector over the others.”
Ellie considered Melanie’s words. It sounded far-fetched, but she was willing to play along. “So you are a Pure One and your parents were from Heaven,” Ellie said.
“Yes,” Melanie said. “Now, like I said, none of the sectors support consorting between people there. It’s too risky when reincarnation for the parents could happen at any time. The higher ups look the other way when Pure Ones come along, but it definitely isn’t encouraged, and they don’t treat someone like me all that nicely. They put up with me to keep me on their side, but I know that’s the only reason they tolerate me.”
“So, this relates to me because…”
“Patience is a virtual, Ellie. I’m getting there,” Melanie said. “I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up be
cause people were scared of me. But I had one really good friend, and it was your dad.”
“My Dad was from Heaven.” Ellie thought about the implications of what that meant. She had seen the sector pins in her mother’s chest. If her father was from Heaven that meant that her mother was from Hell. “Was he like you? A Pure One?”
“Yes, although his parents were higher on the food chain than mine, so he didn’t suffer through all of the stuff that I did. When he was fifteen, they pulled a few strings and Garrett got the job of being the Heaven transport to the waypoints. He completed the trio. It was him, Braz from Purgatory, and Milla from Hell.”
“I knew it! I knew that Braz knew my parents!” Ellie was starting to put the puzzle pieces together. “So my parents worked together and then they fell in love.”
“Kids,” Melanie said, shaking her head. “Thing is that while the sectors are willing to look the other way when it comes to a little consorting between people from the same sector, consorting with someone from another sector is absolutely forbidden. A Pure One resulting from that type of union is bad news.”
“So what my parents did was something really bad,” Ellie said slowly. “My mom was a Pure One too. That would mean that…”
“Yes, Ellie. You are a Pure One, born of Heaven and Hell,” Melanie said with a dramatic flair. “Those little Ripher tendencies as well as the psychic manifestations are exactly the reason that there is no cross pollination allowed.”
“That is why Riphers are rare!” Ellie exclaimed. Then she turned to Mikel, who had been quietly sitting several tables over. “You knew I was a Ripher. You knew who I was.”
“Of course he did,” Melanie said. “Your mother was hanging out with him until she ran off with your father.”
“WHAT?” Ellie shot to her feet. A swarm of thoughts ran through her mind. What did that mean? Had Mikel and her mother been a couple before her father came along?
“Milla was a friend, nothing more,” Mikel said, reading Ellie’s thoughts, “To be fair, at one time, she was as ambitious as I was. Had she stayed in Hell, she would have been stiff competition for me,” Mikel said.
Ellie started to pace. “I’m not sure I’m ready for any more surprises.”
“You’d better buckle in, hon,” Melanie said. “We’re just getting started.”
“You said that they ran off. They came here, to the Other Side.” Ellie looked at Melanie for confirmation, but it was Mikel who answered her.
“It would have to have been ancient magic for them to breech the boundary. I believe that they found a way out through the Bradford waypoint, which at that time was deserted and inactive. That magic hid them for years. I looked for them. Braz looked for them. Melanie looked for them. They disappeared without a trace. Time moved on, and after a time, they were forgotten.”
“Then what changed?” Ellie asked.
There was a short pause where both Mikel and Melanie diverted their eyes.
“You happened,” Mikel finally said.
“Me?”
“They became three again. Something about that shift opened a tiny little crack in the magic. One I stumbled across quite by accident while visiting Lillian Bradford.”
Her father’s fairy tale exploded in her mind. The scene in front of her faded away, and she was back in her small room on the second floor looking at the crayon drawings hanging on the wall; the drawings of her family and one red-haired man who was always slightly hidden in the background.
“You found me,” she said. “Just like Belinda and the Bear.” Mikel frowned, and Ellie realized that he had no idea what she was talking about. “Nevermind.”
“I went to your mother and I warned her,” Mikel said. “I told her that the magic was weakening, and if I could find you, so could those who had longer memories. They had to do something if they intended to stay hidden.”
Ellie remembered her parents’ one and only fight. It made perfect sense. They would have argued about what to do; if they would stay or leave. “They stayed put,” Ellie said. “That is what my mother wanted. We had a home and a life there, and she didn’t want to disrupt mine.”
A horrifying idea crept into her thoughts and brought her pacing to a halt. “Tell me that my parents’ death was really a car accident. Tell me that this had no effect on what happened to them.”
Tears sprung up in the corners of Melanie’s eyes. “I can’t do that because I don’t know. But the timing seems a bit too coincidental.”
“Are they here somewhere? In the Afterlife?”
“When Pure Ones die, they die for good. There is no new life to reincarnate to, which is the blessing and curse of that kind of existence,” Melanie said.
Even though her parents had been gone from her life for twenty-five years, an overwhelming sadness swept over Ellie. “Am I ever going to find something tragic in my life that wasn’t my fault?”
“What happened to your parents wasn’t your fault,” Melanie said. “We all tried to warn them. But that much Afterlife mojo in one place on the Other Side would have been like a homing beacon. By the time we found out what happened, they were already gone.”
“Braz and Melanie made an executive decision,” Mikel said with annoyed tone. “He hid you away again but unlatched one of your psychic abilities.”
“It was inevitable that you would be found again,” Melanie said with a sniff. “At least that way, you had some semblance of a regular life for a while. That’s what your parents would have wanted.”
“So when you said you found me. You were looking for me,” Ellie said. She had an entirely new perspective on Mikel’s intrusion into her life.
Mikel shrugged. “Like Melanie said, it was inevitable. I just needed to stay close to the Bradford waypoint and wait. Your idiot ex-husband did the rest.”
“I don’t understand how all of you crossed the boundary into my world if it’s so difficult,” Ellie said. Even as she spoke the words, she knew the answer. Her eyes widened. “David.”
Melanie had the grace to look embarrassed. “I just skipped off his energy. Braz and Mikel have secrets that they’ve never shared. I had already found you. I decided to stay a bit closer to keep an eye on you. I thought your parents would have appreciated that.”
Ellie swung on Melanie. “So when Lillian Bradford showed up and started manipulating everything about my life, you did nothing?”
Melanie put up her hands in defeat. “You were destined to come back to the Afterlife at some point. You are a Pure One, and a Ripher at that. There’s no way I could have guessed what sector you’d align yourself with. The Guardian gig is actually perfect in a way because you don’t have to choose. You can be Switzerland. Plus there’s the added benefit of being protected by that magic. You are safer than anywhere else in the Afterlife.”
Ellie sat down. Her mind was spinning. “Who else knows about me?”
“No one,” Mikel said.
“No one except the two of you, Braz, and whoever killed my parents,” Ellie said.
“If someone did kill your parents, then yes,” Mikel said. He looked around. “We need to go. I can feel the tug.”
Once Mikel mentioned a tug, Ellie felt it too. The waypoint needed her.
“I hope you aren’t too upset with me,” Melanie said. “Your dad was my best friend. I would have done anything for him.”
Ellie wanted desperately to be mad at the older woman, but she couldn’t. But she wasn’t ready to forgive yet. “Let me think about all of this, Melanie. Maybe we can talk again soon.”
Melanie’s smile was radiant. “I’d like that. There are so many things I’d like to tell you about your dad. He was a really great guy.”
Mikel’s hand was on Ellie’s shoulder, and then her coffee shop was gone.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
David gave the three transports some space. After catching the glares between Peter and Dane, he thought that they needed it. He decided to take a walk on the road. In his mind, he thought of their current locati
on like a rest stop. He hoped that Ellie would be able to hold her own against Mikel if the man was crazy enough to pursue her. The Bradford waypoint would be the first place that everyone would look for him.
He had nothing but animosity toward the former Council member. Mikel had used the fact that David’s soul was essentially an open vessel to hijack David’s physical body whenever it suited his purposes. Mikel had the option to either banish David’s soul to a hidden cell somewhere in Hell, or leave him as an unwilling prisoner, forced to watch everything through his own eyes, but unable to do anything. He wanted Mikel to rot in Hell. He wanted Mikel to experience pain and suffering for the rest of his immortal life. David would not soon forget the violation of his body or soul.
Remembering everything with Mikel brought David’s rage back to the surface. He kicked at a pebble in the road and felt a small amount of satisfaction when it went sailing through the air and into the field next to the road. The grass in the field was as high as David’s knees, and it swayed in the light breeze that also licked at David’s hair. He took a deliberate deep breath and tried to calm his thoughts. As he looked around at the lush green fields and the narrow tracks that led straight out from him as far as he could see, he imagined that this is exactly what a rural field in Kansas looked like.
In one set of David’s memories, he had taken a road trip across the country after passing his medical exam. It was a serene and calming trip, one he cherished. In those memories, he drove miles on back roads that looked just like the one he was standing on. Now he knew that memory was false, planted there by Mikel and Lillian in their effort to purify him and make him the perfect bait. It was plausible deniability. He had no idea that he was a pawn in their game. They dropped him within Ellie’s vicinity and waited for the inevitable pull that she unknowingly influenced on him.
David watched Ellie for months before he ever asked her out. Those short, casual observations told him a lot about her and her character. If he was honest with himself, he fell for her long before their first date. She was beautiful, which was an easy thing to focus on, but David found that he wanted to know who she was, what she liked to do, what she valued and believed in. Lillian, already undercover as Linda Jordan, fed David all of those details. By the time the window of opportunity presented itself and he actually was able to spend time with Ellie, David had felt as if he had known her for years. It was no surprise then that they slipped into an easy courtship.