Soul Selector enjoyed the gentle exercise. She was stretching muscles that had been bunched up too tight for more time than she knew. Her cloak billowed out behind her in the breeze, spinning and lifting until the cloth cracked around her ears. This was fun! Fun? Fun was another alien sensation that had popped up from nowhere. It added extra pace in her step, and her face relaxed out of its usual grimace. Even her eye stopped twitching. Maybe fun wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
An undertone drifted in on the bustling wind. A low whine that soon became the buzz of an annoying insect. It was dull and monotonous but with enough insistence to drill through the playful slap of her cloak and the rustle of grass. It gradually built in volume until Soul Selector stopped to cock an ear to the wind.
“Time out,” she called. “I’m getting a fax.” A second later, she said, “I need to go. I’m late for a meeting.” She tossed the orange back gently. “Look, Jesse, eat the orange. I’ll be back soon. Promise.”
“Like when?” The orange fell to the grass. Jesse didn’t want to lose her one and only companion. The Elysian Fields were intimidating with their big skies and endless grasslands. The sheer magnitude of everything was overwhelming. Besides, she was having genuine fun and suspected Soul Selector was enjoying the game, too.
“Um, twenty years give or take. Good-bye.”
“What? Wait!” Jesse called out in desperation, but Soul Selector had gone. The space she had occupied hazed like a mirage then refocused with a snap back to the crystalline daylight of the surrounding prairie. Jesse stood alone in a sea of weaving grass. Behind her, the orchard trees whispered alluringly, promising shelter and shade and heaven knew what else. The breeze caressed her face, drying the sweat on her brow. The same breeze that apparently was an office fax for Soul Selector but had no message for Jesse.
“Twenty fucking years?” she yelled at the horizon. “I’m gonna die of boredom in this fucking field!”
Except she already was dead. Panic rose. Her throat went tight. She looked around her. This was it. This was her eternity. She was in the middle of thousands and thousands of acres of…what? Afterlife, heaven, nothingness, and hallucinating about a crazy woman in a cloak. There was nothing for miles and miles and miles but prairie. She’d never survive. She’d already failed to survive.
How could there be no one else here? Where were all the other dead people? There were more dead than living so why was she alone? Soul Selector was keeping secrets from her, and Jesse needed answers and there was only one place she knew where she might find them.
She looked to the distant embankment where she had first arrived. The pool was close to that spot. The only time she’d felt safe and content was when she had gazed into it. She wanted to go back to the pool. But how?
The slope was maybe twenty miles away from the orchard sitting in its own little heat haze. What was it Soul Selector had said about moving about here? That she’d get used to it! Did that mean she should be able to do it? Jesse squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated hard on where she wanted to be. She opened one eye to peek. She was still at the orchard.
She tried again. Still nothing. She began to feel stupid. Fuck it, she would walk, and if it took a hundred years, so what? If it took a thousand years, so what? A hundred, thousand, million, billion years, so what? She was in a fucking unending prairie all alone so she might as well take a stroll.
Jesse slumped onto the grass, spread-eagled below the vast, empty skies. She was nothing in the enormity of it all. She blinked back tears and tried to be strong. Look on the bright side. Find the positives, like she’d always wanted to learn to meditate and this was the perfect place.
She sat up, leaning back on her hands and held her face to the sky and took slow, deep breaths. Her weight shifted and her hand slid out from under her into water. Jesse pulled back, startled, and stared at her wet palm. Water! She twisted around to look behind her. She was at the pool! Right beside it at the exact spot she had been earlier.
Jesse checked the horizon and saw the orchard. It was a smoky dot on the distant skyline. She’d done it. She’d teleported. That meant she could get around this gods-forsaken dump to anywhere she wanted. Though how she’d actually managed to do it was another matter. Her elation was further dampened by the realization there was nowhere else she wanted to be, except here, by this little pool.
Jesse leaned over the water’s edge and focused, anxious that her previous vision had been a fluke. She so wanted to see the young woman again. She felt compelled to see her. What if she saw nothing but her own fear-filled face reflected back? She held her breath, eyes wide, straining for a vision to appear. The wind chopped up the surface of the water and the reeds hissed around her. There was nothing to see. It was all one big joke. This entire place was her own private hell. Tears rose to choke her and she fought them back.
Over the creak of bending reeds came the soft tinkling of wind chimes. It was a totally displaced sound. Jesse looked all around her. Where was it coming from? Was it her imagination and she was finally going mad? She wouldn’t be surprised. Around her, there was nothing but prairie grass swaying outward and away from her in all directions, as if she were the iris in an eye of grass.
The wind chimes faded away, and her heart sank. The sound was lost before she had found its source. On the next gust of wind, the disjointed melody returned. Still she couldn’t locate it. She looked to where the orchard lay and beyond that the blue-gray horizon. She glanced back at the pool. Bright sunlight and sea surf bubbled under the surface of what, until a moment ago, had been dark, muddy water. Jesse flung herself belly down and gazed in wonder at the beach vista cradled within the scrying pool. The wind chimes took on the deeper, more melodious tone of a piano. Music filled the air around the pool. It hovered and hung like the sea birds in the tableau before her. Then each musical note began to crystallize like the drops of seawater shimmering on the edge of the curling waves.
The scene shifted to a house on the shore. Jesse wasn’t sure how she knew, but the woman she saw at the piano was the same one as earlier, only older. It was an innate knowledge that told her the woman was playing the piano in her own home, and that the location was the west coast of Ireland. It was a beautiful home overlooking a vast dune-filled beach. The hot prairie winds changed direction, and Jesse tasted salt on her tongue. The cool sea breeze kissed her brow. The woman sat by open terrace doors. A breeze played with the muslin curtains and lifted the sheet music on her piano. Jesse noticed the woman wasn’t reading the music, she was writing it. Every so often she would pause and lift a small silver pencil and make marks on the manuscript. Jesse was captivated. Who was she?
Whoever she was, Jesse felt an uncanny attachment to her. It was as if an invisible thread pulled her so far forward she could fall in the pool and drown. And she would willingly do so if it meant she would be closer. It was torture to be so near and yet so far from her.
Who was she?
Chapter Twenty
Norrie ran her fingers over the piano keys and filled her seafront home with music. A delicious tingle ran over her skin, and the fine hair on her forearms rose. The composition was more than good. She could feel it already. This song was special, and rightly so as it was for a special cause.
Apart from the piano, the only other sound was the distant surf and the call of seabirds, each blending perfectly with the ballad she was crafting. Norrie rested her hands on the keys as the last notes faded away and let her gaze wander to the foam-topped waves. A breeze stirred the curtains by the terrace doors and feathered her cheeks. It wasn’t until it started shifting the sheet music on her piano top that she dropped out of her reverie and went to close the doors. She hesitated on the terrace steps to enjoy the view. The Irish light changed so quickly, re-creating the panorama before her in an instant.
A dog walker threw a stick into the tide and his dog plunged in after it. The dog owner was the only human being she had seen all day and exactly why she had chosen to build her home on t
he coast. Norrie loved the solitude she found here. It allowed countless complex emotions to slowly surface and weave their way into her music. Her gaze shifted to where sea met sky in a smudge of dark Atlantic gray, and she let her thoughts drift until words and rhythms teased together, and she had her lyrics. The new song would be about sand and sea and salt with the crack of marram grass as its backbone. It was exciting and it would totally work.
A charity had approached her to help with fundraising, and she had agreed to write a special song for them. Truth was, she was enjoying the challenge. Today she had completed the first draft and already had a strong idea of where she was going on the production side. So many people in the industry either owed her a favor or were angling to work with her that she knew it would be easy to pull in some big names to front it. Already she had that buzz that told her this was going to be something big, something she’d be proud of.
Her thoughts turned to Loa Ebele, her contact for the charity. She was just getting to know Loa and felt enormous respect for her work and her personal and professional integrity. Norrie looked forward to their next informal meeting. She’d been thinking of Loa a lot recently. It was funny the way she had slipped into Norrie’s everyday thoughts, until the next thing she knew her perceptions had gently shifted until her being seemed to pause and shiver, only to softly rebalance. She imagined it like sand flowing down a dune, grain by grain, slowly at first, moving like silk, but once started it was unstoppable. Her fingers played with a knot in the oak wood of the terrace railing. I wonder if love is like that?
Immediately, she felt embarrassed. She was meeting Loa for coffee later that afternoon and admitted she was looking forward to it, perhaps more than she ought to. She had to be careful. She could feel the flutter of mutual attraction between them, and it worried her. She knew from past experience falling in love was not a cure; it was distraction. One she enjoyed but could not necessarily afford.
*
“I should be back on the twentieth,” Norrie murmured into her coffee cup. She shared a shy smile with Loa sitting across from her. Loa smiled back. Her eyes were warm as melting caramel and held the essence of her smile as much as the curve of her lips did.
“New York and Nashville. Man, it sounds glamorous,” she said.
“It isn’t. It’s tiring but necessary. And I’d like to run the charity song past you sometime soon. Though remember it’s still embryonic.”
“I’m so excited about it,” Loa said. “Would you like to visit the clinic with me when you get back? Meet some of the people you’re helping?”
“I’d love to. I really would.” She sounded too eager and hoped Loa thought it was for the right reasons. Loa was lovely. Her conversation was intelligent and entertaining and she was fun to be around, and that made Norrie anxious. She was attracted to Loa. She wanted to be. She had felt this way about many women. She’d had many love affairs. Her anxiety came from a profound fear of disappointment. Norrie drifted into relationships in a happy bubble of make-believe. She wanted to be in love. And she wanted it to be a real and forever thing. But each time, something didn’t feel quite right. Love was like a new shoe that never grew out of its pinch.
Her expectations were undefined and unfocused. She was looking for a special feeling that she couldn’t transcribe, and that’s what scared her. The flip side of special was a terrible, unfathomable need and the depression that dogged it.
Across the table, Loa smiled. Her whole face lit up, and her eyes, fringed with the thickest lashes Norrie had ever seen, sparkled like a child’s. Loa’s smile was the antithesis of the agitation eating Norrie. She wanted to drown in Loa’s eyes as much as she wanted to be rescued by her. It wasn’t fair to place Loa in this position. She was a kind, beautiful person. She didn’t deserve a mess like Norrie in her life. She hesitated, tasting anxiety in the dryness of her mouth, then she took a deep breath and smiled right back.
Chapter Twenty-one
“What in Hades kept you? I’ve been waiting for ages. When I summon someone, they better get here quick!” Aphrodite’s voice reverberated off the marble columns of her divine temple and rattled the ears of the handmaidens draped gracefully around her feet. They flinched, teeth grinding behind their winsome smiles.
Aphrodite’s temple floated in the heavens. The temple columns stretched so high they disappeared in cloudbanks. The walls opened wide onto the brilliant blue of a perpetual summer sky. Nymphs adorned it. Doves flew through it. The winds wailed. It was a thing of beauty. It gave Soul Selector vertigo.
Her stomach was sour, too. Almost as sour as the beautiful face on the throne before her. Most people had a different take as to what the Goddess of Love was like. Soul Selector knew they were wrong. Aphrodite was a hard-assed bitch to work for. A constant reminder that the most vivid snakes were also the most venomous. But then, as the Goddess herself would say, love hurts.
At this moment her divine loveliness’s face was suffused with an ugly red color, yet she still managed to look hot, bothered, and gorgeous. Eros stood at her side picking his acne. Soul Selector didn’t like him. He was a punk, so she ignored him and bowed to his mother alone. Aphrodite was head of her department and the only one she answered to.
“It’s a soft time thing.” She tried to pacify the Goddess. It was surprising how many Gods didn’t get the soft time, hard time thing even though they lived with it every day. “I’ve only just received your request and—”
“Summons. I summoned you. I never request. And shut up. The only soft thing around here is your head.”
Eros sniggered, and Soul Selector shot him a look. He clammed up, but not before attempting to glare back. It came across as weak and sullen, and he only dared to try because his mother was close by. Normally, he was nervous around her flint-eyed stares.
Aphrodite’s cheeks turned even blotchier and her sea-foam green eyes stormed. In the world below, oceans roiled and sailors prayed, but she didn’t care. She was as cruel as she was beautiful. Men could drown in her eyes as easily as the seas that birthed her. She was unmoved. Soul Selector focused hard on the swirls in the marble floor. It was too easy to become mesmerized by her, and that was when the trouble started. The floor rocked under her feet and the whole temple swayed in the increasing winds. She stumbled for balance and noticed the nymphs staggered, too. Water sloshed from the feature fountain in the center of the temple, agitating the swans that swam in it, until they flapped their huge wings and honked with alarm. Aphrodite was in a terrible mood, and everyone knew it.
“What’s this I hear about a deficit?” she yelled. “Can’t you do anything right? There’s a shortfall, and I’m getting it in the neck from this lot!” She jerked her thumb angrily to the right. “These friggers never give me a moment’s peace. It’s constant whine, whine, whine.”
Soul Selector followed the direction of her thumb but could only see Ares fast asleep on a well padded couch and assumed he was the token representative of all the other friggers currently beleaguering Aphrodite. A few bored Nereids fanned him with palm fronds, though they looked like they’d rather be beating him with them. He wouldn’t have felt a thing. Ares was a large man, as well padded as the couch he was unattractively splayed on. A fat, lazy god, he was far too idle to properly oversee the destruction he wreaked. That’s why most wars dragged on forever. Ares was too useless to bring even the smallest skirmish to proper closure.
“This couldn’t have come at a worse time. You know the events calendar is rammed,” Aphrodite said. The festival of Dionysius was fast approaching, and the gods needed their manna. To them manna was pudding, cookies, and beer all rolled into one, and only soul love provided it. Lots and lots of soul love. It was their gear oil. It gave them the energy to operate and to keep the world turning. “And now I hear we have an unscheduled visitor in the Fields. Get rid.”
“Get rid?” Soul Selector hated the wobble in her voice, but Aphrodite unnerved her. She often found the Goddess’s conversation hard to follow.
“Yes. Put it in the recycling bin or whatever. Just lose it,” Aphrodite said.
“But…but, she’s a soul mate. I’m trying to correct the situation. I’ve filled out the required forms, and I’m waiting—”
“Why are we still talking? Why do I have to repeat everything I say? Once again, you have fucked up and left me in an embarrassing position.” Aphrodite stopped abruptly. She looked annoyed, as if she’d said too much.
Soul Selector wasn’t sure what Aphrodite was referring to. To her knowledge, she’d never “fucked up,” and in this instance, if anyone had, it was Death not her. He had fucked up rather royally where Jesse was concerned.
“Dump it.” Aphrodite’s eyes narrowed to icy slits. In the world below, an Arctic ice sheet shattered.
“Dump the soul? But she’s not due for recycl—reincarnation for at least several hundred years.” Soul Selector was flustered. She didn’t understand. “There are rules.”
“Repeeeeetinngggg.” Aphrodite used a singsong voice that was more menacing than musical. This couldn’t be right. Dump a soul mate? Soul Selector’s lips quivered, but luckily no words formed.
Ares gave a snort, rolled over on his couch, and farted. The Nereids recoiled, and Soul Selector used the distraction to melt away.
Chapter Twenty-two
Norrie hated hospitals. As a young girl, the harsh antiseptic odors had added to her panic on every visit. Now, in the brand new wing of Our Lady of Lourdes, the smell of fresh paint and vinyl floor tiles clawed at her gut even though it was a bright and cheerful place. Despite the memories, Norrie had to suppress a giggle at her squeaky shoe soles on the new floor. The signs for the hepatology ward seemed to run on forever, but eventually, she squeaked around the last corner to find Loa waiting for her by the nurses’ station.
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