by Kristie Cook
But this time as we relived the memory, I saw more clearly beyond Jeremicah and me. I saw what Enyxa did to the other souls who were closest to us. I watched as she yanked the soul out of a body and tore it in half, tossing the two pieces away as if they were garbage—the soul that became Broderick and Anastasia once again.
“We have to get to the Gate and the Space Between,” Broderick’s soul said. “We have to hurry!”
Jeremicah’s soul, its edges raw where it should be connected to mine, tugged at me. As I followed, I couldn’t help but watch the scene we were escaping. Horror filled me as I watched Enyxa attack the other soul nearby. I gagged as she pushed her Darkness into the body, a black hand that emerged with a bright light clasped in it. The light of the soul twisted and turned, and I swore I could hear its shrieks as it fought for freedom. Enyxa, nothing more than blackness in a near humanoid shape, growled like a beast, angered at this one’s fight. With a ferociousness no one should ever witness, let alone feel, she tore that soul in half. My mind screamed as I watched one piece float to the ground—the half I knew was Rebethannah. The other half never fell. Enyxa didn’t discard it. The light of Rebethannah followed the Dark mist of Enyxa as she floated away.
What did she do with him? To them?
I wanted to go after them.
“Come on, Jacquelena,” Jeremicah’s soul called to me. “Hurry! We have to get to the Space Between together or we won’t survive.”
The memory disappeared. No strangely colored world overcome with darkness. No pieces of our souls lying about. No inkling of what happened to Rebethannah and Nathayden. Only the vague memory of her chasing after him, trying to help him.
A scream lodged in my throat, and I clawed at my neck as though trying to get it out while my consciousness fully returned to the present, where I sat on the floor of our hotel room in the Phoenix manor, my hands at my throat. Jeric sat next to me like a statue. Based on his shocked expression and wide eyes, he must have remembered everything, too.
I crawled into his lap, and his arms slowly fell around me and eventually tightened. We held each other, rocking back and forth, as our minds tried to make sense of the past and what—if anything—it all might mean for our present.
After several minutes, once our heart rates settled, Jeric nudged me off his lap and reached for the Book of Phoenix. He flipped through the pages until he came to a blank one. If he even noticed my crappy pictures, he didn’t say anything. His mind seemed to be focused on something else. He picked up the pencil that had been sitting in the groove between the pages and began sketching his own drawings.
The pencil dashed over the page so quickly, I barely caught the image before Jeric turned the page and went to work on a new sketch. He repeated this several times, as if in a daze, and within minutes, he’d filled half a dozen pages with images of men. After he finished the last one, he flipped back to the first, and we both studied the rudimentary portrait. Jeric had some artistic talent, but nothing like Jacey. Still he was better than me (now), and as he filled in more details, the face became clearer.
“His eyes were darker then,” I said, and Jeric nodded while rubbing the pencil lead over the page, darkening the irises.
Once that version looked more complete, he turned to the next page. This guy had lighter eyes, but dark hair, and I recognized him just as I had the first. We went through each one, Jeric bringing the drawings to life as best as his talent allowed, and I offered little details as they came to mind.
“He had a mole on his left jaw that time, remember?”
“You forgot the cowlick right over the middle of his forehead.”
“Be sure to add the doofa. He only took it off for bed back then.” The word came out as if I used it every day. At one time, I had, and Jeric knew exactly what I was talking about. He drew what was a sort of hat that stretched over our long heads and protected the sensitive ridges along the back.
“Make the ears and nose pointier. We looked kind of like elves then. And we had no eyebrows or eyelashes, remember?”
By the time we were done, the sun was setting and we had several drawings of Nathayden in his various forms. We assumed they represented his lifetimes before he and Rebethannah had become One, most spent here on Earth, but some not. They were all vaguely familiar, except the last one. If only we could remember all of these lives, and the hundreds or thousands of others we’d lived, in the same detail as the memory of our Separation. Maybe Mira was right—painful memories, unfortunately, had a way of bubbling up on their own no matter how hard we tried to suppress them.
“Now what?” I asked when Jeric finally dropped the pencil and shook out his hand.
“No idea. I just had the urge to draw these, like if I didn’t, he’d disappear completely from my memory.”
I nodded with total understanding. Now that we’d experienced that deluge of memories, I felt like many of them were already slipping away. More specifically, those that included Nathayden … which were most of them.
“What about Rebethannah?” I asked. “Should we draw her?”
Jeric stared at the Book for a long moment, then dropped it and practically jumped to his feet as though it had sprouted legs and teeth.
He rolled his neck and shoulders, as though to play it off, then rubbed his stomach. “Not right now. I’m not feeling it like I did with him. And if I don’t eat something soon, my stomach will devour itself.”
As if in answer, my own stomach growled with hunger. We hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
Although a former hotel, the manor didn’t offer room service unless you were sick or injured and confined to bed by order of the healers, so we had no choice but to freshen up and head down to the dining room, where we found Brock and Asia taking their seats. After filling our plates at the buffet, we sat down with them and told them everything we remembered.
“Wow. You’re one of Theo’s cases of gradually then suddenly,” Asia said. “I can’t believe you remembered all of that at once.”
“Well, not everything. Not by a long shot. There were tons more holes left open than filled,” I said. “It was like what Melinda and Uri and the Guides said, though. Both of you were in all of these memories, always in our lives. So were Nathayden and Rebethannah. We remember them pretty clearly. At least, we remember the connection we had with them.”
Although now that we were in the present, I didn’t feel it as strongly, especially the link to Betsy. The gut feeling was fading with the memories.
“Shit. I wish we could remember more,” Brock said before taking a bite of his hamburger.
“Music,” Jeric suggested. “That’s what worked for us, anyway. Leni put on some old jazz and big band from the roaring twenties, and it took us back.”
“We tried that,” Brock said. “Didn’t work.”
“Actually,” Asia corrected, “we only listened to Billie Holiday and Nat King Cole. Maybe we should try something older.”
“Hmm …” Brock seemed to consider this. “You’re right. You’re so damn smart.”
He leaned in for a kiss, but Asia shouldered him away.
“I’m eating, dork,” she said around a mouthful of food.
If that had been Jeric, I would have taken the kiss anyway, at least on the cheek. Asia and Brock seemed to have a different relationship from ours, though. Although they tended to joke around a lot, I thought they did it to hide a lot of hurt. I sensed pain—recent pain—in them that they didn’t share with the rest of the world. I wondered if that had anything to do with what had Asia on edge a couple of weeks ago when I had tried to talk to her in the corridor. She’d started to mention something with her and Brock, but had clammed up right away. Maybe some day she’d come to trust me enough to share, but until then, it wasn’t my place to pry.
I pushed my food around on my plate, tracing the image of a phoe
nix on the dish with a strand of spaghetti, while gnawing on my lip as I considered something.
“I have another idea,” I finally said. “Jeric and I have this old journal that our Guides left for us to help us remember.”
“The Book of Phoenix?” Asia interrupted. “We found it, too. It helped us come here and to the Gate.”
Jeric looked at me sideways. We hadn’t known this.
“Was your last life written in it?” Jeric asked.
“No,” Brock said. “Nothing to tell from ours. But yours was.”
“You read Jacey’s journal?” I asked, and although I usually had a hard time thinking of her as actually me, this made me squirm. There were some pretty private moments detailed in the entries.
“Sorry,” Asia said, catching on to my discomfort, “but we had to. It saved us. Our souls.”
I grabbed my glass and took a drink of water, washing away the weird embarrassment.
“So anyway,” I said, pushing on, “Theo said something about how Jacquelena had owned the Book in the past, before Jacey. I thought maybe it’s something where we’ve left clues for ourselves, like they’d mentioned that day when they told us about the Sacred Seven.”
“Oh,” Asia crooned. “I like this idea. Did you find anything?”
I frowned. “Well, no. I was hoping maybe if you guys looked at it, you’d remember something from the past. Maybe figure out any clues.”
“We know that thing by heart,” Brock said. “Studied it inside and out until Theo said he needed it back for you guys. If there was anything, I’m sure we would have noticed.”
“We’ve added some things,” Jeric said. “Some drawings of Nathayden and other stuff. Maybe those will at least help you remember something.”
“You should borrow it for the night and see if it helps,” I suggested.
After we finished eating, they followed us to our room and took the Book back to their own room. The next day, they came back with a few of their own memories.
“Just more flashes, mostly,” Asia said as we ate breakfast at the same table where we’d eaten dinner last night, in the same seats. “But we do remember more about Nathayden and Rebethannah now. Nathayden, especially. I mean, we remember her there all the time, too, but not as clearly. You know what I mean?”
I kind of did, but it had been the opposite for me. I’d remembered her more clearly than him.
“Do you remember when we were all Separated by Enyxa?” I asked, lowering my voice because it was such a sad memory. “Do you remember what happened to them?”
Brock and Asia looked at each other, communicating silently.
“Not really,” Brock finally said. “We remember trying to get our Separated souls to the Space Between together so we wouldn’t permanently lose each other.”
“I vaguely remember seeing Enyxa attack us,” Asia said. “You first, then us, then she went after … ugh, I can’t remember their name when they were One, but the body Nathayden and Rebethannah were in.”
“And the agony. I remember that clearly,” Brock muttered.
“You didn’t see what Enyxa did with them?” Jeric asked, and he told him what we remembered of Enyxa carrying Nathayden off and Rebethannah chasing after them. Neither Brock nor Asia remembered that part, so they didn’t know what happened to the two halves either.
“They haven’t been here on Earth, so nobody’s heard word of them since,” I added when he was done.
“Maybe they were able to escape and get to the Space Between,” Asia suggested.
“Yeah. They’re strong. Surely they made it,” Brock said. “They’re probably together and chose to go somewhere different than Earth. Somewhere safer. Hell, maybe they got lucky, and they’re still on their first cycle since the Separation.”
Nice thought, but I highly doubted the idea. Guardians didn’t have easy lives, even on the quieter worlds. We didn’t live to old age unless we became Guides, and that was a decision we had to make in the Space Between, right after our last life ended and before our next life began. In other words, at a time when you’re wanting another chance to beat Enyxa and her Lakari. Guardians, especially at our level, rarely made that kind of decision.
I didn’t think Nathayden and Rebethannah would give up their roles as warriors. However, from what I understood from the Keeper, time passed differently in the Space Between than it did on physical worlds. So perhaps time passed differently between worlds. I wanted to believe those souls who had always been closest to us were in a good place. A better place than Earth. And that they were together and able to enjoy life. I liked Brock’s theory for that reason.
When Jeric and I were in our room later that night, though, all hopes for that were dashed. I crawled into bed and set the Book of Phoenix on my lap to study it once again. It fell open to the last drawing Jeric had done of Nathayden. And scrawled onto the opposite page in a barely legible hand that neither of us recognized were two words:
Save Rebethannah.
Chapter 5
“I called Brock and Asia,” Leni said in the morning, and I scowled although she couldn’t see me as I stood under the shower. She was somewhere on the other side of the curtain since I couldn’t talk her into joining me. She’d already been in and out before I’d even awoken. Talking through any kind of barrier, even as thin as the plastic sheet between us now, usually felt surreal, but at the moment, I felt a hair of nostalgia for when I could take a shower in peace. “We have to figure out what to do, Jeric.”
She must have sensed my displeasure. Wouldn’t have been hard—we’d already talked the subject to death last night after finding the mysterious message in the Book. The damn thing freaked me out. It wasn’t the first time random messages had appeared. The words “You know the rest. Remember.” were still imprinted several pages back, trying to get Leni to remember that she was Jacey and I was Micah, but that didn’t mean I jumped with joy over this time. Funny how the logical part of me knew I should believe the magical note, because when I hadn’t believed any of this before, Leni and I had almost been killed. I’d promised to be more open-minded about things, and I’d accepted quite a bit of shit that I’d never have believed before—I had my hearing back, for God’s sake. But what the hell were we supposed to do with this message? Save Rebethannah? How were we supposed to do that if we didn’t even know who or where she was?
Leni had an idea of what we were supposed to do, and that’s what had me on edge more than anything. She wanted to share the idea with Brock and Asia, and after what the healers and the Guides had told us, Brock and Asia would follow us.
I didn’t want to lead them—or anyone.
I placed my hands against the shower wall and let the hot water pour over my head and down my back for several more seconds, loosening the tense muscles of my neck and shoulders, before reluctantly twisting the knob to the off position. When I jerked the curtain open, I about jumped out of my skin at the sight of Leni. She’d been silent for the last couple of minutes, so I’d thought she’d left the bathroom. She sat on the closed toilet, though, and reached behind her for a towel. She stood up to hand it to me, and I couldn’t control myself, especially as her sea green gaze raked down my naked body and lingered at my junk. It came to attention with no thought of my own. When her eyes came back to mine, her brow jutted upward as she pressed the towel against my chest.
“They’re on their way right now,” she said, before turning and sauntering out of the bathroom, her perfect ass swaying as she pulled the door closed behind her.
Damn. The girl would be the death of me. Or at least of my dick. It wasn’t used to not getting its way every single time. But the manor was only so big, and no matter where they’d been, it wouldn’t take long for Brock and Asia to get here. I could be easily satisfied in that short time, but that wouldn’t be cool for Leni, so I talked myself down as I dri
ed off so I’d be able to throw my jeans on.
Living at the manor was what I’d imagined college being like. Most Guardians were young with only the healers lasting past their twenties, and we lived in rooms in the mansion or the hotel with communal meals in a dining hall, classes, and meetings and such. We even had a gym for physical training and Guides who were sometimes like professors. Only, we roomed with our other halves rather than typical same-sex roommates. At least there was that. By the time I emerged from the bathroom, dried and dressed, Leni already had our bed made and dorm-like room straightened up. Just in time because there was a knock on the door.
I sat on my side of the bed, up against the padded headboard left over from when this place was an actual hotel, while Leni swished Brock and Asia inside. She then circled to her side of the bed and plopped the Book in the center, opened to the message. Brock and Asia each took a corner at the foot of the bed, sat, and leaned over to study the two simple words and their complex meaning.
“Did you write them?” I asked with the smallest bit of hope. Leni had dismissed this idea, and I had to agree it made no sense.
“Of course not,” Asia said.
“It has to be from Nathayden, right?” Leni asked as she leaned against the headboard next to me. There was a noticeable space between us, though, showing that we weren’t on the same page with this. Actually, if it were up to me, there would be no page. I’d tear it out and burn it and go on as though we’d never seen the stupid message. As wrong as I knew that was, I didn’t want us involved. We weren’t ready. Leni and I were newbs at this whole Guardian thing.