Katheryne wanted so much to dismiss it, and continue the destruction and dismemberment of the beast. What was one little voice to the deeds this thing needed to atone for?
She baulked as she realized the insistent voice didn’t come from her. It came from the creature. For a second her denial wrote it off as an attempt to fool her into letting it go, but then the dreadful realization hit her like a freight train.
She knew the taste behind the voice, although it was faint and was clearly in pain. Katheryne had known it and loved it all her life. She released the beast and watched as it escaped into the Never.
She withdrew to her body. Perri and Krista looked at her in shock as she turned to them, her face a mask of anguish. She said a single word before collapsing on the floor. “Mom.”
Belfast—Roundabout Ways
Katheryne woke unwillingly. She knew pain awaited her, and tried to keep beneath the protective blanket of unconsciousness as long as possible, but the voices calling her name wouldn’t let her do that. She opened her eyes reluctantly.
“Kat, thank God!” Perri hugged her tightly, holding on for dear life. Krista too looked on in relief, though Katheryne could see the pain in her red rimmed eyes, and the glimmer of tears still present there.
“Are you OK? What happened?” asked Krista. Katheryne tried to sit up, only to be overcome by a wave of nausea,
“Here, drink this,” said Perri, holding a bottle of water to her lips. She let her friend take a few sips before thumping her gently on the shoulder. “That’s for scaring me half to death…again.”
Katheryne smiled and managed to sit upright without puking.
The two girls looked at her expectantly. “How much did you see?” Kat asked. She didn’t know how to explain what had happened, because she wasn’t sure herself.
Krista kneeled down beside the two of them. “Perri had her back to you, comforting me.” She looked embarrassed, but gave Perri a brief smile.
“Katheryne, you were surrounded by some sort of energy; at least that’s what it looked like. I’ve never seen it’s like before. It was alive, part of you somehow,” marvelled Krista, “but that wasn’t the scary part.” Perri and Katheryne looked inquisitive so Krista went on.
“There was rage on your face Katheryne, a fury I never thought you capable of. Whatever it was you were doing, and whatever you were doing it to, you wanted to kill it or at least hurt it very badly. Can you tell us why?”
Katheryne took a deep breath. This was going to be hard on them all.
“You’re right; I did want to kill it. It was the creature from the dream.” Perri gasped and Krista’s lips tightened into a thin line.
“It had me under some sort of spell. I was starting to hate you, all of you. Every fear I’d ever had, every little doubt or insecurity I’ve ever felt, it magnified and fed back to me.” Katheryne shivered.
Perri took her hands in hers. “Oh my God, that must have been horrible.”
“How did you break it?” asked Krista, ever the more practical one.
“I didn’t,” said Katheryne, “there was a voice...only it wasn’t a voice, more a thought, or a few thoughts. But they told me it was a lie, that I shouldn’t listen to the thing trying to make me hate you.” She looked into their eyes, with shame in hers.
“And I was starting to hate you, all of you...I’m...sorry.” Krista put a supporting hand on hers, alongside Perri’s.
“I didn’t know who was right, who I should listen to…the spell was making me enjoy hating you,” continued Katheryne, “until I recognized the flavour of the thoughts. That was enough. I saw the creature, and knew it had been making me think those terrible things about you all...so I got mad, madder than I’ve ever been. You’re right Krista, I wanted to kill it, but more than that, I wanted to make it suffer. I wanted to hurt it so much, like it had hurt me, and for a while it felt so good. I was enjoying myself as I tortured it.”
Katheryne looked at Perri and saw the horror on her face. She wanted to explain herself but Krista interrupted.
“Understandable, go on,” she looked across at Perri, willing her to understand what her friend had been going through, and Perri nodded in agreement. There would be time for recriminations later.
“I heard the voice again. I thought it was inside me and it was telling me what I was doing was wrong, that I wasn’t that sort of person. I could feel the love for me and the disapproval of what I was doing. But it wasn’t coming from me.” Tears came unbidden, and sobs caused her chest to heave.
“It was coming from the creature,” she cried, “It was coming from my mom.” Katheryne broke down and could say no more.
She sat on the ground for a long time. Long enough so that when she went to rise she was sore and stiff, but the others hadn’t wanted to push her for fear of tipping her over the edge.
After a while Perri asked the question they all wanted answered. “How? I mean, she’s dead isn’t she. I’m sorry Kat, but isn’t she?”
Katheryne sniffed. “I thought, everyone thought she was, but there was no body; the accident, everyone thought she’d been vaporised or something. My god, all this time she’s been alive and we didn’t know.”
“She’s not,” Krista said sharply, but softened her tone when Katheryne’s expression darkened.
“At least, not really. Look I’m sorry if this hurts you, Kat, but let me explain what I can?” Katheryne nodded.
“This is going to be difficult for you to listen to, both of you, because you knew the person who was Katheryne’s mother,” Krista began, “but the voice you heard was...at least I think it must have been, from your mother’s soul. She is dead, but her soul is a prisoner of Tenybris.”
Perri instantly grabbed Katheryne’s hand and squeezed it in support. Katheryne was simply…numb. She was beyond shock, past denial.
To think for so long her mother was dead, only to now find out she was in some sort of limbo of torment was, well, horrible was putting it mildly.
“But I heard her, I felt her Krista,” said Katheryne, pleading for it to be so, “I know it was her...it was too familiar for it not to have been. We have to help her. She saved me so there’s no way I’m going to leave her like this.
“You said that she wasn’t really dead. Well if she isn’t then we can help her can’t we?” begged Katheryne.
Krista’s emotions were in turmoil. What had happened to Katheryne’s mother was almost exactly what had happened to Dwenn. If she gave into the hope that rescue was possible for her mother, then it was possible, more likely even Dwenn could be saved.
After all, Krista had a clear impression Dwenn still inhabited her own body. Otherwise, who could have created the trap which had almost killed her? Even as she thought this, that the girl she loved had tried to do this to them, she died a little inside.
If Katheryne’s mother could be released, and allowed to pass on to the Never, freeing her from bondage and torment, then so could Dwenn. And maybe, just maybe, her soul mate could come back to her, made whole again. But only if the corruption could be purged from her.
It seemed too much to hope for, but that’s what Krista had just been granted. Hope, for the first time in so many empty bitter months.
“Perhaps,” admitted Krista, somewhat guiltily, “Katheryne you have to understand one thing. Your mother is dead.”
Katheryne stared back defiantly for a second, daring Krista to be wrong, before lowering her gaze in acceptance.
“There is no way to return her, for there is no body to return her to. I’m sorry, if there was a way, any way conceivable, I would say.”
Katheryne wilted before her, and it was all Krista could do to remain strong. It would have been so easy to take her into her arms, tell her it would be okay.
But it wasn’t okay, because for Katheryne’s mother, the only release would result after the defeat of the beast she had as her host.
“You...we, have to free her soul from the beast. She is in pain Katheryne, trapped with
in her own corrupted soul,” said Krista. “The only hope is to destroy the vessel she is imprisoned within, free her essence to pass into the Never and be reborn.”
Katheryne watched as Perri’s face flushed in anger and frustration as she struggled still with what was going on around her.
“For God’s sake Kris,” she spat, “How the heck is Kat going to do that?”
Krista groaned, but Perri was in full flow.
“She’s just found out her mother hasn’t been truly dead for two years, instead she’s been imprisoned inside a monster, and made to watch as she tortured her own daughter!”
Perri looked like she was about to grab Krista by the hair, but Katheryne was there, between the two of them, a presence which seemed to diffuse the hostility.
She embraced both of them, and Perri and Krista felt a calm overcome them. They could feel their friend’s love flowing in a circle as they clung to each other.
“I know what I have to do,” whispered Katheryne, “and I know what you need to do Krista.” Then she turned to Perri.
“Perri, you need to help both of us,” she said. “You’re the most important out of all of us, will you help?”
“Really?” Perri asked, “You need to ask? What do I have to do?"
“You have to help get us to Sanctuary. Don’t ask me how; I just know you have the answer.”
Krista and Perri almost jumped. How was Perri, who had trouble even grasping the concept of the dream world, going to transport them to a world which was denied to them by not only the leadership who were corrupt, but at least one servant of the greatest threat to reality ever?
“Are you mad?” Perri asked incredulously, “For fecks sake, Kat, I got lost on a direct flight to London last month! I ended up taking two buses and a train, and ended up arriving a day late. And you want me to take you halfway across the galaxy to somewhere I’ve never even been?”
The answer was glaring Katheryne in the face as she turned to Perri.
“Perri, had you ever been to London?” she asked.
Perri wondered where she was going. She was suspicious of Katheryne’s motives. Why was she asking all these questions?
“No,” she answered, “never.”
“But you still got there?”
“Yeah, indirectly, I lost a suitcase for God’s sake. It had my makeup and underwear in it. It took me two days to collect enough to go out.”
“Thanks Perri, I knew I could rely on you,” said Katheryne, as she turned to Krista.
Perri was oblivious for a second, before she realized she had in fact given them a way to get to Sanctuary. She still had no clue how it would work, but she supposed it was better than nothing.
“Krista,” said Katheryne, “We can’t get to Sanctuary directly; the portal from Earth is blocked right?” Krista nodded suspiciously, “So how about we go around? Get to Sanctuary from somewhere else?”
Krista dismissed the idea right away, shaking her head, “Impossible, we can only travel through Sanctuary. It’s the hub, the nexus that binds the Never. It’s never been possible to travel directly from one world to another.”
“Why?” asked Katheryne.
Krista stared back, blankly. She was totally thrown by the question. The Liberi could create a portal to anywhere they had been to before. They could also share the impression...the taste almost, of a place they had been to another, enabling them to travel there also.
The limitation to this was it could only be done between locations on the world they happened to be on at the time.
Travel to other worlds required you to go through Sanctuary, however briefly. For it provided the anchor, the reference point in space/time which allowed the creation of portals across the vast distances between worlds. Without this anchor, a portal would be cast adrift and the Liberi would end up lost amid the endless realities.
Krista and Derren had explained this as much as possible to Katheryne and Perri, Krista thought, so why was she asking this question when she already knew the answer?
But as she looked at Katheryne smiling back at her, Krista knew she was missing something very important. Katheryne had shaken her badly; her level of adeptness with the power within her at this early stage was astounding, almost frightening. Yet she had seen the force flowing through her, had felt the intensity of her talent as she assaulted the beast, so at this stage Krista didn’t think Katheryne was incapable of anything, if she put her mind to it.
“You can do it can’t you,” Krista said incredulously, “You can travel directly.”
“Not exactly,” Katheryne replied, “I can get us to wherever we need to be, but I think I’ll need your help to show me where to go.”
Perri stood gaping. She was so far out of her depth she didn’t dare interrupt, but Krista, also, still didn’t fully understand.
Katheryne seemed to realize, and so went on, “I can see the paths Krista, the threads between the realities.” She watched as Krista’s eyes widened in wonder. Katheryne knew only the Liberi had possessed this ability before now.
“And there’s a pattern there, a subtle intricate movement, but I can read it. I know how to do this; you just have to trust me.”
“I...trust you Katheryne,” Krista stated. And it was true. She trusted, and would follow this girl to the end of all endings. At last she accepted that she too was bonded to Katheryne, a bond of sisterhood and love as strong as her own with her brother. And through her, she felt Perri as well, some fledgling power awakening inside her, unbeknownst to her conscious mind.
Katheryne smiled, acknowledging Krista’s acceptance and welcoming her also, as the sister to stand alongside the other sister of her heart. But what had to happen next would be...difficult, and Katheryne grimaced inside as she took Perri’s hands.
“You…Perri, I need you to stay here,” she blurted out, cringing as she waited for the explosion...which never came. Perri simply looked back at her with sad but affirming eyes and sighed.
“So,” she said, haughtily, “What’s this incredibly important job I have to do? The one that’s going to stop me flying off to other worlds, and meeting cute alien guys.”
Kat and Krista smiled at the image of Perri accosting some poor unwary guy on some distant planet. God help the galaxy if Perri ever managed to escape, Katheryne thought, smiling.
“You need to be what you’ve always been to me Perri,” she said, “You need to be my rock, I need you here so I have something to anchor myself to, something that I can use to bring us back if this doesn’t work.”
“What do you mean if this doesn’t work?” Krista interjected. “Sorry Katheryne. I trust you, but we could be lost, end up anywhere, anywhen in fact.”
“Is that even a word?” Perri asked, before she got what Krista had meant, “You mean you can time travel? Cool!”
Krista smiled but adopted a serious attitude right away. “Yes, time travel is possible, but it’s never done. The risks are just...terrible. It just can’t be done. It’s written into our core being, some sort of genetic law handed down through all of us.”
Perri, indeed Katheryne as well, looked at Krista blankly. Some further explanation was obviously required.
“Okay,” explained Krista, putting on her school teacher voice again, “Let’s say that I left here now, went back in time, and killed my own grandfather as a boy...I know, brutal, but it’s just an example,” she added as the girls’ faces blanched.
“So, with my grandfather dead before he could have had children, then how could I have existed...Are you with me so far?”
They nodded.
“Right, well here’s the rub. If I never existed, then who went back to kill my grandfather?”
She watched as confusion mixed with understanding and then back to confusion again on Katheryne and Perri’s faces.
“That’s...that’s just mad,” said Perri.
“That...is a paradox,” said Krista, “and something like that happening can rip realities apart. Although similar natural event
s are happening on a smaller scale right now.”
“You mean people are killing their own grandfathers all the time?” Perri looked across at Katheryne, “Doesn’t sound very natural to me.”
Krista laughed, not quite sure if Perri had been serious. Perri winked at Katheryne who smiled again.
“Nothing that drastic Perri,” the school teacher voice said, “But the decisions we make each day change the paths of realities, even if it’s almost too subtle to notice. For instance, a girl could get up one morning and put on a red dress instead of a blue one, and the guy she passes in the street smiles at her because he likes girls in red dresses. They talk, go on a date, get married and have children. And all because she wore the red dress instead of the blue.”
“While in another reality she chooses the blue dress, and he walks past her in the street, never noticing her,” finished Perri, “Wow, this is heavy stuff.”
“Quite,” said Krista, smiling widely. “But these are natural events, not intentional incursions into the past in an attempt to change the future. Such events would wipe out...well….limitless realities. So it’s never done, and there are barriers at the core of all Liberi to prevent it happening.”
“So, that’s why you need me to stay here,” said Perri, “Well I suppose if I have to save reality single handed I can forego the holiday...this time anyway.” She turned to Krista, “But when all this is over you owe me a trip to some pleasure planet somewhere….I suppose they do exist, don’t they?”
Krista laughed musically, “Perri, if we get through this I’ll show you sights that’ll blow your mind. And I won’t even be stealing your boyfriends,” she added under her breath, just loud enough to make Perri gasp.
Katheryne and Krista laughed out loud at Perri’s shocked expression, and a second later she joined in.
“Well,” she said in between breaths, “I never saw that coming.”
After much more utterly deserved and required giggles had been giggled, the girls finally calmed and Katheryne turned to her two friends.
“Ready?”
Both nodded nervously. The tension ramped up again as Katheryne began to stretch out her awareness, faintly hearing a voice say, “If we die, Amanda’s going to kill us, you know that, right?”
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